The White Swallow

      One morning Gavril Gavrilov, an accountant from Sofia, never convicted, though married, woke up and – Surprise!
      His arms were all black. He looked at his feet: they were black, too.
      He went up to the mirror. Damn! He was all black. As if someone had poured a bucket of tar over him.
      Trembling with terror, Gavrilov put some detergent on his hands and rubbed his cheeks. To no avail! He tried with concentrated bleach. No result.
      He ran to the local store.
      The moment she saw him, his next-door neighbor from the floor below said through clenched teeth:
      “You call that democracy! People have no money to buy a kilo of tomatoes, while some spoilt brats spend two months at the sea-side!”
      Gavrilov waved at the first taxi he saw.
      “Take me to the hospital!”
      “We don’t serve Blacks”.
      “It’s a mistake. I am not Black!”
      “No one is who they appear to be! I was supposed to be an MP, but “D’ondt”(???) screw me over. Probably you were born implementing the same system.
      “I don’t get it.”
      “It’s quite simple. Your mother was executing her sacral right to a choice, but instead of one or two candidates, seven or eight had access to her and they were of a different color. And since the black have the biggest sex drive and the least representation, you have come to be such a beauty. O.K., jump in, Ronaldino.”
      “No doubt we’re talking a pathological recurrence of pigmentation” – the dermatologist concluded. – “Have you any black people in your family?”
      “What are you talking about? I am a pure Bulgarian.”
      “Anything to do with Prime-minister Ivan Kostov?”
      “His wife and I were members of the same party.”
      “I mean, secondary genetic characteristics, I’m not asking who you voted for. Go to the Health Service. I’m done.”
      At the Health Service he was told that they don’t have such a clause.
      They had one for albinos, but not for a case like his.
      “It’s no big deal, since it doesn’t hurt you”, people kept comforting him.
      One of the TV channels invited him to anchor a show. They had all kinds of moderators, but a black man.
      The basketball federation asked what the transfer sum would be.
      “Let’s get it clear, once and for all. Are you black or are you a dark gypsy” – members of the “Ataka” political movement staked him one evening. “For we have a special attitude toward the black.”
      “I am Bulgarian, with a Jewish strain.”
      “That’s new! A black Jew, then?”
      At this moment a Boeing landed on the roof of the Ministry of War. Bush came out of it.
      “What are you pretending to be? Bulgarian, black and Jew at the same time? That’s impossible!”  
      “Everything is possible in this country, mister President. Since the communists walked into church to light a candle, the Court ruled out damages to be paid to a murderer and the King ran the people on a raffle. Since, instead of the Roman law, the Gypsy law is executed and the town of Kurjali is still under the Turkish rule.”
      Gavril Gavrilov stopped talking and at that moment he saw a white swallow flying cheerfully over the Parliament building.
      “Can you see the white bird over there, Mister Bush? This, too, is an absurdity, but it’s the only thing our people believe in. To them, it means all - a tsar, a medicine and a hope!”

Translated by Petia Tsenova