KidLit Forum

A very, very interesting and captivating fairy tale! It starts with the description of an ordinary family and the inner thoughts of the wife, Olga. She is bored of her life, she doesn’t want to see her husband drinking and snoring; everything is a routine and she had had enough of everything so she just wants to go out and make something out of ordinary. So she plans to go out with a friend but they are all busy or simply can’t, or simply don’t answer the phone so she decides to go to Anya, the woman who helped her with the kids when she and her husband were young and amorous. On her way to Baba Anya she was almost hit by a car and found herself in a rural station.

This is the real beginning of the fairy tale She even found something for Anya, a warm shawl, and just two hours later was running across the square in front of the train station, having almost been hit by a car on the way (now, that would really be something, wouldn’t it, if she died, it would certainly be a solution to all sorts of problems, the disappearance of a person no one needs or wants, it would free everyone, Olga thought, and even paused on this thought for a while, amazed by it) – and a moment later, as if by magic, she was descending from the commuter train at the little rural station that she knew so well. And so, we are placed in another world where she and Seryozha (her husband) were young and happy and surrounded by friends.

There is also a sort of gap generation: the moment when Olga meets Baba Anya and she tells her she died 2 weeks ago and that she was buried just by Dmitri and that her daughter (Marina) could not come to the funeral, and that now she wants to see her daughter and after a moment she doesn’t want which makes Olga think that she is insane Baba Anya was obviously talking nonsense. Want, not want. But she stood firm, blocking the hallway with her diminutive frame. Another example is the way Dmitri buried her: he decided to cremate her; but her wish was to be buried in the traditional way.

In their forced dialogue, forced because Olga just didn’t want to leave the house as Baba Anya kept telling her, Olga asked her if she has water and the answer was negative which made Olga go and bring some water to the old woman. While trying to bring her water she hurt herself and had pains everywhere on her body but this didn’t make her change her mind and climbed the wall. Still, Baba Anya didn’t want water and food so Olga left her, fact that brought her back to “reality” in a hospital bed And then Olga woke up on some kind of bed. Once again there opened before her (there it is!) that endless white space, as if she were surrounded by snow […] But where, where? What happened? You got hit by a car, don’t you remember? Sleep now, sleep. You were hit by a car. Hit by a car indeed she was, she just couldn’t believe her eyes, because after sleeping again she found herself back at Baba Anya’s door.