The Blog

So, precisely last Friday, that is yesterday, in harmony with my after-di

It’s a bivalve, as the majority of its fresh-water counterparts which in the childhood you scrape out in the shallows of ponds and rivers, but the SOB clams latch themselves from inside and there are no means to break in until you let them bask for some time in the fire embers.

But this here mollusk beats them all, some overseas wonder, you can’t grab it – whew! caliber 1.5 meters, and the corresponding weight of over 500 pounds, however, the valves are rounded, not oval as by their tribe in the fresh water. And watch this exotic finishing, both luxurious and equatorial, how it spreads from the hinges co

Deep in myself I’ve given this ogres the name of Pec-tin-din and it baffles me to guess why. The scallop-like bottom of this huge cauldron got buried in the sand as deep as the Peccy’s weight forces it to enter, and the lid is somewhat raised, like for airing.

But there’s nothing inside to air. Peccy had passed away to better world before my getting to the Isle of No Time, not even her mantle remained in between the shell valves, not a shred, all got looted, scraped, gnawed, swept up and taken away, and only this bare calcium structure still tarries half-buried in the sand of the beach… Of dust art thou knocked together and dust art thou to become…

Well, not quite Friday thoughts rolled up and, in unison to them, some wind began to whine in gusts that gave those wails a certain tincture of emotional curve, like, say, “O, woe! Peccy! Why have you left me!”

Besides, with a noteworthy impudence, the wind blew radically athwart the direction of monsoon winds that on Friday, in a well-established ma

A split-moment before shining radiantly, the sky azure went out, squeezed by the cephalopod mollusk of the heavy black cloud unwinding, spreading its knotty-knobby tentacles all over the firmament.

The waves dropped out of caressing languidly the shore in the habitual foreplay and, all of a sudden, sprung erect, the tips amok and wheeling their whisked up foam, to rush and crash their whole mass onto the beach spread out in the boot-licking kowtow.

Darkness reigned all around, thru which, like whitish ghosts, there flashed foamy fragments of water sheets torn by the squall off the shore-lashing waves.

And now the tropical torrential rain joined the cluster pandemonium fucking with dogs and cats the surface of the flattened sand, spilling about splashy streams and violent rivulets.

Everything awaited for the thunder, everything, out of their mind, implored in crazy urge: do it! O, do it! And the thunderclap—KRGAHDAHDAN!!—burst out together with the lightning that sliced the world by its crackle-and-hiss into two, horizontally, shot with a knobby tentacle to the suckers in that at the opposite end of the world—SHUHHK-NNBA-CHUHKZZ!!

Bet your farm, I was up already full-length and hugging the palm bent after the fringe of its long drenched fronds jitter-bagging impetuously from the waving tree top.

I clenched to the trunk horrified by the might of the rain ready to wash me off into the berserk serf any next moment.

I clenched mortified by the fear that the following lightning wouldn’t miss this only tree in the beach.

Clung to the dribbling tree, I waited to see: which of my fears was the first to come true? And all of a sudden, against the deathlike backdrop of enraged foamy waves, I made out the shadowy half-sphere of Peccy’s lid.

What followed came off all by itself—a desperate dash… couldn’t you keep your gap wider, fucking slut?. the head is thru the rest will follow…

And tearing off me all that could be peeled by the sharp edges of the two valves, I squeezed into the Peccy’s nest, half-meter deep.

Discharged a deafening yet belated thunderclap. Eff you, bitch! You can’t reach me in here!.

I’m drenched thru and thru and it is so narrow a nook I am in, but the rain is not molesting me any further… I cuddle into the favorite posture of intrauterine babies. Good news the walls here lack any nasty lips.

The noise of rain splashes outside gets gently muffled, little by little…

Wait-wait-wait! But how that I ca

In answer, there sounds a dry short click, the tooth in the upper valve locked into the dimple of recess in the bottom one…

Thick silence pervaded the narrow darkness. The deafening silence of a sound chamber and pitch-black impenetrability, copulated, engulfed all the world…

* * *

Bottle #5: ~ The Ways We Are Chosen By ~

29 years is a serious stretch, in the Soviet Union, as a result of the deep humanism in the foundation of the Communist regime, you'd hardly find a person sentenced to more than the 15-year term. No use trying. 15 was the ceiling, above that limit you straight off plopped to face the firing squad at ready for the execution. Each one has to do their job, you know.

In 29 years Nikita Khrushchev, who ruled USSR Empire 1953-1964, would have built in the Soviet Union 1.45 Communisms (that is almost one and a half of them) if not for the palace coup in the Central Committee of the CPSU. He got life within the walls of his personal dacha while the throne of the General Secretary was seated upon by Leonid Brezhnev to run the farm till 1982.

Which exculpatory circumstances—if any against so solid background—might mitigate my guilt of dilly-dallying about the production of RR (The Rascally Romance) protracted for so serious a stretch?

The confluence and most perplexing entanglement of differently varying yet similarly unfavorable exigencies determined the unbecoming lay-over.

To begin with, I okayed a war…

The choice at that time was not invitingly wide with the USSR engaged in just one war, in Afghanistan (1979 – 1989), however, its undisguised Communist-imperialistic nature ran counter to my beliefs and I subscribed to a pending war flagged off, in part, by my signature too.

The first war for independence of Mountainous Karabakh…

On entering the village club—a serviceable edification of raw stone used, a certain period back, to be the village church before the cross was brought down and rows of plywood seats went in together with the sturdy stage—dropped in in late evening by a dozen of mujiks to tarry over a couple of boards of chess and backgammon, and to chat of I du

The Village Council Chairman, delivering a speech from behind the breastwork of the on-stage rostrum, ofttimes was interrupted by vehement orators from the audience who just stood up from their respective seats so as to become seen and heard and who, in their turn, got interrupted by other orators up-springing from other seats… The common meeting of the villagers revved on at full swing.

Pargev, a ten-grader from the right seat next to me and also the Chairman’s son, elucidated that the purpose of the rally was to collect the folks' signatures and Grisha, the school Principal's husband on my left, added that such collection was the decisive instrument for breaking away from the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan because living on as its constituent part grew utterly intolerable. Armenian drivers operating buses on the route Stepanakert-Agdam-Stepanakert were paid twice less than the Azerbaijani drivers operating buses on the route Agdam-Stepanakert-Agdam.

It should be kept in mind that never throughout my life have I driven any kind of bus and, additionally, that during my hitch in the Soviet Army, a construction battalion it was, our team of bricklayers reported to lance-corporal Alik Aliev (an Azerbaijani) while, simultaneously, I had a buddy plasterer Robert Zakarian, an Armenian from Third Company, because of my reckless not giving a fuck about racial differences as well as the lack of prejudices on the grounds of national affinity which also and always was another of my distinguishing features.

Life itself made me peek deeper into the historical aspect of the question and find out that Mountainous Karabakh (the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region during the Soviet rule) from the times immemorial was populated by Armenians whose huchkars (stone crosses) as well as churches being erected (also of stone) before and after the 10-th century AD prove it to the hilt.

Yet in early 20’s of the 20th century, when the 11th Red Army brought the Soviet rule to the Southern Caucasus, Mountainous Karabakh was handed over into the configuration of the Soviet Azerbaijan because of evidently empire-prone and, possibly, personal reasons adhered to by the then General Secretary Jugashvily, handled Stalin.

By the moment of my immigration, lots of Armenian had left Mountainous Karabakh and numerous Azerbaijanis moved into. Two of whom, for instance, had settled in the village of Seidishen where I was provided with the job of a village teacher by the Stepanakert Regional Department of People Education.

They were Biashir, the forester, and his son Eldar, engaged in delivering gas in 40-liter tanks to kitchens in the villages of the Askeran District by a truck rigged for the purpose.

There had even appeared purely Azerbaijani villages, about ten of them, in Mountainous Karabakh.

Being not aware of all that minutiae at the mentioned meeting, I still responded to the Grisha’s question in the affirmative as long as it concerned the right of peoples for self-determination. The right which is as fundamental as the freedom of assembly (hmm!), as inalienable as the freedom of speech (hmm-hmm!), as sacred as the freedom of thought and religion (someone shut me up please!)…

So naive and stupid idiot was I at that moment and scratched my signature among the uncountable autographs by others.

Four years later I confirmed the accord by taking part in the referendum on the Declaration of the Republic of Mountainous Karabakh.