With huge rubbers on my feet, I"m hanging around Moscow, overcrowded with puddles and spring streamlets. Running start. Take off. . I"m landing into a huge pulsating puddle , with the toy ships of my Childhood still sailing.
I"m smashing into it with a sparkling column of sunny drops. They make a rainbow! Wow!
Just in front of me, out of the blue, appears a Man, enormously tall, with his long shadow being thrown off just across my fantastic puddle.
Without saying a word, he grabs me by the collar with his threatening massive hand and like a lifting crane pulls me to the Skies.
And I am hovering helplessly in midair in between the floors, all my room around pulsing in time to my heart gone pitter-patter.
I am pierced by the two green eyes, scrutinizing me like an insect on the laboratory glass, without remorse.
A long pink gaping hole suddenly flew open, with a stockade of sparkling broken brilliant pieces at the top and at the bottom.
"O-o-o-o-oh! Here you are!"- bubbled Something somewhere from the depths.- Just kidding. Hi!
We both shrink to the size of golden knops, making numerous curtseys to each other. It is so unusual for me to be standing on so many thin, tiny legs.
I"m so smart and red, and polka-dotted.
A great number of commas with colons start pouring from my mouth.
"Oh! Here you are! Just little tails of my thoughts!"
"Spit them out!" he yelled. They are alive and too dangerous!"- cried Andrew in a very thin voice.
The Space round us narrowed in a rash, letting out one huge curious eye.
"Hi, there! My little Aleshka!"
"Hi, Novikov!"
Glittering in his hand, lost somewhere behind the scenes of his dark Aftertaste, there appeared a bunch of keys.
"Give them to me!" I asked him.
I remember this habit of his- the habit of wearing that bunch of keys, having them always at hand, each of which opens every single door of his own Universe ...
"I"ll think it over," - he promised.
A dart of smile- lightning zigzagged the thick air space.
The door blew shut.
It"s Morning....
Translated from Russian into English by Helen Pyteva, the author.