not obeying him.

His son's voice was heard all over the dacha:

"Daddy, I'm dying. Dad, please, don't beat me"

But Mastan couldn't stop. When he got tired of beating up on
his son and needed to rest his tired hands, he climbed up on
his son's back. He was biting his son's ears and screaming as
loud as he could until his eyes became bloodshot. His hands were
pinching and twisting whatever they could get a hold of.

Mastan's wife had completely lost herself. During those 16 years,
her husband had never slapped their child. Now all of a sudden,
she was lost because of her husband's strange behavior.

Mastan was going around the garden riding on the back of his
son who didn't know where to run. He was just trying to escape
from his father who was screamingand yelling and making his
body black and blue from pain. Now he was remembering the cats
that he tied together with their tails. Mastan was confused by
his own behavior. It was as if a big unreasonable, cruel monster
that had got bigger, little by little, for 16 years inside him
had finally awakened. It was as if Mastan had fed the monster
with all his problems up to then. And the monster had become
bigger and fatter, thriving on all those poisons.

By the time the neighbor men came to help, Mastan's son was lying
on the ground, moaning. And Mastan was out of breath, sitting
on his son's back.

Mastan's wife was leaning against a mulberry tree, crying. It
seems she was more afraid that her husband was going crazy than
for her son.

That night neither Mastan, nor