Прохор Озорнин - On the Wings of Hope - Prose

“About my own affairs, sad things. I still can't transform all women into nasty ones, and that's a pity. Some of them even dare to thirst for chastity, silly ones! And chastity – what's that? As the need presses on, they all will go their own ways, prepared by me for them. Well, except for the most resistant ones, probably. Eh!” Glamour sighted at first, but then suddenly became cheerful once again. “That's the spirit, that's the beauty!” he sang. “You are not even the Nasty, you are the Nastiest from all the women I've met before! One can't help falling somewhere down together with you.”

“Oh, yes,” agreed Nasty Woman. “To drag them down I am glad!”

“And therefore I am not sad!” Glamour joined the rhyme once again.

“Oh, my friend, you are a poet!” Nasty Woman waved her totally manicured hands.

“I talk nonsense to build a fence!” agreed Glamour.

“What-what?” Nasty Woman once again didn't get it at all.

“Never mind!” soothingly noticed Glamour. “After all, such a surprising meeting is awaiting you today, oh my! The nastiest one!”

“Yes,” agreed Nasty Woman. “This new lawyer of mine is simply a whacko man! And as far as I got it, he has pools of money in his wallet! It's going to be not a life, but a fairy tale!”

“You will leave him for good soon enough nevertheless?” Glamour raised his eyebrow.

“Certainly, everything according to your advice!” winked Nasty Woman.

“Yes,” replied Glamour, “but voluntary nevertheless. By the way, I have bought a new magazine here,” he added, giving her a package. “Last words in fashion and, certainly, style, men that are brutal, and stupid, and vile, shopping, and fucking, and all of that sort for all nasty women that take it for sport,” he noted. “Well, give it to your girlfriend!”

“Oh my, how careful of you!” Nasty Woman twisted her lips. “And why is that for a friend of mine and not me personally?”

“Well, because you will have no need for it soon enough,” Glamour sighted wearily and turned his face away. “By the way, there is a guest coming for you right now,” and he looked at his hand, checking own watches.

“Dzin!” practically the very same second a doorbell rang out.

“Oh, my!” Nasty Woman jumped up in fear. “And who might have come so unexpectedly?”

“Well, no, I would rather say – just in time,” Glamour answered routinely. “I would even say – strictly according to a schedule. Hey, what's the heck are you silly standing here idly?” he called for Nasty Woman. “Go and open the door already. It's that very anticipated meeting of which I have already managed to tell you!”

“H… hello,” hardly moving her tongue murmured Nasty Woman the moment an unexpected guest has appeared on a threshold. Is… is that some kind of joke, yes? Costumes games?”

“Greetings,” said the guest in a black robe, which was wrapping her up from feet to head, continuing to hold a sparkling even at daylight scythe in her hands. “I am known as the Death,” she introduced herself with everyday-uninterested-ice-soul-touching voice. “Are these the apartments of madam Stinker?”

“Madam Nasty,” Glamour corrected her with no less routinely voice. “Though she is a great Stinker as well!” he added.

“I have come for you,” totally, as it always is, unexpected guest addressed Nasty Woman. “The time has come.”

“H… how… has come?” Nasty Woman continued to mutter something confusedly, having heavy fallen down to the floor. “I… I was not expecting. I am… still so young. I have to… live and live on!” she started sobbing.

“Well, no, everything looks right,” affirmatively confirmed Death, continuing to move her bony finger through pages of some mysterious book, which has suddenly appeared in her hands. “As it was discussed with you earlier, before your arrival here. Precisely calculated time, last chance for own spiritual change… everything looks right. Well, and the way you have decided to use that given time is your private business.”

“Precisely, indeed,” Glamour interrupted with joy. “Free will, that's it!”

“You… deceived me!” Nasty Woman looked at him with hatred. “You… didn't tell!”

“And you didn't ask!” he giggled maliciously and showed her a tongue. “You have been spending your time so pleasantly that didn't even dare to think of something different. About the meaning of life, for instance. There are so many things to think about!”

“Time is running out,” coldly answered the Death. “It's time to leave.”

“And how many other ones are leaving today as well?” Glamour addressed the Death.

“Lots of,” she answered coldly. “Come on, it's time for us to go,” she turned to Nasty Woman.

“W… where… to go?”

“Into the other world. To prepare for an answer.”

“Say hello to all your sponsors!” Glamour burst out laughing. “By the way, they will all be grabbed soon as well. And still, they don't understand what they have been living for.”

“Very few ones understand it,” answered the Death. “They have no time for this now.”

“Glamour rules over the world!” Glamour burst out laughing once again.

“If it was in my will – I would gladly suffocate you!” Death looked at him with icy eyes. “So many ones you have sent to me already, and some of them even before their time.”

“All men are mortal,” Glamour replied philosophically. “Well, come on, don't you dawdle!” and he hit Nasty Woman with a fist sideways. “You have no chance but to leave. No more chance.”

“Swine!” Nasty Woman hissed with hatred.

“Oh, sure, you are a decent swine, indeed,” confirmed he. “I would rather tell – very glamorous one!”

“Swine!” she managed to hiss once more before Death finally embraced her with own hands and both of them have disappeared in some grayish haze.

“That's it,” Glamour hemmed with satisfaction. “Minus one slave. And how don't they really understand that it's not the Glamour who brings them happiness?”

04.03.2013

A whistle of a flying shell. Air, dissected by an iron pig. Explosion. Explosion - just behind the next hill.

Missed. Missed again.

Alive. I am alive! Still alive.

Have missed the mark, slightly – but have missed. Lucky enough?

And how many times again must he be lucky enough during all these days, to remain alive? How many?

However, it could be worse – much worse. Worse than when his lung was shot and he has been gasping since then, sucking air into lungs with some sobs, and releasing it outside – still hot, warmed by his organism air… the air of war and destructions. Even worse than when the explosion of a grenade has deprived him of his three hand's fingers… instead of them – bloody-stained lumps.

A nevertheless he is still alive, living in this mad war. Alive among hundreds and hundreds of other mad ones.

Will he last for long?

A machine gun fired nearby. Into entrenchments! – where the killing iron will not reach him. To the ground – the ground of native land… the country, which was hardly resisting enemy's onslaught. The enemy… How, when these people, just the same as he is, when have they become his enemies? Why enemies? What a monstrous absurd and error must have occurred that they suddenly became enemies? Another madness?

Anyway, they are enemies now. Worse than that – the hungry beasts, feasting on corpses of killed and wounded, rejoicing with each death of hated enemy… next cut thread of human's life… human… No, they are not like humans now… not anymore. Each of them – is not a human anymore. They were like them, in their former lives – but not anymore. No.