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The Russian Federation, Saint Petersburg, Vasileostrovsky District.
Historic Leningrad Communist University, Sredny Prospekt. August, 1999. 8:00pm.
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Dr. Goncharova stood on tiptoes to pull open one of the double doors to the rear entrance of what used to be the Leningrad Communist University. The handles and knobs for standard height doors dangled just above her wispy head of curly hair. At first glance it would be easy to mistake her for a toddler, but upon closer inspection her mature jawline, broad forehead, wide hips, and perky proportionate breasts quickly do away with any such illusions. Once she had the door opened, she held it ajar with her hip and grabbed her rolling luggage bag before shuffling inside to make her way to the classroom down the hall.
There were still a few stragglers from the previous group meeting chatting over stale powdered donuts and burnt coffee. She was early, having made good time on her walk from Saint Petersburg State University where she taught in the Social Work Department. It wasn’t a long walk for a “normal” person (for lack of a better term), less than a mile, but she already felt the strain in her hips and knees. She was sympathetic to the Transit Workers’ Union demands, of course. Many of them hadn’t been paid in months and expecting a paycheck for one’s labor was hardly unreasonable. Still, she relied on the Tramway and Trolleybus to get around the city.
“Evening, Comrade Doctor,” an elderly bearded gentleman in a flatcap said as she waddled past.
“Evening, Ivan Fyodorovich. Before you leave, could you help me set up, maybe prop the door open? Most of our group members can’t open doors on their own.”
“Of course, Comrade Doctor,” Ivan replied with a smile and a salute. His pock marked face and bulbous nose were flush with a rosy hue. The strong scent of vodka pervaded his sweat and breath. He grabbed the cinderblock from the corner and made his way to the back entrance. Shortly thereafter he returned, pulled out a folding table from behind a cabinet, and placed it towards the back of the room with the legs on their shortest setting, putting the table height around 48cm (just over a foot and a half).
“Thank you, Ivan. How was your study group?”
“The young people don’t turn up like they used to,” he lamented. “It’s mostly just us old timers nowadays, sitting around with our Party ID Cards for a Party that doesn’t officially exist anymore, yearning for the good old days when the Sino/Soviet split seemed like the worst of our worries. As builders of Communism we shouldn’t be living in the past, we should be organizing in the moment for revolutionary regroupment… but it’s so hard to have hope these days.”
“Yeah, we’re all living through a collective trauma right now,” Dr. Gonchorova empathized. “Even though the dissolution was almost a decade ago, in many ways we’re still waiting for the dust to settle. So much is still up in the air right now, everything that once was certain is now thrown in to question. The support systems we worked so hard to build are being dismantled before our very eyes. But it is in such times of acute capitalist crisis that the workers are more easily radicalized, eh comrade?”
“True enough,” he said with half-hearted hope. “Capitalism will sow the seeds of its own destruction.”
“The last capitalist will sell us the rope we hang him with,” the good Doctor squeaked in what was an attempt at boisterous confidence. She raised a fist into the air and they both shared a hearty laugh.
“No pasaran,” he said with a smile, raising his left fist into the air.
“Before you go, comrade, would you mind putting these signs up on the door and in the hallway?”
“Of course, Comrade Doctor. Oh, before I forget again, here.” He produced a set of keys from his coat pocket. “In case your meeting runs late again, just be sure that you lock up and leave these in the lock box by the front entrance on your way out.”
“Thank you, Ivan. You’re always such a help.”
By now the others had trickled out of the room and it was just the two of them. As she started to open her bag, Ivan interceded.
“Please, Comrade Doctor, you look tired. Sit, I will set up the table.”
“You’re the best, Comrade Fyodorovich.” The child sized seat was only 30cm (about a foot for you decadent Westerners) off the ground, but she still had to do a bit of climbing to hop into the chair. Once seated her feet dangled half way to the floor. She produced a handkerchief and wiped the pooling sweat beads from her brow. “I hope the Transit Workers Union settles the strike soon. I can’t keep doing all this walking.”
“For your sake and theirs, I hope so too.” He opened her bag and began placing an assortment of confectioneries in the middle of the table. Soon it was covered with her home made kartoshka cakes and toffee squares cut into various sizes. “You can of course help yourselves to the left over donuts, they’ll only be thrown out tomorrow.”
“I will make sure everyone has some.” She began to arrange sweets meticulously on saucers, with smaller cut squares towards the edge and a pyramid of the larger toffee squares in the center. On another such plate she placed some Rot Front candies, taking a few of them out of the paper wrappers before setting them down. Malyenkiye don’t eat much relative to a full sized human, but proportionally they must eat a greater amount of their body weight in order to stay healthy.
“I also took the liberty of putting on a fresh pot of coffee for you,” he said while unplugging the hot carafe, removing it from the half-sized book shelf it was perched atop, and placing it onto the small folding table. He then poured some fresh coffee into a small espresso cup. “And there is tea in the samovar for those who prefer something less bitter.”
“We all appreciate it so much.” She reached in her pocket and produced a number of small drinking cups. Some 1:6 and 1:12 scale doll cups but also thimbles for those with an aversion to toy cups. Some Malyenkiye view it as demeaning to use doll accessories. She placed erasers, spools, pin cushions (without pins), and hackey sacks over half of the table to serve as seating. For the other half, she gathered an assortment of books from a nearby shelf and arranged the dog-eared tomes of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Lermentov, and Pasternak into riser style bleacher seating.
“Well, looks like you are all set, Comrade Doctor.” Ivan stood with a grunt. “These old bones should be getting home. Take care.”
“Stay safe, Vanya. I will see you next week.”
Shortly after the elderly communist party organizer left towards the setting sun, group members began trickling in. Lyubov the Pixie and Anatoly the Sprite arrived carrying a statuette of a sitting Domovoi (like a garden gnome or a house elf) with his arms wrapped around his knees. Anatoly was a tad taller than 30cm (about 1 foot tall) and Lyubov was just under. The stone figure they each held by the base was around their size, but would be almost twice as big as them were it standing upright.
“Damn this fat fuck is heavy,” Anatoly growled through gritted teeth. He wore a well tailored and unbuttoned suit with rolled up sleeves. His flamingo pink skin was covered in Bratva tattoos that stood out all the more because they partially obscured his natural luminous glow. Savvy eyes could make out the markings of a skilled thief.
“He’s made of stone, Tolya,” the green skinned Pixie retorted.
“Even when he isn’t, he is still a fat fuck.”
“Do you think he can hear us when he’s stone?”
“I don’t care if he can, I’ll say it to his face. Oi! Sasha! You are a fat fuck! I fucking hate you, you fucking piece of shit!” They set the stone figure down on the floor by the table.
“Get that out of your system, Anatoly,” Dr. Goncharova scolded, her mousy voice booming to their small pointed ears. “I know he can be difficult, but he’s still one of us. We all share the same struggles for inclusion and satisfaction as a community, we need to be there for each other even if we don’t always like each other. Everyone in attendance at these meetings is actively trying to better themselves, and we’re all at different places on the journey.”
“He just better appreciate that Lyuba and I go out of our way every week to lug his dead weight here,” he grumbled, reaching into his suit pocket to produce a pack of 1:6 scale factory rolled cigarettes. “He doesn’t even live in the city, we fly miles out of our way to the countryside to grab him from some fucking dacha. Does he ever thank us?” He pursed a cigarette between his lips and flicked open a stainless steel lighter engraved with a winged dagger. “No, he just spouts reactionary garbage at us. I’ve had it up to here with his bullshit, I’m serious!” He held his hand high above his head to illustrate the point before lighting his cigarette.
“Don’t let him get to you,” Lyubov said softly, fluttering over to his side and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. Her green skin was the color of bay leaves and antennae poked out from bangs of shoulder length lavender hair which perpetually blew in the breeze of her flapping wings. “Be the bigger man.”
“Easy for you to say, Lyuba. He likes you.” His opaque dragonfly wings fluttered so fast they were a blur as he pulled away from her touch and flew to the tabletop. His shoes, shined to perfection, touched down with a clack, casting his reflection in their flawless polish as his wings quickly flattened themselves against his back. He wedged the lighter into his suit pants pocket which hugged tightly against his skin.
Lyubov landed much more gently on the table and approached the coffee with desire in her eyes. She grabbed a mug for herself and Anatoly, scooped some fresh coffee from the espresso cup on the table, then made her way to the books to be seated. “How was your week, Dr. Goncharova?”
“Long,” she answered, pouring herself a cup of coffee from the carafe. “Classes start up again in a few weeks, our department’s budget has been cut significantly and we still need to provide the same level of education with a fraction of the resources.”
“Same story everywhere,” Lyubov sighed.
There came a tapping at the window. They all glanced up to see a small Faerie in parachute pants and a striped sailor’s tanktop carrying an even smaller Borrower in her arms. Anatoly’s wings became ghostly buzzing blurs as he floated up to the window and undid the latch before they all fluttered down to the table together. The Faery stood 15cm tall (about 6 inches), the top of her head coming to just below Anatoly’s hips. Long raven hair tumbled out from under a knitted gray wool beanie and two feelers jutted out from behind the beanie’s cuff. Her black shiny compound eyes gleamed in the fluorescent lights, though her most distinguishing feature by far was probably the sleek blueish exoskeleton that covered most of her body like armor plating. Her beetle like wings folded and scrunched, tucking themselves safely under shiny plating which almost resembled a backpack. If you were small enough, or had eyes sharp enough, you’d notice she doesn’t possess a nose or lips, but instead an insectoid mandibular “mouth” of sorts. She gently released the little Borrower, whose feet had yet to touch ground, from her grasp and her frazzled passenger looked relieved to be back on terra firma.
“I’ll never get used to that, I don’t know how you flying folks just flit about like that all the time,” the Borrower wheezed out, trying to catch her breath.
“It’s just convenient. Like, even in accessibility compliant buildings, you can either climb a bunch of ladders and navigate a complex maze of stairs and catwalks or you just fly.” She grabbed a square of toffee about the size of her head from a plate. “It’s way more tiring than it looks though. Really works up an appetite.” With that, she dove face first into the toffee and began gnashing away at it.
“Deep breaths, Nadyenka,” Dr. Goncharova cooed in her most soothing voice at the shaking Borrower. “You’re okay.”
“Good evening, Dr. Goncharova,” Nadyenka waved back sheepishly. Her thick mop of hair was a tangled gravity defying mass of brown frizz that bobbed to and fro as she moved. She wore a skirt made of what used to be the inside lining of a leather wallet and a blouse cut from an old handkerchief. “Ready for classes to start?”
“Not quite yet, but we’re getting there. And how are you, Vasilisa? Enjoying the toffee?”
“Yesh, fank you!” she choked out between bites. The cube which had been the size of her head was now half gone.
“Evening lads,” came a thick Irish voice from the front door. The group’s attention shifted back to the entrance where Cillian the leprechaun stood smoking an oversized cigar. “Looks like the gang’s all here.” His wrinkled face flashed a warm smile of stained teeth flanked by scraggly orange mutton chops that bled into his receding hairline. A wispy tuft of hair swooped up from the center of his head but was clearly losing ground to fleshy cranium. Two big bushy eyebrows loomed above a narrow pair of emerald eyes. He made his way to the table and poured himself a cup as the last vestiges of twilight abated and night fell at last.
Suddenly the lifeless statue began to tremble. His eyes glowed with a bright light and from those eyes cracks began to form outward. Chips and chunks of concrete flecked away as his face turned to flesh, scrunching and unscrunching itself to shake free any still clinging pebbles. He stretched his arms into the air and unfurled his fingers shaking loose still more stone debris standing to his full height of 64cm (just over 2’) making him slightly taller than Cillian but still more than a head shorter than Dr. Goncharova.
“Is it already Tuesday,” asked the bearded Domovoi, shaking loose gravel from his pointy ears. He let out a mighty cough which also sent specks of rock flying from his mouth. “Time flies.” He ran his hands through his long wiry beard, loosing more motes of gray debris from its hairs. “Do I smell coffee,” he asked, removing his pointed felt cap to shake off the last remnants of his transformation.
“Your nose does not deceive you, Sasha,” Dr. Gonchorova smiled warmly. “And as soon as you sweep up your mess, you can have some.” She sipped loudly, staring him down through the steam rising from her cup. The Domovoi furrowed his brow and grumbled something unintelligible as he went to grab a dustpan and hand broom.
Sasha swept up his mess and Cillian poured both of them a cup of coffee. Anatoly produced a new pack of cigarettes, opened it up and in Eastern European tradition (a tradition which, I understand, has spread to mainland Europe now) it was passed around the room and anyone who wanted one was able to take one. The Borrower and the Pixie abstained, along with Dr. Goncharova. As Sasha drew what to him was a half-sized cigarette from Anatoly’s pack, the Sprite made eye contact with him as if to say “Don’t start with me today.” The Domovoi’s thick bushy brows softened as his scowl turned to a somewhat acquiescent “No promises.”
Before Dr. Goncharova could call the meeting to order, the sound of squeaky sneakers in the hall heralded a growing shadow approaching the open door. Celina ducked her head beneath the doorframe, stopping just past the threshold.
“Hello, I’m looking for the Malyenkiye People’s Support Group,” Celina said meekly in a soft but deep voice.
Their heads turned in relative unison and their eyes widened as they gazed upon the tallest human any of them had ever seen. With all eyes on her, Celina could feel the anxiety creep up her spine climbing with her heart rate. The diminutive passenger felt her hand grow cold and clammy in her jacket pocket as she awkwardly shifted her weight. “I guess I found it.”
“Yes, it would seem you have,” Dr. Goncharova replied. “I appreciate your interest, comrade, but… how to put it… this is a closed meeting... for Malyenkiye.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I know I’m not--I mean, obviously that’s not me,” she laughed awkwardly. “But, you see, I have a…” she wasn’t sure how to put it. What were they after all this time? “Someone I love very much is… perhaps it would be easier to--I should just...”
Her long slender fingers wrapped around the tiny torso of her pocket passenger and slowly pulled him forth into the light. She crept towards the coffee table with small deliberate steps and knelt before it. Even kneeling and slouching, Celina was almost twice the height of the next tallest person in the room. With a steady hand and utmost care, she set her upright palm and the tiny passenger aboard it down near the edge of the tabletop.
A small mustachioed man about 20cm (8 inches) tall stood warily before the group. Tawny brown skin protruded from an old faded telogreika (WWII era Red Army winter uniform) tucked into a pair of equally weathered valenki (wool boots). Messy strands of stringy chestnut bangs poked out from under an old wool lined ushanka (trapper hat w/earflaps) adorned with the red star crest. Piercing almond eyes over deep swollen bags flanked a large nose with a narrow bridge sloping down to a wide, round tip.
“Uhm… hello,” he said sheepishly, eyeing the colorful crew that stared back slack jawed as he stepped lightly from Celina’s hand to the table.
Lyubov and Vasilisa quickly flew to the stranger, circling him in a whirlwind of curiosity. Lina could barely contain her delight at watching them flit about, her inner child positively beaming through her Baltic blue eyes.
“His ears are round like a Borrower’s, but he’s much too tall,” said the pixie, who would tower over him even if she weren’t fluttering above the ground.
Vasilisa landed before him, her compound eyes level with his chest. She closely examined his clothing. “These threads are so fine…” she grabbed the sleeve of his jacket, “the material so soft. These aren’t Malyenkiye clothes…”
Lyubov added, “The Red Army didn’t let Malyenkiye serve in combat roles.”
“Were you--”
Before she could finish her question, Anatoly swooped in, picking Vasilisa up by the back of her tanktop with one hand and shoving Lyubov back with the other. “Oi! Don’t crowd ‘im, give the man some fucking space! You’ll scare ‘im off damn it,” he barked, cigarette still pursed between his lips, standing almost twice the height of the newcomer as he shooed the inquisitive winged women away and returned to the book steppes.
“Well hello there, young man,” Dr. Gonchorova said, trying and failing to mask her bewilderment. She had never seen anything quite like him before. “My name is Gretchen, I’m the facilitator of this solidarity group. Welcome.” She offered a squat stubby hand with her index finger extended. The little man palmed her fingertip in his hand and shook it.
“Mikhail. Friends call me Mishka. This is Celina, she’s my… uh…” he hesitated, unsure of quite what to call her. He settled on, “a very dear friend of mine.”
“I am here for moral support,” Celina said, still looming over the table. She placed a reassuring hand forward and caressed Mishka’s back with the knuckle of her index finger. “He is shy.”
“Thank you for coming. We were just about to start the meeting when you walked in. I hope you’ll share a little more about yourself when we get to the group sharing portion.”
With everyone finally settled and in attendance, the 3rd August meeting of the Malyenkiye People’s Solidarity Group began.