Человек, который смог покинуть Омск

Такая история.
Сам свидетелем не был, но пацан один рассказывал, что знал он еще одного пацана.
Пацан как пацан - тришки, кепка, семки. Но все-таки было и кое-что необычное - пацан тот однажды обнаружил, что умеет летать.
Не так, как Дэвид Блейн, приподнимаясь на носках, а потом домонтируя кадры, где он уже на лесках повисает, а его ассистент попадает в кадр частью одежды, похожей на ту, что была на случайном прохожем, для правдоподобности. Нет, а прямо всамделишно - подпрыгивает такой, повисает в воздухе, а потом летит. Небыстро, но летит, куда хочет.

Оно по приколу, конечно, но просто пацану тому было и ни к чему.
Пацан на работе работу работал, на заводе у станка, а там летать вроде никуда и не надо.
Живет в частном доме. Ладно бы в многоэтажке жил, где лифт в очередной раз сломался и на лестнице нассано. Чтобы с улицы сразу в окно. Так не.
Вечером пивас с кентами глушит - так там тоже лететь никуда не надо.
Разве что в ларёк за догонкой, но туда лететь и не обязательно, можно просто себе сходить, как человек.

Бывает кто из кентов скажет: - А ну-ка, Саня, - его тоже Александром зовут, как и меня, - а ну-ка взлети.
Тот стеснялся, отнекивался сперва, но потом уговорили. Тому чё - взлетает такой, все рыгочут.

Но тоже - раз взлетел, два - и поднадоело уже.
Лампочку разве что вкрутить без стремянки, но что там труда - ну поставил стремянку, или табуретку.
Он потом уже и сам порывается полетать, покрасоваться хватом, а ему все: - Ой, да сиди уж! Видели мы всё. Хоть бы новенькое что разучил.

Бывало, конечно, напьется, и летает как дурак. Без намера, без цели. Безводное облако, носимое ветром. Осеннее дерево, дважды умершее, исторгнутое, бесплодное.
Никто его поймать не может.
Заглядывает корешам в окна и орет: - Долой самодержавие!
- Нахуй лети! - кореша ему отвечают.
Умора!

Люд поначалу пугался, потом привык. Карлсоном звать начал - хотя тот худой как штакетина.
- Вон, Карлсон наш полетел! - только и посмеиваются на скамейке бабушки.
- Непреры-ы-ывный суицид, для меня-я-я-а-а!... - Санёк укушался, значит, и классику горланит, меж хрущевок летая.

Но, сами знаете, как оно бывает - один раз прикол он уже второй раз и не прикол.
И как-то постепенно Санёк и разучился.

Бывало, конечно, по старой памяти кто упомнит: - Э, слухай, Сань - а помнишь ты летал, а?! Слухай, а полетай щяс - не, ну так, чисто для фану.
А Санёк уж и не помнит, как это.
Приподнимется чуть, от земли на половину метра, да и говорит - ну его. Чёта не получается больше. И хер с ним.

Оно так, да. И хер с ним.

Вот, опять же - историю мне рассказали, не буду врать, что вот лично того Санька знал. Но вроде те пацаны, что мне про него рассказывали - вроде зазря тюльку не гонят.
Так что не знаю. Может правда оно, может нет.

Наверное правда. Вполне себе так могло быть.

Моя дочь, в свои шесть лет уже имеющая опыт военной разлуки с отцом, сказку написала.
Заметно, конечно, некоторое влияние Хроник Нарнии, которые ей недавно читала мама (и после того, как она любит, перечитывала их сама), но все равно.
Ветхозаветные думы маленькой девочки, тоскующей о папе.

Thus, it wasn’t just my fancy. Thus, this lake really buzzes and lures, one has only to strain ears and sit down on the cold ground. To contemplate the faintly splashing black, slimed water. And listen. Listen to the sounds, which ring always, from the very day when we were conceived through mysterious amorous play inside the dark womb. And it will ring to the day, when the buzz becomes intolerable and ultimately summons us beyond.

When Mary brought me here for the first time, she did not tell anything about that. Only stood and gazed at the water surface as if suppressing sharp pain. This was not, however, unexpected: she told little of herself, though being generally talkative.
This time she thanked me reservedly for having accompanied her and disappeared in the thicket. And warned against spying on her and asking questions.

Sometimes you like something in a person. But dislike other things.
And when nice features prevail, you wrap your mind around and feel sympathy.
Otherwise, you part with the individual. Alternatively, just put up with him. As with a wisdom tooth, that foolishly grows the wrong way.
It’s neither this, nor that with Mary. You are just as much attracted as you are repulsed.

An injured girl easily turned into a hooligan. Tenderness morphed into rudeness in a snap.
Sometimes I embraced her on an impulse and suddenly recoiled struck by a poisonous, profound presentiment. A serpent was moving inside a sweet girl.

She was making love without commitment. She confided in me without fully opening up.
Her heart concealed grief. Blue tattoos disguised her white skin. Light-hued underwear hid her somber essence.
She had red mane of a witch and speckled shoulders with bra straps cut into them from under the T-shirt. She was great at adjusting them by casually but provocatively jerking of clavicles in turn.

I liked the fatality, which was felt in her. Black lights and foreign music. They mesmerized me. It was like having a look behind the scenes: in morgue or in royal bedroom. But I never had a chance to fully enjoy this mystique, because a yobbo easily cohabited in her with a demoness. - What’s your gawping about? – she could bark and I, who was admiring her a second ago, despised her again. And I had an itch to give her a wack, which I am pretty sure, was her greatest desire.

I ran away under a silly pretext a jillion of times. Leaving her in the darkness of her messy room.
And I returned a jillion of times without a suitable excuse, nor was she expecting any.

It never entered my head to bring her home.
What I remember was her silhouette against an old window frame in somebody’s Khrushchev-era apartment and her smoking thin cigarettes for ladies with thick branches entangled outside the window. Or meetings in a tiny abode of her husband-narcotist.
Yes, she had a husband. And what of it?

Once she phoned me. And asked for a meeting.
An hour after that we happened to sit in an Indian restaurant. I rarely go there, but right on target.
The owner, an old Indian Moslem, stepped out to greet us personally.
– Why does he do it? – a yobbo in her asked. I explained her it was natural in India. We are not just clients, but his guests.
No sooner had I embarked in ethnographic stories to impress the girl with my erudition, she flung off in a dry voice, which I never heard to emanate from her white body: – Mom’s passed away, – and burst into tears.

I did not know Mary was capable of crying.
I knew she might go into hysterics, shout, swear, whimper and moan. However, did not imagine she could thus childishly weep burying her eyes in the hands…
And it was the first time, when I put my arms around her and did not feel a serpent stir inside her plumping up body.

Mary’s parents had registered marriage to reduce her father’s term of imprisonment due to marital status and dependent newborn to support.
That was raison d’etre of Mary’s birth. To rescue her dad from the cage.

Mary loved her dad in her own way. Both as father and as the first man.
She spoke derisively of him as a father. And better as a man.
But what she appreciated most was his cooking gift. And missed his potato. He died of binge and she never tried better cooked potato. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. The way to a woman’ heart may follow the same course.
Mary’s heart was opening through homemade mash better than through passionate words.

Mary’s mother was a stewardess. Professional hypocrite.
“What would you like for dinner? Meat? Fish? Vegetarian dish?”.

Her father died. Mother was decommissioned.

Mother took to drinking. And nagged at Mary. The latter did the same: she is an expert in this. That was the way they lived.
Then mother suddenly met Renato. And fell in love with him.
Not just dropped on him to survive but really fell in love.
It was not a convenience, because Renato was homeless.

The ageing alcoholic quit drinking and acquired a new look. Let her iron-grey hair down. Got the feel of laughing. Learned to smile as a woman, not as a stewardess, and make her eyes sparkle.
One day, dumbstruck Mary, disoriented by this change, suggested that she should hoist sail, if she decided to go crazy in her old age, and leave the flat to her.

Mother calmly and meekly packed her things. That same evening Renato came to take her and they drove away into the darkness, happy to the max, kissing and embracing each other, like young people, oblivious to everything around them.

She never returned, even when Mary called her back having decided to mend fences. Signed a general authorization for residential matters. And left all effects behind.

And they lived happily but not too long. In Renato’s tent, in the depth of Moscow Sokolniki Park. Love doesn’t mind a poor hut, if there’s a loving heart.
Renato worked off the books here, there and everywhere. He was a strong man having a clever pair of hands and head. She was waiting for him impatiently in their orange tent, plucked flowers in the park or had walks in Moscow streets.
Or sat on the shore of a small lake and looked like always listening to something.

Mary sold the flat. Brought mother’s share to her, still willing to make peace. Bundles of banknotes in a plastic bag.
Mother took the money, but showed no greediness, just tossed the bag in the tent in an offhand manner.

The conversation was heavy going. Both between mother and daughter and between two women.
Mother laughed, capered, ran in the park in a long dress with a bright flower pattern. Apparently bearing little recollection of her former life.
Her hapless red-haired daughter could only find a nerve to quit in order not to hang about as a foreign substance within other people’s happiness.

Renato phoned yesterday to say her mother and his lover was no more.

The body was found at the lake. She sat at the shore, as if listening to something, and thus died sitting, nursing her knees.

I accompanied Mary to the tent in the park.
Renato was a sturdy, handsome man, black-haired with a tinge of grey, of an old-rocker type.
Such noble faces are hunted after to use them on old Scotch whisky labels. Or men’s deodorant. Such features are given to the old-weather beaten tars in juvenile adventure books.
His handshake was steely. He had a rich voice with slight clangor fit for Cossack songs about vast steppe, boundless freedom, dashing steed and stray bullet.

He accepted the death of his sweetheart with humility. They lived taking no heed of time: they had an eternity ahead, the Universe for two. And his grief had a tint of gratitude to the Creator for the chance to have his realm on Earth that only biblical Kings had.

I came up to the lake, where dark water was softly licking the shore, the cattail and empty sky was reflected in the ripple. It smelled of dampness.
The ducks crossed the surface, probably the single witnesses of the event. They were leaving an evanescent trace and passed from the light spot of mirrored sky into the dark reflex of the riparian forest.

I was there before, accompanying Mary, and now understood where she used to disappear and why shunned my company. I pricked up ears trying to understand if I fancied I heard the thing last time.

No, I did not. As soon as you neglected the distant city hubbub, faint slap of lake water and murmur of leaves – the buzz: cadent, modulating, monotonous noise clearly manifested itself. The buzz heard day after day, the song of great rootlessness and great loneliness. The roar of black wind. The song of the Universe. An arrow having neither beginning, nor end, where I anchored like a sand grain of conventional marks in a hastily invented dial.
The buzz with which you come into the world, but cease to take notice of it. You flee from it to take refuge in a noisy get-together, in a megalopolis, in drinking, in the labyrinth of someone’s flesh, in philistine games.
The buzz abates and looks like it has never existed. And you live deafened, for some time to come, thinking naively that you have escaped…
The lake, ducks and forest – everything lost clarity. And became a bleak picture, like label on a
bottle of mineral water.
Like a drawing on damp paper. And when you touch the paper, the thin, sticky and wet film crumples, moves aside and there, beneath it…

– Do you hear? – Mary’s voice penetrated through torpor, – do you hear it? – she waved her hand all around.
I had no doubts what she was asking about.
– Yes, I do.

We were going back in silence. Mary preceding me a bit.
I was looking at her tempting bum in blue jeans without much desire, rather mechanically, by force of habit.
She was awkwardly carrying the bag returned by Renato with several millions: she spent almost nothing of the money for the sold flat.

It emerged that I only loved this in her. Only her capacity to hear that buzz, to know of it and acknowledge its power. And not try to pretend it does not exist, the thing I despise most of all in people. Their cold-hearted, swashing conceit.
And I do not love anything else in Mary. Yobbo is always a yobbo.
The bum is not bad, but even that I did not want at that moment.
And she is lucky to get that capacity to hear the buzz and convey it, and judging by her mother, it runs in the family. And I tune in to it through her. The more so, it weirdly transforms in her.

And what should I say of Mary in particular? Generally speaking, do I love any one pure and simple?
Am I worthy of a queen, as Renato was?
Does anyone interest me as a soul, a flash, as sun, as white and not black light – as a personality?
Or in all people, I love something that stays behind them? The way It refracts through them, the way It is suppressed through their prism, because you cannot listen to the unimpeded Buzz for a long time. You will die.

Human beings are replaceable fuses. They are bodies that cover a grenade preventing fragment dispersion.
And someone rushes to the Buzz, as if to the barricades, whereas I cowardly crawl, hiding behind this or that. Pushing one to the black flame and dragging the other there by deceit, to watch from the sidelines: what will happen to him? Will it collapse right away or wriggle for some time?...

– Let’s go to my place, – Mary suggested with slight hoarseness, pulling me out of illusion again. There was something of a witch in her and at the same time earthbound, petty, and fitting within proletarian values of our community of workers and peasants. She belonged to the world of people, who dream of eternal life, whereas they do not know how to stave off boredom in a free evening.
I was looking at her without seeing her. For several moments, I even had the impression there was no Mary. And had never been.
There was a gap in the world veneer, flat and primitive. Organized as a kind of girl’s figure.
And there, seen through the gap…
– What’s your gawping about, shall we go? – Mary always lost her temper and attacked, when she feared my glances through.
– No. – I answered rigidly and decidedly after several significant moments, unexpectedly for myself.

We reached the main road separately.
At the crowded street, the buzz was expelled again and disappeared behind the cascade of city noises.

– You could at least spare the kid, Vic! – Aunt Nadia cried.
– Let ‘imp see, – answered Vic. – Might come in handy in life. Right, Petrich?
The latter was addressed to my grandpa. He grumped affirmatively rolling a quirk from one angle of mouth to the other.

The boar was not fed for a day. He was looking piteously and ingratiatingly between the planks of his enclosure snorting anxiously.
I brought him stealthily a soused apple.
– You know, Vassily, – I explained to him, – you will be slaughtered tomorrow. Because… because your… fat is needed.
I stammered over the word, so unconvincing it sounded. The fat is needed, how do you like that! As if we cannot live without it.
– Do you understand?
Vassily did not. Or failed to believe.
I sighed and started to scratch him. For the last time.

The boars like to be scratched. Because they are unable to do it themselves.
You come to the fencing, reach the hand over and run the hard, plastic comb on the rough, hirsute skin with scroop and crackle.
The swine mellows. It freezes up and offers its back and sides. The white, dry bits of old skin fly in flocks.
In a while, it begins to sway and finally the heavy bulk tumbles down on one side like a great tight sack. Then you may step inside the enclosure.

Thus, you scratch this formerly savage and now miserable animal and wonder over its might combined with brutish humbleness. And consent to live in crud. Just to feed from the bucket, where granny pours leftovers of a soup, potato peelings, pomace, wastewater after rinsing a cloth used to take away crumbs from the table or washing the cutlery.

You rustle with a comb and try to understand: do you feel sorry for him or gloat over? And you are happy to be a human being. And not destined to be slaughtered for fat. And the fat from human flesh is not served at table.

It would be interesting if it were served.
Imagine Aunt Nadia, Uncle Victor, and Uncle Yuri with this foolish brush-like moustache of his, who looks like a shell game artist from a movie about bandits, paying you a visit and you treat them with sauerkraut – considered a decent dish of which you can spare any amount, though. Accompanied with onions, radish and dill all put in enameled tub.
Then you set cured fat in the center of the table. And boast: help yourselves, dear guests, have a go at it, while the fat is solid, we have cut it out of Granny Lilly, whom we slaughtered.

So, you scratch the boar and your heart covers with hoar-rime. With brittle chippings, ice particles as in a refrigerator during defrosting: the door is open; a thawing semi-transparent little piece falls with a clatter and trickles down in a pan placed below.

I had a bad night. Dreamed of a WC with dim yellow light inside, dirty riffled stairs and a place to sit in eagle-like position.
I step on one stair, but they all crumble as clay, fall off by pieces, which are flushed by water into a dark, stale, oozy mud.

I woke up forcefully. The street lamp was shining through the window. I was tormentingly struggling against big Z’s but missed an instant and got to sleep afresh.

I was then dreaming of my digs, where a bed with wire mesh base was placed in the garden. Then a sort of roof was fabricated over it and discarded clobbers thrown on the base. A pillow was also found.
A trunk with old magazines was shoved under this bed.
I sit on the bed and find it wet, because the clobbers usually taken inside the house during rain to keep them from growing damp, were left on the bed this time.
I lie on the wet stuff, fidget and feel uncomfortable.
I turn the pillow round and discover the other side all covered with worms and woodlice.
I throw it, jump with disgust and see maggots fall from under the mattress.
I run aside and wake up.

…Uncle Vic agreed to do the job for an ear. And drink a quarter-liter bottle of vodka together.
Vassily was led outside.

He grunted slightly. A huge, strong descent of wild boars of old times was looking pitifully and entreatingly with its transparent, grey blue eyes.
I’ll bet anything, it knew. Knew where it was led.
Knew and did not resist.

I remember the same story in school. We catch Gryanka and give him a fourpenny one. But he shrinks his small head into his rawboned shoulders with every blow and meekly repeats: – Don’t! Please, don’t!
But that makes you even more furious and you are ready to kill him, to get his guts ripped out and fed to the birds of prey. Just kill and not to see him anymore.
“Please, don’t…”. But we’ll do!

This is the case with Vassily: – “Please, don’t…”.
Its legs are tied and it has a stone in the mouth.
And a shining knife lies on a brick.

Three men overturn the body in an old bathtub, right in the dooryard.
And as if in a dream I see the blade in Uncle Vic’ hand and the next moment the hilt sticks out behind the ear.
The rattle of swine hoofs against the battered enamel.
The blood is incredibly scarlet – this color just does not exist! It’s like gouache at a school lesson in drawing.

Why does it not die so long? An eternity passed before it went quiet.

Everything within me was covered with frost dew. I was quiet, cold and fooled around, as befits a boy, who always spends his vacations in the country with its apples, pears, prunes and beheaded hens and ducks running in the yard, while their heads pulsate their last on a plank between two nails (I drove them in), next to the lying axe.

Then we were smoking the beast. The brazing torch was droning. The hay was clicking in the fire.
The frightful, devilish carcass was turning black. Horrible blisters were swelling up. The smell of burning hair was suffocating.
Hideous flat meat-chopper was used to scrape and charred polygon platelets were falling to disclose the wrenching, repulsive pink matter.

Blood dripped from the bathtub. It was left unattended to be washed away by rain. It just so happened that the hissing radio set forecast extensive precipitation in Krasnoarmeisky District.
However, the cats were quicker to arrive. Tender, foxy-colored kittens touchingly poked their smeared muzzles in the pool.

In the days that followed the blood turned blue. I stood and gazed being surprised at almost pearly color of the blacksoil where the pool went inside.

…In a short while, the cured fat was tasted.
– Is Vassily good to eat? – Grandpa asked winking and confirmed without waiting for reply – Delicious!
And he was right. The fat was really a success.

…Sometimes, I have a dream about our country machinery and tractor station that smelt of black oil fuel, where a motor vehicle made at the Gorky Automobile Plant and tools were kept. Secondary echo was heard in the vast shedder, which amplified voices and chatter of sparrows. It looked like our own station but something was different. Because the gates were set ajar and there were huge roasters inside with fire rampaging within.
In the meantime, in the yard, where canisters with engine oil and cases with grease lubricant are scattered, the workers have spread tarpaulin and smoke a man. Alive.
They act busily, adroitly and without taking cigarettes out of their mouths.
And a smudge of burnt flesh and bone processing plant is in the air.

But the most horrible thing is that persons being smoked do not yell. Naked, miserable, being covered with carbon crust, they clench their teeth from incredible pain and only slightly moan sometimes in an educated way not to ruin the right disposition of the guys, when the work is going fine: Don’t, Please, don’t…

Such dream is a rare thing. It was quite a while ago, when I saw it last time, but I feel uneasy: what if it comes again? But sleeping obsession passes, inner hoar comes back, and there is no fear again.
What is a dream to me?

Здравствуй, здравствуй снова, мой верный собеседник.
Злой, мрачный, пропащий - и навеки лучший. Навеки обреченный ходить за мной по пятам, лучше меня самого зная, что всё обратится в пепел.

Никто тебя не видит, но я хорошо знаю твою поступь за спиной, твое дыхание, твой сумеречный взгляд.
В самый жаркий день, в пустынный зной, ты холодный и шуршащий, как осыпающийся гравий.

Ты молчишь, но иногда и тебе не чуждо поговорить.
Поговорим?

Скольких мы оставили, мой верный спутник? Сколько мертвецов спрятано в подполе, где талая вода?
Ты помогал мне сбрасывать их туда, и не задавал вопросов. Мальчики и девочки, юноши и отрочницы, мужчины и дамы, старики и старухи - они тонули в этой мутной воде, широко раскрыв от удивления глаза - а мы только провожали их взглядом. А потом ты холодным дыханием гасил свечу, навсегда смыкая над ними черноту.

Сколько еще брести нам, моя верная тень, мой верный соратник, страшный, безвременно состарившийся парень?
Мы сидим с тобой у дорожного костра, и огонь отражается в твоих черных, вороньих глазах.
Ничего у нас нет. Хотя мы вертели царями. Никого у нас не осталось - а ведь сколько прошло их, людей, через нас.
Лишь ключи от двери - которую можно открыть лишь единожды.

Молчишь? Молчи. Незачем говорить попусту.

Холодно нынче в небесах. Не то небыль, не то даже снега не осталось у Господа, нечем укутать замерзшую, застывшую землю, которую уже не отогреть.
Собирай котелок, допивай кипяток с рябиной, да пойдем дальше, долгий путь в одиночестве.

Я буду, как и прежде, идти по камням, они будут с шелестом скатываться, и застывать вновь, на сотни лет - холодные и живые, жизнь которых столь медленна, что недоступна разумению смертного.
А ты будешь идти за мной, как всегда недвижный, застывший, беззвучный, незаметный. Верный, мрачный и неизменно злой. Даже в своей доброте.

Иногда ты провалишься в беззвучный сон, пока я возьму недолгую вахту. И я буду сидеть и смотреть на тебя, мою Тень, спящую у костра.
И я тебя пожалею. Пожалею твою больную, никому не интересную судьбу. Пожалею твою печальную, никому не нужную, стареющую красоту.
И всех тех, кого ты похоронил, не оплакав, тоже пожалею.
Много их. Очень много. Трупов в темной, талой, зимней воде. Уже не сосчитать. Не вспомнить всех.

Скольких мы еще оставим там, в бездне? Скольких, доверившихся нам, погрузим навсегда в холодную, гнилую воду, и погасим над ними свет? Сколько еще глаз в беспомощной мольбе встретятся с нашими?

Молчи. Я знаю, у тебя нет ответа.

Есть скорбь. Большая, необъятная, горькая. И она низачем. Ниотчего. Нипочему.
Она просто есть, и всегда была, с тех самых лет, когда отделился свет от тьмы - а может и того раньше. Она просто не может иначе. Она будет быть - и мы будем страдать. И мы в этом не виноваты. Так заведено.
Есть скорбь. И она не заклинается. И не слышит мольб. Есть скорбь, и с ней не сразишься.
Есть пораженные скорбью, слишком малые, чтобы выпить ее - и они тщетно сопротивляются.
Но с ними не надо сражаться. Им нужна лишь толика милосердия, и огонь свечи. Тепло костра. Чтобы было куда идти.
Не надо сражаться с теми, кому есть возможность исцелить раны.

А есть те, кого не исцелить - ты, мой верный собеседник, это хорошо знаешь, не так ли? И не в силах справиться со скорбью, они сами становятся скорбью. Болью утраты. Крахом иллюзий.
Страшным удивлением на закате жизни - Господи, как скучно и как интересно! Как это всё удивительно, и как это всё низачем.
Натужное, напряженное преодоление рутины, с верой в то, что потом, однажды, в какой-то день все переменится, станет интереснее, что все разрозненные нити свяжутся, и станет ясен ответ - который, мы то с тобой это знаем, ясен не станет. И не свяжутся нити. И не переменится ничего.

Молчишь? Молчи. Молчи, Тень, молчи. Поспи, пока я подежурю. Ночь на передышку. И впереди еще дорога длинная.

Почему самый странный? А потому, что это единственный рассказ, который не про меня, и даже не про моё альтер эго.
Он мне приснился, я его прилежно записал.

Удивительно, но нашлись люди, которым он оказался очень важен, они горячо благодарили меня за него.
Даже сравнили его с легендой о расчленении бога Диониса - и, что любопытно, они оказались не так уж неправы.
Отчего-то Вселенная пожелала, чтобы именно я стал проводником этого рассказа - и моя миссия исполнена.

Выпуск "Мю Цефеи" в электронной версии можно скачать бесплатно:

Вот здесь, на Ридеро - https://ridero.ru/books/myu_cefeya_povod_dlya_podviga_bremya_predatelstva/

Мю Цефею я уже рекламировал, но не грех еще раз - вот здесь новость про новый выпуск же, а заодно подписаться в соцсетях:

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Богомерзкий Фэйсбук

"Меч" - в зарисовках, 221 страница.

Он давно умер, но я продолжаю быть на него зол.
Да что зол – я его порой ненавижу.
Прекрасно понимаю, что он ничем не заслужил моей ненависти – но ненавижу всё-равно.



( Ещё один поэт погиб - изжога доконала )

Сквозь шаткие декорации мира я вижу переливающийся всеми гранями свет. Он мерцает как небесное тело, материнская звезда, и манит меня.
Он пробивается лучами через дыры, он сквозит за любой детальцей этого мира - величественной или банальной.

Я часто смотрю на что-то, а вижу сквозь. Вижу свет. Ощущаю чёрный ветер.
И так было всегда, сколько себя помню.
Для меня большим изумлением было осознать (в весьма зрелом, кстати, возрасте) что эту звезду видят и ощущают не все. И что, быть может, они и не являются, как я, её детьми.

Чем старше я становлюсь, тем ярче и завораживающе мерцает для меня эта звезда.
Я могу разговаривать с человеком - а видеть Алголь в его глазах.
Я могу смотреть на дворцы и разруху, жизнь и смерть, а видеть сквозь совсем не то, что снаружи.

И чем дольше я живу, тем сильнее я зависим от этого мерцания. Всё сложнее и сложнее мне отвлекаться, выходить из гипноза, очарования этой тяжелой, страшной и прекрасной звезды.

Мне кажется, что моя смерть будет совершенно безболезненной и незаметной для меня самого.
Я просто буду смотреть на эту звезду, как она сверкает и манит меня, и просто в какой-то момент не вернусь. Сольюсь с ней, сам стану мерцанием.
Мой труп найдут с широко раскрытыми глазами, в которых уже ничего больше не отразится, так и не узнав, что именно со мной произошло.

People buy dogs to be loved. Those who want to love, buy cats.
Hamsters are needed to acquaint a child or a youngster with death.

In my teen-age period, don’t know why, I showed initiative in buying hamsters. May be I really had a secret call to be initiated into the Grim Reaper Club in this way.
I went to a pet shop and bought two angora hamsters.

They were cool: beady eyes, white-pink color, soft bellies and short tails.
Some people say that hamsters are stupid: they are stupid themselves. They easily recognized different persons, rejoiced after a long absence.
And indeed, one would think them to be just tiny mice with tiny brain. But they were definitely creatures with identities.

That knocked me off-balance. Were they fish or turtles, whose existence is irrelevant, like that of a piece of furniture, it would have been a different matter.
I expected them to be in the same vein: a harmless fun, but unexpectedly took to them.
A live toy it’s one thing, it’s quite another a totally individual creature, each one with its character: one is quick, indefatigable and resourceful, the other – soft, quiet, and gives priority to eating and running in the wheel.

Some say that hamsters bite and stink.
Holy balls! If you hold them in a three-liter jar and feed on trash, they will invariably bite and smell like a hobos.
I staked out a warren for them in the room. Fed them on fresh vegetables and they did not bite, smelled of suckling kittens.

However, they did not get their warren right away. In my innocence, I initially put them in a cardboard box. It needs no saying that the very first night, the one, which was indefatigable, gnawed a hole through together with a piece of carpet, where the box stood. Gnawed and was lost in the pampas.
Really disappeared somewhere in the flat, and we could not find him for quite a while. It turned out it had settled down behind the kitchen-sink. It had a water supply from a leaky tap and brought all its food there during the night.
That was the difference in characters. One craved for freedom and escaped, the other could follow but remained.

Generally, they were not much of a trouble. Only sometimes, already in the warren, they nibbled at the skirt board, probably hoping there was dangerous and hungry but still coveted freedom behind it.
In such cases, I usually blearily shuffled my way to the warren, pulled the hamster out covered with chippings and rebuked it.

That was the way they lived. All mucked about with them a little bit. Genie even used to take them for a drive on his head. That was a crazy picture: there goes my brother with a hamster sitting on top of his head.

Once they had a brawl, which I did not even notice. Probably the indefatigable fellow heavily bit the other’s belly, whereas we took no notice of it.
It became evident only when the animal quickly broke up.

At that moment, we suddenly realized how we got attached to them. How important and bright they are.
We started a desperate search of a vet clinic. Found one at the outskirts of Mitino in an old house, now demolished, with the entrance hall of Volokolamskaya underground station built in its place.
I felt down: with the dying hamster in the box, I was almost unable to hold back the tears.
At the clinic, a dog suddenly attacked me and bit my elbow. My heart sank into my boots, because I am very afraid of dogs. I stood there clutching the box to my chest unable to do anything.
That was a silly situation. The dog bit me once more. A man lazily came out of the house eying the scene with curiosity. He did not interfere just put his hand in the pocket for a cigarette.
– Take the dog away – I gasped paralyzed with terror and pain.
He looked at me with great surprise and took the dog the dog away half-heartedly, as if fulfilling somebody’s order.
Then examined me, still jittering, and added by way of soothing me: – It’s inoculated.
– She bit me! – my voice trembled.
– But it’s inoculated! – the man was beginning to chafe at my imbecility.
– It… – I was losing my breath clasping the box to my breast, – bit me…
– But it’s inoculated!

I have a dim recollection of the rest as I entered. The inside resembled a knacker’s yard.
A huge dog was lying on the floor, all in blood-soaked bandages, and groaned so loudly I could hardly hear myself speaking.
– What is your problem? – asked another dotty personage in white coat.
– A hamster… – I started.
– A hamster? – the man asked dazedly.

In his world picture, cats and dogs were probably at least deserving time and attention. But a hamster! All the problems with hamsters had evidently to be resolved with a flush toilet.

He, however, agreed to have a look, doing me a favor.
– Goner, – was the verdict.
I got cold feet.

The best I could do was to put him down.
And soon got the box with the dead body. And went home stricken with grief.

I felt lonely. I mourned and had a grudge against myself at the same time. Two contrasting ideas were struggling in my head. One was based on the universal assumption that a hamster is an insignificant creature and is not worth sixpence.
The other was based on the real life: this small fry had its own temper, habits and activities. We had been living together for some time and it brought tender affectionate joy into my life. But its term is not long and now I’m carrying the box with its corpse.

It would be honest to bury it. But I did not have the stomach for it.
I could only cast the last glance inside the box, close it, wrap the scotch around it and bring it to the dustbin.
There was something nasty and treacherous in it.

I rued having lost part of myself and the creature I became attached to. And raged inwardly at being sentimental instead of hard-boiled and ruthless, as I wanted. A brick, who would easily and painlessly throw anything out of his life without reflexion, as Nietzsche's blond beast.

The other hamster, the troublemaker and libertarian, was waiting at home.
I spent a minute to hammer it for having bitten the conspecific fellow to death. Then I dismissed it: it could be amended. Any scolding stems from inability and fear.

Besides, it did not outlive the first one too much. Caught cold and died. Also unexpectedly and quickly.

I neglected the burial again. And brought it to the dustbin in a box.

Came back home humiliated with the feeling of grief and treachery.

Nobody gnawed at the skirting at night. Silence reigned in the house.
I did not have to procure fresh vegetables and cut them into cubes before going to school.

People buy dogs to be loved. Those who desire to love, buy cats. Hamsters are meant to be a painful vaccination, which at its most benign conveys terrible news, which one is tempted to shun, but there is no way: all things must pass. This will also pass. Leaving no trace.

In a couple of days, I dismantled the warren.
The room was its old self again, as if nobody had ever been there except me.
Only scratches on the skirt board and a hole in the carpet reminded of something for quite a while. Of something, I intended to cut off and forget, but still remember for some reason.

This is how it happened.
I lived on Pyatnitsa Highway in Moscow at the time, whereas the ground floor in the neighboring entrance accommodated an all-day shop.

They sold sangria there. Of genuine Spanish production, wickedly good. It is easily drinkable like a kompot and makes you purr content with pleasure. And then – bang! – you get tight, but in a sweet, and entrammeling way of meridional lands bliss. And a standard tetrapack container of this beverage, I vividly remember, cost 96 rubles.
It was more than in Andorra free of excise duties and thus a paradise for alkies, but anyway as cheap as chips for such delish.

I was no stranger to the bottle. However, my financial status was far from stable: it varied from well-to-do to fumbling after few coins for passenger fare.

And thus we have 11 o’clock in the evening. And no money. But I pine for sangria like hell. One hundred, paltry one hundred rubles could save a giant among thinkers*, but there is none available. And the giant cries to Heaven.

All commemorative twos and tens have been spent. There is a collectible two-dollar note, but no exchange store to be found, but even if there were one, the note was then worth less than sixty RUR.
Go and put the bee on the salesgirls like a lunchie boozer, admonishing them I would pay back the next day? It would not work. In spite of them knowing my identity, because I am a denizen.
Phone to the buddies? Conscience, which sometimes wakes up, does not sanction it. A guy calling in the middle of the night to beg hundred rubles for sangria would be a miserable scene. I wish the persons I respect would have none of it.

What should I do? I can’t imagine!
I start to look up and down in search of a hundred. Go through money collection: notes and coins – nothing suitable. Rummage in the winter wear in case of overlooked skrilla. Zero.
Ransack other clothes and books for eventual rainy day fund. I once found five-hundred-ruble bill in a book left by my wife after divorce. And became spoilt by success.
I go on rummaging and pray to God: “Perform a miracle, deliver a hundred! Thou turneth wine into blood, marvelous art Thy deeds: it’s child’s play for Thou to deliver a hundred to me.”

Then, to play last trump, I beseech: ”Perform a miracle, oh God! If you do, I will believe in Thou!”

And suddenly… I did not understand what happened: I was still hunting through clothing, papers, boxes – tugged at something and right after those words, probably out of thin air – a hundred appeared. Brand new and neat, as if from printing press, it graciously flew up, and dancing like snow in January, revolving about its axis and around the perimeter, turned a somersault and landed on the floor.

I almost forgot to breathe. I touched it and it was real.
Where from? From nowhere. Wired for sound, I held it in my hands and feared it would turn into smoke or shredded pack paper. I hastily dressed, put felt snow boots on my bare feet and went to the shop.

Here’s the coveted shelf with sangria on it (there were yet no limitations on alcohol purchase). I take it under my arm and hold forth the hundred. Pray for it to be true.
They give me change of four rubles, sales slip and I am beyond the checkout area with 4 rubles and a tetrapak of ambrosial sangria.

Jesus! Good Lord! How delicious it was! Its fruity streams ran like nectar curing my uneasy and wounded soul. Scars spread and healed where those sweet streams flew. Tetrapak was consumed to the last drop and that was the quantity needed to feel happy.

Since that day I believe in God and not because promises must be held, but because it was a sky sign. You can’t help believing in such God.

Thus, I am a believer from then onward. Not in religious sense – far from it: I still think that religion is opiate for the masses, but I am exactly a believer. I just know beyond doubt that God exists. It cannot be otherwise.

Darwin is a great scientist, no swipe, but still humankind was created by God. Or we came here from another planet, where we were created by God.

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*Soviet writers Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, “The Twelve Chairs”, Ch. 14. Used only ironically.