On the Wings of Hope : Prose

Rushed we afterwards, as remembered, through the village altogether, seeking those guests unusual, demanding them to answer for that crime of construction, yet no matter how hard we tried to find them in gates, cellars, even sheds, but disappeared they totally without a single trace to catch. Left, probably, by that night from village of ours as far as possible, by pigs being driven. And let they rot ! – decided we, and went to examine the new building. Oh, people kind and smart, better it would be if we didn’t do that, for enticed us all this PPP afterwards and drugged seriously !

Almost everything was available inside it, oh brothers ! Both casino cash-stealing and perfume stupefying, both flowers artificial and dinners gut-filling, and clothes fashionable shameless, and gold with ornaments soul-blinding, and gadgets various peeping and humming and time-consuming, and wines overseas intoxicating, and magazines colorful vulgarizing ... And grasped was the spirit of many of us, and in crowds were we breaching into that PPP, and for all day long have been wandering there and circling by floors and lanes these infinite, and back to their families, and children, and husbands, and wives didn’t want to return at all.

And the payment for pleasures these harmful there was, as we remember, unusual as well : standing there were at an entrance to corridors machines made of iron, and, well, to shake out some money from these devices one had to put his finger in a hole special and wait until some needle pierces his finger and sucks away a portion of his blood – and as if in exchange after that short-term operation pieces of papers these green with eyes and ugly faces on them were dropped in a tray a bit lower. Not so much of them were dropped one at a time, to tell the truth, so that if someone has been hanging for all day long in that PPP mentioned, for many times to machines these he had to run towards, blood his donating, and was unsteady and pale sometimes by the end of the day, yet was still running and lots of pleasures and delights in PPP was buying as if some addict or drunkard really, and maybe even someone worse than that. Precisely like vampires machines these were acting, blood our Russian from due to our weak willpower for each day drop by drop have been drinking !

And changed everything in village our that day, like a snowball pulled hard and downhill started sliding ! And often, as we remember, it was that comes someone from our men by early solar morning to another and offers him so loudly and cheerfully : “Ivan, let’s go living already ! “ And receives a response back drowsily and inertly : “Can’t you see, Emelya, - I am PPP today !” – and went afterwards in that PPP, Profound Public Place, as we called it among ourselves, and have been spending there all day long, so that word this, PPP, soon nominal became by itself.

And soon almost everyone started feeling himself totally PPP, and many there, in PPP that harmful finally degraded and almost like cattle they became. And so hard and awfully soon it became to live that one could start howling from a grief due to that state his indifferent ! And many, naturally, started howling in life – but not on the moon, surely, yet on their neighbors like wolves spiteful. And started swearing with words foreign, from overseas, and hating each other and banishing, for everything became totally PPP to them, even to remain kind, probably.

And for many months has this tragedy lasted, and as if charmed men have become. And soon afterwards it became known as well that machines mentioned, ones blood gathering, were not that simple as they looked like at first – blood they were pumping, and in response some substance poisonous in blood were injecting, so that some women and children of ours died from that poison overseas, their PPP condition being unable to sustain. And buried they were quite fast, and cried about a little for the sake of pro-forma only, and very few people that commemoration visited – for totally PPP it was for them everything by that day already. And whether you do believe us, brothers, or not, but a sun our shining as well began to come to a horizon even earlier than before, so that dark time became longer. And cocks ceased to sing, and hens to give eggs, and cats as well were totally PPP to catch a single mouse.