[Yevgeny Nonik’s first novel - ‘molasses pry with wantonness’ - was published in 2003. Nonik had written the book as part of his therapy at a psychiatric award, but the chief nurse was so impressed by the literary merit of the project that she smuggled it out and had it published. Nonik continued to be treated for his chronic fear of full-stops (linked to various childhood traumas) and along the way assembled enough material for a second book: ‘subtle carnivores’. This passage was translated by Rudolph Winckler]
‘defilement procedure relating to the massive challenge represented by subtle carnivores, their teeth like icicles in the darkest cavern, the darkest night illuminated by a curiously happy moon, betrayed once again by the tepid tribes, thrown into the sky like an uncomfortable pinecone, landing on the ground and bouncing, here, there, here and back again, the full-back struggling to deal with the rugby ball, the clouds gathering like pensioners at the post office, the brightly coloured blow up ball he bought for his baby daughter and the large round paddling pool where the sore feet of the underclass are bathed whilst they wait for a flask of warm runny honey, all of this seen, basically, undisputedly, arguably, I’ll-knock-your-damn-head-off-if-you-don’t believe-me-now, please, I entreat you, come on, yes, after all, like I said, before, again and once more, I thank you, after all that we said, after all that we did together, standing on the edge of the earth, the ocean liner twinkling in the distance, smoking like a large white marshmallow, drifting like an inflatable polar bear, standing there in the almost-dark, my heart beating like an egg-whisk, my toes as cold as a five-star freezer, my ears as hot as a furnace, funny how that happened, the temperature rising and falling, like watching the high-jump at the world championship athletics, another athlete runs and jumps and falls and waits and runs and jumps and bounces maybe, bounces on the bright blue mat, a bouncy castle for the true professionals, no messing around, you can keep your shoes on here, but keep no scissors in your pockets please, the competition warrants a surfeit of waiting around, time in which you might cut and paste a little, no scissors please, even in your pseudo-Matisse phase, remembering the old man sitting on the wicker chair, smiling like a toddler in a chocolate factory, arranging blocks of brightly coloured gummy paper into mollusc inspired patterns, a circle of squares, remembering forthwith the staircase photograph, his father like a nesting heron standing at the foot of a spiral stairway, pointing a camera, or a gun, you thought it was a gun, you were so young, a camera pointing to the ceiling, gathering in-between the various spirals, faces breaking through the pattern, a collection of schoolchildren, features beaming like desk lamps, creased like the abandoned towel on the edge of the swimming pool, who did that belong to? it was still a little damp, but it stank like hell itself, it had been left there since the Triassic, the Jurassic, the-whatever-the-hell-came-before-that, the age of the round shell-like creatures who left their stylish signatures under heavy boulders at the bottom of canyons, who shared a joke or two about the death of the dinosaurs, unbeknownst to us, they found it funny, after all, the dinosaurs were kinda big weren’t they? yet some of the big ones had skinny arms, like your uncle, so you don’t remember him, he was almost seven foot, legs like telegraph poles, arms as thin as a shower rail, depending on the size of your shower rail, an inconsistent metaphor, thin as a twig, inconsistent also, most of them are, this is not a universe in which consistency could be said to triumph, nor did the dinosaurs, they were obliterated, nor did your uncle, unrelenting to the demands of the pistol-holding militia, tramps in policemen’s uniforms, swagger with technique, with the sway of the habitual palm on the vaguely windy beach, you can’t see it in the photograph, every palm sways like an inebriate penguin, distilling alcohol from the artic ice, it isn’t impossible, polar bears on a constant high, polar bears return, they haunt prose slyly, tempers like drunken football fans, a club of matted fur, intimate lozenge of blood clot fever, quickening, cheeks burnt red with cold and shock, I-didn’t-see-it-coming, I-was-too-busy-talking, no surprises pulled from the wreckage of his pitiable existence, drawling boneless nonsense, filtered with grace, the eternal fracas curdled with the desire of a charming demagogue, she didn’t ask for lemonade, she only wanted a minute, facing landward with the laird, he owns a mighty Scottish hill, I tumble like a reckless ball, it left the teenage party kicked, the modest foot of man retracted, god bless the interlocutory fantasies, they get me by, I say, they do, they get me by, like silver ice, the tin-foil fantasy, with gummy paper pasted on a pastel purple sheet, with tens and twenties counted out in little wooden squares, on one of which I wrote my name, a very tiny name, I wrote it small, so small you couldn’t see, but I was there, somewhere in the ethereal smudge, identity encompassed in a inky scratch, now many fingers pressed it down, pushed the blue ink into the wood, many fingers passed me over, pushed me downwards, hopefully I dream of this, that I was present still but hiding, a holdfast on humanity, particles resounding to the beat of distant drums, hominy grits in homeless leagues, a vision of the future in the last kaleidoscope, final reopening of the empty building for a conference of intimate strangers, a chorus of cliché-ridden carousels, clipped and faintly Southern don’t you think? no? well? of course I saw her yesterday, I spoke to her four hours on the phone, we breathed a lot, the accent wasn’t visible, it sparkled with forensic light, mumbling curiously like the bear that woke a day too soon, we saw him negotiate his way through a city of rocks leading down to a salmon-littered river flowing backwards, swimming forwards, complications in motion and memory, ideas filtered through frosty water, sediments refined, the absolution of the fish is born into a configuration that only foresters can sense, bug-eyes retracting, many windows in the oracle, chopping down the redwood for a loveseat in the glades, we’ll sit there sipping pond water and sucking soup up through a straw, we’ll sit for an hour or so with our binoculars, yours are bigger than mine, I didn’t buy them, my brother stole them from a dead person, they ought not to work, fate is a creature with five legs and a funny kinda smile, I met him at the hospital, he was wearing slacks and carried a luminous yellow dustbin, pick a card any card, but they were not cards, I was drawing the numbers for a sports tournament, I was pitting one wrestler against another, the smell of misrule enflamed my scrawny heart, pear drops, turpentine and aniseed, loose change, glass floors, hopeful bachelors sipping cream soda, No, I-haven’t-a-clue-what-that-is-but-I-wouldn’t-spill-it-down-your-front, laundry bill at fifty grand, what the hell were you washing? your elephant suit, only in Russian circuses, arrested forthwith for racism, but elephants aren’t citizens, baffled by their cynicism, stuttering speech inspire by movies, can’t speak for myself, drown my finger in a glass but it still lives just a little wrinkled like a raison, blessings refined by casks, paper crushed under planks, despots burning DIY manuals, where the small things go, swallowed by a fly I was, yesterday, yes, maybe, but she hadn’t died, not even after the last elephant hopped like a mayfly upon the statue of her lung, in the main square, moved to the second square, now a hero, onto the pier and two days later she’s sinking in the sea, to be found one day by a small man with a large moustache and a calculator in his top pocket next to the dandelion he was going to give his wife, his girlfriend, the first woman who speaks to him at the bus stop, anyone really, so long as they don’t have hair hiding under their chin, within the caves of their illustrious nostrils, emerging into the early morning light, blinding white, scratch those tired eyes, squeeze your noble Roman nose in between your two ignoble thumbs, through the book he flips and finds an idle rhyme, it didn’t take a minute just a hour, the silent effort, words collected with abandon, thoughts flutter continuously, incidentally were you ever paid? I got given a chicken liver, do what you want with it, sell it on the open market, the closed market, the jar in the door, the door in the jar, the ship in the sea, don’t know how he got it there, sometimes he doesn’t, the big ship sank not a mile from a coast where the fat king watched with pride, he sucked up beetles from a leaf, saliva on chlorophyll, alkaline earwax, acidic cheese smile waiting in the parlour, fantastic stroke of luck you bumping into me at a time like this, at a time like what, at a time like this is, what time he said, this time is anytime, I never saw a time that wasn’t a time except one day when I dropped my watch in the mud, it fizzed and then began again, like the clockwork mouse your mother bought for your cousin, doesn’t run on the carpet, try it on the kitchen floor, we cook in a multi-storey car-park, concrete logic thrown wildly at expensive cars of fancy, couldn’t throw a brick at a bear without hitting a bird, aim for the sun and you might hit your son, many lectures suffered he said, many thousands of honeyed words dropping through the letterbox lightly, frightened children eating sugar spectacles, firing cannons of thought at your tiny heads, glasses shining in the window, glasses full of water flavoured with a leopards tears, abrupt motionless collapse when seen from above, runes and wolves perhaps with love, she signed, with love, what did that signify asked the woman with the high cheeks, they touched the ceiling, high peaks, meaning what exactly, I don’t know, I only came here for the free wine, I didn’t take away a bunch of grapes, just a single fruit, I crushed in against my palate and painted a fine picture, so fine that no one could ever see it, but it was good, it was brilliant, it won the prize in another dimension, endless possibilities, aliens with good odds, an interstellar cheque bounced, my sense is in the post, give me another chance please, please, please, I didn’t mean to insult your intelligence, you’re merely mentally challenged, you shouldn’t balance theories on top of jokes or throw egg yokes at philosophers, they don’t always wear tweed jackets, some of them are just idiots, which is a pelican and which is a malformed swan having a laugh, I asked, you asked, I forget which of us is more pathetic, twisting restlessly in the middle of the night, my foot curled around the back of my ear, cute like a bug in a parcel, dead, eaten, painted, in a box with a clear plastic window, turn a handle watch it fly, not in my face thank god, well you’re so good baby since you’ve been dead you’ve been so good to me, take it back, file the forms, munch the food on the bus, concentrate for once in your life, okay, so long as it isn’t a Thursday, despise the greyness of this town, it wears off on your fingernails, it shines dull in the sink, the glint of the polished apple, he must have cut his hair off as a political stunt, as a drunken dare, as a foolish mistake, as a way to while away a Sunday evening, sitting on the sofa with a mug of hot chocolate flavoured water, eat your newspapers like sugar paper, words crackle and pop in a bowl of brains, sweet lambs wool, meat from the butchers, blood from the dry cleaners, frozen and dried and kept in a thin glass bottle, present it to your friends, present in to your in-laws on the eve of your brother’s wedding to a Latvian politician’s daughters best friend, she wears her hair all the way to your knees, but you’re six foot and she’s a dwarf, put it into perspective, put it into a rucksack, tie up the top with green twine, fashion your clothes according to the principles of photosynthesis, yes I forgot my dictionary, no I don’t much mind if I get it wrong, fashion your dreams according to the principles of lovelessness, it turns with the spirit of a five legged seahorse, man having babies, vomiting desire, where did you put the car keys? is it really raining or is someone pissing from a cloud? is it really midnight or am I wearing sunglasses? can’t believe the compromises you make, you left a golden handshake on a park bench to pick up a silver spoon from the gutter, you found an aluminium star instead, a theatrical prop, a pink wig that used to belong to the prime minister’s wife, why didn’t you realise that they were watching on the video screens? I can’t take you anywhere, she said a lot of things, she liked the sound of her own voice but only recorded through an old tape machine with the high speed function on, she spent her whole honeymoon sucking in helium through a straw, a hot air balloon hurtles across the painting, it’s alive with possibilities, with woodworms, with molecules who answer to the name of Martin, I knew you wouldn’t let that one past, goodness knows I counted them up right, and it is an ostrich egg by the way, it’s just a long long way away, in the other system, the monetary system, the solar system, the systematic destruction of hope among youngsters, spoon-feeding pelicans with the concept of celebrity, you can store lottery prize money in your damn massive beaks, you can claw the eyes out of the official royal portrait, the eagles thought it was elementary, they didn’t like the artist’s beard or his way with words, with worms, with worldly pleasure in the hotel room on the eighteenth floor, I didn’t hear you either, she lost his watch, it fell out of the window shortly after the baby, the bath water poured down the starched shirts of the bourgeoisie, the lemon juice spilt all over the Netherlandish tapestries recreated by the women of Winchester, one by one, a carthorse and a thousand volunteers clutching lollipops and cheap reproductions of Van Eyck’s supposed self-portrait, keep going, never give up, always use every one of your five fingers when wrestling with a Capuchin monkey, if you persist with nonsense god knows you’ll say something profound one of these days, a cup of tea, what was that? a cup of tea inspired milk influenced carrot juice flavoured with cayenne pepper, the way you jumped over that dead body was really quite marvellous, close your eyes there’s a happy man ahead of you, a smile as wide as a fat man’s stomach, a beach ball blown up and daubed with wet white paint, I can’t read it it’s in Spanish but I bet it’s rude, maybe it says I love you, it could be a message from aliens, who cares let’s go get an ice-cream, the perverse delight in missing life-changing opportunities, the village idiot bites the liquorice bullet, the bull sticks his tongue into the miniature cannon bought at the town hall sale, he chased after a squirrel down the cobbled street with his chain banging against his armoured chest, a bell rang out in the abattoir, just to tell you that we’re closed for business, get your parking ticket stamped elsewhere, the dream is over, the sunset fades to black, the suit trousers speckled with pigeon shit, a beautiful egg of unspeakable colour lying by the unruly hedge, quiet dusty brown, eternal sky, a treasure hunt in the moss green graveyard, everybody is called ‘smith’ except the one in the corner, the top of the cross is near falling off, hide and seek, I found you, hard to move when you’re dead, exempt from fire drills, that’s-a-relief-I’d-say-gosh-that-is-so-much-of-a-relief, swing from the banisters like a young bear crossed with a charming monkey from a dutch painting, passion on a chain, carry a ball around with me and I call it family, a magical rucksack, heavy one minute light the next, what would I do without it? I’d buy an empty shop on the back street of the big city and sell stolen watches and newspapers from days gone by but with the date changed for what the hell nobody will know the difference, someone was shot with cannon in an office on the fourth floor the day after the cup final, what was that? what was the score? in every respect, it was the murderer that won, he left the building with a beating heart, but the other guy had fun in the underworld playing with skeletons, almost as much fun as a rubber band, trumpets made out of artists erasers, the libido of the trombone player, part-time composer, father of every child in year six of the local choir school, so-what-if-it’s-a-small-school, a fact is a fact is a fact, perspective seen from a certain angle vanishing like a lady, in crinoline, in silken pyjamas, with a small dog yapping, hiding in the cupboard again, can’t contain him when he’s hungry, oh so gloriously innocent! with an enamelled mug of hot chocolate, the mayors face modelled, his nose is the handle, his wife used to pick him up and put him back down, not at all stylised, we do things properly here, you won’t be accepted unless any part of your body forms the shape of a handle, you won’t be rejected unless we’re confident that we have the right amount of friends and acquaintances with a beauty rating of five and a half or more, preferably more, hopefully more, desirably more, but you can’t pick and choose if your own head is shaped like a greek vase, though without the price tag, the prize tap, the prose tips over toward the absurd for a minute, for a minimal amount of time, of teams, of tomes, of pterodactyls flinging cheese at Holstein-Freisian cows from their high vantage point, cheating across the ages, fleeting stages of existence curdling like cream into a mushy pea mess of historical significance, geological understanding, concrete blocks of nonsense, polystyrene logic forged from a Scottish stone, or scone, hard to tell when its five degrees below zero, everything painted grey, say-how-do-you-like-your-muffins-done? with five percent chance of cancer emanating from the burnt crust if you don’t mind, put a figure on it, number on your shirt, how many years until the possibility that I fall down a staircase has fallen to one in twenty four, bound to happen one day, before I’m eighty-five, beyond that you’ll be living on the ground floor, with the chickens, under the screen, screams, ice-cream dreams streaming down green shutters in Chinese films, leaving you again, not quite up to my hazy expectations, floating weeds, sticks and stones, bones breaking under bamboo, swords shaking in the hands of lovers flooded with grief, wait for a second or two, or three, stop, no you’re too late baby, the freight train left four hours ago, it chuffed away in a trail of prime-ministerial smoke, cigars at dawn, wide eyed and glorious, fresh triad walking, removed from office and thrown onto the street followed by a paper ball, kicked around, twenty years or so, you never owned a house with a Corinthian pillared porch, or with a gnome in the garden, grown into arson, setting fire to people’s heads as they stand in shopping queues, slipped a packet of butter into your pocket and walked out onto the boulevard feeling like a million dollars, you had it coming to you, no-I-don’t-know-it’s-just-a-feeling, seeing is not believing when you’re wearing joke shop spectacles, Mr Squirrel preaches simple impeachable truths, eats vegetable soups, keeps a hundred suits in his ramshackle wooden hut in the woods, the pattern of oaks, she only made the comment a minute before he was due to leave, cancelling plans in our pretty little head as you walked away, but you didn’t really do anything did you? goodness no, the snow came down and the memory made you shiver like a washing machine in a junk yard, spark plug recollections, artic aloofness resounding with tubular research…’
Further Reading:
[...] Excerpt from subtle carnivores [...]
[...] Excerpt from subtle carnivores [...]