Moscow has sucked me in and isn’t letting me go. Recently I’ve been leaving the house at 7 am and coming back at 9 pm. I barely even noticed that the festive season has begun. I don’t write, but I keep my eyes open an take out the camera more frequently than it would seem. There’s a lot of work in progress that hopefully I will soon share with the Readers, and, for now, let me present you with yet another instalment of The Metro Chronicles.
I was going to an afternoon class yesterday, it was 2 pm, pensioners’ hour: the entire train carriage was at the disposal of myself, some elderly ladies and a gentleman in his forties, wearing an elegant coat and a suit. He looked as if he was going from one important bank meeting to another. He seemed to be rather unhappy – unhappy in a self-sabotaging, sarcastic, clowny way (“all of that does not concern me, I might live on an unhappy planet, but it is at least my own” kind of sadness). He was throwing around very daring, challenging glances. At some point, he opened one side of his coat, took out a small bottle of vodka (in a slightly clandestine manner), casually took a sip and put the bottle back in his pocket. Then he opened another side of the coat, took out a small bottle of orange juice, took a sip and put the bottle back in his pocket. He sat there for a little while longer, contemplating the cruel reality. At the next station he stood up and left, and I was left with a sense of deep tragedy procuring from the absurdity of the situation.