A DREAM: Odessa, 1955 1. The day before getting ready for the ballet--Swan Lake. A quick bite, spilled hot soup, scalding pain, weeping, the red arm smeared with sunflower oil-- by evening the boy is feverish. "Don't even think about going to the ballet--shush!" More tears--insult added to injury. He fitfully settles to sleep. Father sits down to his work by the light of a desk lamp left from better days-- a bronze Cupid on a swing which angles a widening cone of light from the frosted shade. A pile of books is on the table. The scene does not fade out, but moves beyond the border of consciousness, into dream. . . 2. He is in a vast pit; alongside is someone invisible, but whose voice is loud and clear. "What is your wish?" "I want to see a swan lake." "So you shall." Abracadabra; now the boy is standing on a desolate shore, a small sea or lake. Precisely geometrical waves come in rows to peter out and withdraw from the verge. Not a swan is seen, nor are there any ballerinas, of whose very existence the boy knows nothing. The waves stop moving; for a moment all becomes a mediocre colorplate from a children's book read the evening before. Scene shift--the boy is riding in a railcar. alongside is someone invisible, but whose voice is loud and clear. A strange unending city built of nursery wall clocks flashes by the windows. Hordes of grey mice scurry between the clock-houses-- "These are little mice-minutes, each of them will take a little bite of you." "And then what happens?" "Then you won't happen at all." The image fades; Eveything begins to swing, a grey shroud floating before the eyes, cut by thin glowing stripes-- chinks in the shutters. Father has already left for work. Granny and the neighbor ladies are heard in the foyer-- "So, that means it won't happen at all?" "No, not at all." Then he awakens. © 1996 Boris Khersonsky. All rights reserved. Translation by Ruth Kreuzer and Dale Hobson.