The Ceiling Above Me Will Disappear One Day (excerpts)
Giant chess could be played in this room. Tongues from the television step across the black-and-white keys. And in the corner of the eye, a void for the deaf and mute—someone has been shot through it.
***
We were lying on the riverbank when we noticed round objects floating on the surface. At first we thought they were tennis balls from the nearby courts, but they weren't. They were apples with inflatable rings. A little farther away stood their mother, the apple tree. She had let the children go to the water—it's holiday time, after all.
***
The pigeons in the park started bringing me crumbs. They said I should bake myself a big cake. They'd heard from the sparrows that I'm always hungry and will eat anything.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting in our backyard, and a fully loaded bundt pan is taking off from the nearby field. Chickens are grazing nearby, pretending they know nothing.
***
I am a chair that is leaving, departing from the trunk. One more dinner—you will chatter, I will be silent. Then I'll walk through the garden, leaving no little footprints in the snow, only silence beneath my nails.
***
Motorcycles and cars began flowing from the water mains. "Finally, a proper tunnel," I heard enthusiastic shouts when I pressed my ear to the sink drain. The smell of diesel and gasoline began to flow out of my ear.
***
A sock lay on the crosswalk; one must saddle the zebra barefoot.
***
Bottles of drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, appeared on the library shelves instead of books. Readers grabbed baskets by the door and filled them, even searching for other favorites like Murder in Campari, The Prosecco Thief, Count Primitivo, Captain Morgan's Adventures in Alaska, My Friend Juice, Where Energy Drinks Yawn, and Mineral Water and Her Lovers.
Meanwhile, the books sat in the square and in the outdoor seating areas of cafés, exposing their paper spines to the sun, stuffing themselves with pastries, and flipping through one another's pages.
***
That Sunday, Grandma was sitting in the nursing home without a stocking on one leg. When we asked why, she replied curtly, "That's not my leg—it's someone else's. They put it there." The next morning, I arrived at the bus stop. A small group of people stood a short distance away, gesturing among themselves. When I looked more closely, I noticed that each of them had a stranger's leg. I glanced down quickly—I still had both of my own.
The group began to approach me, their expressions suspicious. Just then, a heavy downpour began. Stockings were raining from the sky, soaked and clinging as they fell. I was cold. I decided to close my eyes. When I opened them again, I was lying in bed at home. A strange dampness clung to the windows. Carefully, I pulled back the blanket—and saw that I had someone else's legs. Both of them. My grandmother's stockings were crawling out of the room. They wanted to get away, to find their own legs and wrap themselves around them.
(From the book The Ceiling Above Me Will Disappear One Day, published by Měsíc ve dne, České Budějovice 2016)
Author Bio
Kateřina Bolechová was born in 1966 in České Budějovice, in the South Bohemian region of the Czech Republic. After graduating from a secondary grammar school, she worked in several different professions and currently works as a librarian at the South Bohemian Research Library. She is the author of several poetry collections, and her work has been translated into multiple languages. In 2021, her poetry collection Sádrová hlava jiné Marie (Plaster Head of Another Mary, Petr Štengl Publishing, Prague, 2020) was nominated for the Magnesia Litera Award in the Moleskine Litera category for poetry. In addition to her literary work, she writes columns for Czech Radio České Budějovice and creates collages.
Natalie Nera is the pen name of Natalie Dunn. She is a Czech writer: author of two published novels, and editor of a poetry anthology in her mother tongue. She spent fifteen years in the UK with her British husband and children but has recently relocated to Prague. She writes in Czech, English, and occasionally translates. Her writing has appeared in Czech, Russian, German, English, Bengali, Spanish and Romanian. Her work has been published in Mslexia, Eunoia Review, The Selkie, Litero Mania and Tvar. In 2020, she was Highly Commended for The International Proverse Poetry Prize in Hong Kong. In January 2021, she became a member of the International Pen Club in Prague. Her collection Návrat ztracené dcery (2021: Dauphin, Prague) received positive reviews and was commended as one of the most interesting poetry collections at the annual literary award in the Czech Republic, Mobelova Cena 2022.