Spring of a Down - 10
І в дорогу далеку ти мене на зорі проводжала
It was just dawn and in the quiet rustle of grass, a shot rang out.[1]
“Be goody Johnny.”[2] A voice called to the fat British man from the Serzhant behind him. It was close. But beneath the leaden gray sky, it still snowed. Over to the right, behind the old oaks still waiting for leaves, some skirmishing fire was launched - but everyone knew on the Ukrainian side that the sniper had gotten away.
Thomas brushed away with his right hand the dirt which had been bloomed by the kinetic visitor. “Just making sure I was awake. Would not want to lose my head.”
A smirk rode the Serzhant mouth. “Well, where are you? One cannot tell with all the blubber you seize around.”
It would not be true to call Thomas McKenzie truly fat, but he was compared to his Ukrainian counterparts. What is more, was that he knew and ever so gradually he ate less and became trimmer as his time on the reporting gig that he had gotten went on. But first impressions counted, and he knew that his rotundity was his nom de la guerre. He had heard him being called “жирна війна”, that is “fat war,” in the small bit of Ukrainian that he had scrounged up. Not even “fat,” but oily, greasy, and smeared on bread – a kind of unctuous creamy.[3] Ukrainian was like the music of Béla Bartók: if you start from Russian, it makes your head hurt because of all the differences which piled up to make its din.
Thomas whisper back: “I thought that my camo would hide me.”
“Russians do not care if you are civilian or not, and they most definitely targeted reporters.”
“The truth does not play in Moskva anymore.” Emamh7em.[4]
“Did it ever?”
“You know me, I travel to Moskva just to check.”
“Doubting as always?”
Thomas replied: “Evermore.”[5] It was only a quiet half sigh of a cry. The crows echoed.
Thomas moved to the backward side of the trench and looked at the Serzhant with a careful eye that came from reporting, reporting on every continent except Antarctica. Thomas liked war, and he was very good at finagling a front-row seat to the festivities. And that meant Donbas had a ticket to the far flat plains with occasional perks of trees. Emamgd.[6] Om.
The Thomas did stride down the single-file trench across dirty vert expanse that closed in from every side and spattered the broken trees slot angelo from the loose fresh ground. He squeezed around some solidarity go up to the front butts hanging out with the cleft. One was rank, with the piss, that traveled from mouth to leg in the night. There was no thought of privacy here. Emamdg.[7] Om. Ah. Om.
However, Marines surrendering by the hundreds was on everyone’s mind even if the kontrpropahanda of marines taking shelter from the bombardment were playing on DJ loopback at the base. Dirty green as the laugh track. Thomas looked around and then copied what he saw in his notebook. He murmured: “Write drunk. Edit sober.” Amdg.[8] Ah. Om.
He looked down and saw a towel, distended by carrying from the front clear the front. The sad blue eyes looked back at him – Thomas did not know if the empty brain held a snapshot near dawn. Of a mother’s love or a sparrow feeding near a close by a denuded village.
Then a shot rand out. He turned. He grabbed a soldat. “What happened?”
“The Serzhant popped up and angrily told a man to keep down.”
“And then.”
“The sniper shot him in the head, of course.” The Serzhant had forgotten to noetically edit sober. Amh7em.[9]
On the E minor chord. Om.
[1] The Chekhovian shot.
[2] Men at Work, “Be Goody Johnny”
[3] Foreshadowing of Записки українського самашедшого.
[4] Chords to Malyshko, “A Song about a Towel.”
[5] Poe, The Raven.
[6] Chords to Malyshko, “A Song about a Towel.”
[7] Chords to Malyshko, “A Song about a Towel.”
[8] Chords to Malyshko, “A Song about a Towel.”
[9] Chords to Malyshko, “A Song about a Towel.”