When She Looked
Artwork by Irina Tall
When She looked at the dragon, it seemed to her like air dissolved in hopes, blue, blue, shimmering like a garland and this attracted, like a moth to the radiance...
- “Are you thinking about him?!” - the voice was soft, exciting, like molasses flowing from an implicit honeycomb.
She answered while chewing some yellow blade of grass - “yes, I think all the time”...
“Are you very sad?” - the dragon bent down slightly and blew in her face.
- “Don’t pester me! You’re too big, and I’m small!”
She frowned and wanted to be offended, but she failed.
And only he found a human face and hugged him, just like a child, warming him in his dark paws.
And the yellow leaves fell from the tree, leaving only a layer of ash, white and burnt, and she turned into a black raven and flew away... Perhaps forever...
Written by Irina Tall
Artist and Writer
Irina Tall (Novikova) is an artist, graphic artist, illustrator. She graduated from the State Academy of Slavic Cultures with a degree in art, and also has a bachelor's degree in design.
Her first personal exhibition "My soul is like a wild hawk" (2002) was held in the museum of Maxim Bagdanovich. In her works, she raises themes of ecology, and in 2005 she devoted a series of works to the Chernobyl disaster, drawing on anti-war topics. The first big series she drew was The Red Book, dedicated to rare and endangered species of animals and birds. She also writes fairy tales and poems and illustrates short stories. She draws various fantastic creatures: unicorns, animals with human faces, she especially likes the image of a man - a bird - Siren.
In 2020, she took part in Poznań Art Week. Her work has been published in magazines: Gupsophila, Harpy Hybrid Review, Little Literary Living Room and others. In 2022, her short story was included in the collection "The 50 Best Short Stories", and her poem was published in the collection of poetry "The wonders of winter".