ROIPE'S ROPE

My name is Oya. I want to say... What do I want to say? Countless mixed thoughts clogs my alveoli, which I feel trembling like a fence on a border shaken by a village sandstorm. I’m still here to ask you, night sea. Can I fall asleep on your lap and shed liters of tears on you, as if you were peeing from fear when you were seeing my wounds that are rotten and festering like every other sense I have and through which I can touch and breathe life!?

Life, ife, ife, ife... Like a fast female mare dragging a tethered prey along a dirt road, the night echo scattered seeds of a woman’s voice all over the coastline, whose sharp water border was lost in the sand of the shore. The water current of the sea beat to the left against the rocks and on the thin walls of the miniature boat, which was tied to the pointed rock in the reef. From the right side of the coast, in the night’s darkness there was a light, where several tourists-campers seated, drinking cans of beer and frantically competing who will to be the first to shout “Kent” in front of the rest of the hidden stacked cards. The gentle breeze continues to rock the boat, the sea sneakily fills with water on the floor inside, while also submerging the bare feet of the woman, who is constantly scratching the tin floor with her nails.

-Listen to me, sea! Listen to me! My son, Roipe, left with a rope around his neck. She shouted as much as she could, not paying attention to the campers on the other side of the shore, who were deeply involved by the game of cards, and by the sound of the sea waves, they obviously could hear anything.

- They tell me that the pain was treated by pulling the turnip. What should I pull out, which root should I cut? Is it my son to tear out of my heart? Huh, sea? Is it possible to take the heart out of the heart? Are memories erased that, like a ray of light, still keep me alive? She sobs at the top of her voice, speeding up the rocking of the boat.

- What should I delete, huh? Tell me don’t be silent! Should I delete the letter R? Should I delete the letter O, or the letter I? If I erase the letter I what will I be left with? What will I have left, eh? Roipe’s rope will remain in my hands... - sobbing and continuing to scrape her nails from the bottom of the boat, she bent his knees in two sharp angles which she slowly and in deep despair left under her stomach, sticking her face to the floor of the boat, where the salt of seawater and the salt of her tears synthesized into one.

It was getting close to midnight. The current of the sea waves became more and more tireless and more furious, hitting the left side of the boat against the sharp parts of the rocks. The woman lay paralyzed on the floor, drowning her face in a mixture of tears and sea water. Water foam spread madly on the curved stone surfaces. Although she was still sobbing, she could barely hear her own voice now. Finally, the long-awaited moment when the sea speaks has arrived. And now the sea was shouting at the top of its voice, along with the rocks, with the waves, with the foam and with everything else with which it create a sound that rumbled along the coast.

-I tied the boat with the rope that my son left me. Talking quietly to herself, she kept her face pressed against the floor of the boat.

She wanted to straighten her body, but the next wave rocked the boat so hard that she could barely manage not to throw herself into his arms on the reef where countless spiky rocks under the water were waiting for their first prey of the night. The foamy structure of the waves reached several times for the slowly loosening knot. With her back turned to the shore, she didn’t even notice that the knot of the tied rope had come loose, and a few light brown threads remained in the top of the pointed conical rock, which, being wet, the sea wind was trying in vain to remove from the stone.

At the same moment in the distance on the shore, one camper ended the game with a winning score, exclaiming with as much satisfaction as he could hold his voice, “Oh yeaaah!”

Suddenly the woman turned to face the shore, thinking that someone was calling her name because the frequencies that carried the waves of the sea to the rocks created a sound echo that could be heard in the reef like: “Oyaaa!”

The strong wind twisted the rope on a heap and plunged it inside of the boat. The woman tried to grab the rope, but the currents of the sea furiously attacked her float.

Two hours later the sea was unrecognizably calm. At the other end of the shore, the campers were still playing cards. One of them shouts again at the top of his voice: “Oh yeaaahh!” About three hundred meters from the rocks, a boat was rocking like a peaceful baby’s cradle. There was no one inside. Only Roipe’s rope was left on the floor, submerged in salty seawater.

Stanka Bajlozova-Barlamova writes short stories. Her prose has been published in many literature magazines and anthologies. In 2021, she published the book “Siluetes”. In 2023 she won first prize in the literature contest at the museum Mother Teresa in the capital Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia. Today she works in the field of culture.