In late February 2022, the Russian artist Daria Serenko co-founded the Feminist Anti-Struggle Resistance, an underground community of Russians protesting the invasion of Ukraine, publicizing Russian struggle crimes in opposition to Ukrainians, and serving to Russian males evade conscription. In March, Serenko was pressured to flee Russia for Georgia, the place she wrote this prose poem.
Yesterday a lady started giving beginning instantly on the Crimson Sq. with an assault rifle pressed to her temple. The guardians of legislation and order didn’t know what to do. Was it an act of unauthorized beginning or an act of unauthorized protest? Parturition or efficiency?
Take a look at this lady with an unwelcome face whose waters broke on the Crimson Sq.. Right here this lady is already screaming and writhing the best way individuals had been screaming and writhing on the final demonstrations; the lady is screaming the best way individuals being tortured scream on the opposite facet of the closed door on the police station. It’s nothing new for the cops. The girl is screaming and blood seems on the burst corners of her dry mouth. The opening of her mouth measures seven centimeters.
Time stands nonetheless and there’s nobody on the sq. aside from the cops, the lady, and the daughter she is giving beginning to, who’s verbally camouflaged as a son. She advised the police she was having a son in order that they might act nicer to her. One of many cops, the nice cop apparently, says: “You don’t fear, girl, you’re giving beginning to a hero for us. Take a look at the time and place he picked to be born: within the very coronary heart of Russia, on the very top of the struggle.” He’s talking actually slowly for some motive, and the lady can also be screaming slower and slower, and the ambulance isn’t coming. Each hour the clock strikes upon the Kremlin tower. Snowflakes soften even earlier than touching the recent face of the lady in labor.
Step by step the cops settle down and even level their weapons apart. They make repeated makes an attempt to stroll away from the scene to be able to name for assist however after a minute the highway carries them again to the place they began. The Crimson Sq. is the place the Earth is at its roundest. Two policemen and a younger lady discover themselves fully alone on this spherical Earth within the very coronary heart of Russia on the very top of the struggle.
“So we’ll be taking the supply, proper?” certainly one of them asks into the air, giving the lady in labor a plaintive look, and extends his hand out towards her as if for a handshake. The girl in labor screams at him with all her power, swearing foully and loudly, after which bites by means of his hand with a protracted howl. With the identical hand he slaps her throughout the face.
“You settled down now? You retain your self collectively, girl. I don’t care should you’re a lady or not. If I’ve to, I’ll pull the child out of you, after which stick you within the monkey home with the remainder; you’ll be mendacity there whimpering on a grimy mattress.” The girl closes her eyes and nods. One cop props up her again; the opposite begins fidgeting between her legs.
An countless period of time passes and, because the hour is hanging upon the stately tower, they put the child, wrapped in a police jacket and steaming within the nippy air, into her arms. The cops congratulate each other. There are tears of their eyes. They kiss one another on the cheeks, not even noticing they extracted a daughter somewhat than a son.
The girl with the lady in her arms is trying up on the clear, starry Kremlin sky. A reminiscence steals into her thoughts that right here, proper subsequent to her, an unburied lifeless man is mendacity in his Mausoleum. A rancid haze typically obscures her view: New crematoriums have sprung up throughout the nation, and the smoke from their smokestacks typically casts a heavy smog over town. The lifeless remind the townspeople of themselves by taking their breath away and forcing them to cough.
Time lastly involves life. Vacationers and spectators begin gaping round them. The lads in uniform raise the mom and the daughter of their arms and carry them away. The girl is requested to attend for the medical doctors on the police station. She and the child are rigorously positioned right into a cage the place different girls are sitting, their heads bowed on each other’s shoulders. They present indicators of getting been there for a lot of hours: Moist stains are spreading on their shirts and blouses. It’s milk. She decides to not ask them but what they’re there for. It’s quiet within the cell, besides behind the iron lattice door, she will hear the entire bureau of cops joyfully gathering to scrub down the beginning of her son.
