Well, I'm tired of losing

[Maraoone]

((Valentin Shulgin continues from Faire et Refaire))

Valentin brushed the snow off his compass, checked his direction. The red end of the needle pointed directly upwards, as it had for some time prior. Good, he was on the right track.

There was a danger zone just north of the listening station: the shoreline. Valentin's collar had not made any noise in the day he'd spent in the hot springs, but a cellphone would not emit any noise on its own if it were smashed onto the ground. That is to say, the possibility of his collar being disabled could not be ruled out. And, the only way to find out would be to walk to a danger zone and see if it would make a noise or not.

Failure was likely. He'd told himself that this was a stupid idea from the very moment he thought of it, and yet he committed because at least, if he was testing it, he was trying something. Negative results, though scientific journals were loathe to publish them, were still significant results.

And yet, all he could think of, as his boots trod through the powdery snow, was the picture of him at the coast of the island, in the middle of what should have been a forbidden zone. All he could think of was the possibility of triumph, for once.






Pavel Pestel, a military commander in the time of the Romanovs, the eighteenth century, had clamored for the end of serfdom in his country, the downfall of the dynasty and the establishment of a republic. He was discovered to be part of a secret society, and was arrested. The day after he was arrested, said secret society launched a revolt against the imperial Russian government that would be put down within the same day. Pavel would be executed for his disloyalty the following summer.

The Romanovs would be deposed nearly a century later in the February Revolution of 1917. The republican government Pavel had yearned for would be established in September. A second, communist-led revolution would take place in October, and would proceed to disestablish said republican government by January the next year, paving the path for the rise of the Soviet Union in 1922.

Valery Sablin, a naval captain of the Soviet Union, took control of the Storozhevoy, an anti-submarine frigate, and steered it towards Leningrad, hoping the radio waves would carry his words against the corruption of the Soviet government, hoping to, in some way, bring back the democratic ideals the October Revolution was founded on. He was promptly shot in the knee by one of his crew, captured by commando officers who had stormed the ship, convicted of treason, and executed.

In the 1950s, Valentin's grandfather Mstislav was deported from his native Ukraine, sent to a gulag in his youth for speaking out against the authoritarianism of the Soviet government. After his release, he continued to speak out, albeit in more discreet ways: writing down self-published zines, samizdat they called them, by hand, and leaving them in nooks and crannies. Quiet conversations with trusted co-workers, friends, grandsons. And so on. Whatever resistance he could put up, no matter how small, he did.

The Soviet Union his grandfather had agitated against for so long fell in 1991, one republic after the other, only to be replaced by a system of crony capitalism.

Valentin himself, in the eighth grade, had tried to fight his country's new 'gay propaganda law' by word, talking back in the classroom, talking to his fellow classmates, agitating wherever he could, because if his teachers would not speak for the queer community of his country, then he would at least. His father caught word that the FSB, the current government's version of the KGB, was monitoring their family, and so the Shulgins promptly gave up everything to move to a country thousands of miles away.

All his heroes had done was lose.

When his teacher had discussed the stories of Pavel and Valery, there had been a sort of second-hand adrenaline that coursed through Valentin's veins. He imagined the sheer conviction and determination it must have taken both of them to stand up, knowing the odds were not in their favor. He imagined this, and he wished that he could be so brave, so he willed it, and he got to become them, up to the weight of the world crashing on him, just as it had on his grandfather, just as it had on Pavel and Valery.

Was his grandfather not tired?

According to a poll conducted a month ago by the Levada Center, an independent polling organization, 63% of all Russians approved of the current government. 63% of all Russians had lived through sham election after sham election, had borne witness to the illegal invasion of multiple surrounding countries, had seen the Duma devolve into a rubber-stamp parliament, and decided that they approved of all of that. The fight that his grandfather considered himself a part of, the fight that Valentin tried to take part in from abroad, the fight for a liberal democratic government that truly respected the people, was a fight against the very tide of the waters. Was his grandfather not tired?

Valentin was tired.

His footsteps slowed, as the beach came into view. He imagined himself on that snowy beach, free from his collar, free from the proverbial gun to the head the terrorists held, but the beach was so, so far away. Only just on the horizon.

Just a few steps away.

Just a few steps away.

Ju—
beep
Valentin jumped, staggered backwards a couple steps. He fell on his backside.

He felt his collar, the metal that constricted itself around his neck.

Still operational.

For a moment, Valentin briefly contemplated breaking into a sprint, letting the danger zone engulf him.






So, once, Valentin had asked Grandfather Mstislav why he kept fighting. He asked over Telegram, as his grandfather considered it to be one of the more secure messaging apps available. Meetings in a coffee-scented, dimly lamp-lit study room, reduced to splotchy pixels transmitted over thousands of miles. Valentin asked, and his grandfather had replied that to give up would be the ultimate failure. To give up would be a victory of the repressor over the soul, and so he simply didn't. No matter what.

If Valentin couldn't make it off of this island, there were still other victories he could capture, small as they may be. More discoveries to be made across the island, in service of potentially disabling the collars, sending a signal out, however dim those hopes were growing. More moments to be spent with Alexander, other friends. More moments spent not succumbing to the paranoia the terrorists wished to induce in them.

The path was looking more and more futile, but there was no other path for Valentin. Never had been.

Valentin turned around, and began making his way back to the listening station.

((Valentin Shulgin continues in et Refaire et Refaire et Refaire))