The Road of Bones (2007)
“Above the stove hung the usual vast portrait of Father Trofim. Along two sides, bookshelves were stacked floor to ceiling with box files. The rest of the walls were plastered with posters showing men with steel mittens crushing others in their grasp, or vipers with men’s faces being poked from their filthy nests.
All around me were the shrill and twisted slogans we’d been taught to shout in the mass rallies and torchlight parades. ‘Root out the treacherous crowbait!’ ‘Blood for blood.’ ‘No merc...y!’ ‘We must break the enemy’s wings.’ The bottom halves of the windows were thickly smeared with paint. Above my head a naked lightbulb hung, and round the room dangled flypapers thick with the bodies of flies and bluebottles – some dusty and desiccated, some still oily bright or busily struggling.
Beside me stood two guards. They had the dread badge on their caps – that vicious silver serpent, coiled to strike. They’d booted me around so much I’d no brains left to listen.MoreLess
All around me were the shrill and twisted slogans we’d been taught to shout in the mass rallies and torchlight parades. ‘Root out the treacherous crowbait!’ ‘Blood for blood.’ ‘No merc...y!’ ‘We must break the enemy’s wings.’ The bottom halves of the windows were thickly smeared with paint. Above my head a naked lightbulb hung, and round the room dangled flypapers thick with the bodies of flies and bluebottles – some dusty and desiccated, some still oily bright or busily struggling.
Beside me stood two guards. They had the dread badge on their caps – that vicious silver serpent, coiled to strike. They’d booted me around so much I’d no brains left to listen.MoreLess
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