CHASING SHADOWSSo here is the Third Ring Road. Yaroslav Station is just around thecorner. My brain is no longer being stoked with opium fuel. The agoniesare beginning, the precursor to abstinence, to put it in medicalterms, when the body loses the last glow from the dying embers ofthat very thing. I urgently need another dose, but I, Peter PetrovichParfenchikov, have run out. With the last remnants of willpower Isuppress my desperate craving for the enchanting bloom. I am sufferinga coughing attack, my mouth is filling with saliva, my noseis running, my eyes are watering, and beads of sweat are poppingout on my forehead. My undershirt and shirt are sticking to myback. My socks are damp, it feels as though I have been walkingthrough puddles. My stomach hurts, my heart feels heavy, my pulsehas quickened, my eyes are clouding over, and a stubborn thoughtbores into my mind, "If only I can hold out another thirty minutesor so. Otherwise my withdrawal symptoms threaten to knock meflat right here in the street. I might find myself in the hospital sufferingfrom horrendous convulsions or kicking the bucket in hellishtorment without fulfilling my promise to myself: to leave thisdetestable Moscow and finally attain freedom!"I look out of the window. The gray May morning nods despondentlyat me with a frown. Drizzle falls silently on the windscreen,fragmenting my moribund thoughts even more. My mind is becomingincreasingly impartial, I seem to have lost it altogether. Onlyfragments of earlier experiences flash chaotically before my eyes.Now I assiduously wipe the sweat from my forehead with a satinhandkerchief and greedily chew on it, hoping to deaden the pain ofabstinence, now the five-cubic syringe of morphine does not havea needle and is impossible to find... In a kind of profound frenzy Itry unsuccessfully to stick it with all my might into my vein. Thefight with my unyielding body finally gets the better of me. I amcovered in blood... Suddenly I find myself in a poppy field. I amsurrounded by the cherished plant as far as the eye can see. The sizeof a fist, it stands tall, its blooms with their yellowish, white-bluepetals are driving me crazy; I have this overwhelming desire to eatthem until I burst. But I am helpless, my arms are tightly clampedto my thighs. I want to break off the heads with my teeth and chewthem as quickly as possible, enjoying the wondrous milk, feelingthe luxurious high, but my mouth will not open. My teeth areclenched as though pinched closed by an overwhelming weight.Damnation!. At that moment, the scene changes. Not understandingwhat is happening, I lose my last sense of reason, I am on thebrink of insanity. I swallow codeine pills by the fistful, but the withdrawalsymptoms do not abate. Usually five or six pills not only relieveme of the agonies, they provide quite a reasonable high. Butnow I feel nothing! My agony not only continues, it is gettingworse. I am feeling worse and worse. Now I no longer feel human.I have become a faceless, senseless, unrecognizable creature. "Isthis really me? Is it me? Me?" Parfenchikov harped on to himself inconfusion. His state was becoming intolerable. At this juncture itshould be noted that Peter Petrovich had the habit of thinking abouthimself now in the third, now in the first person. Incidentally, thiswas not the only strange thing about him. Thank goodness that anew topic distracted him from his awful conclusions, otherwise hewould have driven himself to complete hysterics with his questioning..