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Voices

Fedor Semenovich Fedotov was making his way through the crowd in the street in Moscow. His walk was the fast, fresh walk of a man who knows that all of his problems will be solved in a heartbeat - and very, very soon. He was heading towards Sadovoye koltso, a road that was a perfect circle around the city’s heart. Cars were always speeding on this road, which made the road perfect for suicides. Fedor passed a woman standing at the underpass entrance, selling bouquet of white roses. He avoided stepping into some dirty puddle and made a face at the huge red letter M painted on a board standing about 20 metres to his right. Subway – he was thinking about this possibility, too – but he put this idea aside immediately. First, he hated tunnels and didn’t wish to force himself into staying underground for the last few minutes of his life. And then, he didn’t wish to pay 17 rubles for the ticket. He was going to commit suicide, not going for a trip. It just wouldn’t be right.

No. If he has to – really, finally, and thoroughly – kill himself, then let it be Sadovoye koltso road. Not that he loved cars, quite the opposite, he had this malicious image in his head: his suicide causes a traffic jam and the lives of other Muscovites turn into a small hell, at least for a short moment! So far other people were making a hell out of his life. It would be nice to pay them back somehow. He sarcastically smiled at this thought.

„You’re gonna fuck this up.“

Fedor suddenly stopped. He froze with his foot in the air and glanced around nervously. None of the people passing him looked like they had said these few quiet words. Somebody bumped into him. Fedor staggered, losing his balance, and received the man‘s curses without interest. He started walking again, quickly. I’ve just gone mad, he thought to himself. My fragile soul couldn’t cope with the fact that I was walking towards my death. Oh great. I’m going to die as a madman.

„You‘re not a madman, Fedor. You‘re a bloody moron. You fuck up everything,“ the voice laughed at him. Fedor stumbled over his own feet but managed to stand up, and after gaining his balance back, he bravely continued walking.

„What are you?“ Fedor hissed under his breath. The crowd around him was getting smaller as he got closer to the road. The voice didn’t belong to any of these people – they couldn’t hear his thoughts, after all. No, I‘ve definitely gone mad. I‘m talking to myself.

„If you think so. Now listen, Mr. Zero. You can’t do this. You’ll fuck this up, as usual. You don’t have the balls.“

Fedor frowned. He didn’t like the tone of this voice. It was mocking him.

„Your whole life sucks, one catastrophe after another!“ said the voice triumphantly and Fedor hissed at him: „That’s why I’m going to kill myself, don’t you see?“

A few heads turned around – Fedor raised his collar and gave them grumpy look. The voice was laughing in his head: „Oh Fedor, you are not going to kill yourself, you are going to embarrass yourself, just like you did back then. Remember that day you came back home early from work? Do you think your wife was embarrassed? Or the badass manager dude, who was shagging her?“

„I guess it had to happen, eventually,“ said Fedor quietly. He sounded calm.

„But you knew!“ the voice was mocking him again. „You didn’t do anything!“

„What was I supposed to do?“ mumbled Fedor into his collar. „She wouldn’t stop. And I had no evidence.“

„Not even after that?“

„All right then! I should have killed them both and rotted in jail!“ Fedor got so upset he stepped into the puddle on purpose. A woman passing close shot him a grumpy look. Fedor felt sorry for not soaking her completely.

„You fucked up again,“ said the voice happily. Fedor rolled his eyes.

„Your whole life is fucked and you’ll fuck this up, too.“

Fedor grimaced like a madman. The road was now just a few steps in front of him. He could hear the air whistling and roaring of the engines, and the fumes were tickling him in his nose.

„No I won’t,“ he said. He paused at the pavement’s edge, took a deep breath – and made that last step forward.

„You idiot,“ said the voice.

There were some thumps, screams and breaks squealing, followed by more thumps. There was a sense of irony hanging above this whole scene, as if someone invisible was rolling their eyes. „Do I really deserve this?“ said the voice into the wind. An ambulance hurried down at the road.

Paramedics were placing a terribly injured, but still living Fedor into the ambulance. Invisible lips sneered to other invisible ears. „I did tell him so,“ reminded the voice to the others. One shrugged his invisible shoulders. The ambulance disappeared behind a curve. And as the invisible one, who was talking to Fedor, dwelled in the silence, while the attention of the another unsubstantial being was caught by a young lady, driving a red Peugeot. She could feel the pleasant weight of the revolver, resting in the pocket of her designer coat. She was headed to the parking lot of a big suburban mall.

„Svetlana, there are other, more pleasant ways,“ whispered the voice of a sweet young woman into her ear. Sveta screamed and tore the steering wheel to the side. Somewhere behind the sounds of smashing glass and crashing metal there was a quiet, cold laugh. Cars now stood in a traffic jam at Sadovoye koltso. But not because of Fedor. He did fuck up. As usual..

Catharsis

„I didn’t get lost.“

She must be only ten years old, with worn out jeans, a short pink jacket, and her hair hidden under a corduroy cap. She is repeatedly answering to the old woman: „I didn’t get lost.“ Her eyes are showing that she really means it, but it isn’t working on the old lady. She is deeply concerned about the fact that this fragile ten year old girl in white sneakers is standing alone at a tram stop at one o‘clock in the morning. She is absolutely sure that this child must be lost, despite the fact that the girl isn’t running around helplessly and sobbing.

„I see... But isn’t it a bit too late to be out in the street? Don’t you think?“

„But you‘re out in the street now too,“ reminds the little girl with ease. The old lady gets a bit mad.

„It‘s a bit too late for you, young lady. What are you doing here anyway?“ the old lady is losing her motherly temper. The child gives her a sharp look as if considering whether this person is authorized to be asking these kind of questions.

„I’m waiting for a tram,“ replies the girl and then looks into the space, where it will appear in a few minutes.

„On your own?“ the old lady continues to state the obvious, and the girl chooses to ignore her. I can see it in the old lady’s face - the inner struggle that she experiences right now. She might be a mother herself, I assume, and she would hate the idea of her own child waiting for a tram on the street in such a late hour. Not even mentioning the scarier idea: where has the child been this late?

„Do you see anybody else?“ is the delayed, amused reply. The woman frowns and looks around.  Excluding me she can see about three other people. (I’m not sure about this number, I am mainly focused on her and the girl). One of them is a teenage boy in a suit. He is sixteen and apparently tired from lifting beer-glasses. It’s pretty clear that he skipped his dance lesson and went to a pub instead. If it wasn’t for the interesting pair of women, I would definitely dwell in my own memories of doing the same thing. But back to the old lady – after she carefully examines everybody else with her sharp eyes, she turns back to the girl who didn’t move an inch. The girl continues waiting, with a bored expression and sucking the end of her jacket lace. The old lady stares at her, opens and closes her mouth couple of times, then she gives up. She sighs, rolls up her sleeve and glances at her watch. It doesn’t make her feel any better, but she keeps her mouth shut.

The girl in the pink jacket gets on the same tram as I do. She sits in the front in the seat intended for blind people and stares out of the window absently. I am standing close to her, waiting for what comes next. Just to be clear, I am as equally curious and surprised as the old lady at the tramstop was. There’s one difference, though: I have never had any maternal feelings.

I‘m coming home from a theatre performance. Despite the fact that I was just accompanying someone and wasn’t expecting any miracles, I am disappointed. The performance just didn’t have any exquisite ending. My subconcious is now taking this interesting change in my travel routine as the performance’s missing big finale. I saw Les Miserables with my sister and her friend – just in case you‘re interested – and as far as I’m concerned, this weird little creature could be some kind of modern Cossette. In fact, I already started calling her that in my thoughts.

Where is this Cossette heading? Home? And where does she live? And why – that’s what intrigues me most – why the hell is she not scared? Not a bit? At her age, I would never dare to wander the city streets in the night.

At another tram stop, a random guy wearing a blue jacket steps in. The moment he sees Cossette, he heads towards her. The little girl is not paying attention to the world around her, she breathes on the window and fogs the glass. The white fog disappears quickly as she paints in it with her finger. The random guy waits for the tram to start moving and bows to the girl. I am tempted to jump in, but I can’t, I do not dare interrupt the play. I am curious – deadly curious – what will come next. The girl looks up to him, disinterested, listening to his whisper. After he finishes, she appears to be contemplating. Then she looks straight into his face and nods at him, demanding that he leans towards her again. The guy seems to be very satisfied with himself. Cossette says something to him in a low, resolute voice. The guy doesn’t look satisfied anymore, but the girl continues talking. The guy doesn’t stay long enough to hear the whole speech, instead he straightens his back and steps towards the door. Cossette turns back to the window and places her white palm on it. It seems that he has made no impression on her. Far more important are her attempts to create a perfect palm-like shape on the window, but she can’t manage it. She keeps breathing at the glass and I wonder – when do kids in school start with physics? Does anyone like Cossette attend school at all? She might be supernatural creature. Prague has so many ghosts, why couldn’t one of them take the shape of a little girl and travel on a night-tram?

The rest of the journey passed without any distractions. The tram is about to reach my stop, so I walk towards the door and my last look at her is a good-bye. She is examining her short, bitten off nails. She doesn’t look like she is getting off at this stop, so I’m surprised when I hear quick children’s steps behind me. I want to look back, but I conquer that desire. The tram passes me and disappears in the night as I walk up the street. The steps behind me quicken and I understand – I slow down a bit and let her walk past me. She walks like a steam engine, so determined and resolute, her chin buried in her collar and her hands hidden deep in her pockets. She doesn’t look so self-confident anymore. I realize that the show is over for tonight. It‘s almost one o‘clock, the old lamps light the street in a soft orange tone, and there is a lonely child walking ahead of me. At the corner she turns right, and I walk behind her feeling a bit creepy. We pass a former kindergarten and arrive at a crossroad. Cossette takes the middle road. Usually, I take the left turn, but now I follow the girl.

I don’t know if its just curiosity, or if I’m actually feeling responsible for this fragile little thing and I want to make sure she makes it home safe. I’d rather choose the second possibility.

Cossette starts walking faster. I hesitate, but don’t want to lose her, so I walk faster too. All of the sudden, she starts to run. Now this is the dilemma – if I run after her, I prove myself suspicious. If I slow down, she’ll be gone. I hesitate for too long and she disappears in the passage. Oh great. I slow down and walk to the passage, determined to at least take a look. I realize too late that I didn’t hear any steps since the moment she disappeared in the passage. Cossette huddles at the entrance by the wall. There is this weird, cold look on her face. I stop and we just stare at each other for a while.

„Aren’t you afraid of strangers?“ says the child. Why doesn’t she run away? I’m in no mood for another game of chase. In fact, I regret I started this whole thing. There is something very disturbing about this child. As she is standing in the dark passage, she doesn’t look like Cossette anymore. She looks more like some wicked goblin, who knows something that I don’t. And she finds it very amusing.

„What?“ I ask stupidly. The girl watches me with narrow eyes.

„If I were you, I wouldn’t follow a strange person. Especially... not at night,“ continues the girl and watches me cautiously.

„I wasn’t following you,“ I spit out quickly, in attempt to defend myself in front of those eyes. „I just wanted to make sure you‘d make it home safely.“

She steps back and her face disappears in shadows. „What?“ says the girl in an amused voice. „You care for me? You don’t even know me.“

„I don’t – it’s just – so late at night, alone-“ I stutter, trying to explain myself and my legs are slowly walking backwards.

„Are you saying,“ says the girl in a serious voice, „that you’re a nice guy?“

„I don’t know. I guess. I don’t want to hurt you. Go home, and I will go home, too, ok? Just get back home safe, that‘s all I want for you.“ I manage to say this instead of good-bye and intend to run away from this little person hidden in the shadows. My heart is beating in my throat.

„You are good,“ says the girl as if pitying me. I stop and watch her turn her back on me and walk into the darkness. Suddenly, she stops and starts turning back. I will never find out why because at that moment, my survival instincts scream aloud and I run far away from the girl and the passage.

I sleep terribly that night. I am haunted by the hallucination of a soft children’s footsteps in my flat. I’m having weird dreams of deserted theatre halls, where random guys in blue jackets, concerned ladies, evil pubkeepers and escaped prisoners keep wandering around. Bulgakov had to have similar dreams before (maybe even after) he wrote Master and Margarita. Morning comes, and I almost scream as I look at myself in the mirror. With dark shadows under my eyes, I look like Jean Valjean. I‘m forcing myself into chewing a piece of bread when my girlfriend calls.

„You haven’t forgotten about dinner tonight, have you?“ she reminds me kindly.

„Don’t worry.“ I try sounding cheerful, but she doesn’t buy it.

„You sound tired – did you guys go for a drink last night?“

„A drink? No... but I returned home late, I had to walk my little sister and her friend home.“

„Are you sure you just walked them?“

„Who do you think I am?“

„All right. I’m sorry... It‘s just, you sound so tired.“

„Yeah, well. That’s the performance. You know. It was so... convincing,“ I say to my own surprise in a guilty voice. She starts laughing, „Of course! You experienced some intense catharsis?“

I try remembering what that weird foreign expression could mean. It didn’t sound familiar.

„Catharsis describes the effect of tragedy on an audience, an emotional release that purifies morally and mentally,” explains my beloved other half.

“I have been putting myself back together for a week after watching Cyrano de Bergerac,” she adds with deep understanding.

“Yep, that’s what it is,” I agreed. “It’s totally the catharsis’s fault.”

When she hangs up finally, I feel relieved. I drag myself into the bathroom and try not to execute myself accidentally while shaving. My hands are shaking.

There is one thing I know for sure. Whatever it was yesterday, it wasn’t catharsis. That happens only in the theatre.

Nightwalker #72034, AR

My Hawaiian friend told me about Nightwalkers once. They have an army of ghost warriors in Hawaii that march through certain forests in the night, and those who see the army with their own eyes die. How typical: to die for witnessing something… forbidden. Damned. Mysterious.

But I won’t be telling you the story of the Nightwalkers. This is the story of just one nightwalker. Me.

It’s early morning in Conway, Arkansas. The summer sun is baking everything alive that dares to step out of comfortably air-conditioned houses and cars. It’s baking me alive. I dare to step out in the sun, because I have to. I’m a door-to-door salesperson. I’m the bloody solicitor that all of you hate. Except, I’m a white Europian girl in her early twenties, quite cute and my accent is hilarious. I’m dressed in shorts and polo T-shirt, carriyng a huge and heavy backpack with few samples. They’re books, stuffed with knowledge that makes them super-sized and terribly heavy.

I’m walking away from the spot where my luckier friend and fellow solicitor just dropped me out of his old, smelly car. I say he is lucky, because he can move much faster and his vehicle provides him with a delightful portion of shadow, something that I won’t be seeing until evening. And I work thirteen hours a day, six days a week. Feel free to imagine how my sanity is slowly getting burned out of my brain with blazing sunbeams. The white cap I’m wearing isn’t much of a help. Oh, and how sweaty I must be. A disgusting person that you wouldn’t let cross your doorstep. Ever.

Walking makes me suspicious. Everyone here is using cars to get… basically everywhere. I’ve seen a few people on bikes, and in my first weeks I was using one of these, too. I can’t ride the bike anymore, I’m out of turf. I’ve been to all of the houses in my landlord’s neighbourhood, and the neighbour neighbourhood, and all of the neighbour’s neighbour neighbourhoods, too. The neighbourhood I’m working on now is too far to bike. So I turned into the walker. Every morning, I step out of the trashy vehicle that is covered in duct tape. Neighbourhood watch must find this really, really suspicious. They called the police on me once. You bet I was shocked! The policemen were armed and wouldn’t even let me show them my permit. As soon as I tried opening my backpack, they told me to freeze and took the paper out of there themselves. Like I had a bag full of explosives or something. Jeez, I’m 6’5’’ feet tall, a pale sweaty creature, selling stupid encyclopaedias that no one needs or wants, how could I possibly hurt someone? (Unless you think that having these characteristics must make me willing to hurt people.)

I keep knocking at the doors, introducing myself and getting to the point of the so-called “sales-talk”, which is – to get into the house. You can sell to people much easier when they’re in the house, for some reason. Some of them are tough cases, though. They let you cool off for a bit, even offer you some beverage and an apple, listen to you carefully, ask promising questions… but when it comes to signing something – hell no, get out of here. But I’ve seen too many poor homes, with residents whose pets cry because they haven’t been fed for days, to be angry with locals. Every time somebody invites me in (I’m not supposed to enter the house when a male opens the door, unless I make sure there’s also some woman inside. It’s for my own safety, men are animals, apparently.) I can’t help but wonder, whether these people have money or not. Sometimes you can tell from the interior design, but even that can be deceiving. You don’t know when they got all this stuff; it might have been very long time ago, before they lost their job. And since things are not very expensive here, other quite-well-off-looking people can easily be poor and you won’t be able to tell.

I wouldn’t trust me either to be completely honest with you. That’s probably the main reason why I haven’t sold anything. Not in my previous weeks, not today - and it’s afternoon already. I had to take my panties off just a moment ago. Their lining was hurting my skin that was irritated enough by the sweat already. This nice old African-American lady let me use her bathroom. I’d die if she didn’t. I’m wearing my shorts on the naked skin now. Bit of a relief, but I won’t be going home for another few hours. We’re prohibited from working after the sunset, that’s what our permit says. But the managers keep saying the opposite. Don’t worry about the permit, nor the blue lights, nor the angry locals. Bring us some cash. Make yourself useful. As the sun starts dissapearing in the ocean of red and purple coloring the dark blue horizon, I continue walking. People are home now, but busy with their dinner, kids, TV shows… I walk past sprinklers watering the green grass. I give a friendly wave to the Virgin Mary, whose statue is praying in one of the gardens. There’s a red hog in there, too, holding a huge red letter A above its head, grinning wildly. And a dragonfly – how beautiful, its rainbow colours, its fragile, glass-like wings - is sitting on the top of the A. I move closely to it and watch the little insect helicopter with pure joy, until it decides there’s been enough staring and flies away. I sigh and raise my head. In a few minutes, sun sets and that moment comes, finally. I turn into a nightwalker.

The thing about us nightwalkers is not that we are dangerous or malicious or even evil, it is that we exist. That we dare to walk on our own in the darkness at the side of the road. There are no pavements around here. What for?

Nightwalkers are rare. But when they appear, you can easily die when spotting one. Die from fear, I mean.

Imagine this – you’re driving your car,  heading home finally after hours of exhausting work. You stop at the supermarket before to buy some frozen burgers and corn. You’re looking forward to the dinner, your partner, your kids. Your pet, maybe. And then, without any warning, you see IT. It’s walking slowly past you at the side of the road. My gosh, what an ugly being this is! Hunched up, with oily hair framing its pale, expressionless face. It walks forward, but how! Zombies show more life-enthusiasm than this creepy thing! It gets momentarily blinded by your carlights, blinks maybe stops for a moment, rubbing its eyes with its fingers. And that’s it – you passed the nightwalker. You breath heavily, not sure you can believe your own eyes. There might even be a small heart-attack. But it’s over, you’ll be safe soon. The nightwalker wishes it could say the same thing.

I sit on the sewer’s lid, forcing myself to chew an apple. I wonder if my panties are somewhere below me, floating. I flushed them into the toilet. The night air cooled off a bit, I can breath easily and I’m happy that another workday is over. I check my watch, just to find out that it stopped. Shit. Looks like the sweat somehow got inside its inner mechanisms. I should have listened to the heat warnings. I’m screwed now. How am I supposed to get a new one? My workday finishes at 10:30 pm, for Christ sake! I’m getting tired of this whole solicitor thing. So tired. I wish I was able to sell something, like my friend the car owner, but I am not. This has to stop. Oh, good. I can see two small lightballs hurrying through the dark in my direction. Another scared local, that’s all I need. Preferably the one that stops the car to ask if I’m ok. Of course I am. I’m the nightwalker. I fear no man, for when the lay their eyes upon me, they shalt all die. Or something like that.

“Anna?”

I look up towards my friend’s face. He’s grinning at me happily from the open window.

“Oh, hi.” I stand up with difficulty and get into the car next to him.

“Guess what?” says Slava happily.

“What.”

“The blue lights! Today, twice. Can you imagine that?”

“Ridiculous. We should put an end to this.”

“Hardly. They’ve got guns.”

I glance out of the window, into the perfect darkness of sleeping neighbourhood.

“In a way,” I say slowly. “We are armed, too.”

He looks at me, puzzled. How could he understand? He’s driving. He turned into one of them. I’m too tired to explain anything to him.

“My watch just died, by the way.”