…AND NOW IT'S SNOW….
-----------------------------
Written by Rei-Chan
Translated by Nadiutta and Rei-chan
Edited by Rei-chan and Soul.assassin on 10/3/2004 6:50:23 PM
-----------------------------
Ethude - The Giant and The Little Girl
The giant and the little girl, under the sun, against the wind
in a day without time they walked in the rocks
walked in the the rocks...
------------------------------
Prague, Czech Republic
11 October 2015
------------------------------
Grey...
The sky is always grey in this European city.
I don't remember just an instant while it has been of another color... and yet, there are a lot of colors that a sky could be.
It doesn't rain, but the sky is always grey...
And that's not a good sign.
I knew that I liked this city. It swallows me.
It makes me feel that it is a beautiful sensation.
It camouflages me into its folds, making me invisible to the eyes of whom that could not see me.
Yes, I really love this city and I think I will stay here for a while. After all, I'm not in a hurry to walk away.
There is a lot of people here, and I like to observe Lilith's sons,
Their capacity to rise from the masses… .
I find them fascinating.
They are deep, very deep.
So deep, but at the same time so fragile...
I take out my violin, as I enjoyed the other small concerts the street's artists are performing on Karlov Bridge,
where the Vltava continues its watery course under the stone arches.
So... Which melody should I play? Chopin? Mozart? Puccini?
I laugh at myself, for sometimes even a person like me ask myself the stupid questions...
I don't have any music sheets with me.
I don't have any greater knowledge of music, nor I have known other melodies... except Ode to Joy.
But I love to think that my musical repertoire, after all, could be wider.
I lean against the granite base belonging to a statue of some proud Czech King standing over and behind me. I then play my music, which maybe in this crowd, won't be listened by anyone...
If there is one think that Lilith's sons don't have, it is their capacity to listen.
Their minds are too preoccupied with each other,
but I play the same tune, because you could never know. You could never know who could come at any moment.
You could never know what you can call with a simple deed.
Maybe nothing. Maybe all. Who knows?
I close my eyes and I let the bow rub the strings of my violin.
But as I play, I see the shadows projected almost imperceptibly on me.
I feel as if they were heavy, vulgar, indifferent.
They are not the ones who can listen to my melody.
They can't be.
But I'm not in a hurry. My mission, after all, has just started.
"…how boring…"
I open my eyes.
I stop to play.
Putting down my violin and its bow, I look ahead, searching for the owner of that bored voice.
And I see her.
A little girl, she's about four feet tall and golden hair cascading around her face.
Considering my very short stay in Japan, I don't think I have seen them before….
They looks like so?
Are those things the so called "pure souls"?
The Giant is a gardener and the little Girl is like a flower
Who hugs his heart with her tender roots
With her tender roots, with her tender roots.
"Wh…what... are you?" I ask quietly, staring at the girl before me.
But she doesn't listen to me, keeping her words to herself for a moment until furrows formed upon her forehead.
"You play this piece everyday, sir.... but don't you know another one?" The girl inquire.
"No..."
"Why?"
"Because knowing this melody is like knowing them all."
The girl frowns at me again, as a light flurry of show from the sky blow over us.
In the gust, the girl tries to keep her pink wool hat on her head, before she sits on the ground.
She continues to look at me. She's interested.
"Did you stop playing?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because the song has ended, and it's not good to be repetitive."
"Uhmm..." She leans her chin with her hands, elbows onto her knees.
"Sir?"
"Uh?"
"What is the name of that song?"
"It's Beethoven's ' Ode to Joy'. "
"Who is Beethoven?"
"He seems to be, the author of this symphony…"
"…………"
I carefully rub the strings of the bow with a cleaning cloth
"………."
"Sir?"
I feel it was very strange to be called "Sir".
But I give her the same answer as I look at her, and I say to myself, why does she asks so many questions?
"Who are you?"
I fold the cleaning cloth and I put it away in my pocket.
"My name is Kaworu... Kaworu Nagisa."
She's a little disappointed
"What a strange name..." She whispers quietly,
"I'm Aneta!" She exclaims loudly.
I smile at her name, and with one hand I shut close my violin case.
As I finish, she keep sitting near my feet, I'm just going to leave, but before I could ever move, she calls me again.
"Are you leaving?"
"Yes."
"Are you going home?"
I'm going home?
"Well...let's say so..."
She finally stands up to her bare feet. I never saw anybody with naked little feet like that on the street, until now.
She keep staring at me. Her glance doesn't let me feel indifferent. There's something strange in her eyes.
"May I come with you?"
" I live very far from here."
"Even I live very far from here... almost in Prague nine."
"I live further than you do..."
"Really? Where do you live?"
"Far."
"Far from where?"
"Far."
How could be definite someone who doesn't belongs to this little, defenceless planet?
"Oh...."
Again, she's disappointed.I can't understand her reasons, but her eyes are now sad.
It looks like that my answers aren't the same for what she hoped for.
"Sir?"
"My name is Kaworu."
I can't dare to let her call me with that name…
She ignore my last sentence again.
"Can I come to see you tomorrow again?"
She asks me almost sorry…
I smile.
"Sure…"
Saying these words, I take my violin case, I lift it up on my shoulders, and I walk into the crowd, letting the sea of humanity swallow me.
She?
Who knows…
It has been told to me that the children' souls are mysterious..
And the giant's hand in that face of human
Release all the fear, it is a refuge of hope
It's a refuge of hope, it's a refuge of hope.
Yes, I love Prague even more now.
You can have strange meetings here…
A little girl….who would expected it!
After all, the little Lilim seemed to enjoy my company!
The day after our meeting, she came again.
"Sir Kaworu!"
Again her little shrill voice.
Again her heavy clothes with flashy colors, that doesn't match each others
Again her little naked feet.
Why it has to be me, then?
There are so many street artists much more attractive or attention-grabbing than a lone violinist, playing everyday at the same hour, and always the same, boring song….
"Today, I came here earlier!"
She, always so happy and strong …
So different from me…so silent and calm….
"I... I came earlier than yesterday because I wanted to hear your song again!"
She sits careless on the ground , the only spectator of this modest little concerto.
Her glare seems to perceptive my essence…
What do you want from me, little pure soul? Do you find shield in my music?
Again, as usual, I have the bow soaring in the strings of my ancient violin
Is that what are you looking for?
That's how the melody borne from it, a melody that brought and elevated human beings, to stand out of the crowd.
Here is " Ode to Joy"
It brings joy also to you?
No..
That's not possible..
What do you think that a little daughter of Lilim could understand?
I play the last notes of this song. Last notes of a melody that men has given a brutal, artificial end.
In a limited world, everything founds an end.
Even a melody well known just for being endless in every other place of the universe, except for the Earth.
At the end of the song, She sit still, there on the ground. Her eyes are closed. She doesn't even make a move.
This time, I don't put away my violin.
"I learned a new one, you know?"
My phrase seems to revive the would around us.
The ninepins of the clowns begin to fly again, the people re begins to trample on the ancient stone bricks of the bridge.
The life, the people…everything re-begins to rush with the power of stream…
And then she finally opens her eyes.
"What?"
"I learned to play another melody, if you feel like to listen to it... it's "la Vie En Rose.""
"No... never mind."
"Didn't you find this melody boring?"
"Because I didn't listen to it from the beginning, as I did this time..."
I put down my violin and let it lie beside me as I sit down
Lilith's daughter understood.
I don't know La Vie En Rose, nor I know how to sing it.
I lied just to understand a lot of things.
She understood. The little Lilith's daughter truly understood everything.
"You can't sing it again, right?"
"Unfortunately, no."
"Why?"
She is curious.
Just like me.
I find them interesting, and yet they find me interesting.
It could be called an exchange.
I told myself as I turn to glance at the waters of the Vltava.
"Do you see the waters of this river? They can run only one time under this bridge... it isn't right for the river to run once more. Everything has to run with the stream."
"And why?"
I let out a sigh.
"Because that's what it is..."
"Will you come back to sing your song tomorrow, too?"
She asks me, as I got up to my feet.
She watches as I put my violin back into its casing and snapped down the brass clasps, a sign that I was going to leave again just like yesterday.
"Yes, of course..."
"So tomorrow I will come back again,"
I smile to her.
It's almost offensive for me to see that she's not interested to find out the nature of my crimson glare.
"Now are you going back home again?"
"Yes..."
"But... is it so far, your house?"
"It is..."
"Further than Prague nine?"
"Further than the infinite..."
"And which way is it? Over there?" She pointed towards the south with her little finger
about the giant and the little girl, they have known at the village
and the anger gives the courage to go into the wood
to go into the wood, to go into the wood
Her innocence is shocking. If it was light, her innocence could illuminate even the farthest star. I feel I have the courage to answer this time.
"No, it's up there." I point upwards to the cold gray Czech sky above us. She looked up, too, and her facial expression becomes confused.
She blinks repeatedly, as if I'm joking.
"Really?"
"………….."
"Do you actually live above there?"
I give her a simple nod.
"May I come with you? Please! May I? May I?" In her eyes shine the joy.
"I'm sorry, but it's possible."
"Why?! Why it isn't possible?!" She stand straight on her naked feet. She clenched fists on her chest.
I lower to sit beside her on the sidewalk.
I want to be sure that once she looks at my eyes, when I will tell her those words...
"Because... you are fragile. Fragile like the glass...." I whispered.
I slowly stand up, but she doesn' t seem to be impressed with my bloody eyes, but she stops to wonder.
She doesn't look at me anymore, as she turns away from me.
"Is it for this reason that I can't come to your house?"
I don't answer.
"Is it so?" she demands.
"Yes..." I answer.
I'm about to leave, but I feel her tugging me from the edge of my black jacket. I glance back to look at the girl .She's smiling at me again. What a sensitive person.
"…………."
I look at my watch. I think it's time for me to go.
I greet the little girl, and like the previous day, she stay still there. She watches me 'till I disappear in the crowd.
After that, I don't know what happened to her.
Nobody could even imagine in which ways a pure soul can walk through…
--------------
I think I simply thought about the street's artists:
Magnetic.
They are magnetic.
The street artists have the capacity to attract anybody who has some "precious metal" in his pocket. This was their purpose .
A kind of charity paid by their artistic show.
My purpose, however, is not to have their money... I didn't need it anyway.
Therefore... could I still consider myself a street musician?
I don't have an audience.
I don't have any acrobatics to show.
I simply have my violin... and her.
Her.
That reserved to me and my violin all her attentions, just like the street artists did with the other people.
Maybe because, there weren't any "precious metal" inside her pockets, to attract to.
Her,
Who, from that day, didn't lose even an appointment with my music.
I had just the time to take out my violin from its case, when she, with her naked feet, appeared there in front of me. With her breath still heavy, greeted to me and sat as always on the ground.
As I played, she listened the symphony from the strings of my violin, and when it ends, Here she is, bombarding me with the same curious questions.
"Tomorrow I will do a surprise to you," She told me the previous day, some minutes before I left.
"Uhm?"
"Yes! I will make a surprise! I'm sure you'll like it!" She exclaimed with a big smile.
"What is it about?"
She put herself in akimbo.
"A surprise is a surprise! I can't tell you now!"
I smiled
"So… I will wait for it."
"Don't forget! Be on time!" she emphasized.
"I will."
A surprise….
I didn't pay a lot of attention to her words yesterday.
I remember them just now.
There is something strange on the bridge today.
That static nature is not normal.
The music left the place only to whispered talking. It's disturbing.
The tourists don't walk on the Charles Bridge anymore
They are all grouped in a precise point of the bridge, at a place of the street that I used to occupy.
I don't know what happened. I ask myself, but I don't find any answer, so I look around for one.
All I had were livid, worried and shocked faces.
the giant and the little girl, they found them sleepy
hawk and sparrow embraced like Lord's sons
like Lord's sons, like Lord's sons
It seems like a blanket of ice had beated down on the people, freezing anyone there. The musicians stopped from playing, the acrobats from tumbling and juggling, even the painter left their watercolours to the wind.
Time was frozen.
Cars with sirens and blinking blue lights burst into that sacred place and joined their comrades already arrived at the scene. Too much noise.
I don't like this place anymore.
"...It is a little girl! Yes, a little girl around 5... 6 years old! Probably one of the gipsies of the nomadic camp from the suburbs. She has already been taken away. It seems she slipped in the river,"
A policeman exclaimed into his handheld that doesn't work very well.
His voice's tone is grave, like the tone of the people there.
"Yes, yes, send someone over there to ask if they lost a little blonde girl..."
I don't like anymore this place, the unexpected burden of tragedy crashing upon my shoulders.
The charm has vanished.
I see pain reflexed in the people's faces. Ode to joy can't be played here.
Goodbye, Vltava.
I need to find myself another quiet place, far away from here.
The Karlov Bridge. The so-called The Bridge of the Kings is no more for my violin.
--------------
I wander, searching for a quiet place.
A quiet and silent place.
It's not easy to find it.
The hours pass quickly, and in a hurry Prague was changing.
The sky is no more grey, but black.
It's raining.
The first drops fall on my black jacket, leaving on it some rounded spots.
Small tears.
Someone is crying, but the people ignore it.
The grey sky were a bad sign.
Now it has become black, and with it the charm of the magic Prague I knew has also vanished.
It is no longer different from the others cities: chaotic, sad, ungrateful, suspicious, dark, noisy,
…. vulgarly crowded.
Where am I suppose to go now?
Is still there a place for me, in this corner of the Purgatory?
Well... maybe there is.
A big building not far away where I was standing, a little park of trees and well-tended flower beds.
But there's nobody, for silence is all that is surrounding me.
It may not be comparable with the Bridge of the Kings, but I find it acceptable.
With the bench behind me, I put my violin case near my feet, and, taking hold of the instrument,
I started playing Ode to Joy…
Infinite Hymn
That now it appears to be to myself no more suitable to this city…
Maybe this will be the last time I'll be here.
I want to find another city.
Prague is now a fragile city, too fragile for my heart.
It takes nothing to its charm, and it isn't good...
My last concert will no longer have an audience.
I don't think Lilith's little daughter shall find me through this crowd.
I'm sorry for not saying her goodbye.
Transparent... those strings seemed to be transparent as glass.
I almost could not hear any music come from them, my thoughts running through my mind...
Besides, what is a concert without an audience?
A leaf without a branch, a star without a sky, a soul without a body?
Invisible and transparent as it had started, here the music stops in a few minutes.
I put down my implements of music as I gazed towards the sky, leaving some thin drops of rain on my face.
Someone is still crying…
Yes, I really think I'll come back home.
So I stood up and turned around.,
It's her.
I see her behind me.
Anèta.
Lilith's little daughter was behind me.
It's her the one who's crying?
but nobody can wake them up from that soft sleep.
the giant is a mountain , the little girl now is snow,
the little girl now is snow, the little girl now is snow!
"It's... you..."
Is it rain on her face? Or is it tears? I can distinguish it...
She is all dripping wet.
"Sir ....Kaworu...." She mumble, sobbing.
No, she's crying.
She cover her eyes, rubbing away her tears.
She let down onto her knees.
"Aneta..."
Her name, that I didn't even pronounced in my mind before, come out of my lips as in my whole life I didn't know other name except from it.
An implausible….simplicity .
She look even smaller.
She doesn't listen to me. Our roles are utterly reversed on this moment.
I walked close enough.
"Why... are you crying?"
She doesn't say a word.
Her tears doesn't allow her to speak.
I stood over the girl.
Still, it was raining but not the kind that makes you wet to the bone.
I couldn't understand why she was so soaking wet that way.
"My mom..." Finally she cracked out an answer between sobs and tears.
"Huh?" I raise my eyebrows.
"My mom... she doesn't want me anymore..." She gasp, before bursting into tears again.
I knee close to her.
"Where is your mother?" I ask.
Without even standing up, she points to me the entrance of the building not too far from where we sat.
Suddenly she stand up and embrace me, catching me by surprise.
"Bring me with you! Bring me with you! My mom doesn't want me anymore! She doesn't listen to me! I talk to her, but she doesn't listen!"
I gently move her away, giving her a handkerchief to wipe away the tears from her blue eyes.
"Let's go and see,"
We entered.
There is darkened hallway . And at the end of it, there's a door.
As we walk slowly towards the door. There is no one there.
It's completely desert.
I reach the door. There's a small plexiglas window.
I look inside through it.
The little girl beside me can't see through it. She's too low to be able to reach the window.
There are two... no, three women, a doctor, and a number of stainless-steel tables...
I keep watching. The doctor shook his head in resignation.
The women screamed awfully at the doctor, after he took off the linen sheet, uncovering the cyanotic and mauvish face of a little girl without life.
Blinking twice, I looked down and back to the girl on the steel table.
It's her. Aneta.
The little girl with me, holding her hand.
Little pure soul…you were crying, crying, crying…but they can't listen your cry…
I understand your pain.
There's nothing worst for a little pure soul to be all alone…
"What are you looking at? Is it my mom inside there?
Innocent.
Let it be someone that has already surpass your innocence, to look through that window…
I shook my head.
I lie.
"No."
She looks at me, frowned and began to cry again.
I put my hand upon Aneta 's head.
"So... shall we go?"
"Where?"
"My home…"
"Really? Could I stay with you?"
Aneta 's blue eyes lit up as though the sun shone on them.
I nod. Her little hand is cold as ice.
Like mine, after all.
We turn away, walking towards back to where we came in,
Suddenly she stops in her tracks. She turned to look behind her.
"Today, while I was waiting for you, I fell down into the river..... and I got wet…"
She pulls the collar of her wet sweater outward with a forefinger.
"Up there, you can have all the clothes you want…"
"Really?!?"
"Yes."
"Woah! That's great! " She beam.
She doesn't even look anymore like the same little girl I first saw.
It's so simple to bring a smile on a Lilim's daughter face ?
"Now you could explain me how to reach your house! Today I tried to get on bridge's wall... but I couldn't reach your home.... so I did a big dive into the river!"
She laugh at herself.
She doesn't know the truth.
She's a pure soul…and it's impossible for her to know the truth of this limited and finite world, that she didn't knew yet.
"I told you... like Lilith's other children, your heart is as fragile as glass."
She doesn't reply at me.. Maybe she still doesn't understand the analogy I put up.
We crossed the entrance.
"Will you play again Ode to Joy?"
"All the time"
"Will you always play it?"
"Yes... because over there, time doesn't exist."
She doesn't know yet that over there , the notes of Ode to Joy echoed endlessly.
She doesn't know yet that over there, the joy has no limits.
Neither her life.
That this world has already taken away, just because, this one, is a limited world.
The big door closed behind them.
The giant and the little girl went away.
They walked in the rocks under the sun, agains the wind
in a day without time the giant and the little girl
the giant and the little girl the giant and the little girl
they walked in the rocks under the sun against the wind.
END- I just wrote this fan fiction after my trip in Prague - I love that city! Somehow it reminds me the character of Kaworu-kun and when I came back home, I decided to write a story involving this city and this character. It's the first time that I write a fan fiction with an…alternative ending. I hope you all enjoyed it!
- Many thanks to Nadiutta for helping me with the translation of this story, and also to souls.assassin for pre-reading it.
- The text of the song "The giant and the little girl" (Il Gigante e la Bambina" ) is ã RON. All rights reserved.
-You can find a fan art that has somehow contributed for my inspiration of this story here:
-Please, if you have any suggestion, review, english corrections or whatever, email me at : mizuhokeitin.it
Rei-chan