Spring of a Down - 12
мене на могилis
Cry Havoc, Let slip the dogs of war![1]
He let that slide into a voice whisper as he controlled the crowded cockpit. In his imagination, he could see a drone’s eye view of the slag towers. Imagine. And he was with the best tank now in service – the T-14, whose low rumble military green frame was sleek out on the battlefield in a pack of wolves over the land. Where the streets have no name, merely Number-Letters in an astute vision akilter. In Cyrillic, because they were Russian, he to flame out the old enemy. Without a trace. He looked across at the gunner, rotating threw his list of targets. Burred with the taste of beardlets he was concentrating. Concentrating on the destruction by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn.[2]
This was the torture plain of Donbas. For now, the streaming gang of Russians mobbing the зелёнка, the green scraggly brush meant to hide from hidden opponents. Russian tanks poured across the disputed border – because, to the Russian, what his is his but what is yours is negotiable - in number and scope. There was occasionally even in some semblance of moderate military discipline. A hate-filled gas of iron, germs, and bad tactics. He focused, focused, focused. Focus on the dawn whish was now breaking along the distant trees on the sullen horizon. The love turned to rust on the guts of red. Kostik moved his head to shake out tinnitus but quickly turn back to sight not sound. It was a sight that killed you. He knew that, at least in the front of his skull.
The land was empty of wheat and fodder for hoofbeats, but its terrain is what the tank was design for: a thoroughbred of orthogonal grace. It was quiet as the three watch their stations.
But finally, the driver, Kostik, uttered: “They are burning their money in wastebaskets.” He spat on the running floor where everything moved in staccato.
Driver Lyonya startled at first then composed. “Whatever do you mean?”
“The fuel is the commodity. Burning it like trash that warms the caliber.”
“If they get hits, it does not matter.” Lyonov wish for nothing more than wait in the sunlight and drank coffee and talked for hour after hour. He said none of this, now or at any time.
“We the terror through the wall, creeping up by Wolf’s tail for surprise.” Kostik then beaded his eye through the tube sensing that there was a Javelin man in the rubbish bushes. He swiveled and search – but did not find what he was looking for. Dull roots with spring rain dappled the escape. Searching for the acute angle with said man and machine are one. Where the dead tree gives no shelter.
But inside he was hungry for Kostik’s stomach growled. Stale borscht without enough beef or sour cream. It was harder to kill not having enough to eat. Even the wisps of odor turn rancid on the cheap cologne and stale soap. Kostik waded his dry tongue over dry inner check. Dry stone no sound of water even the shadow under this red skin.
“Why do they fight this way?”
“The fended off Kyiv. Why not hold their ground in the disputed territories on the free regions?” By this Lyonov meant the two nations which Russia recognized. Both men thought ‘Know respect for the near abroad.’ That is why the DEFCON was raised. This was a Russian police action. Kostik strained his neck. Bleary cheery fatigue had set in. He thought: ‘Open your eyes!’ It became a kind of chant in the heat of the moment. Pies Iesu Domine. Dona eis requiem. Thunk.
Du hast. Du hast. Du hast.[3] Would any name of the rose be so logical in the swing of Foucault’s Pendulum? Search and Destroy. Or be destroyed.
The commander of the tank crew was cross-eyed – 20 days without rest to make up for the losses at Kyiv. This was the way to Red Square and a parade for the honored heroes. To stand through a portal mounted survey with his own spectacles the red bell-shaped towers and Lenin’s Tomb. Dreams to be fulfilled by grinding down a sleepless daze. Somehow the commander suspected he, and those who followed him, would be in the ground not returning to the rock of tarmac at the pinnacle of Mount Moskva. Instead, a handful of dust. He half-smiled without a hint of happiness.
The game is almost ended like the slow echo of the tin pan alley piano on its last parchment. The tank had lost though the inhabitants did not, yet know it. The match had been lit in silence. There was a nose was targeted by a guerilla. Sight acquired and he did not hesitate to squeeze. Belch. Rumble. Whoosh.
Target attained. No more dreams pursued on the rusty steel cage of broken nails. No more parades or even days to be counted. Instead, a toy frame of a blitzed bombed and flesh-ridden T-14, burned tires stopped, with a turret akimbo blown next to it. A hand left on a yoke. The impression of an eyeball on a sidestick cold. Battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance.
Your destiny is what happens to you. The Burial of the Dead.[4] The bodies all over the ground. Each one a helter-skelter.
[1] Shakespeare, Julius Caesar Act 3, Scene 1.
[2] Ginsberg, Howl.
[3] Rammstein, “Du Hast.”
[4] Elliot, “The Waste Land.” I. The Burial of the Dead.