Incarna

61 - Sirins' Spell

Day 12 - Eastern Ukraine

Bohdan fought the wave of exhaustion and the Sirin’s gaze. He could surrender to both and never wake. Some farmer collecting firewood would find his half eaten body, say a few feeble prayers and bury him deep enough so that the more common than ever wild dogs couldn't dig him up and eat what was left of him.

“Well if you’re not going to eat me at least show me the way out of this mess,” he pleaded with the Sirin as he struggled onto one knee and reached for the nearest tree trunk to steady himself. He pushed up to stand on both legs and leant back against the tree gazing at the Sirin and wondering why it just sat there.

“Well come on Madam Sirin, you’re supposed to help the pure of heart,” and he laughed at himself then started coughing. His wife would give him Marshmallow root tea if she’d heard that. Maybe with chickweed if the phlegm had been green or yellow. Bohdan spat into his hand. The phlegm was brown with dark flecks of god knows what he’d breathed in as he’d fled from that shit hole of slaughtered men and shattered machines.

He held his hand out toward the Sirin. “Look, see! Not even that hell you created back there could blacken my soul, only stain it with other peoples death!” He stared hard at the creature and it moved it’s head owl like from side to side as if sizing him up.

The Sirin would have been the size of young girl except it had a birds body. This one though, well, every feather was iridescent and its gaze was such that he felt could have lost himself in it forever. He shook himself out of his reverie and drawing a deep stuttering breath willed himself to begin walking towards the other side of the forest and as faraway as possible from the end of the world.

There was a fluttering and he turned to see the Sirin alight on a branch across to his right. It looked directly at him or through him, then turned it’s head further to his right. He halted swaying slightly from his exhaustion. The forest was thicker that way, darker, surely if he carried on straight he would get out of these trees ad find a road or something and watch then for a cart or a farm truck to get a lift with.

He began trudging but the Sirin didn’t move. He stopped and turned back to it. “What is it you want with me. I should go that way?” and he pointed past the Sirin toward the heavy shadows. “What is there, some foul witch in need of a good feed heh!” and he lifted his shirt to show his scrawny chest. “No meat here for a feed. Maybe soup bones, but that’s all,” he chuckled feebly and tucked his shirt back into his trousers.

With most of his shirt still hanging out he turned toward his Sirin. “Well, you appear to know you’re way around …” he tried to sound brave and resolute but his voice failed him and the tears started to fall again. “Just get … me out, … of here … please!”

Bohdan Barabach, once proud field reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, shambled painfully toward a mythical creature that should not exist but now apparently was the cause of the destruction of the Russian army in its clandestine and illegal military occupation of eastern Ukraine. … And here he was believing in it.

When he came close to his Sirin, it would fly off a little further and so on and on, until it was nearly dusk. The trees had begun to thin out and Bohdan made his way unaided by the Sirin to the edge of the forest. He felt a surge of relief and  a lightness in his being. His headache was less now and with clearer eyes he took in the farmland that stretched away before him. Off in the distance he could just make out the roofs of a village and its first lights appeared in the dusk light.

Too far away from me, he concluded dismally, so he turned and gazed up along the farm track that wound it’s way along the edge of the trees just in front of him. There were fresh wheel tracks and deep wheel ruts in places so obviously it was regularly used by trucks. No sign of farm tractor marks or better still, tank tracks.

Bohdan heard a shuffling of feathers and he turned to see his Sirin sitting on a fallen tree nearby. More fluttering and another landed near to it. “Ah, now I am insane. Two of you, that’s all I need!” and he shook his head in disbelief at his even talking to the delusions. The new Sirin was darker and its feathers showed no hint of iridescence. It took up a perch near to his Sirin and sat there staring at him. “Too fucking exhausted you are Bohdan old son,” he said trying to mimic an Australian accent like that of his good friend Captain Jim.

“Ah there you are! Oh, you are a mess aren’t you! Here let me help you.” The voice was educated and lively, if not a little breathless. “I’ve had a devil of time keeping up with that dreaded Sirin creature you just spoke to. Damn thing would just lead me on and on and then here you are." The voice accompanied the rapid approach of a tall man well dressed as an english country gentleman.