Spring of a Down - 2
я знаю місце
She looked out over the land with the coming spring. Rather than domes and spires of Kyiv, here there were roofs to keep the hearth warm. But was forward to the eye was the fuzziness of the trees because the buds were forming across a flat plain. Life bloomed, over and above the plains north of the capital the river flowed in.[1]
She turns to sweep out the broken glass from the boards of the floor. Too much mess but one had to start someplace. “Maria you must keep to your duties, not look outside.”[2] Maria was very practical. Unlike her sister.
The sister and her two young daughters were 2 kilometers away, still above the ground facing the heavans. The dead eyes see the days like acid rain.[3] A wider look at the world beyond the cross. They each were raped before being shot.
Work to reach the corners and cracks. Stay focused. Down, she must turn down. There were so many dead. She remembered how the war began. It was a gloomy winter day when the world turned upside down.[4] Then in the hazy snow-soaked sky, she heard bombs come blimping blinding down. She hid underneath her bed, death, and life alternated between her children, and the two were mixed with feelings of pity and sorrow. It was a vision of Hell brought to the waking world.[5] She looked over her bed to a burned-out candle.
She tried not to think of it again but the harder she fought the more vivid the movie it was.[6]
“Maria?” A call from the door. “Maria Petrenko? It is me, Pavlo Pavlenko.”[7]
Yes, she remembers who he was. At other times she would think little of him because he was a skinflint. But that was then this was now. She stood up and brush her light blue dress off of soot and coal. “It will take me a moment.” There was a door, but it was clearly not locked, or even closed.
From below she heard: “Everything is moving more slowly.”
Down the curved steps, she went with a new curve to her back. At the last steps she saw the back way and the white-bearded face was brought into view.
“You have come some way to get here.”
“It is true.”
“What brought you here?”
“The hammer banged Reveille on the rails, and I had to get up.[8] I had to get up a set my life in order on this fine day.”
He stood there wavering.
“That is quite stark – whatever do you mean?”
“I am dying. I was before the war, but I did not know it.”
“What happened?”
“You know the office in the center of town?”
“Which one?”
“A doctor has come a set up a waypoint for people to flee.”
“I know the place.[9] But are you fleeing?”
He hesitated. “Could I come in and sit down?” A smile played with the edges of his mouth.
“You will have to sit on the stairs because the is no chair.”
He shuffled to the stairs, where once was attached some carpet. “I was thinking on it.”
“So, what were you told that stopped that?”
“I was told by the physician that I was dying and quickly so.”
There was a rich pause because in the old days, she might have wished for this, if she was honest with herself. Which was often when she was alone.
Then there was a flowering like popcorn, only they were trees.[10] Pop – pop – pop. All the room tilted by some fraction of 90 degrees as if the rhyme was helter-skelter with a drone of bass climbing underneath. The sky was above in blue synergy holography from light to dark, tripping the light fantastic.[11]
They were falling and grabbed each other by the other’s chest. All went dark for an instant.
She looked up, finding something almost fetching in his visage though not his face.
And then an instant and they both looked up. It was clear that the roof was ripped from below as a bomb had exploded mere meters into the earth. The plane moved on with thrust.[12]
Quietly she spoke: “That was close.”
“It matters little to me, a reprieved from the death which is soon to come.”
She skipped a beat.
“I am sorry.”
“Now you are.”
“Forgive me for the transgressions I may have committed.” She looked into his face but no glimpse of what lay beyond was forthcoming.
“It is not important – at least not to me. Instead, I will see the dead.”
“Who is to bury you?”
“That is why I came. I want you to make sure I am lain to rest.”
“Why me?”
“Because I am sure that you will do this as you did with your sister.”
“How do you know what happened to her?”
“That is the secret I wish to confess to you.”
Her heart clenched.
He continued: “I was having an affair with her. Anastasiya was going to me.”
“What about her daughters?”
“She was dropping them by her friend, the Doctor.”
None of this she knew. “So, you wish me to bury you for the sake of my sister?”
“Most people do not care for the testament which binds us.”[13]
And he continued: “Everything in the world is coming to an end.”
“I will do this even to the apocalypse.”
[1] Dnipro.
[2] Maria is both the mother of Jesus, as the story goes, and Maria Magdalena. The original name was “Miriam” which means “bitter.”
[3] Acid rain falls near industrial plants.
[4] Yang Jisheng's “The World Turned Upside Down”
[5] Heavy on the foreshadowing.
[6] Reference to Pink Floyd, “Yet Another Movie.” The rump band, in 2022, released “Hey, Hey, Rise Up!”
[7] The reference is to Peter and Paul in the Bible.
[8] Solzhenitsyn, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich translated by H.T. Willets, 1.
[9] Title.
[10] Anarchic System – “Pop Corn”
[11] Trip the light fantastic – John Milton “L’Allegro”
[12] Pun intended.
[13] Shevchenko, “Testament”