1858

“It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool’s paradise.”
—
Fyodor Dostoevsky

It is night still, but the morning
train is coming. Pyotr leaves his
izba and makes for the fields
just as the wind begins to stir.
It slips down his throat and
fills his chest with peasant
myths from the Cossack
cliffs. A smile cracks his lips
and makes them bleed.

Today, the sky pales like a
wound and the fields are
still. But the wind blows.
Pyotr walks on the carriage
road lost in myth.

A Cossack rider came to him
once, begging for strong tea.
He drank like a pig and threw
the dregs on his face. ‘Men are
being conscripted, he wailed.
‘And I will be the first!’ Pyotr
inhaled and fermented for a
while. He then asked the
rider to help him loosen
the rye stalks.

Near the station, Pyotr sees
serfs from the Obolenskoye
district spill through the
paling. They step on the
platform and walk to the
newsrack. Some cross their
chests when they see the
front page. Pyotr sits on a
bench near the rails and
folds his legs.

When the candles winked out,
Pyotr used to tell Vasya that
things would look up. But his
son’s head always fell to his
chest, and his eyes wrinkled
at the thought of imperials
roaming the steppe like flies
on a feather pillow. They came
to the village square once. A
woman fell. Vasya bent to help.
A shot flew and he fell too. They
said he was vile and unsavory.
A radical. All this Pyotr read.
He wilted like dry rye.

The train is here now, filthy and
bullish. It nears the platform,
slows, and shudders. Then it
stops. The freight doors open
and the serfs climb inside.
Pyotr stands and follows.

Frost strips the locomotive’s belly,
grimy with coal from the tender.
Some flakes drift in the wind to
Pyotr’s sleeve as he boards the
freight. He bends his head and
sniffs them. He begins to tremble.

Piled near the serfs are skeletons.
It is a sorry sight. Wrists are split
and teeth are chipped. Holes run
through the skulls. Flesh and
sinew are gone. They are on
Pyotr’s sleeve. He sees a skull
fall on its ribcage.

The wind pushes him off the
freight. The doors close. The
engine howls and the fields
call. The great bull lurches
forward and leaves.