Read A Hunting Trip to Daghestan and other stories Page 5

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  "What an eerie feeling to be outside! Even with the many layers of protective clothing, even with the thick dusk mask, the goggles, so that not one corner of skin was in contact with the world, even so the impact of stepping out of that door, in the stairwell staggered me. You probably saw me there, motionless for the longest time, just looking up at the rectangle of sky over my head, heart thumping... After I don't know how long, I heard a strange rasping sound. It took me a while to realize it was my own breathing, shallow and rapid. Yet with all that, through the anguish, an extraordinary sense of peace and serenity penetrated. How right was I to insist to go outside, I thought.... At length my heart clamed down, my head steadied, the sense of peace and serenity became part of myself, became myself ...

  “Incredible is the silence of a world without life. You have no idea how noisy it is here, inside. No matter how quite we think we may be, we live, breathe, move, the vibes we broadcast impinge on all of us in this small space, where there is no escape. No wonder we are all crazy. Out there, what peace, what silence. Frightening, but oh so reassuring! It was hard to move, to get going, to shatter the calm with my movements.

  “My first task, I thought, would be to find a car in working order. I thought there would be no trouble, except perhaps that the batteries would be dead after all this time…