I lost my home

Foreword and disclaimer

I tell this story in the first person, but it's not the story about me. It is the story of people I know and people I read about in the news in the previous few years. The events described below did not happen in real life (unless stated otherwise and supported by a link to the source), but they might have happened; probably not word for word, but very close to that.

I don't know whether wrapping non-fiction in a fiction story is right or wrong. Cons: you distort the facts, and somebody might find it offensive and uselessly stupid. Pros: you speak up the way you can, and somebody might hear you; being heard doesn't yet mean anything, of course, but it might as well mean something, at least for your inner psychological state, I guess. What I wrote here was accumulating in my head for quite a while. Magical realism is one of my favorite genres, and maybe, this is why this challenge served as a sort of catalyst for me. Although, to tell the truth, the name and introductory sentence of the challenge perplexed and somewhat discouraged me. It sounded too poetic and unfit to me. Every magical realism book I've read so far was quite heavyweight, lyrical in its own way, imbued with satire, and/or anguish, and/or subtle humor, but never with blushing sky and dancing clouds.

Chapter 1

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. Dance with the blushing sky, my God, such nonsense. I sound like a well-fed poet. At this latitude, the midnight purple clouds are nothing mysterious. 62 days a year of the midnight sun; the place would make a perfect solarium if it were not so damn cold. And yes, you can also see the northern lights here, from September till April, the best time being in December–January; so if you happen to pass by these lands, you should definitely not forget to raise your head and look up in the skies.

I lean my back against a radiator in an old and damp "Khrushchev" apartment, holding a book in my hands. “I Speak for the Silent - Prisoners of the Soviets” by Vladimir Tchernavin. The 1930s, the USSR. The man, his wife, and his son managed to escape from the Gulag. When life gives me a bunch of lemons, I like seasoning them with some hard-to-digest literature. But one must admit, this specific story has a happy ending, and it acts in a very inspiring way on my overly stressed brain. I am a wanted person. Accused of high treason, as I found out quite recently.

***

It’s July 3, the year of 2022. Happy Independence Day*! I ain’t have no home anymore, no obligations, no final destination – that is, I am a free and independent person. Several days ago I packed my suitcase with my most essential belongings and took off from Minsk to Moscow. Here is one exemplary common route of escape: Minsk–Moscow–Yerevan – then you can either stay in Armenia, or continue your trip to Georgia, or fly, for example, to Poland if you’ve got a visa. To get directly from Belarus to Poland is also (still) possible (by bus), BUT I was rather concerned that I could be detained on the border during passport control by our vigilant border guards. Moreover, at the moment, I didn’t have a visa to the Schengen zone, the queues to a few embassies that were not shut down were crazy, and I was determined to move asap; therefore, I aimed for Tbilisi or Batumi. I took a train from Minsk to Moscow, something about 12 sleepless hours. The border control was conducted by Russian officers, who literally took a peek at my passport with one eye and, of course, without wishing a goodnight or whatsoever (it’s 1 AM, you twerps), moved to the next coupe. My heart which was about to leave its niche under the left lung now breathed with relief. Well, that means I’m not on the blacklist. Of course, I should not be there; I was careful in expressing my political views, my timid disagreement, my silent protest. Careful, or rather cowardly...

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* July 3 – the day of Soviet liberation of Minsk from the Wehrmacht – the official date of Independence Day celebration in Belarus.

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But I prefer to refrain from staining my story with emotions that overfill my gut: self-judgment, self-pity… I will leave it for the next time. So, I arrived in Moscow at around 9 in the morning. My flight to Yerevan was at 9:15 at night. I had pretty much time. What strikes me when I arrive at Belorussky railway station is the number of police officers. They guard the exit, the entrance; they stand in groups of 3-4, and, as one can easily guess, are put there for the citizens to feel safe. What cheered me up was free of charge lavatory inside the railway station building. Very generous, really.

I needed to kill time somehow, so I left my suitcase at the luggage storage and strolled down the streets in the direction of Red Square. It was not crowded (as it might have been in summer were it not 2022), but still, there was a decent amount of tourists, the majority of them being of Asian origin, although I could also occasionally see European-looking people speaking English. Russia may be (more correctly, is) an aggressor against Ukraine, but outside the war zone, people live their lives, travel, and seem not to care much.

Recently, I came across a website called Visit Ukraine Today. It positions itself as ‘the information portal for tourists traveling to Ukraine and Ukrainians planning a trip abroad.’ At first, I thought it was outrageous to offer tours to country engulfed in the flames of war: an attempt to hype and gain profit by some money-greedy scoundrels. But then, I studied the website more studiously and realized that my first impression was wrong. The platform is run by a Ukrainian organization that started working back in 2018 promoting Ukrainian tourism, but with the beginning of the war, their focus was shifted to the information front regarding safety measures, open border checkpoints (air traffic is suspended), necessary documents to cross the border, ways to donate to support Ukraine. But also, they still offer a lot of various tours and activities, ranging from annual snail races and skiing resorts to escorts in de-occupied cities. And it feels somewhat strange, not wrong, but bizarre, otherworldly, this contrast. Meanwhile, the US government websites, for example, highly recommend not traveling to Ukraine.

Time killed, I headed to the Sheremetievo airport. And that’s where and when things started to go wrong for me. I successfully dropped off my luggage. At the passport control, I handed my blue carnet to an officer who, by the way, looked surprisingly friendly. He took the passport, opened the last page, scanned it with his device, looked at the photo on it, then looked at me, and then started studying his computer screen, frowning and slightly smiling at the same time. In a few moments, he addressed me, looking really upset and even apologetic.

“Do you know that an arrest warrant was issued in your name just a couple of hours ago? Unfortunately, your flight to Yerevan is canceled, but don’t worry, you’ll be safely delivered back home, free of charge!”

'Delivered' and 'free of charge' almost killed me. I was about to burst into hysterical laughter as I remembered a stupid joke from some horror movie about ‘de-livered.’ I wasn’t given a chance to enjoy the moment because literally out of nowhere, two bodyguards, muscular and utterly masculine, appeared, took me under my armpits, and were about to commence my delivery (they call it extradition, right?).

In my head, I saw images of a jail cell, questioning, confession videos, me bleeding with swollen eyes and broken, completely broken, because I’m not strong; a fragile body, nothing more. These images were too vivid; the images that got stuck in my brain from the daily news feed back in 2020. I questioned myself many times: how would I’ve endured all these tortures and harassment if I were to be captured and imprisoned? Well, my curiosity might be satisfied very soon, unless…

Time is linear, although oftentimes we picture it otherwise. Moreover, it is not slanted, it is quite flat; we do not slide down from the present into the future, but we tread, one step at a time, exerting an effort and spending a certain amount of energy to do so. But this energy can be applied to reverse everything. You start walking backwards, talking backwards, beginning conversations from the end – and the world starts following your will and spinning backwards. That is definitely not an easy thing to accomplish; it takes years to master the technique. What's worse, it goes against the current laws of physics, and entropy suffers a lot. The consequences may be horrendous, locally as well as globally. But also, there may be none. The truth is I don’t know how it works. But that’s what I did.

The idea of recording the confession videos, admitting that I’ve done numerous crimes against the motherland (but what did I do, actually? I was quite curious which wrongdoings I had been implicated in according to them), was loathsome. With difficulty but steadily, I started to pace backwards and to mumble something like “!flesym yb doog etiuq m'I ,uoy wercs ,sdneirf raed yM” The two gorillas on both sides of me looked very confused for a split second, so did the friendly officer, who still was holding my passport. Then I started to feel my head slightly whirl, my bodyguards let me free and vanished into thin air (I told that they appeared out of nowhere!), the passport returned to my hands, and eventually, I left the airport. It is really important (but not very easy) to know when to stop when you do time rewinding. For example, you don’t want to pass through the time when you were having a meal. First, it is darn complicated to irreproachably un-eat what you had eaten. Second, the procedure is disgusting, much worse than vomiting.

Therefore, I stopped right before (or rather after) I had my dinner. Now I know: I’m a wanted person. I don’t still know the reasons behind it, what terrible things did I do (I am planning to ask my friend to hack into the Interior Ministry system to find it out for me, I’m intrigued), but it’s pretty easy to become a criminal in my home country nowadays. A bit of appalling statistics: more than 1,000 extremists and almost 1,000 terrorists now are inhabiting Belarusian lands. Officially, 1,449 people are recognized as political prisoners, there are more than 2,000 convicts in political criminal cases, thousands of people got administrative punishment. Tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of those who did not migrate live their lives being aware that they might be next in line. Today, to say (or write) publicly that you are against the war is a crime. The Big Brother, foul, despicable, and monstrous, watches us, my friends.

World, I am sorry that I messed up a little bit with the timeline. I hope the repercussions won’t be too harsh. But one must agree with me that our world is already quite fucked up. I implore you: believe me, it’s not my fault.

Now that my initial plan failed, I need to come up with a new one. I need to improvise. When I was leaving Minsk, I did not know that things were so bad. I was aware that it was not safe, that I might be next in line because why not (administrative punishments and fines are an efficient way to feed all the officials and “security” forces, after all). And the main reason I decided to leave the country was to avoid military service, which was hovering over me like a midnight moon. Now it turns out I’m more popular than I could ever imagine.

The first thing that came to my mind was a story of a guy who escaped from Belarus on a motorized paraglider. He crossed the Belarusian–Lithuanian border unnoticed and surrendered himself to local Lithuanian authorities. Another, even more improbable story popped up in my head of a man who ran off (or rather swam off) to Poland. He started from Central Beach in Brest, 6 km from the border. He dived deep into the waters of the Bug river, swimming pants being the only belongings he took with himself, and resurfaced only on the Polish side. No oxygen tank, no diving mask, no whatsoever, besides frantic desperation and determination to set oneself free.

My head working frantically, I thought of possible solutions for myself. There’s no much use in thinking long-term in our modern world in general, but especially when your current situation is highly unstable and vulnerable. Therefore, my train of thought was quite primitive: what should I do today to procure a secure tomorrow? I remembered my quite distant relatives who were living in Murmansk. I carefully made several inquiries via a pay phone, and here I am, buying a ticket to Murmansk. Travel time: 1 day and 12 hours. Very well! I just got the ticket that would keep me occupied for the following day and a half. I love window-gazing from a train car! And in Murmansk, my great aunt will meet me with some delicious pancakes.