Voroshilovgrad Read Online Free PDF Page B

around their planes’ undercarriages before they become bogged down forever in the black, dried-up earth. The pilots bail out of their boiling cockpits and fall into the wheat that immediately spins a web around their legs. They stand and peer into the distance as if they’re trying to make out something on the horizon. But there’s nothing on the horizon except for more wheat fields. They go on for miles; there’s no hope reaching the end. The aviators leave their aircraft to cool down in the twilight and make their way west, chasing the rapidly guttering sun. The stalks are tall and impassable; the pilots can hardly make their way through the fields; they forge along nonetheless and smash up against an invisible wall, over and over again, even though they know they have no chance of getting out. They’re wearing leather helmets, goggles, flight gloves. For some reason, they don’t want to detach their open parachutes; they trail the aviators like long and heavy crocodile tails.

    I woke to the humming of the engine. The three men were sleeping next to me on the couch, and Karolina was gone. I looked out into the main section of the bus. It was already quite late; to the right, outside the window, the evening sun was speckled with red. I wondered what time it was. I walked up to one of the entrepreneurs dreaming sweet dreams, moved his hand and looked at his watch. It was nine-thirty. “Damn,” I thought to myself, “did I really sleep through my stop?” I went up to the driver. He greeted me like an old friend, without taking his eyes off the road. I looked out the windshield. There would be a turn coming up, but I knew that if you kept going straight, then in a few kilometers I’d get where I was going. But the driver was slowing down and was getting ready to take the turn.
    â€œHey guy, look,” I said to him, “why don’t you drop me off at the gas station. It’s only a few kilometers away.”
    â€œThe one up on the hill?” asked the driver.
    â€œYep.”
    â€œBy the tower?”
    â€œYeah . . .”
    â€œNope,” he said. “We’re turning here.”
    â€œHold on,” I said, hoping to strike a deal. “You’ve got something wrong with your suspension, right? My brother has a repair shop. He’ll give you a complete overhaul.”
    â€œSonny boy,” the driver responded firmly and convincingly, “that’s the city over there, and we can’t go into the city. We’re hauling goods.”

    I got off the bus. The sun had set; it got chilly right away. I put on my coat and set off along the highway. I got to the gas station in about twenty minutes. The windows at the service station were dark. “Where’s Kocha?” I wondered. It seemed completely abandoned, and the front door was padlocked. I decided to wait around a bit nevertheless. I walked behind the building by the grass and raspberry bushes where Kocha’s trailer was. I could see a few old, beaten-up automobiles. The trailer was also locked. Feeling my way through the darkness, I found a lonely truck cab, with no trailer in sight. I jumped in and took off my sneakers. The moon was hanging up above, and the asphalt was losing the heat it had soaked up during the day. Right in front of me, in the valley below, was my hometown. I put my backpack under my head and fell right back asleep.
    2
    The dog was black, tinged with swampy green. It crept forward apprehensively, hunching down as it went, trying to go unnoticed. It approached quietly, its fearsome paws tearing through the tall grass, and then it was looming over me, blocking out the sun. The rays of morning sunlight gave its skull a golden hue. I met its glassy gaze and saw my own reflection looking back at me. It bounded forward, paused, then moved again. It froze for an instant and nudged me with its snout. Its hungry eyes lit up, and the grass behind it curled into an emerald