He approached this lonley bench in the park. Leaves were falling down.
Day was nice, just as he liked it.
Not too warm, grayish, with tiny particles of water delicately suspended
in the mass of fresh air.
So it is like this, he thought, we are like this particles, suspended
somewhere, we don't even know where. If now someone would call, he could
say: right now I'm here, this-and-that street, by the tall building.
But where is that? I mean where in the space? Actually we don't get
crazy because we believe that we are on the planet Earth, that Earth is
round, that it is the n-th planet from the Sun in the Milky Way Galaxy.
We feel safe. But the truth is that we are hanging in the middle of
exactely nothing, 'up' and 'down' makes no sense at all. My 'up' means
'down' for someone at the other side of the planet. And
this person is only something like 15.000 km away.
It just all falls down when you look from some reasonable perspective.
Or falls up.
OK, so let's try to stay focused. Those particles, we call them 'fog',
this is what it is, and I am on xxx street, sitting on the bench, trying
to figure out whether I should go home, or... or set the 'home' somewhere else.
If someone would call, but nobody will. There is no such a possibility.
Nobody will call him to bring him back to this random square park, Earth
and the galaxy. If he had a phone maybe someone,
even by mistake, could...
Trying to bring some more human scale perspective is hard when there is
this melody so impetuously penetraiting into his soul. Some guy at the
other bench is playing guitar and singing Frolova's
songs.
Why Frolova? Why now? If we are those particles it makes no sense that
here, in this mediterranean city there someone is singing Frolova's
songs. If it was any other music he would just walk away.
Even though he is French, he understands russian, he had this russian
girlfriend for years and when their friends were coming, they would
always bring vodka. If you drink enough eventually you will understand
russian.
So he knows there is no escape. Frolova is like a backdoor, hardcoded in
his soul. Actually for this music he learned he had a soul and that it
is capable of feeling that russian nostalgy, vast as their country. So
is it possible to fit Russia in France? Is it possible to fit this
inmense nostalgy in a tiny French soul?
- Do you have cigareta?
- No, I don't. But now you made me want one.
- Oh, do you want vodka?
He didn't want to drink, but the russian already sit next to him and
intoned another song. There was no other way to escape melodic minor
scale's weltschmertz.
He had nothing to offer back. Nothing that would count on a human scale.
H2O particles in the air were getting denser and denser. Grayish become
gray and then dark gray. Maybe it is Frolova that readjusted the light
to make it suitable for her songs.
- So you made it up to here, my frriend? - said the russian accent.
- What do you mean?
- Oh, it is just so harrd not to finish travel before. People like
you and
me, my frriend, we are not supposed to make it that far. For
everyone it is harrd, but you know, for people like us... we finish
where they start. If you fight all your life. Struggle, my friend.
Struggle. And they just start, always few kilometers ahead.
The russian started searching for something in his bag. Why was he
talking like he knew me? What right was there in this universe to send
someone who sings out my pain?
The russian took out a packet of Belomorkanal cigaretts. It looked old.
He handed it to me.
- Xotiesh?
- Yeah, maybe. Belomorkanal...
Belomorkanal, just a few kilometers and how many dead? A show-off case
for Stalin. Ten or twenty thousand, if it makes a difference. And the
mediterranean? How many dead? The shiny touristic brand for the customers.
When relaxing on the beach, they are disgusted by shoutings of african
illegal refugees that managed to arrive to 'Europe'. If you can be an
'illegal refugee'. Or in most of cases , an illegal dead.
Smoking Belomorkanal cigaretts close to the mediterranean, trademarked both.
- Yes, belomorkanal. Cheap.
The bottle was almost over. Strong 50% made me serene. It makes
difference if you are up or down if you take into account that you might
be as well lying down, horizontal, as Belomorkanal constructors, or
floating horizontally, in the mediterranean, both branded.
So the important part is the verticality. Just as those particles, that
were hanging in the air, denser and denser, they got so close that now
they were falling down, not asking for direction, falling down.
- Spasiba, tovarishu. Guitar wet, no good. I go. home.
- Spasiba.
