Dear Programme! Last Saturday, all of our mental patients, Nearly crying, Couldn’t wait to get to the TV. Instead of eating, showering, Getting their meds and passing out, The whole crazy house Gathered in front of the TV screen. That blabbermouth Went on and on about How science is helpless to explain the Bermuda mystery, He just made no sense He turned all our brains upside down, And then our authorities Had to double our dose. Dear Producer! Maybe better do a show about that reactor instead? Or, how about that lunar module thingie? Come on, it’s been a whole year now Of all that crazy talk Of flying saucers, The dogs that bark Or the talking ruins. We’ve learned a thing or two, you know; we’ve been smashing saucers all year long, We’ve got that down pat, if the cook is to be believed. As for the piles of meds - flush them down the toilet, if you have any sense: That’s the way to live. But now, there’s Bermuda; What the hell? You really shouldn’t We didn’t raise a ruckus: we just didn’t have a leader. There’s not a lot of truly unstable ones; hence, no natural leaders. But for dirty tricks and claptrap, we’ve got our own traps; And the enemies’ evil tricks won’t spoil our dinnertime! It was their scrawny demons that Ber-muddied up the water, It was Churchill who came up with all this stuff, Back in 1918. We were writing our complaint to TASS about those explosions and fires, When the nurses came running in And restrained us all. Those who were especially agitated Got attached to their cots’ frames, And one paranoid was flailing and foaming Like a witch at a sabbath: "Untie the towels, You infidels, you miscreants, Can’t you see? we’re feeling all Ber-moody and our minds are all Ber-muddled." Forty souls, all white-hot, Are wailing by turns. That’s how disturbing All this triangular business is! All of them lost their minds, Even those who didn’t have any, And, at that point, Dr. Margulis Banned the TV. Here he is, the bastard, lurking in the window, with the power cable behind his back. It means, the nurse has told someone To cut the wires. And all that was left for us was to get injected, and to sink to the bottom, And to get lost there, at the bottom - Like at Bermuda - forever. But tomorrow, the kids, On their morning visit, will ask us: "Dads, what did these PhD’ as and MD’s say?" We’ll tell our darlings The truth (they do care!): The world’s wonders are right in front of us, but they’re forbidden! Here’s Rudy "the dentist"; He’s got a Gruendig radio. He fiddles with it at night: listens to West Germany, goddamn traitor. He used to be a clothes dealer there, And he went slightly nuts, And when he got here, he was terribly disturbed (As was his stomach), and there was a tag on his foot. He came running, extremely worried, and stunned us with his message, He said that our noble vessel of science had become stuck in the triangle. That it had spent its fuel and perished and fallen apart, But two of our insane brothers Got picked up by fishermen. Those who survived the catastrophe Are depressed now. They were brought to our hospital yesterday, in a glass tube. And one of them - "the mechanic" - escaped from the nannies and told us That the Bermuda "polyhedron" is... the planet’s exposed navel. "What happened there? How did you survive?", everyone nagged him. But the mechanic just kept shaking and scrounging cig butts. Now he cried, now he laughed, and now he got all prickly like a hedgehog He made fun of us. What can you say? A loony! A former alcoholic, foul-mouth and blasphemer really lost it: "We gotta drink up that triangle. Who wants to join? Bottoms up!" All excited, he holds forth: "The triangle will be emptied. Be it a parallelogram, be it a circle, goddamnit."                                 It might seem like a crazy idea; But don’t judge hastily! Please write back to us soon (care of our dearest Chief Physician). Sincerely yours. Dated ans signed. Please be sure to reply, or else... If you don’t, we’ll write To the Lotto Show!
© ?. Translation, 2017