A Wooden Hut

1.

 

The sun had fully risen; amidst a flock of heavy, mature clouds its light penetrated, lighting the horizon and giving hope for a sunny day in a merciless winter. An old darkish silver crow was staring with a sleepy contemptuous black eyes at the brisky gulls, who were shouting noisily, yet with consistent tunes that seemed rather mournful in the exceeding cold, some of whom were exercising their morning maneuvers while others were lazily shouting with their tall white necks bent forward as if unwilling to move their warm wings and feel the frost in them. A fat ugly cat was sleeping peacefully in a dirty shelter under the wooden doorsteps of a tiny wooden hut. However, the poor thing was awakened and frightened by a coarse shouts coming from inside the hut. She instinctively ran without the slightest hesitation stumbling with the well-known embarrassing movements of a frightened cat across a loud cart which was being pulled by two strong, big horses who caused her to run back to her shelter under the hut and submit to her unspeakable fate with the scary shouts. The annoyed crow started shouting back irritatedly at the tribe of noisy, clumsy gulls who, hearing his shouts and misinterpreting them as “morning!” shouted back at him even louder with zest and intimacy well-known in their kind causing him to give up and fly away. Another cry came out of the hut, and a tall young lad opened the front door hastily, then jumping the five-steps staircase in one step he made the fat cat run away this time with no coming back ever. He was so excited and nervous that he did not notice his tall thin leg stepping at the poor thing’s tail, nor did he hear the pained feverish cry of hers.                                            

 

2.                                                                                                                                       

 

The lad was apparently fourteen or so, nevertheless, he was tall to clumsiness, with white, black stained young face, shiny-dizzy eyes from which and from his uneven steps and unconcern about the cries coming from beneath him, one would easily distinguish his drunkenness. After jumping the staircase and kicking away the cat he stood in loss, as if trying to remember where he was and why was the heart within his chest pounding so fiercely. But in an instant he started, hearing the same coarse shouts coming from the tiny, dark place, and seeing a giant, shouting shadow approaching, he ran as if running from death; eventually falling nose to the ground and dizzying into a merry drunken unconsciousness without giving any more notice to the surroundings nor to the danger he was running from. In his state of trance, deep inside his weary soul, a dim sound was persistent, and repeated, again and again “ oh captain, my captain, look at what i got! A chest contains fifteen maidens, can I keep it or not?!” he was in confusion but rapturous, for the captain was laughing and handing him the chest. No, no, the captain was shouting, apparently frustrated at something, the lad could not make it out; the captain was becoming more angry, and the more angry he became the more uneasy the boy felt ; everything was rolling. “Oh ye filthy little good for nothin bast’d” the captain shrieked in exasperation, and with a threatening movement he took hold of the boy and was about to give his ultimate verdict.                                                                                                 

 

3.                                                                                                                                    

 

But the boy woke up escaping the horrifying sea-court and the angry captain to the safe reality. He was lying with his nose deep in the mud ; the scent of muddy horses’ excrement mixed with brandy was boiling in his bowels. Yet he could not raise his aching head. Fortunately, someone came to his aid and raised him vigorously ; and looking him in the face, that person started shouting at the boy. The lad recognized the man’s facial expressions as familiar but could not make out who he was, he resembled the captain, “could he be the captain himself!” the lad thought in awe “ but who is this captain i am thinking about?” he asked himself in confusion. Unfortunately, before he could make out who this noisy honorable man was, a painful ringing punch cracked his head, and was instantly followed by another. The lad saw everything turning black ; then the lights, colors, and a scent of blood were all clear to him ; he felt his mind refreshing by the fierce blows which after a break of 5 seconds that seemed to him in his delusion a five, dull weeks, they were followed by one more making everything clear and painful, and stinking “ this is my father who is shouting and beating me, he is mad at something i did, which i cannot recall, run. Run!” the lad came out with this conclusion, but without the capability of executing the ‘runʼ part. His head was rolling, so in pain and confusion he was ; the blood was flowing out of his nose ; and his left eye was swollen and the area around it blackened. The man ( his father as the lad had concluded) was not shouting by then, and could not be heard nor seen, yet his existence was felt.

 

4.

 

The bruised astounded boy tried to make out where he was, he opened his right unbruised eye to see with astonishment the ground moving beneath him, and he also observed a strange looking fat yellowish cat staring at him with narrowed, vengeful eyes. Closing his eyes, he entered an eternal deep sleep, filled with dreams, about captains and chests, and blows. 

 

A pang woke him up, he found himself still in the air but the ground was quite familiar, its stinkiness,on which a good many shadows of the black noiseless mice he saw. His head was about to explode, the blood in his nose had by then dried and caused him a very unpleasant sensation. In an instant and without any warnings he found himself flying to the ground, he was so tall that it did not take a moment for him to reach the dirty ground from  man’s broad shoulders. As soon as his  butt had reached the ground, the drunk boy woke up from his obliviousness and instinctively drew back from the angry, exhausted middle-aged man. The man was looking furiously at the boy with a narrow grayish eye, below which a dark stains of watchful age were more darkened and blackened by his obvious irritation, he was of no short or tall height, neither stout nor thin, except for the big sunburned arms strong arms, large and filled with muscles inspiring fear and respect. He was nearly bald, except for a few scattered grayish hairs round his temples. He apparently was trying to control his actions and not to entirely follow his emotion in fear of crushing the fragile, shameless lad.