Hi, Maria!

The last train disappeared in the infinite sadness of the subway’s tunnels, its echo laughing for the several seconds more. The escalaters stopped and absolute silence came over the low lit space of Ploshad Revolutsii* station.
-“Hi, Maria”; - a sailor said, adressing a female parachutist, - “do you have a cigarette?”
-“Hi, there! I don’t”,- she replied.
-“What a dull answer! All the time it’s the same”.
-“What a dull question! I’ve been hearing it from you for ages”.
-“Come on, honey, I just want to cheer you up a little bit”.
-“You bore me more than ever. Could you find something new for your eternal flirtation?” – retorted the girl, yawning widely.
-“He is too stupid to invent something really joyful”, - a peasant man wearing sandals and holding a rifle in his hand interjected.
-“Shut up you rural dumbass!” – exclaimed the sailor.
-“You shut up, otherwise I’ll put a hole in your forehead”, - shouted the peasant, menacingly waving around his weapon.
-“Your rusty piece of iron will never shoot”, - laughed the sailor and spat on the peasant man, getting it into his eye.
The poor peasant began to scream, waking up all the statues in the station. A babel filled the space, dozens of flurried voices interrupted each other: the sounds of babies crying, dogs barking and roosters crowing among them. The bronze figures, which used to be silent during the day time, exploded with sound in the calm of the night.
-“Poor, poor people”, - sighed a peasant woman with a big fat chicken in her hands, -“they always pat the chicken, thinking that it will bring good luck to them. But I know this stupid bird brings only bad luck when they touch it”.
-“I just imagine how many unhappy human’s creatures live in outside world now”, – absolutely identical woman with the chicken responded her from the other side of the arch.
-“I’m sorry for them, because they are looking for something here that they will never get”, - said the first peasant woman.
-“It’s true. The only thing that they can find here in the underground kingdom is darkness. They see the sunlight almost every day. I have not seen it for many years”, - continued the second woman.
-“We saw it just once, when the war* started and we were evacuated to Central Asia”, - said a third completely identical woman joining their conversation.
-“That evacuation was terrible, many parts of our bodies didn’t survive and people had to restore us for months” -, said a forth identical woman from the nearest arch.
-“Yes, I remember, I lost my head at that trip”, - said the third one.
-“You always lose your head with a soldier or a sailor”, - hissed the second one venomously.
-“Spies! Spies! Spies are everywhere!” – shouted a frontier guard with a dog.
-“Where are the spies”, - the girl-sharpshooter exclaimed, aiming an air rifle in the empty space and looking for enemies.
-“Spies are everywhere, the german spies!” - continued the frontier guard.
-“Why are they german spies? What about the Americans?” - said a miner with jackhammer, - “or possibly Ukranian spies and terrorists”.
- “Ukranian terrorists? What kind of terrorist attack can they organize?” - a young engineer exclaimed questioningly.
-“They can paint everything in yellow and blue, the colours of their national flag”, - a male student joked.
-“It sounds creepy, yellow and blue have never looked good on me”, - a female student with a book said sadly.
-“Oh yeah! You prefer the colour red: red kerchief, red blouse, red skirt and red eyes after a party”, - a second female student giggled.
- “Of course, she likes parties! You like the parties - we all enjoy the parties”, - said a third student girl joining the conversation.
-“Parties and boys!”- dreamily added a fourth one.
All of them affectionately looked at the four student boys on the opposite archs. The boys responded to them with mutual passion, smiling broadly.
- “So many years have passed but nothing has changed”, - muttered the frontier guard with a dog, speaking to another identical statue.
- “It’s true. People have not changed a lot during all this time.They come here and pat my dog’s muzzle, thousands of them touch my poor pet every day. Look at it’s muzzle! It’s polished so much that it shines in the dim light of the station”, - said a second frontier guard.
- “They think they believe in Jesus, but the truth is that they’re pagans, who believe in magic,”- a third one said.
-“Do you think God exists?” - a fourth frontier guard asked.
-“I don’t know. Maybe”, - the first one replied.
-“Crazy things happen. Yeah?” – a grain-grower exclaimed.
-“What kind of of crazy things?” – a second grain-grower asked.
-“The rain in december. People call it icy rain. It happens every winter now,” - the first one said.
-“Yes. Its because of global warming”, - a third farmer jointed added.
-“It’s bullshit, global warming doesn’t exist. I heard two academics talking and they said that it’s a kind of conspiracy theory to earn more money for transnational corporations”, - a fourth one reasoned.
-“Anyways it’s good for Russia. We will be able to grow more vegetables and grain”, - the third grain-grower said.
-“Sweet, sweet, sweet baby. Look at him! He is so, so, so adorable!”- a mother with child cooed.
-“Look at mine. He is very, very, very handsome, he is super, super, super smart”,- a second mother with an identical boy rapturously pattered.
-“Yes! His ass is also full of super, super, super shit”, - mocked her the third mother, -“Everyone knows that my baby is the best of the best”.
- “How do you distinguish between your children, they are all the same?” - a father with a boy interjected into their dispute, - “People usually pat our boys, because their are the best of the best”, - he said, representing the whole of four similar fathers.
-“People are stupid and kind of patriarchal, they like male statues more”, - complained the fourth mother.
- “Soviet women are such feminists! They find discrimination everywhere. It’s a very strange combination – feminism and sovietism!” – exclaimed the second father.
At that moment there was the clang of opening doors. Several minutes later the escalators started to move. All the statues became silent and motionless. The first passenger appeared in the hall of the station. She was a beautiful , tall and well-dressed young woman in a short skirt, that let her shapely knees be visible. The male statues turned their heads, voraciously observing her. The sailor was among them.
-“Hi, Maria!”
The woman stopped, trying to understand who had spoken to her. Then she turned around and saw the statue of the sailor, who stared at her, smiling foolishly.
-“Do you have a cigarette?”
She swayed and fainted.


1 - the square of revolution
2 - WW2