“The hospital,” Pig said. “In Noyabrsk. The Camp Clinic. You know who I am?”
“Yes, you’re the Pig, the camp boss. In Noyabrsk. The one who sells me my vodka and porn.”
“Shit! Now you’ve gone and done it,” Pig complained.
“Done what?”
“Gone and committed suicide. Again.” When Snow had been brought in from the cold, Pig had just wanted to let Snow die, maybe even get the Doctor to hurry it along a bit. The Doctor, however, worried by the high mortality rate in the clinic, had convinced Pig that Snow was unlikely to live anyway and even if he did, brain damage and amnesia would likely have made him forget everything he knew anyway.
“Again? I never tried to kill myself the first time.”
“Sure you did. You killed yourself when you started hanging out with the Skank, the fat slut. I tried to warn you about her, but you wouldn’t listen. And now you’ve gone and killed yourself. Twice.”
“Bullshit,” Snow said, looking around for the Doctor, Magda, anyone. The two of them, he and Pig, were completely alone. Magda had finally been called to the Special Prosecutor’s Office to come and bring them to the Oil Camp and advise on the upcoming arrests of Pig and his cabal. The Doctor, meanwhile was off doing whatever Pig told him to. Only Kolya was in his hospital bed, snoring lightly.
“Why are my fingers all black? Shit, my skin burns. Was there a fire?”
“No, but I did put one out. Congratulations, by the way.”
“Congratulations? For what?”
“You’re going home.”
“I’m not going home.”
“Yes, you are. Vy menya panimayete? Do you understand?”
“No,” said Snow. He wrinkled his brow trying to take it all in. There was a clock on his bedside table, but the time was all wrong.
“You’ve killed yourself by waking up and not being smart enough to be brain dead,” insisted Pig, slipping the pointy end of a syringe into the I.V. tube coming out of Snow’s arm. “Goodbye, Snowball. I wish I could say it had been a pleasure knowing you. It hasn’t. You were right all along.” Pig pushed the plunger on the end of the syringe. “You’re better off dead.”
Three hours later, officials from the Special Prosecutor’s Offices, accompanied by Magda, came to haul Pig, the Doctor, and their accomplices away. Although Magda wept at the timing, it was three hours Snow may not have wanted to change anyway. He had, after all, been promised he was going home.
SOMEWHEN
A tent up on top of a ridge in the Castle range. Wind howling through the spruce trees, scattering needles and cones down the side of the tent in a quick zipping sound. The smell of wood smoke from a dying campfire, the embers still being fanned orange by the breeze. Two horses tethered to a nearby tree, feed and bedding spread out nearby for them to relax with. Inside the tent, two forms entwined in a double sleeping bag. One of them stirs. Gets up. Takes care not to disturb his partner and slowly zips open the tent flap. Exits stark naked into the starry night. Scatters a few night animals, such as marmot and squirrels. Gently steps over a bouquet of mushrooms and past the dying fire to a spot decently far away to send a jet of steaming, yellow urine splashing around the seedlings growing under the crowns of the blue spruce. Finished, he stopped to enjoy the scent of the forest and lights dancing in the sky. Satisfied, he walks back to the tent, checking on the way by the campfires to make sure no sparks could be flying out and that the whinnying horses are alright. For a second, in the shadows, the light plays a trick on him and he thinks they look like elephants. Reverses the order he went out of the tent and ends up back in the double sleeping bag spooned up against his still-sleeping partner – surprisingly chubby, hair long and unkept, out of superstition -- thinking he’d never been so happy ever, hoping it would last forever, a place where he belonged. Funny thing was, he never remembered her smelling like borscht before. It begins.
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