incoming fetid slurry through a threshold into the street. The Georgian, Garmakeli, accidently knocked the door’s threshold out of its place, and the collection of everyone’s human waste poured out as sludge between the men’s feet, having gained strength, it cascaded down along the flight of stairs. And only then did they notice that the residents of the other entrances were preoccupied with the same problem, which they had been busy dealing with for an hour, immersed in the fight against the dashing water. After a while, the inhabitants of both buildings rushed out into the yard.
***
The night before, all the authorities of the col- lected farm gathered at the house of Pashat Barakatov, where it was announced that the report had been sent to the district, after which they stayed up all night and only went to bed in the morning hours. According to an unwritten rule of a special category of leaders, the chairman, the party organizer, the chief agronomist, the manager, all had to sleep on the floor in the main hall. And they, snoring freely, calmly fell into a deep dream. When ten people entered the front room, one after another, covered in God knows what, Pashat’s mother, who was spinning threads with her spindle, shouted in fright: “Kitty!” and jumped up. “Where is that opraulaish?” Temirbek, the proclaimed Shurshit, asked the old woman calmly. “Eh… he recently… oh God, Temirbek, is that you? What is the matter with you – oh but there is no face on you, as if the devil is chasing you? Are you healthy?” “I’m healthy, healthy,” Temirbek began to say, trying not to waste time. “The bosses are needed.” “They… have been gone for a long time.” “Where?” “How do I know; they don’t report to me.” “Shit!” Temirbek cursed in exclamation. “Our homes are flooding with water, and they’re just dan- dling around who knows where!” At this time, the snoring of a friendly male quartet seeped through the tightly closed door of the hall. Having solved the riddle of this snoring, Temirbek and Ibatulla, in spite of the old woman’s screeching, opened the door and slipped into the hall. And it seemed to them that they found themselves in a small MTS. It looked like the carcasses of freshly slaughtered cattle were piled up, the men raised such thick snores that the walls trembled,