The Secrets Lurking in the Silence of the Stone
This stone was spat out from the depths of the Earth. Where, in flaming chaos, the dragon of sickness and fear is raging. This stone was discovered by Edita Sudžiūtė. She took a close look at it and sensed what was going on deep inside. But she put on a lock so that we could find the key ourselves and unlock it if we dare.
What is inside that stone that awaits us? And what stories could this red archive spit out from the depths of the past?
If we turned the key, we may discover nests built by the wind, and if we unlock it, it would take our hearts high up in the sky like kites; and although they are cold and made of stone, maybe the flowers of happiness would bloom or black crowns of disease would emerge before our eyes? Or maybe a stone is a teardrop bursting from deep inside the Earth? Maybe we would find a dice smeared with blood rolling in there?
If we turn the key, the stone would maybe flip open like a book, an image would unfold before our eyes of a young high-school boy Jaronimas Ralys leaning over the book looking for his key to Homer’s Odyssey and trying to come up with words so that they would blow the wind in the sails of the ships gliding through the lines of the Lithuanian text.
Or maybe it is a book that the young Platon Zubov is holding in his sweaty and slightly shaky hands? Empress Catherine II is sitting in the armchair, listening to him as he reads the book aloud. It is his last task before Catherine will decide whether this young man with hypnotising eyes will become her next favourite. And although no one knows this yet, this reading would decide whether Platon Zubov would end up in Šiauliai.
Or if we unlocked the stone, perhaps we would hear a bell ringing? As a call for Lithuanians to unify around their culture and Lithuanian books and the count’s descendents would be the ones to support them.
No one uses a lock without a reason Where there is a lock, there is something to protect, some treasure or hidden secret. But, to be fair, we also use stones for graves. For the sake of eternity and beauty. For immortalizing someone. Unless we lose the key to our memory drawer. Do not forget all this; without our memory and thoughts, the wind will simply turn the pages of the archival records until they are scattered all over the world.
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