Level Empire

By Anna Czyrska

Anna Czyrska-(born in 1985)

a Polish Poet, her first publication was a colume of verse entitled Zero (Warsaw, 2008); a student at Faculty of Theology, Opole University, Poland; she also studied at Kathlieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.

Level Empire is her debut as a prose writer. Her interests include Western cultures, intercultural relations and pastoral family counselling. She trusts the power of family and believes that people will eventually appreciate its force. She loves travelling and discovering the world. Her favourite word is Transgression

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Dec 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781469138718

Book preview

L E V E L

E M P I R E

P U B L I S H E D B Y

XLIBRIS PUBLISHING

303056-CZYR-layout.pdf

Copyright © 2012 by Anna Czyrska .

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4691-3870-1

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-3871-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

0-800-644-6988

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

[e-mail]

303056

I dedicate this book to those

who have contributed to it.

To my loved ones.

To my enemies and friends,

thank you for being there.

P R O L O G U E

To steal the language from the writer-in times when writers escape from the world, to steal from them what they value the most-their language, the language of their despair, sadness, joy, blood and joy. The language of their lonely wandering. The twenty-first century, today everyone is a writer, even though they do not use a sheet of paper or a laptop, netbook or a desktop computer. The writer is a slave of his book. The writers I know go past me every day and do things seemingly insignificant.

To steal the language from the writer, to deprive them of what stays deep inside them from the day when they are born and give out the first scream. From the moment when they know they will become a writer. The one chosen by God, they will get the gift from him and will break through mantras, shapes and visions. To steal the language from the writer and chew it up into somebody else’s individual one. When somebody becomes a writer it is as if they got caught in a cul-de-sac from which they cannot get out, then the world around them is different from that being seen by others.

The writer wants someone to confine in and to tell about it. The writer never dies. The writer is a prisoner of imagination. Nobody will comprehend this prison if He does not let it out of him. Nobody will understand the writer who must sell his imagination. To steal his life from the writer, when you fight for everything, regardless where and when you appear.

Christian Anderson was born in April 1960. He was a son of an obese woman bearing the name Vivian. The woman obese and mediocre, loving sweets, ice cream above all. Yet Vivian had a beautiful name, which sort of did not match her, it was something completely strange. Already in his early childhood, Christian associated his mother’s name with an image of a beautiful model or actress. But never of his own mother. Vivian spent her life in front of a television, whereas father, a small, quiet and modest man living under the domination of his wife, was a fan of Rubens. And this excused him when he was getting married to an obese woman. Father loved painting, he also painted and often travelled to the Netherlands, Belgium or Luxemburg. He was a fan of Antwerp’s railway station, various castles and, in contrast to his wife, he ate little.

Christian was a hyperactive but beautiful child. Yes, he was a beautiful boy, he had black thick hair and nut-brown eyes, long eyelashes, a fair face and complexion. From the beginning, his father pinned his hopes upon him. One day, mother landed in hospital and they diagnosed her with diabetes. Since that time, Vivian required constant care.

Christian’s childhood was boring, he read his first book when he was fifteen years old and it was An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser. The book made a great impression on him. He decided to become a writer. To become a writer and to write a novel better than Dreiser could. When he was thinking about Clyde, he felt a lot in common with this boy. He had similar needs, nameless needs of a teenage boy.

The death penalty was something more-a death for a death. And thousand of questions-should it be like that? Is it in accordance with the constitution? Clive’s life was a tragedy, and what about Christian’s life? It was slowly becoming one. And all that happened when his father first time took him to the Netherlands. Then Christian learnt the word transgression, presented to him by an ambitious and intelligent Polish girl, who fascinated him a lot. But he did not stay in touch with her.

He read, he educated himself. He was unusually ambitious and decided to study in Leuven. He did not know why he had chosen this little town. When he grew up, he was a handsome man and, actually, here the book of his new life opened for him. Of the life which even he himself could not expect.

C H A P T E R 1

Ugliness today is like a thunder. My dears, there is nothing worse than to be ugly, even though beauty is not explicit, to be ugly is the worst thing, it may be even worse than illness.

When a man is ill and what awaits him is the inevitable, thousands of sentences arise in him, death is inevitable, and what about life?

Is death ugly? It may be as beautiful as flowers on the meadow or as rain tapping against windowpanes. Ugliness, my dears, is a mystery, similarly to beauty. Ugliness was hidden in Sybilla. A sixteen-year-old girl from a small Belgian town. Her ugliness was not an ordinary one, arising due to the emptiness of her life. Sybilla lived in Leuven, a small town situated in Flemish Brabant. It was a quiet, peaceful and mysterious town. Medieval buildings, gothic churches gave the town some charm. The red brick was characteristic for Dilje Leuven lying on the river.

Sybilla had long, blonde hair, which sometimes gave the impression of being curly. It curled up in Belgian rain only and, believe me, Belgium is famous for it, for rain. Never trust the weather in Belgium-make sure you carry an umbrella with you, unless you like it when raindrops dribble down you.

Apart from rain Belgium is a land of chocolate, Sybilla loved devouring large amounts of chocolate. Spots would grow on her face, the spots which could not redeem her world. Yet the taste of choco- late would give her passing sense of happiness. She asked plenty of questions about existence, what she lived for?

She dreamt that one day she would find her land. She pretended that she was deaf to human hatred. Inside her there was a hole which used to bring her to paranoid states. Life in the twenty-first century is not easy although there is no war, at least theoretically. The biggest war lasts in us. Sybilla took part in this war permanently. To win? To lose? Whatever you would do, the humankind will start searching for a solution. They will start searching endlessly, even though the solution is impossible.

Sybilla’s parents: mother, Stella van der Liebt, unfulfilled in Hollywood. The woman in Dita von Teese style. Black hair, fair complexion and red lips looking like strawberries. At school she was called Stella Artois, after the name of a local beer. Personally, she loved wine more. She loved spending long hours in front of a mirror. She loved talking to the mirror as if she was acting on stage. She imagined the audience applauding and herself bowing to them. She was never cast in the role of her lifetime. Sybilla’s birth was a challenge. Yet she gave birth to her ugly daughter.

Deep down she was pleased with her daughter’s ugliness, even though she loved her very much. She blamed her daughter for the end of her career. She never wanted to talk about what really had brought about that end. Stella’s husband Daniel was a scientist, a biologist. He loved nature but he did not understand his wife’s world at all. He lived in the world of his own and tolerated plants only. He used to spend a lot of time, especially in summer, in Botaniq Garden in Leuven. He liked going there for walks with Sybilla. Talking about nature. He was not happy with his talented wife, who put acts for herself for long hours and wondered why she had got married and had a baby. The only flowers she tolerated were red roses.

Meanwhile Sybilla lived in another world-one of her own possible worlds was the poetry and life of Charles Bukowski. This desperate man and alcoholic was able to would bring comfort to the little girl craving for happiness. She always used to think that some people have worse lives and could turn their ugliness into beauty.

She used to devote herself to studying in many different ways-from sexual to quite ordinary ones. Studying was her comfort.

You will say that if her ugliness was caused only by her spots then everything was all right. Not really. There was some charm hidden in this ugliness, which made her arouse not pity but envy, tremendous envy of the people around her. They wanted to make an idiot of her but her intelligence and grace provoked people to think, and for that they hated her so, so much.

It was a cruel hatred, which even her parents were not able to spot. The hatred resting inside people, people who were considering how to get rid, once and for all, of this intelligent little girl coming from a good home. And her ugliness just provoked. Because those people felt they were better than her. This feeling triggered a peculiar obsession in them; their ego grew when they could see the hopelessness of this little fair-haired girl, full of sadness and bitterness and mystery.

She lived in the world of books, she loved Dostoyevsky’s prose, felt bonds with his Idiot, even with Raskolnikov. She used to hide away in books, which made her become one of the best students. The teachers could see her ugliness and felt pity for her. They loved giving her good marks because thanks to that they could make themselves feel better.

Stella sent her daughter to school, otherwise she would end up behind bars. Such is the law in Belgium. She loved Sybilla but she loved herself the most and could not imagine her beauty behind bars. This would be beauty unworthy of such a great artist.

It was May and then a new student joined the school. Leuven, a medieval town appealed to him and he decided to stay here for some time. Michael aroused some interest because he was new.

Michael watched Sybilla, he ran into her when she was buying chocolate for herself. She smiled shyly at him and broke off a piece of chocolate and he helped himself to it. He did not even say thank you and just ran away. She understood-he had got scared, like all the others. Sybilla was so nightmarish, the hatred of the world may have been justified. Hatred-the feeling which is like a hallmark. Sybilla ate up the chocolate and looked at Michael, who was leaning against the window and was listening to music on his mp3 player. He gave her one more smile. After a while he said:

‘It’s Damien Rice. Cold Water. Do you want to listen to?’

He put the headphones to her ears, she heard the sound of a beautiful song. Soft, quiet. It was a piece with a soul. She could also feel cold water all around. She noticed others staring, now they were looking at Michael with irony. Sybilla pulled the headphones off and disappeared inside the man’s toilet, still hearing Cold Water.

On her way back from school Sybilla felt a strange anxiety. She felt some tingling around her head. And the uncertainty of existence. She was irritated by the noise and light. And on that day even cars were passing by intensely, it was also warm as for Leuven. The sun was burning her eyes. She felt breathlessness and fear. She wanted to say something.

She only woke up in hospital. In UZ Leuven. Next to her were doctors, who were waking her up.

‘Is everything all right?’

‘Yeah… Where am I?’

‘In hospital.’

‘I’m feeling sick’.

She vomited up after a while. She was sweaty and terrified. She did not know how to react. The doctors told her that they would keep her for one day. Soon, her parents turned up. Her mother was very protective, like never before.

‘I’m happy you’re OK.’

‘Mum, I …’

‘When you’ve been released, we’ll go to the botanical garden.’

‘Dad, Mum…’

They were behaving in a weird way. For the first time they were really together. Mum treated her like a little girl who hurt her knee.

The doctors did not know the diagnosis. They took the EEG of Sybilla. Nothing was found. Her brain was clean. It seemed necessary to have more and more check-ups until they succeeded. However, the next day the doctors released Sybilla. Just right after dinner. She had had chicken, potatoes and asparagus. They prescribed her anti-stress medicine, said that the little girl needed the help of a psychologist and should spend less time studying. Should get less stressed.

When she came back home, she went to bed. Mum brought her tea. She looked really terrified.

‘You got us stressed out, love.’

‘Nothing really happened, did it?’

‘It did happen, we might’ve lost you.’

‘Who called for help?’

‘The emergency services don’t know. Some boy, so they said.’

Sybilla fell into a pensive mood. Who might want to save Sybilla’s life? Miserable life overfilled with hatred. The hatred which kills the dawn and shows that we all wish to love.

That day she lay in bed all the time and her father was making an appointment with a psychologist for her. Sweet daddy. Faithful to his passion. Overfilled with love for little plants-he loved plants more than anything else. He frequently travelled. He would often fly to India. Mum often cooked Indian dishes. She loved chilli, shrimps.

And Sybilla had a question floating around in her head: Who called the ambulance?

Thousands envious eyes looked at her every day. Thousands faces as if made of marble saw courage in her-courage which exceeded their simple world.

As usual, she got an A, in literature classes they were discussing a novel by Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita. Sybilla’s essay was the best. Boys from her class commented on the situation, Thomas was first.

‘I wouldn’t sleep with her even for a million bucks.’

‘Dude, for a millie …You’re saying this only now.’

‘No, it’s sure.’

‘Interesting, I’m gonna check it out one day, and then we’ll see.’

‘Hah! Her ugliness is boundless.’

‘Yeah, it is.’

Thomas burst out laughing with suppressed laughter, well known to Sybilla. Cruel hatred was dancing salsa, Sybilla sat down at her desk, as though she was absent. She was pretending she did not know she was in the middle of an envious book which nobody had not closed yet.

C H A P T E R 2

Patterns. Language tastes like mature cheese. The cheese with a taste of life which will pass relentlessly. The cheese with a taste of illusions which accompany life. Sometimes the only thing we can do is just to live. It does not matter how, just to live.

Sybilla felt much better. There were a couple of short tests awaiting her. So she was studying. She was revising mathematical formulae.

On her way to school, she stopped off at Groot Begijhoof. She liked that place, its smells-the smells of water and the fragrance of flowers. She loved Leuven, she had good memories from her childhood. She remembered the taste of her first waffle in her childhood, covered with whipped cream, chocolate and strawberries. She liked that taste, feeling in those moments something close to happiness. After having delicious waffles she often felt sick and sweet.

Then she drank mint tea and felt better, but not really better enough-she loved such a small self-destruction, which lasted just a while.

Her face was all covered with spots. Her mother always kept saying that was chocolate to be blamed for it, but how can you blame Belgian chocolate, the best chocolate all over the world, for your looks? Sybilla was a chocolate patriot, when her father went to the shops he always brought some of it home. Then the joy used to well up in her eyes. And so years passed, time is the biggest thief of life. Nonetheless, hatred for her stayed unchanging.

Stella did not care about her only daughter but only about her own unfulfillment. She was also enigmatic towards Sybilla. When she cooked Indian dinner, it was usually very spicy. Sometimes there was too much chilli in it-it meant that then she was saying that she loved her. She would go back to the world of her own, overfilled with bitterness and yearning for theatre and Hollywood. She pictured herself acting as Dita von Teese in a burlesque or acting in musicals. She dances main parts-the audience admires her, men-hungry and craving-dream of her touching them, sending them a kiss. Stella’s fantasy was caused by a story about which she kept silent. The story which was a secret even for Stella herself.

The house looked like a villa. A villa divided into two worlds. In Stella’s world there was a lot of pictures, salmon colour walls, furniture in cherry colour, willow green heavy curtains.

Hi-fi stereo system. That was Stella’s world. The world of a woman over forty who lived in dreams, although her husband was next to her.

He was a doctor at Katholiek Universitait Leuven. Sybilla’s father lectured on botany, he loved nature. He did not eat meat, his part of the house, laying on the left, was white. There was a lot of plants there, a picture on the wall with dry butterflies and other vermin. Sybilla’s world was between those two