Heart's tale

Chapter 6 part 1

"Familiar with the monkey," it said.

"Yes, yes, you got that right."

"Why monkey bike," the doll struggled to find the words.

"What do you mean, why? Trepanak saran. Dig it up, I say!" the big guy boomed.

But the doll shook its head, got up, and went on down to another dune.

"Hey, where do you think you're going? Stop, you bloody log," Snorri was indignant, but then he noticed the sash of the leather bag in the sand.

The doll went to the sash, took the bag out of the sand, slung it over its shoulder, and came back to the man. The big guy got down on one knee, immediately removed the bag from the doll and hung it on himself, adding another burn to his finger in the process.

"Sarashkaramat natarakanta. The red moon to accompany your entire family to the tenth tribe!" he hissed and crawled upward.

By the time the doll reached the top of the dune, Snorri had already placed the rag-wrapped octopus on his shoulder and was heading south.

"Stop, you bloody log," the doll rattled.

Snorri looked at it with the most withering glance in his arsenal, ready to compete with the devouring light of both suns, but then just turned his head and continued on his way. The doll didn't take long to get off the dune and followed the man.

The suns burned mercilessly, and soon the big guy took off his jacket and was left in just a shirt and pants, and his head turned red; he even had to tear off the lining of his jacket and tie it over his head. He was silent most of the way, only occasionally spewing another swear word. The one who had no name yet followed him in utter confusion. In the past few days, he had undergone a dramatic change. He felt as if he'd awakened from the long sleep he'd been in all his life. The heavy slumber was gone, and his heat-cracked painted eyes saw for the first time the world around him, full of events for which there were still not enough words in his head.

But what he saw was not as grandiose as what he felt inside. He felt his body for the first time: the way the wood on his wrists dried, the way the hinges in his knees went wild, and the way something in his chest breathed, filling his whole being with life. It was as if he had floated above the water, seeing the world outside the aquarium for the first time, where he had been for ages. The elation changed to vague anxiety, the anxiety changed back to elation, turning to confusion. And unable to express it even to himself, he just kept feeling it all.

Memories of his old life now loomed somewhere on the edge of his new consciousness, of which he distinctly remembered only the old man's face and the clockwork, somehow inextricably linked to each other. But other images also came, unidentifiable. They were imprinted with great grief, sympathy, empathy – though these words were still absent from his mind, something was beginning to come together. Some shape was forming, and then it couldn't withstand the pressure and broke apart, shattering again and again against the indescribable newness of what was happening.

As they descended another dune, they found themselves in absolute silence. The fact that the desert had been full of sounds of life before became clear only at the moment when everything around them fell into a vacuum of silence. The one who had no name turned around and bumped into the foot of the man who had stopped and was gazing into the sky.

"Doesn't look good," sniffed the octopus, who was also looking up at the sky from the man's shoulder.

The animated one lifted his head and saw that the sky was obscured by a murky haze. The big guy began to look around, and he also stopped his gaze on the cloud that covered the western horizon. As the one who had no name yet could tell, the cloud was closing in fast. The big guy jerked back, but then grabbed the octopus, placed it under his jacket, ran to the top of the dune, and sat down with his arms around his head. The doll followed him, looking perplexed at the surface of his leather jacket, with which he covered his head, and touched his shoulder. But the man only twitched awkwardly and ducked deeper into the sand. The doll turned toward the cloud just as a strong wind blew and a flurry of sand swept in. The one who had no name yet could no longer see the man or anything around him. It went on like that for quite a long time, and the animated one lost his sense of space and time. When he tried to take a step, he almost fell and never tried again.