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Suddenly this merry chorus of voices is invaded by a sound that resembles the screeching of car brakes that they consider music.
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We are growing suspicious.
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It turns out that these youngsters who loiter in shady alleyways behind the GUM instead of going to school
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are here to peddle a product of their own making.
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Foxtrot on x-ray plates that, instead of intricate anatomic details, capture a crude image of their intellectual poverty.
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Listen, Zhenya Garkun, what does the world look like to you through the tiny hole of x-ray rock-n-roll?
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It's a small, cramped world of shadows exchanging furtive looks.
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Shadows whose nickname is fartsovshiki (smugglers) selling old junk with fancy foreign labels.
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They are little more than shadows even though they have names, like Gennady Baranov.
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And you, Gena, do you really believe that this is life?
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- I don't actually live, I'm more like waiting for something.
- And what exactly are you waiting for?
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Do you expect hydroelectric dams to erect themselves or the desert to flourish without your efforts?
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But when your peers perform miracles, you won't be able to stand by them.
-
- Ah, yes, by the way: when I was a Young Pioneer,
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back in primary school, I used to pick wheat heads.
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Wheat heads? And all your knowledge of bread is limited to a bun?
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And your mate Sasha Kriukov twice went to reap the harvest in the Altai.
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Go on, ask him about the true price of the bread that you eat.
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What other shadows are lurking in this suffocating world?
-
Her name is Lyudmila, but she prefers a monicker.
In restaurants where she spends her days and nights she is called out: "Hey, Sophie!"
-
- But how is that possible? You don't even have a job, but you frequent restaurants, wear fancy clothes.
-
- Don't you feel sorry for yourself?
Do you want to steal from yourself, Lyusia?
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Do you want to forfeit the simple joys of human life? The friendship of factory folk?
-
The nervous tremor before an exam in a college? The loving stare of your husband' eyes?
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Or the happy mumbling of that charming tot, Seriozha? And Nina wants you to know all this.
-
Who's that crawling about next to you?
-
Who's that other shadow for whom all the values of the world mean little more than money?
-
Viktor Pakhomov, perpetually tipsy and unruly.
-
Where is all that money coming from?
- I'm given tips every day.
- Ah, are you really?
-
- And you take them?
- Yes, I do.
- Splendid. So that's your income.
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That's life in the world of shadows, Garkun.
-
But do you see that we want these shadows to become human beings?
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So don't bend over, Garkun. Look at the real big world that is breathing around you!
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A world where people wake up to new inventions.
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A world where cities are built and trees planted.
-
A world where newspapers tell of our friends' glory.
-
A world where people buy flowers for their loved ones
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and debate Botvinnik's latest game.
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Our world is a place where a person can in his final days say: "I did it all for the people".
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"And that is why this world exists for me".
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It is a great luck to live your life as a human being and not turn into an empty shadow.
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This is our message to those who are beginning their lives in murky alleyways.
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And it doesn't matter what exactly a shadow is mimicking: a peddler of foreign rags
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or a priest of rock-n-roll.
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Or an overgrown idler.
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We, the people, make no distinction in shaming them.
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TITLE: Shadows on a sidewalk
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Because we are human beings and we have human emotions.
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We can laugh and marvel.
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Be outraged and uncompromising.
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We can despise and condemn.
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We don't want foul shadows to blemish our sidewalks.
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All of us who walk our streets, who live in our city,
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no matter if one wears a volunteer's armband or not.
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And let our sidewalks be only adorned with figured shadows of tree leaves
-
that do not hide the world's beauty from us.
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THE END
