1998
Diana Kovrigina
In 1998 public utilities collapsed. It first became apparent in February, when no one showed up to clear the ice from the streets at 7 a.m. People fell and avalanched down the sloped roads. I used to fall too. According to statistics, every other baby fell off the changing table that year. We’re easy to recognize by a little dimple on the head. My scull looks like an egg from that Blend-a-med TV commercial — the one that was not covered with toothpaste and spent nine hours in an acid solution.
Uncleaned snow melts at 0° centigrade, and so it did in April. People drifted on their kitchen doors and tractor tires in the Volga river, which overflowed the banks of Lenin Avenue. Men steered with umbrellas and curtain hangers just like experienced gondoliers would steer, maneuvering between puffed-up plastic bags and washed-up coats.
Inebriated poplars bloomed in June. Their fluff filled the air, so it became unbreathable. Nobody opened their windows. For a whole month, five hundred thousand people had been living inside a feather pillow. The pillow was 93% poplar fuzz and 7% humans; buildings and vehicles remained within a margin of error. The city almost ran out of cars as they constantly exploded, and all my mother’s friends lost their legs. They used to say it was thecost of having a business. My father still has two fat legs — he only had a motorcycle.
Autumn was the best. Maples shed their leaves overnight, standing naked and proud like the calendar girls in the garage of my grandfather’s mate. The trees were comfortable with their nudity, and even if they weren’t — nobody would notice, as people only watched their own steps. Under these steps, there were piles of large, selected leaves, and everyone was afraid that the public utilities might sweep them up. Pedestrians pleasantly kicked these leaves or picked them for the craft lessons. My grandmother made a giant maple wreath, put it on my head, and led me through the streets, chanting: “Look, the Autumn walks!” She used to catch schizo every fall. And I was two-year-old’s height. In remote maple alleys, I slumped waist-deep in the leaf litter. I was there with my aunty Katya. She asked me not to call her “aunty” as she has just entered her early twenties. Later on, she was beaten and locked in the toilet by her fiancé, who escaped with her money.
By November, everyone seemed to forget about public utilities and wished for snow. Every morning I was driven on the sled to my great-grandfather through the darkness. He taught me how to read and introduced me to the neighbor girl Lennie. Together we went skateboarding down the ice hill on her brother’s deck. On December 27th, my mother put on her beaver fur hat and drove me to the post office so I could send a letter to Santa. There were empty inkwells on the tables, and I entertained myself, poking around in the debris that accumulated inside. I asked Santa for the Princess Barbie play set with a castle, a purple horse, and Prince Ken. But he gave me two stinky rubber mice from that Leopold the Cat cartoon.
Diana Kovrigina is a 26-year-old Chuvash writer and crochetier. Her poetry and fiction has appeared in Resistance and Opposition Arts Review, V-A-C publishings, Spoke and Word, and elsewhere. In 2022 Diana fled from war and currently lives in Tbilisi, Georgia.