everything ends
Jan. 1st, 2010 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threeplusfireThat Death Cab for Cutie song "Everything Ends" is on the radio a lot. It's probably the first thing from them I really love.
I find I don't have much to say about the difference in my life between 1999 and 2009. It is very different, and not what I thought it might be then. But you know, I thought I would be dead. I am often surprised to still be alive when I think about it closely. I have lived almost as long as I had before I tried to die and the world is a stranger and wider place than I imagined.
The past year was one that brought a lot of change inside my head. Maybe in the next year I can bring more of that change into my waking life.
For Yuletide, I wrote three stories. My favorite is below, inspired by the incomparable World War Z. I am proud of this story, because it is the first thing in a long time I've written where I felt like I did justice to the story in my head.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/36106
Zyukov Base, Northern Russia
Ekaterina Maximova Raskova is a tall, blond woman with green eyes. She is a waitress in a canteen on a former Cold War era chemical weapons base, one of the last secular areas left in Russia. She has a soft, husky voice and chain smokes. Her five year old son plays on the floor during the interview.
Where are you from?
I was born in Vladivostock. My parents were military, but my mother retired to have children.
How old are you?
I'm twenty nine. I was born during a snow storm. Our neighbor delivered me on the kitchen table because the snow was so deep they couldn't get to the hospital.
How did you come to the base?
When it started to get bad, we left the city. But it wasn't soon enough, and everyone else had the same idea to run to their dachas. I suppose it was better for the rich people, the people with estates and dachas surrounded by high fences and security forces. Our neighbors were closer. There was a space for a vegetable garden but no one had tended it since my mother died. The dacha was the last gift of my parents, a tiny two room place built by my grandparents back when they started letting people do that sort of thing again.
Before it started, we hardly ever visited. It was only two stops away by train. But I worked and I had Sasha to take care of alone, since his father died at the hands of some dirty Chechen terrorist. A woman in the building kept an eye on him during the day but that was it. I didn't have time or money for anything except a couple weekends out of the city.
For awhile, it was like we pretended to be on holiday. Mostly that was for Sasha, so he wouldn't be scared. There were a few other kids and we let him out to play during the day. When people started getting sick, we kept him inside. He would cry and cry, and stamp his feet at the door. I hooked the latch above his head, and the door was too heavy for him to bend at the bottom. I thought it was enough.
[Thirty seconds of silence, broken only by the rasp of a match and a ragged inhalation.]
Lousy cigarettes. I thought they were bad before.
[The tape crackles with static.]
It had been about two weeks. I stopped going out, except to get water from the well. We hadn't seen any of the walking dead yet, but I'd heard about some people getting sick. You stopped seeing people on the road. There was plenty of food in the cellar, things we brought from the city and things that were there like preserves. I think we might have been okay...
[More static and the muffled sound of a sob.]
I should never have gone to sleep in the middle of the day. Never, never, never. He was so small, when did he learn to move the chair? My baby boy, how was I supposed to know...?
[A deep shuddering breath.]
Do you need to stop?
No, no, it doesn't matter now.
[Static.]
I was so tired. It was hard to sleep. There was still sometimes radio broadcasts, from the cities. I stayed up too late, listening. Mostly I was hoping it wasn't as bad as it sounded. Plus I was tired from doing everything by hand, all the cooking and cleaning and boiling water. I never cooked except little things. We had a microwave in our room in Vladivostock. There was a laundry room in the basement, and half the time the woman who looked after Sasha would do it for us...
You see, it just wasn't what I was used to doing. I worked long days, two jobs sometimes. When Sasha was a baby my mother was still alive. So I just didn't really know how much mess a little boy could make every day. I sound like a terrible mother, don't I? A woman who doesn't even know what her son does all day or how to cook? I was twenty five when Sasha was born. We weren't married, but his father promised to always help and he was a good man. I'd had three abortions before, and they scared me. I was afraid I might never get to have a child. I don't know, maybe it was stupid of me to get pregnant when I wasn't married. Even if we had been, the military was terrible about paying the pensions to widows and orphans. They had less money than ever. So it wouldn't have mattered. I never met his family. He never talked about them. My mother was old. I was lonely. I wanted a baby.
So I was tired, and I laid down that afternoon. Sasha was playing on the floor, with his cars. My eyes were so heavy. I thought it was just going to be for a moment.
[Static, broken by the rasp of another match.]
It only felt like a moment. When I opened my eyes, it was nearly dark. I was chilly, and stiff. When I sat up, I saw the door was open, bumping into a chair. He must have pushed it over from the little table. I still wonder why I didn't wake up at the noise... But it doesn't matter. The door was open and Sasha was gone.
I got up, and ran outside. On the steps I tripped on some of his little cars, fell down and banged my knee. I remember cursing, the gravel in my palm. There was blood. I screamed for Sasha, calling his name over and over. He wasn't in the yard, or playing on the road. I ran next door, banged on the door. I didn't know the neighbors. The woman looked out the window at me and wouldn't open the door. I shouted at her, asking if she had seen my little boy. She shook her head. He wasn't there, she hadn't seen him. No one answered at the other neighbor's. Maybe they were too scared. I didn't see anyone else. It was close to dark.
The park... I should have looked there first. Where else would a little boy wander to, looking for someone to play with? He must have heard me calling his name. He started screaming and I just ran.
In the park, there's a little place with some fire pits for roasting shashlik, kebabs. There's a covered area, made of wood, with tables. Old men used to play dominos and chess there when I was little. I don't know how he did it, but Sasha somehow climbed up one of the posts, into the splits below the roof. When I got closer I could hear him crying. At first I thought he was just afraid, that he climbed too high and got stuck.
It wasn't until I was at the fire pits that I saw ... it.
[Static]
It was a little boy once, like Sasha. But I can't call it human, or even think it had a name, a mother. I can't, you understand? If I had thought of it as a little boy, I wouldn't...
[A small sob.]
It must have been left in the park, after... There used to be a graveyard not far from there. Or maybe it came from one of the other dachas. I don't know. I don't even know how many people there were still alive. Just the neighbor woman and her family for sure.
Thank God it couldn't climb. It was bumping between the table and the railing, just circling.
When Sasha saw me, he started screaming again. I called out to him, told him not to worry, that Mama was coming. It must have heard me then, because it turned around. It still looked... but it was very dirty and had a big bloody gash on the forehead. One of it's arms was just hanging there, dead looking. Well, they are dead, but it wasn't moving the arm. It looked at me and made this terrible moaning sound.
In one of the firepits, they had these long metal rods that held the grills up over the flames. When it started coming towards me, I picked up the rod. I shouted for it to go away, to leave us alone. This was the first one of them I saw, you see. We really didn't know what they were, or what they would do. I guess I hoped since it was so small I could scare it away.
[A match rasps, and there is coughing.]
Damned cigarettes. What I wouldn't give for... but never mind.
It just kept coming, moaning and reaching forward. Sasha was still crying, over and over saying mama in this frightened voice. I had that heavy rod in my hand. What else could I do? When it came close, I hit it. The rod knocked it down, but it started getting back up. Sasha kept crying. I just hit it again, and I heard something snap in its leg. But it wouldn't stop moving, or making that awful, weird sound. So I hit it again and again and again. I held the rod in both hands and kept hitting it until I broke it's head open.
Before I got Sasha down I used the rods to put it into one of the fire pits. I had some cigarettes and a lighter in my pocket. I needed a cigarette after that. There was some wood, some old charcoal. I used the lighter to burn some twigs and get the fire started. I'd heard on the radio the only way to make sure was to burn them.
Thank God Sasha was okay. It didn't touch him.
[Static. Ten seconds of silence.]
What did you do then?
I took Sasha home and gave him a bath, to make sure he was okay. We slept in the cellar that night. In the morning, I locked Sasha in the cellar and went out to look for a car. There was an old Lada with some gas at another dacha about a mile down the road. I found the keys in the garage. I figured stealing was a sin I could live with. When I got back to the dacha, I loaded as much food and water as I could into the trunk. Then I put Sasha in the back seat and we left.
Why did you leave?
If there was already one, there were others. It wasn't safe. More would come, sooner or later. Who knows? They were probably there already.
Where did you go?
Just west. Just driving. Sometimes the roads were bad. At least the car kept going. We didn't get far.
How come?
We hit a military camp. It was good we left when we did. If we had waited much longer, we would have been too late and the soldiers would have gone. I told them about Sasha's father, and I think that kept us from being thrown back out onto the road. They brought us to a medical tent, where they stripped us down. At first I thought they were just going to rape me. But they checked us out to make sure we weren't sick. We were put on a truck north, to the camp. It used to be a one of the secret bases, during the Cold War. They did experiments there, so there was a hospital and a big compound. People were scared of it, so even afterward it was still pretty isolated. It was good. They had some other kids there, mostly military families and a few other refugees. Sasha had some friends to play with. I went to work in the canteen, as a waitress. I can't really cook, but I can serve food. I used to waitress, before.
Do you ever think about leaving?
To go where?
[Laughter, and the rasp of a match.]
There's nowhere to go. I'm not religious. I believe in God, but I don't need the priests to run my life and that's what everywhere else is in Russia now. Sasha has friends here. They even have a sort of school. The soldiers have been good to me. But most of all it is safe. There are walls and guards and defenses. Outside, there's only death and priests.
I find I don't have much to say about the difference in my life between 1999 and 2009. It is very different, and not what I thought it might be then. But you know, I thought I would be dead. I am often surprised to still be alive when I think about it closely. I have lived almost as long as I had before I tried to die and the world is a stranger and wider place than I imagined.
The past year was one that brought a lot of change inside my head. Maybe in the next year I can bring more of that change into my waking life.
For Yuletide, I wrote three stories. My favorite is below, inspired by the incomparable World War Z. I am proud of this story, because it is the first thing in a long time I've written where I felt like I did justice to the story in my head.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/36106
Zyukov Base, Northern Russia
Ekaterina Maximova Raskova is a tall, blond woman with green eyes. She is a waitress in a canteen on a former Cold War era chemical weapons base, one of the last secular areas left in Russia. She has a soft, husky voice and chain smokes. Her five year old son plays on the floor during the interview.
Where are you from?
I was born in Vladivostock. My parents were military, but my mother retired to have children.
How old are you?
I'm twenty nine. I was born during a snow storm. Our neighbor delivered me on the kitchen table because the snow was so deep they couldn't get to the hospital.
How did you come to the base?
When it started to get bad, we left the city. But it wasn't soon enough, and everyone else had the same idea to run to their dachas. I suppose it was better for the rich people, the people with estates and dachas surrounded by high fences and security forces. Our neighbors were closer. There was a space for a vegetable garden but no one had tended it since my mother died. The dacha was the last gift of my parents, a tiny two room place built by my grandparents back when they started letting people do that sort of thing again.
Before it started, we hardly ever visited. It was only two stops away by train. But I worked and I had Sasha to take care of alone, since his father died at the hands of some dirty Chechen terrorist. A woman in the building kept an eye on him during the day but that was it. I didn't have time or money for anything except a couple weekends out of the city.
For awhile, it was like we pretended to be on holiday. Mostly that was for Sasha, so he wouldn't be scared. There were a few other kids and we let him out to play during the day. When people started getting sick, we kept him inside. He would cry and cry, and stamp his feet at the door. I hooked the latch above his head, and the door was too heavy for him to bend at the bottom. I thought it was enough.
[Thirty seconds of silence, broken only by the rasp of a match and a ragged inhalation.]
Lousy cigarettes. I thought they were bad before.
[The tape crackles with static.]
It had been about two weeks. I stopped going out, except to get water from the well. We hadn't seen any of the walking dead yet, but I'd heard about some people getting sick. You stopped seeing people on the road. There was plenty of food in the cellar, things we brought from the city and things that were there like preserves. I think we might have been okay...
[More static and the muffled sound of a sob.]
I should never have gone to sleep in the middle of the day. Never, never, never. He was so small, when did he learn to move the chair? My baby boy, how was I supposed to know...?
[A deep shuddering breath.]
Do you need to stop?
No, no, it doesn't matter now.
[Static.]
I was so tired. It was hard to sleep. There was still sometimes radio broadcasts, from the cities. I stayed up too late, listening. Mostly I was hoping it wasn't as bad as it sounded. Plus I was tired from doing everything by hand, all the cooking and cleaning and boiling water. I never cooked except little things. We had a microwave in our room in Vladivostock. There was a laundry room in the basement, and half the time the woman who looked after Sasha would do it for us...
You see, it just wasn't what I was used to doing. I worked long days, two jobs sometimes. When Sasha was a baby my mother was still alive. So I just didn't really know how much mess a little boy could make every day. I sound like a terrible mother, don't I? A woman who doesn't even know what her son does all day or how to cook? I was twenty five when Sasha was born. We weren't married, but his father promised to always help and he was a good man. I'd had three abortions before, and they scared me. I was afraid I might never get to have a child. I don't know, maybe it was stupid of me to get pregnant when I wasn't married. Even if we had been, the military was terrible about paying the pensions to widows and orphans. They had less money than ever. So it wouldn't have mattered. I never met his family. He never talked about them. My mother was old. I was lonely. I wanted a baby.
So I was tired, and I laid down that afternoon. Sasha was playing on the floor, with his cars. My eyes were so heavy. I thought it was just going to be for a moment.
[Static, broken by the rasp of another match.]
It only felt like a moment. When I opened my eyes, it was nearly dark. I was chilly, and stiff. When I sat up, I saw the door was open, bumping into a chair. He must have pushed it over from the little table. I still wonder why I didn't wake up at the noise... But it doesn't matter. The door was open and Sasha was gone.
I got up, and ran outside. On the steps I tripped on some of his little cars, fell down and banged my knee. I remember cursing, the gravel in my palm. There was blood. I screamed for Sasha, calling his name over and over. He wasn't in the yard, or playing on the road. I ran next door, banged on the door. I didn't know the neighbors. The woman looked out the window at me and wouldn't open the door. I shouted at her, asking if she had seen my little boy. She shook her head. He wasn't there, she hadn't seen him. No one answered at the other neighbor's. Maybe they were too scared. I didn't see anyone else. It was close to dark.
The park... I should have looked there first. Where else would a little boy wander to, looking for someone to play with? He must have heard me calling his name. He started screaming and I just ran.
In the park, there's a little place with some fire pits for roasting shashlik, kebabs. There's a covered area, made of wood, with tables. Old men used to play dominos and chess there when I was little. I don't know how he did it, but Sasha somehow climbed up one of the posts, into the splits below the roof. When I got closer I could hear him crying. At first I thought he was just afraid, that he climbed too high and got stuck.
It wasn't until I was at the fire pits that I saw ... it.
[Static]
It was a little boy once, like Sasha. But I can't call it human, or even think it had a name, a mother. I can't, you understand? If I had thought of it as a little boy, I wouldn't...
[A small sob.]
It must have been left in the park, after... There used to be a graveyard not far from there. Or maybe it came from one of the other dachas. I don't know. I don't even know how many people there were still alive. Just the neighbor woman and her family for sure.
Thank God it couldn't climb. It was bumping between the table and the railing, just circling.
When Sasha saw me, he started screaming again. I called out to him, told him not to worry, that Mama was coming. It must have heard me then, because it turned around. It still looked... but it was very dirty and had a big bloody gash on the forehead. One of it's arms was just hanging there, dead looking. Well, they are dead, but it wasn't moving the arm. It looked at me and made this terrible moaning sound.
In one of the firepits, they had these long metal rods that held the grills up over the flames. When it started coming towards me, I picked up the rod. I shouted for it to go away, to leave us alone. This was the first one of them I saw, you see. We really didn't know what they were, or what they would do. I guess I hoped since it was so small I could scare it away.
[A match rasps, and there is coughing.]
Damned cigarettes. What I wouldn't give for... but never mind.
It just kept coming, moaning and reaching forward. Sasha was still crying, over and over saying mama in this frightened voice. I had that heavy rod in my hand. What else could I do? When it came close, I hit it. The rod knocked it down, but it started getting back up. Sasha kept crying. I just hit it again, and I heard something snap in its leg. But it wouldn't stop moving, or making that awful, weird sound. So I hit it again and again and again. I held the rod in both hands and kept hitting it until I broke it's head open.
Before I got Sasha down I used the rods to put it into one of the fire pits. I had some cigarettes and a lighter in my pocket. I needed a cigarette after that. There was some wood, some old charcoal. I used the lighter to burn some twigs and get the fire started. I'd heard on the radio the only way to make sure was to burn them.
Thank God Sasha was okay. It didn't touch him.
[Static. Ten seconds of silence.]
What did you do then?
I took Sasha home and gave him a bath, to make sure he was okay. We slept in the cellar that night. In the morning, I locked Sasha in the cellar and went out to look for a car. There was an old Lada with some gas at another dacha about a mile down the road. I found the keys in the garage. I figured stealing was a sin I could live with. When I got back to the dacha, I loaded as much food and water as I could into the trunk. Then I put Sasha in the back seat and we left.
Why did you leave?
If there was already one, there were others. It wasn't safe. More would come, sooner or later. Who knows? They were probably there already.
Where did you go?
Just west. Just driving. Sometimes the roads were bad. At least the car kept going. We didn't get far.
How come?
We hit a military camp. It was good we left when we did. If we had waited much longer, we would have been too late and the soldiers would have gone. I told them about Sasha's father, and I think that kept us from being thrown back out onto the road. They brought us to a medical tent, where they stripped us down. At first I thought they were just going to rape me. But they checked us out to make sure we weren't sick. We were put on a truck north, to the camp. It used to be a one of the secret bases, during the Cold War. They did experiments there, so there was a hospital and a big compound. People were scared of it, so even afterward it was still pretty isolated. It was good. They had some other kids there, mostly military families and a few other refugees. Sasha had some friends to play with. I went to work in the canteen, as a waitress. I can't really cook, but I can serve food. I used to waitress, before.
Do you ever think about leaving?
To go where?
[Laughter, and the rasp of a match.]
There's nowhere to go. I'm not religious. I believe in God, but I don't need the priests to run my life and that's what everywhere else is in Russia now. Sasha has friends here. They even have a sort of school. The soldiers have been good to me. But most of all it is safe. There are walls and guards and defenses. Outside, there's only death and priests.
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Date: 2010-01-06 03:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-06 04:12 am (UTC)