[1965]
My old village home still looked lovely. My mother, sweeping the front yard, smiled at me through the window, just as she always did. Before me sat a plate with breadcrumbs. It's an evidence that I had just finished my breakfast. Or rather a brunch, since the sun was already high above the roof. I stepped outside to ask my mother something.
"Mom, I want to..." Before I could finish, she nodded enthusiastically.
"Yes, the brown horse is over there. Please help me return it to our neighbor at the edge of the village," she said, then went back to sweeping. I was puzzled; since when did my family use a horse for daily needs? Since when my mother can speak?
But... perhaps she had borrowed it to sell her bread that morning. And maybe she had been able to speak all along... I kissed my mother on the cheek before mounting the brown horse.
Along the way, I encountered the elder neighbor who always bought more than four loaves of bread. He smiled warmly at me while feeding his cows and sheep, and I returned the greeting with a simple "good morning." Further on, a neighbor living three blocks away was filling a bucket with water for his plants; he, too, smiled as I passed. Everything was just as it usually was. I knew all my neighbors. Most of whom were customers for our family's bread, including their children. I was so savoring the village environment I had missed so much.
But come to think of it, do a village untouched by urban cruelty still exist like here? If they do, I would rather live here. I'm tired dealing with the endless stress of economic woes and persistent illnesses.
We turned toward the wheat fields. The men older than me, including my father were hard at work weeding the crops. It wasn't that I was too lazy to help father; I simply preferred helping mother. Kneading the dough, watching over the loaves in the stone oven without stepping away, lest they burn in a matter of minutes, and so on. I felt sorry for my mother having to do it all alone.
Not far off, a group of girls was washing clothes. They glanced at me, then whispered and giggled among themselves. I didn't care whether they were gossiping about me in a good way or a bad one. Hmmm... they were certainly sweet, but I wanted someone sweet and brave. I hoped one of them might be just that—after all, they were quite lovely to look at.
I moved away from the river and turned right, heading toward my neighbor's house at the edge of the village. Suddenly, the brown horse bolted in the opposite direction, carrying me further and further away from home. I pulled hard on the reins, but the horse kept galloping, snapping the leather strap. We were racing toward a forest!
"Stop! Stop! We're going the wrong way!" I shouted, tugging at its mane. The horse wouldn't listen. It kept galloping, racing past birch trees and thickets that led me deeper into the growing darkness. I was terrified the horse was taking me somewhere terrible, somewhere I might never return from. I didn't want the smiles of my mother and the people I knew to vanish forever. I lost all sense of time—whether the black horse galloped for a long while or a short one, through day or night.
Eventually, the forest came to an end. We emerged from that terrifying place. What lay before me now was no longer a place of horror. It was a steppe. The place that I yearned...
... A place I had been certain I would never see again after moving to the city. And a place that turning into ash when war broke me. Now, I could feel the beauty of that place once more. The brown horse came to a halt. I dismounted and looked at it, full of questions.
The horse simply gazed deeply at me, wearing a look that seemed, for a fleeting moment, like a wise smile. I asked no further questions and continued walking across the meadow. A blue sky and white clouds adorned this endless expanse of grass.
I walked on, feeling as though I had been traveling for over two hours. The steppe seemed to have no end. The brown horse walked tirelessly beside me. Then, as fatigue began to set in, I looked at the horse. Where did this steppe end? And what would I see next? I mounted the brown horse again, and it trotted forward at a steady pace, carrying me further along.
We reached the edge of the steppe. Spread out below lay a field of golden wheat... a place that seemed untouched by anyone; perhaps no living creature even knew of its existence. I dismounted, holding onto the horse's mane; I did not want my hands to sully that golden wheat. From that vantage point, I simply gazed at a landscape even more beautiful than the steppe itself.
I decided to embrace her, unwilling to let her transform into something else or vanish. It didn't matter if the walk back to the village was long; the important thing was having a companion for the journey. I looked at her again and whispered:
"Could this be a dream? Will we ever return here again someday?"
She simply smiled, gazing deeply into my eyes. She embraced me in return, and a radiant light enveloped us. That was her answer—before my vision faded into eternal darkness.
*translated from 2017 archive