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Ruth Naomi Lupu is participating in the 5th International Literary Creation Competition, from Suceava, Romania and she is 21 years old. She is a student at the „Ștefan cel Mare” University from Suceava. We thank for the participation and wish her success.

Thou Shalt Not Put F. Coloring in the Fondant

       He who was to die knew very well he was dying. He thought at least he was going to live a long life before succumbing to NO-YOU SHALL DIE. His slick black hair fluttered as each step felt heftier, and they were earnest, precise, frantic, furious, vigorous, stop, wintry, solemn, weary, stop… exultant—exasperatingly stop cogent, commanding, stop, forceful, zealous, heated… stop, rabid… violent-STOP.
       It was dark, dark… oh, how dark his hair was! Extraordinarily luscious. At the vertex of his blaze was the dire extinct greenish-cobalt vault mirrored, and the whole grandeur of the world’s celestial mannerisms could reflect through one solely strand of dainty slender dimness. And he kept moving his mane ferociously. And I loved him.
      You could not understand it. You could not understand it. I have— we have to. They have been burning your soul. What are you doing about it? He must be coming. He knows. What does he know! He does not know a thing! He takes a larger step now. His hand upon the handle. Frowned.
      He turned his head back. Through the distance a familiar figure swayed from fog to man. There he was. He made an idle attempt of hailing with a faint hand gesture. Undefined bodies were driving to and from, capitulated to a gait which was invariably soaked in that particular hurry of those who cannot exist if not carried by the metropolitan suburb esprit. That one spread like a boiling malady. The fever chafed among all of them. You are all too shallow. I am not the one diseased. A sharp and tickling sound brought him back to reality. 
      “My bad, sir.”
      The keys were now on the coarse ground glimpsing a tawny flare. It took a few seconds followed by a groan and some unintelligible mutter to take them to their aboriginal district. Your bad. It is your bad. You know what you have done. He looked back once again. Nothing. The figure had vanished completely. A few seconds later, he pushed that door with disguised interest. It did not open. Not yet. An aggravated passion perambulated through its constricted sinews. Now we may peacefully rest at home, a hearty gamine energetically conveyed to her companion. There was something about her voice that indicated poor shallowness. He was enraged, he was mad ecstatic, grinning as the desire to be like her as well as the thought that he could have been, indeed, like her invaded his mind and plunged into his lungs. A few seconds later, he pushed that door again. A few seconds later, he was inside. The chink traveled to his nerve through the eardrum and then malleus and incus both powering the sound to the cochlea disrupted his inhospitable mind. The bell rang.
      Then, silence. Everything was still. Dark mahogany counter and some tables. Through the covered window a beam of malachite ballroom revealed dusty spirits as an ancient memory seemed to be reviving through that willow light. There was a hoary scent infesting his nostrils, humidifying his breath. But the floor was white. Breathing was just fine. All was still besides dust. Peace. In and out, breathing lungs. Move. The particles in the air greeted his nares at each inssuflation. The rest of the room was pure ebony. He still lingered in the entrance, throwing his sight at the void, trying to glide through the unseen, sculpting his fancy into the dense air, taking the dim and smudging his hands with that black sunless nothing. The room was stained with nothing. He was stained with nothingness. Sighed. All of this for nothing. Nothing in the smoke waft. Nothing in the breeze. Nothing is here. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing says I am. Nothing comes to play in my dreams. “My nothing”. Now we may peacefully rest at home, her shallow, shallow, shallow voice. Nothing is here. Nothing is my friend. Nothing has said that to me. He carries the fog, he is the man and the fog. He is a man. Nothing is a man. Move, move, Nothing is so pretty, she has the prettiest smile, move, moving her hand as she move walks. He moved. He had to. There was nothing there. And then, he knew.
      Deus ex machina. Deus ex machina. What have you done! His eyes gleaming and his dark pupils looking at you. His whimpering so acute made me think I’d love him more. His long sharpened brows were dark blades cutting through his alabaster snowy temples. Look at him, he is the perfect son of Zebedee. But you should not play with the dead.
      He is not dead. I love him. NO YOU SHALL NOT — His lustrous hair was black and savage and gleaming green. Trembling plum harbour, his lips were speaking death. Sweat running down his neck. Humidity in his lungs. In and out. Breathe. Oh, if I were to be him in this precise moment, become his suffering, live his pain to the utmost, surrender to life by inhaling warbling feathers, garden of wondrous iridescence. I am so much soul and so much life. I have come to breathe life. I am so much more, now I am livid! Now. Click. Thou shalt not— No, I must. Thou shalt not — 
      Inhale. Gasp. The gun hath spoken. Humidity bursting in his lungs. Dust moves agitated to the source. Enraged, the incensed dust has coagulated air into a dense fog. Thou shalt not put coloring in the fondant. But I loved him.