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Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction


The following is a piece of writing submitted by Logan Morseau on January 20, 2014

Sochi 2014

What is the fear of rush? If not only an anxiety to take another step? Shall I put my foot down or move it forward? I put my foot in the stirrup. For the first time in my life.
Am I crazy? Do I know the limits of my courage ? Am I aware that some of the steps are irreversible...? Is that why I have some strange taste in my mouth while I mount the horse?
We have been told that our land has been invaded. We have been told that their blood would spoil the whiteness of the snow during only this winter and that we would be free on spring again. That the mountains would be screaming in ecstasy and it would have no end. That the only thing we have to do is to unite and show our land how much we love it.
We have also been told to leave the weapons at home....
My name is Ihman Iman Ahaman, the son of Adhas Ahatma from the family of the Night Riders. I am 16 years old and I have never ridden a horse. My mountains are my land, my world. I have never seen anything beside them. Our gods live there and it is them who set our laws. We had been faithful to them our whole lives until people who speak a strange language came and made us abide by their rules. I don’t remember it, even my father was not born when they came but in our mountains time flies in a totally different way. Revenge is the responsibility of the whole clan and there is no more appropriate reason for revenge than killing the gods... This responsibility is handed down from father to son but...our fathers remained at home today.
The air in the morning is so marvellously cold today. The horses- hot. The steam from their muzzles is swirling around our knees, it covers the land. I have never thought about it before, but all our horses are black. I know the name of my horse even if nobody has said it to me. I knew it already last night when he approached my house. It was him who led me here. He showed me the other horses... His voice forms a unified whole with other voices.
We set off. Slowly, shoulder to shoulder, muzzle to muzzle. Our horses are snorting excitedly. My companions, like a dream, shine in the morning mist. The snow trembles under the hooves of our mounts. We are the children of this land, we are its air and its water, the messengers of gods. Maybe we are their last dart, maybe something needs to be proven one last time. One thing is sure... this is how it should be.
It will never come to an end. This rush that will happen soon. I know it now, but I probably knew it already at the moment when he came for me. It will never end because I won’t be able to stop. I clench my hands on the reins. This is how it should be...
The first riders have already arrived at the mountain pass. I am not the first. I am not the last. I am a drop in the stream, which cleanses. We are probably waiting for the last stars to disappear from the sky, for that time between night and day when unspoken words become a body and the sun has not yet risen.
*

Sochi has been prepared very well. The safety guarantee during the process of preparation and actual Winter Olympics is part of the ground forces mission with 155,000 soldiers in the face of new threats for the internal security. Apart from the army, in order to ensure the safety of the Winter Olympics, not 37,000, as it had been said before, but 70,000 policemen were called on. Officially, FSB (previously the KGB) ensures that it concerns only counter-terrorism actions, but the Russians will be able to eavesdrop on everyone in Sochi. In order to do so, special units of FSB with 15,000 police officers were assigned to it. Apart from the surveillance of the phone calls and Internet, thanks to the latest technology, the Russian services will be able to use CCTV and unmanned planes. Some of the inhabitants have been displaced. Between the mountains and the Olympic villages a strip of no-man’s land with heavy equipment including artillery and machine guns has been established. Notoriously, metal detectors are used and the area around Sochi is scanned to search for organised terrorist groups. That is why whole villages have been displaced and a huge section of the woods has been cut down. The soldiers, battle-hardened at the turbulent borderland veterans, know that they have to shoot to kill...
- “The Russian army as “the guarantor of safety” during the Winter Olympics in Sochi” – Newsweek.pl, 30-09-2013 18:19
*
It will never end because I will not be able to stop...I clench my hands on the reins... This is how it should be... The music slowly fills my body. Strong beating of the drums penetrates my arteries. Hypnotised like in a mantra it makes me feel it almost physically. The voice of a woman slowly invades the faster and faster melody. The rhythm has intensified, risen. Over the mountains and the mountain pass, old bells have begun to sound. The last star faded away.
My name is......., I have stopped! I am only a rush. My brothers clench their hands on the reins. They clench their teeth in terrifying smiles. They laugh out loud. We are happy. We are free. Under the hooves of our mounts we will bury the whole gloomy, strange world. We rush down the hillside, we flow down from the mountains headlong. The earth trembles, it joys under our touch, it breaths. My brothers do not wear shabby rags any more. Their silver armours shine in the falling snow. In our hands we wield silver swords. For evil and only evil. And when I have already thought that it cannot be any better, the air was pierced by poignant howl of our brothers in blood. Both sides were swarming with wolves: enormous, hungry, fierce and ours. Thanks to them the head of our arrow increased several times. I had my heart in my mouth and my tears started to flow down my face. We all know what happens next, but we rush in a dash of our gods anyway. We appeared for the summons, we took the first step and we placed the feet in the stirrups...We were unified due to one blessed goal, to be cleansed or maybe to cleanse our enemies as well. The wolves howl and we are screaming in a mad rush where the whole world rushes and screams with us and howls in rapture. Just further down....
*
Your honour, we are the first line of defence in the face of new threats to internal security. Sasha, myself and Griegorij. At least we have been told so. Nobody has warned us that these new threats would actually be the old ones. Anyway, how did they know it? And if they had known what would fall upon us, why did they not prepare us for it accordingly? Maybe they did not believe themselves, that it might happen. Maybe they did not suppose that something could defy a 50 inch cannon. Ours and a hundred others positioned every 15-20 meters next to us. It was Sasha who saw them, or rather, heard them. He woke me up and said that the bells in the mountains were ringing. I told him to stop drinking but he did not leave me in peace so I got out from the dugout to check it. And the bells were indeed ringing. The mist was coming down from the mountains. The sun had not yet risen but it was already quite bright. The sound of the bells was audible over many kilometres. We had been stationed in this area since November and it had never happened before. I did not even know that they had any bells there. Well, why should they? After all, the metal was impounded in order to build stadiums. But the bells were ringing so I rang the General Headquarter. We had this prikaz to inform them immediately about suspicious events. I am citing the entire feedback. “Withstand!” and then the connection was broken. I passed to other lads what I had heard and we all spread our arms helplessly. What should we withstand? We nearly fought for the binoculars in order to check where this sound was coming from. Griegorij finally wrenched it out of my and Sasha’s hands and stood with his legs apart on the embankment. As he stood so he started to swear. And then he ran down the embankment and started to load a cannon. I inform you that he was swearing all the time, this Armenian dog, in his own language. But I understand their language a little so I know. I went up the embankment with Sasha and we look. The binoculars were lying in the mud and we did not even take them. The mist was only at the foot of the mountain now. But something nearly on the mountain peak was moving, slithering and suddenly pouring through the pass. I rubbed my eyes in amazement. Horses. Riders. A whole group. Never mind the group, it was the entire hellish svoloch. About 30,000 horse riders and there was no end to this huge stream of people. I have never seen so many horses in one place, except for maybe in the movies. They rushed downhill at breakneck speed but the mountains here are high so it was easy to estimate that there were far more of them. They formed themselves in a sort of arrowhead...
It was only the scream of the Armenian guy that broke us out of our lethargy. Lads from the firing-posts next to us also started shouting if we had seen it and what the hell it was. For me, your honour, it was the devil itself that woke and came down to punish us. Yes, yes, I know, I’m coming back to the point. We got a grip on ourselves and the cannon was soon ready. The Armenian guy shouted “fire” so we shot at them just as during training. A moment later all of the cannons spat with fire. It did nothing, as we shot for the third or fourth time and they were still rushing down on us. Reinforcements with heavy machine guns came, positioned themselves among us and started to blast them away. Only the fog rose after that as the others still rushed towards us. Then I noticed that some huge mongrels ran around them. And this, your honour, was everything I saw because then Sasha, that moron, may he rest in peace, dropped the missile and there was such a huge bang that I woke up one week later in hospital. I do not know anything about the other participants of the events, wanted deserters I have not seen since then.
- record from the interrogation of Wasilij Kostkow, the canoneer of the 3rd Eastern Front Division, the only survivor of the event colloquially called “The Battle of Sochi” 23rd January 2014.

On the 23rd January 2014, along the entire length of the demarcation line between Sochi and the local mountains a mass desertion of the whole 3rd Division with the stationary support troops was reported. The only witness of this incident, artillery gunner Kostkow, landed in a military hospital for further observation due to his mental disorders. The report documents the enormous consumption of equipment and ammunition. The Head Quarters did not find any trace of the communication with the Division. The search for all of the deserters and the need to led them to the General Head Quarter’s Prosecutor with the aim of imposing appropriate punishment on them which is regulated in the case of a desertion was announced.
- A final report regarding the events from the 23rd January 2014, Sochi

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