Miloslava Pavlichenko
,2021
A dream I had few years ago.
The following monologue was first discovered in the electronic recorder found in the brain of Miloslava Pavlichenko (a guerrilla fighter and railgun operator), who died during the Independent War in District 099. Unfortunately, due to high radiation and biological contamination, most of the data was damaged, leaving only the brain signals from the last 150 minutes before she lost consciousness. This is the translated and revised version for better understanding:
"...120 minutes left before the battle begins. We put haoris over our light Amorph jackets so that we'll look better in the group photo later. The haori is light, thin as cicada wings, and looks quite fragile, but I know it's very strong. It glistens in the sunlight, and once you put it on, you don't want to take it off. It's been a long time since I wore anything other than camouflage... (silence) They've already started setting up the electromagnetic railgun platforms. With digital modeling, they can be easily constructed; they're tall enough to reach Jack's giant castle... This is the magic bean of our time—whoever controls it can climb the beanstalk to wealth..."
"——-,—-"
"...They're starting to assign positions. I want to stand at the forefront, but he strongly opposed it and tried to push me deeper into the trench. But he should know it makes no difference... I remember the first time I met him, he mistook me for a boy, he looked through me with his gray-brown pupils, as if he had foreseen the date of my death... then he said, 'girl, you're too young, you don't have to do this...' (laughs) So what? The continued silence and ignorance make me ashamed. I came here without telling my family, just to find the answer if justice still exists in this world. I didn't know back then that Joan of Arc was awaited with an inquisition and execution by fire, but I have no regrets. Some things must be done by someone. I'm not doing it for the so-called motherland, but for the people of the future. Poor Mom, she'll only have a pile of cold holographic photos to keep her company...”
Think about how harmonious all our peoples were before the war, until one day a group of people came, claiming it was for greater peace, and forced us to give up everything: our homes, our faith, our language, and culture... That was a group of people who had lost their faith, trying to instill 'civilization' into those who were devout. So they drove us into isolation zones, forcing us to accept 'proper education.' But what is 'proper'? I only know that our blood is the same temperature, and we are born the way we are, yet we are categorized into tiny classifications, labeled in Latin like plants for better management... Overall, why should people be responsible for things they can't control?
"We're departing, he's at the front, followed by Alyosha, Oleg, Lazo, Amir, Esha, Vanya, Nina, Anton, Sofia, Olga, Maria... This is the order of the casualty list. I wonder if our bones will ever be distinguished."
They say he is Tajik, though he was born in Pripyat, a hundred years after that reactor disaster, and perhaps because of that, his life was marked by a tragic fate, much like the 200 tons of unmanageable nuclear material beneath the 'Sarcophagus'... This is all I know about his background. When I think of him, I'm reminded of a description I once read in a Galactic Chronicle commemorating His Majesty Reinhard von Lohengramm:
'Those immortal beings, a sacred group, lived divine lives in mortal bodies. They showed us a tremor, a divine despair of the human spirit that demands to transcend eternity; a joy, the intoxicated joy of being with the gods; a force, like the snow-capped peaks towering in the sunlight, commanding the plains of the world. A place like that is not one for mortals to dwell long, but we must recognize the path to that summit, for it leads to the ultimate place of human ideals and beliefs, to the source of the spirit.'¹
"—/—————/————/———"
"One hour left... I walk down an empty street, soon to be nonexistent... When I first arrived, I was both excited and afraid. When the ship passed over the bone-filled shallows, I even felt a hint of regret. Will my actions bring more killing and fear to this planet? There is still so much I don't understand..."
In a teahouse, I see him... (silence) I walk in and sit down beside him without a change in expression. His wife and the infant in her arms stare at me from across the table, but I ignore them completely. I rest my chin on his shoulder... His shoulder is solid, just as reassuring as I had imagined. I open a bag of compressed rice crackers on the table, crush them, and hold them to his mouth. My breath burns his ear and then my face... I've never thought breathing could be so scorching... I feed him piece by piece, and he obediently eats it all. No one speaks. In the end, only my voice is heard: "If I had known I'd die so young, I would have been braver..." Did I say it loud? (silence)
I study the shape of his ear, from the helix to the earlobe to the fine hairs. A thin mist clouds his eyes, the corner of his mouth marred by cold sores, yet his lips are still curved in a line of desire. It is the first time I observe him so closely, and it will be the last... Our judgment is near, but the thought of dying with him... I find myself impatient. This might be the most intimate thing we can do together... To die in the same way, at the same time, on the same piece of land... When death kisses our lips, my love will be witnessed by fire. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. May our flesh nourish this land of resistance, and henceforth, neither heaven nor hell, past nor future, sea nor universe, can separate us...
"—/—/——/——————————————"
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¹ Chidori Hakuyama, Memorial Day
² The Bible, 2 Timothy 4:7