¹⁷ Summertime reveries.
Shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, my country decided to abolish time.
The Great clock tower was abandoned. Small clocks broken down. Cemeteries were forgotten. Archives were destroyed or hidden.
The photos of the departed were unstuck from the wall.
Time was abolished.
No more persons to ask, about the time that was left, about the memories, horrific, about what had been shut down on the other side of the river. Government posters announced that collective happiness had been found.
The younger generations adapted quickly. But for some, it proved harder. My grandmother had lived through the wars — faintly we felt her shortening breathe, sentences half-uttered, the waning hands meekly caressing our hands (her smile, both unknowing and omniscient.) She had complained about the decrees, before forgetting about them - tacitly, we had decided not to remind her. Family gatherings had become more rare and she would usually sit at the head of the table, silent and meek. She puttered around the flat. Her face became the ennobled face of Old Age.
We all agreed it was a very hot summer. I wondered if her oblivion was different from ours, from the city's, from the decrees' ; the air would not move and thunderstorms would not come.