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Felix Austria
what to do with themselves.
Last night one of themwalked
under people’s windows,
screaming demands that
people let him in for the
night. He shouted, “I have
nowhere to sleep, my feet
are freezing.” And finally he
found where to warm them:
police picked him up, so he
had to warm himself under
arrest.
Lately there are so many
thieves, swindlers, brigands
that it is scary even to go out
into the street. You feel like
barricading inside the house
and not even poking your
nose out. And sometimes you
think: who said it was safe
inside the house? Who said
that here too there wasn’t
a bandit waiting—someone
to whom you expose your
defenseless neck?
Petro says there is news
that an ancient ostensory
disappeared from St. Anne’s
Catholic Church in Ozeriany.
Again,
no
traces
and
witnesses, all doors latched
and locked, windows intact,
everything appears in proper
order inside. It is as if radiant
angels came down through
the walls and took the
precious object to Heaven to
praise Jesus with its help.
This has been going on for a
while: in Mykulyntsi, where
they had just rebuilt the
church after a fire, two golden
patens dissolved into thin
air: one of them depicting
the cradle in Bethlehem, the
other the Holy Sepulchre.
Just the day before the priest
and the deacon secretly hid
the platters in an ironbound
trunk. In the morning
the deacon broke down
screaming: the trunk is open
and empty; the only key had
been with the priest; both
are now in prison.