“Well,” said Gregory. “Why I even keep on disturbing you? We have our life and should stop running after the dead God.”
And silence.
“A toast to the memory of the Teacher,” murmured Gregory.
Arshak raised the bottle of beer.
“Cheers…”
Gregory fell into thoughts. Arshak noticed that though he also tried to awaken memories, he felt some sort of emptiness. He was just listening to the sound of the even course of the train.
“Listen!” suddenly Gregory got excited. “Were you hoping to be among the selected three?”
“I have not thought about it,” Arshak lied.
“But I have. To tell the truth, once he himself mentioned to me that I will definitely be among the three. But now, as we will be going with someone else, I don’t feel like going.”
Silence.
“Would you like to go instead of me?”
Arshak got confused for a moment, then forced himself to smile.
“Thank you. There is no need. I have other plans.”
Gregory emptied his bottle of beer and abruptly changed the subject.
He talked about his twin brother for very long. Even their mother could hardly distinguish them. He complained about the economic and moral condition of the country. He told that his brother had flung himself into politics. He would definitely get into trouble one day. Then Gregory recalled his childhood; how two brothers together with friends beat up the boys in Arshak’s district. They had beaten everyone up, but Areg, as the latter, even though it was rather strange, was his brother’s close friend.
“I still can’t understand what he had found in that wordless stupid boy. He was monstrous, like a wild beast. If it was left up to me, we would tear him up first.”
Arshak was not listening.
“A town holding its breath from ceasefire. The mountains folded their hands on their chest followed from all four sides. The forests engrossed the slopes the way the sloppy beard darkened the face of Fedayi.
The wind, rolling down from the mountains, falls into the belly of the town. It curls up on the spot like a frightened snake. It fills the streets with the sniff of already extinct bullets. A town huddled from ceasefire. The morning yawns. The sour light of the sun glides through the brownish buildings and through the flat walls. Tattered tuff. Sweat frozen in the air.
A town furious from the ceasefire.”