The Rascally Romance (in a single helluva-long letter about a flicking-short life) - Сергей Николаевич Огольцов

two-dimensional, each and every one. All the time, I wanted to take a look at what was on the backside of their plywood, but it did not work out because someone next was flowing up into the picture who also was a two-dimensional one. And, from far far away, so low and slow, came the sounds of muffled music…

Occasionally, above all the plywood heads, there floated a pair of eyeballs on their pair of stems—like periscopes—it was those pseudo sound engineers stoned to death but still roaming the space. So funny bastards!. And they laughed too. Where did they get such weed?.

We were brought home by midnight. There was a creaking Arctic frost… Under the light of the spiky stars in the sky, we dragged the equipment onto the scene of the dead empty and frozen cinema hall. No one spoke a word. No strength; no desire to. Because of All was emptiness.

The emptiness of emptinesses and nothing but emptiness…

~ ~ ~

Ah, yes! With the same autumn draft they had also driven in youngs from Moldova and Moscow, but quite a few – about 10 men.

Moldovans had so funny last names like Rahroo, Shooshoo, though their first names were quite normal… Vasya Shooshoo received a postal notification about a parcel from home awaiting him at the city main post-office. When going to get it, he invited Lyolik from Moscow, Vitalik from Simferopol, and me. We collected the parcel and found some canteen in the city, on the second floor. There Vasya opened the box and there was,

"Wine of Moldavia, my boy,Is to give us a blissful joy!."

Vasya, as the generous host, fetched some macaroni with something on top and was filling our cups under the table which we held out of sight as well as the bottles to cut out unnecessary discussions with the canteen staff. That way we finished off I can’t say how many liters.

Well, what now? Saddle up! We went down to the first floor, and Lyolik took a leak there into the trash urn, while Vitalik, sort of, screened him off to observe decency in public eye.

That Lyolik was generally frostbitten. Once I went to the construction materials factory, and there was such a long conveyor-belt, mostly in the open, going high up under the roof upon a hill to carry clay or something. Lyolik's job there was to go up and down that hill with a breaker and prod what clay had got jammed on the conveyor belt. I can't remember exactly what I went there for, but the moment Lyolik saw me, the breaker in his hands simply fluttered from eager agitation, and it was in his eyes how really much he wanted to bump me off. Not for anything personal, just so, because I had turned up there when he conveniently had the breaker in his hands. However, he also hadn't the quadrangle of the circle problem solved yet. Bashing brains in with a breaker's not a big deal, but what then with the body? In short, he kept himself in hand at that time…

We left the canteen and strolled along in a friendly conversation; bright sun, white snow, life's beautiful.

Then Lyolik and Vasya started to sort it out whose homeland was better: Moscow or Moldova? Thus, word by word, they went over to gripping each other pea-jackets' breasts. But Vitalik—that's a capital fellow!—why, says he, on the street? Let's go in some yard.

In we steered into the yard of some two-story apartment block. Vitalik started reading instructions to them, like, sort of, a referee from London; no fighting with the belt plates, no kicking at the felled. They threw off their belts and hats, and pea-jackets, and – off they started the fun of heroes. Both of them over a meter and eighty with the fists like sledgehammers, and each scored hit was sending echoes about the hollow yard. A-hey! Let's sprinkle the snow with the red!.

Vasya broke Lyolik's brow. Lyolik, bleeding, fell on one knee. Vasya moved back to the linen ropes with some washing on it because the real heroes observe the rules.

That moment some geezer in a sailor's striped vest trotted down the porch way from the two-story apartment block. Someone from the rats of his neighbors, he reported, had called the militia. In short, the match had to be postponed. Lyolik washed his mug with the snow, the opponents put their outfits on and we left the stadium.

But the fighters' agitation did not show any abatement. It might’ve got bad enough so Vasya and Lyolik were disengaged and held apart. Then we split into pairs, I led Lyolik ahead, convincing him that Moscow was the capital of our Homeland, the best city on the Earth. About ten meters behind Vitalik and Vasya followed, discussing epic values of valorous Făt-Frumos from Moldovian myths. Thus, in peaceful conversations, we slowly strolled on when all of a sudden, on the right, a Volga braked and 2 militiamen in greatcoats jumped out of it on the sidewalk. Lyolik and I unfastened our belts and noosed them round the right wrists, leaving some length with the plate on its end for self-defense. The militiaman on the left flicked his gun up. A ridiculously small black hole in the bright ring of reflected sunshine looked square into my face.

At that very point, the second pair of the peripatetic interlocutors arrived at the epicenter of discontent. Carried away by their discussion, they hadn't been looking around. And all of a sudden—ta-dah!—an abrupt change of the scenery: 2 soldiers armed with plates of their belts against 2 militiamen with a gun.

From the overabundance of feelings and associations, Vitalik's legs bent limply, his mouth went a-gape and only at the last moment, he managed to lean his back against the fence…

Glory, glory be sung to you, the blessed land of Moldovia! You had conceived and brought forth Vasya Shooshoo the Valiant! The true warrior, filled with the spirit of soldierly brotherhood and conbatist solidarity, in his mighty embrace,