THE LANDSCAPE WHICH WILL HAVE BEEN SHOT IN SIX MINUTES FROM THIS SPOT WHEN…
…when a drizzle has started sprinkling, while the dogs from the nearest village which are not almost heard in the falling brown twilight, will lull completely;
when a big bird has sashayed down by a shadow over this meadow, a branch has crackled in the forest near the road, and a black cow has risen its head;
when the sun has set so deeply beyond the horizon so that it will be quite difficult for the light to get there;
when the wind has murmured in the still green grass, having covered the cold mirror with ripple-like marks it will fly quickly to the lake, then it will unthink, will turn back, and curving these trees it will bring the smell of the pond scum to the very edge of the forest;
then it will fade away somewhere in the forest, and the cow will start to munch the grass.
And this will be the moment he will have to click the shutter.
The light from its expanse will have heard this sound, it will reflect from the plain clouds' field and having stolen down the lake, it will out-rush to his camera's lens barging on its way into menhirs, cows, ensnaring into wire, trees' crowns and losing its forces in the dense grass.
When the light has beaten by the cone the front lens and has started dapping into sparkling deepness of this six lens anastigmat, the shutter' blinds which have just been a stiff reel, will be already unrolling not believing completely in their freedom; and by this very moment when the light-flow has filled spongy the whole lens' air-gap given by the diaphragm, trembling under the light's inrush the blinds will have come to the right side of the film frame and opened themselves by the strict vertical hole which has started moving along the long side of the shot and in which having thrown its part of the image out on the film's greedy emulsion depascent all the beamy energy, the first beam will rush.
This hole's run will not be too blistering – some fractions of a second – and it will be enough to catch his hands trembling and to let the eddy of light which is not embraced at full by the inner surface of the lens, swing a little bit and touch the most lurking places which are left untouched yet.
Having gone along the whole film frame to its left side, quivering awearily the hole will close up still remembering this inrush which have been felt so voluptuously by its walls, until the image being disgorged by the lightflow has covered the whole, given to it part of the film. Having given all its energy the played-out light will become extinguished in the quickly darkened deepness of the lens having continued itself in the newly-formed life of the photographic image yet hidden in the interior of the film.
The sound of the produced click will make the cow raise its head, and it will understand everything. The magpie from the very top of a tree will snatch its glance, will get jerry too, and being ready to carry the news all around the neighbouring forest, will already open its beak, but having bethought it will fly away quietly to the place where the sun slithering scapelessly down deeper and deeper beyond the horizon, will know about everything – know and even meditate in the reflection, be it not very sharp, on the screen of the same plain clouds. However, all these will not touch the sun – such accustomed and mediocre will it be for the diurnal star. While the wind…
…The wind will return from the forest's depth and will touch the camera carefully wishing to check whether it all has just seemed to it, whether there has taken part what that maple leaf has been thinking of for many times – thinking and has known all its life not telling anybody, not even to the maple itself, that it is what will be its main epitome, only just through its – the leaf's life all that unimaginable abundance of events and lives which did lead to its appearing, will have managed to embody in what will have to take place – and has just taken part – tonight. Only the wind will know this secret of the leaf right from that their first spring meeting which the wind will actually recall after for several times it has overturned the leaf – already fallen from the branch – choosing what side of the leaf it will put it in the grass.
For some time the leaf will still have been trying to figure out what would be next? – but it will have seen nothing but gloomy images and will have come down. While the spider which spider-net will be shivering in the air that will be getting away from the maple to the other side of the lake into the far-off forest, will know something: something about the events caused by the shutter's click which did let this landscape's image be put into the medium speed film inserted into not brand new range measuring camera with a slightly scuffed matted metal body…
…the dogs will bark again. After that it will have become completely dark.
Igor Savchenko
Minsk, June 1994;
(version of May, 2000, Boswil, Switzerland)
Russian-English translation: Andrey Bursau, Minsk