On the Wings of Hope: Prose by Prokhor Ozornin - HTML preview

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PPP

If there are only goats all around you, it's unreasonable to consider yourself an angel

Totally not belonging here proverb

Believe us or not, but no longer can we suffer and hide that recent history from you, happened with us by the will of life, for do we feel it, accurately somewhere under the rib from left side, that marvelous and unusually this story is, with meaning still unresolved by us, and crazily instructive. And therefore, having a talk among us, we decided to tell at least a little, so that can you understand from it at least something, and a desire to change yourself acquire in a proper time. For otherwise it all can fail and fall down through the earth, yeah, just like in the PPP we describe. Well, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

And do write down for you that history we are – simple rural men of the Newworldish village, Kirill and Mefody. But please, with these letter-makers and alphabet-creators do not confuse us, for many times were we blamed for it, for they say that we, apparently, invented this great and mighty Russian language – we mean, chattering, foul one, yet did forget to add necessary and required words there, so ours men sometimes missed these words in their disputes greatly. And didn't we invent it, yet only used! Especially when all that property of our guys along with PPP have fallen down there, oh, how greatly have we used it – so that even invented new words precisely like some Kirill and Mefody, yeah!

Well, so, looks like we got acquainted with each other a bit, told you of ourselves. Especially that particular Kirill who have advised me to write down this particular story for particular future generations to be educated and advised.

So, believe us or not at all and check it all for yourself… but how could it be possible we don't know, for all that PPP belongings of ours has been locked underground for several years by now, and thus are unable really to be a material evidence of sorts… but everything happened precisely as we are going to tell you here and now.

Living we were all in our Newwordish village and knew neither the sadness nor the madness. To kids women of ours gave birth, and we together with them brought them up on mind, reason, and chastity. Crops we collected plentiful so that rye and wheat still remained for sale to nearby cities and towns. And cows ours in farms gave milk normally, and hens made eggs large, and sheep were full of fur, and cats exhausted mice completely. And relations with each other we had fine and harmonious – and such good that we didn't even sweat between ourselves at all (well, unless, say, we take yet another bottle of moonshine on holidays and don't share it among our men properly – for, yeah, in that case such wall-to-wall fights could take place that only whistle, ahs, ohs and dust to knees was carried throughout all the village, that's right). Well, brothers, not a life it was, but a fairytale practically! Yet didn't we value that tranquility and peace seriously, and for real pennies for horrors other-worldly did we exchange them, and of that mistake we have been grieving still.

And here how the story goes. Somehow overseas merchants arrived from Newdevilish village. And merchants they were because in clothes were they dressed unusual – men in some jackets black in color with canes and hats, and maids shameless with them in dresses short semi-transparent. And from Newdevilish village cause they said us so, even though we have heard of the village with such a name for the first time that time, and haven't seen it with own eyes, thankfully. And why overseas ones they are we don't know, for by the form their external and manners very strange we in our private circles so settled and decided afterward. And also noted we and were surprised greatly that instead of horses habitual and common were their vehicles driven by pigs big, and no drivers did they have at all so these pigs mentioned could move them anywhere they had a whim of their own!

And so they all left their vehicles ruled by pigs and started to call themselves with names unusual – Smiths, Bobs, Johns, Susans, and Varvaras and the like. Did say they that have already heard of the village our worthy, and therefore decided not to forget of us as well – and have arrived, thus, to look at us and study us. To learn our customs, as we understood it, and to adopt ones of their own in return. But turned it out, brothers, accurately according to a nipple system! Imposed they did theirs customs harmful to us, and ours they derided and mocked after, unfashionable and out-of-date them calling. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

They stopped at first in our local tavern for a week or so, so that they can, well, examine our village on “prospects of innovations”, as they decided to express themselves unclearly. And to pay off at first they wanted not with copper coins of ours that sound, but with some pieces of green paper with pyramids and eyes painted on them. Greatly were we surprised by such money, and didn't want to accept them at first, but convinced they us naturally that always easy it is to exchange pieces of paper these with ugly faces of people on their reverse side drawn, for almost anything we desire, for the entire world is being bought and sold by them for these pieces. Ooh, didn't we scent their dirty trick at that moment, stupid ones, for in calmness and tranquility of our world, until their arrival which has been remaining, very trustful we managed to become and didn't think anything bad about visitors.

And so at first a week or so passed, and then the second one came, yet lodgers didn't even think of leaving. And were they traveling through the village and inquiring both men and women ours of something, and showing them something, and winking. Tempted them with their devilish dresses and addictions without a doubt – yet didn't we understood it at first, the moment that critical missed and passed by!

And so it turned our finally so that both a tavern and yard our coaching we have been stripped at once! Tooth we are giving to you that it all was the way we do describe here: woke up men ours early in the morning by a cock's shout and decided to walk by dews to breath fresh invigorating air. And voila – see they that our tavern is gone without a trace! And would it still be fine if lost this trace was in some fire – for a brand new one better than the former would we build, with a new milk instead of vodka that was offered there. But no way – instead of a yard our coaching and tavern there was some monster tall made of concrete and glass as if the sun itself eclipsing with a paunch of floors spreading wide!

And on the first floor letters, golden enormous sparkled with all colors and shades, and the only word with three letters there was imprinted and was that word PPP. For long have we been guessing after that of what this word could mean, and as we could remember agreed that Profound Public Place is that, and why did we call it that way – soon you would understand it, as soon as the history of our grieves you manage to read up to the end. And were floors rising up and up in this building, and there was no visible end to them at all, uprising – and knowing people, there often afterwards dwelling, told us that there were exactly nine hundred ninety-nine floors out there, yet the lift there did not go higher than the first hundreds of floors in village of ours, yet it' said that in PPPs similar in big cities was it rising higher than that.

And how building that huge and enormous in one night could grow like a mushroom after some acid rain, we have no idea of – and the owner of a tavern, as we remember, was too shocked greatly and grieved at first of his institution, and often guests our overseas surprising accused in that, as if they possessed such magic powers to construct in a night such vast immodest objects – pigs they are, in a word, and blighters. And as if in the water was our Arseny looking, as if was feeling it all in advance!

Rushed we afterward, as remembered, through the village altogether, seeking those guests unusual, demanding them to answer for that crime of construction, yet no matter how hard we tried to find them in gates, cellars, even sheds, but disappeared they totally without a single trace to catch. Left, probably, by that night from the village of ours as far as possible, by pigs being driven. And let they rot! – decided we, and went to examine the new building. Oh, people kind and smart, better it would be if we didn't do that, for enticed us all this PPP afterward and drugged seriously!

Almost everything was available inside it, oh brothers! Both casino cash-stealing and perfume stupefying, both flowers artificial and dinners gut-filling, and clothes fashionable shameless, and gold with ornaments soul-blinding, and gadgets various peeping and humming and time-consuming, and wines overseas intoxicating, and magazines colorful vulgarizing… And grasped was the spirit of many of us, and in crowds were we breaching into that PPP, and for all day long have been wandering there and circling by floors and lanes these infinite, and back to their families, and children, and husbands, and wives didn't want to return at all.

And the payment for pleasures these harmful there was, as we remember, unusual as well: at the entrance to corridors there were standing machines made of iron, and, well, to shake out some money from these devices one had to put his finger in a hole special and wait until some needle pierces his finger and sucks away a portion of his blood – and as if in exchange after that short-term operation pieces of papers these green with eyes and ugly faces on them were dropped in a tray a bit lower. Not so much of them were dropped one at a time, to tell the truth, so that if someone has been hanging for all day long in that PPP mentioned, for many times to machines these he had to run towards, blood his donating, and was unsteady and pale sometimes by the end of the day, yet was still running and lots of pleasures and delights in PPP was buying as if some addict or drunkard really, and maybe even someone worse than that. Precisely like vampires, these machines were acting, our Russian blood from due to our weak willpower for each day drop by drop they have been drinking!

And changed everything in village our that day, like a snowball pulled hard and downhill started sliding! And often, as we remember, it was that comes someone from our men by early solar morning to another and offers him so loudly and cheerfully: “Ivan, let's go living already!” And receives a response back drowsily and inertly: “Can't you see, Emelya, – I am PPP today!” – and went afterward in that PPP, Profound Public Place, as we called it among ourselves, and have been spending there all day long, so that word this, PPP, soon nominal became by itself.

And soon almost everyone started feeling totally PPP, and many there, in PPP that harmful finally degraded and almost like cattle they became. And so hard and awfully soon it became to live that one could start howling from a grief due to that state his indifferent! And many, naturally, started howling in life – but not on the moon, surely, yet on their neighbors like wolves spiteful. And started swearing with words foreign, from overseas, and hating each other and banishing, for everything became totally PPP to them, even to remain kind, probably.

And for many months has this tragedy lasted, and as if charmed men have become. Soon afterward it became known as well that machines mentioned, one's blood gathering, they were not that simple as they looked like at first – blood they were pumping, and in response some substance poisonous in blood they were injecting, so that some women and children of ours died from that poison overseas, their PPP condition being unable to sustain. And buried they were quite fast, and cried about a little only falsely, and very few people that commemoration visited – for totally PPP it was for them everything by that day already. And whether you do believe us, brothers, or not, but a sun our shining as well began to come to a horizon even earlier than before, so that dark time became longer. And cocks ceased to sing, and hens to give eggs, and cats as well were totally PPP to catch a single mouse.

And don't we remember exactly for how long these troubles have lasted, – yet clearly, we do remember how it finally ended. Our grandma, local healer, Praskoviya, was almost the only one who has not entered this ill-starred PPP at all. And once after her husband, well, having swallowed some wine and smoked some smokes, returned back home as always, soul of hers didn't sustain that and shouted she in a fit of temper, as we could remember, the following: “And may all that PPP of yours fall underground once and for all!” And literally in that particular moment (if her husband Mikhalych, well, who have secretly whispered all this to us after sobering, doesn't lie naturally and shamelessly), the ground in all our village started shaking and moving like waves, as if not a ground that was at all, but some sort of sea instead. And so it was all shaking and moving for some time, and after that – yawn! –a hole enormous under that PPP opened, and all it along with the unfortunate ones who were in it during that time have fallen into that depth infinite, so that the third part of our village disappeared there in no time suddenly, in that gloomy endless depth.

Like a crater enormous that hole was! Ooh, how terrified were we to look at it for the first times! And shouted there in a hope that someone would respond us back, yet only the dead silence has always been an echo. And several days after the earth started trembling once again, and linked on the place of that hole and closed it as if there has never been anything on a place of that tavern ill-fated. And Praskoviya aforementioned became mute after these events– and couldn't utter a single word any longer, only swinging was she her hands silently from time to time, that's it.

And may you believe us or may you not, – yet life started adjusting and correcting itself after events these terrifying. And as if regained consciousness people, and awakened, and this PPP came to its ultimate end. And started living peacefully with each other once again, with kids, and husbands and wives their time sharing. And days became longer, and nights shorter, and cocks started singing once again, and hens eggs were bringing, and rats ran away and got lost somewhere. Remembered well people that lesson dreadful, and threw away all PPPs from their souls, living justly.

Yep, so it was all exactly like that as we, men Kirill and Mefody, have told you here! And not a single bit did we muddle events of the days of the past, only probably a little in details most insignificant dispersed – but that could happen to everyone, yes? And whether you trust us or not – is not the business of ours, for the business of ours we have already fulfilled right now, – and the business of yours is to read all this, to think over it, and get rid of all those PPPs once and for all!

08.09.2012