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

looser, I never was it either, it’s only that being possessed by trust to people I got fooled most of the time thanks to my readiness to believe, which they vaccinated me with ages ago but I’m still lazy to ditch the bullshit…

So there I stood, getting rooted into the parapet, with some calm, crystal-like, silent torpor closing in on me… But then a scraping din began to gradually reach from the outside world, I woke up and saw a dozen of workers removing the snow with their shovels along the sidewalk. The sun shone brightly, and its comrades-in-arms scrubbed the asphalt and looked at me as if waiting for something.

And what could I share? I had just got the fuck myself. Or maybe they wanted to scrub along the parapet too? Okay, thank you, mujiks, right you are – clinging to this shell-shock transfixion for any longer would make a gooey show.

So, I tore my roots off the arid granite in tiling blocks and joined the flow down the steps to the underpass, to hide myself from those shining peaks…

On the previously agreed upon morning, the bus came and the senior recycler signed the papers brought by the guide to confirm that they had been driving us for three days all about the capital, presenting its historical sites and peerless pearls of Moscow architecture. And everyone was satisfied and happy:

guide Olya, who enjoyed 3 days of paid leisure;

the shoppers with their loads of hunted down deficits;

the bus driver with the three-day ration of gasoline which could be put into circulation;

and, most of all, I, with a spare coin in my pocket worth 15 kopecks.

Technologist Valya did not exaggerate – you could have Moscow for 3 days for 3 rubles sharp…

~ ~ ~

The only backwash of the excursion was that I owed the factory those 3 days, I mean 3 daily norms of 32 bales each. Technologist Valya said not to worry though and just produce 2 or 3 surplus bales every day until I made up.

I never liked to be a debtor, so on the third day after coming back from Moscow, I brought to work a newspaper-wrapped snack, aka "brake", to keep me during my fit of Stakhanovite shock work.

When the factory bus took everyone to the city, and Popovka women went home on foot, I faced the slow-go creaky wailer of a press, and the hillocks of rags grown up all around it during my Moscow recreation, whose mass wasn't noticeably reduced in the working day-shift ended just now… Like an enthusiastic champion for the victory of Socialism in a singled-out country, I worked the second shift, then the third, and even managed to sleep in the locker room for about 20 minutes before they came back by bus for the new working day….

In summer, another presser started to work by us and very timely too because Misha the presser went on his annual vacation. The newcomer had some kind of a long oriental name because he was a Tajik, but I could not pronounce it in any way. So I dropped the attempts at unfamiliar phonetics and started to call him simply “Ahmed”.

Ahmed was short and swarthy, and never parted with his happy smile until he tried to enjoy a midday meal in the canteen at the "Motordetail" plant. Returning from there, he stretched out on a bench in the locker room to groan pitifully, while the women from Popovka stood around the sufferer gravely shaking their heads and sharing all kinds of Stone-Age health-care recommendations… After the payday, Ahmed began to come to work with "brakes" wrapped in newspaper and his digestion normalized, upholding my belief in power of printed text…

On his first working day, it was I who passed to him the wisdom and niceties of the presser profession. After exhaustive explanations on the purposes of all the 3 press buttons, followed by live demonstration how a skillful presser was expected to lock the box’s door with the hook outside it, I started to share to Ahmed my delights caused by the statement of a certain German poet that all seagulls, when in flight, look like the capital "E". And why? The name of his beloved was Emma! That’s a good fellow, ain't he? Eh? What a smart eye!

Enthusiastically grabbing a scrap piece of wire from the floor, I scratched capital E's, a flock of them, in the gray plaster coat of the nearby wall scarcely lit by a bulb over the press…

(…and now I'm asking myself: why to harass the innocent guy, dumping on him the needless facts in disregard of his poor command of Russian? The answer is simple: so is the human nature. The desire to teach is embedded in our genes.

To visualize this trite truth, look out of the window into the yard and watch the everyday picture: a mujik raised the hood over his car engine and right away a slew of advisers surround him to flash their personal crumbs of ken.

That desire is uncontrollable as proved by the case of the barber who spied the ass ears on King Midas: "I know something! Hearken to me!"…)

Among the wastes brought and dumped at Rags, there at times happened usable things. So, loader Sasha stored in his locker about half-dozen sweaters with and without the rain deer file across their chests; and each day he was sporting another one from his collection…

Volodya Kaverin did not care for small fish. He hunted fur cuffs and collars from discarded coats so that having hoarded enough of them he would order to sew a fur jacket for him or, maybe, a fur coat. 3 collars had been collected so far, and twice a week he used to take them out of his locker, like, to air the goods and, giving them a shake, in turn, he'd proudly ask you, "It should work out a nyshtyak jacket, right?"

Vanya, in his locker, was keeping a ceremonial tunic of Lieutenant-Colonel of the Soviet Army with golden shoulder straps