Zbornik Mednarodnega literarnega srečanja Vilenica 2004 - Ljudmila

From »Natural Novel«
Georgi Gospodinov
16.
A certain Mr. Knaute froze a few frogs; they became
fragile and broke easily; yet he took the unbroken
ones to a warm room and 7-8 hours later they melted
and became fully alive.
Priroda Magazine, 1904
When I was 9 God came to me disguised as a light bulb. Here is how it
happened. I was on a school trip to Sofia. After the zoo we were taken to
the Alexander Nevski cathedral, maybe because we were close and it was
starting to rain. They told us that what we were about to enter was not a
church but a temple monument. We understood only the second half of
that strange combination but somehow didn’t imagine monuments to be
like this. It was really impressive inside and we were wary of getting lost.
While we were waiting for the others to come out, a crippled old man
came to us and started telling us about God. The more loud-mouthed kids
immediately informed him that God didn’t exist, or Gagarin and the other
astronauts would have met him long ago. The old man just shook his head
and said God was like electricity - it does exist but you cannot see it, it
flows and makes everything work. Shortly afterwards, the teachers came
out and took us away from the old man. But his words made us think. God
and electricity were equally vague to us, yet I immediately blurted to the
teacher that God lived in light bulbs.
There was another school trip the next year; this time to the biggest
hydroelectric station in the country, for educational purposes. We were
shown huge coils, gears and motors and we were told that this was where
electricity came from. The teacher took me aside and asked whether I
still believed in that rubbish about God and electricity. I was a big boy
now so I said no. And yet, at home I was always extra careful when I turned
on the lamp or the hotplate. God blinded and burned.
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