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By Root 279 0

like water welling up from the storm sewers. Some of them had leather bird-masks. Others were laughing and singing. Some had drums, which they began to beat erratically upon. Others had horns which they put to their lips with lamentable results. Still others slammed pots and pans together. More emerged and more. Even when it seemed there could not possibly be any more, they kept coming and coming and coming. It was as if one last subway train from the miraculous age of Utopia had finally arrived at its station, centuries late, to disgorge its hundreds and thousands of passengers. They filled the square and overflowed into the streets converging upon it before the numbers of newcomers began to dwindle.

A smudge-pot had been lit by the stairway entrance, and those with torches lit them from its flame.

One of the last to emerge was a gigantic bear-man stooping under the burden of a folded gurney. Once into the square, he swiftly snapped straight the gurney’s legs so it could stand on its own. Then he bent low over its occupant and shook an admonitory claw before the man’s face. “A word to the wise, friend: no more puns.”

Darger giggled.

There were lights in the windows of all the buildings surrounding the square, and the shadowy figures of their occupants, come to see what all the commotion was about, could be seen peering down.

One final figure emerged from the City Below.

At once, miraculously, out of chaos came order. The ambling and aimless forces from below swiftly organized themselves into brigades and lined up in parade formation facing down Tverskaya ulitsa. For a long, still moment, the drums and horns and makeshift noisemakers went silent. All voices hushed.

The last figure to arrive assumed his place at the head of the procession.

It was Tsar Lenin in his three-piece gray suit with the razor-crisp creases in his trousers. He lifted his goateed chin, looking confident and determined, like a man who could not be stopped by anything. Without saying a word, he raised one arm high and then brought it down and forward. Lenin strode straight ahead, and the procession followed in his wake.

Behind him, Pale Folk waved banners that were on the verge of collapsing into dust. Slogans reappeared that had not been seen since the rise of Utopia: WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE and FOREVER PRAISE THE NAME AND WORK OF VLADIMIR LENIN followed by LONG LIVE THE INDISSOLUTE UNION OF THE WORKING CLASS, THE PEASANTRY,AND THE INTELLIGENTSIA and BROTHERHOOD AND FREEDOM OF ALL WORKING PEOPLE! and PEACE, LAND, & BREAD! and LONG LIVE THE GLORIOUS COLLECTIVE FARM PEASANTRY OF KOLOMNA.

There were other banners as well, with messages like RIVERSIDE ARTS FESTIVAL and MEN’S SUITS AT LOW, LOW PRICES! and WINTER BONFIRE DISCO which, cryptic though they were, helped lend a festive air to the procession.

The Pale Folk shambled lifelessly forward, and when a banner ripped and its cloth exploded into shreds, they kept on walking and waving the pole to which its remnants were attached. Their captives capered and danced.

From every doorway, Muscovites poured into the street, abandoning sex and theology for the pageantry of history-in-the-making. When they confronted the actual procession, those in front stopped and even shrank away from its uncanny strangeness. But there were bird-masked Pale Folk at the edges wielding bellows-guns from which puffed clouds of black smoke, and those who were touched by the smoke stopped and then, with stunned expressions and eyes that shone with holy fire, joined the parade.

“Tsar Lenin has returned!” a louder-than-human voice roared. Only those closest to its source realized that it originated from Lenin himself, for his mouth did not move with the words. “Join the great man and restore the glory of Russia!”

The people cheered rapturously.

“Tsar Lenin has returned! Tsar Lenin has returned!” Spontaneous chanting began from those nearest to the front of the procession: “Lenin! Len-in! Len-in!”

The chant caught on. “Len-in! Len-in! Len-in!” It spread like wildfire. “Len-in! Len-in! Len-in!” Even the underpeople,