VIACHESLAV

The whisper murmured in the morning, trembling shyly at the touch of the first dawn. It was as if it were autumn, late and cold, with the smell of early winter, with reminders and melancholy. The wet old wood was creaking in the fence at each call of the tundra, bringing with it the nostalgia of the Blizzard King.

And how many beautiful stories didn’t he have to recount: with Mongol horses and riders, with or without rolled over thistles, until there where the sky caresses the earth and falls asleep, with pairs of horizon and nations dug into it, falling war-like towards the always rich East... The beard had grown long and thick, like a hedgehog hidden in the back of the courtyard, scared by the barking, starving dogs. It was one of those mornings, almost nights, bleak and deserted like Siberia’s inconsistency. Ridden only by the clouds without a beginning and end. A news story from a very long time ago, remembered only in the unripe dreams and so wasted in the lost youth. Viacheslav remained unmoved, at the small table next to the warm iron stove, like in a royal fairy-tale. 'What is life and how do you live it better?' he was thinking, and he kept on fidgeting. A path always ridden by so many others, when abrupt, when slow, never the same. 'What is beyond life and how do you keep on living dying?' he agitated, and he was answering himself. Maybe it is joy or sorrow, who does still care? 'Who sees us, hears us, and understands us?' and the thought was running to what he had done in life... Nothing, the blasted crazy nothing, the trump card of the losers and of those suffering... The room resembles him. When lighted, when blackish, only be careful to choose a suitable place, along the cracking, burning twigs. The frosted spiders on the shredded smoked nets, hungry running ants, a wood bench with the dirty used plaid, nothing more, nothing less, nothing enough. The glass was the only accessory on the table, frayed by the wormholes. And the vodka, the only liquid that wetted the shiny walls. Like an unwashed redingote, worn too many times and stitched at the elbow. The heaviness was gliding in the Russian’s room. He was hurrying to water the throat with the colourless burn like a hidden water thought, waiting and thinking. Grease and grease again. A poor cockroach had found a crumb lodged in the table corner, and he was fighting to have it. 'Just like us, in life...' he said to himself, hitting himself mercilessly. He spat in the palm and started to rub his hands clean. He whipped himself on the back, and he caressed his beard. He stood up to throw some more wood in the fire. And to fill in the glass again. 'Why do we make the fire if we also have the vodka?' he asked himself, puzzled. Maybe because the vodka also needs rest. In the bottle. The loving mother who always gives to others. To the glass and to the greedy throat. 'What is life?' he thought again. The wind, the man and the cockroach, the fire deviously killed by the cold wind, the wood, the vodka, and the nothingness. Just that. And reconciled, he fell asleep, with a sigh of relief. He had found out the secret of life. Poor, unknown, alone. Viacheslav.