Archanda-book with Carmen

By Mikho Mosulishvili
Translated from Georgian into English by Ann Mosulishvili 

An Old Fisher

"Once Chjuan Chjou had a strange dream, where he was a butterfly. He was very happy thinking of himself as a butterfly. In his dream Chjou couldn't realize he was a man. But suddenly, he woke up...
Chjou couldn't catch the difference whether it was Chjou dreaming of being a butterfly or the butterfly was dreaming of being Chjou..."

Chuan Tsai - "About equality of things"

Recently I have had a strange feeling: as if in my own city and even in the country I were an immigrant who has learned the language very well but can not understand the people and their behavior.
I miss the 80s Tbilisi – absolutely different… I remember Omar Durmishidze’s splendid exhibition in the city in those times.
I especially remember a picture “an old fisher”.
An old fisher is sitting on a pavement of a dark street; there is a box in front of him. He has put a fish on this box and looks absolutely hopeless and lonely. He is sitting so strangely that the pleats of his shirt and the wrinkles of his face have the same shape.
When you get closer you start discovering small pieces of hope in his eyes – may be you will buy his fish?
If you get back and look at him again you won’t see white pieces any more – you did not buy fish either.
When you get closer – you see the pieces of hope and when you get back – they disappear.
One may think that it is just an illusion but the more times you do it, the more times you will get the same result.
I was twenty thven and I went to see that painting every day.
So I remember it so very well that I can see it, or I can imagine it or I can recall it.
Not only see but also feel that I am that fisherman looking at you from the picture with the pieces of hope in my eyes – may be someone will buy my fish?

A good hand at writing

(A sudden portrait)

In the memory of Revaz Inanishvili

“He is great, too great. He’s strong character can make the world go round  he told me thoughtfully and after several minutes of silence he added: “But an ordinary man is not so great.”

“And what about you?” I asked.

“I am small, too small, tired and can not walk without my stick. As see I am sitting down here under the shade of this old oak and can not look high up to the sky. I am staring at the ground, watching the ants carrying twice as big things as their bodies.” He answered.

“I don’t want to be that he; I just think that I am that little ant.” I said laughing. He smiled the way only he could – pleading, but still sadly and put his wrinkled, hand on my head. Then he got up very slowly; he went away and vanished.

He was a great man – a real Christian. Once he said: “I write only when my soul needs to pray.” Don’t think of him as you do about some village writers. His village I see the whole Georgia, is it necessary for you to see Europe proclaims him like Niko Pirosmanashvili to proclaims him yourself and cry one’s eyes out?

Lady with Poppies

A twenty-year-old girl with an excited appearance is walking in the room which is lit in a very low light of the lamp light. The nervous paintings on the walls and the sound of rain coming in from the street create a specific feeling of comfort. The girl is a painter. She is trying to take her eyes off the guest – a writer, and thinks that taking too many drugs overdosing is the best way of suicide. “One will leave this world without pain,” she says.

“Why aren’t you painting any more?” The man asks with interest.

“There is nothing left to be seen or painted for me. Take a look, here I find the only relief.” She turned up her slaves and our romantic writer saw the pricked veins. He can clearly see the poppies coming out from the wounds, as red as blood. They grow taller, and then they cut out owls fly out of the flowers. The owls are carrying Hypnosis – the god of long sleep. Little by little he grows and becomes stronger. Now poor lady with poppies is all in his arms. But one can not call her a lady; she is a girl, just a young girl…