Scream

Scream

The Sultan remembered that every summer, three or four children, sometimes even an adult man, drowned in the Kichkirik. For days and weeks, the entire neighborhood would be on its feet, searching and searching, and if the drowned person was found that day or the next, he was found. If not, five, seven... ten days later, a swollen, bloated body would float to the surface of the water on either side of the river... There were also those who disappeared completely... At such times, for days, words like "The Kichkirik is raging!", "The Kichkirik is bleeding!", "Don't go near the Kichkirik!" would not leave the mouths of old and young, men and women. However, the cruelty of the fierce and turbulent current of the Scream is quickly forgotten in the simple, calm and rhythmic flow of life, and besides, one of the strange laws of human behavior is that a person who has not once fallen into a mad whirlpool cannot even imagine that he is not immune to the possibility of drowning. The funny thing is that even adults and sensible people, who have known such a turbulent action of the river from time immemorial, liken the bed of the Scream to a calm river. Who knows, on the one hand, the calm and calm surface of the water that always filled the river could deceive, distract, or even leave the beholder in a state of heedlessness... Sultan did not think of any of this when he gently stepped into the water with his bare feet, took a few steps, the icy water hitting his ankles, and the flat pebbles that lay flat on the ground tickled the soles of his feet. However, for several days, one thought after another had been stealing his peace, leading him by the hand and slowly heading towards the riverbank, even pushing him by the shoulder, urging him to get into the water. He had not only disliked the Scream since childhood, but every time he heard the name "Scream", the shadow of nameless fear and panic imprinted in his cold, childish heart would open its eyes and shudder. He had learned to swim in the shallow banks of the Scream with his peers during his childhood and adolescence, and had practiced swimming with his arms outstretched, and he had begun to believe that he would never be afraid of water again. One day, the current suddenly pulled him into the water. No matter how hard Sultan tried to right himself and move towards the shore, instead of being able to resist the currents of the water, he could not resist the currents of the water. Despite finding a way to get his head and shoulders out of the water two or three times, some wild force seemed to pull him from his legs to one side and his waist to the other, sucking him into the depths of the river. He forgot that he had felt himself going... and then that he could not remember what had happened... and when he came to, he was lying limply under the willow tree on the bank, as if the life had gone out of his limbs, the fog that had gathered above him was humming, and that he had never set foot in this river since he had come to his senses and used to go to the water basin in the city center, and that he had never been able to bathe in it, and that every time he saw the children and goats crying happily without coming out of the water for days, his heart would race after him - all of it. The Sultan could not be distracted by the magical sound of the water, the chirping of the birds that had woken up early, or the noise of cars passing by on the highway in the distance. The water began to hit Sultan's shins, knees, and soon his back. He didn't think long about where he would enter the river. By the time summer came, the area around the single-legged iron bridge over the river would be filled with a crowd of neighborhood children and warm-blooded men, because here the water was more expansive and calmer, and about fifty or sixty fathoms downstream, the river narrowed dramatically, and the current took over for a moment. The swarthy bride dipped her bucket into the water at the same spot... Sultan dived in just before the river narrowed, his body getting used to the cold water. As he tried to imagine what was waiting for him ahead, he suddenly noticed that the stream, or rather, the bottom of the stream, had suddenly accelerated in a strange way, the trees on both sides of the bank had thickened, and he himself was flowing as silently as a piece of paper, a flower petal. The Sultan tried to adapt to the current, to avoid sinking to the bottom of the water, ignoring the waves that were crashing against his head and face, turning his face to the right and left to breathe freely, and at the same time... after all, he did not intend to go for a walk in the river or show off his swimming skills in the pond, but rather to find the body of his fifteen-day-old bride! The day after the bride drowned, he told Bashorat about it. The girl said, "Oh, poor thing!" with a pang of sadness. Bashorat's milky cheeks turned pale again.