Trafika Europe 13 - Russian Ballet

Svyatoslav Loginov

A rounded heap of white dust rose up like a small hill all along edge of the tiny Eden; this apparently demarked a one-time wall that barricaded the religious grandeur from unbidden visitors like the unworthy Ilya Ilych and his ilk. But the wall was now collapsed, and the blanched beauty of heaven was quickly coming undone. Looking behind him, Ilya Ilych discovered that his bare feet punctured the polished surface of the road in several places, pushing little clouds of dust and swirling nothingness to the surface. He didn’t bother fixing the damage. Clearly everything here is in disrepair and falling apart of its own accord anyway. He selected a spot where the rock seemed a bit more solid, and sat down in the pose of Rodin’s Thinker, grasping his head with his hands. Then he began to laugh. His throat, having in recent years become unused to laughter, gave off raspy, inhuman sounds, his insides froze in anticipation of crippling pain, but Ilya Ilych simply could not stop. He laughed louder and louder, with increasing abandon, laughed at his own vapid death, at himself, scrawny and naked, sitting amongst the ruins of a dollhouse heaven with a purse of money around his neck. All this was just too much for a brain exhausted by weeks of torture, and yet at the same time not enough, for there was nothing real to hang on to aside from a stick of pine in his hands. But even losing his mind was not an option that Ilya Ilych counted on. For one having died being of sound mind and working memory, madness would be too unbecoming a luxury.

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