GABULI — Episode 1: Ashen Crow (Translation)
Three-Minute Novel “White Crow” #1: The Gray-Eyed Girl and the Blood-Soaked Dream
#1: "Gray Eyes"
A single white crow swoops down from the sky. Before us is a landscape of innumerous people, breathing their last, piled up in heaps, staining the earth red with their blood.
Standing before this wasteland covered in the deceased is a little girl in a yellow raincoat, her hood concealing her face.
《Both eyes that disagree on the color of the white crow, at the same time perceive two phenomena surrounding the girl》
Reflected in her white right eye is the girl still covered by her hood. If she’s can’t see what’s around her, she will have no knowledge of the dead, and her peaceful world will remain.
Reflected in her black left eye is the girl taking off her hood. The moment she sees the light, she will become aware of the dead, and she will witness the frightful world.
Above these opposing scenes, the white crow lets out a screeching cry. The curtain rises on the story of the girl who split in two.
* * *
Gray eyes seem to reflect the winter sky.
Why is it that you feel a trace of anxiety when you stare at the self you see in the mirror?
You should be used to seeing them by now, but those gray eyes still cast a feeling of malaise at you, like a pebble finding its way into your shoe.
>>>
Nineteen years ago, a girl named Miriam was born weighing less than thirty-six ounces.
According to the story her mother told her, the high concentration of oxygen in the incubator caused a condition called “retinopathy of prematurity” to affect her eyes, and although she was able to avoid being blinded, one of her eyes turned gray because of it.
Miriam’s mother, Thelma, works as a librarian in a public library and raised her daughter alone.
She never spoke of Miriam’s father, and Miriam never asked. But just once, on her tenth birthday, a man wearing glasses appeared at her home.
“Miriam, when you grow up, I’ll come to see you again.”
She thought that the man with that kind-looking smile might have been her father, but as time passed, she forgot about it all.
>>>
Miriam washes her face in the bathroom. After quickly putting on makeup and getting dressed, she’s putting on her shoes by the front door, when her cell phone rings.
“Hello...”
“Miriam, I see you’re finally awake.”
Her mother’s exasperated voice comes through.
“You’re a terrible oversleeper. If you keep dawdling, you’ll be late for school.”
“I get it. I’m leaving the house now.”
“Did you eat breakfast? There’s a sandwich on the kitchen table.”
“Yeah, but I’m in a hurry.”
“Speaking of which, you cried out in your sleep this morning. Are you alright?”
Miriam answers that she’s alright. She doesn’t want to make her mother worry, so she doesn’t speak of the dream where a white crow appeared.
“Mom, I said I’m in a hurry.”
“Alright, alright. Be careful and have a good day. I love you with all my heart.”
Miriam hangs up the phone, unties her shoelaces, and goes back to the kitchen to bag up her mother’s homemade sandwiches.
As she goes through the front door and turns the key to lock it, the sight of the doorplate, stating “Room 101”, ever-so-slightly tilting must have just been her imagination.
* * *
The Royal Academy of Dramatic arts that Miriam attends is a 20-minute subway commute from her home.
When she was in elementary school, she saw a stage production of Joan of Arc that inspired her to become an actress.
Jean was a maiden of Orleans who heard the voice of God, fought for her country, and was sentenced by the Inquisition to be burned at the stake.
In that play, there’s a scene in which the imprisoned Jean confides her heart’s troubles to a white crow that had landed by her prison’s window.
That scene took Miriam’s breath away.
【White Crow】
A crow with pale feathers. Highly intelligent, it appears in Greek mythology as a “messenger of the gods”. A symbol of non-existent, impossible things.
According to the book she found in the library, the white crow is described as a sublime being. But to Miriam, it’s a sinister bird that descends on the earth stained by the blood of the dead.
Why has this terrifying dream plagued her since her childhood?
Miriam is shocked back to reality when the subway car stops with a creak. This morning as well, she makes haste to chase away the memory of the crow in her dream.
As she rides the flow of people heading for the ticket gate, she suddenly gets the feeling that someone is watching her.
Even if she turns around, she wouldn’t know who it is. As she stands frozen by the escalator, a plump, annoyed-looking middle-aged man pushes past her.
“Hey there, Miriam.”
As she exits the station, a voice calls out to her. It’s a young man from the same school who has feelings for her.
“So it was you, Simon?”
“Huh? What was?”
“You were staring at me when I got off the subway.”
“That wasn’t me. I rode a bike to get here.”
Simon points at the public-use bicycles lined up by the roadside. Miriam shrugs.
“Anyway, were you painting yesterday?”
“Um... what do you mean?”
“Weren’t you walking around all covered with paint? I called out to you, but you just walked away.”
Miriam frowns at Simon’s words.
She doesn’t remember that in the slightest.
“It wasn’t me. That must have been someone else.”
“No way. I’d never get someone confused with you. There aren’t many people with gray eyes like yours.”
* * *
Morning classes wound up being canceled due to circumstances with the acting teacher.
Miriam goes to a nearby park, sits on a bench, and fills her mouth with the sandwich her mother made. She shares a bit of bread with a wild squirrel who was watching enviously, and it eats wholeheartedly.
A girl with eyes just like hers—
As she thinks about Simon’s tale, the image of her face reflected in the bathroom mirror at home enters her mind. All of her little anxieties come back at once.
“Were you painting yesterday?”
Covered with paint? What could that mean?
Simon said that he saw the mysterious girl on the south bank of the river in the brickwork warehouse district. He said she was wearing a yellow raincoat.
“There hadn’t been any rain, so that coat stood out to me.”
A yellow raincoat.The same as the little girl in her dreadful dream...
Miriam stands up from the bench after she’s done eating her sandwich, still deep in thought. On instinct, she starts toward the warehouse district.
* * *
The river’s powerful current makes one reflect on the perpetuity of time.
In this area where the past and the future collide, old buildings and new shops stand side by side, elderly people loitering on the street corners stare indifferently at the youths rushing around.
Miriam gets an uneasy feeling as she walks through the stone-paved alley under the overpass.
Feeling like she could encounter the girl in the yellow raincoat at any second, she’s startled by her face reflected in a window.
At that moment, she hears the screech of a crow.
Miriam’s head whips around instantly. She can’t see the crow, but she can hear the flutter of its wings. As she follows it down a small path, she smells a rotten stench. The smell of fresh blood, it’s her nightmare come to life.
Just as she’s about to go deeper down the alley, someone grabs her shoulder from behind.
“You’re Miriam, right?”
While she’s paralyzed with shock and fear, a tall man speaks to her in a cool voice. Although he’s wearing sunglasses, she remembers the gaze peeking out from under them.
In the subway, amidst the flow of people heading to the ticket gate. When the annoyed middle-aged man, pushed past her as she stood in front of the escalator, a calm-looking man wearing sunglasses was nearby. She’s been followed since then.
“...who are you?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to explain. For now, please, just follow me.”
Miriam struggles when the man tries to pull her along. She bites the man’s hand and runs as fast as she can.
“Oww... hey, wait!”
Run, run, run, through the maze-like alleyways.
Before she knows it, Miriam enters a dead-end alley. Surrounded on all sides by brick walls, she’s shocked by the graffiti art painted on the wall at the very end.
“...a white crow...”
Something clicks inside of her.
The scene from the ominous dream she’s had countless times since her childhood is recreated in this mysterious mural. As she cautiously approaches it, the man who had chased her calls out.
“Stop! Don’t get near that painting!”
Ignoring him, Miriam touches the white crow. The next second, something strange happens to her body.
《Miriam’s gray eyes, stained with white and black, are able to concurrently perceive the events of reality and dreams.》
Reflected in her white right eye is the reality of the man staring at her in the back alley. Suddenly, a crack runs through one lens of his sunglasses, and he drops to his knees with a groan, covering his eye.
Reflected in her black left eye is the dream of the little girl standing on the blood-stained earth. She casts off the hood of her yellow raincoat and gazes over the deceased with her jet-black eyes.
“...don’t look!”
Miriam shouts at the girl in an instant.
“Why?”
While Miriam is stuck speechless, the girl tells her with an innocent smile—
“I’m the one who killed them.”
(ORIGINAL)