Three Dreams by Dejan Stojanovic

A Fairy

Dejan Stojanović

In the foggy desires of my dreams, I often returned to the starry landscapes of the cosmic fatherland, recognizing the unknown outlines and imagining real and never-declared truths.  Forests, fogs and whirlpools rose above this thought, this enchantment and this real place.

Along with this dream was born another, a dream about a woman who was never sung about or fully described or understood.  The dream was being born about a fairy, Laura, Beatrice, the non-existent Jelena, a cat woman, and a snake woman—a dream about all women and all the madness, jealousies, fears, passions, torments and crimes committed because of women.

This secret of secrets and truth of truths hovers over us, and in us, almost from times immemorial: the picture of the ideal, imagined woman not dreamed of enough, unattainable and unreachable. This picture replaces and enhances reality as if by God’s creation: A woman is an illusion, an obsession, a fulfillment of one’s ego; she is an initiator, a paradox, and a destroyer.

On a hill I often hiked, after a longer walk and meditation, I sat down to rest, contemplating, and fell asleep.  I caught sight of her contours in the mist.  This enigmatic and somewhat melancholy beauty was approaching, moving closer and closer.  She wore only a cloak made of mist, which further emphasized her dreamy curves.  She touched me with her fingers.  Trembling, I thought that my heart might jump from my chest.  I woke up in a cold sweat, but soon afterwards fell asleep again.

The fog lifted and I could see the shape of the city below.  There were attractive but strange streets, as if haunted.  I appeared even to myself as a stranger in the city that should be mine, but seemed not to be.  I then went to a park by the lake.  The park was full of different types of flowers, and the lake was well known for its great variety of birds.

Walking through the park, at one point, I decided to make a bouquet of the most beautiful flowers, which were growing everywhere.  With bouquet in hand, I reached the lake and started throwing small flat stones at the water, watching how they skipped along the water’s surface, recalling how this was my favorite game in childhood.  The small stones skimmed the farthest, almost reaching the island.  One reached the island itself and ended up in the hand of the woman in the mist.

This was truly jolting.  I thought that this terrible dream belonged to the past, that I had woken up and liberated myself from this nightmare, but here again, she appeared.  She was the most beautiful and captivating, yet disturbing being.  Why is she here, in my city, and where did she acquire this skill to catch so effortlessly the small stone with her tender hand?  Although it was evening and she was not that near, I clearly saw her smile at me and invite me to join her.

I took a nearby rowboat and paddled to the island.  I found myself on a deserted island, clearly recognizing that the woman was dressed in a bright light, not mist.  She flew above me and I realized that she was a fairy.  I always wanted to meet a fairy.

A Mountain and a Fairy

 I looked at the edges of the mountain’s majestic beauty, which ripped into the never-ending clear sky.  Yellow, like the hue of a halo, started to appear at the very edge of the mountain.  It spread and changed into a single-colored dazzling yellow rainbow, engulfing the mountain edge meeting the heavenly space.

The halo slowly lost its intensity, acquiring white-like colors covering the whole mountain.  Although enveloped in mist, I could still discern the mountain’s shape, which had somehow become more slender, with only a reminder of the former halo that had descended from the very top of the mountain face, like the golden, luxuriant mane of a woman.  The fairy again reappeared.  Her splendid, white face, in such vast dimensions, presented not only a God-like expression, but a fearsome one as well.

If there is truth, it must be here, in this sensual tension and genuineness of a visual occurrence that fulfills and negates me, bringing me to the edge of disappearance or transforming me into something else, which—with a cathartic and enlightening feeling of a personal change—appears before me in all of its greatness.

 An Island in Emptiness

The night was approaching and a breeze was blowing; the street lights were already spreading the light…. I could hear people murmuring and cars on the road and see couples in love passing by, including some who were passionately kissing.  The people seemed beautiful, but I was in a world of my own visions.  I was still chased by the thought of an ideal woman.

I arrived at the gates of my house.  I passed through the garden of varied flowers with fluttering petals, which always attracted my attention, but now, for some unknown reason, I hardly noticed.  I entered the house and sat in my favorite armchair and, within a few minutes, had fallen into a deep sleep.

I found myself in endless darkness and emptiness.  And then suddenly, as if in an explosion, a sea surfaced.  All around me, there was only the sea.  Where am I now?  I am neither at the coast nor in some aircraft, neither in the water nor above it.  Out of the boundless sea a strange dot appeared, gradually developing into a beautiful, paradise-like island.

On the island, I noted a nice sandy path and next to the beaches flourished seemingly cultivated vegetation.  But again the question nagged at me: Where am I?  Just like earlier with the sea, now the island began spreading, but I felt as if I was not on it, although I know I was.

Now, I was looking at the space between one of the island’s beaches, and a fairy tale-like garden from which appeared a snake, quickly—and gracefully for a snake—slithering toward the shore.  As soon as it plunged into the water, the snake transformed into a woman.  It was she, the fairy, more beautiful than ever before, like a goddess.  I felt a strong tremor in my heart, while before my eyes a hurricane-like storm was approaching, its walls of water shredding everything in its path; beaches were not the same, and trees receded under the assault of the destructive power of the flood waters.  Everything was disappearing as the uncontrollable winds and water raged.  She, the fairy, was hovering over this storm dressed in a mist and observing.  She was watching lightly, yet with some arrogance in her face, the drama of nature, as if it were a theatrical performance.  This ambiguous and elusive facial expression of hers drove me crazy, for it was a cross between a promiscuous woman and a Madonna, dominating the performance of the nature’s fury.  It was the end of the world, yet she was so calm.

And again, there was an endless darkness and emptiness…. 

Translated by Branko and Nellie Mikasinovich

 Note: These excerpts were written in 1993 and are from Dejan Stojanović’s unpublished work, The World in Nothingness.

Serbian Fantastic Prose