The Autobiography of Mercutio Polinski (5 page)

Every morning I impatiently climbed to
the windowsill in Rosa’s room. I opened the shutters wide and met
the rise of the day, my breath held. And when the sun rose from the
somber fields beyond, it touched Rosa’s eyes, kissed her nose,
stroked her with its warm hand, and woke her up from the dream. She
gazed at the sunrise and started to daydream of those wonderful
places the sun had touched during the night, when it was on the
other side of the world.

“
Mercutio, let’s travel
the world together,” she suggested sometimes. I readily agreed,
because I wanted to see the world very much.

Every time the boiling sphere stood
high in the sky yet hidden from us, I used to bring different
flowers to Rosa in flower pots. In fact, it was the writer who
brought them and put them on the windowsill, but the idea was mine.
I chose them, because I knew very well which ones were her favorite
plants. She loved sunflowers most, because they reminded her of the
sun and kept the sun’s warm breath on their surface for a long
time.

XII
.

The Day When Everything
Changed…

It was a summer evening, the time when
bird couples had already gone to bed in their nests and the moon
hadn’t yet dropped her white yarn over the city. That night, it was
as if everything had stopped to take a breath. Rosa was sleeping,
breathing imperceptibly. The writer was watching over her as usual,
his head leaned against his hand. His hair was scattered, and his
look said his mind had drifted away.

I cuddled in his hands, on his chest.
The air was still and dry, and we could hardly breathe. Paul petted
me when I twitched, and that calmed me down. I peeped through his
hands toward Rosa. She was still sleeping.

“
Mercutio, someday we will
all disperse around the world just as the leaves do in the autumn,”
he told me, feeling that I was restless. “Parts of us will be put
in every living creature, thus contributing to its beauty. Rosa
will also be part of this magic. She will be part of
eternity.”

His words made me think. I jumped on
Rosa’s bed and whispered to her, “Your real story is just about to
begin.”

Her fingers quivered. An unknown
calmness came over me. And as if an invisible guest settled down
between us came the dense energy of love. I started to talk to her
about that—about love.

The fairy tale that I told Rosa was
about the prince with the beautiful blue eyes, because in my dream
I was that prince and Rosa was the princess of his dreams. That is
to say, of my dreams.

“
A long time ago, three
troll women as dark as tar threw the prince’s beloved into faraway
worlds where no man could reach her. Their eyes were big and black,
and their noses looked like snouts. They envied the beauty of the
princess, and turned her into an invisible spirit. She roamed here
and there; she was confused and alone, and couldn’t find the way
back home.

“
But one day, she was
called upon in the dream of the prince. She didn’t know how she got
there, but soon she found out that the prince was longing for her
so much that he had called her unconsciously, with his thoughts.
They hugged and cried, because they were happy to be together
again. They held each other and talked so much that they didn‘t
notice nine years had passed. The kingdom of the prince had changed
a lot during that time. The country had become deserted without the
king and queen, who had died of sorrow over their long-sleeping
son.

“
But the princess raised
her head from the shoulder of the prince, and being a spiritual
creature, she immediately saw what had happened with his kingdom.
She embraced him, and so three more years passed.

“
Then she told him, ‘My
prince, we shouldn’t hug any more. The years pass in timelessness
for us, but there beyond the dream, your kingdom is in deep agony.
Wake up and help your kingdom, because I saw how much it suffers
without your protection and care.’

“‘
But I love you,’ the
prince cried in the dream. ‘I don’t want to be where you are not.
You are here now—that’s why I want to keep on sleeping.’

“‘
Don’t be unwise, my
prince. I love you, too, very much. But if we go on like this, soon
there will be nothing left of you but a soul. And you must fulfil
your destiny. Please, feel compassion for your people and forgive
me for keeping you in thrall to myself for so many years. You are a
man now, and when you wake up, you will be a king.’

“‘
I can’t live without
you,’ the prince whispered. ‘Please don’t leave me.’

“‘
You don’t need me to be
happy, but I’ll tell you this. Whenever you stretch your hand
toward the trunk of a fir tree, when you feel its pulse and let it
flow through your veins, then you must know—that is me whispering
to you. And then you will realize that I can smile at you even
through the pale glistening of the foam of the youngest river. I
will smile at you even from here, from your pure heart. And when
you feel it getting warm as a stone in the embers, then you should
know that I have put my hand on your chest.’

“
The prince started crying
from happiness. When he woke up, he brought prosperity and peace to
his people, and strength to his country. But his aides noticed an
odd behavior in him. The prince often liked to stay alone in the
wild forest where, they thought, he was looking for a long-lost
elf-woman among the trees. They heard him talk to the fir trees,
and sometimes they could even distinguish the quiet, gentle voice
of a woman, carried on the backs of the horses of the wind. That
voice was talking to him. At such moments the prince smiled so
sincerely that it looked as if an invisible nymph with clothes
crocheted from the morning light stood before him and kissed him on
the lips.”

I saw Rosa’s lips part and she gave me
her last smile, saying “Thank you.”

“
Continue talking, my dear
little mouse,” the writer told me, his eyes shining with dampness.
“You are a great storyteller. Some day you may save the
world.”

I felt happy. Did he really believe
that I could be like him? That I could give joy to the world? He
nodded, feeling the stream of my thoughts.

“
You can do a lot more
than that.”

Rosa sighed. This breath
bestowed a kind of dizziness upon me, intoxicating me with love. I
tried to close my eyes, but I don’t know why I gazed at the
ceiling. I felt that
presence
again and suddenly started crying, but so gently
and softly that my tears turned into a pink mist. I looked around;
I hadn’t realized the mist had spread across the room, and was now
gently covering Rosa from her feet to her beautiful chestnut hair.
Paul was smiling with benevolence, and I knew that he had met it
before. Maybe it had once embraced his wife, I thought. The writer
nodded at me.

“
Rosa is becoming one with
eternity.”

I blinked at him in
astonishment.

“
But how?” I protested.
“We can’t just let her leave and do nothing!”

“
There’s nothing we could
do. There are moments in which we are nothing but mere observers in
the lives of our beloveds. We have no right to choose for them. We
can only be thankful for them, once we have hugged them and set
them free. But where Rosa’s going now, thousands of flowers will be
singing for her.”

“
Will there be
sunflowers?”

“
If she wishes it, there
will be.”

I sighed, as I was struggling with the
idea of freeing Rosa. I was jealous of the pink mist. Was it more
important for Rosa than me or the writer?

The mist thickened, and as it assumed
density I could feel its great nature. I couldn’t resist it any
more. I gave my permission to the mist, and now it could do what it
came to do.

I don’t know how long we stayed like
that, staring into the distance, dreamy; without knowing it, we
gave in to sleep. When we woke up, Rosa was gone. Her bed was
deserted. It had lost its essence, and now it was just a piece of
wood. The writer petted me on the head. Then I saw her in his brown
eyes, where a piece of the purest soul sparkled; Rosa’s soul. I
knew he had seen her in mine, as well. I felt tears coming to my
eyes and turned aside.

“
Dearest mouse, remember,
never to be sad on your own again. Turn to those who love you most,
and then you can cry out your sorrow in their embrace.”

XII.

Why We Live and How I,
Mercutio Polinski, Began to Give Joy to the World…

I realized one thing—there were lots of
ways to give joy to the world, and one of them was through love. I
have given my life to love. Even though my heart is so small, it
holds and gives out all the warmth that could ever shine, even
during the night. This strength was given to me by thoughts of
Rosa. This is also what her father taught me.

I chose to tell you about Rosa and the
writer, because they were the people who inspired me to write, to
create. They revealed to me the magic of the book, and the joy of
their poetic solitude.

The writer and I, we often muse over
the profound and insightful ideas of an interesting book, just the
way I once dreamed we would. Under his guidance and support, I
wrote down all those fairy stories that had been inside me,
urgently coming to the surface since I was very young. I freed
them, as one lets a genie out of a bottle, and gave them to the
world. Have you ever let a genie out of a bottle? It’s very easy.
You just close your eyes and declare: “I choose to create!” And
then all magical creatures, fantasy fairies, forest leprechauns,
and wizards of the seas, will come to help the one who has wished
that. And when you yourself have fulfilled that, you will feel the
cork popping out; there, from the bottle, a new fairyland will
start flowing out, in order to settle down in the world. And then
all your dreams will come true, because you have wished it
so.

And why do we live? Probably every one
of us has his own view on the matter and wants to say it out loud,
but for me the reason is and will always be this one—for
love.

Now your turn has come,

In one short verse to say,

What makes you glow,

Or even play.

But remember: The words you choose to
use must be frank and pure as a sculpture of the first snow. Just
think…dig deeply, think seriously just once more, and say out
loud:

“
This is what I’m living
for…”

With Love,

Mercutio Polinski