Julie was aware that she was going down. Her illness devastated her and she was hallucinating. In her hallucinations, she lived as she really loved to. It was the same country but a different time. In her dreams, she was in Armenia, as in real life, but in the 5th millennium. She travelled back and forth from the time she lived in to her imaginary life. She was already approaching her 30s, yet life remained illusory for her.

Planet Earth….The 5th millennium… Armenia… She woke up in bed and stretched her arms. A smile spread across her face. She did not care what she would do today. She knew that the day would deliver all the wonders that she had dreamed about.

Slowly she crawled out of bed. The floor was icy, and she felt the freezing cold across her body. She took a hot shower. She stood there under the water for a long time. The water was flowing over her body and giving her the pleasure of warmth and security. She did not want to get out of the shower, as she enjoyed the moment under hot water, and her whole body was relaxing. Then she poured some cold water on herself and quickly jumped back in the hot shower. She repeated this 7 times. Her whole body was red and trembling in pleasure.

Janet was one of the inhabitants of planet Earth in the fifth millennium. It was a world where dreams came true immediately. It was a world of security, pleasure, self-satisfaction and delight. The inhabitants of this planet had a wonderful ability to carve out their own world by virtue of thought. Everybody conjured up their own experience by thinking. Thoughts could materialize.

This was a planet of freedom and security. Everybody knew that they could not encroach on others, as this would disturb their own privacy and pleasure. It was not out of kindness that the inhabitants refrained from interfering in each other’s lives. Kindness was not a virtue here. They were egotistical. They knew that if they interfered in another person’s sphere, that would ruin their own privacy. Egotism drove the refusal. They did not want to lose the security and beauty of their own space.

She went out on the front porch to admire the beauty of nature. There were high mountains, a river, water flowing and a valley of green-green grass and red tulips. She walked barefoot. She stood in the morning mist. The dew on the grass covered her toes, and she felt the cold trembling of her body. She looked at this enormous beauty, and the smile did not leave her face.

She had a lot to do that day. She had to go through her notes and compose a critique for a book. She put on her clothes and went to the study. It was a large room with tall shelves and books on them. There was a table near the window and an armchair. The computer was on the wall. She worked there for three hours. These three hours passed as though they were a moment. She was immersed in her work. She composed an article about a book that was assigned to her by a publishing house. She went through every detail, touched upon each hero and the emotions that they prompted in her. She paid attention to how the characters developed. What solutions would they find? How did they react to their environment? And most importantly, what were the emotions that the characters conveyed to the audience. She made a spreadsheet where she categorized all the characters, incidents, conversations and developments. Then she connected the subcategories into bigger categories and designated them accordingly. She finally came up with the main plot and character traits portrayed in the novel. It took a lot of work but she enjoyed every moment of it. She was going from one character to another. She was looking through the lines and discovering things that the author was not even aware of. She was composing a totally new story out of the book that she was critiquing.

She finally left the study. She did not really want to eat. But since there were a couple of apples on the table, she chomped on one. She was tired. Her mind was drained, and she did not notice time passing. She needed to relax, so she went out to sit on the grass in front of the house. She laid down on the grass and touched the sky with her finger. It started raining from her touch. She lay under the rain as it washed her clothes, her face and her body. She finally stood up and went to have a hot shower again. A hot shower on her body… Relaxing…. She felt the warmth and tiredness leaving her body little by little.

She then sat on the front porch looking at the distant mountains and fell asleep…

(…to be continued…)

Series – Evanescent

January: If Something Can Go Wrong…It Will – Jonay Quintero Hernández (Spain)

February: The Planet of Pleasure – Nane Sevunts (Armine Asryan) (Armenia)

March: The Evening with Jackie Lee – Gennady Bondarenko (Ukraine)

April: Vuvuzelas, Walkie-Talkies and Madiba Magic – Sarah-Leah Pimentel (South Africa)

May: Remembering – Seyit Ali Dastan (Turkey)

June: 5-4-3-2-1 – Talia Stotts (America)

July: Getting Ready for Newborns – Marilin Guerrero Casas (Cuba)

August: Regrets – Kate Korneeva (Russia)

September: A Hollow Pursuit – Diana Haidar (Syria)

October: The Test – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)

November: The Writer’s Daughter – Lauren Voaden (United Kingdom)

December: Translation Perfect – Zhang Lu (China)

Special: Catching Water III – Javier Gomez (Argentina)

Background – Context

Conceived – Childhood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2021)

In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)

Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)

La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)

The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)

L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)

From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)

Emblems and stories on the international community

Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world

Credits

Cover photo: Composite of Shirak, Armenia – Another time – Özgür Akman (Unsplash) and Tavush, Armenia – Wandering – Karine Avetisyan (Unsplash)
Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed