The last few months reminded me of a fairy tale that used to make me shiver in fear when I was a kid. The Pied Piper of Hamelin is an interesting German legend about a musician hired by the town's authorities to persuade the increasing rat's population out of the city's boundaries. The idea that the rats will follow the melody and get orders by a man with a pipe is fascinating. These were the times when diseases such as plague killed hundreds if not millions in Europe. The life cycle of a man is known by its many repetitive conditions, coincidences turned into brilliant order, vicissitudes. These constant rollovers have proved that all things of all times can change each other's places/times/events.

That's why when I started this process of imagining a vision that would best describe my feelings and state of mind during the Covid-19 lockdown, the first image I had was the one of the pied piper, but not him alone, the many pied pipers, almost identical ones led by a rat. This reversed picture of the legend puts the rat in the position of the leader -  a leader that promises to heal the city of the plague or a leader that is the disease itself, magnification of the animal's figure. I went so further back in my childish feverish imagination and I had to stick to it, so I couldn't really paint something like a grown-up. I am incredibly lucky to have my beloved Todor here with me, so he got inspired for a collaboration and we worked on this one together! 
The naive little figures made me think a lot of the character of the musician - in today's jargon - the artist. So many of them are so shaken by what happens today. In no way, they do not seem like the ones that will be hired by the city authorities (of today) to figure this plague out. Just the opposite, we see a lot of artists actually appealing for help and counting on the governments in today's lockdown situation. You see - the rollovers. Instead artists, just like me, turn inwards, go back to precious memories, the dream of old places and turn to comforting solace or comforting crowds - their faithful audience that needs a soft palm of a hand to brush their eyes with water from time to time, only sometimes. Yet this long line of pipers is blowing with their precious breaths their calls for help, calls for unity, moaning about the disfigured present.

Can't help but think of all those talented people creating a powerful illusion - that they must know the truth. And even when we have a world populated with so many colorful, soulful men of ideas, whose feelings are so tender and fingers so heartrendingly
shaky, photo magnifies the figure we all blindly follow - being fear of disease or fear to wake up to a day when we do not own our own breaths. We live in a day and time when archetypes are changing their places and the battle is less and less epic and the heroes, instead being heroes, are sorely moaning. But the rat is not masked, nor wearing colorful clothes, nor creating a melody of any sort. The rat is leading the way every wild beast would. And tolerance simply becomes approval, simply turns into sympathy and it is so easy to follow a rat, even when your whole being is woven with the power of creativity and ideas. It's time, time to roll over and recognize the patterns.



През последните месеци се сетих за приказката "Свирачът от Хамелин", която ме караше да потрепвам от страх, когато бях малко дете. Това е интересна легенда за музикант, нает от градските власти, за да изгони настъплението от плъхове в града. Идеята, че плъховете биха последвали мелодията и заповедите на мъж с флейта, ми се струва удивителна. Времената, от когато съществува тази легенда, са били такива, че хиляди, ако не милиони хора в Европа са загубили живота си в битката с чумата.
Житейският цикъл на човек е познат със своята повторяема природа - повтарят се условности, съвпадения се превръщат в блестящ ред, редуват се перипетии. Тези непрекъснати "преобръщания" са доказали, че всяко нещо, място, събитие има способността да разменя мястото си с друго. 
Затова и когато започнах да си избистрям картина, която да описва настроенията и мислите ми по време на затворения режим заради ковид 19, първата картина, която ми изникна беше на този запомнен от детството музикант. Този път обаче в редица с много други музиканти, почти еднакви на вид, водени от гигантски плъх. Тези образи от легендата с разменени места поставят плъха в позицията на водеща фигура - лидер, който обещава да избави града от болестите, ала лидер, който представлява самата болест, почти като фотоувеличение на животинска фигура.
И понеже се върнах толкова назад в детските ми представи и въображение, трябваше да подчиня образите на тази детска представа - не можех да рисувам като възрастен. Имам късмет, че Тодор е до мен и се вдъхнови да се включи в рисунката, за което много му благодаря.
​Наивните малки фигури ме карат да се замисля за образа на твореца, или да използвам днешния израз "артиста". Много от тях са разтърсени из основи от случващото се днес. Но и така, подредени в редица, не изглеждат като хората, които някоя градска управа днес би наела, за да се справи с чумата. Виждате ли - това са "преобръщанията". Вместо това, те, също като мен, се обръщат навътре, търсят нещо в милите спомени от миналото, в сънищата, в мислите за старите уюти и места, обръщат се към утешителна самота или към утехата, която носи малката им тълпа - вярна и вслушана публика. Тя, която се нуждае от нежна длан, измиваща очите с бистра вода, от време навреме и само понякога. И тази дълга редица от свирачи духа с всичка сила, безценни потоци, дъх след дъх, своитe апели за помощ, за свързаност, за създаване на общност, оплаквайки обезобразеното настояще.
Не мога да не мисля за всички онези талантливи творци, които създават мощната илюзия, че знаят истината. И въпреки че имаме свят, изпълнен с тези разноцветни, одухотворени от идеи, творящи мъже и жени, чиито чувства са толкова крехки, а пръстите им треперят по този сърцераздирателен начин, фотоувеличението се спира на фигурата, която следваме сляпо. Фигурата на страха от болестта или страх от това да се събудим и да разберем, че нашият следващ дъх не е вече истински наш. Живеем в дни, в които архетипите си разменят местата и битката става все по-малко епична, а героите, вместо да бъдат герои, стенат все по-тежко. Водачът плъх не носи никаква маска, не носи шарени и разпознаваеми одежди, нито създава мелодия от дъха си. Плъхът води тълпата "творци" така, както би го правил кой да е див звяр. Търпимостта бързо се превръща в одобрение, а в последна сметка дори и в симпатия. Това прави следването на плъха толкова лесно, дори, когато си цял изтъкан от силата да създаваш свят на идеи. Време е за друго "преобръщане" и разпознаване на фигурите.

I've kept myself busy
I've found a job 
Climbing the mountains of clothes
Befriending dust, colors and distant voices
I wanted to capture the empty streets of this city
Because I found out it can speak to me only through its empty streets
A sight seeing of the invisible
I am a bad tourist
Tourist who always complains about its hurting feet, empty pocket and bad orientation
I didn't know where Mathematical bridge is even after spending almost a year here.
But I've known the empty streets; The dusty eyes of the windows;
One curtain, always left hanging outside, murmuring to the wind of its lonely being;
In the rare hours when I am not climbing the mountain of clothes 
I am wandering, trying to focus or lose sight of all that is obvious
I don't want to befriend obvious I want to keep this slow conversation with the city 
My voiceless cry don't bother it. Cambridge has known silent criers before 
Long before me 
One more on the pile of leaves, one more dimming shadow, caressing the old stone walls, the newer bricks, which no longer will be as red as they once were. Oh wish I could bring back my colors too. But this conversation is about something else. Very often I am trying to avoid it, cowardly. Trying once more to go back to it becomes harder and harder.

Have I told you? I am losing my hearing. My right ear is muffled. I've heard a muffled sound of the church's bells. A few miles away Steven Hawking has died. In the same day when i was trying to talk to the city. I was wondering why the streets are so crowded. People look so cheerful when mourning.

Perhaps nothing ever ends. Nothing ever ends well or bad. Nothing, especially conversations with empty cities like this one.

Some subjects are hard to avoid. My silence, my empty pocket, my muffled ear, my misery for no reason - let me be clear, I am not proud of the fact I can only befriend emptiest streets. At least I am borrowing books from the city's library. Nia's advice - 'Make sure you have a library card once you step there!' I did.

Cambridge speaks through its books. I am a blind borrower. I never know what to read. I read books from the 50th page and back. Or sometimes like a normal reader. Or whatever the mood is. Moody borrower. There is something astonishing about books that are not mine. Back home I used to always buy books. I used to flirt with them in the book store for a while, until I have money to afford them. I was befriending books. Here - all books are strangers. With food stains, coffee stains, stains of ashes and dust. Stamped by human fingers all over.  
The first book I saw was by an old friend - the Irishman with the blue eyes. Cambridge lend Belacqua's voice to tell me - where only stones are found at the end - something begins. Becket's eho's bones left me scattered. I am nobody here. I have a few gems well kept. My irony, my contemplation, my hurting bones - my senses. Have I told you I am losing my mind? No, I am losing my hearing. At the beginning of this year I went to a school. The place I hated the most when I was younger. Back to school, I said. They've taught me how to use a muffled microphone, how to connect it to a camera. Do you know what muffler is?, they asked. I was only guessing. I was eager to learn. Soon my ear got muffled. You learn. You always somehow anyhow do learn. 
Cambridge always wants to speak to me. Even when my mood got bitter. It speaks to me with an Irish voice and in Japanese  language. It speaks of knowledge and it likes to remind me of all things yet unknown. It blabs about landscape, old bones, scattered female souls and lost men. If I ever write a letter again it will be addressed to Cambridge. Mathematical Bridge. I am writing to you, to tell you I was a non-believer. I was afraid of numbers, thought they have nothing to do with poetry. I was afraid of water too. But math is building bridges. Non-believers and converts both needs them to cross paths. And so Cambridge suddenly took over a female voice who spoke of building waves (Taeko Tomioka). The bulldozers are digging, the layers of earth are revealing, today just like thousands of years ago, earthly fears and empty attempts.
My salty questions. My half-empty glass. 
The conversation often ends like this - I am starting to read the book, at the minute I realize it's the city speaking to me, I am closing the page. Check the time. Thinking of hurrying up, letting myself remember of my aching bones and so on, and so on. 
I am taking another book to forget about the old conversation. 
Only to find out the author of the newly borrowed book (Natsume Soseki) was once living in Cambridge. Poor, miserable and unsatisfied. The shy man with clean and tidy shoes, with European costume, with his very own sharpness - utterly Japanese. I am reading one of his unpopular books. Only to find out he once wrote how unhappy he was here. 
I am not trying to be happy anywhere. That's for sure. Man, I am not even trying.
But I will have new friends. And I will walk from end to end all the empty streets here. Because they are numbers and poems and strangers to fall in love with. They are the beating heart, the hurting bones, the core of every stone. And The British Still Use "Stone" As A Weight Measurement ... I have to befriend every stone and to imagine its way from one place to another. May be I will see more clearly the point of my own movement - from one place to another.