Прохор Озорнин - On the Wings of Hope - Prose

Where has all your former anger gone and why do you now greet and shake hands of your former immemorial enemies – and your soul exults, seeing, how their faces are changed when you affably smile to them and stretch your hand…?

Why do you now approach the bed where your beloved one still sleeps, what for do you sit down on the edge near him, why do you bow to him and kiss, and then lean your head to his own… where has this tenderness, overflowing you, come from?

What for, what for do you need all this? Where has your old world gone?

An instant fear will pierce you. You will be frightened by what has occurred to you. You will not know how to live on with this new feeling of yours. You will passionately want to return back, to life so habitual for you – so reasonable and logical. The mind will keep saying that you have not had time to do so many things – have not had time to build the house, to make your career, to do this, to do that, – and if you will accept your new world, you cannot do it anymore… simply will not see the point. And you will want to listen to him to strongly, for he has aided you in this life for so many times already – and you will almost make it…

But then you would suddenly remember as the sun shined on you – surprisingly beautiful for all these years, how wind pulled out your hair, how you felt an autumn moisture on your lips, how you saw a flying deciduous round dance, and how love to the world overflowed you… and you will throw away these impudent attempts of mind to spoil this beauty – for you will not want to lose it anymore.

There will be many years after – but they all will be different.

Your sleepy life will come to an end – and will not be repeated anymore. You will at last manage to see this world such what it always was for those who saw – and what it became for you from now on.

Both rising and falling, both success and failure, both joy and grief will happen as usual – but all of them will be different. They all will become a reflection of the wonderful new world, to which you have once – in that memorable day – come, and in which you are living now.

Just… just because something, that has been sleeping in you for so long, will once come to light. Just because one day you will awake…

08.03.2006

Vasily squatted under a doorway canopy, diligently hiding his face from a pouring rain. Drops of rain drummed on his head, rolled up under his clothes through a torn raincoat, squelched in worn out sneakers. It appeared as if the rain in some uncontrollable mad rush was trying to clear country's “second capital” from all that he could qualify as dirt by his unknown motive.

As if he couldn't do only one thing – to wash away sins of humans. Servants of the temple, which was sparkling in this cloudy day with washed gilded domes, for instance, could – for a well-known payment, of course. Yet only not that rain. How could he, a simple rain, ascend to these heights?

Passersby promptly rushed under this storm from one building to another, overflowed cars on sidewalks loudly urged to stand aside each and every one except themselves, and Vasily – what's in Vasily? – to him, this marvelous new world of as-if-sanctity was totally far away in all possible meanings.

Karma became a new fashion by the will of moral's observers. For several years already every resident of this cultural capital – and not only it – has been trying to correct own karma without correcting himself. Show-windows of charitable shops called for it, newspapers and central television constantly reminded of it, even the face of some orphan on a huge advertising billboard appeared to silently offer all of its contemplators, who have been rushing through a central street's ring each day, to bring another portion of their savings to children's church shelter for the sake of clearing of own Karma. For several years already people have been insincerely smiling to each other on city streets, inquiring of a state of health of their interlocutors along with a weather's forecast, buying various discounted knickknacks in numerous charitable shops which have grown as if mushrooms from a heavy rain and stated that they were giving a part of their profits on “good deeds”. Even banks offered an increased “cashback” for purchases in such little shops. It all became a question of fashion – to purify one's karma, feeling infallible.

Vasily had no idea how it all worked out – but the union of marketing specialists and those, from temples, turned out to be surprisingly productive. He, being watered in this very moment by a storm, didn't know that in terms of marketing this was called “rebranding”, and in terms of finances, it could be measured by a sum which only they – devout collectors of treasures – were able to afford. Anyway, this certainly helped to save themselves in own eyes for many, – except Vasily.

Five years without a home – is it much or is it little? Someone will spend out eternity in the dirt, feeling no flight of time at all, – and for him, these five years became their own eternity. Five years through cold and snow, dirt and such rains which were washing streets of St. Petersburg from time to time. Five years in worn-out clothes under disapproval looks of passersby and without a single chance to find a constant shelter. Sleepless nights, spent in open entrances, hundreds of shouts and kicks from residents of these buildings. It all has been – it all will be going. This is a vicious circle.

***

Ultimately our memory saves only the best of moments for us – ones which are worthy of living in the ocean of memories. And sparks of these memoirs don't fade away up to our last day on this rock.

…First year of his wanderings. Late evening. The sound of footfall behind his back.

“Hide me away, please!” a girl of seven or so years desperately shouted. “Hide me from them!”

When two adult figures, wrapped up in shadows, appeared on a pavement's horizon, there was no more time for reflections.

“Here, come with me!” Vasily shouted to a child.

Several dozens of meters, absolutely close. Here, in a yard, broken door entrances were always open. When you wander through the entire city, which has become your final resting place, your memory tenaciously stores inside such spots, where you can spend your next night – or at least several remaining hours till dawn when law-abiding citizens will once again go for their most important and significant jobs. Like in a vicious circle.

The child ran after Vasily in door openings and went silent.

This was a day – or a night if we are to judge by time – when he saved future great ballerina from thugs and rapists. Yet in that very day, he didn't know of all that – that kind of knowledge came so much later – and in another world.

…Third year of his wanderings. The rain, drumming on a bridge his strange rhythm and drawing circles in waters of Neva river. Vicious circles.

A little kitten with orange fur, who is desperately beating on a water with legs and trying to reach a high stone embankment with a meter's height above him. He would drown that day if not for Vasily's aid. Would drown as many are being drowned by force – whether they are cats or people. What is some saved kitten, after all? Just a clear distinction between compassion and indifference.

…That very day, those very minutes which few mortal ones are capable to predict in advance. Winter wind, freezing a face. The glacial face of Neva. Group of school students not far away, moving as a chain to another coast.

Here a weak ice breaks from their measured step and one of them falls down into icy waters with a splash. A cry of despair, being carried around.

When Vasily ran up to the place of that ice break, the student was still on a water surface, yet none of the surrounding children had any power to pull him out. They pulled their hands to him, trying to grasp – but small weak hands of theirs have been sliding off over and over again, accompanied by cries of despair.