Matryoshka and the Red Ox Page Last

Page 3

          “Djedjuska?” the young woman asked. On the ground lay the figure of the old man. He was cold and wet and panting.

           The young woman searched for anything to help the man stand, but as much as she looked she could not find anything to help, not even the red ox.

          She took upon her own shoulders the shivering old man and stood quite carefully. Slowly, the young woman trudged home, carrying the old man who had been so kind to her.

          When evening fell, the humble light of the cottage guided the young woman to the threshold of her own door, where her mother and father were watching and waiting for her.

           Father helped his daughter and the old man into blankets by the fire the father had made from pelted beasts.

          Mother brought a handsome feast and helped the young woman and the djedjuska to chew the meat and swallow the soup she had prepared.

          The young woman became warm again quite quickly beside the familiar hearth, but the old man only became less damp. He managed to smile and thank the mother of the young woman for the feast, the father of the young woman for the hospitality of a warm cottage and hearth, and the young woman for the lovely flowers he always treasured. With his eyes still upon the bright cheeks of the young woman, the old man uttered her pet name, “Matryoshka,” and passed into the great white domain belonging to Death.

         The young woman mourned the old man for weeks, until one day the dread of winter began to leave the land. That same day the young woman heard a low rumble and looked up from picking wildflowers. The red ox stood before the edge of the forest.

          The ox stood perfectly still as the young woman ran toward it. The animal might have fled, except for the trap catching its hind leg. As the daughter of her father, the young woman knew how to release the trap, and so she did.

          The trap fell free, but the ox did no run. No trace of blood existed anywhere on the red ox. Instead, the unforgettable face of Death stared at the young woman as a white scar on the leg which had been trapped.

          From that day forward, the young woman sharply scolded the red ox whenever it wandered. She did not wander much anymore, but every so often the young woman would load the back of the red ox with dried wildflowers and make the two-day journey through the mountain pass.

          At the post marking the border of a village, and at the abandoned shack beyond, the young woman placed the wildflowers she had collected.

          She stayed to think, and then she hastened home.

 The End

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Matryoshka and the Red Ox Page Two

Page Two

          The young woman shivered in the unbearable cold. She opened her eyes. Instead of the water she expected to see, she saw a great white forest spread out under mountains.

         A low rumble drew her attention to a red speck at the edge of the forest. Although she did not move, the forest slid at dizzying speed toward the young woman until the red ox and the tall trees halted before her, close enough that she could reach out her arm and touch them. The young woman tried to do so, but a nearby white pine turned around, showing itself to be not a tree at all.

         The cloak was of pure white. Pine needles clothed what appeared to be a dark, rigid trunk. The unforgettable face emerged from the shadows, along with arms like a man and the claws of some other beast entirely.

        “That’s my red ox,” the young woman said to the strange figure. “I must bring it home.”

         “I am Death,” the figure said. Its voice howled as the wind blew. “The ox has wandered too far. It now belongs to me, as it has come to my land.”

         The young woman shivered. “Please. Let me take the ox home. Mother and Father expect me to bring our ox to the feast we are to have when I return.”

         “Go back to them,” Death said. “You linger too long in my domain.”

         “Please, I need the ox,” she begged.

          Death studied the young woman. “What would you give me to spare your ox?”

         “I bring firewood, young switches, and dried flowers to the old man on the other side of the mountain,” the young woman recalled. “I could bring you more.”

         “I have no need of fire, nor of young twigs,” Death said, “but perhaps the flowers of your cheeks would be a fair trade for the red ox.”

         “I have no flowers in my satchel. I will have to pick you some,” the young woman said.

         “No, Matryoshka, the bright red of your cheeks are better than dried flowers.”

         “No,” the young woman said.  “Anything else!”

          Death and the ox slid away from the young woman until they were mere specks along a receding forest. The mountains, too, grew smaller with distance.

          The young woman gasped and opened her eyes again. Beside her roared the river, freed of its winter cloak, and behind her a pair of damp, fleshy arms tugged the young woman up the slight banks. A man’s breath labored close to her soaked hair.

         The tugging stopped, and the young woman fell as the man also collapsed.

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Matryoshka and the Red Ox Page One

          Matryoshka and the Red Ox

Page One

          Mother promised a true feast on fresh game that Father planned to trap in the forest near their humble cottage. A young woman, small but strong and the only child of her parents, was sent to fetch the red ox that liked to wander.

          The young woman liked to wander, too, and so it took her a five days’ walk through the mountain pass when the journey should have taken two days. She found the red ox at a frozen post on the outskirts of a village, where lived an old man. The old man, to whom belonged the post and the clean shack beyond, gave over the ox’s rope to the young woman. The young woman returned her thanks to the djedjuska by giving him dried wildflowers from her long hair, green birch switches from her satchel, and firewood she had gathered and carried in a bundle across her shoulders.

           The old man looked as he always did at the young woman and her bright cheeks which made her seem like a matryoshka doll come to life. “Matryoshka,” he said, for she had never told him if she had a name, “take care of this beast. It likes to wander more than it should. Take care that it does not cause you sorrow, for it is a beast and not a man.”

         “Thank you, Djedjuska,” the young woman returned, as always.

           She tried to follow the old man’s advice on the journey back home. The ox had a mind of its own. Soon the young woman and the ox were wandering away from the path.

          On one cold winter day in the Caucasus Mountains, the young woman pulled her ox’s ragged rope with all her might. The ox’s foot stuck fast in an ice hole beside a frozen creek, where both the animal and the woman had stopped to find water and rest before continuing another half a day’s journey home.

           The red ox’s leg broke through the ice as the ragged rope frayed and snapped. She tried to catch the broken end, but the young woman bent too far forward. Ice sheets trembled and plunged into the depths of the water, swallowing the ox, the young woman, and all she had with her.

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No Animals Allowed

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Leave furred mongrels home
Safe from man's justice