The Most Overrated Thing, Mila Buria [summer reads .txt] 📗

anything funny!”

“I don't care about my figure, I am well-built.”

“Large bones, huh?”

“Precisely.”

“All fat raccoons say they have big bones, you know.”

“Well it's true.”

“Aha, well, call me again when you drop dead from diabetes and a heart attack and high cholesterol.”

“I'll worry about it when I get old!”, I exclaimed cheerfully and continued: “Hey, Roberta, where do you come from?”

“From the Prague Zoo.”

“Never heard of it.”

“I'd be surprised if you had,” she smiled.

“It's just some zoo, they're all the same!”

“No, they aren't! In some zoos there are nasty beavers, in others there are none, as far as I know!”

“What is it that you've got against beavers?” I asked with earnest curiosity.

“Every raccoon must hate something, there must be some sort of counterbalance, an opposition to love. Hate and love are two sides of the same coin,” she kept on philosophising, “otherwise love will take over everything and life will be like a dragonfly orgy.”

I didn't get anything she said, so I changed the subject.

“These people that stop to look at us, do you mind them?”

“These flies that fly around, do you mind them?” she retorted.

“Yes, I do.”

“Well I don't. They've stopped troubling me long ago. People are annoying and stupid like parasites. They're always looking on, recording stuff with their phones and cameras and then they look at the pictures and videos to see what it 's been like. Because while they're living it they are too busy taking pictures and don't notice what's really happening to them.

“You are very experienced,” I said with candid envy.

„You can learn a lot about people if you keep your eyes open. They think they're watching us, but actually I'm watching them, and very carefully too!”

“It's a good thing to be observant...” I said approvingly.

“Yeah, you bet it is...And it's useful! When I think how many times it has saved my life...”

It dawned on me suddenly why she was so wise.

“Have you... have you been outside?”

„I was born outside, kiddo!” She gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder.

“Please tell me about it! What is it like?” I asked hopefully.

“Telling one who's been born in a cage what it's like in the open is like telling a blind person that the sky is blue – he might know what it is in theory but you can never be sure he'll understand you.

“Well, try me!” I insisted.

“Outside is ... heaven and hell at the same time, variety and sameness, all and nothing, potential for all you want and yet not more than your own abilities allow you.”

“Aha,” I said without understanding.

“There's one thing I've got to tell you about life outside though. It's tough.”

Life outside is tough.

Next morning I woke up expectantly. I was surprised at myself but I couldn't wait to chat with Roberta. She had got up before me and was chewing on a branch.

“Morning!” I nodded.

“Yeah, mornin',” she answered with her mouth full. Then she spat out a few pieces of bark and said cheerfully: “One needs to take care of their teeth, right?” Then she went on playfully: “Wanna do some chasing?” This surprised me. I wasn't much into aerobic exercise and muttered reluctantly:

“Yes, if you want to, but just a little.”

She started running around the house faster and faster, I went after her clumsily but in a few minutes I was out of breath and had to stop.

She came closer and said in a significant manner:

“It seems you haven't heard about the chicken's dilemma...”

“No?”

“Maybe I'm running too fast...?” she said and smiled mysteriously.

I thought about it but I didn't understand her and decided to keep silent. I'd already come across as a dumb guy a few times and I felt uncomfortable. Suddenly I thought that I didn't want to look dumb in Roberta's eyes. I had a tight feeling in my throat.

“I'm sorry. I am not...you know... particularly fit,” I explained myself.

“It's alright. We could play branch if there were other raccoons here.”

“How do you play branch?”

“Everyone stands in a circle, you throw the branch and you have to kiss the person that the bottle points to.”

“Kiss?”

“Oh, stop acting like a saint!” She was annoyed.

“But...”

Before I'd come up with something to say, she moved close to me and I felt her hot breath on my face.

“Eni...” She was poking her ear suggestively. “You've never kissed anyone, have you?”

I hadn't. Darn it, I didn't want to admit it.

She came even closer.

„Wanna try?” she whispered.

I did. I couldn't think of anything else. She snuggled against me and touched me with her lips. They were soft as an avocado, fleshy and warm. The moment of timelessness in which we stood there touching was either very short or very long, I don't know. She turned her back on me. I was surprisingly good at this because I intuitively knew what to do. Something was telling me. It was magical. Suddenly the world stop turning and stars exploded inside me. I only know I didn't want this mythically unreal moment to end. But sadly it only went on for a second or maybe two, and then suddenly Roberta turned into a different person. She jumped away from me at light speed. She became irritable and cross and there was no talking to her. This change pulled me from the clouds down onto the ground faster than a stick knocking down rotten apples from a tree.

I felt betrayed.

The next day relations were still icy. I was confused and sad. I was just thinking that I'd come up with the smartest speech to win her back when the door opened. A butler wearing gloves, who was otherwise quite nice, pitilessly snatched Roberta and threw her into a cage. It all happened very fast. A few seconds later I was alone again.

All alone.

There was a lump in my throat.

In the evening I didn't pay attention to the food because I was too sad and didn't feel like eating. A few days passed and I couldn't think of anything but her. Her last words to me were: “May nothing ever get you out of balance.” Oh, her words, her fur, her eyes, her lips. Her lips...

A butler came in. I looked at him hopefully but the hope vanished when I saw that he wasn't accompanied by my sweetheart but by another butler carrying an empty cage.

“Encho hasn't eaten again. Put him in.”

I didn't care where they were taking me. I would only care if they were taking me to her, but alas, they weren't. I found myself in the white room again. The moustached man started touching and prodding me. I was looking at him listlessly, I didn't feel like living any longer.

He turned to the butlers: “This raccoon is suffering from love sickness. He'll be fine.”

I didn't know what love sickness was and I wasn't happy about the statement that I was going to be fine. The only way to regain my balance was to see her. But it was not to be.

After a week or two – I don't know how long, as I had lost track of time because of my lost will to live – the door opened. At the other side there was a weird, slightly shabby person who looked scared.

“Hhhhelp!” she sobbed.

I looked at her with a mixture of annoyance and surprise.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Nedka,” she almost whispered.

After some conversations that were difficult for both of us, I found out that she was born in a zoo, but the one in Plovdiv, she was smaller than me and was afraid of two things – her shadow and her personal butler.

In my mind, though I didn't want to, I started comparing her to the wild and untameable Roberta. The wise and experienced Roberta. The beautiful and soft Roberta. My Roberta.

I had to check these dangerous thoughts, so decided to give the newcomer a philosophical test.

“What's freedom to you?” I asked point-blank.

She looked at me as if I was going to cut off her tail and said clearly: “Freedom does not exist. It is an illusory idea that was created so that the raccoons in the zoos are unhappy, so that they have what to think about, what to yearn for, what to complain about and what to dream of. In reality there is no freedom. The so-called free raccoons, the wild ones, are not free because they are dependent on their food, their enemies, water, and other raccoons. There's no freedom in this world. Everything is connected. Even in space there's no freedom because you can't go there without a space suit.” Here I got completely lost. “Freedom is the most overrated thing,” she finished passionately.

Rather surprised by her unexpected answer, I asked her: “Don't you want to be free from your endless fears?”

“No. Fear is a friend. It protects you, it makes you be reasonable and cautious. It is the voice of Racood in your head.”

“Racood?” I repeated. I didn't understand.

“Haven't you heard of the Creator of all Raccoons, the source of our civilisation, truth and reality?”

“Huh, how do you know so much?”

“Errrr...I know it from my mother,” she muttered in an embarrassed way.

“Well, tell me about this Racood then. In which zoo does he live?”

“In Gerald Durrell's, on Jersey island – it's the promised land.”

“Now you're getting unintelligible again,” I said, annoyed. “I never heard of Gerald Durrell but judging by his name, he must be a human.”

“That's right. He's the Saviour. He saves wild animals and breeds them in his zoo. Then he takes them back to nature. And he also teaches people not to kill animals and not to destroy nature.“

“That's noble.”

“And he also scribbles in these weird notebooks that people read and they laugh a lot at his scribblings.”

“Really? I've always thought that if you can make somebody laugh, you can change the world.”

“Yes, Gerald Durrell did change the world. He made it a better place.”

After a few days of philosophical conversations about Racood and the world, and to be honest, after some kisses, tumbling around and star explosions, Nedka was also separated from me. Forever.

I was left alone again.

But at least I understood what freedom is.

Freedom is having someone to love.

Imprint

Text: Mila Strashimirova
Images: Mila Strashimirova
Cover: Mila Strashimiova
Editing: Minka Paraskevova
Translation: Rumiana Pankova
Layout: Mila Strashimirova
Publication Date: 02-27-2020

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
Dedicated to Martin Karbowski