a scary true story of AntoniG.

it is a little illustration i did to a short and clumsy (but at least true! of course!) experimental horror-story i wrote (it is just my second attempt to write a short story in English so if anyone happens to read it by any chance, please be merciful while criticising) anyways here it is, if anyone were interested:



A True Scary Story Of Antoni Gwiazdowski


In the far northern corner of the Rakowicki Cemetery in Krakow there is a one very little grave of black marble with just a brief writing carved on it:

Antoni Gwiazdowski
(22 V 1983 - 27 XI 1993)

"Quem dii diligunt, adolescens moritur"
["Those who are dear to gods, die young"]

Sometimes when you stop near the grave you can hear random people passing by talking:

-Oh, look, Antoni Gwiazdowski's grave, wasn't he the only son of the famous sculptors Maria and Sebastian Gwiazdowski?

-Isn't it strange then that there is not a single statue on his grave?

-Oh but I heard they went insane after his sudden death. Or maybe it's just hard to make a statue for your own child's grave.

-I suppose. Do you remember how the kid died?

-Nope. I think it was never publicized.


***

[September 1993]

-Sister Anna, can I ask a question?
-Yes, Antoni, go on please. - sais a nun with a barely hearable note of irritation.
-So which of sins are the deadly ones?
-Oh, for instance a murder, or a blasphemy, but you know Antoni, in fact every sin, even a little one, takes us a little bit away from God and if we don't do a penance ... - the nun stops seeing Antoni frantically waving his upraised hand again trying to focus the nun's attention - Yes, Antoni?
-Can I ask one more question, sister?
-Yes, please do.
-And what does a blasphemy mean, sister?
-You know, it's a bit like insulting God... - begins sister Anna, weighting her words deliberatively, thinking "what a strange child" to herself.
Antoni really likes the nun's prominent nose, big and expressive, looking like it was once seriously broken. He imagines it was God who broke her the nose, long long ago, for she was a dangerous murderer or a blasphemer. He just feels she's talking about something she's learned by experience, with the severe expression on her face that reminds Antoni of figures of saint martyrs that stand in his parents' studio, a strange place usually all crowded with unfinished sculptures of Jesuses, saints and angels. Some of them are of a human size, the others are twice smaller, what makes them look like some mysterious gathering of humans and drawfs going on, all freezed in saintly poses.


***

[October 1993]

On Antoni's way to school there is a wall, long ugly shabby wall, all covered with unmentionable writings his parents tell him not to read, "those are bad dirty words written by some older naughty kids" they say. Since they call the words from the wall "dirty" Antoni assumes it must be somehow connected to what sister Anna keeps saying about "impure thoughts" and that they take us away from God. So he tries hard not to read the words even though they look so tempting to read, written clearly with such big block letters just on his way to school. F-u-c-k, a-s-s-h-o-l-e, s-h-i-t, b-i-t-c-h and some others. The more he tries his best not to read them the more they seem to stick to his memory though.
But Antoni tries hard to avoid looking left as he passes by the wall not to be tempted to read the bad words, because he prefers to be on perfectly good terms with God.

The main reason why Antoni would like to have the superior powers on his side is in fact 3 years older than him, named Maja Mewa and this year she's started attending the same afternoon drawing classes as Antoni does. She's got the prettiest shining green eyes in the whole school, and such beautiful long dark red pigtails ended with little black velvety bows that she tends to smarten up every once in a while.
Sometimes during the class she stands still behind his shoulders, watching as he's drawing and often sighs things like: "Oh, you draw so beautifully" "How can you be so talented?" that each time make Antoni feel such an overpowering happiness that he could simply each moment fly up and through the school's chimney and keep floating high above the city screaming from joy. He imagines he would reply her something charming but he only manages to clumsily mumble barely understandable "thank you" and his face turns ridiculously red in seconds.

In fact Antoni has been planning for weeks now how to declare her his deeply love, but the sad truth is the fact she is 3 years older makes her so totally unreachable for a young man of his age, besides he never sees her in the school corridors during pauses between lessons, so it seems she must be from a different school, she just attends the additional afternoon drawing classes and this is the only place when he gets to see her at all.
Last week, feeling he just could not bear any longer the horrid uncertainty of what is going to happen when he confesses his love to her, he decided to make a deal with the omnipotent God first, a deal that is going to make his chances for a romantic success much bigger.
Standing in Antoni's parents' studio face to face with a little sculpture of Jesus, practically a nearly finished statue lacking just some small details on its robe and the Jesus' nose, they made a gentlemen's agreement: God is supposed to make Maja accept his love, while Antoni in return promised to be a good faultless boy all the way ever after.
That is why Antoni refrains so carefully from reading the bad words on the wall. Now in the end of October when wintertime is approaching it is much easier since mornings get darker and at half past 7 when Antoni walks to school you can barely see the writings covering wall in the early morning navy-blue gloom, and shapes of the buildings and the wall and all things are still just shyly emerging to be seen in the light of the beginning day.


***

[November 1993]

One week Maja doesn't come to the drawing class at all. Antoni is anxious and promises to himself the very next week he will tell her of the love he feels. But next week she doesn't appear at the classes neither. Nor the week that comes after the other one.

Antoni doesn't know what happened, whether she moved some place, or whether she died or fell seriously ill, whatever it is that stands behind the fact that Maja Mewa suddenly stopped attending drawing classes, it makes Antoni endlessly unhappy.
Irritating thing is everybody else in the class behave as if nothing happened, only the teacher raises her eyebrows enquiringly while checking children's presence and coming to the name "Maja Mewa" in the school register but then she just says "absent" quietly as if to herself, crossing something off and she goes on with the list.
On the third week of Maja's absence Antoni braces himself and asks the girl that he remembers used to sit with Maja at the same desk whether she knows what happened toher friend. But she doesn't know she sais.
And so the anger grows in Antoni's mind, everything is wrong, it's not how it was supposed to be according to the deal, God didn't keep the promise. Maja will never again come to the drawing class. Antoni just feels she won't. It's over.
So this morning on his way to school on the 26th of November he looks straight into the wall and tries to read and remember as many ugly words as possible, even though the morning is dark and it's hard to see clearly.
To make his sin more weighty, in his mind he keeps accompanying the ugly words with the names of saints and God, giving them attributes of four-letter words, hoping sincerely that he's just committing what sister Anna called "blasphemy", and that some God or at least a saint or an angel is going to appear out of nowhere all in a fury , shocked by the power of his sin, yell at him, maybe even break his nose like they surely did once to sister Anna, and then hopefully explain what happened to Maja and why didn't God keep their gentlemen's agreement.
Unfortunately nothing happens and all what Antoni can hear in the morning air is some faraway pigeons' cooing. With a mixture of relief and disappointment Antoni concludes he cannot sense even a sign of God's wrath around him.
At the lesson of religion he keeps interrogating sister Anna about whether God can contact the greatest sinners while they are here on Earth, especially the ones that commit the most deadly sins, and does it happen that they can be punished still during their lives not in the afterlife. He doesn't get any clear answer, but it doesn't stop him from imagining some great punishments that an army of angels may be preparing for him right now as a punishment for the blasphemy he committed in the morning.
All the afternoon and evening he feels exited in an almost happy way, anticipating future fierce punishments that are awaiting him, of course he's still convinced the life still doesn't make much sense since Maja Mewa stopped attending drawing classes, but somehow he can't help thinking it turned a little bit colorful from the moment he blasphemed.
The November has been warm and snowless so far but on the
morning of the 27th as Antoni approaches the road that goes along the wall he notices there are very first snowflakes this winter just falling down. They are the brightest points in the dusky dawn, but behind the single dots of snow Antoni seems to capture something else, some new shape seems to be drawn on the wall, or maybe those are just his sleepy eyes misleading him.


***

A shocked woman that was walking the opposite side of the street when it all happened later witnessed that she saw as the little boy turned left immediately as if thrown by some invisible power and got literally smashed on the wall.
Antoni's parents stated they hadn't observed anything strange during days predating the tragedy. They either concealed or forgot to mention that one of the unfinished statues from their studio disappeared mysteriously around the time.


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