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THE FORTRESS by Ovidiu Bufnila
George rushed to me his fists clenched. I got the time to mind my head. I rolled down on the hillock. George had fallen down on his knees; he was angry and he shouted at me: “You said this damn ship would bring us on Venus. Do you happen to know where we are? We’ll fucking die in this desert until someone comes and rescue us! We’ll die like fools! First of all, we’ll get thirsty, then we’ll start laughing, don’t look at me like that, we’ll hear a strange music and we’ll dance like we’ve never done it in our whole life! And, finally, death!” “Are you afraid of it?” I asked him calmly, trying to cool him out. But he outburst: “Don’t be stupid, you’re afraid, too, not only of this, but also of the way you’ll die. Don’t you believe it would be better if this thing happened in a bed and at a pretty old age?” “Let’s keep looking, maybe we find some water”, I mumbled vaguely. As for the water, we did find it, right when we expected less, when we were too exhausted to fight with one another. Later on, we thought of a shelter. We couldn’t just sleep in the open. There were plenty of sun burnt rocks around us. “Let’s built a house near the lake”, I suggested to George. “It’s not a bad idea, but I think we should rather build a fortress”. I didn’t really get his point. “Well, we’re not fighting with anybody!” I replied. “And what if somebody attacks us?” George persisted. “In this desert?” George didn’t answer my question. Days and nights were passing by so fast; sometimes, in the daylight, stones were moving in the air all of a sudden; we couldn’t explain all this, but it definitely made our work much easier. Now and then, we heard voices and laughs, but of course, they were nothing but auditory illusions. Once the shelter build up, it seemed magnificent to us. We entered and closed the door. “Now we’re safe”, George said proudly. A deafening whistle, followed by a strong explosion disturbed the silence of the desert. The missile had passed right over our heads. We ran and climbed up the walls and we watched. At about 200 meters in front of us, there was floating a cloud of smoke. When it scattered, we saw a huge stone cannon and two men standing near it, trying hard to load it up. One of them WAS GEORGE, the other was ME.
Translated by Ioana Bostan |
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