Illustrations with a Story

Rusla — in our old language, means the deepest part of a river..

I'm fascinated by the banished beings of our mythology, so I decided to save them from oblivion.

With this illustration I bring them to life, from my imagination, just as I pictured them — the Rusalke.

Red-haired beauties born of drowned maidens — girls not yet married, whose lives were cut short in full strength and bloom.

They appeared only seven days a year, in spring when the wheat blooms. Wherever they passed, the wheat grew as if from water..

They danced at night in the moonlight, for the moon is their sun; and anyone who glimpsed the rusalke's round dance would be seized by fits of laughter, limbs cramping and twisting in an unwilling dance.

But for the rusalke to bring the land its fertility, there were rules for people.

During that week, people refrained from any work that might offend them. It was forbidden to go into the forest, to sleep away from home, or to bathe in rivers and lakes during Rusalka week…

They wake up with you that morning, those little demons. You take one slipper, they take the other. You wash your face, they smirk wickedly in the mirror.

Your steps are heavier that day, because you don't walk alone. Your faithful little demons follow your every step.

You take your coat and shake it out well first, hoping to shake them off too — but once you put it on, you realize it's unusually heavy on your shoulders…

You open the door, breathe in the cold air deeply, and reluctantly ask yourself.. Shall we go?

That part of us that chafes. That can’t be uprooted no matter how much we work on ourselves. It spoils our image — not for others, no no, from others we hide it cleverly — but for ourselves —

In the mirror it grins insolently.

A stubborn walnut tree, tall as a house and twice as deep below ground; the part of us that won't be torn out. We shift it from pocket to pocket, but never find the right place for it.

We tear at it, peel it, bury it, burn it.. When really we should understand that we have to grow together with it. Only then will it head in the direction we want.

Just like a walnut tree.

They tell you it'll get better with time, and it will — but only because it has to, so the people around you aren't unsettled too much. Everyone moves on, so they expect you to as well. It wouldn't be pleasant to remind them now of what they too might one day lose — and what would they do with your loss anyway?

Like a suitcase that won't cram into the trunk of their everyday life — it's in the way, too heavy. You realize this quickly, after the tender messages and words of sympathy. So you carry your suitcase and wait for it to at least grow little wheels, to become a shade lighter. And that happens too; sometimes you don't even notice it rolling along behind you. And it really does get better.

But what no one tells you is what to do with all that love that has nowhere left to go… Because that — that doesn’t pass.

Conscience. It always comes uninvited. It hides around the corners of our awareness. It stalks. It moves quickly and unnoticed — Silent.

It tiptoes up to us when we least expect it. Or rather, when we least want it. Just when we're at our happiest and think we've escaped it — pleased with our getaway, tucked into our web of illusion — that's exactly when it raps sharply on the window, demanding a meeting.

And then we have a choice: to face it, dreadful as it is, eye to eye — or to attempt escape again, knowing it’s faster than us and will catch us sooner or later…