Into the Thickening Fog by Andrei Gelasimov

Author:Andrei Gelasimov [Gelasimov, Andrei]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781503940819
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Published: 2017-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

A joke was one thing, but he had to keep moving. Filya didn’t like it when his dreams got that objective and tangible. It ruined his mood. He let reality seep through only in the mornings and put up with it until his first swallow of wine. Everything that happened after that was comfortably pushed back into a matte vagueness. Now, due to the lack of alcohol, he had no line of defense, although of the two evils he did prefer reality. His dreams annoyed him with the dismal passivity that was always his lot. In his dreams and nightmares, Filippov never played the leading roles. He was constantly being manipulated by some outside force. If for that reason alone, he now had to get up and keep moving.

“I’ll just go,” he mumbled, pulling the other man’s hat down deeper. “I’ll just go where I want.”

Fumbling in his coat pockets for his lighter, he pulled it out, flicked it a few times, and blinked at the orange column of flame. The lighter lit up almost nothing near Filya, but he didn’t care. The main thing was that something alive was warm in his hands. Turning the little wheel to the left, he halved the flame but didn’t let go of the valve until the metal ring got so hot it burned his thumb. He flicked it again and tried to hold the valve in such a way that he wasn’t touching any metal, but a few seconds later that became impossible. Also, he had to conserve gas. Even the small light and warmth the lighter gave out could come in very handy on his odyssey. His hometown—Filya could tell—had by no means put all its cards on the table. New surprises could be expected at any second.

Going out on the front steps, he saw the silhouette of the dog waiting for him. The mutt jumped to its feet, started whimpering in brief screeching bursts, and then vanished under the building. In the darkness and fog, Filya knew he might just be imagining this, of course, but in the entryway, after all, it had been much darker, so Filya was forced to admit that more than likely he did in fact see the dog.

“Mutt, I am so sick of your shit,” he grumbled, cautiously descending the steps, which were bumpy from patches of ice. “What do you need?”

Looking under the building, he tried to see anything at all between the posts.

“Hey,” Filya called out. “Where are you, you creature?”

In the icy, dark abyss, something started to move. Filya slapped his hand against the concrete cover overhead.

“Come here! I’m not crawling in there.”

A few meters away, he once again heard barely audible whimpering. It was strange hearing sounds like that from such a large mutt, but what wasn’t strange tonight?

The cold had already started squeezing Filya in its pitiless vise, so he had to decide: either go back to the entryway or onward, toward whatever was whimpering there beyond the posts. Filya swore quietly, but creatively, clutched his coat collar, and ducked into the reverberating darkness.

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