[Glimpse] Farewell, Comrade

It was quiet inside the memorial. The time well past closing. A soft crackle of fire filled the space. The guards silent in their watch. A delicate hand laid a folded piece of paper at the base of the Eternal Flame at Volgograd. The hand retreated after its mission had been accomplished and the quiet, calm, rhythmic clicking sound of heels on stone began to retreat as the curator of the Motherland Calls memorial began to return to their office, puzzled by the letter they received a few days ago and had just gotten to.

It paper laid there for a long while before a stray, light gust of wind from outside the monument knocked it from the perch and sent the two pages to the floor of the memorial unfolded. It’s writing was neat, measured.

I am Russian Bear.

To my friends, I wish you were well, but I know the earth has embraced you and you rest beneath the motherland. To brother of comrades resting beneath wheat and to the children of battle, a thousand times lost, I wish you were here. I wish you were safe. 

I have had many things taken from me.

My home. My time. My family. My friends. My free will. My life.

How much must I lose, how many times must my soul die, before I learn to live?

The writing had become hurried, muddled slightly, then calmed itself and became clear once more.

I am no longer the Maks you once knew.

My name is Tovarishch.

I fight until the blood takes the blade from my grasp. Until I can only crawl. I protect until the last has been made safe. Until they all are shielded from pain. Until my body breaks beneath the weapons of the enemy and I do not falter.

Even then I shall not surrender that which is mine.

A line was skipped, then resumed. A break in the thoughts.

We bleed on one earth. And we must bleed to be understood. For blood's language is our very essence, and it knows no judgement.

No hate.

No love.

No mercy.

No pity.

Nothing but the fables we paint for it through the blood we shed and what we lose.

The earth is beneath me. I cast my excuses into the dirt so it may hear me, and know why I discarded them. For I have found my limit a thousand times. I will break it a thousand more to protect what is mine. I know who I am and I will show the Keepers what I can become. For how much further could our people march, were we not forced to carry our fears on our backs? How much could we achieve if we let our fear make us bold?

I have learned much upon my return.

...Glory fades into bloodstains, the names of the owners lost to the ages. The thunder of gunfire, the clashing of steel, the screams and roaring of man.

I have seen it all go silent.

I have seen all I cared for wither. All I cared for fade into History. All that was my way of life change.

I have stood in the ashes of a million dead souls and have asked them if honor mattered. If our battles were worth it.

They have yet to answer me.

This world, it makes no sense. Hatred born in order to protect love, war to achieve peace. Only the human mind could have thought of such things. One side is evil, the other good. It is only seen as such because history has written it so, because the victor’s wrote history to their liking. 

Nothing is in my heart anymore. I feel pain no longer. This hole in my heart was opened by this world. This...hell. I only had pain within it before, but really, what is the meaning in that? What is the meaning of feeling?

There is no soul in my body. They have taken that from me then have the nerve to call me monster!

They who are the biggest monsters of all. They who take, and take, and take. They who steal us, keep us, and use us like playthings.

But...I know they are right, for I am human no longer.

I have become soldier, then medic, then father, then Lost, then Guardian, then Monster, then Found.

At the end I am still Russian Bear.

I am still Russian Bear.

proshchayte tovarishchi,

Cerzhánt Макс Борцов, Sanitar, 4th NKVD RSD