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

to show the darker, solid, blackness of the windbreak belt along the roadside.

…for any vehicle, the road of this quality stands for the capital punishment with no chance of appealing to Philip Sober yet my shank's pony doesn’t mind…nothing will get you farther than a pair of good dogs…a walker makes five kilometers per hour, they taught us in school…by Uncle's estimation, the district center is in 15 kilometers, no more…I started at a little past 5, the bus to Moscow departs at 9… jingling gods and jumping jugs! life's a delicious havvage!. …especially under the favorable wind…

“ The wind blows right from behindwhat's on your mind?The sailing will be plainto fetch a bottle of Portwein…”

…slow down, little one, don’t rush when cutting corners…the dry law is vigilantly lurking, mind the Prohibition… Dura lex, sed lex… wanna a translation?.

…don't you worry, buddy, Latin is a bro from the home neighborhood…

…yet the vulgarity! the meanness of the subject: "portwein", "a bottle", flat as a pancake…

…then what?..show respect to the art of hammerers…a folklore item…next to iambic…

…no iambi-zombie talk, private…or we'll have you rotten with fatigues at dactyl…

…ha!.. who're you?..a self-taught good for nothing…screw up your loose screw first…a gourmand with fluffy chopsticks… "ah, iambus is not yummy! may I have some choree with a sprinkle of trochee, please?”…how about grayling under sherry then?…

…hmm, yes…the chorees are dying out…fucked, in fact, by the hostile ecology…arid vistas are closing in – 'warmly approving the saved reserves we will hold aloof the initiative of the plan in excess replete with the deepest satisfaction ahead of time by centners of running meters from a hectare of rolled metal'…feel free to start up the red book for all the elegant belles-lettres…doomed darlings…not a chance for survival…the golden days of muses gulped down by the abyss of past…

"The wrath sing, goddess, of the Peleus' son, Achilles…"

…this single line of hexameter calls for 2 square meters of footnotes so that the folks suckled and brought up with the editorials from Central Press would get it what exactly that fucker Achilles wants of the Brazilian football star's kid…but think of the paper deficit!..we need it for printing about the growth of wealth and well-being!.

…you know the truth: if you want to live but there is no one to live with, you have to live with anyone you come across…that's why folks adore folklore…the perfection itself, mind you, can be found among those handcrafted items…here, for your consideration:

"Who of you, bastards, dared label God a rasp?!."

In the dark, already slightly graying, over the deserted road sounds a snort of a restrained chuckle. The black clot of a tree floats up along the roadside and falls back.

…yeah, they did school you to toe the line…who's around here to look back at your causeless laugh?…

"I walk, and I keep smiling to myselfand at the thought 'what would they think of me?'I into laughter burst…"

…another piece crafted in the neighborhood?…

…no, it's by some Czech with a tilt towards poetry…

…you mean, Czechs are not homies?..I'll have your throat cut!…

…have mercy, oh, Abraham!..check in the bush maybe we'll square it up with Yahweh keeping your sonny unscratched…

…and if I am Taras Bulba?…

…oh, yes!..in the dried form, pressed for the herbariums…Robinson Crusoe's goat is more of a Cossack than you…drop your bragging before the neighbor's nanny-goat got chocked and died in a laughter fit…

…not a chance…they say that laughter is the sovereign property of Khoma Sapiensoff…

…well, from the standpoint of physiology all is radiant clear – spasms and coughs tremendously benign to health, but how to grasp it from the significance's point of view?…

…I love challenger kids, yes I do!..let's have a look…where are the decent people laughing?..right, in the places specifically designated for the purpose…that’s where you have to look for an answer…like, in the circus or, say…

…hurray!..to the movies, we are going!..that's some comedy!… Fantozzi, what a good fellow!..wow!..knows his trade!…

Bang! Ding! Plop! Chink! Pisssssss…

Glee and guffaw, giggling, laughter beyond all the limits and past all the bounds.

Boo-ooh-ha! Ha-ho-ho! Gu-gu-hu! Wu-hu-hu!

And only my neighbor to the left, a lady of immense proportions, sits listless, silent. Why? Dozed off or what? No, dutifully gazes at the silver screen, still yielding no reaction.

The man in there does his best to turn her on, he takes a run to hit his head against the lamppost. The hall reports by a happy volley… And she? Good news she's not yawning.

But what's that? Unbelievable! At a minor episode, where Fantozzi, after another fall, plop, splash, whizzz, changes in a suit five times bigger his size and the public almost do not react, exhausted in the previous convulsions, that's when from the exorbitant volumes of my neighbor rolls out the laughter of the same dimensions. Well done, comedian! But how do you start her?

…and now, when asked: why do people laugh?..my answer is – because of fear…

…fear?!..

…exactly!..you can’t put your finger on anything more dreadful for a woman than uglifying clothes… while, when the comedian's bicycle drops its saddle on the run and the zany lands with his asshole onto the pipe still sticking up there, the hall is swaying from the males' guffaw… a lady, naturally, can weather by such a trifle…

…laughter from fear!..nonsense!..they do not laugh but flee when scared…besides, your arguments are based on laughter of the basest sort…and people laugh because of not only that someone stumbled-slipped-sprawled-fell-into-the-drains, they laugh at witticisms as well…then, there are still epigrams…there's a hell of lots of ways to have a hearty laugh…

…verily, verily, I say unto you!..laughter comes from fear and is both request and prayer begging Unknown to avert the thing they laugh at, to keep it off the prayer sayer, I mean, off them who’s splitting their sides…and same exactly foundation underlies the laughter caused by the finest witticisms…where "ha-ha-ha" reads: "let me never be a target of such a joke!"…while laughing at oneself is just a prayer: "let I never again step into it!"…they are inseparable Siamese – fear and laughter…tell me what you laugh at and