A beast by definition is something you should be afraid of. Something that lurks in the shadows and grinds its sharp teeth at the sight of your slender figure moving along the narrow streets of Kaunas old town\u2026 His long pale tongue more than able to circle your throat at least three times before the initial shock fades as you’re struggling to gurgle out a gasp. His rock-covered skin, smooth as the stones in the river Nemunas covered with moss and cold as the touch of January wind on your reddish cheeks\u2026 the reddish that would so instantly fade from your face, leaving it pale and white, sometimes ice-blue with fear, if you ever managed to see the snout of this beast. The snake-like teeth sticking out of a rectangular mouth and eyes\u2026 the eyes that are said to have seen so much and for so long that everything and everyone that now attracts their attention is simply regarded as a faded memory in the making of history\u2026 yes, what an absolutely dreadful beast it is. Cruel, deceptive, cold-blooded, and everything else you can imagine, without actually seeing it\u2026 as it happens, people tend to make assumptions when the only facts are those born in the depths of their gloomiest imagination. Such was Kaunas beast, an image that has been formed for centuries to come, a monster, as they said, that shifts form and moves as fast as the fish in Nemunas, a beast, a creature of the past that does not want to let go\u2026 little did they know, and much did people so ingeniously fear to find out, what the beast of Kaunas was really about\u2026in the Spring of 2020, however, this mystic creature decided to show its true form\u2026
\nThe decision was no less awkward and usual than the situation itself. At the end of 2019, a horrific virus started spreading all around the World and it crossed Lithuanian borders in the next couple of months. On March 16th Kaunas went into a lockdown state and one by one people locked themselves with three different sets of keys and some even shut all windows. The city started resembling a dessert at midnight \u2013 still and mystical. Even the beast of Kaunas, which had always been hiding in the middle of wild-flower filled fields, in the deepest point of Nemunas or at the tops of the highest Lithuanian Oaks, began wondering what had happened. Kaunas is usually overfilled with teenage girls gossiping in near \u017dalgiris arena with cups of iced coffee in their nail-polished hands, youngsters gather in rollerblade or bicycle-lover groups, newlyweds smile in front of their relatives toasting to their future prosperity and happiness in the town hall\u2026 Now, however, the city went silent.
\nThe beast decided to drag his scally tale and everything that\u2019s attached to it, outside and take a look. He had his doubts, of course\u2026 The first time he came out of the water, where he used to have his permanent residence, was when he met a girl named Egl\u0117 and fell in love. Being a foreigner\u2026 foreign by all his nature\u2026he was not accepted by Egl\u0117’s parents and shamefully remembers his love story exploited in the pages of children literature\u2026 \u017dilvinas was how people called him then. The second time was even more shameful\u2026 He set up a small nest in the exact spot where rivers Nemunas and Neris meet\u2026. he would emerge from the water and chirp and chatter love songs, for the girl he had once loved\u2026 not long after couples started coming to that enchanted river junction to listen to his heart-warming songs while promising each other true love. The beast could not take it \u2013 he moved again. And now, only now, he left his lurking-place for the first time in 230 years\u2026
\nEveryone was in masks \u2013 they were all hiding their faces, just as the beast has done for so many centuries\u2026and there was something wrong. ‘The air doesn’t smell right,’- he thought\u2026 ‘It’s sick.’ The beast could sense the virus taking both hope and health from the citizens of Kaunas\u2026 Thus, being pure at heart, he decided to help the people in his home city. Each morning he would roam the streets of Kaunas gathering virus-particles with his enormous jaws. It took him at least one and a half months to clean the air again\u2026and as he did so, people started coming back\u2026at first, one by one; then in smaller groups and finally the city was alive again. And nobody, absolutely nobody knew what the beast of Kaunas had done. How he thought that adversity that had struck the heart of Lithuania. Maybe nobody needs to know? Yet, the creature rests now\u2026 and, by my own definition, definitely not a beast to be feared of\u2026 a friend\u2026the guardian of Kaunas.<\/p>\n
Author: Monika Karpavi\u010di\u016bt\u0117<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"parent":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","kategorijos":[91,93],"class_list":["post-81152","didysis_pasakojimas","type-didysis_pasakojimas","status-publish","hentry","kategorijos-the-small-stories","kategorijos-stories"],"yoast_head":"\n