hey, awesome parking job. may as well put that odd tire up on the curb, vasya.

Beginning of a Short Story IV

Tanya’s still in bed when I come in. She’s in bed, smoking with a careless expression, watching MTV. The covers only come up to the middle of her thighs – she has white cotton panties on – with string in back, of course – and one of my white t-shirts on. Her hard little breasts poke against the thin fabric, and tremble a little when she exhales.

“Baby,” she says in English, “come lie between my legs.”

The room is heavy with smoke and dark and the music videos flicker through the air and on across the large windows behind her. She’s lying back on a mass of bright, oversized pillows she says she made one summer.

One of her legs slowly lifts out from under the covers and she looks at me.

“But get the vodka first,” she adds with a look almost like she’s pouting.

I run my thumb from the bottom of her foot up over the ankle to the inside of her prickly calf and along the smooth flesh on the inside of her thigh. She closes her eyes and puts a finger in my mouth.

Today I did something I never would have done at home. Today I walked straight into two American guys standing at the bottom of the escalator in the metro and glared at them. They stared back at me, dumbfounded. One might have said something as I was going up the stairs. But they didn’t do anything. They didn’t even look particularly hurt.

beginning of a short story III

The Island of Dust



The desperation shattered. Reay's body jolted as his eyes shot open. Sweat, cold and burning, seared his entire body. He was breathing heavily, too, with small, violent gasps in between. Slowing looking around, fists knotted before his face, Reay saw all of the familiar objects of his room- the canvas, the set of new oil paints on the card table, last night's dinner still in the dining room....

He had had the dream again, the one about the fire, the island of dust. He sat up in the stillness of the pre-dawn, gently letting his body adjust to reality, the actuality of his surroundings.
Every night, every night of his adult life his dreams were plagued by these nightmares. No escape.... He lay back down and shuddered, feeling his own mind flooding back into him. He took one last last deep breath. He was finally back in the world.

The woman lying in the bed next to him had not stirred. The smell of her expensive, delicate perfume wafting about the bed contrasted heavily to the sourness that Reay felt within his own body. His torso was propped up by his shaking arms. His legs, with the grey cotton sheets clinging to them, were grazing those of the girl. He looked at her and stroked the tender, pale arms that lay across her breast. He did not love her.

From the nightstand, he produced a small, polished pair of scissors. With these, he cut a single lock of golden hair from the girls's forehead and then placed it, along with the scissors, into the nightstand.

With one kiss against her angelic lips, he arose, draping on a soft cotton robe. Staring at this girl, he sighed heavily, taking in every single drop of her fragrance. There had been one time in his life where he would have been captured by such a beauty, completely drawn out from his wits and senses, compelled to conform to her every want and desire. But not now. Not with the life he had led.

The wooden floor of Reay's broad, relaxed apartment was freshly swept. Reay paused on the threshhold of the bathroom, his gaze and thoughts still lingering upon Julie. He watched through the sliver of doorway which was exposed to him as she rolled over in her sleep. A banner of moonlight, falling from a window in the bedroom, caught her hair and made it glow like a halo. An angel. An angel trapped in hell. He had met Julie about a month before during a presentation of his work in one of her father's art galleries. She had immediately caught his eye; tall, elegant, slender, and breathtakingly beautiful. That night, they spent a few hours in a corner coffee shop, talking. From there, their relationship blossomed. With her witty and classy intelligence, and his sharp, cynical humor, they made a perfect couple. Almost. Then, she began exposing herself to him, showing him a naive part of herself no one else had ever seen. It was then that he realized that Julie had thrown herself at him, showing all of her vulnerability and weaknesses. It was then that he realized that she had gotten caught up with the wrong man.

wrote it when I was 16 - oh, the drama to it, my friends! "he did not love her" and "angelic lips" indeed!

classic moscow fyeshn

oh moscow when yer good to me yer sooo good and when yer badand what better way to be dressed at work - what is that, a gap between the leather boots and leather pants at the knee revealing a little fishnet stocking action? you madwoman!



and killing it at rechnoi vokzal, no one can take their eyes off the pink, pyotr.

O All you were promised in leaving your Family and Heading North!

Migrant worker pauses to contemplate his expectations and confront his assumptions of life, Northern Moscow, April, 2006.

Beginning of a short story I

The lights from the cafe, behind the shimmering, humming glass, dazzled his eyes. It was 6 p.m. on a slushy Moscow Tuesday in March and Sveta was looking through the front door. She looked dizzy but he was happy because he had half a chicken wrapped in foil in his bag and his breath carried the sting of the strongest vodka he could buy that morning.

All around them was Moscow at rush hour, the light indirect, the sounds of the traffic mingling with the icicles dripping onto patches of ice and hurrying pedestrians sliding on the pavement and hitting puddles of gritty, cold sludge, sparkling with the lights of casinos and sushi restaurants.

And against all this movement stood Vladimir and his wife, Svetka, still looking into the cafe.

Svetka licked her lips. She had been drinking, too, and her old, pudgy face was screwed up into a peering little ball.

“We can eat in here,” she said without turning.

“Svetka, move,” he said as two hatless blondes in high heels clicked behind him, “move before someone opens the door and smashes your face in.”

“Aren’t you listening to me? I said, we can eat in here.” She reached up for the door handle. Vladimir made an uncomfortable gesture, smacking his lips, but Sveta anticipated his objections and repeated impatiently, “we can eat in here, Vovka.”

And with that she opened the door.

new Tretyakov wading through the ashes of the Empire

"we never did have money but we always had such an appreciation for beauty..."

I ran through the streets
of Moscow as it rained
and tried to point out landmarks
in the shifty East: plagued by dreams
of a candy Petersburg and
bulging swollen onion domes
- like marshmallows about to pop
I ran on, invisible companions noted
my lack of planning and I could
freeze; the rain carried on more faces
wet that I should recognize forced its
way through my healthy drinking
fleece to the skin; alone in a
large room yet waiting all around in
rain calls with lights that
switched on with a tug at the
strings and lights played on
pinball machines, bathroom doors
not meant for me so this
is loneliness caught in solid
sleep, the realization of space among these furies,
as it rains through Moscow and I feverishly
search and notice landmarks that
do not exist; the rooms I
have lived in play through
my brain and I remember
desk, bed arrangements exactly
playing cards at midnight or later,
anxiety, these will be my dreams -
especially if I continue to write

Oh Moscow, yer so confused - But that's why I love you so....

Moscow is crazy about sushi, though i can't go into it too much because that's the favorite topic of "I've lived in Moscow for two months and want to tell you how wacky it is" conversation by the desperate exapts who mostly sit around and complain about Russian service. Suffice it to say: it's everywhere. Here is my favorite sign to date.

The "cywu" is the ru-cyrillic for "sushi," and your guess is really as good as mine as to what it's doing by a map of Italy.

various statues contemplate the new moscow of the 21st century from the back lot of a famous museum

moscow, russian federation, eurasia, the 4th of march, 2006, afternoon