Sorokin, Vladimir - Day of the Oprichnik

The seventh is simply Pravda.

But all of us, seven-headed us,

I call Gorynych the Terrible—

The fire-breathing Dragon Ruinator.

And all seven heads sit on a torso,

A wide and broad, a stocky one.

On a stocky trunk, on a weighty one,

With a heavy tail, a sinuous one.

And that torso so exemplary

Is carried by legs, two thickset ones,

Both stout and thickset mighty ones,

With claws that stab the brittle earth, they do.

On the sides of the thickset trunk you see

Two webbed wings stretch and grow,

Webbed are they and sinewy,

Strong, and flapping forcefully.

They sweep the air most gloriously,

Tense and taut, they rise, they do.

Wrench away from our mother earth,

We rise right there, above our native land,

Above the earth, the whole Russian land,

And fly through the sky, the blue sky we do

Fly easily, wherever we want to go.

And the seventh head asks:

“Where are we flying, where does our path lead?”

And the sixth head asks:

“What lands are in our plans today?”

And the fifth head asks:

“Must we fly far, through the sky today?”

And the fourth head asks:

“Where should we turn our valiant wings today?”

And the third head asks:

“Which winds will wag our tails today?”

And the second head asks:

“What lands do we set our sights upon?”

Then the first head, the head of heads,

The greatest of all, replies to them:

“We’ll fly right across the sky, we will,

Straight across the sky so blue,

Straight west to a land far away we will,

To a land far away, and wealthy, too,

A land beyond the crash of the ocean blue,

A far-flung land, yes, one that’s flourishing,

Rich with gold and silver treasure nourishing.

In that far-off country towers stand,

Towers high and higher stand,

Tall, pointy and sharp they are,

Mercilessly buttressing the sky so blue,

And in the towers brazen people live,

Brazen and dishonest they live, they do,

They live with no fear of God they do,

These godless people,

They wallow in filthy sin, they do.

They wallow and enjoy themselves,

Mocking all that’s sacred, all that’s holy, too,

Mocking, jeering, and sneering is all they do,

They hide in Satan’s work,

And spit on Sacred Rus, they do,

On the onion domes of Russia’s Orthodox,

They all defame the golden name of God,

They flout the truth, oh yes, they do.

Now we fly most easily,

Through endless skies of baby blue,

Through nearby merchant countries,

Through groves and piney backwoods, too,

Through fields and meadows greening,

Through lakes and rivers clear as day,

Through villages and European towns,

Then we fly ferociously,

Far away from home, across the ocean-sea

Far away to where the godless roam.

We spread our webbed wings,

We wag our tail to the seven winds,

Our wings catch hold of the swift eighth wind,

The speedy eighth, the wind that travels the way we want to go,

We fly into its wake, stream into its wake, we do,

We saddle it, yes, straddle it, like a dashing stallion,

We ride the wild and galloping, we ride the rolling winds,

We take off on the winds, on a journey wild and dangerous.

We fly the first ten days,

We fly the first ten nights.

Ten days and nights over glassy water smooth,

Over the steep and rolling waves.

Our webbed wings weaken,

Our Gorynych heads grow weary,

Our mighty tail droops,

Our feet flail, our claws unclench.

Then, lo and behold on the ocean-sea,

We spy a metal house, on poles, on iron ones,

Built to pump and suck our mother earth,

To drink her deepest blood, amassed throughout the centuries,

We land atop that iron house,

We tear apart the iron roof,

We eat the twelve impious there,

And spit their bones into the sea.

We rest three days, and then three nights,

On the fourth we set the house afire,

And head off to the west again.

We fly ten days again,

And ten nights more,

Ten days, ten nights, the glassy waters o’er,

’Til our webbed wings weaken,

Our Gorynych heads droop,

Our mighty tail lolls, half dead

Our feet, our claws unclench.

Lo and behold in the ocean-sea we see

A mammoth six-decked ship.

A massive vessel floating east, it does,

From a wily country, from the godless land.

Bearing vile and filthy goods,

Carrying godless people,

Subversive letters and seditious documents,

Bearing delights demonical,

Bringing pleasures satanical,

Conveying decaying whore-swans

Like a whirlwind we attack that ship, we do,

Scorching and burning it from seven heads,

From seven heads and seven mouths,

We burn, we obliterate the godless filth within,

We gorge on decaying whore-swans, oh yes.

We rest three days, and rest three nights,

And on the fourth day we move on.

We fly another ten days,

And a third ten nights.

When lo we glimpse the godless land.

We fly, we fly, and fly anon.

We torch, we scorch it from seven heads,

From seven heads, from seven mouths,

We smite and bite the godless ones.

When we’ve had our fill of them, we spit out their bones, and again we char the vermin, the vile parasites, those disgusting whoresons, brazen and godless, who’ve forgotten everything sacred, everything thrice-sacred, they must be like the spawn of Asmodeus like cockroaches like stinking rats scorched mercilessly to ashes we scorch whoresons the accursed burned to a crisp, we do, with pure and honest fire, burn and burn and when I slam against the hard glass window the first time it holds I slam it the second time it cracks slam it the third time it breaks I stick my head into the dark apartment the vermin hid from heavenly judgment but my yellow eyes see in the dark they see well my yellow eyes and I stare and find the first foul creature a forty-two-year-old man wedged in a wardrobe I set the wardrobe on fire I watch the wardrobe burn he sits inside and doesn’t budge he’s scared and the wardrobe burns the wood crackles and he sits there and I wait he can’t stand it and flings the door open with a cry and I send a thin stream of flame, my faithful skewer of flame into his mouth and he swallows my fire and falls I keep searching I find two children two little girls six and seven hiding under the bed under the wide bed I drench the bed in a wide stream the bed burns the pillows flame the blanket they can’t stand it they scramble out from under the bed run to the door I send a fan of fire after them they run as far as the door burning both of them I keep on searching I’m searching for the sweetest thing of all and I find her a woman thirty years old blond who hides frightened in the bath between the washing machine and the wall dressed only in her nightgown her knees are bare she’s squatting petrified she looks at me with fear, her eyes wide and round, and slowly my nostrils inhale her sleepy smell I move closer to her closer closer closer I look and tenderly I touch her knees with my nose and slowly spread spread spread her and send my thinnest stream my faithful flaming skewer into her narrow womb I send it and its might fills her trembling womb, my flaming skewer fills it she howls inhuman cries and slowly my fiery flaming skewer begins to fuck her to fuck her to fuck fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

Awakening…

It’s like rising from the dead. Returning to your old body, which died long ago and is buried in the ground. Oh, how loath you are to do so!

I lift my leaden eyelids and see my naked self stretched out on the lounge chair. I stir, cough, sit up. I’m hot. I grab a bottle of icy Esenin birch juice. Koliakha said he’d provide the birch juice, and he didn’t forget. It gurgles in my parched throat. The others are also stirring, coughing. How good. It’s always good on fish. Never been any nasty crash or black slough on fish. This isn’t any of your miserable smack.