I Remember All of Them

so there is a vision in my mind where shane dies who cares how anvil falls from sky and squashes him like bug. and ilya is like well, that was a good run, time to see myself out. but ilya decides he wants to see his mother’s grave one last time, and traveling to russia no longer concerns him because he doesn’t care at all what happens to him now anyways.

so he throws his phone away (so that nobody can track his location and try to talk him out of this) and then sets off. and what follows is like some insane hallucinatory journey where his plane gets grounded in iceland (“because of the volcano.” “what volcano?” “oh, you know how it goes…”) and then he has to take a boat to denmark and then a train to moscow but then there is a rail strike (“what rail strike?” “oh, you know how it goes…”) and he is trapped on a series of coaches.

somehow space is becoming unstuck, he is in germany on a coach for 30 minutes and suddenly at the next station everyone is speaking slovene. everywhere he stops, despite these all being landlocked locales, there's someone trying to get him to see the local seaside. in every station, the ticket master is an identical man who does not speak any language ilya speaks, and ilya keeps trying to get to moscow and getting sold other incomprehensible bus tickets. whenever he asks someone where he is, he gets a useless and vague answer, "oh we're here and there", "we're in the present moment", "we're in a bus station", etc.

seasons go wrong. everyone is celebrating some local martyr he's never heard of and children are running around in paper mache masks. it is night time and the sun just does not come up again. his seatmates include: a man with an accordion, a dour red-haired child in a sailor's outfit, an ancient old babushka carrying an inflatable sex doll, a businessman with a blue raspberry vape, a huge fat tabby cat who hisses and bites him if he tries to touch her.

eventually he's like well. okay. i guess time doesn't exist and space doesn't exist and i just am on this bus forever now. and finally the cat gets off the bus, and shane comes out of the tiny bus bathroom and sits back down next to him.

ilya: oh, there you are. took you a while. shane: it's really gross in there. ilya: well, yes. it's a bathroom on a coach. shane: ugh. these seats suck. they never give you enough room for your legs. ilya: put your knees up. you're good at that. shane: ha ha. a beat of quiet. shane: i had the craziest dream. i can't really remember it. i think you were there, though. ilya: mm, bad dream? shane: no. at least, i don't think so. ilya sighs. ilya: are we getting close? i'm tired of the bus. shane: i'm pretty sure you're getting off before me. ilya: no. i am not. i will come with you. shane: no, baby. you won't. i think your stop is coming up now. ilya: wait, shane--

ilya wakes up. he's the only one left on the bus, which has stopped. the bus driver, who is apparently also the same identical man as all the stationmasters, is kicking his seat. he grumbles and scolds ilya in an unknown language. ilya gets off the bus. it's right before sunrise. he's at the seaside, at the beach which extends as far as the eye can see in each direction. ilya walks along the beach for a while, dawn getting closer. finally he stops. his mother's grave is here on the beach. he knows if he keeps walking further down, shane's grave will also be on this beach. and if he keeps walking further and further beyond that, his own grave too. but he'll spend eternity there one day. and he hasn't seen his mother in a very long time.