Yuri Patenko stood dumbly by in the middle of his largest wooden shed, watching in horrified fascination as strangers, military personnel, the official had said, in Bio-hazard suits; poured gasoline onto his chickens and into their pens. He could taste its oily bitterness as he swallowed, too shocked to spit.

The noise was deafening, his birds were crying out, running into each other and squawking in terror and pain. He had never seen them scream before, didn’t know they could, his captives were usually so placid.

The realisation that they had feelings hit him like a physical blow. Oh no, what have I done? But it was much too late for conscience, his hands made futile fists. There was nothing he could do in this madness. Someone was shouting at him, a far off voice of panic.

‘Come on you old fool, you have to get out of here!’ The voice took form and pulled him hard.

The order was given and the burning molatoff cocktails were thrown. There was an audible wumph as the air ignited. Flames engulfed the six buildings simultaneously, hot orange walls of leaping, dancing heat extinguished the voices of those trapped within. He imagined their simple little faces melting in agony.

An inferno of tongues licked and flared, its hot savage mouth swallowing his life whole, and belched out ash and fiery moults, sparkling and winking in evil mischief. He felt he was drowning now, in the gasoline fumes, in the intoxicating aroma of old pine and burning dung. His fingers bunched into fists and squeezed into his palms. I want to hit these strangers, I want to do them harm. The flames leapt higher, his anger got hotter and his dry rheumatic joints ground against each other causing him even more agony. Clenching his teeth he managed to keep the rage in his mouth and stomped off through the powdery snow to his house.

Time bleached wood crackled and buckled, collapsing behind him, imploding in great creaking shock waves. He heard the building fall and the shouts for everyone to move further back. The body fat and feathers had caught and pushed the heat and sparks higher into the cold starry sky, propelling the little souls into the waiting Northern Lights.

As he kicked off his boots he stared back at the great swathes of purple and green lights playing their pyrotechnic ballet overhead, adding to the unreality. A sickly aroma permeated everything, as the thousands of bodies roasted. He would never be able to enjoy the smell of cooking meat again. The door slammed in its ancient frame shaking the stained glass.

‘Experts have been assigned to the Novosibirsk and Tyumen regions and the Altai Territory to assist in conducting epidemic countermeasures’, the antique valve radio fizzed in the corner from the shadows. Yuri sat next to his
bedridden wife with his grimy balding head in his calloused hands, his rounded shoulders hunched and sore with tension, a broken man.

Camphor hung heavy in the air. He imagined moths dying instantly as they raced for the light.

His livelihood gone, her life slipping away with every tick of the grandfather clock.

Torched, everything he had worked at for thirty years incinerated in an hour. He saw a future where he would be alone and he crumpled into himself.

They said this couldn’t happen. But only more anger waited around that corner he realised. There was no point in recrimination. He surprised himself with such a philosophical outlook. What was done, was done. I have given up he realised, looking down to his veiny arms expecting to see his life ebbing away. He rubbed his unshaven face and wiped at rheumy eyes.

His wife’s cough rattled painfully in her shrunken chest. He leaned over until he felt her words were a slow hiss in his ear. Her dry parchment hand touched his arm.

‘Yuri, what is that terrible smell of burning?’

He didn’t know how to tell her the truth. What would be the point?

‘It’s only the foreman clearing up my dear, nothing to worry about. Please, try and get some rest’. He stroked her thinning hair and kissed her clammy, wrinkled, forehead holding his breath. The surgical smells barely covered the thick cloying stench of suppurating ulcers. Cancer was eating her alive.

Standing upright painfully on his swollen joints, Yuri gazed upon the wooden crucifix that his wife had hung upon their bedroom wall, all those years ago. A wedding gift from her devout widowed mother. Its chiselled, haunted face had looked down on their nakedness, spoiling his enjoyment with his wife ever since. The insinuation of guilt and implied agony casting a shadow over something so natural. He suspected the mother had done it deliberately.

Where is your God now? he wondered, thinking that maybe Stalin had got something right.

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