The residents of a quiet town in rural Belarus woke  to a rather peculiar sight one Friday morning. The mist cleared before the sun was even halfway over the horizon, though it lingered on in their heads, for the weekend could never come soon enough, and alcohol was never too expensive. An old lady screamed for her son, crossing herself non-stop with one hand and dragging the wet linen across the dew-coated yard with the other. Once the pale young man emerged, she pointed a bony finger toward the square at the center of town, babbling about the statue that stood there. He cursed at her and clutched his head, asking where she put the rest of his drink from last night. When she would not stop saying prayers, he finally leaned over the fence to take a look, then promptly tumbled over it and threw up into the ditch. Between each cough and gasp for air, he would beg for forgiveness, trembling as he stole glances at the monument in the distance.

More and more frantic voices rang out across the town, and people streamed onto the streets, slowly approaching the tall bronze figure dominating the green island where the roads to the big cities met. A ring of faint vapor remained around the base, obscuring the name and date written on it, even as the air went bone dry in the rest of town. The winos rolled onto their bellies on the wet grass, roused from their slumber by all the commotion, their complaints dying in their throats once their gaze followed that of the growing crowd. Children laughed and pulled on their parents' gowns, pointing at the remains of the mist and the rider on the pedestal. The adults tried to hold them back, though they too could only stare in awe at the statue, unable to stop their own feet from dragging them toward it. 

The militsioner blared his sirens at the impromptu crowd, which reached the edge of the square at that point, warning them of creating a traffic hazard. Yet getting run over was the least of their concerns, as any car that would normally speed through this lonely town now came to a screeching halt the moment the square came into view. The audience of the statue grew and grew, though none would dare step within an arm's length of the marble base, or even into that ethereal fog surrounding it. Murmurs went back and forth, with few raising their voices, mostly just to call out each other's names in the crowd. Grown men and women could be heard sobbing and praying, while the young just laughed and ran back and forth, pushing past the fearful adults to get to the first row, to see past the forest of tall, shivering limbs.

Within minutes, almost every living soul in town had congregated at the square. Not since the great victory parade over half a century ago had any event attracted so many people, let alone so early. Silence took over from the strained whispering, as even the late arrivals no longer dared to open their mouths. Even the children stopped dancing and singing, only their smiles still speaking of their joy. The sun gently crept over the heads of the crowd, its orange rays painting the swirling clouds around the base of the statue. Warmth flowed through the air, the mist cleared, and the residents gradually followed suit. Once they saw the golden letters engraved into the marble once more, they turned around and left the square. Traffic returned to its normal pace, and the militsioner parked his car next to the old mill and went back to sleep.

The doctor, who was out of town to buy a house, only heard of the event the next day from his patients. One of them swore that the great horse had grown wings, and the wind they made could uproot trees. Another said the knight sitting on it no longer wore his helmet, and his eyes shone with a bright light, more piercing than the midday sun. The mayor invited the doctor over for dinner, and after the second bottle, he claimed that blood trickled from the blade in the knight's hand, while the horse wept big silver tears. The liturgy on Sunday began with the faithful being warned not to listen to the blasphemies the bronze figure spoke, yet none but the preacher could remember hearing them. When the doctor asked the children, they would only giggle and run away.

He stumbled toward the grassy knoll, the bottle he took from the mayor's house swinging by his side. In the dim light of the moon, he checked what remained of its contents, then dropped it next to a wino sleeping near the gravel path. The bronze horse stood on its hind legs before him, the rider clutching the reins and holding his sword high. Silver light gleamed on the letters on the base. Just a name and a year. No wings, no blood, no tears. A pair of teenagers sat between the hooves, rolling cigarettes. The smoke from their nostrils formed little swirling clouds around the marble pedestal.

"Who are you?" the doctor said. One of the teenagers glanced at him, but he had already turned away, walking back down the path. The rider remained in its silent, victorious pose.