Prokhor Ozornin - On the Wings of Hope - Prose

They stopped at first in our local tavern for a week or so, so that they can, well, examine our village on “prospects of innovations”, as they decided to express themselves unclearly. And to pay off at first they wanted not with copper coins of ours that sound, but with some pieces of green paper with pyramids and eyes painted on them. Greatly were we surprised by such money, and didn’t want to accept them at first, but convinced they us naturally that always easy it is to exchange pieces of paper these with ugly faces of people on their reverse side drawn, for almost anything we desire, for the entire world is being bought and sold by them for these pieces. Ooh, didn’t scent we their dirty trick at that moment, stupid ones, for in calmness and tranquility of our world, until their arrival which have been remaining, very trustful we managed to become and didn’t think anything bad about visitors.

And so at first a week or so passed, and then the second one came, yet lodgers didn’t even think of leaving. And were they travelling through the village and inquiring both men and women ours of something, and showing them something, and winking. Tempted them with their devilish dresses and addictions without doubt – yet didn’t we understood it at first, moment that critical missed and passed by !

And so it turned our finally so that both a tavern and yard our coaching we have been stripped at once ! Tooth we are giving to you that it all was the way we do describe here : woke up men ours early in the morning by a cock’s shout and decided to walk by dews to breath fresh invigorating air. And voila – see they that our tavern is gone without a trace ! And would it still be fine if lost this trace was in some fire – for a brand new one better than the former would we build, with a pair milk instead of vodka there offered. But no way – instead of a yard our coaching and tavern there was some monster tall made of concrete and glass, as if the sun itself eclipsing with a paunch of floors spreading wide !

And on the first floor letters golden enormous sparkled with all colors and shades, and the only word with three letters there was imprinted, and was that word PPP. For long have we been guessing after that of what this word could mean, and as we could remember agreed that Profound Public Place is that, and why did we call it that way – soon you would understand it, as soon as the history of our grieves you manage to read up to the end. And were rising up and up floor after a floor of this building, and there was no visible end to them at all, uprising – and knowing people, there often afterwards dwelling, told us that there were exactly nine hundred ninety nine floors out there, yet the lift there did not go higher than the first hundreds of floors in village of ours, yet it’ said that in PPPs similar in big cities was it rising higher than that.

And how building that huge and enormous in one night could grow like a mushroom after some acid rain, we have no idea of – and the owner of a tavern, as we remember, was too shocked greatly and grieved at first of his institution, and often guests our overseas surprising accused in that, as if they possessed such magic powers to construct in a night such vast immodest objects – pigs they are, in a word, and blighters. And as if in the water was our Arseny looking, as if was feeling it all in advance !

Rushed we afterwards, as remembered, through the village altogether, seeking those guests unusual, demanding them to answer for that crime of construction, yet no matter how hard we tried to find them in gates, cellars, even sheds, but disappeared they totally without a single trace to catch. Left, probably, by that night from village of ours as far as possible, by pigs being driven. And let they rot ! – decided we, and went to examine the new building. Oh, people kind and smart, better it would be if we didn’t do that, for enticed us all this PPP afterwards and drugged seriously !

Almost everything was available inside it, oh brothers ! Both casino cash-stealing and perfume stupefying, both flowers artificial and dinners gut-filling, and clothes fashionable shameless, and gold with ornaments soul-blinding, and gadgets various peeping and humming and time-consuming, and wines overseas intoxicating, and magazines colorful vulgarizing ... And grasped was the spirit of many of us, and in crowds were we breaching into that PPP, and for all day long have been wandering there and circling by floors and lanes these infinite, and back to their families, and children, and husbands, and wives didn’t want to return at all.

And the payment for pleasures these harmful there was, as we remember, unusual as well : standing there were at an entrance to corridors machines made of iron, and, well, to shake out some money from these devices one had to put his finger in a hole special and wait until some needle pierces his finger and sucks away a portion of his blood – and as if in exchange after that short-term operation pieces of papers these green with eyes and ugly faces on them were dropped in a tray a bit lower. Not so much of them were dropped one at a time, to tell the truth, so that if someone has been hanging for all day long in that PPP mentioned, for many times to machines these he had to run towards, blood his donating, and was unsteady and pale sometimes by the end of the day, yet was still running and lots of pleasures and delights in PPP was buying as if some addict or drunkard really, and maybe even someone worse than that. Precisely like vampires machines these were acting, blood our Russian from due to our weak willpower for each day drop by drop have been drinking !

And changed everything in village our that day, like a snowball pulled hard and downhill started sliding ! And often, as we remember, it was that comes someone from our men by early solar morning to another and offers him so loudly and cheerfully : “Ivan, let’s go living already ! “ And receives a response back drowsily and inertly : “Can’t you see, Emelya, - I am PPP today !” – and went afterwards in that PPP, Profound Public Place, as we called it among ourselves, and have been spending there all day long, so that word this, PPP, soon nominal became by itself.

And soon almost everyone started feeling himself totally PPP, and many there, in PPP that harmful finally degraded and almost like cattle they became. And so hard and awfully soon it became to live that one could start howling from a grief due to that state his indifferent ! And many, naturally, started howling in life – but not on the moon, surely, yet on their neighbors like wolves spiteful. And started swearing with words foreign, from overseas, and hating each other and banishing, for everything became totally PPP to them, even to remain kind, probably.

And for many months has this tragedy lasted, and as if charmed men have become. And soon afterwards it became known as well that machines mentioned, ones blood gathering, were not that simple as they looked like at first – blood they were pumping, and in response some substance poisonous in blood were injecting, so that some women and children of ours died from that poison overseas, their PPP condition being unable to sustain. And buried they were quite fast, and cried about a little for the sake of pro-forma only, and very few people that commemoration visited – for totally PPP it was for them everything by that day already. And whether you do believe us, brothers, or not, but a sun our shining as well began to come to a horizon even earlier than before, so that dark time became longer. And cocks ceased to sing, and hens to give eggs, and cats as well were totally PPP to catch a single mouse.

And don’t we remember exactly for how long these troubles have lasted, - yet clearly we do remember of how it finally ended. Our grandma, local healer, Praskoviya, was almost the only one who has not entered this ill-starred PPP at all. And once after her husband, well, having swallowed some wine and smoked some smokes, returned back home as always, soul of hers didn’t sustain that and shouted she in a fit of temper, as we could remember, the following : “And may all that PPP of yours fall underground once and for all !” And literally in that particular moment (if her husband Mikhalych, well, who have secretly whispered all this to us after sobering, doesn’t lie naturally and shamelessly), the ground in all our village started shaking and moving like waves, as if not a ground that was at all, but some sort of sea instead. And so it was all shaking and moving for some time, and after that – yawn ! –a hole enormous under that PPP opened, and all it along with the unfortunate ones who were in it during that time have fallen into that depth infinite, so that a third part of our village disappeared there in no time suddenly, in that gloomy endless depth.