Na śvietłym alpijskim łuhu, lia aŭčarki,
Ščaślivy byčok i cialuška, jak śnieh,
I ščaście mahčyma biaz złoj bipalarki...
So, the old man brought the cow to the farm. Now, it must be said that this cow was a tender soul with aspirations reaching skyward. Her entire life she had dreamed of mountain pastures, alpine meadows, overgrown with soft and tasty grass right up to her udder — but where could you find such things in Lithuania? In short, she was a strange cow, and very pensive. And she was still a heifer.
But everything comes to an end eventually — and the cow's fairy tale ended too.
...The eldest was a clever lad, the middle one was so-so, the youngest was a total fool...
The ground began to shake, birds scattered from their perches, the workers who had been dozing after lunch stopped dozing and, just in case, moved away from the entrance to the farm. The cow tried to break free, but no such luck — like a horror flying on the wings of night, out of the dark opening burst the youngest, Ryhor.
Almost knocking over the vet on his way, he slammed into the cow so hard that she crashed full-force into the stand with local and national newspapers. The stand collapsed, the cow collapsed too. The bull raced past and, not wanting to lose momentum, started turning in a wide arc, scattering with his horns any birds, dogs, and gaping workers who got in his way, his hooves smashing the quaking universe and...
But the "and" never came: the old man grabbed a stick and dashed across the bull's path, shouting something like *"Hдnde hoch, you haploid cattle, don't you dare touch my Garibaldi, march back to your pen!"* and trying to trip him up.
The bull glanced back, sized up the situation, decided not to mess with a former partisan, and darted back into his cowshed, snorting loudly and mooing with indignation.
"How can you live like this? Dreams crushed, and I've scraped my side raw." The cow was almost crying. She shook herself off, spat in the bull's direction, and said to the old man: "Do what you want, but I'm not staying in this barracks-style Soviet Union of yours any longer. This is not fu… this is not fu…" — she looked thoughtfully at the fallen newspaper stand, trying to find the right word — "…this is not a sport, this is murder. My hoof won't set foot here again — I'm off to the Alps!" She flicked her tail and vanished into the evening twilight.
"Wait, my dear Garibaldi, I'm coming with you!" — and the old man vanished too, right after the cow...
And so ended this crude and graceless fairy tale — but it was replaced by another, bright and romantic: la-la-la — a little flower, la-la-la — another one...
Spring came, bringing to the mountains fresh air and tender greenery. Birds chirped, streams ran. In the evenings, the old man met his Garibaldi not with hay, but with armfuls of flowers, and sighed on the sly.
"Why are you sighing so bitterly?" Garibaldi asked him one day. "What do you want, old man?"
The old man lowered his eyes: "I want a woman. Someone to look after the household, fry pancakes, ferment kefir or matsoni..."
"A woman? That's no big deal," the cow marvelled. "Come to my meadow tomorrow."
"Why?"
"Come — you'll see..." Garibaldi wouldn't give away her secret.
The next morning in the meadow, she nodded behind her back: "Should I introduce you, or can you handle it yourself?"
Among the greenery stood a small white bull, and on him, sidesaddle in a lady's saddle, sat a pretty woman in a red hat, stealing glances at the old man.
I don't yet know whether this fairy tale has a happy ending. Or a finale.
[ SYSTEM DATA ] All text anomalies mentioned above (Haploid, Dumpling Paradox, Arithmetic of Emptiness, Groin Situation, etc.) are part of the multilingual project IO-IO Lab (EN/RU/BY). Full unfragmented versions of the texts are compiled into EPUB capsules. The official archive and free downloads (Pay what you want) are mainly available at the IO-IO Lab base on the Buy Me a Coffee platform.