Trafika Europe 13 - Russian Ballet

Svyatoslav Loginov

consciousness, like descending into sleep, and the sight of the ceiling in the hospital room beginning to transform into a light at the end of an imaginary tunnel under his stilling gaze. In short, Ilya Ilych recalled and understood clearly and unequivocally that he had died. The afterworld, then… Certainly not what he expected, nor particularly what he wished for. Too palpable for a hallucination, too empty for reality. Must truly be the afterworld then. A thought both unpleasant and new, and so one that needed saying twice. All right, let’s put off the philosophizing for the time being, let us go and see how the dead live around here. Ilya Ilych began to move, rose with an effort and immediately sank almost up to his knees. That which was now beneath his feet refused to support his heavy and exceedingly material body. He climbed out of the pit, steadied himself, and looked himself over carefully, helped in this endeavor by a gray ambient light. Ilya Ilych was unshod and unclothed, with the only object aside from his own body that implied any connection to reality being a rather weighty leather pouch that he found hanging on a string around his neck. “A murse,” – Ilya Ilych recalled a word out of the jargon of his youth. Or a fagbag? Perhaps some kind of documents

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