Libertionne. Anna Tishchenko
or “Why?”, “in reference to the eternal debate about the supremacy of substance or style. He answered, “The most important is “Who?”. “Truth be told, everything in life is relative. And there’s nothing new under the sun – holy blessings were given to the Crusades, which included in their program the burning of villages and the killing of peaceful citizens, and at the same time punished as heresy those who read the psalms differently. By the way, how did Laura find out?”
All of a sudden, the fragments of the mosaic came together to form a picture. Only one person could have called the police to a place where there was no network coverage. Only one person could be so blind and self-assured as to go alone and without a bodyguard into Pankrationne. A person who was so close to Laura as to show her his face. Tiberius broke out laughing. “The Emperor! And what was the poor guy doing there? He wanted to be closer to the people? But right now it would be better to worry about his own fate.”
Tiberius looked at his reflection in the mirror, when suddenly… He froze. Slowly, afraid to believe his own eyes, he turned. On the wall behind him hung a huge poster in a chrome frame, of a kitten in a huge fuchsia-colored ribbon, with empty, sad eyes that were round as tea saucers. Next to it was a bigger poster; on it two gigantic kittens were rolling a strange ball made of wool yarn. Tiberius pushed the security alarm button so hard that he almost broke it.
“What is this?” he asked hoarsely when the guard walked in, pointing his finger behind his back. He had no desire to turn around. The feeling was as if an ancient Slav who had gone searching in the night for a flowering fern. From all sides the monsters from the darkness were looking with their terrifying eyes; they were only ghosts, but as soon as you turned around, they’d become flesh.
The guard was a little surprised. Then, in a mentoring tone, exactly like a governess whose mischievous charges had found an anatomical atlas and demanded an explanation, answered:
“Kittens, sir.”
“I can see that myself. But why?”
“According to psychological data, sir, kittens are the most pleasant image for a person – they, so to speak, create a feeling of psychological comfort. They are the top choice on internet surveys,” and, seeing the terror and confusion in the eyes of the inmate, he condescendingly explained:
“In prison, a person is so degraded by the lack of freedom, that in all other areas his rights must not be infringed; a positive psychological environment must be created for him.
“But what if I don’t want to see these beasts?”
“I’m very sorry for you, sir.”
“But they are infringing my rights! This can be fully equated with torture.”
The discussion was cut short by another guard who brought in a tray with a steaming cup of coffee, toast and golden fried camembert with lingonberry jam. Tiberius managed to sit in such a way that the kittens were not visible, even in the reflection in the mirrored wall. When he had finished with breakfast, and the tray taken away obligingly, the guard announced,
“You have a visitor.”
At that second, cold metal handcuffed snapped onto his wrists. The guards separated, walked to the sides of the door and froze, taking on a surprising resemblance to guards at an Egyptian tomb, promising any unlucky looters that “horror, flying on the wings of night” would find them without fail. And before Tiberius could ask a question, the door opened and in walked Laura at a hurried pace, resembling a German Valkyrie, tossing her locks of blond hair, her eyes darkening with fury. He got up to greet her and nearly fell back from the force with which she struck him in the face. The two examples of “terror flying on the wings of night” came to life and timidly approached Laura, who evidently was not impressed and bestowed another face-slap upon Tiberius, after which he tasted blood.
“Mister Darnley…” they bleated.
Laura slowly turned her head and the brave guards backed away.
“Get the hell out of here.”
She said it very slowly and quietly, but the guys immediately retreated behind the door. Laura turned to Tiberius.
“How could you dare…” she hissed, raising her arm for a third blow.
But Tiberius caught her rising palm with his handcuffed hands, and, looking her straight in the eye, and pressed the back of her hand to his bloody lips. He smiled, seeing the bottomless wells widen in the irises of her multicolored eyes. She immediately pulled her hand away, but he heard her breathing get faster, and saw her tightly closed lips start to open. She lowered her gaze, not being able to stand the calm, tender way he was looking at her. And another picture presented itself to him: a girl with linen hair, standing on the roof of a huge building. Under her feet was a roaring abyss of sidewalks, people, cars. And she, looking down, was slowly leaning, bending over the parapet, lower and lower over that cold emptiness…
He was only a few meters away, standing behind the overhang of the wall, but how long those meters seemed! And when his hands managed to grab her as she fell, she turned to him with a detached expression, as if dreaming, and asked, “Why?”
“You don’t have the right,” he answered, gasping from the wind that was blowing in his face, and from the scare he had just lived through. “You are needed.” And the same words now emanated from her lips. He felt guilty. In fact, she had done so much for him, bringing his dream to life, and how had he repaid her?
“Forgive me,” Tiberius said for the first time in his life. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to get out of here before Wednesday. You’ll have to find someone else to go with the students.”
“And if they were to declare you crazy,” Laura sighed and added sarcastically, “which is funny because it’s true. Then it would have been possible to get you out of here today.”
“To a psychiatric hospital? Where…”
“Where it would be exactly the place for you. But the main thing is that Michael Storm is in charge of everything, which means the worst is that you’d have to go to a psychologist for a preachy lecture.
“I’d rather sit in jail,” snorted Tiberius, but when he saw her knitted brow, he bowed his head in conciliation. “OK, OK. You’re right, of course.”
“Yes,” sighed Laura. But I have no idea how to arrange this.”
Very slowly, like a tiger pursuing a happy-go-lucky little deer and afraid to spook it, Tiberius took a step forward. Knowing that every move was being followed by a camera, and every word of theirs was being recorded, just like in an ordinary apartment, he appeared to casually lean toward Laura.
“If you agree to help me…”
“Of course,” she answered, not understanding.
“Forgive me,” Tiberius whispered to her, and before she could collect herself, he took a step forward, throwing his handcuffed arms behind her back, thus holding her in an embrace.
Gasping, Laura jerked sharply, trying to free herself, but he grabbed her around the waist and threw her on the bed, rolling around on top of her with his whole body. He found her mouth, half-open in a silent scream, and kissed her greedily. Her lips tried to close, but unexpectedly began to twitch in a half-hearted attempt to respond. He impatiently spread her legs with his hips, lowered himself onto the hollow of her stomach, for the first time feeling under him the firm softness of a woman’s body. It was so new, so strong and clear that he didn’t hear the cries of the guards and barely felt the jolt of the electric shocker before he plunged into darkness.
The Aesculapian of souls
The formalities were settled as soon as possible, and it was only three in the afternoon when Tiberius walked into the psychologist’s office. The doctor wasn’t there – clearly no visitors