My next bunk neighbour is Serega who has very bad habits: he smokes and keeps silence a lot. His lazy disdain and melancholic displeasure is manifested in a loosely concealed desire to muck up… In short, his stubbornness and ambition won over, a senior nurse from our department who relaxed the smoking ban and, herself, brought him a personal ashtray. Serega was born in Alma-Ata. He lost two legs from a mine explosion. After heavy rains, a part of minefields, — already forgotten and not marked on any map, — together with landslide, slipped down from the hill. When Serega received the order to change the position of his post, he bravely walked on a slope — he was confident that there are no mines and never was — but his bravery left him after 15 steps. His partner was blown up into pieces when he was trying to drag Serega away from the mine, and himself accidently stepped on another mine. The pieces of his partner’s body were thrown at Serega and covered him completely. Now, Serega is covered from the top to the toes with bandages and plaster; he looks like a battered smoking four-engine plane that has one engine left with a mission to get somewhere.
A lack of opportunity to move independently invites boredom and the atmosphere of hopelessness that bring an ignorance and limited interest about our tomorrow. We wake up in the same room, the same window looms in our eyes, irritating us like the cloak of a matador. We are trapped in the cage of the present. There is no need to hurry — we have enough time: we have today and tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow…
Everydayness is the curtain that hides us from the reality of our situation. We became slaves of our own weaknesses.
We quickly accumulate weariness from each other. We are impregnated with the passivity that has long become our usual state of mind; and this is more dangerous compared to the damage from Serega’s cigarettes or Vitya’s craziness. All of this looks like a terrible, unpleasant and insidious sickness. Resulting from our current situation, the causes of this disease are easy to determine. We ourselves understand very welclass="underline" this disease is nothing but a consequence of our uncertainty and a fear of what will be tomorrow.
Tomorrow I will go home. Demobee!!! I tried to write about today, but I could not put down a single word. Only after a few painful hours the stream of something rude poured out from me. The details of our relationship in recent times are too nasty and humiliating.
We got tired of each other. It started before we were transferred to the fourth department of traumatology.
I am sick of Vitya’s conversations and his attempts to share each of his “little happiness” with everyone. I have changed my perception of life and now every day for me is only a day with a set of tasks. I do not take into my life anything superfluous, so in the future, I do not have to free myself from it.
Vitya is openly reposed to himself whilst we, Serega and I, knocked down our stumps to the blood, trying to overcome the first obstacle — the eighteen steps that separate the first floor of the hospital from the sidewalk. New boys from Afghan are constantly arriving at the hospital. From our ward, only Vitya and Lesha remain in the hospital.
After the treatment, Borya was cured and recognized as fit for drill. He got a vacation and went to his mum to gain strength. Due to skin problems, Serega was admitted to the day care hospital at the prosthetic plant. He had constant and persistent rubbing and irritation of his skin.
Lesha already moves independently in the hospital. I think, only his plaster shirt that still covers his arm and chest, keeps him from jumping over the fence. Our inscriptions on his plaster shirt have almost worn off. Only the chopped ruble from Vitya that was pasted with a super-glue taken from “Elektrosila” (a well-established heavy machinery plant during the Soviet era — Editor), shines as before. This piece of iron cannot be torn off from the Lesha’s plaster dress — it is forever there.
Shiraz left for the demobilization, leaving Vitya on his own with his problems. The circumstances forced Vitya to take the initiative and do something by himself; but we do not have enough patience to correct what he tries to do on his own. All they do is to point out his own mistakes to him, forgetting about Vitya’s victories and merits in the past. Vitya expects from us what he used to receive from Shiraz, who looked after him. But we know all Vitya’s wicked tricks, and try to reproduce them by ourselves, according to the saying “fight fire with fire”. He put on weight, almost every day got drunk before a night time; and constantly loses his artificial eye. Everyone got tired from his crazy snaps: the hospital’s deputy, the chief surgeon and ourselves. Vitya, shamelessly, ignores the challenges dealing with the fitting of a new prostheses. I understand him: indeed, two plastic hooks in black gloves are not a proper replacement for hands, as well as a set of hooks for carrying bags and holding a shovel is not a reason to be prided even for an ordinary man, not to mention a man like Vitya.
We are saying good bye to each other. Tomorrow, early in the morning, I have a flight. We exchanged addresses with Lesha and Serega. When I was writing my address into Vitya’s notebook, I said to him:” I do not take your address on purpose — you will write to me first, then I will reply to your letter. No letter to me — do not expect a letter from me”. We embraced each other. Vitya patted me on the back with his stumps, pressing his body against me. I shook his already shredded right stump.
I looked at the last page of my diary, and having read only a part of the daily records, it seems to me, that the filth accumulated in me over the years I had now lost. Why was I writing then in such a way? Was this presumptuous attempt of squeezing the most disgusting thoughts and feelings from oneself, an attempt to get rid of them forever? The endeavour of keeping up dairy records was, definitely, a desire to hide from depression.
I deceived myself, I wasted my energy. The diary pulled the most unpleasant thoughts and feelings from the depths of my soul. The diary is a mirror in which I saw myself. But, unlike a real mirror, it reflected my past and it was painful. I closed the diary…
I took the letter to check the address, which, I knew, could not be there. Covered with large round letters, the letter made me think and I realized that in thirty years I had repeated the same mistakes as done by myself in my twenties — I involuntarily acted in similar manner when life impressed me and when I faced any physical danger.
And yet, when I received this letter, I was not able to deal with the situation on time. I could not answer the letter. But I had no right not to do so. As for the new values in my life, well, where did I get them?
I imagined how Vitya, holding the handle in his mouth, displays neat, childlike round letters. How he waits for my answer and, finds any excuse for my silence. Now, my guilty conscience is a tax that I have to pay for trying to live free from the unfulfilled promises. But I want to be free and clean before my conscience. Compared to making mistakes and reiterate them, doing nothing and having remorse is much easier.
Vladimir Osipenko
Osipenko, Vladimir Vasilievich was born on May 4, 1956 in Zhitomir. He graduated from the Suvorov Military School in Kiev, the Ryazan Airborne School, and the Military Academy named after Frunze. During 25 years of service in the Airborne Forces, he made his way from a commander of the reconnaissance platoon to the Deputy commander of the division. He fought in Afghanistan; participated in peacekeeping operations in the Trans-Caucasia and Trans-Dniester areas, and the republics of the former Yugoslavia. For his military service, he was awarded many distinguished military orders and medals from the government of the USSR,(later — the Russian government) as well as from the UN. Currently, being the Colonel of the reserve, Osipenko Vladimir Vasilievich lives and works in Moscow. He is a member of the Writers’ Union of Russia.