Flash Fiction Take 2

Bakhtin Goes to Atlasov

July 23^rd 2001

I knelt to examine a shard of yellowed paper bearing the image of a youthful, goateed Comrade Lenin, sitting tactlessly aside water-stained wallpaper with little neon palm trees emblazoned in the height of Soviet kitsch. ‘Anton, careful’, Evgeni cautioned me, concerned about my recent knee replacement but also that I might do something unpredictable, something of postponed regret here on the barren shores of Atlasov Island some 6 decades after the war had faded into bronze plaques and school curriculums. ‘It’s fine my friend; I have business here, I didn’t come all this way to neglect the details’, I countered. That I had been able to persuade Evgeni to join me was remarkable itself, but in a sense we were both old men in search of the lost pieces of life that collect themselves at the end. The endless wind shook the abandoned cabin, and the faint rumble of the volcano, in a perpetual state of low-grade displeasure, competed with the shrill cawing of seabirds outside. I wanted to be composed, reflective; prepared to close things, but instead the buzz in my head merely built into the shadows of boxed memories, the voices that spoke in their own strange inflections here in the Arctic tropics.

August 18^th, 1945

While news of progress on the Eastern Front filtered through stuffy bureaucratic channels in Moscow and Leningrad, two young men wrestled alone on a somber andesite beach under the Arctic sun, the true Eastern Front somewhere between Japan and forever; military duties and restless love. I wondered what the authorities would think, what god would think, what my mother would think, but none of this mattered- I had found Alexei the rainy, cold day we left Vladivostok; the day a few dozen scared and vaguely patriotic young men were shipped to the arrogant edges of manifest destiny, of brassy imperialism and fantastic places that dwelled in the creases government maps. ‘Think we could stay here when our tour is up; just us?’, I asked into the warm place between the itchy wool blanket and his strong pale shoulders that night, the eve of my 23^rd Birthday. ‘We’d get by’, I added in muffled sincerity. ‘No; I want to go to Moscow, I want to be an artist- we can rent a flat together’ protested Alexei playfully, the vast black space beyond the oily glass windows sparkling under the slight glow of a peak more beautiful, more symmetric than Mount Fuji. I knew what would happen to us in Moscow. He could be an artist though- he was an artist, not just ‘Alexei Zherov, U.S.S.R naval cadet 45683’, as the dog tag which brushed against his perfect chest proclaimed. Paintings of the island’s surreal commas of black sand and my embarrassed smile hung askew beside maps of the supposed ‘progress of the American fleet’, which of course never materialized. From the lofty position of 50 degrees north, 155 degrees east, and half a bottle of smuggled vodka, Alexei complained into my softly rising chest that the world was mostly mindless breeders, intent on settling on something before the notion of their actuality, their irreplaceable being surfaced amongst all this state-sponsored consciousness. He’d been reading too much Bakhtin; I decided, how he even got the books here was remarkable, and I pushed him deep into the sighing mattress springs. I loved how difficult he was.

July 23^rd 2001

Anton, my friend, the boat is here, Evgeni interjected. My mind raced- images of my wife back in Moscow, the grandchildren multiplying under the modest immortality of 21^st century Western capitalism, the fading wallpaper of my own Glasnost –era apartment on the fading banks of the Yauza River. My eyes caught a ripped photograph on the floor. It was grainy, bleached from sun and wind and the mumbling waves of time, but I recognized the two young men who stood on the beach behind an ash-speckled sky, their pose the unmistakable form of 20-something attitude. A single tear ran lazily down my cheek like the lava down Vulcan Atlasov, and in one the strange coincidences Bakhtin might have dismissed God with, might have given him a lower-case ‘g’, my cell phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket, and propelled its little black plastic heft across the beach and into the arms of a receding wave. I smiled. Alexei would have been proud.

Flash Fiction Take 1

Silver Bells

‘Hey Jimmy; where’s Sam at?’, the boys called after me, their shadows the long sad forms that filled the narrow leafiness of the Silver Valley this time of year. ‘He’s on nights this week’, I answered dutifully, though I should have ignored them; I knew they wondered about us. I’d gotten the letter late last week- 4 years tuition in Seattle with room and board. When I’d told Sam that night, he’d smiled, shaken his head in that way that made me want to kiss him and look away at the same time. His mom was over in Coeur D’Alene for a few days working at the big new Indian casino and his pop’s name formed a fading inscription in the brassy candlelight the civic association ladies always kept burning at the Sunshine Mine fire memorial up by the interstate, so I stayed the night with him as I’d been doing more often. His shoulders felt tougher, made of unbreakable 19-year-old stubbornness, and I liked the building stubble under his chin, his proud cheekbones building into the cocky smile in the portrait of his father that hung down the hall.

‘How was it down there today?’, I asked, filling the space between his back and the uneven wooden wallboards. ‘It was good, I ran a jackleg myself; drilled 2 rounds- my partner said I might get promoted from helper this year if I keep it up; we made tonnage and shift bonus’, he informed me proudly. Suddenly I felt the ground under Kellogg, Idaho shake slightly, just barely, and we all knew there were no earthquakes here. ‘Jesus… ‘ I mumbled under my breath. I saw Sam’s eyes flinch for a second; his pupils go cold. ‘Rockbursts been getting bad down on the 6800’ level, he said to no one in particular. ‘Or maybe they’re firing 2 shots per shift now on nights, the Alhambra vein down there is running 50 ounces to the ton and ‘prolly 20 feet thick…’ he said wistfully, with the same love his dad must have had of the suit-and-tie on Wall Street kinda money these guys made, but also a profession so dangerous and addictive if you’d never done it you just didn’t get it.

‘I love you Sam’, I said with eighteen years of sincerity, and my hands drifted across hard fleshy angles somewhere to the south. ‘TsssshhhFaaaa… he breathed raggedly, shifting slightly. ‘You don’t know what it’s like there… if these guys knew about us.’ ‘You think just cuz I’m going to Seattle I’m gonna forget about you?’ I don’t know why I said this. I felt alone. I wanted him to say my name again, hearing it felt like waking up from a deep sleep.

I heard the boys from before, maybe from the future stumble by below the cracked window outside, their drunken laughter ringing through the cold November fog. ‘Aww hell you didn’t fuck her, that’s my sister!’ ‘Thought she seemed like a Brackenbrush…’ followed by an echoing ‘Ooooo…’ 2 sharp bells rang across the valley from up Wardner Gulch, the mine signals we’d all remembered since we were small. The click of the sheave wheels racketing into place and the acceleration of the hoist bringing a few tons of Silver and a dozen unbreakable men to the surface was barely audible through the window. The voices piped up again outside. ‘Guess Ernie’s closed early tonight’ Sam ventured. They must be out of kegs, I thought. A man not much older than us spoke again. ‘You guys know Sam, right?’ The vague murmur of approval spread across the group. ‘He was on my shift last week, solid guy for being so green’, one of them chimed in. ‘His dad and mine were friends, said he was the best hunter in North Idaho’, the other added.

‘Yeah, well, I saw him kissing Jimmy Archer one day up in them woods by Shoshone Creek’, the first voice said hesitantly. Silence. The vague hum of the hoist making it’s way to the surface. Another bell. ‘Ain’t nothing wrong with that’ the second voice added. ‘Good for him, you know my dad told me Jimmy got a scholarship to Seattle’ a new voice said more confidently. I turned towards Sam, but he’d hidden his face in the pillow and tears pooled around square cheekbones. I pried it close to my own, and our smiles outshined every ounce of silver than even came out of these hills.