Translator’s explanations
Translator’s explanations
They said it should be published. They asked me to make sure it would. It is their account of what happened after the apocalypse, of the things they saw and did.
They all met the apocalypse that summer of 2003, in Crimean Fox Bay. If you don’t remember how the world ended, don’t try to make sense of it just yet. You might, later.
The thing I am publishing is not a book, or a log, or a document, or a diary. What I actually have here is a bunch of cheap plastic photo albums full of photos they made that summer on their cheap personal film cameras. Each photo has a long handwritten note on its back, with handwriting different from photo to photo, probably meaning different authors made those notes.
Now, the thing is, I don’t have the photos to publish. I still have the paper, but the images: people, landscapes, things, they all vanished one day, I opened the albums, and only texts were there. That’s probably for the best, the photos were boring, you wouldn’t want to see them.
The notes, I publish. I still remember all of the photos, and I’ll describe what was there in the photo beside each note.
It is obvious that the comments were added later than the photos were taken—at least, they needed to finish the whole film and then wait for the opportunity to develop it and print. The latest ones are definitely written at the end, when they reached Yalta and gathered their memories of their road and their dead. This will explain how the comments would mention events that are still (at the moment when the photo is taken) in the future.
This wouldn’t, though, explain other things that are strange about those texts; but to all its time. I will try my best to supply the texts with comments, but I can do very little. I was not there when it all happened. Or, rather, the one who was there wasn’t me.
The English translation is mine, the originals were in their languages, obviously. I know the translation is flawed. But I will not try to make it prettier or skip ugly or boring parts, pretending they are lost in translation.
The one thing I can promise is, it is all true. Think for yourself: if it wouldn’t be, who in their right mind would start their account with the phrase “The morning of the apocalypse, I overslept”?