Irina Nemchinova: Dana’s Phoenix. ArtHouse

The pink point in front of the girl moved smoothly downwards. The man picked up a cigarette and talk again:

– The past should be left completely. Any attempt to forget, to change and to run away is a genuine desire to bring it back. But there is no any past, it cannot be so. Otherwise, the natural course of events will be disrupted. The past has no place in the future. It’s not real. And the more you reach for it, the more it slips away. Even if you can get him back a little bit. Remember, that’s not true. This illusion is doomed to failure. Something that must die – will die anyway.

Dana exhales smoke:

– So, the only way out is death?

Man: Yes. And now you’re dying.

Dana expected to hear again the rolling laughter, still hoping it was a joke. After that, she wanted to laugh, but her mouth was pulled. It was so tart and dry inside her throat. She feelt weaker and weaker with each exhalation. It was as if it was not the air and smoke coming out of her lungs, but life in itself. The head became heavy and the body was weightless. Her legs were coughing up. Massive hands picked her up and helped her to lie on the floor. She also saw a pink glowing point in front of her. The stranger froze over her and watched silently. It was getting really dark in her eyes.

Uuuuu, aaaaaaa, oooooooooohhhhh.

The vibrating voice was heard nearby. It was like someone was buzzing in her ear. Dana was lying on the grass. Her friend Matthew lied right next to her and apparently was waiting for her to woke up. He was a blond, tall guy. He was as young as Dana was. He didn’t like the big companies of people too. It seemed that they had found each other so they weren’t alone at all. He was someone to talk with.

Dana touched her face to see if she was wearing glasses. Yellow glasses. She had a strange feature. Her eyes weren’t addicted to bright and white lights. There were even tears of it. Most likely, this deviation of vision appeared during school, when it was necessary to write a lot with poor lighting. At least that was what the doctors thought. The girl herself believed that it was psychosomatics. The sun was beyond the horizon. The girl lied on the grass under a hammock. There was a blanket next to her. And her friend, in his own.

Dana: Matthew, I see you lied well.

The girl could be herself only with him. Sometimes they joked with sarcasm. Both of them call their humor experimental. The guy did not think long:

– Yes, I noticed how you were relaxing on the lawn. Are you decided to sleep under the stars or meet the dawn?

Dana: I need to think about it. The condition is like I am still sleeping. What did you do? Well, did you hum there something?

Matthew: I am pretending to be a shaman. I’m Joking. I’m in anticipation. Maybe we’ll meet a real shaman today. It feels like we should visiting there today.

Dana: What do you mean?

Matthew: At the festival.

He looked at Dana fluently. There was a question in his eyes after that. He stood up from the grass and gave his hand to Dana with the same strange look.

Matthew: So, get up. You surprise me from time to time. Both the fact that you don’t remember being in the yard as the fact that we have to go to the festival in half an hour. I’m a little worried about that.

The girl got up. Shake herself. Corrected her hair. Looked around. They were in the backyard garden. Neighbors were not visible. Maybe they were still sleeping. She lives in a small house near the forest, on the outskirts of the town. There were just two small rooms: bedroom, workshop, in addition to the kitchen and bathroom. All rooms were small, but comfortable. Only yellow muffled light could be found in the house in the evening. Despite her eye photophobia, Dana loves sunlight in the house during the day, so only white translucent curtains hang on the windows. The house seemed light and comfortable. Except of the workshop.

There were more order than comfort. Dana had a lot of interests. But her favorite hobby was photography. But her main work was sewing. She liked to sew clothes, imagining that someone will put them on and she will shoot them on camera either on the street or in nature, so who just wanted to take a picture in the photo studio was renting a room for an hour, or even two. On the walls, in her small creative space, were hanged the photos that she liked most. Street pictures, as well as photos from studio. All of the photos were portrait and black and white. The faces could clearly be seen as It’s special lines and mimics, like at first glance.

Each face line tells a lot about a person: character, strengths and weaknesses of the person. Dana has always been attracted to look at people’s faces. Whatever the physique, but the face is the most distinctive part of the body. We are either attracted to or pushed away from the person. Everyone feels that way intuitively while looking at a person in the face – no matter how he is dressed up and how he behaves himself. Somebody said that the eyes are a mirror of the soul.

But it’s just a drop in the ocean. The whole face is the atlas of human life. From wrinkles to moles, from hairline to ear tilt and chin shape. Therefore, Dana considers physiognomy to be the most intimate hobby. But only a few people talk about it. Matthew is the most frequent listener of her reasoning and observations. They entered the house. She invited a friend to wait in the workshop. Then she went to make a fresh coffee for them. Matthew sited comfortably on an old wooden chair, painted white near the sewing table. I had to move the fabric and the sewing machine to settle down comfortably. He likes what Dana does. Beautiful outfits. Without unnecessary details, pretentious inserts. It was more monotonous, with the original cut. A combination of colors and textures. Dana likes, especially, traditional outfits sewed in a modern way. This allows her not to forget about her Ukrainian roots, but also to declare them boldly in modern society.

There was a small locker in the corner, the door was half-opened. That was where her sewing products were stored. It looked tempting and mysterious as in childhood when you found some parent box or box, which kept something dear and valuable. Dana entered the room with a small tray. There were two cups of coffee and a handful of chocolates in it. Delicious things for a friend. There was a rocking chair behind the door. She sited there, sipping fragrant coffee with cinnamon. It often helps her to wake up accompanied by thoughts and ideas.

Dana: I can spend hours looking at these pictures. They inspire me. Sometimes I imagine what kind of dress or suit would fit their faces. If we didn’t rush to the festival, I’d still be sitting here. To see if I’m sleeping or waking up.

Matthew: What is sleep? It seems to me that everything is happening in some parallel universe. Shamans are able to walk through these worlds. Maybe a dream is the same trance to travel the worlds.

Dana: By the way, what will happen at the festival?

Matthew: I don’t know for sure, but it’s ethnic event. Today is the summer solstice. Traditionally it held in Greenstone Park. By the way, if we finished our coffee so it’s time to go.

Dana: Wait for me about fifteen minutes, please. The girl was heading to the bathroom. She was trying to remember last night. And the only thing that came to her mind was a dark silhouette at a stop at the train station. And then there was the wagon where she fainted. In the bathroom, near the mirror hanged one lamp with yellow muffled light only. She took off her glasses and then washed herself and were watching at face of herself for a couple of minutes. She kept her hands under a stream of warm water to make them warm. It is nice to put your palms back to your face. This feeling of heating helps her to catch the moment that she is here and now.