"Comrade Stelnikov?"

"Yes, commander?"

"Do you ever wonder...what it's all about?"

"What...what what's all about, commander?"

"Life.  The meaning of it all.  This bloody stinking war, what's it all for?"

"Er...to protect the glorious motherland against the rapacious German, commander?"

"Ease off of that, Stelnikov, I'm not with the Politburo.  I'm not looking for propaganda."

"That's good, commander.  We ate the last of it last week."

"What do you think?"

"Well, it was rather dry, sir, and it tasted faintly of paste, but it was a lot easier to catch than the rats we ate four days before that.  Also, I just know those rats had been eating corpses, and I couldn't shake the feeling of having eaten someone less lucky than I was."

"No, I mean about my question."

"Although, really, how lucky can you be if you're eating a corpse rat?  Still, I can't complain.  If I do I'll be shot.  What, commander?  Sorry, miles away."

"What do you think it's all about, life, and whatnot?"

"I try not to think about it too much, commander.  My job is to stand against this crack in the north wall and use my body as shielding to keep stray rounds from hitting any of the senior command like yourself, and frankly, it's one that requires all my concentration."

"Ah, you're not an educated man, Stelnikov.  Thank your lucky stars.  Intelligence is a curse, my son."

"I can only imagine, sir.  The pain must be much worse than this shard of glass that has been wedged under my left eyelid since the 11AM bombing run."

"I wish I could be3 simple like you, Comrade Stelnikov.  Free from the doubt, the isolation, the damnable extistential uncertainty that plagues men of my sort.  I envy your ability to serve your country without question."

"It's a pleasure to serve, sir.  Ow, my leg.  That'll bleed for a while."

"Why, a patriotic young lad such as yourself, you'd probably recommend me for courts-martial if I told you that sometimes I wonder if it's all worth it."

"Not at all, sir.  My mind drifts on occasion as well.  Just yesterday I invented a little word-puzzle  to distract me while I was sorting through pieces of 131st Mounted Division to see if I could find some ammunition in case I ever get issued a gun."

"Pawns we are, I sometimes think to myself.  Pawns in a great game, played by great men, for great stakes to which such as we could never ante.  That's what I sometimes think to myself.  So, you can see how my talents are wasted here in Stalingrad."

"The game was, I had to think of one deceased relative I had for every letter of the alphabet, and if I cheated, or couldn't think of enough, I would have to do my evening's crack-plugging duty without wearing the remains of my winter coat.  I almost got stuck on 'r' but then I remembered my cousin Ruslan who got shot by the secret service back in 1937 for wondering if Comrade Stalin used any products on his mustache."

"What were you before the war, Stelnikov?"

"I was a circus clown, sir."

"Really."

"Oh, yes, commander.  A job I loved, that was.  'Leonchik the Mildly Depressing' they called me.  My specialty was hiding somewhere and eating a lot of boiled eggs until the expansion of my stomach gave me away.  Good training for my current duties, as it happens.  Do you know that I think I'm bleeding to death?  Apparently there's a major artery in the leg.  Learn something new every day.

"I myself was  a poet, Stelnikov.  As it happens I have written a 54-page sonnet on the topic of how war is bad, a subject I believe has been insufficiently addressed by poets and writers in the past.  Would you like to hear the first two-thirds of it?"

"Nothing would make my dying moments more apt, commander."

Permanent Link
Previous Entry ~ Current Entry ~ Next Entry
E-mail the Ludic Log ~ Find Me Out

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use." (Galileo Galilei)