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In late February 2022, the Russian artist Daria Serenko co-founded the Feminist Anti-Warfare Resistance, an underground community of Russians protesting the invasion of Ukraine, publicizing Russian warfare crimes towards 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 girl started giving beginning immediately on the Purple Sq. with an assault rifle pressed to her temple. The guardians of regulation and order didn’t know what to do. Was it an act of unauthorized beginning or an act of unauthorized protest? Parturition or efficiency?
Have a look at this girl with an unwelcome face whose waters broke on the Purple Sq.. Right here this girl is already screaming and writhing the way in which folks had been screaming and writhing on the final demonstrations; the girl is screaming the way in which folks being tortured scream on the opposite aspect 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. other than the cops, the girl, 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’d 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. Have a look at the time and place he picked to be born: within the very coronary heart of Russia, on the very peak of the warfare.” He’s talking actually slowly for some cause, and the girl 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 girl in labor.
Regularly the cops relax and even level their weapons apart. They make repeated makes an attempt to stroll away from the scene with a view to name for assist however after a minute the street carries them again to the place they began. The Purple Sq. is the place the Earth is at its roundest. Two policemen and a younger girl discover themselves fully alone on this spherical Earth within the very coronary heart of Russia on the very peak of the warfare.
“So we’ll be taking the supply, proper?” one in all them asks into the air, giving the girl 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 pressure, swearing foully and loudly, after which bites by way of his hand with an extended 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 if you happen to’re a girl or not. If I’ve to, I’ll pull the newborn out of you, after which stick you within the monkey home with the remaining; 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 putting upon the stately tower, they put the newborn, 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 reasonably than a son.
The girl with the lady in her arms is wanting 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 generally obscures her view: New crematoriums have sprung up throughout the nation, and the smoke from their smokestacks generally casts a heavy smog over the 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 boys in uniform carry the mom and the daughter of their arms and carry them away. The girl is requested to attend for the docs on the police station. She and the newborn are rigorously positioned right into a cage the place different ladies 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 law enforcement officials joyfully gathering to scrub down the beginning of her son.
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