LITMIR.BIZ

      And the reason was terrible… Before the coup, every summer my father sent me to his brother on aylag to shepherd sheep. "Best rest from city life," he said, "all day outdoors." And I liked it. Better to work in nature, in silence and peace, breathing crystal-clear air, eating fresh food than spend time behind counters in dust, heat, and dirt, breathing dust, heat, and dirt, eating stale food. Maybe that's why I never got sick with various colds, such tempering I got in the mountains. Shepherds took me as an equal and didn't allow descent, the eldest, if I did something wrong, could give such a slap that my cheek burned all day. But he hit only for business: we, city dwellers, were lazy, while an eye and an eye were needed for a flock. Sheep are like people: there are smart ones, they don't run anywhere, they quietly eat grass, run to the watering hole with everyone, no cares with them, but there are crazy ones, as soon as you turn away from them, they want to run into the forest, or even down the road, into the village, once I ran for ten minutes, until I caught it, a couple of kilometers away, and, oh, did I beat her all the way back until the shepherds saw it… And on that fateful day, one of the crazy daughters of the sheep flock ran away from me down the road. I noticed her only when she disappeared around the bend, so I ran straight into the forest along the path, thinking how I would catch this naughty one and spank her. The path led to a fork in our road to aylag with a road to the city. Luckily, I noticed them from afar; I have eyes like a hawk, the shepherds say. They were—bandits. They stopped the mail coach on the road and robbed it. I hid in the bushes and lay down, forgot about the sheep, myself, like a sheep, defenseless. And the bandits laid down the postal workers and the guard on the roadside and shot them all one by one. As soon as they started shooting them in the back of the head, I wanted to run, but my legs wouldn't listen, they became cotton, I couldn't even move a finger, I lay down and prayed they wouldn't notice me, or they would kill me. So I lay until the last one was shot. Among the passengers of the coach was one woman. They immediately took her into the forest and were shot amidst the cries of this woman. My mother screamed, and the bandits laughed and fired a bullet into the back of the next one. Finally, the woman's screams fell silent, there was no one else to kill, then the stone that was crushing me and not letting me run away disappeared, and I crawled away and ran to my sheep, not knowing what to tell the shepherds. I forgot to think about the escaped sheep. And what to think about it: clearly, she got into kebabs with robbers and murderers. I decided not to say a word to the shepherds: everyone had a rifle; suddenly, they would want a reward for catching state criminals, and those would kill them and me too. No, it's better to forget this horror, I stayed alive and thanked Allah. I sat on a hill, basking in the sun, just closed my eyes— they kill, I open— the sun, green grass, blue sky, peace and grace, I close my eyes— shoot in the back of the head. I started thinking about the city, remembered my street, my native house, the shop, my friends… And the shepherds found me on the hill with a dead bird in their beak, and the most relaxed ones fell asleep on the stone and ate from the bag with dry bread.