Kafka's? and the Nightingale
It's 7 a.m., and I'm going out to pick up the newspaper. I'm wearing only slippers and my nightgown.At that moment, a gust of wind closed the main door on me, and I didn't have a key. I proceed to the backyard to enter through the kitchen door, which is also locked, and I'm unable to get in. I peek through several windows and see my two young children playing and my wife preparing breakfast. It's a Saturday morning. I knock on the windows, but they don't listen or turn to look at me. I try to break the windows, and I can't do it either; it's as if they were made of steel, even though I can see they are made of glass!
I go out to the street and head to my good neighbor's house, Joe, who lives beside our home. I knock on his door to ask him to let me use his phone to call my wife. But Joe looks out the window, and when he sees that it's me, he doesn't open the door. Now, I head to Nancie's home, my neighbor across the street, thinking and not understanding why Joe had acted in such a way. I have lived in this neighborhood for 13 years and have never had problems with my neighbors. To my surprise, Nancy does the same thing. She looks out the window, this time smiling, but she does not open the door. Instead, she closes the curtains in the living room, which leads to the front door.
I don't understand what's going on!
Desperate and without understanding, I knock on every house on my street, obtaining the same result. I also realize there is no soul on the roads—only me!
And to top it all off, it starts to rain! And then it hailed with hail that measured the size of a golf ball!
The rain is constant; it doesn't stop. I find myself utterly wet from head to toe. The flood is so severe that a considerable river begins to form in the streets, drowning everything: cars, trees, motorcycles, trucks. However, I realize again that I am entirely alone. I'm the only one on the street...what's more!, I can see people picking through their houses to watch as the torrential flood takes me adrift. Luckily, a fallen tree passes by me, and I fervently cling to it; the adrenaline makes me hold on, despite being exhausted.
Without knowing it, the current of this newly formed river enters the city drainage system, taking me with it, passes through a large sewer, and enters the subsoil!
On my subterranean journey, I almost fainted. But still, I could see giant rats passing and running by the edges of the deep drain. Further on, as I intermittently entered and left my altered state of consciousness, I saw a faint light about a hundred yards away, which grew increasingly brighter as I progressed through this ordeal. I continued my trip... and suddenly, I came out into the daylight again. I thought, "It must be 9 a.m.?" yet I'm unsure.
To my regret, some 50 yards ahead, a kind of waterfall awaited me in that sunny light. I began falling down the waterfall until I found myself taking a breather on the bed of a calm, beautiful blue lagoon, located below and about another 100 yards away from the pipeline that had brought me to this serene and peaceful place.
I got up and start walking, the water up to my waist. Then, I realize this gorgeous site is kind of a paradise. Suddenly, I heard a soft, musical noise, the alluring song of a Nightingale in the remoteness.
As I approached her, I saw her perched on a sycamore branch. And with astonishing surprise, I noticed that in her song, she was calling me by my name, and she said, "I've been waiting for you for so long, Miguel."
I was paralyzed when I heard that it was the same voice as my first wife, who had passed away in a Car accident five years ago!
I quickly got away, scared of this bird and utterly horrified, and ran and ran again without noticing I was traversing desolate streets until I realized, I was back home.
The main door was wide open, and I entered. And in the back of the house, I heard the crying and sobbing from my two little children softly, and far away.
Distressed by their suffering, I headed to the kitchen and into the backyard, exiting through the already wide-open kitchen door.
Surprisingly, I noticed that my friends, kids, wife and family were also there, and I noticed they were all formally dressed.
At that moment, my gaze was drawn to the silhouette of the Nightingale, standing on the fence at the end of the backyard, right behind a big sycamore tree in full bloom. Observing from afar. She was very quiet.
I nervously approached the crowd, greeting my brother and mother, but they didn't notice my presence. When I reached the central point of the meeting, I saw my wife crying next to an open coffin surrounded by dozens of arrangements, all made of lovely sycamore flowers. As I approached, not without fear and a lousy, dreadful feeling in the pit of my stomach, I saw that it was I who was lying there, dead in the coffin, and that all those people whom I love so much, gathered for my wake.
And then again, turning my head towards the fence of the backyard, I heard the voice of the Nightingale, who was still perching there, calling me and saying,
"Come follow me. Let's go back to the blue lagoon at the bottom of the waterfall.
It's a better place."
Short story by Golden Minotaur
Read 40 times
Written on 2025-07-22 at 02:17
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