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A wave engulfs Marianna, swirling her around, she ends up completely in the water. She starts to drown and choke. An unknown wave lifts her body, vibrating and pushing her upwards. This is a part of that force that cured her deafness. Marianna paddles desperately with her arms. She swims… She swims on her own. She learned to swim.
Little Marianna
“Go to the reeds, to the swamps, where people don’t go, where God’s word doesn’t reach; there you will have visions, nourishment, forever and ever amen,” rasped the old woman’s voice over Marianna’s head. Then the old woman read prayers, and Marianna smelled the wax nearby: the old woman poured wax into a bowl of water.
Then holding the wax in her hand, she said, "– Look, look what’s here…”
Marianna had been going to the old woman for the tenth time already.
“You should come for the young moon,” the toothless old woman said. Little Marianna didn’t know that “young moon” meant the new moon.
But she had to come, her grandmother said she had to go to stop wetting the bed, to keep bed sheets from hanging and drying in the garden; she had to come for twenty readings.
They said there was fear, but what caused it wasn’t clear: maybe she was just scared of the dog, or maybe of the old lady, a neighbor. Granny, the neighbor, stepped outside wearing her terrible rags, she stood by the gate and watched. Marianna went along the road with her little feet, and she said in fear, “Grandma Aga.”
She heard and saw the frightened look of Marianna. Now the wet sheets…
The witch, the neighbor, came close to Marianna and whispered into her face, “Not enough? Not enough?”
Marianna didn’t understand what she meant by “not enough” back then. One day, she left her gate and found a crow that had been killed, its blood visible and horrifying…
She didn’t think about the witch, the neighbor, just the crow. At night, the granny stepped out, holding a book in her hands and whispered strange words as she walked around the garden fence. Granny Klavdiya constantly made finds: sometimes a buried piece of bread in her garden, sometimes a pot of feces thrown over the fence by someone.
One dream often haunted Marianna: she runs away, and a witch in rags chases her. In her dream, Marianna is in fear as she tries to run quickly from the gate to the porch; the monster chases her. The witch is about to grab her by her clothes.
The dream was repeated again and again.
Everything passes… time heals, and Marianna was healed of wet sheets.
Field of Bluebells
A little girl stands. Before her, an immense field stretches out, composed of countless purple bluebells. For the little girl, it’s enormous, a wave of joy and freedom surrounds her – Marianna. She runs across the vast field, happy and carefree. The field smells incredibly, probably the scent of bluebells, merging into a vast purple sea.
Marianna wakes up, someone is patting her cheeks, she hears sounds. It’s her grandmother, who found Marianna unconscious, snoring, with foam at her mouth.
Little Marianna lay in the corner near the yard’s barn, by the wooden fence. The cause of such a condition is still unclear, maybe it’s the aftermath of a vaccination she received today at the hospital. Marianna came to her senses, and it’s so sad… she wanted to get back to that field, smelling of freshness and the aroma of bluebells.
Star
The girl’s hand draws a star on notebook pages. She does it mechanically, just wanting to draw with a pen. The star is ordinary, like many five-pointed stars, with a sharp top at the top. Then she draws other shapes on the sheet.
As Marianna woke up, she saw that she had filled her school notebook. What have I done…
Amina
“Born…” whispered little Marianna, looking sadly at her baby sister Amina, who had just been brought from the maternity ward and placed on the pillow. Amina fit perfectly on the pillow. Marianna couldn’t imagine that Amina would grow up so quickly and cause so much trouble. From all of Marianna’s childhood photos, Amina cut out Marianna’s eyes and scratched them with scissors. She also took Marianna’s toys and pretty things for herself and hid them away. When Marianna asked her about the toys, Amina grabbed Marianna by the hair and pulled painfully. Once, a fight between the sisters went too far. Older now, Amina was stronger than Marianna: she hit Marianna hard on the edge of the bath, grabbed her by the hair, and started to drown her in a basin. Marianna was so angry that when it was all over, not feeling any more rage, and seeing Amina’s face gleefully triumphant, she shouted, “Curse you!”
Injustice
Grandpa sat behind the wheel of his old Zaporozhets. Marianna sat next to him. She was already a teenager. They had to stop because of a funeral procession. They were burying a young woman who left behind a child. Grandpa looked at the funeral procession and couldn’t calm down: “Where is the justice… They took away the mother… The child is an orphan… Is this right…” Marianna looked at her thoughtful grandpa. She didn’t understand what injustice was; she didn’t understand anything.
After school
Marianna didn’t know where to go after school.
But it seems fate decided everything for her.
Zinulya – Marianna’s favorite friend – dreamed of studying medicine, but to apply, she needed work experience as a hospital orderly, so she immediately took action. As luck would have it, there was a spot at the clinic, and we both started working there even during school. And so, I finally put on a white coat for the first time, although there was still a silly white cap. That’s how my journey in medicine began, as if someone invisible was guiding me. After working for a year, Zinka inexplicably changed her mind about applying, or more precisely, didn’t apply anywhere, but got married and started a household.
I corresponded with my mom; the letters took a long time because she and Dad were living in the Far North, having gone there to work. In one letter, I asked my mom: where should I apply, what should I do… And in her letter, Mom replied: “You need to live, choose…”
Honestly, I didn’t know myself and tried to figure out my path. One day after school, I sat thoughtfully at my desk, did my homework as usual, books lay before me, and I just stared into emptiness. Slightly in a daze, a picture appeared before me: I was sitting in a white coat in an office, with shelves of pills and tablets in the background. So, to begin my path in medicine, I needed to enroll in medical school.
Misfortune
It happened one May evening; I went out with a friend and, like a good girl, called my grandparents from a payphone from time to time.
“Marianna… Marianna… hurry home!” I heard a strange hoarse voice from Grandpa on the phone, it seemed he was crying.
At home, I saw two of our relatives from the neighboring village, everyone sitting around the table. Grandma informed me of my mother’s death, Grandpa couldn’t say anything, just wheezed and sobbed, having drunk Corvalol. Of course, I didn’t fully realize it at first, and I didn’t feel the pain right away; there was Mom, and now no Mom, it couldn’t be true. And I cried a lot in the bathroom, my eyes turned into two swollen bags. I remember Mom… she was like an angel, with extraordinary