Last spring after interminable winter, at the dead of night, I was going back
home after the concert financed by the house-by-house fund at the Community
Centre in my native town. That moment I did not even suspect that night may
become the last one in my short life. Having come only 100 meters I noticed some
tubby, middle-sized may, aiming a rifle at me. I stared at him with a sort of gaping
solemnity, feeling to be cheated of my perfect life. That moment all my memories
started to whizz rapidly upwards from the very childhood. I recollected myself as
a brisk and boyish baby with rolls of fat at neck and waistline put on. I
remembered my grandfather’s stories about the battle for production they won
after the 2nd World War and the output of all classes of consumption goods at the
enterprise where he worked. I literally could feel the composite smell of a huge and
filthy pipe he lugged out while telling stories about discomfort and dirt and
scarcity. I recollected the food with its strange evil tastes, which my mother
cooked us in a hurry, and a good dressing-down occasionally given by my father. I
remembered the irrepressible spontaneous demonstrations I participated in
during the Revolution of Dignity, where we all resentfully meditated on the
injustice and corruption. There were so many thoughts in my head that it was
impossible to keep track of them. That kind of ancestral memory filled my brain
to the top, sounding like a trumpet call for action in my head. I made an all-out
effort and threaded my way past the shooter. Having got home, I was so scarred
that my powers of sweating seemed to be fabulous. Now I talk about that night with
a sort of edified boredom, considering my life as the greatest value.
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