The Trolley by Igor Kholin

The trolley is flying
Down Peace Avenue
Riding
Riding
Riders commute.
Homemakers
Hurry
Out to the market
A brave soldier
Rockets toward
Leave - that's his target.
A bookkeeper clutches
His briefcase
So thick.
This young man here?
A mechanic.
Nights, Trolley
Rests
Restoring power.
Mornings,
Trolley
Takes a cold shower.
Trolley loves
Lube
Trolley loves
Repair
Trolley loves
Love
And if nobody
Cares,
Trolley
Won't take
Anyone
Anywhere.

old 'scow letter 2 D_S (Moscow September 2014)

I went to the bank and everything there was broken--

the ATMS, the currency exchange, everything. They had no internet.

They told me that nothing worked. 

As he was talking to me, the guy behind the counter was also talking to this woman he worked with
She was in a nice, navy-blue business dress

As he was talking to me, he snuck his hand up her arm in a way that she didn't notice at first

And then she did. She yelped and shook him off as he smiled up at her from his chair. 

It seemed like she was his supervisor.

Outside of a japanese restaurant, they had this hellscape set up in the window--

bars instead of glass, and a tree stump and a tree 

Inside this cage

and a full "japanese tea set "with a teapot and teacups and saucers, 

except instead of tea, they were all full of sunflower seeds 

and the people who lived in that cage were for some reason

two live squirrels who were literally, my friend, GOING NUTS. 

One was running back and forth and spastically scratching itself and 

jumping all over the place because it had clearly gone 

fucking bonkers in there. 

And the thing in the end with the devil guy from the subway

Was that he was the old woman's "pimp"
That's what everyone told me when I told that story
I'd be like, "I saw the devil" and so they'd hear me out, and then explain:
"He was her pimp"

Like, she begged for money on the street all day

And had to pay him a cut in exchange for.. being allowed to do that 

I still contend that this doesn't mean that he wasn't

the actual devil

"and the devil hears everything!"