Trafika Europe 13 - Russian Ballet

A Light in the Night

more or less supported his weight. Although walking was not really working out. – Oatmeal, sir! – commented Ilya Ilych. In thenextmoment thewholeabsurdityof thedisgraceful situation finally registered in his mind. He has died! Died in real life, and even remembers his death! The current scenario is way too detailed to be an illusion. An illusion could be responsible for the oatmeal under his feet, the empty and soundless landscape. But the purse full of unfamiliar coins did not fit the hypothesis about the last visions of a dying brain. It was too self- sufficient, too bulky and heavy. The silk string of the purse cut into his neck in a very palpable way. But if this is reality, even an otherworldly one, where are all the people that arrived here before him? Ilya Ilych suffocated, struck with a mad thought… Ilya Jr, who perished in Angola, and Luda, who never recovered after that cursed funeral, should be here. She waited an entire year, hoping against hope for some kind of mistake, that the coffin, which they weren’t allowed to open, contained someone else, and that their son will come back. She lost weight, suffered from insomnia and anxiety. Couldn’t call her husband by his name and startled when she heard the name said by others. And then chose a time when Ilya Ilych was sent out of town on business, swallowed a two-week dose of hexabarbital and never awoke again. In the thirty years that followed he had gotten used to

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