read this, if you feel inferiority, go away please

Don't try to start it with me, mediocrity. I don't call you an idiot because mediocrity is better and more truthful.

if you feel inferiority, just leave this board. this board is not for idiots.

I am half-Russian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-BNU_k_1G8

THE DAY I MET A FAIRY

Once I worked a week or ten days in a castle; not a new castle nor a very old one, but old enough to be inhabited by many families, then abandoned for a long time, then again inhabited by many families and again abandoned. I don't want to tell what my work there included.

The castle was far from my then home, so I decided to stay overnight there instead of making the long and arduous journey to the castle and back home every morning and evening. The first night I tried to sleep in the castle, in an empty room on the second floor. I spread my mattress on the floor, closed my eyes and waited for the sleep to come.

But alas, I could not sleep! Little by little I came aware that I was afraid. I expected to hear a creaking door and quiet whishing footsteps, I expected to see something white flutter in the edge of my field of vision. -There are ghosts in castles, my atavistic side whispered to me. My reasonable side said: -Nonsense! You know very well that ghosts don't exist, so just close your eyes and sleep.

My sleep that night was very strained, but of course nothing happened.

After that I did not try to sleep another night in the castle, but instead moved to the modern small outbuilding some hundred metres from the castle.

I was not alone in this place, there was a co-worker with me, but because he lived nearby, he went home every night. He knew something about me and we sometimes joked about a ghost or vampire girl who might live somewhere in the castle. I said that if there was such a girl in the building, I would be pleased to meet her.

One day my co-worker was off and I was in the castle all alone. I worked for a few hours in the morning, then took a walk in the village nearby before noon. My employer had not brought money to me for a couple of days, so I was penniless and hungry. While I was walking in the village, I had a small pleasure: the food smelled wonderfully good as I passed a small restaurant. I returned to the castle, sat down on the porch and waited for someone to come, so I could get some food.

The dome of the sky vaulted over me; it was noon and quiet. I could hear the great silence of the skies, and the solemn soughing of the distant tall pines made me think of the eternal holy day that Dostoevsky mentions in the Idiot. There was the pungent smell of ants and pine needles and dry heathy ground flora and heated forest litter: old, saturated, immemorial scents that filled my mind with some aching, yet blissful feeling. And this was the age of the flaming Leo, in the end of July or the beginning of August, on one of those hazy hay-flowering days at the height of the summer.

It was quiet; an oblique, vibrating sunbeam fell on the floor; the leaves glistened. Have you noticed how the leaves glisten on a beautiful summer day? I listened to the murmur of the trees and a deep yearning filled my mind. Summer, it is not here, I thought, it is somewhere else, somewhere far away, beyond the seven seas, and these scents are not the summer, they are just the smell of the real faraway summer that I am missing; they are no more the summer than the smell of the food in the village was the food itself.

I was sitting and smoking in the castles's hallway, in front of the open doorway, and the dust danced and glittered in the sunlight. Are there fairies in the world? I wondered. Goddesses? I felt lonely and empty, being a religious atheist I yearned for the touch of divinity in my life, I yearned for something with a yearning that I cannot describe to anyone.

- If there are fairies, please appear to me! I said aloud.

And a fairy materialized; suddenly I saw her standing in front of me, and she was covered from tip to toe with an ethereal dress, something diaphanous, gossamer-like, slightly sparkling that was almost translucent but still opaque. I could not even see her face; it was hidden behind a veil.

- You are a real goddess? A fairy? I asked.

- Yes, I am, she said.

I puffed smoke from my cigarette and tried to blow it aside so as not to keep myself from seeing her.

- But why do you cover yourself from me? Can't you... reveal yourself to me? My heart begun to throb; I thought what a lovely sight she would be if she slipped out of her clothes and stood there in front of me stripped down to the skin, wrapped only in her hair and long eyelashes.

- Yes, I can, she said demurely.

She slid to nudity and - was gone. I blinked my eyes. The clothes were still on the floor, but I did not see her any more. - No, no! I exclaimed. - Do not go! Please become visible again!

She appeared again, covered all over by her thin but opaque attire. I felt the first sign of exasperation.

- No, my genie... I pray... Reveal yourself to me, but remain visible!

- I am afraid it is not possible, she whispered so silently that I could have imagined it, and the next moment the clothes had disappeared, blended into the sunray, turned into the dancing dust, and she was gone.

TEN CATS

In a November night leaves, black as rust or tar, were mouldering under the trees, and in a poor old woman's back yard ten stray cats were huddled together against the biting chill. We all know that shared joy is a double joy, and we also know that shared chill is only half the chill - or, in this case, a tenth of it.

The poor old woman was already going to bed, when she remembered having seen some derelict cats in her back yard. "It would be unmerciful, wouldn't it, not to give an unsheltered a place for a night's rest", she thought and padded along to the door. She called out to the darkness and soon five cats came to sight and darted in.

"Oh, suffering from cold has decreased by one half in my place", she sighed and placed a cup of cream before the cats. "I guess you need names, so that I can tell you from each other. The black cat, you have almost scary eyes, wide and ecstatic like the eyes of a visionary: I will call you Witch. Never mind? And the second one reminds me of a bearded Jew I used to know in the corner shop, so let your name be David. What about the others? This female is almost too sleek, sheeny as satin: the name Femme might be becoming to you. There is a kitten with you, is it your daughter? A real cutie she seems to be: I will simply call her Kitty." Now the fifth cat came closer and begged for the attention of the old woman. "Want to be my friend? But you have wonderful eyes, almost as bewitching as those of Witch!" The woman mused a while and reached a conclusion: "I will call you Gypsy. That will be your name."

She was again going to lock her door, when it came to her that there were still some outcasts out under the bleak bare trees. She chirped again and now three cats scampered in from the shadows, one shabbier and more soiled than the next. The woman gave another plate of cream to each of them and watched them snuggle up to each other. "Those fat opulent bastards have thrown you out; only the poor can understand you", she thought. For a while she became puzzled. "But now we need more names. Hi boss, your name is easy enough, you're all black: let your name be Black! And the red one may be simply Red. But the last animal, you look like a real brute. It seems that you have seen more than enough brawls in your short cat's life. Just remember that you don't start any fights here!" She pondered a while, and because she was just a simple-hearted old woman, it took considerable pains to reach a conclusion. "Should I call you Convict or simply Con? No, I will find a name for you later; you're as welcome here as anyone else."

Now the old woman stopped at the window and heard the wind moaning outside. "What a forgetful old fool I am! Of course, there must still be a couple of living things out in the darkness!" Again she limped to the door and called, and one cat, skinnier than the others, slinked in, a real scraggy sad-eyed snotnose. The woman laid a cream cup before it, and soon the starved cat seemed to gather new strength. "This newcomer hasn't got a name yet. You seem to like the company of Black and David. How come that you don't like Witch, such a beauty as she is, and why don't you even look at Femme or Gypsy? All the same to me. You look cheerful enough, so I will call you Gay."

The old woman lit her pipe, brewed some tea to herself and talked to the cats: "Attend to what I say. You are all welcome here. My bosom is large enough for everybody. But no quarrels in my house! And now it's bedtime already: everybody, find a place for you in some nook and live in peace."

She went to the door with tears in her eyes. "Poor waifs, where would you have gone were it not for me?" With these words she turned the key twice in the lock. "Freezing has now decreased ninety per cent in my place. I am a democrat: here all are equal - the unequal may go to hell."

The November trees, dressed in black, trembled in a sudden ague, the wind howled through the ravines of the moon, and the last cat, the only one who was freezing, was now ten times colder as the other cats were not warming it. Its eyes blurred for a while and it said something under its breath, something that sounded like "good night, over the wind, under your dreams I will call you", but the cold wind stole its words and carried them away, and it left the back yard and sneaked to other alleyways.