The Red Hair

            It was September and although nature still kept its green against the rapid onset of autumn, a rare tree wasn’t affected by its icy touch. Like a fuzzy line, separating the domain of men from the kingdom of the forest spirits, a wide, unasphalted path lay between the sleeper districts of Moscow and the wilder parts of the national park Sokolíny. And on it – a single figure strolled at a leisurely pace, the fallen leaves crunching beneath her feet.

         Alisa was dressed lightly, but appeared undisturbed by the chilly wind that galloped to and fro the long, straight road. The girl let the streams of air play with her long and unusually bright red hair, outstretching her arms to feel the gusts pass by as she walked on. A young lass, in her late teens, Alisa was a charming creature and visibly proud of it. Not a care in the world reflected in her deep blue eyes even as the girl squinted a bit, bathing in the last warm rays of the Indian Summer, pouring through the thinning leaf.

         As she reached an intersection where another path crossed the main road to swerve deeper into the woods, the girl stopped and cocked her head to the side, as if to listen to someone whispering into her ear. She stood like that for a few moments and then – beaming with joy at her own attentiveness – Alisa turned away from the shadows of the old birch trees and stepped over the border of the human hive.

         A growing clutter of noises and unnatural scents surrounded her almost immediately. The red haired girl didn’t let it fetter her and pressed onwards, musing at how fast things can change… Not unlike the seasons of the year, the ways of mankind were a fleeting thing. Mere decades ago she’d get scorned for simply wearing pants and sneakers - “an uncomely attire for a person her age and sex” - but now nobody so much as raised a brow. At this thought Alisa actually murmured with delight: she hated wearing skirts and liked the newer customs better since they allowed her to dress however she pleased. Who cared anyway? Who came up with that stupid idea that all women should wear skirts? Oh, and those ugly sordid red ties…
         Entertained by such silly speculations, the girl made her way among identically looking five-storey houses each built of the same red brick. Between them one could easily get lost in quiet courtyards, ornamented with jagged rows of trees, planted half a century ago. Every now and then a rusty playground, each exactly the same as every other, or an improvised play-field could be seen, but these were all deserted. The hour was still early and since the majority of people were busy elsewhere - doing their bit and playing out their routines - at times there wasn’t a soul in sight. Occasionally Alisa would come across a couple of sullen pensioners, who’d shake their heads at her, and once she had to dodge an untidy looking fellow in dirty, ragged clothes. He tried to catch her by the sleeve of her jacket, mumbling “why arentcha at school, pretty”, but the girl just hurried past him and never so much as glanced at his reddened face.

         At one point the sound she was after ceased and Alisa halted momentarily, closing her eyes to try and strain her hearing. To her great relief, the girl sensed it again and now it seemed much closer. She darted forward, almost stumbling on the border paving, which made the lass hiss with disdain. Afraid that the beacon Alisa followed might go silent; she quickly cornered the nearest house. The sound receded, but now the girl approached a building very different from those other remnants of generations past. This one was newer, taller; with well-kept lawns and neatly trimmed bushes. The sight annoyed Alisa even more, but at the same time she knew that this was indeed her destination.

         Anton Rodionov was having a bad day. The kind of day when frustration would pour in with the first rays of sunlight the moment you opened up the curtains in your bedroom and then follow you around to take every mundane chore and magnify its dullness by a tenfold. Clenching a lit cigarette between his teeth, Anton punched in the babysitter’s number into his Motorola, something he’d probably have done a hundred times already this morning, but the girl just wouldn’t pick up. For her own sake, the businessman hoped that the idiot was already on her way to his apartment.

         Holding the phone to his ear and waiting for anyone to answer on the other end, Anton checked on the kid. The little tyke snuffled peacefully in a stroller parked by the building entrance, blissfully ignorant of his father’s problems. Looking at him now, the man could hardly believe that it was the same snotty screeching monstrosity Anton’s wife left in his care before taking the car and driving off to a beauty salon only a mere half an hour ago. In his mind the man made a mental note to remember in which hidden pocket of that hellish wheeled throne lay the pacifier.

         “Just wait ‘till the babysitter arrives”, his spouse told him. “She’ll take over from there and afterwards you can go to your stinking office or wherever.”

         The fact that their other car was still in repairs and that he’d probably have to take the metro to get anywhere at all didn’t seem to bother the missus. Annoyed, Anton spit on the pavement. “Life begins at forty” the saying goes, but right now he felt himself too darn old to be putting up with this crap. Rodionov could never help feeling sorry for those poor souls who got entangled in the whole kids business fresh out of school, but now – with most of his friends enjoying peaceful existence as their children were already starting families of their own – the aging man wondered whether his priorities were always somewhat off.

         Deep in thought, Anton took a long drag on the cigarette. He exercised his fancy a bit, trying to imagine how things would go if he was more reckless in his youth, remembering that other girl who almost dragged him to the altar… And who knows, he might’ve been better off without the old hoot perching on his neck. Maybe even live and work abroad, somewhere very, very far from this dump.

         Rodionov flipped his cell phone closed and the loud click it produced pulled him back to reality. The man blinked, recollecting himself, and then glanced at the stroller to make sure the babe wasn’t about to start anything again. To his surprise Anton noticed a new presence on the driveway: standing only a few meters away, a young gal – a high schooler, Anton would wager – was eyeing the sleeping baby with that stupid “oh you’re so cute, I wanna hug you” look on her face that he came to hate so much in the last few months.

         The girl was a beaut there was no denying it - even despite her rather unkempt attire she was a hard one to ignore. Rodionov looked the pretty young thing from head to feet, appreciating her well-developed body, sharp features and fiery red hair that fell freely onto her delicate shoulders. At first blush the lass seemed almost doll-like, her figure and pretty face too much like those of the powdered actresses from foreign soap operas that flooded the TV nowadays.

         Suddenly the girl turned to Anton and, catching his gaze, beamed back at him with a sort of willfully coy smile. Something in the way that young lady looked at him made the middle-aged man quite uncomfortable. Rodionov Senior was not a kind of person who often found themselves at a loss for words. Raised in the streets, he preferred anger to discomfiture, audacity to embarrassment, and spite to misunderstanding… Yet somehow the expression of her cold blue eyes made Anton turn away on an instinct.

         Regaining himself momentarily, the businessman felt the morning frustrations come back, full force. From the corner of his eye, Anton could see the strange girl sit down on a nearby bench, leaning forward as if to tie a loose shoelace. He could feel his annoyance grow exponentially, his mind boiling with rage. Although he could scarcely understand why, but in that second the businessman despised them all: his wife, the babysitter, the kid, this brazen little brat and – perhaps more than anything else - his own confused feelings.
         “Oh, but I’ll show you how to cross me!” needing someone to vent his irritation on, Anton reached for his Motorola again. He knew just the guy to make a scapegoat out of! Dialing one of his less favorable subordinates, Rodionov imagined himself a tiger, ready to pounce at his victim. The poor man at the office was taking forever to answer, not realizing that he might’ve just sealed his fate. Finally, when Anton already started to lose his temper, the line was done beeping and with a crackle an inaudible grunt of a greeting wafted from the other end.

         “Dimón! What the hell took you so long?! I’m not paying you to…”, but the businessman had to cut his angry tirade short when his eyes wandered back to where that mysterious young woman sat only a few moments ago. The bench was unoccupied and to him it seemed like the girl had disappeared in thin air with only a pair of scruffy looking shoes left on the sidewalk. It took Anton a couple of blinks before he noticed that something else was amiss: the stroller - still standing at an arm’s length away from him – was empty.

         The old houses flew past her in a flurry of red and brown spots as Alisa ran, back tracing her way to the edge of the city. The number of the hideous structures dwindled and the retreat of the unnatural stenches of civilization filled the girl’s heart with elation. Wary of the people who may be chasing her, Alisa tried to stay off asphalted surfaces - the clatter that her claws generated against the roads could’ve given her away.

         At last the line separating the two worlds appeared on the horizon. Keeping her head down, the lass shot across the final stretch of land, desecrated with human dwellings, and quickly dived into the first row of dying shrubbery. Sighing with relief, she ran but a little longer and then stopped, her ears pricked up, to check the silent air for any signs of pursuit. But except for the low rustle of the wind in the treetops, everything was quiet.

         Catching her breath, Alisa looked down at the little boy, still sound asleep in her arms. Carefully caressing the kid’s cheek she noted just how strong a resemblance there was between the corpulent man she stole the child from and his offspring. Alisa waved the thought away and a smile crept to her lips. Licking her sharp teeth, the girl started deeper into the woods. Tonight her pains will be rewarded.