The night is silent and Gamayun sits atop a lonely rock, looking down on the city of lights. A gentle breeze is blowing from the North-East, carrying faint shades of some long-lost and ancient fragrance. Then suddenly she senses a presence – there is someone beckoning her attention from the shadows. She raises her hand and commands:
Come forth O child of misery and gloom;
Come forth O dweller of grey desolation
Come forth and ask, let it be your doom
Come forth and beg, if it’s of any consolation
He crawls forward, his tired knees digging deep grooves in the sand. He grabs hold of Gamayun’s feet and cries his heart out:
O Gamayun! The wise and the knowledgeable
O Gamayun! The herald of divine prophecies
Here I am, laying all my cards on the table;
all my dark visions unfolded, terrible atrocities
O Gamayun! Unfold your golden wings in the sun;
O Gamayun! Behold my pain and tell me what I ask
I am at my wits end, desperate and making my last run;
see the darkness that I carry, it’s very real, not a mask
Of all the God’s children, I am the child of autumn;
I am not alone I know, yet unique in what I need
The falling is so terrible, like there is no bottom;
I feel like a hollow dead tree, neither fruit nor seed
It is not that I demand either wealth or riches or gold
It is not that I ask for life everlasting or a great power
I just beg that my dream be fulfilled, single and untold
I just implore that my heart be happy, not bitter or sour
Hearing the man’s plea, Gamayun bends down her head and thinks for a while. She searches her heart carefully but finds nothing but dark tidings for the poor man. She finally raises her head and whispers:
You have come from afar – have my sympathies with you;
having asked your question, you have unburdened yourself
My heart weeps for you, yet there is nothing I can really do;
your cause is lost, and what to tell you, I am lost myself
Of all the God’s many children, you are the most despised;
you dream in vain, you cry in vain and you beg and ask in vain
Where He made all his children out of love, all of them prized;
He carved you out of sadness, from dark soil and autumn rain
He hates you with a vengeance so very terrible and so dark;
He looks at you with pity though, the most what He can spare
His distaste for you, is so very naked and so very stark;
You may die or you may suffer, that He doesn’t at all care
Being a child of autumn, it is a dark curse you carry;
it’s your burden and your fate, how dark it may seem
You will always be sad and you will never be merry;
