On the Run

The man had a long beard and was already a bit old, simply too old for the woman. There was also a child there, a very small child. The child kept crying and crying because he was hungry. Even the woman was hungry, but she did not say a word, and when the man looked towards her, she smiled a little, or at least tried to smile. The man was equally hungry.

They don't know where they want to go, they just know that they can't stay in their hometown. Home was destroyed.

They walked through the woods, through the pine forest. The pine forest rustles. Otherwise there was silence. There were no berries or mushrooms, letting the sun scorch them. The heat enveloped the forest path, with only a hint of wind blowing over it. It was just the right wind for the earth leopard, while the leopard and the rabbit panted sharply in the ferns.

"Are you okay?" The man asked.

The woman stopped. "No," she said.

They sat down.

The pine forest was a slow crawl of caterpillars. When the wind stopped, all that could be heard was the rustle of the caterpillars eating the needles and leaves. The woods just rustled and the needles and bird droppings went down like leaves.

"The pine leaf poison moths," the man said, "they eat up the woods."

"Where are the birds?" The woman asks.

"I don't know," the man said, "I don't think there are any more birds."

The woman held the baby in her arms. But there was no milk. The child cried in her arms again.

The man swallowed a little when the child's cries became hoarse, and he stood up. He said, "It won't work for a long time like this."

"It's not working," the woman said. She tried to laugh a little, but it didn't come out.

"I'll get something to eat", the man said. "Get it from where?" She asked. "Let me go look for it", he said. Then he walked away.

He walked through the dead woods. Carved the mark into the tree.

He walked across a sand ditch. It was once a creek. He walked across dark land where there had been a meadow.

He walked for two hours, and then there was a pine forest in the sand. On a rock there was a dragon viper, the snake had dried up. The rhododendrons were covered with dust.

Later, he walked through a barren land. Then he entered the village, which was ruined. The man sat on the carriage. He fell asleep. The slumber fell off. He woke up thirsty, unbearably thirsty.

He stood up and staggered into a house. There was nothing furnished in the room. The drawer had been pulled out of the table and dropped to the floor. The pot was broken, and the window was broken. On the bench by the fireplace was a piece of cloth with half a loaf of bread wrapped in it, and the bread was hard.

The man took the bread and left, finding nothing in the other rooms, no water, and the well was full of dead animals.

He didn't dare to break a bit off the half piece of bread. He wanted to leave the bread to the woman. He found no food, not even animals, only dead cats and a few chickens, that was all.

A rainstorm was coming.

In the ground, the man stepped on a gecko, which turned into dust.

It thundered, and in front of the woods were rows of heat.

He bends forward, holding the bread under his armpits. Sweat flowed into his beard, and the soles of his feet were hot. He picked up his pace and squinted at the sky.

The sky was sulfur-colored, lightning, luminous clouds appeared, the sun had long since disappeared.

The man was walking fast. He moved the bread to the collar of his shirt and pressed it with his elbow.

The wind had picked up. The rain fell. The raindrops snapped like peas on dry ground.

The man ran. Bread, he thought, bread.

But the rain came down even harder. A little farther from the woods, the rain caught up with him.

Lightning cut through the sky. The rain poured down.

The man pressed the bread with his upper arm. The bread stuck up. The man cursed. But the rain got heavier. The woods ahead and the village behind were hidden in the rain as if they had been washed away. The curtain of rain drifted across the moor, and the stream flowed into the sand.

The man stopped, he was panting. Standing with his back bowed. The bread was in his shirt, on his chest. He didn't dare to touch it with his hands. The bread was soft, swollen, falling down.

He thought of the woman, of the child. He clenched his teeth together. Both hands cramped up. The upper arms pressed tightly against the body. He believed that this would better protect the bread.

I have to bend a little lower over the bread, he thought: I must support the bread with my chest into a top. The rain, it can't swallow up the bread in front of me, it can't. He went down on his knees. Bent down toward his knees. The rain snapped so loudly that no one could see it at ten paces.

The man put his hands on his back, then bent his forehead toward the sand. He peered into the collar. He saw the bread. The bread was cracked, the bread was broken, it looked like a sponge.

I'm going to wait, the man thought. I'm going to wait like this until the rain stops.

He knew that he was lying to himself. The bread will not stick for five minutes, then it will melt away, and it will run away, before his eyes.

He watched, how the rain ran down his ribcage. The rain likewise flowed in two rivers under his armpits. The rain washed over the bread, seeping in and eating away at it. The water that dripped down was so murky that the crumbs soaked into the water.

The bread was bulging just now, but now it was smaller, and little by little, it was eroded away.

At this point, he "women come, women go" thinking, now he has to choose: either let the bread melt away, or eat the bread themselves.

He thought, "If I don't eat the bread, it will melt away, I will still be tired and weak, and all three of us will collapse. If I eat it, at least I'll have strength again."

He said these words out loud, because there was another voice inside him, a small voice.

He didn't look at the sky, which cleared up in the west. He didn't pay attention to the rain, which drizzled. He only gazed at the bread.

Hungry, he thought of this in his mind, hungry. And, bread, he thought of this, bread. That was all he thought about at that moment.

He clutched the bread with both hands. Squeezing the bread into a ball. Squeezing the water out of it. He bit into the bread, gobbled it up, swallowed it: he choked on his knees, like an animal. And so he finished the bread.

His fingers dug hard into the wasteland, where the sand was wet. He closed his eyes and then plunged down. Both shoulders jerked.

When he staggered to his feet, the sand was grating in his mouth with his teeth. He wiped the tears from his eyes. Blinked his eyes. Stares blankly at the sky.

The sun burst out of the gray haze. The curtain of rain disappeared in the mist. There were only a few scattered drops of rain, and the downpour had passed. The sky was light blue and the humidity had evaporated.

The man stumbled and continued walking. Hands flung to his hips, chin next to his chest.

At the edge of the woods he leaned against a pine tree. The distant call of the pale headed swallowtails in the rain can be heard, as well as the short screams of the cuckoo.

The man is looking for a mark on the tree, he goes back and forth. In the ferns, in the European lingonberry bushes rain beads glisten. The air is hot and humid and foggy.

The rainstorm is good for the pine needle moths, which climb faster up the trunks of the trees .

From time to time, the man stopped. He felt even weaker than on the way he had come. His heart, his lungs were tossing him around. And the voices, first of all the voices.

Once again he walked for three hours, including a short break.

Then he saw her sitting, her upper body leaning against a pine tree, the baby lying in her arms.

She smiled. "Great, you're back here."

"I didn't find anything." The man said, and he sat down.

"Nothing," the woman said. She turned away. She looked so bloodless, the man thought.

"You look pretty tired," the woman said. "Try to get some sleep."

He straightened his arms and legs and lay back down. "What's wrong with the boy, and why is he so still?"

"He's tired", said the woman.

The man's breathing came in regular bursts.

"Are you asleep? " the woman asked.

The man was silent.

The only sound now is the rustling of pine needles as the poisonous moth eats them.

When he woke up, the woman was also lying down, and she looked at the sky.

The child lay beside her, and she wrapped it in her in her shirt.

"What's this?" The man asked.

The woman didn't move. "He's dead," he said, "dead...? "

"He died while you were sleeping." The woman said.

"Why didn't you wake me up?"

"Why should I wake you up?" The woman asked.