Trafika Europe 13 - Russian Ballet

Svyatoslav Loginov

I wanted to decline the injection and couldn’t, my lips failed to move. “Is this really the end? I felt all right this morning, and right now there is no pain at all. And I am not scared even a bit, like this isn’t even happening to me.” The nurse hands the syringe to the doctor. The starched cowl on her head looks like a cloth napkin from a fancy restaurant. What silly thoughts at a moment like this… This is the time to settle up, remember his life, his wife, his son, remember himself… First memory – he is a little over two years old, he is visiting his aunt Sasha. Aunt Sasha isn’t really his aunt, but grandpa’s. No one yet knows that a month from then the ancient old woman won’t wake up in the morning. They told him about Aunt Sasha later, what he remembers himself is an embroidered doily on the bureau, with seven yellowish elephants on top. The elephants are carrying happiness, they bring happiness to their owner. Magical-sounding words: ‘real ebony’… And right after comes the recollection of the broad smile of today’s toddler. The spark of the first tooth breaking through the pink gums… Good god, these two memories, they frame an entire lifetime. A lifetime that is what it is, that can no longer be changed. His head is abuzz, as if two large conches have been pressed to his ears. The voices come through the noise of an imaginary sea. Can’t turn his head, can’t even blink. Somewhere at the periphery of his vision there

264