Translated HUNGARIAN TO
ENGLISH SraKota


I have never liked sitting idly. I hate it when I can't do anything physically, when I'm only existing and my body doesn't experience another kind of euphoria either. I have doubts about our world being only an illusion, and about us lying to ourselves about it, and that, in fact, we live in a place called hell.
I can't find a job for weeks now, so I have plenty of free time. I have difficulties with walking, but I don't think that my girlfriend's father sent me away because of it. I think that he simply didn't want to have a "cripple" by his daughter's side for the rest of her life.
At home I went down to the cellars to get a pair of boots with blades attached to its sole. These are not ice skates that are used for competitions.
When I was a brat, we didn't call skating by any special name.
When I was little, my mum used to work a lot, and she took me with herself to work. While she was at work I had to sit in a waiting hall, where weird people came and went, staring at me.
There was a guy with a particularly scary look in his eyes, who took me out to have fun. Where I used to live, we sprinkled water on the ground that would freeze by next morning. The rinks were slanting and it was easy to get hurt on them. Or to become better. I've never done ballet. My schoolmates taunted me when they got to know that I was skating. Where I used to live boys didn't skate because that was for girls.
I and the man didn't care about it. We played outside in knitted sweaters. It felt warmer than anything during the short summers.
There was a small "rink", unused at that time of the day. With this thought I put my old ice skates into my bag.
I took off my shoes. I leave them just outside the rink, with the blade guards in them. I put on the boots, and I step on the ice. I love it. I feel as if I still had my wings.
Home.
I only had wings during winters. During the summers, waiting, and my mum kept me alive. Winter, I flew, and I didn't remember these bad things. Fantasy.
I hear clapping, but I don't pay attention to it. I'm separated by the world by a waist-high wooden wall. The ice reflects the sky faintly. The sunlight breaks into trillions of pieces under me. I wear a thick pullover and blow mist. I am the sluggish cloud, swimming in the sky, without anything to do. One day I'll become rain, then vapour, then nothing. Then vapour, then cloud...
My movements, as I'm sliding on the ice, are like as if I were walking on the air. My centre of gravity is what matters, and my balance. Everything else is just garnish.
I jump up into the air, spun three times, land and slide on.
I lived during the winters. During the winter the creeps and motherfuckers were hiding. Everything and everyone was dead. Time had frozen. Somebody had the idea, that, if he puts metal blades on the sole of boots, one can slide with it on the ice. We did the same. Those were our skates.
I wear different skates now. Skates he made for me.
A man with the glance of a prince. He looks at me as if he knew everything. He is wearing a sweatshirt too, and a scarf. I cough.
"I slide around little more, then you can have the whole rink." I say turning away form him.
My name is Levi Ackerman. I'm unsure about my life. I'm unsure about my future. I don't even dare to say it with a total confidence that my family name is truly mine. the only thing I'm sure about is my dream. Now you'll think that I would say it's ice skating; what I'm doing now.
I won't say that. It doesn't have to be said, because then it ceases to be a dream. And we don't really put dreams into words; we just dream them. There are conscious dreams too, but those are bullshit.
I want to fly. This is what figure skating means to me. Not the jumps, and spins, and not when I clear my room from cockroaches with my blade guards, but that feeling no other free-to-use ice surface can give me. It will always be different to slide on lakes frozen in winters at the end of the world. Imagining yourself as a cloud in the sky reflected by the smooth ice. Your hair appears to be only a slight breeze, blowing around you lightly. Clouds. Filling with emotion. Rain. Vapour. Cloud. Sunrises. The warm air I exhale. I'm not famous; I can't participate in the damn Grand Prix series ever. I lived in such poverty, where everything was frozen in wintertime, and we had to work during the summers so we can have food when hell comes and we can't even get down the mountain, to the town to work.
The sun was almost never shining. Sometimes we had nothing to eat, for my mum couldn't go to work to that timeworn apartment house, where she took me with herself, to that man who took me in when I was thirteen, after my mother froze to death during one night.
He showed me the town, the indoor ice rinks and the bustling people for the first time. Kenny Ackerman adopted me, and I had to look at him as if he were my uncle.
He used to skate. He was the "Throat Slitter". His style and professionalism nicknamed Him as such, but He liked it. Additionally, his most famous program was about Jack the Ripper.
I was to begin my career as a figure skater, but my uncle died in a terrorist attack, along with many other people, when I was seventeen, and I couldn't bear the uneatable shit of high school and skating together. Life helped me to decide on what should come first.
That is when I had an accident.
The name of my long program was "Wings of Freedom". I stumbled, and I don't even remember, at which step, but I do remember, that I heard of his death about ten minutes before I stepped on the ice. He couldn't even make it to the hospital.
"Do you really want to skate now?"
"It would be better to sit down."
"You're next."
"Mr Ackerman, wait."
I just had to qualify for the final this time. This was the dream of the shitty old man.
I sprained my ankle.
The end.
The doctors gave up as soon as they saw me. I was conscious the entire time, but all I was thinking about was Kenny.
I continue fighting. I have fewer jumps; I look for other elements in my choreographies. I have to sit down many times during my three hour long trainings to rest my leg. The doctors said if I continue to put such a strain on it, they'll have to amputate it.
Then I'll become a figure skater with a prosthetic leg.
I'll have to become the best figure skater humanity's ever had, for Kenny, for my mum, and for myself.
And for all the people who, during the years I competed, cheered for me. For this nobody who didn't eat for days so he could buy a decent pair of ice skate to compete with, who was pitied by the boss here, where I still train, and lets me practice for free. But the truth is far from this. I don't shit pyramids.
I don't trust anyone.
People believed in me and I've never understood why.
I've never been a good skater.
The blades of my skate should be sharpened. I take a painkiller, imagining myself as House M.D. in the process.
The break, I decided to take, is over.
I start sliding on the ice. As usual, the rink is empty. It is rentable for competitions and events, and for some Christmastime nightmare that will keep me from coming here. By the way, the rink is owned by some guy called Erwin Smith, but we don't really care about each other - or at least, so I thought until now.
The pan is unbearable, but my first jump is good. At the second one, I fall, but I get up.
Again.
Again.
Again.
And I fall. I hit my head and stomach.
Again!
Again!
You planned this program, the "Wings of Freedom". Fly!
I turn, and I end up hitting the wooden wall. My head is dizzy, and my back hurts. Black spots float before my eyes. One of them is bigger than the others. I reach for it, but as it pulls me up, to my feet, it frightens me. It lets me go before I'd tear myself free. It's him.
"You can't come in here wearing shoes." I think, but I don't say anything. I cast my eyes down. Mechanically frozen ice is unfamiliar to me.
"I continue with my training."
I'd put my imaginary earphones back to my eyes, but he grabs my wrist. He turns me around, and holding me under my shoulder, he lifts me. I tremble. What does he want from me? Did I say something wrong to another skater here? I was always trying to avoid the "rush hour" and come early in the morning, but sometimes, others were in the rink too.
The bloke sits me on a bench. He's got bushy, blond eyebrows, and blond hair, styled in an undercut. His hair is longer on the top of his head and it's elegantly parted and slicked back. His eyes are beautiful, as if I were looking at the sky. This is one thing I notice a first. Another one is that his right arm is missing. I look away. I lock my fingers on my knee. I hate it f something happens and I have to physically interact people because of it. On the top of that, I was staring at him.
He kneels down before me, and starts to unlace my skates. He works expertly with his left hand, and I can't tell him to stop, because of my astonishment. He takes the skate off my right leg and gently puts it on the concrete floor.
He touches my left leg, but I, as if I were struck by lightning, slap his hand away. This makes me feel bad, because I hit a disabled person. He looks at me.
"You have to take it off. To look at it."
His attention is turned towards me. I feel it in my whole body. When I take a look at my foot, I nearly throw up. I bend forward, just in case. I don't feel the pain, even though my foot looks horribly misshapen. My ankle is swollen, but that's not the only thing. My foot is turned inwards because of the fall. As if someone wanted to twist it off, as if it were a fucking lightbulb.
I lift my head. I was right; I felt that he was smiling. It fucks me up. Is it so good to see that someone else is crippled too?
"You are scared. Smiling helps dealing with the stress."
"You read my mind..." I think.
"You are very scared. But if you take your skate off, I can massage your foot so the cramp goes away." He also nods to further confirm it.
I'm really scared. It hurts like hell. I pause several times, I shiver, and I feel like I'm going to die. He hands me a leather belt, and sits beside me holding his pants up with his hand.
"Bite on it. Then it won't be noticeable if you scream."
He's right; it's a good idea. I blush. I fold the belt in half and I put it into my mouth. I don't even dare to think about it that it was in a stranger's pants before. Who even gets these ideas?!
It's agonising!
I can't take it!
I get scared several times, and pause to gather the courage it takes to take my skate off.
I drooled on the belt, and I had to pant too. I opened my mouth in relief, so the belt fell on the floor. I want to catch it, but he is there before me, kneeling. He pushes his belt aside as if it were nothing. I can't resist. He enchanted me as the snake charmer enchants the cobra.
I forgot about the pain, even though, until this moment, I thought that I'd go insane, as I was tearing the old skate off of my swollen foot. The distance between us is just enough for me to extend my leg. He lays my ankle on his thigh. His palm is huge. And I have an indecent hard-on as he massages my foot. I try to sit in a way to cover it. I feel disgusted by myself, moreover, I was holding Him up, even if I didn't ask him to help me. This have happened to me many times before. But now, it took only a few minutes for him to get the cramp out of my foot, and make it look normal again, save the swelling.
My tears are flowing in relief.
"Here's the tea you were asking for." says a young man, just arriving to us.
Hat, brown hair, forest green eye.
I want to get up.
"I don't need the pity of your skaters, Erwin Smith."
It was sudden. As I put weight on my left leg, it buckles stubbornly, not as if I haven't felt its opinion about my lifestyle before. Erwin Smith took a steamy paper cups form the young skater and put them on the bench, next to me.
I'm so rude towards him. He's so thoughtful, even if I'm nobody to him. He must have asked the boy then, to make tea for us, even if he has just arrived - as he was dressed to the chin. It doesn't surprise me that he knew it. I mean, even form the smell, I recognised that it's black tea. Probably he looked into my past. Google still finds me, so, even at the age of thirty, I'm not entirely forgotten.
"Thank you." I say and take a sip from the drink. I like it like this. Clean. Just the tea. Even if it's only form a tea bag.
"Wow, if it's this hot, I can't drink my cocoa after training." Said the boy.
He shouldn't drink anything but clear water immediately after training, but I don't say a word. His skates hang in his neck, by the laces tied together. This is how kids nowadays carry them. I look at the rink, then at the cup.
"I apologise for my rudeness." I tell him "Eren isn't it? I've seen videos of you on Youtube."
He blushes. Me too. It's embarrassing to react to my own words as a bashful youth.
"Eren Jäger. I'm pleased to meet you." we're not living in Japan, but he bows before me. "If you don't mind, I'm getting hot in this coat, and I don't want to catch a cold, moreover, Master Shadis will kill me." He run away. I hear his shoes clap on the concrete floor.
"I can't give anything to express my gratitude for helping me." I clench my fingers around the cup. "I even stained the ice as I wiped myself on it."
"Skate again." says Erwin Smith.
I stare at him, trying to figure out if he's gone insane or not.
"I'm sorry, but I have just said that..."
"I'll help you. I'll teach you how to perform sour program without putting to much strain on your ankle."
"I don't get it, Sir. I don't skate... like that anymore. I'm a nobody. I'm broken. And far too old for this."
"The Wings of Freedom, is it? As you've said to the young Eren, 'I've seen videos of you on Youtube.' And you would be surprised, how many people have seen it. Because of the videos are old, I can't properly see your movements in it, and I still have to think about how could you do it again with my methods..."
"Hey, shitty Eyebrows, do you want to humiliate me?" my voice crackles "Was this the whole point? To make yourself forget about your disability by pitying me?"
He's laughing. Why is this bastard laughing? I want to pour my hot tea into his face, but as he moves, he makes the cold, winter air into my throat.
"It doesn't hurt me anymore." I hear him saying.
But what have I just said? How could I talk to him - or anyone who had lost his arm for whatever reason - in such a disgusting manner? And still... Even like this... With his other hand, he reaches for me, and not for himself.
But I... What he said made me freeze.
He's not laughing anymore, but his reassuring smile remains. He spoke before as a happy person, and, perhaps, He really is a happy person.
"A pigeon, who has one leg, still can fly, Levi Ackerman, and a pigeon missing its wings cannot. But it can tell you how to dream with the things you have."
He touches my hand, which I warm by the tea. I can drink it now, before it goes cold.
I agree to Erwin Smith take be back to the Rink after 13 years of hiatus.