The Dragon's Daughter

I offer you the transliteration, more than translation, of another Ukrainian folk story recorded in the book "З живого джерела". I have taken the artistic liberty of changing some elements of the story and elaborating on some others.

Once upon a time, a wealthy man travelled to a distant realm to trade. But water was scarcer than precious stones in that kingdom, so the merchant turned thirsty as death. Desperate, he went to the Tsar, who surely must have water. How could he not? For he was not only lord of all that land, but also a Dragon and a skilled sorcerer.

"Sir. If you give me that which you have at home, I shall let you drink the water of my well," said the Tsar, smirking.

"Except my wife, I will part with anything," replied the man and signed the vow. But he did not know that soon after he set out, his wife bore him a son, and one such that words can't describe! Swift as grass he grew and strong as an oak. When the merchant returned home, a boy ran to embrace him, saying: "I am your son, Ivan."

Hearing this, the man first rejoiced but, remembering the vow, started weeping.

"Why do you cry, papa?" asked the boy.

"Never you mind."

Time passed and the boy quickly became a young man. One day, as father and son were building a cattle shed by the river, Ivan spotted a scrap of paper hidden in the dam. Unfolding the paper he discovered the vow made between the merchant and the Tzar.

"Papa, why did you not tell me that I'm given to the Tsar? Prepare me for the journey, for I will go to the Tzar."

The father and the mother dressed their son in his dearest clothes and their direst tears - as many as they could muster - their liquid sorrow could quench his thirst in that desert land.

When Ivan reached the Dragon's palace, he was greeted by the lord himself and his three daughters. The youngest one loved him at once.

"Ivan," the Dragon spoke. "This night my river must be dammed and my field ploughed, the wheat sown, grown, ripened and reaped, threshed and winnowed, the grain milled and a bun baked for breakfast."

The boy walked away heavy-hearted, but on the way to his quarters encountered the Dragon's daughter again.

"Do not despair, Ivan, all will be well!" she said to him. "Go and rest until the morrow."

As great a mage her father was, his power was still shadowed by hers. When darkness fell, she whistled, and before her loomed two wispy servants. She whistled again and they flew to the field in a flurry. When Ivan woke in the morning, a hot bun lay ready on the table. This he took to the Dragon, who ground his teeth in rage, for he had failed to abase Ivan. Curbing his fury, he spoke:

"Ivan. This night my best horse must be tamed; it stands in my stables, behind twelve doors."

Ivan was a good horseman, and eagerly made for the stables, but his way was barred by the Dragon's daughter, who warned him:

"Ivan, don't be fooled. This task is harder yet than the last! The horse within is Father, and as soon as you approach him, he will trample you to death." Then she thought, and added, "It's too late, I will help you. Go and rest until the morrow."

As soon as all lay to sleep, she whistled and her airy servants appeared. She whistled once more and they soared into the stables, squeezing through the twelve gates and they grasped the horse's mane and rode upon it through the night until it was winded and so wetted with sweat that it seemed it had been drenched in water. The wild horse galloped and galloped, but eventually stood still. The servants took the fatigued horse back to the stables and vanished.

In the morning the Dragon called Ivan and spoke to him, the cold sweat on his brow barely concealing his choler:

"This eve you must come to me!"

As soon as Ivan left the court, the Dragon's daughter appeared to him and urged him:

"Ivan, if you go see Father, he will strangle you! You and I must flee."

Quickly they gathered their things and left the palace.

They walked and walked when suddenly they heard a rumble. The Dragon's daughter pressed her ear to the ground and whispered:

"They are pursuing us. We must hide."

She took a blade of dry grass and ripped it in twain, and at once she became a field of wheat and Ivan its watchman. Soon arrived a horseback host, the Dragon's servants, who asked Ivan the watchman:

"Did you not see a boy and a girl running past?"

"I did see them run past when this field was sown."

Discouraged, the servants returned to the palace, where the Dragon enquired:

"So, did you overtake them?"

"No, we did not."

"Did you not see anyone?"

"No, only a guard keeping ward over a field of wheat."

"That was them! Had you but torn the smallest kernel of wheat, you would have grasped her very head. Go forth once more, and catch them this time!"

Soon again they were on the heels of Ivan and the girl. Hearing their hoofs hitting the ground, she took a pebble from the road's side and broke it in half, whereupon she became a church and Ivan a priest upon the porch. The horsemen, having reached the church, asked the priest:

"Did you not see a boy and a girl running past?"

"I did see them run past when this church was built."

The irresolute riders returned to the palace, where the Dragon scolded them once more:

"It was them once more! Had you but clutched the knocker, you would have held her very neck." With this, he rose from his throne, climbed to his highest tower and called to his servants, "fetch me my pitchforks!"

He propped each of his eyelids with A fork and, as he watched the horizon he caught a glimpse of his daughter and Ivan. He spread his wings and dashed after them. Hearing the whistling of the wings, the daughter gasped:

"We are lost, Father is after us! But there's still one chance. Do not let him drink of me."

She then took a tear from her eye and tore it in two, turning herself into a well, and Ivan into a Cossack, a sabre at his waist. Soon, the Dragon reached the well and asked the Cossack if ever he saw run past a girl and a boy.

"Never did I see" replied Ivan.

But the Dragon glanced in his eye and realised the truth at once, so he said to the Cossack:

"Let me satiate my thirst!"

"You may not. From this well only the Ataman¹ may drink."

But the Dragon did not take heed, and instead stooped over the well. As he took the bucket to his mouth, Ivan, in one swift stroke severed his head. The well turned back into a girl, and the Cossack into a boy, who together walked back home and idled in wedding feasts.

^{1 Cossack chief.}

Dancing with Gardel

"Volver,

con la frente marchita,

las nieves del tiempo

platearon mi sien.

Sentir,

que es un soplo la vida,

que veinte años no es nada..."

Carlos Gardel

"The Mute" sings better every day. Yet no-one dances when the Thrush of Buenos Aires calls. He's probably rolling in his grave, his elegance twisted by a feeling of unfairness. Some say it is a sign or respect to not dance to the dead man's baritone, yet is it not sacrilege to let his memory fade in the milongas where he was an accomplished dancer. Let us speak with him then, echo his words with our hearts, their beat reverberating softly between our feet and the earth beneath.

So let him return, his forehead wrinkled, his temples silvered by the snows of time.

And let us feel, for life is but a breath, twenty years a trifle...

a Dream is a Dream is a Dream

I write inspired by the madness of the Friday eve, its petty decadence of aimless men and women, sleepwalkers on cement lubricated by brew, spit and sticky sweat. Do they know they are dreaming? You never know until you wake up...

I dreamed some nights ere of a young woman who answered by the name Ferre, yet whose true name is lost in the dream, known only to Morpheus. She found herself standing in the midst of a spacious chamber, of tall pastel coloured walls broken only by a staircase, steep as only Dutch mountains can be, winding its way round the room. At its highest point stood something that can only be described as a Lovecraftian abomination, of barely defined shape, texture and colour. Yet impression cannot resist description, and my memory of it is of an entity a little like a starfish moving as a mockery of man; bearing the rocky, brittle texture and colour of charcoal, its darkness broken only by the edges of it shape, so sharp that they nearly glowed. As it started descending the stairs, slowly, Ferre woke up from her dream, shaking and sweating.

She found herself within the very same chamber, now darker in tonality, a tranquil, dark olive. Beside her stood her friend, whose name is, perhaps, Galla. She soothed the trembling Ferre, as she thought of the time before the nightmares, before the pills. Were the capsules the cause or merely the catalyst of dread? She looked at the container standing on the squat night table, her hand grasping what her eyes could but touch. Holding the flask by her heart, to the bewilderment of Ferre, she unscrewed the cap and dropped one copper coloured capsule, a miniature metallic egg. Confusion gave way to terror when Ferre saw Galla take one pill and place it into her mouth. They gulped in unison.

Sleep pulled at her eyelids, dragging them down, but Galla would not concede before a curtain call to her pupils. Her eyes endured the constant assault of sand, searing but unyielding. And since Galla would not go to the Dreamworld, It would come to her. Between the grains stuck to her lashes she saw a familiar shape still on the spiralling stairs. Before it even quivered, she had dashed to meet it, her feet swallowing the stairs in pairs and triads until they stood beside it, their hunger quenched. Then sluggishly, painfully even, their languid legs moved in unison up the last handful of steps to a tall door. Galla tentatively taped the door ajar and stood aside, letting the leviathan lump its way within while she motioned Ferre to scale the steps and follow her fear into the room.

Ferre closed her eyes briefly to gather courage and found herself before the frame. As soon as she had stepped through it, she found herself back in the same room, dizzy with the knowledge that her dread had departed forever. Another memory surfaced soon after, a shadow of a dying girl, leaving His side. But who was He?..

Too late. I awoke confused, nagged by a prophetic feeling. I stood and went in search of Father, he would know. I found him in the dressing room and recounted him my dream and collected my thoughts.

"The strange thing is..." I added, only to be interrupted by his brisk departure. The thought was broken by the bang of the door.

Distracted, my attention fell on a set of emerald garnments hanging from a rack. A mess jacket reminiscent of a Matador's. A suit, tainted by a dark stain under the left clavicle. Some trousers...

...and Father returns and looks into my eyes, concerned. Bloodied and tired despite the rest...

...I wake yet again, woken by Galla's kiss, a deep flow of liquid tenderness, but it's not enough. I look at Ferre and ask her. Her fleshy lips don't even quiver, her short hair a helmet isolating her, keeping her warm in her coldness. As I wake again, some machine measures the coordinates of my thought: "Where are you Ferre?"

Sex, lies and statistics...

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Mark Twain

Not all things can be a gender issue. After seeing an article claiming that women were more promiscuous than men I had to laugh. I laughed again when I saw one claiming the opposite. Where the articles were written and who took the time to carry out the "research" is immaterial, so let us leave those issues aside. Also, since most of these articles are driven by an agenda to either showcase men as womanisers or women as "manisers", let's only consider the heterosexual population.

My argument is the simple fact that, on average, no gender can be any more promiscuous than the other. Let's just consider the population of an imaginary world called Miscu. Its population is composed of two genders, the "pro" and the "iti".

In Miscu, each sexual union "is" a real union, for establishes an unbreakable bond between the participants.

In the above example, both individuals have engaged in sex with one other individual. The sexual bond is not directional so both individuals, and hence genders, are equally promiscuous. Since the number of men and women in our own world is approximately equal, both genders must be equally promiscuous by definition. If you don't believe my simple example above, look at this more complex one below, where 10 individuals are involved...

In the example above, the number of links between individuals (9, precisely) remains the same for both the "iti" and the "pro" genders. Both genders are still equally promiscuous, on average, meaning that the mean is still meaningless. This leads to a more interesting point though: despite the fact that both genders have an equal number of sexual partners, the distributions of these bonds in each gender are different in a number of different ways...

• The promiscuity of the "pros" is less variable, ranging between one and two partners compared with a range between zero and five in the case of the "itis".

• The median number of sexual partners (i.e. the middle number in the distribution) is smaller for the "pros" (2) than for the "itis" (3).

• The mode (i.e. the most common number), on the other hand, is greater for the "pros" (2) than the itis (0).

• I won't even start writing about the skewness and the kurtosis, as by now you'll probably have seen my point :-)

This point is that statistics at its simplest can be a dire tool of deception and delusion, but if used properly, can give us much information. So let's just go beyond our simplistic gender biases and past the typical "itis are more promiscuous than pros" headline and try get a little closer to the truth...

Max Perutz Science Writing Award 2009

Tonight I have been pleasantly surprised to have been awarded a Highly Commended prize at the Max Perutz Science Writing Award, sponsored by the MRC. I got to spend a lovely night in the Gherkin, where we drank good wine, ate delicious food and, thanks to the DJ, danced a bit of Tango! Thanks also to the MRC for organising a Master Class on writing with poet Lavinia Greenlaw and the Guardian's science journalist Alok Jha.

The essay below is considerably more down to earth and less philosophical than my previous entry, though I hope it still is able to convey my amazement at the phenomena we call vision and consciousness.

Memories of a brain cartographer

Look. The world before you seems simple. It almost appears as though, somewhere inside your head, a cinema projector displays what your eyes capture and interpret. But that's not how we function. Instead, your brain is a cartographer, housing on its cortex a multitude of sensory, mostly visual, maps. Like regular maps, brain maps are drawn in a continuous and fluid way. Just as neighbouring countries are placed adjacent on a map, neurones that respond to similar visual locations are also grouped together.

Depending on the task at hand, our brains pick the best map to get the job done. When we talk about the Earth, depending on the context we interpret it in terms of political, geographical or weather maps, each with its rules and highlights. Just like a map maker, the brain interprets the world surrounding us by simplifying it: it splits it into categories, uses landmarks, and traces frontiers.

Over a dozen maps have recently been found in humans, spread about the brain's cortex. Some maps detect the edges and corners that delineate the outlines of objects. Others only take heed of movement or colour. Another few just seem to predict where you'll soon lay your eyes. Still others are centred on where your eyes are pointed, or relate to the position of your head or hands.

So, that variety is fascinating, but what does this add to science? Well, much of current brain science focusses on labelling a particular brain region with some function. Research programmes often try to find the "centre" for, say, envy, face perception or motivation. Remarkably few have actually explored how the brain manages to map and co-ordinate itself, that is, how it actually works.

My research focusses on learning more about visual maps, especially how they interact with attention and memory. Both are central to actual perception; for example, as you read this line you "see" the ones above and below, but ignore them; and if you close your eyes you'll find it hard to recall items around the paper or screen you read this from.

To find visual maps I use an fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scanner to obtain 3D images of brain activity through time, while volunteers perform a visual task. In one such task, participants look at a computer screen split into sectors, each sector filled with a pattern of waves changing in shape with time and disappearing. Their job is to pay attention to and then remember the patterns in some places while ignoring the rest. Then, I extract two different results. One contains the hot spots of activation during the attention and memory periods. The other, using a fairly new technique, finds chunks of brain where the pattern, not the general level, of activity, varies depending on the spatial location of stimulation.

In this way, I found that the occipital cortex, in the back of the head, showed much map-like activity when volunteers both paid attention to the visual stimuli and kept them active in memory. Interestingly, during the memory period the maps in occipital cortex were not active overall, but only subtly changed their pattern of activation. On the other hand, maps in parietal cortex, at the top and back of the brain, could be detected only during the attention period. Curiously, these same areas showed very high activation during memory, despite displaying no map-like responses.

The benefit of this increased knowledge becomes clear when we look at cases of brain damage that result in some form of visual deficit. Patients with blindsight are effectively blind, but can learn to navigate the environment. Visual neglect, on the other hand, affects attention such that patients can "see" but simply don't notice things happening in half of their visual field. Individuals with optic ataxia can describe how objects look, but find it impossible to interact with them. In contrast, those with visual agnosia are unable to name or describe objects, but can grasp them perfectly.

Many such syndromes can be better understood and treated if we know the precise properties of both the damaged and intact visual maps. We could guide rehabilitation by taking advantage of the plasticity of the brain. We might, thus, stimulate the activity of intact visual maps that communicate with the damaged ones, helping reactivate and regenerate them. This research hints at ways we might "encourage" brain cortexes to do this.

Even as my results add to our knowledge, though, they raise more questions. Why do brain areas sometimes act as maps and other times not? How do maps work when they are inactive? Much work remains to be done, but many benefits remain to be reaped. Still, one thing we can say for certain: there's much more to vision than meets the eye.

Independent/Bosch Technology Horizons essay... third time lucky?

As a friend of mine said, "Its all getting a bit predictable!" after having previously won and being Highly Commended. Having written my third essay for the Independent/Bosch Technology Horizons Award, answering the question "How can technology and engineering provide innovative solutions to today's global challenges?", I have been one the 14 (out of 545 entries) short-listed students for the 2009 prize. I was happily surprised to find out that I won 2nd prize, meaning I've collected all 3! A pity for me, and a boon for the younger generation, it is that I'm now too old to participate in the contest again... I think. Stand by for next year ;-)

UPDATE: To read previous winning and 2nd place essays by the various contestants in recent years, check out the new Bosch Technology Horizons site!

"Waste not want not

Climate change: our direst global challenge. The media preaches manifold solutions, including the well-worn emphasis on renewable energy sources and status quo approaches like "clean coal". Technology has endowed us with god-like powers of geoengineering: we can either help nature, by infusing iron into oceans to proliferate carbon-absorbing plankton, or bypass nature by floating lenses in space to reflect the Sun - a modern-day Perseus' shield.

This is all very well. But so long as it evades the underlying problem, our entire approach remains misguided. Climate change is one symptom of our society's affliction: its vampiric lust for energy. There's no denying that climate change must be prevented, but if we don't attack its root cause our efforts remain in vain. Here's where engineering comes in handy. It's not simply the tools it provides, but the philosophy it embodies. Engineering is all about efficiency - using just enough resources to solve a problem, and doing it well to boot. In recent years, researchers have realised we waste much of the extracted energy before using it. That's why an engineer's mindset is so beneficial to scientific research. Let's see how...

Even as we liberate the energy latent in light, wind and tides, much of it is lost. At times when the supply of generated energy exceeds the moment's demand, conventional batteries cannot effectively store the excess. Often the problem is that we store energy in an inefficient form. Think, "what is cheaper and simpler, my thermos or my laptop battery?" Terry Murphy, CEO of SolarReserve has put this simple idea to use in solar thermal plants, by storing energy as heat in molten salt until it is needed to create electricity. A similar approach, useful for wind turbines, is the use of flywheels which store rotational energy by increasing their speed of rotation, then release it back as they slow down.

Photovoltaic solar plants, however, can't afford these solutions, since they produce electricity directly. By way of solution, Donald Sadoway at MIT has developed a cheap and efficient liquid battery, in which energy is stored as metal ions, then freed when the ions fuse into an electrolyte. But perhaps the most promising method is one inspired by photosynthesis: professor Daniel Nocera of MIT has happened upon a holy grail of chemistry - an efficient catalyst to split water into oxygen and hydrogen, the latter of which can be burned to run our car or used in a fuel cell. Importantly, this process does not need a large infrastructure, so every household could manufacture its own fuel.

Speaking of households, new technologies will avoid waste here too. A breakthrough by MIT researchers Byoungwoo Kang and Gerbrand Ceder, speeds the tunnelling of lithium ions inside batteries. This means much higher speeds of recharging, allowing a mobile phone to charge within 10 seconds, and an electric car in 5 minutes. This simple development could effectively eliminate the energy waste from chargers being left on overtime.

A quite different solution is necessary for the PC, an energy hog in our age of constant Internet access. Companies like CherryPal propose a shift towards "cloud computing", where the bulk of processing power is distributed and accessed by many users from individual home terminals. These terminals are simple, integrated and ecological machines that avoid energy waste. However, their connection to the cloud can provide scalable processing power depending on our needs - from web browser to supercomputer.

Yet another way to conserve energy mirrors the thermos example described above. Recent improvements in the manufacture of aerogel, a powerful insulating material, mean it could be affordable enough for use in utilities, such as fridges and ovens, and even in construction. This means we could keep the right places in our houses cold and warm using far less energy. Given that buildings cause over a third of carbon emissions, this becomes a very attractive proposal.

Another big spender is lighting, since our addiction to incandescent bulbs burns one whole fifth of the energy we produce. LED bulbs, similar in usability to incandescents, use some 30 times less energy and have a lifespan 100 times longer, but their price has made them prohibitive. Until recently, that is: a new advance by Colin Humphreys of Cambridge University allows LEDs to be manufactured en masse on silicone wafers instead of the typical sapphire, at a fraction of the usual cost.

In the light of these advances, reducing our carbon footprint is a piece of cake: all we need is to learn how to slice our cake more thinly! When it comes to tackling the challenges ahead, the old proverb is right: "waste not, want not"."

Taut Tangos

Standing before the bleak gate, I saw no sign nor heard noise that would betray a hint of commotion within. Without, the night held in its airs a sort of agitated yet limp festivity: behind me, in an inner court crowned by a fountain, young men and women wandered vaguely, stirred into Brownian motion by spirits and sexual tension.

The ghost of sensual grace lingered there all the while enveloping the columns that held the balconies above me suspended in the burdened air. The shadows of those pillars, hence, resembled the svelte figure of the Flamenco dancer that had infused so much presence into the then quiet plaza. The towering terrace above took me under its wing, shielded me from the unnatural light of street lamps, and muffled the sound of senseless murmurs. I extended a night-cloaked hand and hissed a call.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

The hive replied with a buzz. The door gave way to cautiously curious fingertips. Within, a stony staircase rose like smoke, ethereal rock. Step by step, the stairs breathed me upwards to the light, like a moth. Out it streamed from the threshold, solidifying not only the stairwell but also the sense of music. The warm, textured sounds slid along the walls and floor, perspiring into my shoes. Like grit it was, hot sand stinging my feet, giving me agony for each instant stood still, bound by boots of Spanish leather.

I strode through, past the oaken door, past mirrors and fedoras, past Gauchos and Catalanes. I stepped into the royal chamber, where the Tangueros moved and spoke the tongue of turning bodies, shaking to the Milonga's beat like bees. The tiled floor, whose flowery regularity scented each tread taken, extended but a handful feet in each direction. A box of sardines where a dozen couples slid like fish past one another and past an impromptu audience waiting for their turn to enter the play.

I lost little time, instead losing myself in the communal embrace, letting the pleasantly poisoned music sting deep into my ear.

Tacit dancer

Her dark figure grew from the ground up, a shade liberated from the confines of surface. Her stance was a silent dance, motionless, yet stating intent, a stifled shout: "Flamenco!" Her face was aged, yet of timeless beauty:

Half moon eyes - the inverse smiles of samurai masks. The slender, sharp nose sliced the air she breathed, a blade hung over her fine mouth, wide and stern guarding a voice deep and sensuous, of musky tones, textured like white birch bark. Her hair, knotted into a tense bun, more than embraced her scalp, nigh permeating it even, the black ink of an epopee twisted and condensed beyond sense.

What darker threads of thought hid beneath? I imagined their ebony silk boil into sung voice as passion burnt them, leaving only the ash of memory. She did not rummage through the pale flakes of feeling, but instead tamed desire by becoming more obscure than its object, unfathomable to temptation and fate.

As dark stars absorb all light about themselves, so she had drained the light of day to herself, leaving the rest of the square in darkness to my eyes. Only later did I take notice of her escort, a man of ample chest and weathered, rocky face. His apparent prowess was tempered by his meek demeanour, such that side by side the two companions appeared disparate yet inexorably bound: like the King and Queen of a graceful chess set, like Lord and Lady Macbeth, like Mathieu and Conchita...

Silverback

A living image of the one who is Silverback, yet charcoal heart, burning...

Broken glass

Years ere, I had a Nightmare, a most unpleasant affair. Indeed, a nightmare with capital letter, for the usual nightmare is rather interesting. The latter turns the misty matter of dream more solid, more living, and sharper than sentient existence. But Nightmare is something else, it is the sweat soaking your face in the morning, the tremor of tendons as fingers sweep sand out of dilated eyes. Nightmare is a dream too frighteningly real, one that threatens to overthrow stable reality to let reign the pandemonium of reverie. Fear comes from feeling that your existence is perhaps confined to the realm of the looking glass, and the smirking face behind the mirror gloats over your stolen freedom...

That morning I had been thus caged in Nightmare, not by iron bars, but by the vast, barren landscape that stretched before me and across infinity as a tired god on a cloudy bed. The whiteness of the endless plane bred madness in my mind as my eyes turned drunk with bare absence. I floated, shapeless and incorporeal, an eyeless observer to the scenes that would unfold in that timeless limbo. Both my being and senses were ensnared, unable to deviate but for one instant, locked into place by dread and anticipation.

Suddenly, an image manifested, as though it had always been there: a young woman, bare and beautiful, sprinted towards the glass screen separating her and me. She leaped through the wall and, as though Time blinked during the impact, appeared on the other side. She crouched on the floor unharmed, almost foetal in her mien, her head bowed not low enough to masquerade the fairness of her face. But then another blink, this time in the eyes of Chance, and where she had been, a bloody pool extended on the plane. Horror shook my sleeping body as I felt, more than saw, her body entire torn by the sharp shards of crystal. Both images stood waiting, languishing in my eyes as consciousness attempted vainly to refuse them passage. Both seen at once, yet separate, as though Fate held its trumps in hand, a sadistic player who out of spite refuses to play a card. Death and life clasped in one cruel fist...

the kind Dragon, the alabaster Tower and the lone Raven

It is a little know fact that Dragons are not malefic. Their breath, licked by flurrying tongues of flame, serves not only the combustion of the flesh, but gives theirs life. Dragon's blood is made of rubies, molten and pushed by their mighty hearts, each beat sending the blaze of life to their very fingertips where it dances round and about, almost leaving their hands as a halo of healing force. If a Dragon surrounds you in his colossal hand, fear nothing, his sweat may burn but not harm, drink up and your sadness shall shatter and, as tiny droplets of mist do, give rise to rainbow.

We've cheated much these gentle creatures, in search of the treasures they keep within and not without, for, contrary to legend, they search no riches for themselves. It is us greedy ghouls who, craving their blood, take up arms against these noble behemoths and leech their sap, plunder their passion, let it run and crystallize into empty, listless stones. So you see, the Basilisk has human form, our so called heroes make up the Medusa, each a serpent grown on the head of covetousness, while our fond villains, unlike Perseus, possess no polished shields, no mirrors. But perhaps one can't deflect this gaze no more, so much amassed urge that it has condensed to two black holes that swallow worlds entire.

You will ask, how can these leviathans fall prey to our puny assails? The reasons are rather simple: Dragons cannot but be kind. The irrational heat within them never turns to inferno, but always tender, rises up to their eyes, making their vision ruddy, wholesome. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Indeed, each flame that leaves their mouth is a piece from the mosaic of their soul that they pledge, pawn even, to invigorate our fading Earth. And though we are to them but mosquitoes, our swords but harmless trunks, it is our poisonous hatred and greed which disease and ravage their bodies for the sake of a few drops of their crystal life.

Sometimes the malady infused fails to harm the heart, even as the collapsing corpse unzips scale by scale, disintegrating into fine dust. Instead the plump, pulsating clot falls and buries itself. In the stead of precious blood, brute earth fills its throbbing core and flows through its atria, as a beggar pilgrimaging through a palace. And with each beat, the soil acquires the redder, crystal aspect of true blood. From the makeshift grave sand, grit and crushed rocks spread as a living desert, devouring our lush envy.

In the midst of one such roseate desert stands a Tower carven from Alabaster. It is said a dying God sculpted it for his bride, tracing its shape with his bare fingers, moulding the stone a caress at a time, scratching skylights and portholes into the translucent stone. As he laboured, tender each touch, he eroded his hands past existence, salving their demise with the sweat and tears he rubbed into the rock.

His stumpy fingers still so dexterous that they fashioned within the spire round rooms amidst an arabesque of corridors, each styled with mural upon mural of myths and legends sculptured in sleep by the mistress living within, each story crowned by 3 words writ in charcoal. At the very pinnacle, within an oval chamber he placed not only the dame's bed but, to her delight, also a replica precise of the very steeple it was housed in. The same chambers and galleries, frescoes and syllables, that very sanctum sheltering the spire, and the same love etched within it as without. A Matryoshka of ivory towers...

By day, 'twas a lighthouse concentrating the light pouring out of the shining hole in the sky, beckoning the nomadic winds whose motions stirred even the sedentary sands. When dark fell, the light trapped in its labyrinth web of stony threads, caged as in diamond, would search out its pores and perspire without.

Some say a Raven, an Icarus of its own kind, would fly too close to the tower on such nights, and clothe itself not merely in the onyx yarns, but taint its darkness in the light lingering within. Or perhaps not tarnish but sharpen the edges of his ebony, reminding him that e'en his eve carries the seed of morn. Ash-Winged Rokh, some call him, or Night's Mirror, or Charred Cherub, or Lone Silverback... Lone because he is the last and first. Lone because he feels not loneliness. Lone because he sees no frontier 'tween self, sand or sky. Lone because his beak spoke too sharply of love. Lone because his true name is Raven, and evermore will be.

Münchhausen: Byronic or Baronic

Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Freiherr von Münchhausen, hitherto known as the Baron, is Byron's lost progeny. Historical inaccuracy and the relative non-linearity of time come to my rescue afore critics even unhinge their mouths and unfasten their minds. As the Baron never once said, "It's much more than a fact. That's how it really happened!"¹

Though the Baron's blood may not belong to Byron, they do share one ink-pot. The Baron is a Byronic hero disguised by humour, but familial features manifest clearly in the traces of Raspe's plume: his rebellion against the crude rules of reality, fuelled by intellectual and creative passions that bear oft-destructive aftermaths.

But the distant nephew becomes a bastard son when Grigori Gorin (Григорий Горин) Olivetti's claws scraped out the paper a darker, melancholy, and vitally, more human Baron. From the ashes of Gorin's nigh-forgotten play "The most truthful" (Самый правдивый) rose the tragi-comic film "That very Münchhausen" (Тот самый Мюнхгаузен), which profited from Oleg Yankovsky (Олег Янковский), whose brilliant acting gave this Baron the compelling charisma, magnetic charm and keenness of a true Byronic hero.

This forgotten classic turns the concept of Münchhausen on its very head, since here "Baron Münchhausen is famous not because he flew [to the moon] or not, but because he never lies"², therein lies his greatest strength and fatal flaw. He lives isolated from a society that regards him first as a deceiver and later as a madman, estranged from people who eagerly shift from living one lie to the next, collectively as a herd of cattle. Our Baron simply knows that one cannot hide from truth by closing one's eyes, as children do, he "can't do anything secretly, [...] only openly"³; his maturity is even more evident in his courage, since he does not "fear appearing funny. It's not something anyone can afford."⁴

But he exists not merely in exile from the rest of the human race, but also in disdain of all hierarchies and ranks. He acts not merely like a king, when he threatens war against England lest it declare the Americas independent, but as a God, dispelling inclement weather, defying time and brandishing the power of death and life (over a duck). He openly rejects and ridicules the relationship of master and servant, whose orders and mandates he regards as arbitrary. As a guard is about to arrest the Baron under the Duke's orders of "using force in case of resistance", he replies "who is to use force - you or I? [...] Let us both carry out the orders. Logical?"⁵ and goes on to theatrically caricature their execution. When he finally arrives to the plaza where the Duke has assembled his entourage, he does so unbound and followed by a band of music. For Münchhausen, society's ways and laws are incomprehensible, as someone remarks: "First we were planning the festivities, then the arrests. Finally we decided to combine them"⁶



But it is the very creative and destructive passion that fuels Münchhausen that also leads to his demise when he is forced to compromise for the sake of love. Like Samson, he is rendered powerless, chained by love between two pillars when on the one hand his beloved mistress Martha, bent on marriage, threatens to leave him, and on the other hand his divorce with Jacobine won't be approved lest he declare in writing that he is a liar and his stories fabrications. Reluctantly, he concedes to the request, but the weight of the columns tears his soul in twain, and though even Galileo abjured, Münchhausen "always preferred Giordano Bruno."⁷ His persona humiliated and destroyed, Münchhausen finally turns unstable and, revolted by his own actions, mutinies against himself and Life, murdering the Baron and turning into a common gardener - Müller...

Yet later it is that same energy leads his rebellion against Death, his resurrection three years (not days) later, when he realises that denying his nature is futile as Martha is unable to love his empty carcass: "To return her, I'll have to return myself"⁸. More tragic still, is that his absence sires a cult of personality whose profiteers are those who wrought his downfall. These very leeches try to thwart his return by imprisoning him, labelling him an insane impersonator and setting up a fraudulent court hearing and a sham test of his identity. The Baron easily sees through the ploy, realising that the cannon that is meant to loft him to the Moon is filled with damp gunpowder meant to result in his public ridicule, and recharges it with dry black powder. Ironically the Duke, afraid of killing the Baron, declares his identity restored and his trip to the Moon "accomplished", launching the general merriment and urging: "Join us, Baron. Join us."⁹ But the Baron is "too tired of dying"¹⁰ to forfeit again, a promise is a promise, he will fly to the Moon... His last, exhausted words burst out thus: "A smart face is not a sign of intellect, gentlemen! All foolishness on earth is made with precisely this expression. Smile, gentlemen. Smile..."¹¹

I'll leave you with a mind- and tongue-twister: Is the Baron a Byronic hero, or is Byron a Baronic villain?

Footnotes (the original Russian citations):
^{1) Это гораздо больше, чем факт. Так оно и было на самом деле.
2) Барон Мюнхгаузен славен не тем что он летал или не летал, а тем, что никогда не врёт.
3) Я не могу в тайне. Я могу только открыто.
4) Я не боялся казаться смешным. Это не каждый может себе позволить.
5) Кому применять силу — мне или вам? [...] Тогда оба будем выполнять приказ. Логично?
6) Сначала намечались торжества, потом аресты. Потом решили совместить.
7) Я всегда больше любил Джордано Бруно…
8) Чтобы вернуть её, придётся вернуть себя
9) Присоединяйтесь, барон. Присоединяйтесь.
10) Господи, как умирать надоело!
11) Умное лицо — ещё не признак ума, господа! Все глупости на земле совершались именно с этим выражением лица. Улыбайтесь, господа. Улыбайтесь…}

No carapace

I more than once heard people say, often proudly, that their experiences in love had led them to grow a thick skin. I've never understood why others regard insensitivity as strength and, even more often, emotionality as weakness. My belief is that there is far more courage in growing keener with each joy and pain we experience, and to open our heart all the more when we know we may suffer. Here's the expression of this belief:


No...

Carapace.
Spartan shield shed into chasm.
Pachyderm.
Arduous tusks, scab scratched off.
Ivory.
Charcoal rooks flew pawning coins.
Adamant.
Trumped by hearts, piked, clubbed to ash.

I've naught to hide beneath my pelt,
all walls forswear and ribs unsheathe,
cerise hood lift: this heart must breathe,
admit caress and wild whip's welt,

my sweetest seed shall don no husk.
Though lids may moor, put out the lights,
I shall not fall to mourning nights,
this Spanish Don won't turn to dusk.

The Sabre-nosed Hag

This is the artistic translation of an archetypal Ukrainian folk story written in the book "З живого джерела" edited by Упоряд. Л. Дунаєвська, and illustrated by Олександра Міхнушова. The black humoured ending of this tale is, again, typically Eastern...

Once there was, or perhaps not, a place beyond dark forests and deep seas; seventy seven kingdoms away and further yet - by ten sparrow steps and twenty flea jumps. There lived one man, who had as many children as holes in a sieve and one more.

The man grieved, thinking what to do with his babes, since he was poorer than a church mouse. Looking at the children, his heart tore: pale, hungry and so weak that the wind toppled them. Long he thought how to remedy his plight , but was incapable of inventing anything. When his wife still lived, they had somehow managed from day to day, but when she died, all troubles tumbled upon his poor shoulders. He turned and twisted his mind this way and that, but the more he tried, the worse it all seemed.

"I can’t endure this any longer," he told himself. "I will go to the world, and find fortune, for if I stay sat still, we shall all perish.”

Having fed his children with whatever was left, he threw an axe upon his shoulder and went into the wide world. He went, walked and wandered until he got lost in a deep forest. Night caught him unawares: so dark it was that an axe could cleave it. Though he was nigh too weak to walk, he was too fearful to rest, lest a wild beast tore him apart; so he marched on.

Suddenly, something shone in the distance. The man darted after the light, which poured out of a small hut amid the forest. He looked into the window and saw a lit lamp and a burning blaze in the oven, sparks wildly flying, as if some invisible force were clawing the flames.

"It would be good to warm and dry myself by the fire," the man thought; for rain poured on his soaked clothes and thunder began drumming so furiously that the man’s soul nearly leaped out of his body. "Whatever happens, I must enter this hut. Surely, they won’t kill me, and if they start hitting me, I have my axe!"

He knocked once and again: nobody, nothing.

He pressed the door open and crossed the threshold, welcomed by warmth and a pleasant smell. But the home was empty, for wherever he walked, wherever he scoured, not a live soul was to be found.

He dried his clothes by the fire and sat on a bench to warm himself. His belly grumbled to the ever-present smell, and glancing on the table he saw all sorts of food and drink: baked meat, Borscht, chicken, scones and Kvass – everything one could wish for!

He jumped onto the table and started gorging himself, one plate after another, sipping as he chewed right until he was more than stuffed. Then he filled a pipe, fired it up and smoked it like a chimney.

Suddenly he noticed a shaggy black cat staring at him, eyes wide. As he was about to shoo her off, she disappeared.

"I did not see her appear, nor disappear," thought the man. "On my soul, I must have stumbled upon a demoniacal hut."

"Indeed you have…" a voice answered.

The poor man glanced towards the voice and saw a hag whose mere sight sufficed to incite horror: as many wrinkles as ruffles in a Gypsy skirt, and a nose so long and curved that when she bowed her head, it touched the ground. This nose was pure iron, ringing like a bell whenever it hit something.



"So, man, you’ve stumbled upon the Devil’s hut. I’m his mother. Soon my son will come from Hell and take you in hand. And if I tell him you’ve eaten his lunch, wretched you shall be!" To these words the man felt frost course right through his spine and his teeth chatter . "There’s no helping here, you’re lost forever! In Hell, demons will pierce you with pitchforks, give you smouldering tar to drink and bathe you in sulphur every day. A real treat, eh?"

"Mercy!" the poor man begged. "Dearie, help me. I’ve a heap of children, what will be with them? They will all die without a father, without a mother!"

"Go to Hell! That is your place. I could have helped you, yet will not!" she mumbled.

"Darling, help me! I’ll do whatever you like, just don’t let your son take me to Hell!"

"Oh well. I’ll help you so long as you follow my orders. It’s not a hard task"

"I’ll do anything!"

"Then I’ll save you from Hell, and make you rich and happy... if you take me as your wife." When the man heard this, his knees nearly gave way. Lord! To wed to this sabre-nosed hag! What would people say if they saw the witch he brought home?

"So, my lad!" she went on. "You’re poor and you’ve children, but no wife. Take me and you’ll see how well I will treat you and your children. I will bathe them in butter and milk, and beat their backs with a stick. Agreed?"

"Good, I will take you as my wife, but save me from Hell!"

"That’s a deal! And now we have to set out for your home, so we can be there by the morning."

And all at once she ran out like a young lass. Minutes later she returned with a donkey and some sacks. She then led the man to an underground store filled with golden and silver coins, precious stones of every colour, expensive clothes, food and drink. Everything one could desire lay there.

"Dear husband, this is yours and mine," said the hag. "Pack everything that will fit and we will take it to your house."

They put the bags on a wagon that stood ready by the hut. After the man yoked the donkey, they set out on the path and rode the night entire, nodding on the wagon. When it cleared, they had already reached the border of the forest.

"Don’t hurry, husband. Let’s rest here on the green grass."

The man stopped the donkey, they stepped off the wagon, opened the bags and started feasting.

"Eat, my dear, eat!" the hag insisted, choosing the tastiest bits for him. But she also stuffed herself, drank an entire boot of liquor and another yet, soon rolling into a drunken stupor.

The man needed nothing more. He spat on his palms, took his axe and hit the hag’s iron nose so hard it split in twain. The hag screamed, then curled up like a cat on a lap, convulsed once or twice and died. But the sound of the broken nose resonated throughout the forest and reached Hell.

"Ho-ho!" shouted the Devil as he jumped out of Hell. "Someone has broken my mother’s nose! After him!"

Meanwhile, the man spared not one instant, but sprang on the wagon and started flogging the donkey. The poor animal did not know what the matter was, but galloped so wholeheartedly that the wagon was thrown from one side of the road to the other. They were not far from the village when the Devil left the forest and found his mother coiled beside her broken nose. Looking round he saw the wagon and after it he ran! He caught up with the man at the very moment he was turning into his yard.

"Thief, murderer;" shouted the Devil, “your days are counted!"

"Let me go!" snapped back the man. "Here I’m master!"

But the Devil pulled at the man, who stubbornly clung to a pole. Hearing his shrieks, out of the house ran the children: clothes torn, shabby and covered in dirt.

"Oi, oi!" they shouted. "Dad has brought us the Devil! Let us skin him and make moccasins out of his skin!"

"And we’ll have meat to eat!"

"And from his horns we’ll make flutes to play on!"

The Devil, scared stiff, started asking the man: "Leave me be and I won’t harm you ever again."

But the man, seizing the devil's fur, replied:

"I won’t let you go, lest my children go hungry"

Hearing this, the Devil darted and managed to escape, only turning his eyes back when he reached the forest. He clutched his mother and jumped back into Hell. From that day on the man was so rich that he had no equal in the entire province.

The Dance of the Seven Seals

"Повторяется всё?.. Но на каждом шагу всё - иное.
Время кажется кругом, но всё-таки это - спираль.
Наши жизни как нити (а можеть быть, волосы?) Мойры,
Вплетены в плат узорный, растянутый в звёздную даль."
by Victor Rivas-Vicente


A half-moon precise scratches the night sky, the white of an eye in orbit, almost watching the shadowless streets beneath. In this silence of light, a Vixen raps her susurrant milonga on mossy grounds, the ivory of her tail alone resonating with the spy above. But even now, Luna sinks, ever closer to her cunning sister, ruddling to match her fur.

A Cricket drums out sonatas to his caged lovers in Firefly Street, recalling unforgettable moments that were forgotten, and more than that... remembering embraces never given, steps never taken together, warmth nor breath exchanged. His beating wings, trembling, stuttering as unsure lips, forming nonetheless their question to the faint stars: "are you vain enough to think you'll ever occupy my oblivion?"

Meanwhile, a Toad waits. A fair follower, tarrying the tango, his next stride a faithful leap, a flight of fancy into the moist heart of Nox. His presence, unseen yet sensed, directs the dance of petals, whose fall comes with spring. The tanda finished, he hides under a curtain, veiled from sight and feeling, only half-listening to the cadenced footfalls passing nigh his abode.

Further on, a Deer darts, frightened by the melodies of darkness. Confused by the layers upon layers of umbrae, swirling round one another, enveloping her tender feet, guiding them though murky waters. But her pace shreds the sound of night, leaving behind but cinder and ash, scintillating as the levanter rattles them. The southern wind whispers into her ears, pleading with each gentle kiss for her return, for one more dance.

A Swan dreams in the gelid night. Drenched feathers suspended her living weight upon the shroud of water, each vane a frivolous oar, flowing through countless beads of river, endless tears that dropped from the Cygnet's closed eyes. Joyful waters moved through the tips of her wings, sapped into the very essence of the bird. There, as yet another salty drop pried her lid open, she beheld two strangers stand, curious eyes trying to prize her nightly reveries from inky pupils.

Upon a blossom of spring snow, a Nightingale unwraps his voice, brow withered by fervour. His sharp song stabs the crepuscular sky, letting out shapeless cirri from its bloated belly. Their soft tendrils clasp and experience darkens their bods, until heaven's a stage where strati are merely players in a shadow theatre, their original selves hidden 'neath soggy masks. But the Nightingale knows it merely takes some tears to return to our true nature; that, and one drop of dew...

Within a high chamber awaits the seventh beast, Salomé, body veiled but passions borne sharp as claws, cleaving skin and carving flesh just as he embraces her. One step leads the next, curtains fall and the seals are broken, the threads that weave their tapestries unbind and flail about, searching for lifelines, their struggle drowned in her breath. The purls burn one by one within his neck, as her air ignites them, and soon he cannot but lose his head...

Not my fate!

This brief tale I wrote for the AbeBooks 1001-Word Short Story Competition:


Snowy grass cracked under bare feet. Frostbite was the least of his worries as he approached, one step after another, the stream and the verge of death. His right hand held a clot of blood, from which poured onto the snow steaming drops, bright and thick as rubies. In his left, he carried an even heavier weight: a black sack from which came foreign, muffled sounds of agony and anger. The keen pain in his gut grew clearer and his steps slower, but no more were needed. Exhaling a last rasping breath, he turned to gather momentum and threw the sack into the water. The expanding waves echoed the last beats of his heart, as he lay on the frozen shore...

“Not my fate!” gasped Tristan as he awoke from the dream that had haunted him since he returned from his voyage to Persia. During his travels, he had brought back a number of curious artifacts, but none stranger than the sculpture he chanced upon in one of the archaeological sites under his supervision. The statue depicted the head of an Arab, bearded and noble in countenance. The style was unlike any he had seen before, and most certainly unlike the Eastern art with which he'd become familiar. The sculptor had taken pains to etch every single wrinkle on the man’s face and to carve out an intricate web of hair within the man’s beard. The hardness of the stone made the artist’s skill and patience even more extraordinary, since Tristan had been unable even to scratch away a layer of dust to analyse the adamant material.

That morning was perhaps the hundredth time that Tristan examined the sculptured head. This time, his nerves betrayed him; his elbow toppled a cup of tea, which poured itself upon the table, the liquid surging under the severed, stone neck. As Tristan rummaged for tissues in his drawers, he missed the most brisk transformation. The stone absorbed the liquid like a sugar cube, turning into a dense white paste, underneath which a living, severed head lay hidden. It was the sound of speech which first alerted Tristan of this unannounced visitor. The head spoke in a strange dialect of Arabic, which Tristan could not even begin to comprehend. And yet, images slowly weaved themselves into existence within his mind as the Arab uttered his tale.

Tristan learned that before him were the scarce remnants of a man who had been ere known as the Sage Duban. His body could be restored with the aid of a mortal man, who would be rewarded with a gift beyond measure. Ink would be made to flow, fill Duban's veins again, congeal into flesh and bone, and the pulse of painted strokes would set his heart in motion. The pasted powder covering the Arab's head was all that was needed to transform ink into a living pigment.

Overcome by fevered curiosity, Tristan carefully scraped off an ounce of the paste from the Arab's hair, and cast it into his inkpot, twirling the mixture until it turned a sickly gray. As he dipped his plume into the thick paint, the image of the Arab, standing proud before an arabesque wall, filled his mind. His sketch started with the Arab's face, whose expression was taut with impatience. His pen followed his mind’s eye, building a solid body and clothing it with long, embroidered robes. As he traced the edged curve of the scimitar suspended from the Arab’s belt, the memory of his portentous dream returned to him: bright wounds bleeding into crimson snow.

If he was about to draw forth his own death, he began to ponder, he would not fall without a fight. As he finished drawing the sabre, he let his pen stray off course, adding a deep crack at the sword’s hilt. After he cast the final stroke, the paper beneath his pen lit ablaze, exuding a sallow smoke that filled the chamber for an instant and then condensed into the living substance of the Arab, standing proudly before him in the room.

Duban smiled as he spoke again in that eerie tongue, producing a curious looking pastille from within his robe, which he extended to Tristan. "Immortality” was the word reverberating in Tristan’s mind as he took the gift and cautiously chewed it.

With a satisfied grin, Duban rested his left hand on the hilt of his scimitar, but his expression was soon transfixed with pain as he felt the sharp trowel plunged into his abdomen by Tristan. He tumbled back, pulling at the hilt of his sword, but this snapped like a feeble twig as he tried to extract the blade from its sheath. Tristan laughed, proud to have outsmarted the cunning Arab and escaped death by his hand.

As Duban convulsed in agony, barely standing on hands and knees, Tristan approached him, bloody trowel still in hand, ready to finish the deed. "Fate is made" he thought as he grasped the Arab’s hair and twisted his head back to expose the neck. But before he could strike, a bright flash flew before Tristan’s face. The next thing he saw was Duban, holding the bare, curved blade in his bloodied right. Then the entire scene turned and twisted about Tristan as his head collapsed upon the floor, looking onto his own deadened body stretched beside him.

The Arab shouted curses as he slowly crawled about the room, but more than furious, his pained groans were confused and incredulous. “Betrayed!” was the dolorous sound resounding in Tristan’s head. To his own surprise, neither death nor darkness followed the excruciating throe of his beheading. He tried to scream, but only a groan left his lips.

The Arab finally disappeared from sight, but his steps returned. Before he knew it, Tristan’s hair was grasped by a moist hand and tossed into darkness. From within the sack, Tristan heard a door opening, followed by the crackling steps of the Arab upon frosted grass as they made for the river.