Cult

****

I want to vent. Whether it’s nonsense or not, I don’t care anymore. I’m writing all this out in advance—trying to make it easy and clear to read. I’ll admit I’ve rewritten it several times, but all the facts are real.

This happened in Moscow, in the North-West Administrative Okrug, in a pretty nice neighborhood. There’s a big park nearby, far from the “general city bustle.” The outskirts, but still a residential area, a couple of metro stations in the district (well, I think someone might guess the place). I’ve been living here all summer in a шикарная apartment belonging to my relatives while the owners are vacationing down south. I myself also live in Moscow, but, unfortunately, in less fancy places.

So, late July. I was sitting at the computer, watching something on YouTube, chatting online—everything as usual. Evening, around 10 p.m. The upstairs apartment had been pretty noisy since six in the evening. Stains appeared on the ceiling. And for me that’s serious business—after all, the apartment must be kept intact like a royal daughter! I’d already broken some dishes, and now this problem with the ceiling…

Working up the courage, I went to sort it out. In this neighborhood people are brazen and “tough,” but I’d managed a couple of cans of beer and was ready to play the role of a cocky rich owner’s son (at 22, no one sees the nine years of school and vocational college in me). I went up one floor. Noise, shouting, laughter, music in the best traditions of psychedelia. One thing struck me then: all summer there hadn’t been any noise at all from there. On the other hand, who knows, maybe someone’s celebrating a birthday—it only happens once a year.

They didn’t open the door right away, but I didn’t wait long. On the threshold stood a guy not much older than me in some ridiculous robe. I got straight to the point: there’s water leaking through my ceiling, what the hell is going on, I’ll call whoever I need to, and so on. The guy smiled blissfully and said he didn’t know anything, I should ask the owners. I told him to call the owners. He turned around, waved as if saying “come on,” not even thinking of closing the door behind me. I closed it myself and went down the hallway. Same layout as my apartment. Dark, just some stupid round lamps with colored backlighting. Young people were sitting on couches in the hall—some older, some younger. It was quite a party. The music wasn’t fast, more like something trance-inducing; people waved their hands in rhythm, someone writhed standing in the center. My main thought was that this was a gathering of drug users. Especially since it smelled of hookah and there was clearly a burnt smell. The tables were full of alcohol. The guy who’d brought me in went up to everyone and said something. It scared me, and I already wanted to drop my complaint, but I kept going because I was afraid: if I turned back suddenly, they’d jump me.

In the end, the guy led me to a far room (in the same place below was the owners’ bedroom, locked away from me). In this room there was no bed, just couches in a circle and one armchair where, as I understood, the leader of this whole outfit sat—about twenty-five. A young girl next to him looked me over and asked him:

“Is this another invited one?”

The leader looked at me and shook his head. The one who’d brought me said simply, “He’s here for you,” and left, closing the door.

I stood there, probably for a minute, stunned. About seven people were looking at me, guys and girls. All clearly not sober and not for a while. The leader said:

“Do you drink?”

I shook my head. He said:

“You’re lying. Sit down—maybe some beer?”

I sat, as if enchanted. They gave me a mug, poured light beer (I hate light beer, I usually drink dark Kozel, but out of politeness I took a couple of sips). I thought—start sooner, finish sooner. I began explaining the situation: I’m sitting there relaxing, and my ceiling’s leaking, that’s not right, neighborly relations suffer, after all. Remembering how I said it, I think I must have stuttered a lot. But they listened very attentively. The leader nodded, held out his hand, introduced himself as Maxim (I said my name and blurted, “Nice to meet you”). He said it was very bad, they never meant to offend neighbors, they weren’t locals, just rented the apartment to celebrate something, and they’d call repairmen right away to check the bathroom. Meanwhile, I could stay, drink, chat, have fun. Here I’ll make a remark—I’m sure now there was something in that beer. I don’t have much experience with drugs, but maybe a bit of amphetamine—I don’t know, never tried. The point is, I suddenly felt warm and interested; my fear of the group went away. Not that I became relaxed (I’m not like that in life), but clearly bolder. They asked me to talk about myself, and I stupidly blurted out that I was just watching the apartment, not the owner.

They listened like no one ever had, with such interest, clarifying, asking questions. My mood lifted. Maxim then told me this. They were something like a small group of actors, performing in theaters and various shows with different acts—something like amateur youth groups. And now they were in the capital, celebrating a successful performance. He asked if I was interested in anything like that, because they’d almost completed their lineup while traveling around the country. I’m far from theater, so we didn’t pursue that topic.

Then the first anomaly happened. To Maxim’s left sat a red-haired girl, completely my type. I glanced at her from time to time, and it must have been noticeable. At some point I thought it would be great if she shifted her tank top strap and exposed her shoulder—that’s my fetish. And she did it! Well, coincidence happens. I didn’t even think about getting to know her—I’m too self-conscious. Next— I don’t like when a girl sits with legs crossed, I like to see the full shape of the thighs. I thought about that too. And sure enough—after a couple of minutes she sat straight. It was becoming some kind of fantasy. I decided in my drunken state that she could read minds and tried mentally suggesting we get acquainted. When she slowly nodded with her eyes closed, I got seriously scared. She seemed to enjoy my panic.

Meanwhile Maxim asked if I believed in God or anything else. I said I was probably agnostic—maybe there’s a God, maybe not, I don’t care. And to keep the conversation going, I asked what he believed in. The whole group started giggling. Maxim replied that they all “believed in the Clown.” I didn’t understand and asked him to explain. The theory he told me is below.

In their opinion, God exists. But this god is like a psycho with a twisted sense of humor. He created the universe just “for laughs,” as I’d call it. Just to have fun. He enjoys sending people trials and watching how we squirm here, like a child over an anthill. He likes chaos, revelry, “wild fun,” and especially disorder. The more everything is a mess, the more chances he has to create entertainment. He doesn’t like constancy, loyalty, rules—he likes quickly building something just to enjoy destroying it. Maxim compared it to lining up dominoes—effort only for the sake of knocking them down. He likes throwing wrenches into things to make achievement harder. So since everything is so meaningless, the worshippers of the Clown have fun, honor him, play pranks in his honor, and he rewards them with his help.

At that point I started sobering up, and all this began to feel like some kind of cult. I asked whether the workers had arrived yet. After the answer, “What workers?” I stood up and went to the exit. But in the hall the whole party had changed. They slowly circled around a mannequin (like in stores, only faceless, in colorful rags and, damn it, a clown wig!). “Definitely cultists,” I decided. That redhead grabbed my hand from behind and said I needed to relax—Maxim had just misunderstood me and the workers were about to come. She added that her name was Camilla. And I adore rare names like that—yeah, a fetish. She understood perfectly and grinned widely. By the way, her pupils were frighteningly wide. My skeptical mind told me they were cultists on drugs and I needed to run. I started thinking I’d been poisoned because my legs were giving out—I had to sit on the couch. The girl sat beside me, began calming me, offered to smoke hookah with her, and I was already on the verge of hysteria because the whole crowd surrounded me and examined me. Maxim came out and confidentially told me I needed to trust the Clown, that I was too uptight, that it wasn’t my fault I hadn’t gone to study where I wanted, that my older brother was to blame. That was it, the end. He couldn’t possibly know that. He continued saying things I only remembered on my darkest days. I couldn’t take it—I jumped up, pushed through them all and ran.

Back in the apartment I locked all the locks. I didn’t care about the ceiling anymore. I found some Corvalol in the medicine cabinet, drank a shot of vodka, and lay down just to fall asleep quickly so all this would pass and turn out to be just a dream.

The next day I lay around feeling awful. Two days later I decided to go there again. No one answered. Only a couple of days later did a neighbor appear there. I told him his tenants had flooded me. He assured me he’d been at his dacha and hadn’t rented the apartment to anyone. He invited me in to check the bathroom to make sure everything was fine. I went—yes, everything was in order. But now I was even more scared. The furniture in that apartment was different—hell, even the wallpaper and doors were different! But the stain on my ceiling remained. The smell of hookah smoke remained on my clothes. A couple of scratches remained from when the redhead tried to hold me back. It wasn’t a hallucination, I’m sure.

All of this won’t let me sleep normally. A couple of times I’ve dreamed of the disgusting laughter of those worshippers of that stupid clown god. Tell me I haven’t gone crazy, please.