Bet your farm, I was up already full-length and hugging the palm bent after the fringe of its long drenched fronds jitter-bagging impetuously from the waving tree top.

I clenched to the trunk horrified by the might of the rain ready to wash me off into the berserk serf any next moment.

I clenched mortified by the fear that the following lightning wouldn’t miss this only tree in the beach.

Clung to the dribbling tree, I waited to see: which of my fears was the first to come true? And all of a sudden, against the deathlike backdrop of enraged foamy waves, I made out the shadowy half-sphere of Peccy’s lid.

What followed came off all by itself—a desperate dash… couldn’t you keep your gap wider, fucking slut?. the head is thru the rest will follow…

And tearing off me all that could be peeled by the sharp edges of the two valves, I squeezed into the Peccy’s nest, half-meter deep.

Discharged a deafening yet belated thunderclap. Eff you, bitch! You can’t reach me in here!.

I’m drenched thru and thru and it is so narrow a nook I am in, but the rain is not molesting me any further… I cuddle into the favorite posture of intrauterine babies. Good news the walls here lack any nasty lips.

The noise of rain splashes outside gets gently muffled, little by little…

Wait-wait-wait! But how that I cannot hear the surf any more?

In answer, there sounds a dry short click, the tooth in the upper valve locked into the dimple of recess in the bottom one…

Thick silence pervaded the narrow darkness. The deafening silence of a sound chamber and pitch-black impenetrability, copulated, engulfed all the world…

* * *

Bottle #5: ~ The Ways We Are Chosen By ~

29 years is a serious stretch, in the Soviet Union, as a result of the deep humanism in the foundation of the Communist regime, you'd hardly find a person sentenced to more than the 15-year term. No use trying. 15 was the ceiling, above that limit you straight off plopped to face the firing squad at ready for the execution. Each one has to do their job, you know.

In 29 years Nikita Khrushchev, who ruled USSR Empire 1953-1964, would have built in the Soviet Union 1.45 Communisms (that is almost one and a half of them) if not for the palace coup in the Central Committee of the CPSU. He got life within the walls of his personal dacha while the throne of the General Secretary was seated upon by Leonid Brezhnev to run the farm till 1982.

Which exculpatory circumstances—if any against so solid background—might mitigate my guilt of dilly-dallying about the production of RR (The Rascally Romance) protracted for so serious a stretch?

The confluence and most perplexing entanglement of differently varying yet similarly unfavorable exigencies determined the unbecoming lay-over.

To begin with, I okayed a war…

The choice at that time was not invitingly wide with the USSR engaged in just one war, in Afghanistan (1979 – 1989), however, its undisguised Communist-imperialistic nature ran counter to my beliefs and I subscribed to a pending war flagged off, in part, by my signature too.

The first war for independence of Mountainous Karabakh…

On entering the village club—a serviceable edification of raw stone used, a certain period back, to be the village church before the cross was brought down and rows of plywood seats went in together with the sturdy stage—dropped in in late evening by a dozen of mujiks to tarry over a couple of boards of chess and backgammon, and to chat of I dunno what because I hadn’t yet any command of Armenian, and where to, about once a month, they brought an Indian movie of 2 series—I was perplexed at seeing that crowd, thrice thicker than gathering for any movie. Which was not on at all that day.

The Village Council Chairman, delivering a speech from behind the breastwork of the on-stage rostrum, ofttimes was interrupted by vehement orators from the audience who just stood up from their respective seats so as to become seen and heard and who, in their turn, got interrupted by other orators up-springing from other seats… The common meeting of the villagers revved on at full swing.

Pargev, a ten-grader from the right seat next to me and also the Chairman’s son, elucidated that the purpose of the rally was to collect the folks' signatures and Grisha, the school Principal's husband on my left, added that such collection was the decisive instrument for breaking away from the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan because living on as its constituent part grew utterly intolerable. Armenian drivers operating buses on the route Stepanakert-Agdam-Stepanakert were paid twice less than the Azerbaijani drivers operating buses on the route Agdam-Stepanakert-Agdam.

It should be kept in mind that never throughout my life have I driven any kind of bus and, additionally, that during my hitch in the Soviet Army, a construction battalion it was, our team of bricklayers reported to lance-corporal Alik Aliev (an Azerbaijani) while, simultaneously, I had a buddy plasterer Robert Zakarian, an Armenian from Third Company, because of my reckless not giving a fuck about racial differences as well as the lack of prejudices on the grounds of national affinity which also and always was another of my distinguishing features.