The noise of rain splashes outside subsides, gets gently muffled, little by little
Wait-wait-wait! But how come that I cannot hear the surf any more?
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 because of the deep humanism inbred in the very foundation of the Communist regime, you'd never meet a person been sentenced to longer than 15 years in prison/camps. No use trying. 15 constituted the ceiling, above that limit you straight off plopped to face the firing squad at ready for the sentence execution. Each one had their job to do for the state well-being, you know.
In 29 years Nikita Khrushchev, who ruled USSR Empire 1953-1964, would have built in the Soviet Union 1.45 Communisms (no, yeah, 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 his personal dacha walls and the throne of the General Secretary went under the Leonid Brezhnev's ass who ran the farm till 1982.
Which exculpatory circumstancesif any, when compared to so loft backgroundwould mitigate my slowness to a fault about the production of RR (The Rascally Romance) procrastinated for so serious a stretch?
To put my best foot forward, I won't ask how long a piece of string is and answer with my usual openness.
The confluence and most perplexing entanglement of differently varying yet similarly unfavorable exigencies determined dawdling away those years.
To begin with, I okayed a war
The choice was not invitingly wide at that period with the USSR engaged in just one war Afghanistan (1979 1989), however, its undisguised Communist-imperialistic nature ran counter to my beliefs and I subscribed to a pending war flagged off with my participation.
The first war for independence of Mountainous Karabakh
On entering the village cluba 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 stagedropped in at night by, basically, a dozen of mujiks to tarry over a couple of boards of chess and backgammon, and to chat of I had no idea what because my too insignificant command of Armenian, and where to, about once a month, they brought an Indian movie of 2 seriesI got puzzled to see a crowd thrice thicker than had ever gathered for any Indian movie. Which was there not at all on that night.
The Chairman of the Village Council, delivering a speech from behind the breastwork of the on-stage lectern, was ofttimes 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, simultaneously, the Chairmans son, updated me thru the mutual buzz that the rally was convened for collecting the folks' signatures and Grisha, the school Principal's husband on my left, elucidated that the collection would serve the decisive instrument for breaking away from the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan because living on as its constituent part had become intolerable, utterly. 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 mentioned here that throughout my conscious life I have never driven a bus of any kind 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) and, synchronously, I had a buddy plasterer Robert Zakarian, an Armenian from Third Company, because of my reckless not giving a fuck about racial differences and the wholesome negation of prejudices on the grounds of national affinity. Another of my distinguishing constants.
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 20s 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 unaware of these minutiae at the mentioned meeting, I still responded to the Grishas question in the affirmative as long as it concerned the right of peoples for their 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 other autographs collected in the region.
Four years later I confirmed the accord by taking part in the referendum on the Declaration of the Republic of Mountainous Karabakh.
That day Stepanakert was being bombarded without even the lunch break, nonetheless, I ventured to the town theater and ticked for in my voter ballot. And even today, with my status plunged down to that of a refugee, Ive got no regrets because up till now that right seems irresistibly attractive to my simple mind.
However, back to "in order of appearance"
A month later there was another surprise meeting to collect donations for the victims of the Spitak earthquake in Armenia (the seismic magnitude at the epicenter in the range of 10 to 12, 25 000 dead, 514 000 homeless, 140 000 crippled).
I donated 2 rubles and 50 kopecks, all I could contribute without losing a chance of surviving up to the following payday.
The Biology teacher, Rafic Shakarian, a ready-made Roman senator by his looks, began to carp: No need for kopecks! I had to curb his patrician pride by reminding that he, personally, was not the target of my offering, and 50 kopecks were equivalent to 2 bread loaves The discussion dried up, the kopecks were accepted.
In February, Lenin Square in Stepanakert saw the outset of mass rallies in the support of exit from under the Azerbaijani jurisdiction and unification of Mountainous Karabakh with Armenia. The Regional Council of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region sent petitions on this account to Moscow, Baku and Yerevan