The City Is Empty

Àíàñòàñèÿ Çàáðîäèíà
The city is empty.

Light posts, dying one after another,
Are dipping the city into darkness,
Until no one can see a candle-light.

The city is empty.
Midnight bus is carrying me through the forest,
Going on the newly built yet bumpy road.

Lightning reveals patches of grey cloudy skies
Otherwise hidden in the thick darkness behind the trees.
The city is empty.

People are many, moving like robots, gathering in hives.
They buzz and buzz everywhere they go,
Aimlessly throwing in words, deprived of common sense.

The city is empty.
Glittery windows of the shops with brand new shoes are
parasitizing the eyes by hundreds of high heels and leather glow.

Casino lights flashing here and there
On every corner of worn out multi-storied buildings.
Yet there are no light posts.

They are dead long ago,
And the city is empty.
No stray dogs, no cats, no birds.

The nothingness of chatter in the streets, in the transport, in the shops.
The uselessness of all.

Another web post about the murders, beheaded corpses, bad Muslims, good Christians, bad politicians, good politicians, bad people, good people, wrong god, right god, right murder, wrong murder.
It’s a never-ending story of human blind fixation.
We are in a cobweb, a dozen butterflies, fluttering the wings, pulling each other in a more entangled ignorance, which is no longer a bliss, but a senseless violence.

The city is empty.
There is no light.
The world is empty, like a drunk glass of wine.

Daylight leeking through the thick curtain over my window.
Another day, another news.
I lie on the bed, under the pressing machine of my own thoughts.
I see dreams, never ending dreams, with people alive and dead, known and unknown.
They speak quietly, they whisper.
I travel here and there only to wake up in the same prison I have been for years.
The prison of my own inertia.

The thought of any action makes me sink in deeper. As if in a bog of existence.
The more you think of moving, the deeper you sink into depression.
So I chose not to think.
Keep my mind busy with something else. Something that keeps me alive.

Another news – the chemical factory is blown up, the war continues. It’s is not here yet, but it is very close…..a step away. People are dying, hundreds, thousands.
People have lost hope long ago, they are never satisfied, never happy.
It’s not about money, even if they have plenty, its not about sex, even if they have a lot,
it’s not about friends, even if they have many.

They are never satisfied.
They hate preachers, they hate sinners, they hate each other, they hate themselves.
Then someone gives the 30 silver coins to those, who agreed to open the Pandora box.
Nothing is forbidden anymore. Everything is freedom, everything is democracy, right is wrong and wrong is right. Now you can shoot, swear, kill, do anything you want. It’s a war, so your face has no identification. Just numbers. Numbers of the dead, numbers of the raging living, they are faceless.
The raging ignorance is probably the scariest thing that exists on the Earth. You can’t argue with that. It’s like as if you tried to argue with a tornado, or a tsunami or an earthquake. You can use your best arguments against the volcano that is ready to explode, yet you are helpless. The inner forces are strong and decisive, the destructive forces. And the fuel is lit. It’s the propaganda, the endless visual row, slashing scars onto human memory, turning people into zombies.
I think I’ve had enough of those. I detached myself from this reality long ago. Living like a crazy hermit. As soon as the dark approaches I go out and wander with dilated pupils and murmuring lines of the poems I would write, if I had a notebook in my hands.
My hands….I look at them often. I remember my hands when I was a kid, I had hoped they would stay as small and gentle forever. I never thought of them as of something, that will change faster than my age.

September, 2014.