War Memories

Bahtiyar Hidayet Azerbaijan

Somewhere, a yellow horse had come to the village.

People used it for heavy work.

It had become so thin

You could count its ribs.

… Then the war began.

The yellow horse was left without an owner.

It withdrew to the forests, became wild,

And gained a lot of weight.

Its neighing was like thunder.

In short, the war had been favorable for it.

–

The village had emptied.

The chickens had also become wild, the geese too.

The dogs had become wild as well.

They were hunting mice in the fields, frogs in the stream.

And the war had been favorable for them.

The gardens were not cultivated.

The plants had also become wild.

The fruits tasted like forest fruits.

The bees had also become wild.

Bee families had moved to the forests.

And people had also become wild.

People were killing each other.

The war had also been favorable for some people.

Only they had become civilized:

Ironed shirts, ties and so on.

They were the ones who had caused the war.

After the war, those civilized people

Built businesses for themselves.

They took high positions.

I knew one of them.

His name was Valik.

During the war, he was trading in corpses.

After the war, he became the owner of hotels,

He became the owner of restaurants.

In his hotels he began to run prostitution.

In his restaurant he was serving horse meat to the people.

Maybe, for the freedom of that yellow horse,

For the freedom of the geese, the chickens, the dogs, the bees, the plants,

One could forgive him.

But in his restaurant

He was serving horse meat, goose meat, chicken meat, honey.

It turns out he had no love for nature either.

But nature had love for him:

Leaving great wealth to his children,

One day Valik died in a civilized manner.

Now one son would run the restaurant,

And one son the prostitution business.

There was a large crowd at the funeral.

They were filling his grave with soil,

As if the wounds of the war were healing.