Place by Pavel Paramonov
You need a place, its name, its smell, its sense of life, its coordinates. I won't say that I'm absolutely confident regarding my knowledge of this place, but I can convey the total sum of the knowledge that I possess to you. I don't know whether this knowledge will help you in any way, and, if it does, how it will help you, but let's get down to business anyway.
It's the beginning of calendar spring, and the entire stretch of sky is covered with a smooth veil of leaden fog. A wet layer of transparent air allows me to see the horizon where the fog stains the earth with some of that lead. Who knows? It's possibly not even fog at all, but instead a dome overhead that cuts this zone off from the rest of the world, creating an entirely new world. Relying upon my reason, I understand (and you are a witness to this understanding) that there's a world outside this dome and that it's real. I've journeyed there on multiple occasions. Yes, the same people are there. The same homes, cars, and roads are there, too. But when I find myself back under that dome, I start to question which world is more real!
Then I ask myself the question “If you doubt the reality of either of these worlds, then do both of them really exist, or is either-or both-imaginary?” There's the external world that appears and speaks to me from television, radio, and the internet, and all this noise intersects with my ordinary life. And then there's the world that lives on in my memory; I've made excursions into it; I've been able to touch it and smell it. There are occasional moments, when I awaken and fall asleep, when the dome doesn't hang over this world. Even if I don't necessarily pay attention to them, the sun, the moon, and the stars are always visible above it. They rise at different points on the horizon, and the “oceans” on the moon change. Yet I might glance at these phenomena so rarely that I fail to notice them, to the extent that I'm not sure that the sun and moon above this place are even real.
How does it smell? I won't tell you about that now. You have to come here and remember that first whiff. I've lost that memory, and, for me, the smell of this place is gone. There are only the trespassers who burst onto and overwhelm that smell from the highway leading from the Volga to the south. Their smells are probably similar to all the other usual smells, and a list of them won't reveal anything to you. Anyway, a smell alone doesn't determine the essence of a place. Instead, let's talk about that highway. It lies right in front of my window, going from Nizhny Novgorod all the way to where there ought to be more sun. Nizhny Novgorod itself belongs to this place, but it's likely not the main part.
Cars passing through this place probably don't have the time to gain a sense of it, so, to their drivers and passengers, it's just like a million other places all over Russia. Only during rush-hour traffic jams do some seemingly sensitive individuals, trapped in their cars, start to show some semblance of concern. I see this from my window. They themselves likely attribute this concern to trivial matters: traffic congestion, a poor night's sleep, a quarrel with a loved one. But they don't link their state of mind to a particular place in which they, for reasons beyond their control, are forced to stay for longer than expected. And a “normal” person cannot explain this concern otherwise; if he or she did, then this explanation could very well lead to other questions that could send him or her on a hunt for a psychiatrist.
Look, we've now discovered that this place is connected to the rest of the world by all means of communication. It's not even an island in the strictest sense of the term. You may tell me that it's stupid to separate it in some way from everywhere else and that this is merely a delusional fantasy...and I'd have to agree with you! Of course, you can't think so, much less talk about it! Otherwise, you'll end up dropping out of a society that uses simple, monosyllabic definitions of objects and phenomena to defend itself against that which is incomprehensible. You're correct. You're absolutely correct. But perhaps you aren't aware of a few facts that I hope will benefit my side.
To permit contact with submarines scattered throughout the globe, communication antennas have been installed. Here's a place that's ideal for them. In fact, I assure you that there aren't a lot of places like this on the earth, meaning that this is a spot that not only collects waves of vibrations from all over the world, but also sends them back to all corners of the planet. Perhaps if you stand here, in this place, you can hear the prayers of people from all over the world, and maybe they can hear yours. Perhaps. Maybe.
It could be that, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which we in Russia call the Caribbean Crisis, when ordinary individuals went out into the streets and prayed for peace, those prayers were heard not only by God, but also by people in the USA, in Canada, and elsewhere, all praying for peace. And it could be that the power of this collective prayer was what stopped an apocalypse from happening. My point, however, is not to ask whether this was the case, as this is is what I already believe, so this will be the terminus of my train of thought.
Pavel Paramonov lives in the Nizhny Novgorod region of Russia, where he works as an occupational safety specialist. In his spare time, he enjoys writing, reading, watching historical documentaries and cooking. A former Soviet/Russian railway soldier, boxer, and agricultural technology student, Pavel takes advantage of opportunities to learn more about the world around him, and his writings may be found on Proza.ru.