Wind of Change

Samson   Gelkhvidze





Wind of Change
(Storybook)

 








Tbilisi - 2022
 

UDC 821.353.1-32
G -34







               
               



© Gelkhvidze Samson Prokofievich, 2022













ISBN 978-9941-8-4497-3

To the author's preface

The author’s long-term observations of the life of earthlings and the catastrophic speed with which, and with what consistent, diligent zeal and diligence people sometimes strive for their self-destruction, in every possible way avoiding their salvation, happiness, love and well-being, did not make it possible - not to write about all this.
The author was also struck by the more and more often confronted with him lately the property of a person, at the right time to say the words he needs, regardless of either the truth, or lies, or conscience, which spread and was transmitted from person to person, like a deadly flu. , during a pandemic.
Essays, short stories, short stories, miniatures of literary and artistic and other literary works, they are like photographs that remind us of the minutes of our lives, capturing at the time of their writing, the time of the event taking place in a particular geographical place, surrounding people with shades of their characters and mindsets, animate and inanimate nature, with all the ranges of their colors and moods.
Such photographs help to surface, perhaps even long-flooded in the world of life, feelings, moods and sensations that evoke in us certain moods and dispositions of the mind and spirit.
What happened in the past, present, what will happen in the future. After all, it is not for nothing that it is said in Ecclesiastes that "what was, will be."
According to this formula, it is partly possible with a large percentage of success to ignore and look into the future life of a person, and even of all mankind, striving for its self-destruction with a catastrophic speed.
Some of the best, of course, have to be borrowed from the past and the present, but from the worst, you can draw lessons from the mistakes and blunders of the past, for further advancement in life.
Finally, a turning point came in the life of the author, in which, in his third collection of short stories, he completes his cycle of “stories of youth”, etc., which he did not dare to risk leaving unpublished, due to the rules of the game of earthly life, horror as loving to present to us in the most unexpected way, a variety of dizzying surprises.
Although it is possible and appropriate here to recall the statement of Confucius that the experience of a past life is nothing more than a lantern attached to the back of the headdress, which illuminates only the path traveled by a person.
And yet, each literary “sketch” is like a photograph for memory, which should awaken the best feelings and thoughts in a person, and strengthen a person’s faith in understanding his life from the best side, and in affirming in himself the thought that despite all the hardships and sorrows encountered by a person in life, life is still a very magnificent thing, from which one can draw innumerable riches for the spirit, mind and soul, which can be useful to a person both in this and in another life.
The range of stories offered to the reader by genre and character is different and is designed for a wide range of readers.
The Holy Father alone says that only he who does not say or do anything of his own achieves perfection, but only what is said in the Holy Scripture.
Based on the foregoing, one can not easily conclude that all the author's desire to write and the results of his writing are a sign of his not only far from true perfection, but also an unquenchable desire for it.
The author tries to justify himself on this occasion by saying that the desire to write is partly dictated by him and the desire to share his thoughts and feelings with readers, and maybe the desire to live and travel in some kind of virtual world.
They say that in the city of Pereslavka there is a monument to an elephant, which expresses the mindset of those who look at it.
Each person sees something different in the same thing, as if according to the philosophy of knowledge of E. Kant. They say that love is when people look in one direction and perceive the same thing in the same way. Maybe that's why the author does not hope for love and understanding from each reader, although he loves them all. And therefore asks them for mercy and indulgence.
This is probably the fate of the "great people" living on our planet, that their desires come true in part, and sometimes entirely, for ordinary and mortals of this world, and then after many years.
The great scientist Albert Einstein dreamed in recent years of working on a desert island as a lighthouse keeper - To light it in the evening and put it out early in the morning.
So the author, a mere mortal, at the end of his academic career, who completed the rank of an equivalent academic degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences, at the end of his young years of life, got a job as a watchman in one of the leading computer companies in the city and does nothing else than watch monitors , for the position of the office rooms, check their normal condition and turn off the elevators working in the office late in the evening, and turn them on in the early morning.
On merit, the work he got today allowed him to devote even more time to literature, although computers sometimes and often played “evil games” with him, when he, paraphrasing famous lines, known by this Rilke, often became not what he was in everyday life:
And he's not the same as he was in the beginning,
Alien destinies - becoming his fate,
Recognizing him, they take him away!
Nevertheless, paying tribute to the current work, the author would like to note once again that the publication of his next, this book, he owes it to her!
So, good luck reading this book, my good reader!
;
Gelkhvidze Samson Prokofievich
To those who object, against artistic writing, believing Christians
Another attempt to reconcile the sinful Earth with the holy Heaven.

Still, the phenomenon of human desires is amazing. Where do they come from and where are they going? Which lead us to salvation and which to destruction.
Everything has been known and invented for a long time. What then drives human restlessness? The flow of life, the movement in deliberately chosen directions? It is difficult to stay in a moving stream that blows you away and, in case of a stop, will take you somewhere far away with its waters. In this case, what is the dependence of our local, local movements in the general global stream?
The right answers can only be given to the right questions. Although…
If everything has been said and written a long time ago, where does the desire to write come from?
Isn't it better to read than to write about what has already been said, especially since, perhaps, the seemingly old story that I would like to tell about, in essence, by and large, is a kind of variation of the story that was once and by someone that has already been said.
Willingness to speak up or express yourself? Maybe confess?
An artistic form of self-expression, self-confession, the discovery in oneself of the beauty of those secrets of the human soul, which the Almighty has so generously, lovingly and mercifully endowed us with.
Another, colorful facet in the knowledge of Absolute love and kindness, in the model and likeness of which we are created, with the addition of those earthly impurities and distortions that we, due to our human weakness, acquire on sinful earth?
The confrontation between good and evil principles, the struggle of which permeates our entire life, causes an infinite number of variations of life situations in such extravagant plots that even the most talented and sophisticated writer cannot come up with.
It turns out that life itself throws stories at us, just have time to write them down. But for what, why? If the very philosophical definition of being leads to the fact that it is something that has never been and never will be, but is only now and always? So that a person does not lose the ability to think? And why is this ability for a person if it does not serve the comprehension and service of the truth?
What is the purpose of human life if it is not dedicated to Life itself? And what is the price of human labor and product, if they are not aimed at glorifying the name of the One to whom we owe our birth and existence?
“…he who does not gather with me, he squanders” (Mat. 12:31).
How, in this case, could and should we understand the meaning and purpose of literature in human life in general?
It seems that everyone has the right to their opinion and their statement, even if it may seem erroneous to others.
In this context, the meaning and purpose of literature as a whole seems to serve the Absolute Truth, Love, Kindness. I think that only in this case can one justify the service to literature. The occupation of it can be represented by a certain spiritual act or exercise, useful both for the one who does it and for the good of society.
In this regard, I recall the episode described in the Fatherland by St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, which tells about the life of St. Abba Anthony, about how he once, subjected to spiritual confusion, despondency and a special invasion of gloomy thoughts, began to pour out his sorrow before God, wondering :
"How can I be saved?" And he suddenly had a vision of an unknown person, carefully occupied with the labors of his hands, who either got up, leaving needlework, and prayed, then again returned to needlework, sewing palm leaves. Then he got up again and prayed, after the prayer he again began to do needlework. The one who did this turned out to be an angel sent to him by God to encourage and encourage him to courage. And he heard a voice from an angel: "Do this, and you will be saved."
And further it is pointed out that the mind cannot completely and unceasingly abide in prayer and other deeds of spiritual feat: as limited, it gets tired, it needs rest, which is delivered by needlework, in which the mind’s work, although it continues, is not so intense.
So, I think, why not imagine a person’s desire to write as the needlework described above?
Write about everything, about the past, about the present, about the imagined future, about what you have seen, heard, thought, about everything that hurts your soul, and compare all this with absolute and true church knowledge. Why? If only because to check or compare with him our "distortion" of the society in which we live.
Once again I catch myself thinking and wanting to justify a person's desire to write.
I think that activities in the field of fiction are subconsciously dictated by the desire to find the path of Truth s or at least to the path leading to this path. But what if, by the grace of God, a person somehow ended up on this path and is on it?
The machinations of the evil one? His desire to lead such a writer astray from the path of Truth? Or maybe the writer's desire to save those who have not yet been saved, even one, in order to wash away many of his sins? Or maybe both?
Purely artistic literature, it seems, can be attributed rather to the earthly, while purely spiritual literature, to the heavenly. Does artistic and spiritual literature have the right to exist, or vice versa? I think the latter is less so than the former. And also the aforementioned direction is represented by the direction forward, and in the opposite direction - backward.
But what place should it occupy in the role of saving the human soul? I think it should depend on the percentage of the artistic and the spiritual in this or that author.
If the destroyer of the human soul has many nets and tricks set up everywhere for its destruction, then why shouldn’t the same number of nets exist, catching and tearing human souls out of the routine and cycle of their sins, putting them on the true path of salvation?
I think that for those who are still ignorant and unfamiliar, and especially those who are frightened and avoid church truths and knowledge, such a literary and spiritual genre can be very useful for overcoming the obstacles that stand in their way and igniting that saving flame of desires, which gradually, by the grace of God, can flare up in a blissful and fiery fire of love and joy that cannot fit in one person and he will certainly have a desire to bestow similar good feelings and life “quanta” on his entire close environment. For how can one disagree with the words of one famous song that “that a person’s happiness should be such that when you are happy yourself, share your happiness with another” - this is artistically and “joy and happiness are given to a person so that he, so and passed them on to others” - this is in the spiritual sense.
I think that in this regard, in the genre of artistic and spiritual literature, fiction can be a permanent accomplice of the spiritual, with the help of which it will be possible to attract and thereby save as many people as possible.
And it is certainly fair to subject works of such a genre to mutual reviews, both artistic and spiritual, so that such considerations or thoughts do not creep into them that could violate the integrity of the entire genre, or, worse, turn out to be hostile, which could become extremely disastrous for both the writer and the reader.
And in conclusion, I would like to express my wishes to those who are trying to decide and find their place in the aforementioned related genre:
“If you can’t write, read, and if you can’t not write, then read much more! Read on, and everything will be decided by itself and applied!”

03/10/2004
P.S. Read, experience and empathize, so that, as one of the classics said, it is more complete and more correct to answer the questions posed in the soul.

;
New neighbors

It is necessary to choose neighbors, not a house.
N.S. Khrushchev

The hiss of the water heated in the water tank was growing.
“As we were taught at school, in physics,” a thought flashed through my head, “water begins to make noise before boiling.”
The dial hand was approaching the maximum mark, upon reaching which the red light in the power panel goes out.
"So! Now soon. However, perhaps you should not wait for a boil, just rinse, and there are as many as eighty liters in the tank. I wonder why this tank is called Ariston?
His gaze involuntarily slid to the ceiling of the kitchen, sadly convinced of the violation of the integrity of the paper lining under the whitewash.
“Well, how many times can you flood the lower neighbors? And after all quite recently live. NEW RESIDENTS entrance! Look at you!.. Go up to them, these new ones, and talk again, the last one... But in general... Well, then, let's say, the water from above disfigured the ceiling... And what do the wallpapers on the walls look like? You warm yourself in the kitchen in winter, turn on all the burners of the gas stove, and even boil water on it. Not only that, everything is covered in soot over the stove, it’s scary to look at. They mounted a gas meter, digested the pipes, and burned the wallpaper, did not put an asbestos gasket.
In short, at least a small, at least a mini repair in the kitchen is needed, well, desperately. And not the slightest possibility. Well, absolutely!
Oh, come on with the kitchen, I would manage my health, and not a penny on the cheapest medicines.
Here, in the bathroom, there is a wet spot over the tank, and it is noticeably increasing - to state an inexorable look.
- Eh! Well, about the water, let's say, they forget, absent-minded, and these constant knocking, rumbling, as if on the brain, direct fire, and then all night they roll back with an echo.
In general, not life, but raspberries! And why is it that the new neighbors are itching to destroy everything and rebuild everything?
“And this is always the case, Amiran,” my sister noted in a recent telephone conversation, “before they move and live, they redraw the entire layout, rearrange the walls, it’s good if they are wise, otherwise some destroy, others build. The bathroom and the toilet are either united or separated, balconies and loggias are being completed, and in the end they are accepted, if not for exhausting European-quality repairs, then for the usual endless interior decoration with alteration, imperfections and hassles.
Closing the door to the bathroom firmly behind him, Amiran began, trembling, to undress in order to slip into the shower with an instant movement, but suddenly he abruptly stopped: “You should not skip the midday prayer. There is a service in the church now,” he dressed again and turned on the radio.
Through a prayer in front of the icon of the Savior, behind a red lamp, he suddenly heard a roar behind him. “Apparently, the walls are being destroyed again.”
After reading the ninetieth psalm he had begun, he rushed to the bathroom to take a shower.
"God, what's going on! Nightmare!" - roared in horror at the sight of wet plaster from the ceiling that had filled up the entire bathtub and the floor.
“No, it’s impossible to endure anymore,” he jumped out the front door and rushed up the stairs to the top floor, supporting the jerky bells, into the new metal door with punches.
The door opened, and behind it appeared the frightened face of a new neighbor, short, frail, about seventy years old, in clothes soaked with construction dust, with a hammer and a chisel in his hands.
"He's armed with tools! Well, so what! But I am my truth! Let's see who gets it."
Through impassioned proposals, Amiran nevertheless managed to notice the fear of his new neighbor, in front of a young, tall, strong man of forty years old.
“No, you don’t need to say anything, I beg you,” he murmured with fear, “I’ll explain everything to you!” I almost died myself.
“It almost counts,” Amiran flashed.
The pleading expression and the drooping look of the new neighbor instantly extinguished Amiran's warlike ardor and even deprived him of the power of speech for a while.
“Let's see how further events will develop,” Amiran thought on the way deep into the apartment, following his neighbor, who was heading businesslike to the bathrooms.
“Here, look,” he pointed to the shattered toilet bowl.
- At first it cracked when I sat on it, last week, with a hammer and a small crowbar in my hands, I demolished the partition between the toilet and the bathroom. Then, remember, I apologized to you! And now I rolled off it for the second time, finished it off and almost cut myself on these sharp, surviving fragmentation, ceramic remnants. I could have died, right?
- Yes, but this would not be my fault, - Amiran explained, - but if I died, you would obviously be to blame and, I assure you, would suffer the most severe punishment. Thank you, prayer saved...
- And what, from the fact that I filled you with water, for which I apologize, you could die? the neighbor questioned.
- How could you! Come with me, see for yourself in everything! he tried to convince his neighbor, pulling him along with him. - How many times have I complained that you fill me! I've been with you for over a year now. But my patience has finally come to an end.
- Excuse me, Amiran, but what could I do if this old neighbor of yours, when moving, unscrewed all the screws from the faucet and pipes, every single one, and put in thin wooden plugs.
- So one, two, three! And then?! - Amiran pressed on dejectedly descending with him into down the steps of the new neighbor. - In the end, they would turn off the main water supply valve in the toilet.
- So blocked! But he, apparently, misses, - the new neighbor explained, - but don’t worry, we will restore everything later, as soon as we start finishing. Well, in the meantime, we are demolishing and dismantling.
- It's not my business, of course, but it's unclear why you had to demolish this partition and combine the bathroom with the toilet? Well, how much space do you gain from this?
- I do not know! So my son wanted, or rather, his young wife. They recently got married and are going to move here after repairs, the new neighbor justified himself, already observing the plaster that had collapsed and cluttered the entire bathroom of Amiran.
- Here you are! Look, Mr. Guram, what your careless and slow actions towards the lower neighbor have led to. Would you put up with this for more than a year? I only survived by a lucky chance!
Guram more and more noticeably descended from his face and scattered in endless apologies.
- Give me a broom and a scoop, I will immediately shovel this construction waste into buckets, - he was worried.
- No need to rake, I'll do it perfectly myself! But finally take at least some measures, - Amiran strictly admonished him.
In the end, the conversation took on a benevolent character.
- In general, so, batono  Guram, - Amiran politely turned to his new neighbor, - we will now conclude the following contract, agreement or agreement, as you like to call it, on non-aggression against each other, - he smiled, immediately receiving a response of gratitude smile. “I pledge to you never to fill you with water from myself, and you promise me the same!”
- Promise! - Amirana Guram shook hands with delight in his throat and walked peacefully to the door, adding along the way, - I hope that in the future we will have a good neighborhood, and when the repair is over, we will sit with us for a glass of Kakhetian.
- Yes, sure! And before that, no, no, - Amiran joked in turn. - You still have to earn it.
We deserve it, we deserve it! Here you will see! the new neighbor promised as he left Amiran, who had been busy raking out the garbage and cleaning the bathroom for a long time before taking a shower.
"Well, I'm late," he remarked, locking the front door behind him, and glancing at his watch, hurriedly ran down the stairs.
On the landing at the level of the interfloor ceiling of the first and second floors, I noticed that two metal mailboxes of four paired mailboxes each, previously nailed to it with long metal dowels, were missing on the wall.
- ABOUT! What a news! he exclaimed in surprise.
“Are gas meters going to be taken out of apartments and attached next to electricity meters? Yes, but then why did they leave one lower compartment? he asked, immediately guessing the answer. “Probably, it will be removed soon.”
" Weird. It was possible to get close to the dowels only by unlocking
locked mailbox doors. Obviously, they were torn off with crowbars pulled from the outer upper and lateral sides. In addition, strong, apparently, the guys. I'll have to ask around, maybe one of the neighbors knows. Can you get to them now? They settled down in the minks, like gophers, locked themselves from the inside, and no one cares about anything!
The first person he called was his old, eighty-year-old neighbor, who was smart in spite of her years.
- What's going on, aunt Marina, with the mailboxes? Are you not aware? Who took them and why?
- Arvitsi, shvilo,  yesterday my daughter Anna had friends from Moscow, and we spent the whole evening fussing with them. In the morning, when I went out to the store, I saw them abandoned near the front door.
- Aunt Marina, let's still decide whether we need them or not? What if they need more, who knows? And even now ... it happens that we are not at home, so the postman throws something in the mailbox!
“I don’t know, son, what can I do,” the neighbor started up, “there are so many of you, peasants, in the entrance, and turn to them, but I don’t know anything and I don’t need any of this alone. Besides, Amiran, who now sends letters by mail, because this is an outdated method of communication. Correspondence! Funny. Everyone uses the Internet and e-mail.
“No, now it’s a matter of principle! As Taras Bulba said: “I don’t want the Poles to get my pipe.”
- Leah, it seems that this is the work of our yard thugs, - Amiran explained to his young, unmarried neighbor, several years younger than him, - if they hand over these compartments to
scrap metal collection point, then only a few lari  will help out, and go ahead and order such products! To make it for you, you will probably need a hundred lari.
“What can I do, I don’t know anything,” Leah shrugged. - Aunt Marina noticed yesterday, but did not take any measures. No one needs anything, but I need something, he says, what?
- Well, do you need it in the future? Amiran asked.
- I do not know!? Leah shrugged.
“That’s how they, Amiran, destroy everything with us, destroy, rob, but we can’t do anything,” Leah’s mother, aunt Maya, a woman, arrived at the open door for 60 years - let them take it away, we deserve the worst!
“Zviad, it turns out that our mailboxes were torn off and left at the entrance, it’s a pity, these ragamuffins will take them away,” Amiran soon complained to a fifty-year-old neighbor from the top floor.
- Come on, come on! They are all fools, and our entire entrance is a madhouse, don't you know, or what? Better let's go show you my new computer achievements.
- Indeed, our entrance is number six, - Amiran recalled, following his neighbor, who was very captivating, to the attached hanging loggia, where he had a portable radio station and a computer.
- You know, I recently got into NASA materials via the Internet, Zviad boasted, - do you want me to show you?
- Once upon a time, I'm late, another time, - Amiran pleaded, - now it's better to help save these poor mailboxes. Let's take them down to our basement for a while, huh?
- Not! What are you? Can he? - Zviad's mother, a seventy-year-old woman, arrived in time to protect her son. You can't see, he's barely breathing. Didn't even go to work. And when was it that he missed work?
- Shut up, mother, she is sick! Go into the room! - snapped the son.
- Zviad, why are you like this with your mother? Amiral pulled him back.
- Yes, well, her! Brad is everything. Don't listen! Zviad returned to the Internet.
“Forgive him, Aunt Lali,” Amiran called out.
“He’s like that all the time, I’m already used to it,” she complained, however, without any emotions, “it’s better to let him know how expensive it is in the market today, otherwise he almost ate me when I confessed to him that I spent twelve lari
- And what is twelve lari today? Nothing!” Amiran confirmed.
- Here, Zviad, do you hear? - the old woman was delighted with the support.
“No, you shouldn’t even go to Otar,” Amiran thought on the go, hastily descending from Zviad, about his young thirty-year-old neighbor, “firstly, he may not even be at home, and secondly, it is quite possible that this is the work of him and his friends. It remains only to the new neighbors, to Omar and Tsiale, maybe they can help in some way.
- No, I really don't know anything, Amiran! After all, we also have repairs in full swing, - explained the new neighbor, this same Omar, a tall, imposing man of about sixty, - just in the morning, when I was taking down the bags, I saw these compartments at the entrance. So I crushed them with my bags of construction waste, a car will come for them and take everything away.
- And mailboxes along with them? Amiran was taken aback.
- Yes, probably! And who needs them now, torn off?
- And we do not need? Never needed, batono Omar? Well, let's decide!
- If no one needs it, then I also ... - the new neighbor shrugged his shoulders phlegmatically.
“God knows what these street guys are doing!” They hang out in our yard. And not their own, but alien, alien guys. They play cards, swear, fight, - Omar's wife, Tsiala, joined the conversation, - we have moved for more than a year, but I have not seen them before!
- She's right about that! Amiran confirmed in his heart.
- And recently I saw from the window how this fourteen-fifteen-year-old shantrap in the yard, there, near the table, looking around, they twisted weed into cigarettes - most likely it was marijuana - and then smoked with pleasure. Well, and after it, you know, it pulls for “exploits”.
- Leave these conversations, Tsiala! Better get down to business. There's still wow how much of it!
- Batono Omar, I beg you, there is no one else, let's go down with me, help hide the compartments in the basement.
- Well, okay ... Since you really want to, - the new neighbor reluctantly agreed.
- You see, batono Omar, - Amiran was delighted with his consent, - well, these boxes, it's not about them, but that they hung in our house and were part of it, and our house, you see, they literally encroach from all sides, well, and this yard chantrap.
Last week, for example, they hit the lower compartments of drainpipes with a ball, smashed the windows of a neighbor from the lower floors. It would be nice if it all ended there, but no, every day everything is new and new, if not interrupted, then who knows what all this can develop into.
- Yes, a motley audience in the house, - the neighbor agreed, - who builds and who destroys. But in general, few people think about the house as a whole. Is that you…
- Well, builders, of course, builders are different, - Amiran thought, - but for all of you, new neighbors, and even many of the old ones, it would be good to move from indifference to active protection and establishing comfort in our house and in the yard, - he added aloud.
“Perhaps you are right, Amiran,” the new neighbor thought in earnest.
Soon, pushing the bags aside, Amiran and Omar carried the compartments down to the basement and piled them against the wall of the common corridor.
With the help of a metal chain and a rusty padlock, they somehow covered and secured a wooden door, with a hole instead of a mortise.
- That's what they're doing! Amiran demonstrated it.
- It's okay, it's still a wooden door, it's easy to deal with, but how they unbent the entrance inter-stair lattice of reinforcing bars is incomprehensible to the mind! Omar was surprised. - You see, strong guys are older ?! he suggested.
- This is how they treat us, and we don’t take any retaliatory measures ... Well, they get impudent with every razom. All the cellars were looted, the doors were kicked in, you see, I wanted compotes ...
- Yes, not only! Some - from whom they got hold of the heating. And what measures will you take, a neighbor, Marina, went to the police. And what? They said they couldn't do anything if they weren't caught on the spot.
“Before, they did it on the sly, they hid, but now they have become so insolent that they are not afraid of anything and no one,” he was upset.
Before crossing the street, he waited for the traffic to ease. At intervals, several buses passed with graffiti on the walls: "Don't shorten your life with drugs" and "No to drugs."
Three days later, Amiran was late at work, quite tired, barely dragging a small bag of groceries from the central market.
The tops of three fifty-year-old poplars had already been trimmed by a team of five people, sent from the sanitary service of the mayor's office, with a special ZIL machine with a cradle.
The cut was in full swing. The mayor's office needed to complete it before the end of the day.
Amiran noticed a Kamaz truck with a blue cab parked close to the loggias of his house built according to the original project. From the fifth floor, where Guram's son and his wife were going to move after the repair, fragments of torn walls flew into the back of the body almost into a block or more each, mixed with bags, which, when falling, did not always manage to maintain their integrity, which is why the wind picked up rushed around the yard thick dust.
- Nellichka, save yourself! Amiran shouted, warning the old neighbor.
- And what? She shuddered and leaned back from the window.
- Bombs are flying from the top floor!
- What other bombs? - the neighbor was quite alarmed.
“Lumps and bags of garbage,” Amiran clarified.
Are they completely crazy? Nellie was taken aback.
- Is it just them? Sorry, Nellichka, I can't stop and talk. Terrible dust! - Amiran finally threw it, diving into his porch.
On the flights of stairs, one could hear how a recent occupant of the house, visiting her elderly mother, played the piano amazingly. Soon the violin joined the piano.
“I haven’t forgotten how yet, well done!”
The music was interrupted by the squeal of electric saws, the measured blows of woodcutters, the roar of blocks and bags.
- Just the most modern symphony orchestra, with specific effects, in the form of building dust spreading around the yard.
In one of the apartments on the second floor, two angry, male and female, grappled with each other, apparently in earnest.
“Here you have arias from the opera,” Amiran dreamed of getting safely and carrying his cargo.
“Or… did Nelly’s windows really hurt?”
- Amiran, you have two lari, - a neighbor reminded him from her floor, sweeping the area in front of her door.
- Oh, Leah, you are like a highway robber, - objected Amiran, - why are there so many now? Can't you see I'm loaded?
I still had to say goodbye to the last two-larium bill.
- Do you know how much this time came on the bill, for the driveway light?
- Not.
- Sixteen lari.
- How? Why? We have always paid much less.
- Here's another! It's not clear, is it? Someone steals, but we pay! But it's good that you and Omar took these mailboxes to the basement. I spoke to myself, but no one listened to me.
- That, it turns out, when the life of our entrance went downhill! When we stopped listening to you! - Amiran joked, not without some amazement, closing the neighbor's door behind him.
A couple of hours later, Nellie called him from the first floor.
“Amiran, come down to me, if you can,” she asked in a voice filled with anxiety.
- No, Nellichka, I can’t! Only if you have an urgent need, are unwell or have no food!
- Well, now I have worse than an urgent need.
- And what happened?
- New neighbors from the second floor flooded the entire toilet for me from above. Come in, see what's going on. And please talk to them.
- Talk? What are you, Nellichka! The kitchen and the bathroom are flooded with me just now. So you think I got through them? And yours will completely escort me. They will say, here is the news, who are you to her?
- And here it is? Nellie was surprised.
- In addition, I recently spoke with their relative, who is repairing them and sternly - sternly warned him not to destroy or dismantle anything, otherwise the whole house could collapse.
- And what is he? Nellie was surprised.
- He said that, on the contrary, he strengthens the house, showed powerful metal squares in the loggia, assembled into a hollow steel beam, into which concrete would be poured.
- And what is this beam based on?
- On a new wall of blocks.
- Is this wall new?
- On the small consoles of the loggias of the house.
- Will these consoles hold up?
- I doubt.
- Did you tell them that?
- Well, of course.
- So what?
- So what? Say he said, but things are still there!
They will destroy the house!
- Not only them! Here in Moscow, for example... I myself recently watched a TV show, how many papers and permits are required to, say, rearrange a window or partition. And we have? Whoever wants, then does.
- Well, okay, Amiran, if you can't...
“Yes, Nellichka, sorry,” Amiran evaded.
- Nothing, nothing! They came again...
- Tell them to turn off the water for a while.
- I'll tell you, I'll tell you! Well, I went, - Nellie's crutches rattled in a hurry.
 Two days later, Amirana caught up and called to her, and two sitting next to her, neighbor Marina.
Amiran reluctantly approached them.
- Amiran, son, what is going on in our stairwell? And in the yard... See? Ugliness! And no one cares about anyone or anything, and no one cares about anyone. We're just like homeless!
- And in general ... will the house withstand so many sheds, outbuildings, balconies? Marina complained.
- Let's wait and see, - Amiran fixed his eyes on the upper floors of all six entrances and was horrified in his soul, not a booze of a grin, - Albert Camus said the same thing, at one time.
- They did business! - the merchant hurried to the aid of Marina.
- Well, at least you, Amiran, picked up the mailboxes ...
- Well done! What can I say, well done!
“Without you, Aunt Marina, I would…” Amiran stepped back and retreated to himself under the roar of praise.
- Hello, Aunt Inna? It's you, Amiran says, - he soon called on the third floor, an old eighty-year-old neighbor. - Did not recognize?
- I learned how not to find out! How many of us are left? One, two, and miscalculated!
- Aunt Inna, do you know why they don't give us water?
- These are all my new neighbors on the site - she complained.
- Oh, yes, because you also have new neighbors. Everywhere you look, new. And above me, and next to me, and above Nellichka, and next to you. Actually, I myself advised Nellichka to turn off the riser there for a while, because new neighbors flooded it. But have they still not fixed the breakdown and let the water out?
- No, it must be! It doesn't work for me either. But there is a secret riser in the bathroom that no one knows about. And you shut up!
- What else secret? Amiran was surprised.
- Here's what you do. Try turning on the water in the bathroom. If it doesn't work, come down to me.
- Well, thank you, - thanked, Amiran lowered the phone.
- Wait wait! Have you talked to Zviad for a long time?
- No, but what?
- Yesterday he let slip that every evening he communicates with the higher, cosmic worlds via the Internet. So, go to him, he will tell you, higher beings from outer space are looking after us.
- This was just not enough! Amiran muttered horrified and barely audible.
- Yes, yes, go listen and call me back. Good?
- Well ... - Amiran promised and went to see if the water had gone in the meantime.
“No, apparently, all the same,” he thought as he walked, “if they had, I would have heard a noise from the tank.”
With annoyance, he glanced at the accumulated dishes in the sink compartment.
“And the drinking water is almost running out, there is a little left for tea, and right now Khatuna and the child wanted to live with their mother,” he complained to his wife, “although, perhaps, this is for the best. The house has really turned into ward number six.”
- This is now for a long time, - now and then he heard Aunt Inna's terrible predictions from a recent telephone conversation.
When he didn't get the number, he hung up.
"Not! I just can't talk to her right now. It is curious, however, what kind of secret pipe does Inna have? Amiran suddenly remembered the reason for the failure to supply water.
The valve was not completely unscrewed, and the pressure dropped noticeably, besides, the valve in the tank hose clogged. He slightly opened the valve of the hose, and water poured into the tank with a cheerful noise.
Relieved from the soul, and Amiran, unable to overcome curiosity, rushed upstairs to Zviad.
Zviad tried to convince Amiran of the accuracy of his observations for a long time, encouraged him to listen to some signals, himself transmitted something in Morse code, supposedly to higher worlds, surfed the Internet to various sites.
- You think it's hard! They communicate with us in binary code, in Morse code.
- Zviad, aren't you afraid? Amiran was surprised.
- And what? After all, anyone can get into them.
Saying goodbye, Amiran advised Zviad to be more careful and prudent and get down to business more seriously.
- Yah! Zviad waved him off. - You take care of access matters, and I will take over the connection with the external imr. To each his own! Here you seem to succeed with the entrance, although the results in general are not visible. To be honest, I scared the guys when they tore off the boxes. Haven't been able to pull it off.
- Well! Amiran was surprised. - And you saw them?
- Yes! I know who they are and how many there are! Two, but unfamiliar, not from our yard, very young. We don't have to do it ourselves. Brought from other yards and streets. Surely ours gave a prick, and they worked.
- Also me, did you find something to gain on? Amiran was surprised. “Couldn’t find a bigger and more serious case, or what?” A penny, but how much harm.
- And that's enough for the punks, - Zviad explained.
All night Amiran dreamed and heard some nightmares and aliens.
In the morning, he was horrified to find that his bed was located in the center of the closed circuit of the antenna of the Zviad radio station, and he usually fussed until late at night, or even until the morning.
“No, I can't take it all. When will mine be back? I'm scared without them."
The acuteness of the feeling of what was happening increased, as it seemed to him, several dozen times.
But what happened in the next few days far exceeded everything that had gone before.
One morning, having hastily packed his gym bag, he locked the door and ran down the stairs.
A new batch of tree trimmers bustled in the yard with electric saws and permission to trim the fifty-year-olds remaining in the yard.
poplars - giants.
Blocks and bags of cement and sand were unloaded from a dump truck that had rolled up, lifting them to the upper floors.
“Just don’t leave for a long time, come back soon,” Aunt Inna asked him on the phone, “we’ll be lost here without you!”
“Only those who leave are saved,” Amiran flashed, “not necessarily by flight.”
Soon, Inna, upset that Amiran was moving to her mother-in-law for some time, called Zviad's mother, Lali:
- Did you hear the news? Not? What about Amiran? We are left without a guardian, and your son will have to become one.
- What more! Lali was surprised. “There is nothing else for him to do. He has his own affairs up to his throat! It's okay, we'll get by somehow. Yes, Inna, Manana called from the post office and said that there were two letters addressed to you. Grab, please, there and ours. I have pressure today, I can’t leave the house, and my son can’t wait for this letter ...
- No, I recently fell at home and now I'm afraid to go out. Why didn't Manana throw my letters in the mailbox, as I asked her to?
- What, you fell from the moon, don't you know that we no longer have mailboxes?
- How? Why? Inna was outraged.
- The boys tore them off the wall, and if I had not intervened in time, they would have been dragged away for sure!
The conversation around this topic and the next one continued for a long time ...
- In America, a house after fifty years of operation is considered depreciated, and builders demolish it by means of an explosion, - Amiran remembered on the way, - but in our country it is done by the tenants themselves.
Before disappearing behind the corner wall and out into the street, he cast a parting glance around his house.
"It's better to live with an unloved mother-in-law."
However, it was not easy to predict how many days he would have enough patience for this same mother-in-law, a meeting with whom he pushed off a leisurely walk to her house at the far, opposite end of the city.
He walked, and his feet seemed to stick to the ground.
“What kind of traitor, after all,” doubt crept into him, “he left his parental home, the beginning of all beginnings,” it seems to be sung like that? – left him, and to whom? To be devoured by wolves - new neighbors! They only care about their well-being, and the fate of the house does not matter to them. Still, what good, it will come into your head and they will sell it at all, like garages. Not only did they first crowd out the wonderfully fenced garden, but also ... No, - hesitations pressed in, - I won’t leave the house to be eaten, just as Taras Bulba once did not want to leave his pipe to the Poles, even at the cost of life. Mom spent the last years and days in this house, and sometimes I feel her, somewhere nearby. So, leave her there alone?”
Dear Amiran, he met an old neighbor who had long since moved out of their house.
- Well, how is our house, Amiran? he asked.
- Eh, Zura, don't even ask, - Amiran complained, - he misses all of us, the old tenants! They became impoverished, they had to sell apartments, move to worse conditions. New ones have come in large numbers, chickens do not peck money.
- There is money, mind and conscience is not needed, right? Is not it? Zura laughed.
- Exactly, what they want, then they fence, - Amiran confirmed, - do you remember how in that joke about the Chukchi and his wife: soon people from the mainland will come, they will get to know my wife, the expedition is called! So is our old house and our new neighbors. They destroy, destroy, remake everything, probably also called an expedition ...
- Well, what do the old ones say?
- Few are left. One, two, and miscalculated! Either they listen, then they don’t ...
- Nothing to do about. Great Migration of Nations! It's been fifteen years now. And not only with us. Such is life and the philosophy of decay. Decay breeds decay! Well, at least you, those who remained, hold on to each other?
- Yes, if, as in the old days, - regretted Amiran, - where could it be!
They parted, and each went on his way.
Amiran kept slowing down. Memories came up, even from childhood.
The new neighbors opposed his position in life, forced him to reorganize in a new way, which he actively rejected.
Outbuildings sprang up all over the city, but still, it seemed to Amiran, there were none like the one in their number six entrance in their whole big city.

01.2006
;
Abduction of the Moon

Characters:
Mzia - friend, shop assistant
Luna - Mtwarisa - 23 years old
Ludovic - 25 years old
Coca - 27 years old
Rusiko is one of his last girlfriends (Belaya Niva)
Jerry is a mongrel dog
Tamaz - neighbor, fellow villager, hunter
In store: Toma, Huta

Moon: Choose either earthly love or heavenly life Earthly love is love with my bodily appearance, Heavenly life is love and life together with my soul there, in heaven, far and high from the sinful earth.

Ludovic: But I love you undivided.
But I'm already like that, after this incident does not exist.

From the very early dawn, a faint mist in the sky began to dissipate little by little.
The last preparations before the upcoming hunt proceeded with great excitement and impatience, which was especially noticeable on the dog, a mongrel named "Jerry", who nervously dangled around, then ran up, wagging her tail non-stop and sniffing the hunters' simple equipment and their half-empty duffel bags.
Leaving through the back, a small gate of the yard, the hunters headed deep into the forest.
In front, not far from the hunters, ran Jerry.
“Jerry is close,” the hunter walking ahead reminded him every now and then.
“I know,” the dog answered, looking back at his master, for a moment frozen in a motionless pose and then again set to work, vainly trying to catch at least some trace of any, land or air, hunter’s profit.
- In vain you took her with you Koka, what can a simple mongrel, when sometimes the most experienced and thoroughbred dogs do not do their job well, you should have borrowed his hunting dogs from Tamaz.
“Calm down, Ludovic,” Kok reassured his friend, “Jerry knows his business, no worse than any well-trained thoroughbred dog, you’ll see, it’s not the first time I’ve taken him into business, isn’t it Jerry,” the owner shouted after his mongrel.
The dog stuck out its beautiful face from the bushes, having heard the appeal of its owner to him, and with a look confirmed his words.
- Work Jerry, work, - the owner called him to work.
The hunters walked at a languid pace, one by one holding their double-barreled hunting rifles ready. Here and there, on their way, fat, black yellow-billed blackbirds, who had managed to gain a solid weight during the winter, flew from one tree to another, warning the inhabitants of the forest, as well as their relatives about the impending danger, in the face of ramming the forest space, systematic and assertive steps of hunters.
“We forgot to put our outerwear out in the yard last night to ventilate it from the smell of home,” Ludovic recalled.
“It doesn’t make sense,” explained Koka, who was walking in front, “you don’t see what kind of hysteria these flying yellow-billed blackies started.
- To know their language, eh?
- And why, what would you change with this, something or something? Koka explained.
- No, but...
“It’s better to look around more carefully and be on the alert,” Koka suggested, “actually, it probably wouldn’t hurt to shoot a couple of their most vocal scouts, but this noise and panic in the forest will create even more and it’s not worth it, they are so obese and fat now that one overeating.
“Yes, you’re completely crazy, it’s such a terrible sin to shoot at singing angels, at blackbirds, you just listen to how they sing,” Ludovik paused for a moment, listening to the sweet echoes of the black, singing, feathered forests, stealing thus the attention of his friend.
Jerry, too, snooping ahead of the hunters, returned to them and, out of curiosity, began to look at the tops of various trees that the forest was rich in, but then he decided to continue his work on the ground and soon a partridge, frightened to death, started up from the nearby bushes.
“Shoot, Ludovic, what are you doing, shoot,” Koka shouted at his friend, who was in a more convenient position than he was.
One after another, belated shots of hunting rifles were heard, first by Ludovic, and then by Koki.
- Oh, you are a muddler and a muff, what an opportunity you missed, you were annoyed
Coca, - after all, it took off from under your very nose.
Well done Jerry, well done - Koka praised his mongrel with annoyance whining and as if justifying himself to his master.
“Yes, my dear, yes,” Koka stroked the little dog, “you have nothing to do with it, it’s our fault that you missed the prey you found.
- Yes, you, - Louis justified himself in turn, - probably the first time he ran past her.
- Okay, enough quarreling, let's move on, the hunt is just beginning, although they made noise and commotion in the forest with their shots, - Koka consoled his friend and the dog, dragging them further and further into the depths of the forest.
Through a small, but fast river, filled with mountain melt waters, the hunters waded.
With a little effort he swam across her and Jerry, though he was carried down a little by the current.
But before that, there were several more misses, shots of hunters at a running target, a hare successfully dodging a cascade of fractional shots of hunters.
- It would be better for us to grab a fishing rod and go fishing in the quiet backwaters of this river, - Ludovik admitted at the crossing, since our boots are waist-deep.
“To stand all day with a fishing rod in your hands and bring a couple of kilograms of small fish home to the starving family is not a big consolation,” Koka answered him.
“Perhaps this is much better than shooting flying game, with the bird flu that is so common today, and then infecting your household with it,” suggested Ludovic.
It’s as if you don’t know that any hunting for migratory game is prohibited today, - he reminded a friend, - what else will we be seized by a natural, ecological patrol and they will charge us a hefty fine.
- And what will they take, what is not there? - explained Koka, - and then the big game does not fly now, but is preparing for death on the ground, in a secluded place.
It is enough for them that they go from house to house and force us to hand over any poultry to them, which is then taken to a special place and killed.
There is almost no money work left in the village, and I am not going to be dependent on my grandmother, who, after adding her pension, has only thirty-three lares.
How did the Spartans say? Koka recalled.
“Better death from bird flu than starvation,” Louis reminded him, paraphrasing the words of legendary historical heroes.
- Here, here, it's just amazing, but how this damned virus managed to live for so many centuries, - Koka was unequivocally amazed, - and survived to our times.
“Thanks to the same birds and the mutation of viruses, which scientists assume, they pass by overwintering in bird beaks,” Ludovic explained.
After a short journey, the hunters approached a small lake, overgrown on one side, along the edges with reeds.
- Shh ..., - warned Koka to his friend, putting the index finger of his right hand to his lips.
Jerry is next. Koka bent down and took out a military man from his backpack.
his father's binoculars, which he inherited from one of the captured German officers, from the time of the Second World War.
He stared at him for a long time until a smile appeared on his face.
- Shh ... - he repeated his warning, - there are a lot of them, - he handed the binoculars to his friend, - over there on the opposite bank, near the reeds, you see?
- Yeah, wow, - Ludovic was delighted in turn, looking intently through his friend's binoculars.
Jerry whined too, as if begging the hunters to let him look through the binoculars too.
- It's one thing to smell them from a distance, and another -
to see prey with my own eyes,” whined Jerry.
“Listen to my command,” said Koka, “Jerry and I will go in on the right, approaching them by the bank overgrown with reeds, and you, Ludovic, will go around the lake on the left and settle down there, in shelter behind the stones.
- In the first case, do not shoot, wait for our shots, after which, most of the ducks will fly in your direction, then you meet them with your shots, understand? And then come back to us.
"Understood," Louis repeated.
- Let's go Jerry, - Koka called after him and the hunters dispersed.
After the first two shots, Koki, as he expected, a small flock of ducks, with multi-colored plumage, rushed towards Louis, who, in turn, also met them with two missed shots.
- Ugh, you motherfucker! - spat in the direction of the annoyed Koka, who was waiting for his dog on the shore, with the second waterfowl already lined in his teeth.
“Okay, don’t worry,” he soon reassured his disappointed, unsuccessful hunter friend who returned to them, “their morning flights will soon begin, and we will wait for them in the reeds.
Until noon, they stood almost in the reeds, waiting for more and more flights of individual ducks or their small flocks.
Koke managed to add three more shot ducks to his morning booty, while Ludovic continued to smear one shot after another.
The same picture was repeated during the evening flights, after which Koke managed to add two more shot ducks against Ludovic, who was smearing on flying live targets.
- What's wrong with you today? I don’t recognize you, - Koka was amazed on the way back home, after the hunt, - This has never happened to you.
“I'm tired of everything Coca, I don't want anything else in my life,” Ludovic explained.
- Hmm, that's wonderful, because your life is just beginning, - Koka was amazed, - isn't it too early at your twenty-five years?
"It's a little late, not too early," Ludovic explained.
- How? - Koka was even more indignant, - I'm two years older than you and I still hope I won't say this for a long time, and you?
“You are another matter, and I am me,” Ludovic explained.
- Oh ..., wait, wait, buddy, have you fallen in love?
Louis answered with a long silence.
- And in whom? Koka asked inquisitively, “well, don’t torment me, speak quickly, you know, anyway, I won’t leave until I get to the bottom of you.
Ludovic, knowing well the nature of his friend, obediently pointed to the moon hovering over the horizon, the reflection of which sparkled in the fast waters of the rural river.
- Wait, wait, to the moon, or what? Koka was surprised.
Louis shook his head affirmatively.
- The guy went crazy! Koka concluded.
Immediately on the move, Jerry also whined, as if agreeing with the conclusion his master.
Well, all right, all right, old man, don't despair, - he hurried to console his friend Koka, without waiting for an answer from him for a long time.
- I'll help you kidnap her.
- Truth? Louis silently asked him with a look into his eyes, pausing for a while on the way.
- Of course, what's the problem? - he confirmed, - although I really don’t know how, - he added to himself, fixing his gaze on the luminous celestial sanctuary with a crescent moon.
- Hmm, right, just like in the novel of our Georgian classic. This is getting interesting.
"Death always awaits the thieves of the Moon," Ludovic explained.
- Like Louis the fourteenth or the sixteenth? - Tried to remember Cock - the King of France himself.
“Everyone is against me Koka,” explained Ludovic.
Jerry continued to wearily trudge along with his master, whining every now and then, as a token of support for his master's friend.
- Exactly, he obviously overheated today in the sun, - Koka thought to himself and decided to knock out a wedge with a wedge.
“Listen, buddy,” he suggested to his friend, deciding that if you go crazy, then go with him to the fullest, “and how did this night beauty surrender to us, when the sun was shining,” Koka suggested.
- I'm not blue yet, - Ludovic explained, - the sun is not feminine, of course, and generally leave me alone, you don't understand anything about love and women, you haven't really loved yet!
- Ha-ha-ha, - Koka burst into laughter, - I don’t understand this?
- What do you understand in them, unfortunate virgin, otherwise I have already changed them in my lifetime.
- Well, what am I talking about? Louis pointed out to him.
Koka thought for a moment.
- Yes, in general, this is a moot point, - he agreed with his friend.
- But you must admit that falling in love with a natural, heavenly sanctuary is also a perversion.
- Undoubtedly! Louis agreed.
“Well, it’s better that way,” Koka calmed down.
For some time the hunters walked in silence, hurrying to get home before dusk.
- Listen, Ludovic, if you want, Rusikoshka and I will find a good “girlfriend” for you, - suggested Koka in broken English.
“I don’t want a “girlfriend,” Ludovik replied with a sigh, “but I want only one, her one and only!”
- Who the hell is it? Koka didn't hold back.
"Mtwarisu," Louis said.
- What? - stretched Koka with surprise, - this bow-legged freak?
"Don't you dare talk about her like that," Louis threatened his friend.
“Forgive me, forgive me, but why did she surrender to you,” Koka continued to be indignant, “after all, in our village there are a lot of girls much better than her.
“You can’t command your heart,” Ludovic explained.
The rest of the road the hunters went to the house, not noticing
how time passed, in mutual disputes and persuasion.
Evening housework could not kill Ludovic's sadness and concern for his friend Koka.
With the onset of twilight, here and there the first calls of small insects to each other were heard.
In the thoughts of Louis, the crazy idea of abducting the moon, proposed to him by a friend, began to be exaggerated more and more often.
The rich variety, abundance and wide range of food products, recently brought from the regional center, clearly indulged in their luxury, looking out poorly from the outside and from the inside, in fact, a food, a small rural store, named and painted on its outer, front wall with a supermarket, before whose requirements he lacked many indicators.
But nevertheless, being in close proximity to the main rural road, he, as one of the few located in the village, very rationally and effectively satisfied all the most necessary needs of the villagers.
He, like many other buildings in the village, stood on some kind of chicken legs, on special stone legs, which protected him from flooding in cases of flooding, so common in the village, mainly during the rainy seasons.
So, to get inside it, it was necessary to climb several steps, a wooden staircase built in front of its wooden doors.
Everything for you and your home, another inscription over the doors of the store, which was more suitable for a residential building than for a self-proclaimed supermarket, beckoned buyers.
A special discrepancy between form and content, between its external and internal wretched appearance and the variety of eye-catching labels and multi-colored bags in which imported goods were packed, gave the store a certain piquancy and mystery.
In its interior, it was as if they touched and cohabited next to each other, and one in the other, two times, past and present, as if they prompted and predicted to the villagers their future, bright, heavenly, cloudless, which they were promised by all mass media information, for many recent years, and which, so stubbornly did not rush to their village, but gave signs, only with their colorfully packed, in bright multi-colored special bags, goods, throwing them from time to time, in small batches to their village.
Many in the village continued to hope, think and wait for their holy and happy future, but even more were those who had already become accustomed to the empty promises of past years, continued to pull the heavy strap of the current rural life, in complete indifference and in absolute indifference, in wishes and promises wrapped like caramel sweets, in different and multi-colored rustling and rustling candy wrappers.
- One way or another, but before that it is necessary to build new good roads, of a modern, European standard, - one buyer explained to another, waiting for a young girl, a saleswoman, to weigh the right product on the scales.
“Their construction has already begun in the capital and its suburbs, but when they get to us Tom is not known,” explained another man standing behind him, above average age. I can assure you that by this time we will not be alive, - he was preparing a cigarette in his hands in order to smoke it out in the near future.
- Why are you Huta, cursing us, or what?
- Where is it that you yourself do not see what is happening, how villages are being devastated, young people are fleeing to cities, and for our time there will be enough such roads, as they served us in the past, and they will serve us in the future.
- Perhaps you are right, perhaps in some ways Huta, but I am worried about your greatly extinguished, former optimism. Our country has unwittingly become a testing ground for the action of external and internal forces, and we are the tested rabbits.
In our country, the background of depression and hopelessness has risen many times over, and we are no longer happy with anything, and are not interested, except for material well-being.
The pleasures and sweetness of worldly delights are carried away in their waters by a noisy and stormy river more and more human souls from our young, future generation.
“But they forget about the main thing, that the Lord is omnipotent and all their machine mechanisms of influence on us will collapse and disappear in an instant if we are together with our Creator,” Toma encouraged.
- Yes, you can’t say anything, they are encouraging, - the young customer was surprised, turning to the saleswoman, after leaving the store, the elders standing in front of him - fellow villagers. Listen to them, so only from these conversations will you run away from the village.
- Yes, they did not calculate a little, - the saleswoman agreed with her.
- What do you Luna?
- Are your eggs fresh?
- Yes, just the day before yesterday brought.
- I see, it means freshly delivered, and when demolished?
“I don’t know,” the saleswoman laughed.
- Give me the tray, please.
The saleswoman went to the nearest corner of the store for goods - “When it was that we bought eggs and in such quantities,” the saleswoman supported her friend, “I myself also took one tray to my house yesterday, while there is, when it will be delivered is not yet known.
- Do not say, listen to Mzia, at the very least, but our domestic chickens supplied us not only with meat, but also with eggs, and now these measures taken in the winter to prevent the possible spread of bird flu have completely knocked us down in the bud.
- After all, they promised some kind of compensation at the beginning, for five lari for each dead chicken and ten for a duck and a turkey.
- What is it, they attributed everything to an epidemic, they also pointed out to us that we should be grateful to them for warning us against this insidious disease, - Luna was indignant.
And then this compensation was equivalent to our damage?
- Yes, but at least some, - suggested Mziya, - strange, but for some reason it seemed to me that in our village all sorts of services and departments were closed long ago, but you see, when they needed it, they immediately collected it, san - epidemiological service.
- And how much is needed for this? Sufficient funding and a couple of good specialists from the regional center, and as you can see, we found a lot of people in the village for simple labor, - Luna explained.
- Weigh me, please, a couple of kilograms of granulated sugar.
“They say that sugar will rise in price even more and will reach two lari,” Mziya warned, weighing sugar on the scales to her friend.
- Oh, you won’t get enough for a lifetime anyway, we’ll have enough for tea, and then let the peasants grieve, because they need a lot of sugar after harvesting the grapes.
- How, but for jams and compotes? - Mziya reminded.
- And on them we use the sugar left over from rtveli  - Luna chuckled.
- Deftly settled down, - Mziya supported her friend with a smile, - and what would the men do without us.
“Nothing, let’s run all the girls to the city, so they will also run after us, you’ll see,” Luna explained.
- They, what, too, like cockroaches? Mia laughed.
- Why not? Luna inquired.
“I recently bought a medicine for cockroaches, these Chinese chalks, you know how there, in the instructions, in order to save money, they suggest using only chalk to expel females, after which, as they assume, males will also disappear,” Mzia laughed again.
- Weigh me more Mzia, a couple of kilograms of pasta, and a kilogram of buckwheat and semolina, - Luna asked.
- I don’t know about Mzia about you, but I’m already tired of living in the village too.
- Don't be a fool, girlfriend, what are you doing all of a sudden?
- I want to go to the city.
- And who will stay here?
Others, what do I care.
- How about your Louis?
- Hey, he's mine.
- Well ..., he seems to hit on you a little.
- Oh, yes, there are a lot of people like him in the city and even better, I'm tired of Mziya from everything, from this dirt, dust, impassability and sloppiness, no one wants to do anything, they work mostly only seasonally, but the rest of the time, what? Look at these men how they get drunk every day, and then arrange some unthinkable showdowns. I'm not going to get married here and then rot here all my life, - Luna explained.
- You don't love him at all?
- Whom?
- Louis, yours, he's such a nice guy, many in the village would not refuse him.
- And what's the point, but we don't drink water from beauty. This is not enough.
“With your beloved, after all, paradise is in a hut, as they say,” Mzia continued to weigh out the necessary products to her friend.
- When need knocks on the door, they say, love jumps out through the window, and then, I have already exhausted myself here in the village, I want to dress well, put on shoes and take a walk, but what is here?
- Well, why, after all, there is a disco in the club, just recently they opened an Internet cafe, radio, TV, good, strong and handsome guys, what else do you need? By the way, today we are invited to the evening by the guys to the club, to the disco, will you come?
- I don’t know, Mzia is tired of everything, understand me.
- What about your family?
- And what about homework, my father and brother have a lot of work in the forest in bulk, chop wood and prepare it for the winter, and my elder sister and mother will somehow cope with the housework.
- THEY know about your desire?
- They know, I have already buzzed their ears and it seems that they should not strongly oppose my final decision.
- And where and with whom will you live there, in the capital?
- At first, with my aunt, and then we'll see.
- Well, look, if you get settled successfully, maybe you will whistle to me later.
“Of course, you know where I am without you,” promised Luna, who lingered for some time in a conversation with her friend on various other topics, after buying the food items she needed.
The moon was returning home, immersed in thoughts about her desired and intended future trip to the city, clearly realizing that other problems awaited her there, perhaps no less than in the village.
- Well, where we are not, - she remembered the saying.
But in any case, it will be necessary to first go to the aunt in the city and see there what's what and why? - she decided to herself, - in the summer it will be possible to do this, but for now she will have to dutifully pull the strap of hard village life.
Although in what city, you can contemplate and enjoy the nature that we have in the village and eat those natural and nutritious foods, like ours, the Moon weighed all the pros and cons.
In a small rural stadium, arranged hastily, almost in the middle of the village, the village boys were chasing the ball, playing football recklessly, from time to time shouting individual phrases to each other.
The first day of summer, nature met with the bright rays of the rising sun.
Not high above the ground. in the sky, stretched at a short distance from each other, smeared long stripes of cirrus clouds.
Swifts soared across the sky in the morning solemnly and decorously, from time to time shouting out with drawn-out squeals.
Sparrows, faithful sparrows that shared their fate with the villagers in all seasons, made close flights over the land.
All animate and inanimate nature woke up, caressed and warmed by the warm rays of the generous and kind sun, increasing its generosity to the maximum, by noon.
Fellow villagers unanimously confirmed that, compared with the previous and the year before last, the beginning of summer turned out to be hot, fearing a hot midsummer, which would increase the frequency of reclamation work.
They had to water their land at least twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. The only exceptions were the days when the generous sky sent them life-giving moisture and water in the form of rain from above.
The first day of summer of this year was immediately marked by several significant church and secular holidays, the most important of which were, respectively, the Ascension and the day when her educator, St. Nina, came to their country, as well as International Children's Day.
As in the country as a whole, everyone met and celebrated this holiday differently.
Church people in churches, secular people, some at small demonstrations and gatherings, and some at all at home, some at a small table, some at work at home or on the site.
By the evening, after a hot day of work, young people were in a hurry to enjoy such holidays, to a greater extent, who asked for leave from their elders at home, and who independently made a sortie to places of rest, together with their friends.
A large tuber of strawberry fragrant paint slowly and defiantly slid over swollen girlish lips, listening to the aroma of their freshness and virginity. As if according to their last dying desire, the lips tried to squeeze out the red sweet fruit bestowed by mother nature with all the exotic tastes of her insides.
He so now wanted to be in the place of this strawberry, in her fingers sliding over her lips.
She skillfully played on his feelings and excitements, and without feeling the measure moved deeper and deeper, in her voluptuous feelings of advantage over him.
She so liked to feel superior to him, despite her seniority in age, dominating, dictating her conditions and led in their relationship, that for the sake of this feeling she was able to give up a lot.
In the end, after licking the tip of the strawberry with her lips, she made a slow incision with her front teeth and, having swallowed most of the fruit, gently licked her lips, moving and manipulating them all the time.
She was now playing in front of him not only with her eyes, but also with her lips, watching with pleasure his despondency and helplessness.
- No, whatever you say, but this year the strawberries turned out to be extremely sweet, - Mziya noticed, - although expensive.
- This is because the imported and all our crops were destroyed by the flood, - Koka noticed.
- I wonder if we will have time to harvest at least something this year? asked Mtvarisa.
- If others, like you, will look towards the city, then it is unlikely, - explained Ludovik, - there will be no one to cultivate and water the land.
“Don’t tell me, guys, what a difficult year it turned out to be for the country, where terrible floods and floods went everywhere, both in our western part of the country and in other parts, what are we going to do?” Mziya noted with excitement.
“We have to work more and celebrate less,” was Ludovik's short answer.
“Help yourself,” the wise men advise, “Mtwarisa reminded her, barely holding back her laughter.
- Let's friends drink this glass for today's great day, ... - suggested Coca, clinking glasses with friends from champagne.
“Champagne and strawberries are a great thing!” Mtwarisa remarked.
- Stronger than pineapples in champagne? Koka asked.
"What a comparison," Mtwarisa confirmed.
- What a delicious cake, but unfortunately I get so fat from it, - Mzia complained.
“It’s okay, eat more boldly, then you’ll dump everything superfluous in the garden,” Mtvarisa consoled her.
- What, in the garden? - Mzia suddenly rejoiced, her eyes widened insanely with happiness, - in the garden, in the garden, - she burst out laughing, infecting her friends sitting at the table with a smile and laughter.
What did I say that was so funny? Mtvarisa wondered.
- You're nothing, - Koka explained, - she thought differently.
The conversation at the table took on a more entertaining character. Only Louis, it was felt, how reluctantly and heavily he gave in to this entertainment, despite the fact that he tried to keep up with his friends in toasts.
In the midst of a conversation between friends, he rarely joined in their conversation, but more and more directing his eyes and thoughts to the tape-recorded quiet music of a rural restaurant, towards and around his beloved.
“If you let her go from the village to the city, at least not for long, then you will lose her forever,” his inner voice told him.
- What should I do? he lamented to himself.
He had less and less time to think and act.
Like the fruit of a strawberry, a now ripe black cherry furrowed the expanses of her lips.
Scrolling it for a short time in her mouth, she took out her bone with her thin fingers and, pushing it from both sides, unexpectedly shot her despondent lover, who lowered his head at that moment, in the face, who already jumped up on the spot, out of surprise.
- Mtvarisa, what kind of jokes? - objected Mzia, the first to interrupt the long laughter of friends.
“But what, he sits all evening, as if at a memorial service, and does not have fun with us,” Mtvarisa objected.
"He mourns your departure to the city, Luna," Koka explained.
- So it's not yet specified when? Mtvarisa explained.
"It doesn't matter, he knows it will be soon," Koka reminded him.
- Don't worry, Louis, the moon appears and disappears, then reappears and disappears again, and so from time immemorial, since the creation of the world.
“If she disappears, then she will not appear again,” Ludovik explained despondently.
“Yes, she’s going to leave, and so her house, her relatives, parents will disappear into the city,” Mziya explained.
- Let her go to the city, as she pleases, maybe she will settle down well there, and there you see, maybe she will whistle to us if it’s good, isn’t it Luna? Koka asked.
- Of course, well, where would I be without you, - Luna agreed.
Friends imperceptibly plunged into controversy, sorting through all the pros and cons of today's urban and rural life. The topics of conversation changed from one to another.
Towards late evening, Koka took away his amused friends from a rural restaurant in his uncle's car, in a white Niva, in which Mzia was the first to be brought home.
Mziya, sitting in front, next to the driver - Kokoy, was in no hurry to get off the car, which was already standing near the gate of the backyard of her house, but shared with friends the feelings and sensations from a pleasantly spent evening with friends and thanked them for their friendship.
In the end, having kissed her friends, she jumped out of the car in a merrier way and, with a light swaying step around and laughing, went to the gate of her house.
"That's true too," Koka drawled a small quatrain
Parted with the day and the sun,
Mziya - the sun, seeing you home,
Left with the night and the moon
Mtvarisu - the Moon, taking away to her doorstep!
- Oh, look, Ludovik, our Koka became a poet at the end of the day, - Mtvarisa laughed, sitting in the back seat, next to her lover.
“Better catch some good music on the radio,” she suggested to the driver, “and drive us more carefully, otherwise I’ve already been shaken all over,” Luna continued to laugh merrily.
“Then you’ll have to take the bypass, the best road, if you want it not to shake,” Koka explained.
- Yes, any, if only to bring home, safe and sound, - Mtvarisa cheerfully agreed, to the quiet music of the car's saloon receiver.
- Yes, but it will be a little longer way - Koka warned.
- And where to hurry, - Mtvarisa slightly shook her head and body, to the beat of the music.
- Do you want to part with her so soon? Louis said at last.
- Well, well, as you say, - Koka added gas, turning the car in the opposite direction.
“It’s either now or never,” Louis’s heart suddenly skipped a beat, unable to withstand the onslaught of her smiles and amused gaze any longer, he reached out towards her, trying to wrap her in his arms, but was immediately repulsed from her by the energetic movements of her hands.
“Stop, I told you, otherwise you’ll lose me completely,” Mtvarisa threatened, pushing her lover into the opposite corner of the right seat.
- Ludovic, don't pester the girl, let her listen to the music properly, - suggested Koka, looking back through the interior mirror of the car.
For a moment, Ludovik sat quietly, bowing his head, but soon, unable to restrain his next impulse, he suddenly attacked Mtvarisa, enclosing her in his arms and kissing her on the edges of her lips.
Mtwarisa very quickly disentangled herself from his embrace and with her left hand slapped her lover on the cheek with a whipping blow.
Ludovik was taken aback by surprise, clutched his cheek with his right hand and immediately leaned back to his former place.
“Here, my friend, I warned you,” Koka remarked, again glancing at his friends through the salon mirror.
“If you want, I can reward you with the same, on the back of the head,” Mtvarisa offered, laughing.
- And why me? Koka was surprised.
- And so, for prevention, to look directly, and not to the sides, and would look back, - explained the amused Mtvarisa.
“Do what your friends tell you and listen to them,” Louis confirmed.
Koka, by the tone of his friend, caught his intentions, which he confessed to him the other day, but not daring to do this, he immediately asked his friend again.
- Are you sure about that?
“Do what you are told,” Louis repeated sternly, “otherwise you will get it from me too, look forward and don’t look back.”
Soon, Koki's car drove onto a paved freeway.
"Damn," Koka said.
- What's happened? Ludovic asked.
- Through the patrol post too quickly slipped, it seems they suspected something.
- And what? - Mtvarisa suddenly asked, as if emerging from a musical whirlpool, raising her head.
- Yes, there is nothing, it's just that he, like us, is a little drunk, and now for this, you yourself know what fines are if you get caught.
“Ah…,” Mtvarisa drawled, looking around through the car windows.
- Where are you taking me? she suddenly realized.
“Home, calm down,” Koka consoled her.
“This is not the road to my house,” she suddenly became alarmed.
- And to whom else? - Ludovic confirmed, - Coke, let's press it so that the patrol car does not catch up with us.
- Where are you taking me bastards, stop the anuka, stop now, are you kidnapping me or what? Mtwarisa panicked.
These fearful and anxious cries of the Moon seemed to switch in the heads of friends, in an instant and at the same time, their minds to the desired channel, giving them a hint in their further actions.
- She asked for it, - suddenly flashed through both friends' heads, the impetus was given, now it remained to act finally and irrevocably.
“Of course, and what’s wrong with that,” Ludovic suddenly explained.
- Just think, the importance is great, - Koka supported his friend.
- And you asked me if I want it or not? Mtvarisa suddenly burst into tears, drumming her hands on the driver's shoulders. “Stop now and go back, I don’t want to be kidnapped,” Mtwarisa added in her weeping voice.
- What will they say in the village about me, what century is it now to kidnap, have you completely gone crazy?
“Go on and don’t listen to her,” Ludovic, who had decided on courage, persuaded his friend. If we turn back now, then we will probably already stumble upon a patrol and then we will have big troubles and problems.
- And for my kidnapping, do you think you will have fewer problems, do you know how many years in prison they give for this today?
- It was not my idea was Mtvarisa, I assure you, - Koka tried to justify himself.
"What difference does it make, you're still an accomplice, anyway," Mtwarisa strained.
- Mtvarisa, dear, beloved, - Louis climbed again towards his beloved, - I love you and without you I can’t live, without you life in the wild is a prison for me, ... - Louis began to talk in his heart knowledge, as if trying to compensate for his lack of verbosity, for the evening spent at the table.
“Get off me, you crazy psycho,” Mtvarisa shouted at him, fighting off her lover with her fists.
“Where are you, daughter, so far, why haven’t you answered yet,” Mtvarisa’s mobile phone, disconnected for the whole evening, rang.
“Where, where, they’re kidnapping me, that’s where,” Mtvarisa shouted into the phone, throwing the mobile phone in the direction of Ludovik, who continued to climb towards him, hitting him in the face.
Mtvarisa continued to cry and begged the kidnappers not to kidnap her, Ludovik went from the blow that came from the mobile phone, from the beloved in the eyebrow of the eye.
- You could have knocked out his eye, crazy, - Koka was angry.
“My father will beat you up when he finds out,” Mtwarisa threatened.
“Okay, Koka, turn back, we’ll take her home,” Ludovic suddenly agreed, “I don’t want forced love,” Ludovic broke not only in his voice.
“Are you out of your mind, you want to run into a patrol, that there are five to ten minutes left of the drive and we are there,” suggested Koka. Don’t be afraid, beauty, no one is going to touch you, we’ll just come to the place, rest a little, and then do as you like.
“Turn the car around right now,” Ludovic repeated sternly.
"As you say," Koka agreed, reluctantly obeying his friend's orders.
Mtvarisa suddenly fell silent in surprise, as if she had swallowed her tongue and looked at her friends and around in confusion, as if not believing what was happening.
“Perhaps you’re right, Ludovic, she’s not worth it to have so much trouble because of her,” Koka suddenly broke the silence in the salon. - Now there really is so much you can get for kidnapping, what about hoo.
Silence fell again in the salon.
Koki's white Niva drove along the freeway in the opposite direction, towards the village in which they lived and which all three loved so much.
- What are you guys doing? - was indignant suddenly wary, a little later Mtvarisa.
- Like what? We're taking you back to the village, home, - explained Ludovik, - isn't that what you wanted?
- Why? - surprised even more Mtvarisa.
- Why, then, that you so desire, - Koka supported his friend.
"I don't want to," she said carefully, bowing her head.
- What? Koka said in surprise.
"I don't want to," Mtwarisa repeated.
- What? Ludovic asked.
- Go back home, take me to where they were taking me.
- What…? - almost in one voice held out in surprise, discouraged friends.
Koka managed to throw off the speed of the car.
"Don't listen to her, go back to the village," Louis waved his hand.
“I don’t want to go home, I don’t want to go back to the village, kidnap me to the end if you kidnap me,” Mtvarisa burst into tears even more.
But her friends, crazy from her behavior, did not obey her for a long time, until they again passed the patrol post on the highway, not far from the turn, towards their village.
- Well, what should I do finally, tell me plainly, - roared an angry Koka, slowing down the car on the side of the freeway. - One says “kidnap her”, then the second one says “don't kidnap me”, then they switch roles and everyone says the opposite, the devil knows what, - Koka hit his hand on the steering wheel of the car. “I have to warn you that I don’t like being played with cat and mouse, I won’t let you and I’m not going to drive you back and forth in a car all night, okay?
"Sure," Louis explained.
- So, what should I do, where should I go? Koka asked.
- To the village, we'll take her home, - Ludovik explained.
“I don’t want to go to the village, kidnap me to the end, if you kidnap me,” Mtvarisa burst into tears, “there, my family has probably already raised the whole village “on its feet” and I don’t want to return there under the name of the kidnapped.
- No, by God, some kind of madhouse, - Koka was angry, remaining at a loss for some time and not knowing what to do, while friends argued about it.
Well, in that case, we will make the decision by a majority of votes, taking into account the desire of the woman, - Koka almost roared, together with the starting engine of the car and once again turning the car around, drove it away from his village, again, at high speed, passing the patrol post of the traffic police .“Thank you Koka, you are a true friend,” Mtvarisa suddenly smiled.
“And with you, what happened to the groom, aren’t you really glad that you fell silent, as if we were kidnapping not Mtvarisa, but you,” Koka teased him more cheerfully.
- Now it is so, - Ludovic philosophized.
Mtvarisa suddenly felt her heart jump with joy, as if now something had happened that she had been waiting for so long and finally waited for, although she had not previously suspected that she had been waiting for this.
"Turn up the music," Mtwarisa asked.
Gradually, the salon music of the car turned into light music and the friends inside the Niva car did not really understand what was happening until a dull signal was heard from behind them and the call of the patrol car to stop their car on the side of the road.
- Oh, damn it, patrol, - Koki fell out frightened from the inside.
“We caught up after all,” Louis said dejectedly.
- Of course they would have caught up, - Koka was annoyed, stopped hovering over a car on the side of the road - loomed before their eyes, how many times, eh.
The driver slowly got out of the patrol car that had stopped behind and headed towards the Niva car.
“I don’t even have any documents with me,” Koka recalled, even more annoyed.
“Your documents are a young man,” the patrol officer asked, introducing himself and examining the passengers sitting in the Niva's cabin.
Koka nervously began to fumble in his pockets with his hands.
“You know, lieutenant, I think I forgot my documents at home,” he pleaded nervously and convulsively.
- In that case, get out of the car and get into our car, - the lieutenant suggested to him, - and take it with you if you have any other identification.
Koka, as if coming to his senses, lowered the upper sunshield over the steering wheel and pulled out some document from its cover and handed it to the lieutenant so that he dropped it from his hands and the lieutenant had to bend down after him.
Taking advantage of this momentary confusion, Koka quickly started the car and literally took off like a bullet.
- What have you done fool? Now after all us all Khan! yelled Ludovic, turning around and looking back, leaving the lieutenant by surprise, who was already running towards his patrol car.
- Oh, what will happen now? - alarmed in earnest Mtvarisa.
- Now we are all Khan, the cover, - Ludovik explained, clutching his head with his hands.
"Don't be afraid, we'll slip through, they won't catch up," Koka assured, adding gas to his car.
- Why, he saw us in person, - Ludovik realized himself.
“Ah… it’s still dark, I wouldn’t really have seen it,” Koka consoled.
- And your document, which he had left in his hands? Louis remembered.
- And it was my friend's old Komsomol card, which had long since gone to the cordon, - Koka laughed.
- No, you're still a fool, - Louis did not calm down, - you know that for disobedience they have the right to open fire on us, from their service firearms. Now they are chasing us.
- All the same, they won’t catch up, you’ll see, we’ll slip through. Should we finish the job we started, or let the patrolmen tear it off halfway, huh, Mtwarisa?
- You are a real man Koka, thank you, but all the same, I am very afraid, can I stop and obey them?
- All this time I have obeyed and obeyed you, and now trust me, I will take you to the place where you need to, and then I will return and surrender to them myself, and where else will I go and at the same time I will explain to them the reason for my such behavior.
“Moron, what else can I say,” Ludovic shook his head to the sides.
Music did not stop playing in the cabin, but it no longer gave pleasure to anyone, but only added heat to the driver in his lust.

A modern patrol car, painted in white and blue, was slowly approaching a small intersection of the main automobile highway, not far from which a small crowd of people and cars could be seen.
It was raining lightly and the front windshield wipers occasionally, reluctantly, turned on, clearing the driver's visibility of the road from fresh oncoming raindrops.
The exact scene of the incident also indicated and illuminated, in addition to the burning front powerful headlights of the cars, the flashing red-blue flashing lights of another patrol car that had stopped ahead.
- Drive up slowly and stop behind the cars of our guys, - there was an instruction in the cabin of the patrol car.
- I obey the commander, - the driver answered.
Soon, successive pops of the closing doors of the patrol car were heard.
The police officers who got off walked towards a new ambulance standing nearby in front of them, with “03” and “AMBULANCE” painted in red on its white background.
Before reaching the end of the back door, in the place where several people gathered, there were sounds of closing the rear double doors of the ambulance.
“Quickly, to the district central hospital,” a young girl doctor in a white coat and a gray cloak draped over herself commanded the ambulance driver.
Both of them almost ran to their seats, and the ambulance roared off.
- What happened? - the commander only asked that the patrol car that had approached the policeman was the first car, despite the fact that he already had some preliminary information received via the radio in the cabin of his car.
“Yes, here’s the commander, they didn’t obey our demands to stop, then they did stop, but when they came up and asked them for documents, the driver of the Niva,” the patrolman pointed in the direction of a broken and turned upside-down car in a field not far from a secondary road , - he threw out this old Komsomol ticket to us and, taking advantage of our confusion, again moved the car from its place and tried to get away from us. Naturally, we chased after them. Departing from our pursuit, apparently at high speed they turned onto this country road, and then there was this drizzling rain, well, they turned over.
- What about the passengers?
- The driver remained safe and sound with minor bruises.
- Where is he now?
- In our car, in the wrist Ikah is sitting, besides, it is clear that he is a little tipsy.
- To the department and interrogate him properly.
- Of course.
- What about the rest?
- The young guy and the girl suffered a lot, they are unconscious and they were urgently taken to the hospital.
Soon the first patrol car left with the Niva driver.
Two other patrol cars arrived at the scene to work on the spot.
- How many of them came in large numbers? - the thought managed to flash in the head of the Niva driver, slightly shaken from bruises, who was soon expected by an unpleasant interrogation procedure for detention at the nearest police station.
Already by midnight, the parents and relatives of the young passengers injured in the car accident tried in vain to see their children in the renovated and modernly equipped regional hospital, noisily lamenting about what had happened in its foyer.
It was quiet only in the wards where the sick slept, and even quieter in the intensive care unit, where two young victims of a recent car accident were sent, who were vainly cared for by the hospital's medical staff.
After carrying out all the measures to save them, two nurses were assigned to monitor their condition, one of whom was constantly near them, and the second now and then entered the intensive care unit and was on duty on the floor of the hospital.
It seemed that the day of the celebration of the Great October Revolution in the village was forgotten by all the villagers, but despite this, a small gathering of people was celebrated in front of the famous and revered building of the village.
A happy and beautiful young couple leaving this building was accompanied by several people with beautiful bouquets of flowers and smiling, happy faces.
National, romantic music rushed from the salon of a specially equipped passenger car.
The young were in a hurry to congratulate relatives and friends.
“You have to pay for everything in life,” the groom flashed in his head, fixing his eyes on the clear, cloudless, sunny, autumn sky.
- What day is celebrated today? - asked a little-known man who approached the villagers.
- The world day of men, - was heard in the answer.
- It's strange, but I thought that it was November 7, - the stranger was surprised, - but that it has already been completely canceled for you?
- No, they just replaced it with an even grander one.
- How much more grandiose? - the stranger was indignant.
- Oh, grandpa, it was said to you - World Men's Day, - another female voice explained, - so you need to rejoice, and you?
“Ay, leave him alone Mzia, you don’t see that he is beside himself,” the women’s advice was heard.
- And who approved it, I wonder? asked the stranger, not without joyful surprise.
- Approved it with a light hand, our last president, - explained Mziya, - ending once and for all with male discrimination, after which, male discrimination was over, and the world community began to celebrate this day - World Men's Day.
“What a beautiful day and holiday it turns out to be today,” the stranger exclaimed joyfully, “that’s why I probably didn’t drink today and I’ll go right away to make up for this omission,” he said, “thank you for telling me.
- Are you really like this or did you make it up? - the girlfriend has taken an interest.
“Indeed,” Mziya giggled.
- Where did you get all this?
- From the Internet, - she explained, - now everything except children and grub is taken from there.
- And now the question is, why should young people go to the city, when the city itself and the whole world came to our village, via the Internet.
- Well, so, - Mziya agreed, - you can buy all the products in my store, and your life partner, by the way, too, and the Internet will kindly provide everything else, - Mziya continued to smile along with her girlfriend.
Of course, most of this story went to its instigator, who paid for it with the snow-white "Niva" of his uncle and deprivation of driving for a whole year, and all other financial expenses now seemed to him nothing, compared with the coronation of Louis XIV himself - as he liked to call your friend.
“Oh, people really say that a woman is like a bullet with a mixed center of gravity, it will hit a man in the heart, hit his pocket and go sideways,” Koki smiled across her face.
- Who will reimburse all your smiles, - a friend standing next to him asked.
“Heavens,” Koka explained, smiling and looking up at the sky, “heavens and their offspring.
- Well, yes, of course, their offspring always have to pay for the deeds of their parents and ancestors, - the male voice explained.
“Louis the sun brought the Lunar Beauty as his wife,” someone from the small crowd shouted.
- Friends, this is the happiest day in my life, - the young groom thanked with joy.
“I so want this happiness to never end,” the melody sang in the voice of the bride, “generously bestowing right and left with its joy and happiness on those around.
- One magnificent novel "Abduction of the Moon" - was written by the famous national classic himself, and the second by our newlyweds - was heard in the crowd.
- The original writers of the real history of life are still not the classics, but the people themselves, and then the classics, with their exquisite craftsmanship, describe the life of these people, heroes, their creations, - was heard in response.
Only the elect, among the congratulators, heard the bell ringing falling from Heaven, glorifying the prisoner only that the union of the love of the young.
“Everything is just beginning,” the stranger muttered under his breath, leaving the place of his accidental stay, “but in any case, of course, I wish the newlyweds a happy life. After all, everything always starts happily ....

07.11.2006

;
From fool to biopsychosocial fluctuation theorist and beyond

Among the many books and magazines scattered almost all over the room, stacked on the second, empty bed on the right, on the bedside table on the left, on the desk in front and on the left, on the bookcase and its shelves in front and on the right, a thin book often loomed in the memory, now in streams of the paper river.
A school textbook on stereometry, for the tenth grade, where immediately after the cover, on a clean white paper field, two words were written in the beautiful handwriting of the owner's classmate: "Mishka is a fool." At that time, this meant almost nothing to Misha and was equated to them only with a simple school joke - a blow to the head with a school bag.
But over time, these words and handwriting became more and more significant for him in life, and the more deeply he went into realities far from these words. Now they sounded for a young professor, philosopher, doctor of sciences, master of human destinies and destiny - Mikhail Katkov, an echo in the huge, cold rocks.
With increasing force he felt the burden of a long-standing prophecy, as if with all his being and actions he aspired only to this. He was aware of the weakness of human speech, incapable of expressing feelings, which kept speeding up their run towards him and, overtaking him, each time struck blows. He foresaw that their onslaught would last for a long time until the spirit left his body. Sometimes, however, it seemed to him that things could go further, to where ...
The cruelty of fate was more and more clearly manifested, presenting a chance only once, at best - twice, and implacable to those who underestimate it and miss it.
- Stop this nonsense! If a person did not miss his chances, then they would not remain chances, but would turn into mistakes at best.
"Maybe you're right, Sanka," Misha thought, "but that doesn't make it any easier."
Thin, bony Sanka, all wet, stood at the threshold, shivering from the cold.
Misha brought her a blanket, wrapped her up, and sat her by the electric stove. She, shuddering, managed to maintain balance and express reasonable judgments.
- Is there hot water? asked a pragmatic question.
“Probably not,” Misha answered. “I’ll go, just in case, and take a look.”
He was gone for a long time, then he appeared, brought in one hand a tray with apples, chocolate and cognac, in the other - a towel and linen. I found Sanka undressed, wrapped in a blanket.
- Excuse me, - Sanya murmured embarrassedly.
Misha shyly looked away, held out his hand with linen and a towel. He put the tray on the table with the permission of the owner, took away the wet clothes to hang on the radiator, gladly discovering that they were hot.
Then there was a long, right up to the complete drying of the clothes, a conversation over a glass of cognac.
Misha went to get some clothes. When he returned, he noticed that Sanya had somehow changed. There were signs of a woman who had made a responsible decision for herself. He hesitated for a moment, then cautiously approached her.
- Here, it's already dry, you can put it on ...
She accepted the heap, threw it aside, reached out to Misha, clung to him with all her passion. He dropped his hands in confusion. The blanket slipped off, fell over her clothes. Sanya rushed to the sofa, dragged Misha along with her, tried to unbutton his shirt.
Completely taken aback, Misha stepped back.
- What happened to you? - Sasha was surprised, - haven't you been trying to get me to do this lately, but now, I have decided, and you are retreating?
- Not.
- So what's up?
- Nothing, just now, please, get dressed and leave.
Sanya was more and more amazed.
- Misha, well, forgive me, - she held out her hand to stroke his face, - except from a woman like me ...
- No! Misha abruptly took her hand away and jumped up as if stung.
- What a fool! Sanya screamed. “You can’t forgive me that I hesitated for a long time. You think I don't know. But who's to blame that you've been throwing out some stupid things all this time, chasing every skirt. Listen to what they say about you at work. Professor! Only with patronage, people like you achieve their selfish goals ...
- Why, it's a lie, - Misha exploded. “God is my witness, with what hard work I have achieved my position at work.
- Yes, sycophants are capable of more.
- Yes, I love you! He shook her bare shoulders.
- Hit it, hit it! You are still called a man. You're just shaking your head.
From a strong blow to the face, she jumped over the sofa with a cry and crashed to the floor. He jumped up to her in horror. She lay motionless, and drops of blood appeared on her slightly cracked lip. He dragged her onto the couch, laid her down, covered her with a blanket.
She came to her senses only after inhaling ammonia.
- Sanya, understand me, I respect you, maybe I love you, but ... - she heard, gradually coming to her senses.
- But what? she asked with a look.
- I don't like myself. I once betrayed myself, and he who betrays himself is capable of betraying another.
Sanya continued to ask with her eyes.
- And this is the essence of my future existence. This is a very long time to explain. I'm afraid you don't understand me. No, I'm physically healthy, but nothing more. And everything seems to be in order with the mind, it's just ... Well, how can I explain this to you? You see, this is like a reflection of professional activity in the mind.
SaI strained, trying to grasp something valuable from the information.
- This is all the theory of social fluctuations, recently revealed to me. Mechanics of behavior of all material and social systems in the dynamics of oscillatory processes.
Sanya was aware of this direction, started and seemingly brought to its logical conclusion by a young professor several years ago.
- But after all, we completed this work long ago, - Sanya was surprised.
- But I hid from you all a very important conclusion that followed from the work done.
- What? Sanya tensed.
- I'm sorry, but I can't say that now.
She pretended to lose consciousness.
- Okay, I lied. In fact, everything is as you said, and I'm sorry, for God's sake.
He pulled the cold wet rag over her forehead. She was already able to resume the conversation, but bitter resentment fettered her.
- Here are the keys to the house, spend the night with me today, and I'll go to a friend. In the morning, when you leave, close the door and bring the keys to me at work. OK?
Sanya nodded her head indifferently. The keys dropped in front of her eyes on the table.
If you get hungry, look for something in the fridge. If you want, I'll ask my sister to look after you if you need.
Sanya shook her head vigorously in denial.
- Okay, forgive me, for God's sake!
The door creaked and slammed shut.
“A man, not a man, but I lost my willpower, that’s a fact… that’s just humanity, fortunately, not yet.”
That night, Misha wandered around his favorite places in the city for a long time.
“If material systems tend to fluctuate, then man, as a biopsychosocial creation, is far from an exception,” he told himself.
Years passed, time discarded events one after another, but even time is not given to erase them without a trace. Moreover, each material and non-material living being left its mark in the electromagnetic field of the memory of life. At least that's what Sasha thought.
Since then, a lot of things have happened in her life - marriage, motherhood, so she happened to be in young grandmothers.
The events of that night and the incident with Misha, although they have lost the sharpness that forced her to change jobs, and even move to another city for a while, still retained a certain mystery and attractiveness, which is usually pumped up by islands of incomplete clarity. These islands do not exist, and yes, they sometimes surfaced in Sasha's memory.
On that bright sunny day, grandmother Sasha was returning home from the market loaded with bags. Suddenly, a car pulled up beside her. She heard a woman's voice call her.
- God, it's Madonna! – slightly doubtful, she exclaimed.
Girlfriends of youth rushed towards each other and embraced.
- Lord, how are you? one asked.
- Nothing, so-so, we live a little. And how are you? - responded another question.
- Yes, too, it seems to be nothing!
- Where are you? Won't you come, won't you call?
- But I remember!
- I believe, but what remains to be done ...
- How have you changed!
- You don't! At all! Just as naughty as before?
- Truth?
- Oh, what am I?! Let's go, I'll introduce you to my husband, Oleg, at the same time and give you a ride in a car, we'll tell you what, where, when and what's new.
In the car, which did not immediately decide to move, a conversation began that promised to be not short.
And again Sasha felt the influx of "Mishin's Islands".
- By the way, Sanya, do you remember Mishka Katkov?
- Whom? Sasha asked, surprised at the coincidence.
- Well, how? Our manager, the professor, kept looking after our girls.
- Is it?! Sasha muttered in a voice that betrayed the unconditional memory of this man.
Are you protecting him?
- Why would it? .. So what?
- Died, alas!
- When?
- Last year. Didn't you know?
- From what?
- A heart. Looks like he's been in therapy for a few years. In general, I remember, he then did a lot of strange things. They even wondered how such a person climbed into the professorship. Do you remember?
- I remember.
- Quite young.
- In general, he was nicer. True, then he gave up a little. They say that after school he wanted to marry one girl, he loved her, but then his brain took him away from happiness. Well, as is usually the case. Zeleny, inexperienced, probably thought: where to hurry, you need to continue your studies, then get a good job, and then the rest.
- Ha-ha! What a fool would wait for him! Then, they said, contrary to his soul, he flirted with many, achieved, but did not bring the matter to the end, broke, switched to new "victims". Well, was not a psycho, tell me? To say that he could not - no, he still lived with one. And so it went. And it ended badly, as you can see. Eh, though, who knows. Anyway. And my family and I are going to the mountains this year. They say that it is not worth going to the sea this year - both radiation and water are not God knows how clean. And what did you think.
"We haven't decided yet," Sasha smiled evasively.
Having agreed on a future meeting with families. Separated.
After two or even three months of work in libraries and at home, and tireless reflections and memories of joint research on behavior on the subject of material oscillatory systems, Sasha, using the example of the dynamics of mechanical systems, relying on "Misha's Islands", came, or rather, how she it seemed I was convinced that I had reached the approaches to Katkov's theory of biopsychosocial fluctuations.
The main provisions are stated as follows:
“Since each material system oscillates both in space and in time, with its own oscillation frequency, the interaction of two or more systems sets the oscillation frequency of the dominant system, which, as it were, makes the subsystem or subsystems oscillate at its frequency, that is, adjusts them to its own way, producing the so-called "frequency capture". And if the frequency of vibrations of the dominant system coincides with the frequency of free vibrations of the subsystem, then there will be a resonance, "fireworks", destruction ... "
Transferring the captured nature of vibrations of mechanical systems, through the bridge of materiality, into a biopsychosocial system, in particular, into the sphere of human relations, including, of course, intimate ones, Sasha imagined Katkov’s theory of vibrations as follows: how can one person conquer another if he , the other does not want it? Very simple: you first need to look at it very carefully, learn as much as possible about it, on the basis of the data obtained, try to determine the natural frequency of its free biopsychosocial vibrations - and that's it! Then you need to try to tune in, maybe even against your will, to this frequency and get closer to the system of interest. From how correctly and successfully a person determines this unknown, sought-after frequencies, and how successfully he tunes himself to them during interaction, all success depends. There is, however, a small "but". The theory is cruel in that it often encourages a person to leave his frequency for another, and then, having achieved his goal and returning to the original one, he sees that the new one is not quite the one he aspired to, and there is a contradiction with it.
- That's where the dog is buried! exclaimed Grandma Sasha. “That's why Misha called himself a traitor to himself. A bastard, even if by the end he fell in love with me ...
- Ah, so, - I thought, - then he could be with me, even though at first he just played pranks, and not only with me.
- Bastard! - now grandmother Sasha screamed, so much so that she even alarmed the whole house. But how could one experiment with one's soul and with the fate of people?
- Bah, is that you screaming? - the grandson looked into her room in fright.
- Yes!
- Something happened?
- Not!
Maybe you want to say...
- Yes, Andrey, - Sasha drove away doubts, - I have a request for you, advice, or call it what you want, it doesn’t matter. You are no longer small, and if you have not fallen in love yet, then you will love and never deceive either yourself or your loved one, be sincere in front of him and act from a pure soul and heart. And remember, human souls are vulnerable, and even more so the wounded must be touched lightly and gently. And never experience love, but always try to feel and understand it.
- Bah, it's okay for you to cry! Andrey asked and wiped his grandmother's teary eyes.
She hugged her grandson tightly, but in her heart she was shaking with sobs:
“Bastard, bastard, now I understand why he didn’t say anything to me that time. He courted, flirted, experimented with me and with many, but did not love, he always calculated the frequencies of people's emotional vibrations in love and thereby only scared others away from me and earned me a "flattering" reputation.
- Did you really love him? - Asked not by age smart Andrey.
- At first no, then, out of pity - yes, but now again no! – not quite confidently confessed Sasha.
- Was he prettier than his grandfather?
- Yes.
- Better?
- No, but you can't command your heart.
- Okay. That's enough, let's go to dad, probably already waiting?
Sasha felt more and more clearly how the cup of love overtook the cup of betrayal and again tried to return to her own.
former place. She fixed her gaze on Heaven, asking him for help and strength in overcoming her spiritual confrontation.
Love forgave. Love always forgives.

02.1991

;
Outraged

Flies sometimes too
fly into the Church.

The warm autumn rain accumulated strength all night, but began to pour out its soul from early morning. Coming out of the subway, passengers briefly lingered in the lobby, looked at the behavior of the heavenly messenger. They stood, pondered, but soon the majority decided to continue their journey in the pouring rain, covering whoever they could, and who did not at all, to the destination they needed.
It took a very short period of time to get to the stop of the new comfortable yellow Bogdan buses brought from abroad, but still, the rain jets managed to wet some of the outer clothing.
Shaking off the raindrops, I had to get on the bus.
- Fu ... wow, this is raining in earnest, - another passenger who ran into the bus and sat down behind the driver's seat complained to the driver.
- Yes…. - the driver agreed, smiling, - Sunday is a day off only for people, but not for the weather and rain!
- In the event of an accident, break the glass with a hammer, - the passenger who had just entered noticed the inscription, and after it the second, pasted on a transparent plastic partition between the driver's and the first passenger seat behind him, "The first-aid kit is at the driver."
- And who took off the hammers, boss? the passenger asked smiling.
“At first I hid the hammers, and then I took them home,” the driver answered smiling.
- What about in case of an accident? the passenger asked now.
- And it won't come to an accident. Do you know our people? And without an accident, the glass will be smashed with whatever you want, just for the sake of pleasure. And then there is the service and provide them with branded hammers for this! No, they can't wait!
- Well, well, do you really have a first-aid kit in your office, according to this statement?
- There is a first-aid kit, but only the most necessary things that I need are left in it.
- And what?
- I'm sorry, what? Drinks and snacks, of course, first of all, when you go on a flight, you never know what can happen, - the driver smiled, - you never know who can meet along the way!
- Well, you give, friend, - the passenger praised him, - but it's not scary, the patrol can stop, the documents will be taken away, you will remain without work, you will not end up with trouble.
- Uh, my friend, heard or not that you need to sleep with a cat so that it does not scratch you!
- Lord, what can you not hear! - the passenger was dumbfounded. - Well, okay, but are the buses at least good?
- Buses are really good, not for nothing that twenty-five thousand euros were paid for each.
- Yah?! Too expensive? the passenger was surprised. - And how many of these cars were delivered?
- Pieces, probably a hundred and fifty!
The passenger quickly figured out the total tidy sum.
- And those long ones, also yellow, from Holland, also brought so many? And for the same price?
- No, those are less. And they paid a lower price for them, because from our brand new buses, those are depreciated and have already worked out their own, for twenty years of service in Holland. No wonder they need to be repaired so often. Our guys the drivers were tormented with them.
- It is clear that they are from the "former use", and they were cleverly fused to us. Found fraerov!
“Well, everyone is smarter than us,” the driver announced, “but on the other hand, as they say, they don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
A young girl in a red coat entered the bus, brushing off her umbrella at the door.
- Bakur, hello, - she smiled sweetly, reaching out to her friend for a friendly kiss.
- Hello, Liichka, - Bakur happily greeted his friend.
- How many years, how many winters, have not seen you for a long time, everyone in the Church has missed you.
- Yes, you see, I'm completely out of hand. You know how we are scolded by invisible enemies.
- Yes, and visible no less - added Bakur.
The bus, after picking up passengers and slamming the doors, slowly moved further along the route, picking up passengers along the way.
- What can I say, we are all in this situation, and I'm even worse.
- Yes, don't talk! We go to church only occasionally. What kind of sinners are we? Leah noted.
- And shameless too, - Bakur agreed with her, - we remember only when we need it.
- Yes, everyday vanity and everyday life seize and, like mud, draw and suck us into the swamp of life, - Leah admitted.
- And in the end, time flies, and with it, life. You don’t really manage to do anything, and what you manage to do is some crumbs, insignificant fruits of our everyday feasible attempts, - Leah shook her head with regret.
At one of the stops, Bakur noticed a billboard. It advertises some kind of product, a large photograph of a young woman with a small daughter behind her back.
- What a wonderful child! Bakur exclaimed, addressing Leah. “The spitting image of my elder sister’s granddaughter!”
- So, you are already a grandfather ?! Leah noted.
- Yes, it turns out, - Bakur agreed, - a young grandfather.
- Do not be upset, I am also a young grandmother, - Leah supported him.
- Well, can't it be? Bakur was surprised.
- Yes, I have great-nephews, grandchildren of my elder brother.
“Yes, this is a signal for both of us,” Bakur shook his head. - Last time I was visiting my sister, so this little punk of hers granddaughter bombarded me with questions: why am I still not married, why do I still not have children with whom she could play ...
- How wonderful they are! - Leah smiled, - my kids also attack me with questions, and besides, they get, insist that I get married and give birth to a bunch of my children so that they have more fun, - she infected Bakura with her laughter.
- Yes! Apparently, they hear what the adults are saying,” Bakur suggested.
- Don't tell me! Ears on top, but they themselves are good!
“Perhaps you are right,” Bakur agreed, “you won’t hear anything from them!”
“But the holy spirit stays in them longer than in us adults.
“Yes, that’s what the holy fathers say,” Bakur picked up.
- This is how the holy spirit helps them to comprehend and express the truth.
- Yes, it was not in vain that the Savior told us that if we, adults, do not become like children, we will not be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
- Well, of course!
- I, of course, who I was, and remained so. Why are you so smart and beautiful, and alone?
- Yes, all the households get me at home too. They even offered to take part in the popular TV game "Out of a Thousand and One Chance", in which young boys and girls choose their life partners.
- Well, why not try?
- Well, no, this method of acquaintance and choice is far from for me, - Leah said sadly.
- Yes, here the priest preached to you that you need to choose your life partners not in cafe-bars, at parties and in general in the world, but in the church.
“Well, of course,” Leah confirmed, “they communicate with their own!” What can be in common between a believer and an unbeliever, and marriages between them, as a rule, are not happy and short-lived.
Unnoticed by each other, Bakur and Leah, averting their souls in frank confessions, caught not only coincidences, but also the interpenetration of thoughts, an inclination to talk, and both were no longer averse to trying their luck with each other.
Thoughts about this did not leave them and became especially aggravated during the service, and then, until the next “accidental flight” into the church.
Both wanted, and were afraid to take the first bold, decisive step. Still, Bakur was the first to waver. His heart melted in the streams of love, after one of the services in the church. He approached her and felt from a distance how she was waiting for this.
The bliss spilled over their bodies and souls, and soon they were smiling side by side and smiling at each other.
- Leah, you know, we could celebrate today's holiday somewhere in the city, in a cafe, if, of course, there is your consent.
- Yes, but how, if I secretly from the authorities hit the road from work and now I need to quickly return.
- And after work? Although after work it will probably be too late?
- So what, it's even better in the evening, - Leah was delighted, - let me give you my phone number. Call me at work.
She went to the far corner of the temple, where there were two tables, from one of which they bought candles, crosses, icons, quickly crossed out two phone numbers, one working. The second mobile and handed it to Bakura.
- Okay, very well, I'll definitely call, - Bakur was delighted, putting the piece of paper in his pocket.
For some time Bakur and Leah remained in the church, they had something to ask the creator.
Leah went behind Bakur and, standing a few meters away from him, with a lit candle silently turned to the face of the Savior, on the upper inner dome of the temple, above the altar.
She talked to Him, but she did not hear Him. Moreover, she was distracted, began to examine her new admirer from behind in the most detailed way. “Oh God, what a flat head he has at the back,” she suddenly noticed with alarm, “and his ears are upright. He has already begun to go bald from the top of his head, obviously older than me. And what an old-fashioned jacket, and worn trousers, in an intimate place, it seems like some kind of patch.
He can't look after himself, but will he look after me? No, so he, apparently, is a good guy at heart, kind, frank, well-read, although who needs it today, ”Lya continued her reflections. - God, tell me what to do, - she prayed, - to go with him to get closer or not? You know, all my life I was an excellent student everywhere and in everything, and what fans I had. And I, a fool, sent them off and now I have come to such. If age and time were not pressed?
“God, help me at least this time to find my happiness,” Bakur prayed in turn. - Give me your mercy! All my life I lived in hard labor, almost always and in everything I was among the first and successful. But external, objective conditions did not allow starting a family. I have never been worse than others, and now this bachelor life lowers me every day and drowns me deeper and deeper, and there is nowhere further. Help me not to make a mistake in my choice.
Soon Leah ran to work, and Bakur decided to walk along the central avenue of the city, looking for a suitable cafe ahead of time.
Before returning home to change for the evening with Leah, he even managed to get a haircut at the barbershop.
At six o'clock, with difficulty overcoming the excitement of the heart, gathering his strength, he dialed Leah's mobile phone number.
- Yes, I'm listening! Leah's alarming voice sounded, apparently guessing who was calling her.
- Liichka, this is Bakur. Well, where will we meet?
- Bakur, you know, today it won’t succeed in any way, - it’s hard, with a she breathed into the phone with pads.
- Well, what about tomorrow or the day after tomorrow?
No, I can't this week.
- Well, okay, very sorry, of course ... All the best to you ...
- Yeah, you too!
“It breaks down, like many women do for the first time, it fills its worth,” thought Bakur, “oh, how tired I am of them in my life. What are they all the same, these unmarried hesitant girls. Well, okay, there's nothing you can do about it, you'll have to be patient and wait, as the Saakhov citizen once decided from the famous movie "Prisoner of the Caucasus".
- Before the New Year, Bakur and Leah met one more time, in the church, at the service, they greeted them nicely and even kissed each other in a Christian way.
- Liichka, are you by any chance offended by me? asked Bakur, who had not called her for a long time after the first call, when she refused to meet him.
- No, what are you, for what? Leah was surprised.
They exchanged a few more words, and Leah went to her girlfriends.
His second, regular call, rather out of politeness, Bakur, annoyed by the first refusal, made her a mobile phone after the New Year, congratulated her heartily, wished her happiness, success, all the best and all the best, and did not forget to add that he would be glad congratulate her this year on her happy marriage.
Leah kindly thanked for the call, and Bakur, taught by the bitter experience of past failures, decided not to force things, but, on the contrary, to harass the chosen one with some expectation, and besides, he hinted to her about his desire a couple of times, at regular meetings after long pauses:
“You reject me, so sit alone,” he whispered in an undertone in her ear, kissing her on the cheek.
- Aaa, - Leah drawled, laughing merrily, answering him with a similar kiss.
Bakur obviously delayed the pause until the next call, and they had not met in the church for a long time either, not coinciding in rather rare parishes.
The holiday of the Eighth of March was approaching. It fell in the middle of the week, and Bakur decided to present Leah with a long-planned small gift for this day, carefully selected at the fair.
After the completion of the next service, on the Sunday closest to the eighth of March, Bakur found Leah in the temple and handed her a bundle.
Leah easily responded to Bakura's offer to go with him for a minute, to the far back corner of the temple, near the tables - counters, but then she suddenly became alert:
“No, no, please, Bakur,” she asked, more out of politeness, as Bakur considered.
After a brief struggle, Bakur finally overcame her resistance.
- Uncomfortable. They are looking at us. I bought this for you and I ask you to accept it, - Bakur insisted.
- Well, well, well, - Leah agreed and took the gift, making sure that her resistance makes no sense in this case.
- Well, that's how it is better, - Bakur straightened her bangs with a quick movement of his hand, and took her hand and pressed it to his chest. Their eyes met and pierced each other with tenderness and embarrassment.
“I love you, Leah,” Bakur told her and turned to leave the church. - Can we see you at the party?
- No, I can’t, on the eighth of March I won’t be in the city ...
On the day of the holiday, Bakur did not dare to call her, deciding to postpone the hearing of the verdict of his fate until the next Saturday and Sunday.
But Leah did not appear at church either on Saturday or Sunday. Bakur, on Saturday, after matins, remained to pray before communion. He prayed for a long time, there was something to pray for the Lord, and did not notice how one of the priests approached him from behind and addressed him with a strange message:
- Bakur, Leah told me that you gave her a gift, - the father began from afar. “She refused to accept it, but you pushed it in by force. Then you took the phone from her and now you do not give rest, you call all the time. I met in the church, you don’t let me pass, you persuade me to walk around the city, sit in a cafe and talk. The girl is panicked, terrorized and scared to the point that she is afraid to come to church. Such behavior in the church is absolutely unacceptable!
“Forgive me, father, but all this is not true,” Bakur flared up and literally lost the power of speech from resentment and surprise.
- Please don't touch her. She has her own life. If she wanted to get married, she would have already.
- Yes, but… - Bakur babbled in a barely audible voice, struck by what he heard, and again lost the power of speech.
“I beg you,” the father repeated his request.
- Forgive me, for God's sake, - Bakur squeezed out of himself after the priest.
"God forgive me," he said politely.
All night Bakur did not find peace, puzzled and overwhelmed by what he heard, lost heart and realized with horror that his strength was leaving him, and his heart was breaking from pain.
The acceptance of the sacrament of the Eucharist brought relief, after which Bakur felt a significant surge of vital energy.
He hesitated for a long time: to go to the priest to explain himself, to tell how everything really was, or is it not worth making excuses? On the one hand yes, but on the other...
Nevertheless, he made up his mind, approached:
“Forgive me, father,” he began politely, “for disturbing you, tired after a whole day of services and service, but I have a question of life and death. If you don't listen to me, I may die of a broken heart, and I don't think so.
then you would be happy.
- Speak, Bakur!
- Father, I remember well the words of the savior: whoever prevents a person from coming to me, it is better for him to hang a stone on his chest and throw himself into the sea. And I am very afraid of this accusation, and this prompts me to explain myself to you. Please take my words as a confession. What happened between me and Leah is not a matter of one or two days. We have a great mutual sympathy and warm feelings for each other for several years.
- This is how it should be between the Orthodox. Leah told me that she treats you well, but now she is outraged by your behavior. I did not think and did not expect that you would perceive her good attitude towards you in such a way.
- Yes, but, father, please believe me, that there was no assertiveness or perseverance on my part either, it’s just that my feelings for her gradually grew and poured out, as it seemed to me, into love, although I couldn’t even really admit…
- But if the girl is against, you can not insist on meeting with her. Women are equal in their rights with men, - gently taught the priest.
- Yes, father, I know about this equality, but I also had the right to try my luck!
- Once, well, twice ... politely and carefully. But do not insist on this all the time if the girl is against it.
- I didn't insist, believe me.
- How? Didn’t you call her constantly, didn’t you persuade her, they say, if you want or don’t want, come out, let’s go to the city and sit somewhere? How many times have you met?
- Never! - Bakur soared, - but everything else is slander on her part, Father.
- You see. And let's not be anymore, Bakur. We all come here with the sole purpose of uniting with our Creator, to pray, to receive grace, to forgive others, and to ask for forgiveness ourselves.
- Yes, but still, forgive me, father, but let me give you this piece of paper with her phone numbers written in her own beautiful hand. She gave them to me herself, and I don't think I need them anymore.
- Before you try your luck with her, you would consult with me. I would help you.
- Father, I still really want you to listen to me to the end.
- I know a lot about her, I know about the tragedy associated with the death of her father. Health has just improved. This is her life, Bakur.
The priest got up from his seat and went into the depths of the temple.
- We need to pray for each other, and you come and take on the showdown ...
“Forgive me, father,” Bakur exclaimed after him.
“May the Lord God forgive us all,” the father now responded, moving further and further away from Bakur.
With surprise, I managed to catch a glance as two flies accidentally flew into the church.
- It is necessary at such a time, where did they come from? Leah and I also, just as by chance, only from case to case, went to church and, without really getting to know each other, decided and ventured into a closer relationship, then when both of us were probably afraid of this, along with our desires, the fear of the obvious took precedence over desire, and then the Savior says that we can do nothing without him, and in truth it is so! Which was confirmed once again by this case.
Bakur left the church in despondency and thought. He did not find his confessor, he was taken away in a car to consecrate the grave. Fortunately, I found a parishioner at the refectory, with whom he was friends. Together they walked to the center of the city, and Bakur shared his sadness and feelings with him.
- All right, Bakur! If some fathers were falsely accused by women of much, much greater sins, then consider that you are very lucky compared to them!
“Yeah, where am I to them,” Bakur admitted.
“But still, don’t despair,” Bakura’s friend encouraged, “it’s said: there is no such secret that would not come true, and besides, remember, after all, a lie has short legs, go in peace and pray for yourself too, and for her.
Bakur walked along the main street of the city, trying to unwind, distract himself from obsessive thoughts and mental pain.
On a long poster above the roadway of the avenue was displayed in large letters: "Gender Equality"
- Gender, it's clear what kind of word, - Bakur remembered, - but why equality, what does it mean? And why, if gender, then not equivalence, but equality.
If you write in a foreign language, then to the end, and not half. And where were the foreigners when our great Shota Rustaveli wrote about the equality of men and women. Although sometimes everyone knows what this equality leads to. Neither excitement nor pain in his soul passed, and in his mental search for a way out of the situation that had arisen, Bakur walked the entire avenue to the end.
At the first gymnasium and the government house, he glanced at the opposite side of the avenue three times and crossed himself with the banner of the cross at the Kashvetsky church.
“Help, Lord,” he prayed from the very depths of his soul and heard in response: “Come to me, suffering in spirit, and I will calm you down.” Bakur walked, speeding up his steps, and his soul was filled more and more with the consciousness that it was impossible to change one’s call of the heart and calling from above, in any business, even if in any place one had to remain unheard and misunderstood to the end!
When you feel bad, gather your mental strength and try to understand the meaning of the pain through which God opens Heaven to you, he suddenly remembered for some reason, the words of St. Ephraim of Philotheus.
After some thought and a surge of another wave of inner experiences, a little later, he turned his eyes to heaven and suddenly felt a surge of some kind of heavenly energy and complete liberation from his spiritual pain, and joyfully exclaimed in his soul:
- What is the meaning of pain, in front of the open sky, - his mood changed exactly the opposite. Let them say whatever they please, truly the main thing is to be truthful before Him. May those who are truthful be joyful before Him!

14/15.03.2006

;
Wind of change

A weak, warm, south wind drove a light succession of greyish small clouds over the city.
Abandoned disposable multi-colored plastic bags flew through the streets.
For more than a day the weather was capricious, it started, but soon stopped drizzling rain.
The weather seemed to be trying in vain for a long time to completely cry, but some secret forces of nature seemed to prevent it from doing so.
Rare swifts dared to take off into the windy sky, but rushed with a screech at their usual frantic speed. As scouts of the heavenly space, they seemed to predict the weather and transmitted weather reports to the earth in their own language.
“How not much, in general, is needed to rush across the sky so quickly,” a recent metro passenger peered at the swift, a daredevil who left the ground station, a recent metro passenger, “just get rid of excess weight ... How much they managed to build! You can’t really figure out which way to go, ”he was confused, shifting his gaze from heaven to earth.
Those arriving by metro were met by a lot of stalls, kiosks, sheds, rows of hand-held sellers offering a variety of goods and as if saying: buy at least something if you want to pass through our cordon.
If, by an effort of will, they managed to resist the temptation to buy something, the naughty eyes still ran and attracted them to one or another stall or kiosk. And one way or another, the gaze swept over almost the entire spectrum of what was offered and sold.
- Sandro, hello, - a cheerful, joyful female voice was heard in the moving crowd.
- Oh, Nino, hello, - Sandro answered with no less joy, - what are you doing here?
- The same as you, I'm curious, I'm considering.
- Oh, oh, oh, what a sin! Sandro remarked in an instructive tone.
- Are you talking about yourself? laughing, retorted Nino.
"Partly," agreed Sandro.
“And Alexander, seeing such great conquests and the influx of all kinds of goods, wept, because there was nothing more to put up for sale to sellers,” he paraphrased the well-known words of a figure in the historical past.
"Well, if that's the case, let's get out of here," Nino suggested, keeping her cheerfulness and chuckling.
- In which direction are you? Sandro inquired. - Here, at the exit from the ground station, in front of the concrete steps up, you feel like Ilya Muromets at a crossroads.
“You’ll go to the left, you’ll lose your horse,” Nino picked up, “you’ll go straight - clothes and money, and to the right - your head and life!” So the choice is yours, she suggested.
- Where are you going? Alexander repeated his question.
"I'm to the right," Nino pointed in her direction.
- And me there, what a coincidence, - Sandro was delighted.
- Aren't you afraid to lose your head?
- With you near - no, - Alexander said with confidence.
"Well then, let's go," she urged him along.
- And where are you and who are you going to, if not a secret? Nino asked curiously.
- It's not a secret for you, to your beloved, - Sandro was not taken aback.
- Oh how good! In that case, know that I have a lucky leg.
"We'll see," he said as he walked, barely keeping up with her.
“Keep up, or you will lose me,” Nino warned him, noticing some confusion and puzzlement in him.
- What happened to you? Do you seem to want to see or meet someone else here?
- No, - Sandro explained, - I just thought: it's probably not good to go to her empty-handed. How do you think?
- Well, yes, of course, - Nino seemed to come to her senses, slowing down, - and what do you think to give her?
- What is usually presented to a girl on her birthday.
- So it's her birthday?
“Yes, that is, no, that is, yes and no,” Sandro hesitated.
- Is she very selective, capricious?
“Perhaps,” Sandro scratched the back of his head. - Clearly, in this case, you need to get a gift, do not disappoint her!
- And you, for example, what would you gladly accept as a gift from your lover? Sandro asked.
- I? Well, I don’t know, really, - Nino was embarrassed, - I’m not capricious and would be delighted with any little thing. The main thing for me is not so much a gift as the one who gives it to me.
- Well done, I understand! - praised Sandro.
Does she reciprocate or break down? Nino stated.
"He breaks down, grimaces, makes excuses," Sandro made a grimace.
- Then it's understandable, - Nino decided, - flowers, of course, flowers! A dozen roses, every evening, for several years, can melt the heart of any girl.
- You think?
- Sure!
- If so! Although I still won’t be able to afford it for that much time,” Sandro remarked sadly.
- And you start, we'll see, - suggested Nino.
Soon Nino chose roses from the florist for her friend's lover.
- Choose what suits you! Sandro asked her.
Soon Nino chose a bouquet of the most gorgeous dark red, turning black roses, with long, thick stems.
“Wow, what a charm,” she admired the gifts of nature, enjoying their aroma and grace, “for such a bouquet, I myself would marry anyone who would present it to me,” she said with confidence, pouring the same confidence into a friend walking nearby, - so be sure yourself, Sandro, that she will not resist such a charm and will agree to become yours.
- Do you promise?
- Promise! You'll see.
- God forbid - Sandro wished her.
- If you want, I'll go to her with you, for a while, and I'll advertise you a little, tell you what a good guy you are, and even say that I myself would go for such a thing without hesitation, with my eyes closed.
- Are you serious? Sanlro paused.
- Well, of course, - Nino confirmed, also stopping and arguing and developing her position, - where will a girl find a guy like you now. It’s as if we don’t know at all what guys have gone today, you can’t figure out what and who is behind him, and who is doing what. As you think, it becomes so scary even to get acquainted.
“Yes, indeed, it’s hard to disagree with Bernard Shaw, who said that the world is so rotten that even falling in love with someone is the biggest risk we can afford,” Sandro recalled.
- And after all, when it was still said, and in our time it is even more so, - Nino agreed with him.
- You know, I desperately need your support and participation in this matter, - Sandro ran his hand over his throat.
- Consider that you already have them! Nino resolutely confirmed her agreement.
- Right?
- Exactly!
- Swear...
- I swear! - Nino raised her hand vertically, suddenly laughed merrily, - she remembered how Stirlitz repented in the bar of a math book that he would come out to her after she had deduced several formulas in his car.
- May I die! - Sandro picked it up with joy.
"Yes," Nino laughed.
- Well, here, imperceptibly, we approached my house, - Nino announced, at one of the entrances, extended in plan, a modern block residential building.
- How? So fast? Sandro was amazed.
- Yes, imagine me here, on the ninth floor, and you?
- To me? Sandro hesitated, looking around questioningly.
- And I'm over there, - he pointed to the house next to him.
- Well, how did you decide, should I go with you or not?
- No, it's not worth it, I won't bother you, - Sandro's tongue stuttered.
- How do you know! Then here, take your bouquet, - she handed it to Sandro, - go to conquer her, and don’t fluff a pen to you.
- To hell! Sandro muttered in a barely audible voice, reluctantly holding out his hand for the bouquet.
- What's happened? - asked Nino, noticing some confusion in him.
“No, forgive me, Nino, it’s really embarrassing for me, but,” Sandro pointed to his watch, “the fact is that I get to see her a little early, she probably hasn’t returned home from work yet, and spending this time with her parents, somehow reluctantly.
- Oh, of course, of course, - now Nino hesitated and thought for a while, - no problem, - she decided in the end, - we can come up to me, I invite you to my place for a cup of coffee. You will serve me as long as you need, and then you can go to your joy.
- Are you serious?
- Well, yes, of course, no problem, - Nino turned her head around, - let's go!
- Thank you, - Sandro was delighted, - but maybe I'll take something else with me, from the store? ..
- Let's go, let's go, you don't need anything, I have everything, - Nino dragged along, embarrassed Alexander.
- Sandro, can I ask you one immodest question? - Nino asked at a small sweet table in her loggia.
- Please, - Sandro answered with readiness.
Why do you have so many inventions? After all, you picked them up from us, in our department, almost three dozen over the past few years.
- Oh, - Sandro was surprised, - I confess, I am surprised by this question of yours. As if you are not happy about this, although it should actually be different, because your department and you make money on us, inventors! I didn't expect it from you, believe me...
- The question is not dependent, from the professional side, but purely and purely human, - Nino admitted.
- Ah, - Sandro drawled, - well, if it's purely human, then it's understandable. And you, patent experts, are you not human? Fiends?
- In a way, yes, I guess!? Nino laughed. - Judging about us, by the secret thoughts of the inventors.
- Do you penetrate not only the essence of inventions, but also the deep secrets of souls, and the thoughts of your inventors?
- No, it's much simpler, - Nino consoled Sandro, who was falling into despondency, - sometimes we hear rumors about the opinions and judgments of individual inventors about us.
- From whom?
- From the inventors themselves!
- Are they confessing to you?
- No, some talk about others, others about others, and so on, everything is as usual in the world, of which we are an inseparable part.
- And yet, it was somehow incorrect on our part, - Sandro admitted, - I thought that we, inventors, should maintain purely pragmatic relations with you.
- Well, why, we are people too, - Nino objected passionately. - For the same reason why you are my guest today?
- No, perhaps, - Sandro admitted, - the reason for this is an absolute accident.
- Do you believe in coincidences?
- Well ... yes, in a way, - Alexander drawled, - which we, people, at will, have the opportunity to either use them or not.
And you took advantage!?
“Your curiosity and hospitality,” Sandro confirmed.
- I do not think that this word is suitable for our today's meeting and conversation, - admitted Nino.
“Of course not,” he agreed.
with her Alexander.
“Or are you thinking in this way of pulling out from me your inventions, slaughtered by me, about which I spoke negatively immediately after the preliminary examination?” Nino asked curiously.
- No, of course, - Alexander objected to her, - I have a good three dozen without them, as you have already noticed, although, to be honest, it seems to me that some of those rejected are not entirely fair, my applications for inventions are also a pity.
- I hope we will not discuss them today and here?
- Of course not! That's what your institution and your work are for.
"Thank you," Nino said sincerely.
"It's all my fault that I evaded your question from the very beginning," Sandro admitted. - I consider inventions to be essentially my brainchildren, which I created, and for a person who does not have a family, you yourself understand that this is very important.
- Understandably. Do you think it's better to make inventions than children? Nino took a bite of the cake.
- Oh, that's not a bad idea, - Sandro seized on her words, sipping fragrant Ceylon tea from a cup, - not without benefit. Children are unknown, even if they are still useful when you grow them up, well, and inventions, even if they are not useful, then in any case, they will not let you down, they will not spoil life.
“A similar position in the past made me the chief patent officer of the department,” Nino laughed. “Aren’t you also aiming to work with us?”
- To you? Oh, no, God forbid, but not this, - Sandro admitted, - when I see and remember how many and what different people you, in the department, have to deal with, I already feel bad.
- Well, it's not so dangerous! See how you deal with it. You can look at all things and phenomena in different ways,” Nino reminded.
- Here, how and from which side and look, for me it's the same thing.
- The only thing worth it is that all of you, in the department, have to argue with the inventors even because of one, sometimes trifling word, - Sandro remembered.
- And what answer should we keep for every wrong, superfluous word on our most terrible, our day of judgment, before the Creator! Can you imagine if we are a patent specialist, and not only we, but people in general find fault with each other? Nino thought.
- Well, what am I talking about? Sandro supported her. - Do you do it more or less culturally, but in other places, but on the street? Sometimes after all bickering reach and lethal outcomes.
- Yes, and we sometimes, together with the inventors, bring each other to such a state that we can run into nervous and mental disorders, with all the ensuing consequences, - Nino admitted.
“But don’t they give you milk at work, because it’s harmful?” Sandro joked.
"Not yet," Nino chuckled. - The salary is too average for this, against the background of today's total unemployment and lack of money.
"Still, I don't think that's what prompted you to do your job?"
- Of course not! Nino responded, guessing Alexander's next question from Alexander's eyes. “Craving for fiction,” she pointed out with a glance at the lined piles of volumes, neatly stacked on long and wide shelves along the entire wall.
- Will you let me? - Asked Alexander, and without waiting for Nino's consent, having received it already on the go, half-rising from his seat and went to the books, reading the titles of books and their authors on their ribs.
“There are so many things here,” he confirmed what he saw, slowly moving along the bookshelves.
- Everything that managed to accumulate in a lifetime!
When are you going to read them? Sandro was surprised.
“Many have already been read, and the rest for the rest of my life,” she said, also rising and heading towards him.
- Why do you need so much, because there are libraries? Sandro was amazed. - Isn't it too much for a one-room apartment? Usually they try to luxuriously decorate sideboards. And you?
- They are the same children to me as your inventions are to you, - Nino explained, - for an unmarried woman, books are one of the few consolations, believe me. Their authors and heroes suggest, teach, support in the most critical situations. At the right time, from the right book, the characters I need come out to me and communicate with me, giving me great joy, support and comfort.
- Sorry, Ning, but why don't you get married? Sandro asked, embarrassed. “A girl like you shouldn’t have a problem with that…”
“Well, probably for the same reason that you don’t get married,” Nino answered him half-jokingly, but with a hint of seriousness.
- How is everything in life complicated, trivial and even banal, sometimes not true at the same time? Sandro gently touched Nino's hand.
- If everything depended on us... - thoughtfully uttered Nino, not pulling away.
- In whose hands is the happiness of man?
“At least, not by chance,” she nevertheless recoiled and turned away, hiding her eyes.
- And in whose? Sandro carefully put his arm around her.
"Don't," she evaded politely, "it won't help your rejected inventions anyway."
- If we decide their fate, then who decides our fate? - Sandro insisted on the answer.
- From who and how answers this question, his subsequent fate, and life in general, depends - not quite specifically Nino spoke up.
- I would like to hear the answer to this question from you, - Sandro stood his ground.
- To compare it with yours? Nino paused.
She slowly went through the books on the shelves and, having found the right one, took it out and handed it to Sandro.
- What is it? - exclaimed Sandro, before reading the title. - Ahh... "How to succeed"? Yes, but in what? he stammered, not finding a supporting idea in the title.
- In everything! There are answers to all vital questions ... for those who want to achieve something, in any area of human life.
- And you believe in it?
- If you want success, you need to believe! Success in life is a big train, a train driven by a locomotive.
A number of wagons are sequentially coupled in it, and from each one you can go to the next one and reach the very locomotive. So it is in human life. One small success leads to another, and so on. The only question is what we call success and where and to what it leads us, since what is success for one person is failure for another, and vice versa.
- I see, the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. What the late Einstein did not have time to combine into a single theory, Alexander suggested.
- For everything in life you can find your own explanation, subject to the mystery of the inexplicable we explain.
- Oh, no, it's probably better to watch TV than to read so many tricky books. There, at least, everything is so simple and clear! Even in films and talk shows, Sandro admitted.
- You didn't notice behind you that from the TV the soul descends, and from books, on the contrary, it enriches, - Nino returned to her former place, comfortably sitting in an armchair. - True, it all depends on what book and what program. Here, I can demonstrate! - she rustled TV programs in front of Alexander, who sank into a chair next to her, and reached for the remote control.
“Oh, no,” Alexander pleaded, “I beg you, save me from this, I don’t need TV or books now ...
"Are you still hoping to extract from me a plan of conduct with your beloved, who is waiting for you in the house across the street?"
- No, - Sandro was suddenly taken aback, - I'm probably just trying to extend the time of my stay in your society, that's all. I'm curious to know how you live outside of work?
- Oh, isn't that too much? It's as easy and safe as you think? There, look at the running line, - Nino indicated with a look at the TV screen, snatching out and reading aloud one of them, “Two blues is already a force, long live the blues!”
- Horrible!? Sandro was indignant. - And besides, your namesake Nino writes it.
- Well, why not? This is our today, our modernity, into which we are all gradually and imperceptibly immersed and drawn in, - Nino hurried to turn off the TV, interrupting Irina Allegrova’s song on another channel with the words: “Better tell me how you will live?” “And the roses are really very beautiful,” she switched her attention to the wonderful creation of nature.
Dark roses, how much tenderness, grace, aroma, energy, mystery…
We, people, should learn from them to extract from our living environment, the bowels of the earth, everything necessary and necessary so that at least once in a life, blossom in all its glory, and power, even before death, so that there is something to justify our coming into this world and your destiny.
- “In the next world they will ask me: what did you do with your talents and what did you give to people?” - Exupery wrote at one time, - Alexander remembered.
- Yes, - Nino chuckled, - how much has changed since then. Today, people ask questions like: What did I manage to snatch from this short life and how did I become famous?
- The connection of time is interrupted in the history of mankind so often and at such a short time interval that, perhaps, not one of the generations of people manages to avoid its separation, which brings many shocks for which they often turn out to be unprepared. The rupture, the bifurcation of time, also causes biopsychosocial ruptures in us, with all their gravest consequences.
- It's all our addiction and craving for conservatism, for the usual and established worldview and attitude, - Nino put forward her concept.
- The historical development of mankind, it turns out, is a much more flexible process than thinking and adequate perception of what is happening around, - Alexander shook his head bitterly.
- Maybe the reason is that we get into the world around us up to our ears, the world in which we live and, as it were, cling, despite the fact that, probably, in life you need to be more of an extra, as if observing life from the outside, than a figure, boiling in this boiler.
- How can we not be touched and not touched by life's questions, since we live? Sandro asked.
- You just need, apparently, to be a philosopher, - advised Nino, - like that pig sleeping calmly in a cage, on the deck of a ship in distress.
- They say that there are many teachings on this subject in the works of the sages, but what can we, mere mortals, do?
“Yes, I also have some of them, over there in that part of the shelf,” Nino indicated with a look, “but still I think that each person should carry his own burden, his own th cross, as far as he is able to master it, and not encroach on a burden beyond his strength ... but carry his own with honesty.
“Carry your cross and believe,” Sandro sighed.
- On this account, they tell a very interesting story about two people carrying their big crosses, one of whom constantly asks the Creator to reduce his cross, which fulfilled his request. At the end of the path to a better world, they came across a deep abyss, which only the one who brought his cross to it managed to cross, the big one helped him, but the small cross could not be thrown, and he fell to the bottom.
- Eh, - Sandro sighed, - and yet, many deteum people prefer to live in this world today, and not in another, but in the future. But the wise give up this worldly life in order to live in the future eternal. What can we do, mortal and sinners, alas, not smart and not wise, who at once refuse earthly life for the sake of heaven, and fear that they will not be rewarded with heaven, since they lived on earth. It turns out that we will not get either!
- In any case, you still need to try!
- How will it work there?
- And there how it will turn out! Will definitely work!
The city gradually plunged into twilight, the stars flashed in the sky, in the windows of the houses, which littered the wide field like mushrooms after rain, electric light bulbs.
Sandro and Nino from the balcony of the last, ninth floor peered at people and cars scurrying down the earth, from where it was interesting to observe what was happening in the sky. A crescent moon hung on one side of it, and on the other, the sun was setting smoothly and slowly.
“You don’t always see such a combination of two huge luminaries,” Sandro admired.
Clusters of clouds of various shapes were clumsily running across the sky dome, as if prompting to compare oneself with various objects and inhabitants of the earth.
“It’s getting a bit chilly,” Nino complained, suggesting that the guest return to the room, where she hurried to put on a thin blouse.
- Nino, you know ... - Sandro approached her, smoothed the collar of her blouse ...
“I think it’s time for you, Sandro,” she didn’t let him finish, “your girlfriend has probably returned home a long time ago and can’t wait for you. Don't make her worry.
- Yes ... of course, - Sandro agreed, lowering his hand, - you're right. Perhaps I'll go, - he slowly walked towards the exit.
- Wait, where are you, and the flowers, bonbonniere? Nino caught on and rushed after him.
Sandro turned around at the open door, looked at Nino for a long time in silence and intently.
"It was all for you," she read in his eyes.
- Well, - just without rebuttals and affectation, she answered the look, as if it were words, - I guessed about it right away, - she mentally thanked the guest. “But take this at least,” she ran and brought the book “How to Succeed”.
“I won’t need it anymore,” Alexander murmured in a barely audible voice. - Good luck and thank you for a wonderful evening!
- Thank you! - exclaimed Nino following Alexander descending with unhurried steps to the elevator. But he did not use the elevator, but went down on foot, and only downstairs, at the very exit to the street, he heard Nino's door slamming shut.
Nino, meanwhile, ran out onto the balcony and followed the progress of her recent pleasant guest, who did not go to the multi-storey building opposite, but in the opposite direction, to the subway station.
That evening she did not eat dinner, did not watch anything on TV, did not read a page, but curled up on the bed, plunged into deep thought.
“How stupid these men are,” she marveled to herself, “and how sometimes their feelings crowd out their minds.”
- Shameless, shame on you, - there was suddenly swearing and swearing at her, on a mobile phone, - after all, he was waiting and hoping to see you again before leaving, and you ... if only you called on the phone ...
"I'm sorry, sis, I couldn't," Nino apologized.
- Apologize to him, to your father, when will you see him again? As if you don't know what the problem is now with visas, arrivals and departures to Russia. He plows on us there, but we can’t even see him off properly and don’t want to, ”Nino’s sister got excited into the phone.
- Well, why not? You were there, with your mother, - objected Nino.
- With mom! You should have seen what a tantrum she threw at him, literally on the go accused him of having got someone there for himself and therefore does not think to return, - the voice on the phone became even more nervous.
"Oh God," Nino exclaimed in an undertone, "how is she now?"
- Who?
- Mother!
- Asleep!
- Well, okay, I'll come to you tomorrow, - Nino promised, turning off her cell phone.
- Sandro, have you eaten too much henbane? Forgot where you were supposed to be today, nerd? - suddenly fell on him from a mobile phone harsh male abuse and abuse: - Moron, you've flunked everything, don't you understand, or what? They kicked us out of business because you didn't show up for the meeting.
- But you were there? Sandro tried to justify himself.
“Kozel, they wouldn’t even talk to us without you, you promised to come,” the voice, tormenting his nerves, was perplexed.
“I promised, but I couldn’t,” Alexander said guiltily.
- What could be more important, urgent? - loudly indignant
I'm on the mobile phone voice. - Let's say, I no longer exist for you, you let us all down, because of you we all lost a good job, now sit alone, gnaw one of your favorite seeds, and invent, I'll see how you live on them.
The voice on the cell phone cut off abruptly.
Only with time did Sandro begin to realize the tragic consequences for his business of the unexpected evening he had spent with Nino.
- The main thing is not war, but maneuvers, - he calmed himself on the move and, raising the collar of a light jacket, tried to hide under it from a fair wind in his back.
“Strange,” he suddenly remembered, “but when we walked towards Nino, in the opposite direction, the wind also blew in our backs. So… so… what?” he thought for a moment.
So, so ... and the well-known singer Irina Allegrova once heard from Nino, from the music kiosk of the metro, managed to prompt the answer to him: “... but there were no changes, only the wind of change ... sways the curtains in the house.”
“For sure, the wind of change is to blame for everything! he concluded to himself, frantically rummaging through his pockets for a red subway token.
The wind of change, so often it blows in the thoughts and desires of a woman, how often it sometimes suddenly changes to a completely, to an absolutely opposite direction, their attitude towards those from whom, even in the smallest doses, they will feel the transition in a man, from a purely friendly relations, no matter how strong they were, to the relations of applicants for out of hand.

What an insurmountable line and wall they erect between the concepts of friend and groom, in the same man, and how cruelly and cold-bloodedly they can sometimes break completely and irrevocably, even with the best friend who suddenly wants to try his luck and be the chosen one, - Alexander was amazed. “How quickly things change in life.”
Wind of change to rain! - he suddenly thought, speeding up the movement down the steps of the escalator, you need to have time to get dry to the house.
In his assessments and analyzes of what happened to him and Nino, on that memorable evening, as the future showed, Alexander was not mistaken. Their relationship with Nino, in the future, became even more purely pragmatic and dry.
- Well, as they say, an attempt is not torture, - Alexander reassured himself, although he lamented that in the person of Nino he lost his best friend through her fault, although he managed to save all his inventions rejected by her but was it worth it?

01.04. 2006
;
Memento mori

In the room dimly lit by a nightlight, a light sound was heard, similar to the creak of a metal-cutting electric saw.
- What's happened? What's there? Nana, are you listening?
- The sound grew, amplified and involuntarily brought to mind the grinding of teeth and smudges of saliva to the lips.
Nana, are you listening? - the question was repeated, accompanied by an outstretched hand to the pillow on the next bed.
- Nana again turns out she still hasn't gone to bed, - the voice concluded, - apparently, she's busy with her grandson. I wonder what time it is?
An outstretched hand turned on the second nightlight.
The eyes had a hard time adjusting to the bright light.
A hand picked up a fashionable watch from the bedside table and took it to a convenient viewing distance.
- Oh, - the voice drawled, - soon one in the morning. Why hasn't she gone to bed yet?
The sound was annoying and pierced in the ears.
“Looks like something in the yard,” the voice thought, “what could it be? Precisely, thieves must have climbed in and cut the steel bars on the window in the kitchen on the ground floor, - the frightened voice concluded in alarm, - but why is the dog silent in this case? Puppy, not yet a year old, though large. Fell asleep, obviously. It turns out that in vain I squandered so much money on his pedigree?! And how praised! They assured that the breed was ancient, even the Roman legionnaires appreciated it, took it with them into battle. The hunting rifle seems to be in the closet, but until you find it and load it, all the thieves will run away, ”
Groping for his boots, throwing on a dressing gown as he went, a tall, thin man of about sixty jumped out of the bedroom into the next room.
- Nana, are you already sleeping? he asked in an undertone, turning on the ceiling light and looking at his wife, who was dozing next to her grandson.
- Nana, get up! It looks like thieves are coming towards us.
- What? What thieves? - the woman muttered, waking up with difficulty.
- Do you hear it again? The man pointed at the sound.
- And why did you come to us, Goga? BUT? - Nana asked with a hint.
- No, well ... I thought ... - Goga hesitated.
- What am I to you, the police, or what? It's your brother-in-law who works for the police, not me. I would go to them...
- Well, you know ... it's somehow late, it's inconvenient to go into the bedroom with the young.
“Ah, they won’t let you sleep,” Nana drawled plaintively, carefully, so as not to wake her grandson, got up, threw a dressing gown over her nightgown, “he himself spent the whole day lying in bed from yesterday’s hangover, and now ... well, okay, let’s go.
- Maybe we'll go into the closet for a gun?
- Come on, come on, you don't need anything. You might think…
- Yes, but it's us, Nana, we know. And they? In addition, there is always something to grab in the house.
Nana followed the sound that led her to the downstairs bathroom.
The bath was almost full to the brim with water, and at the bottom of it, with her nose against the wall, she tried to make her way further and a toy submarine rattled.
The couple looked at each other with smiles of relief.
Rolling up the sleeves of her dressing gown, Nana quickly fished out the overworked submarine, and for a long time she and Goga tried to stop her plant.
We couldn't even get the batteries out, so we had to cover her in the kitchen with all sorts of rags, and on top of that a large enameled bowl, under which the unfortunate woman whistled all night until her battery ran out.
Protracted and tedious battles over the legality of leaving the country of residence, in the embassy of one of the most developed and prestigious European countries, were crowned with a final and irrevocable collapse.
- Well, Tengo, how are you? - asked one of the guards of the embassy in the entrance of the building.
“Bad,” answered dejectedly Tengo, a man in his fifties, of average height and moderate build, with an already emerging bald head, “well, they don’t let you in, parasites ... but here they don’t let your own live,” he added after a short pause, “so turn around.” - turn around!
Butterfly Free,
Do not fly away,
Don't come
Soul to the sky
Give it here!
- Yes, I'll give it, I'll give it, for God's sake, but what to do with children?
- Oh! That's the thing, family. Otherwise, I would have stood in the entrance of the embassy of a foreign country? What am I? - justified the guard. - How many of ours work as simple drivers on their cars! But the bucks are pounding!
- Oh, these bucks, what don't they do to people? Tengo thought. - Well, okay, come on, be healthy, now it’s probably already here and my legs won’t be.
- And what?
- Yes, they entered the computer into the black list of non-travelers ... as some kind of criminal or recidivist. I wonder why? I haven't even hurt a fly in my life, - complained Tengiz.
- What do you want, brother? If we all leave here, complaining about difficult economic conditions, then who will get the country in the end, - the guard continued to justify himself.
- And she already got who needs it. Almost all of us able-bodied are in their service industry, supporting their well-being.
Tengiz quickly pulled out a glass vial from his pocket and threw a tablet of validol from it under his tongue.
- Don't drink, don't smoke, don't walk, don't work, don't live! It's great, huh? he exclaimed. - Well, okay, come on, - he threw in parting to the guard, whom he met during his vain wanderings.
- And the children, as luck would have it, get sick every now and then. Well, right… Oh, ten lari in total, - he double-checked his financial savings. - Use them to buy medicine and go for groceries. Well brother and sister sometimes but they help, not that, - he was horrified - they would have stretched their legs already.
On the way from the bazaar, having risen from the last station of the city subway, I found that only one coin of twenty tetri was left in my pocket, and even that one was crumpled and deformed, as if chewed and spat out by a giant reptile of ancient times.
In the minibus, the driver even refused to accept her and peacefully and with a smile suggested that Tengiz keep the “unfortunate” with him, as a keepsake.
“What he is, he got such a coin,” Tengiz was annoyed, getting out of the minibus.
He returned home tired and crushed.
“Mother, here, look what I brought you,” he turned to his wife, who was spinning in the kitchen preparing food.
- What else is there?
- Memo from the embassy! They clarify who has no place there, in their country, - Tengiz explained, - hide it so that the children do not find it, and then get acquainted. Very interesting!
- Yes, hide it yourself, - his wife threw irritably, - you see how many cases! I don't make it. Two hands, not four.
- Oh, - Tengiz drawled enthusiastically, - it's really great that there are two, not four. Otherwise, this would be...
- Are you drunk again?
- I drink this life every day, and mine with you too. Alas, - Tengiz admitted sadly.
He slowly changed from his outdoor shoes to indoor shoes and went to the bathroom, where he was not without joy to find a full tank of hot water.
- Lena, can I swim? - shouted to his wife, washing over the sink.
- You can, - a little later, came the not entirely confident consent of his wife.
- And what is it, our upstairs neighbors are flooding us again little by little, - he glanced at the ceiling of the bathroom, - look how the damp spot has increased. Didn't you tell them anything?
- She said, Tengo, and more than once, - Lena went up to the bathroom and also stared at the ceiling, - everyone promises that they will fix the plumbing that they inherited from our former neighbors.
“I don’t want to spoil relations with the new ones from the very beginning, otherwise I would have risen and arranged such a thing for them,” Tengiz muttered.
- In retaliation to the embassy staff? For not letting you into their country? Yes? Okay! I'll take care of them myself.
- Well, look, do not involve me ...
After some gossip with his wife, he was about to take a bath, but first he went into the kitchen.
“I’d better swim, and then we’ll have dinner.” Not how you eat, and pulls you to sleep.
Suddenly there was a roar, so loud that it was difficult to determine where it came from.
Soon the couple, dejectedly, stood in the bathroom and watched in horror as it was filled with plaster falling from the entire ceiling.
“She could have landed on my head!” Tengiz exclaimed in horror.
Recovering from his confusion, he rushed to the door with a heart-rending cry:
Now I'll show them!
Lena rushed after him, trying to hold him and get up herself, but in vain.
Long muscular legs briskly moved a tired, tall body along a steeply sloping asphalt road running down.
“I wonder how! Hares, on the contrary, are more difficult to run downhill than uphill, - an answer was immediately found to a flashing thought, - due to the special structure of their musculoskeletal and musculoskeletal systems.
At the service, after a couple of hours of work, I didn’t even remember fatigue, but now, on the road from the church, it made itself felt.
“Years, apparently, still take their toll,” I thought involuntarily. - Although it always happens, if in the morning you do not fill up your norm for at least half an hour. In addition, these nightly readings of spiritual literature. They attract and open new horizons, doors to the world of true life ... "
Soon a tall man, descending to the nearest lower street, was waiting on the narrow sidewalk for the minibus he needed and did not really notice how a chic foreign car the color of frightened game drove up to the sidewalk opposite, and with what annoyance and indignation a pretty lady who jumped out of it peered into the flat rear wheel.
His gaze was directed to the left, where the minibus he needed appeared not far on the horizon.
"How nice, didn't have to wait long"
- Excuse me, can you tell me where there is a car repair shop or a vulcanization point nearby? - threw him suddenly, across a narrow street, a preoccupied lady.
He just turned to look at her and their eyes met.
Both, as if hypnotized, froze, looking at each other, and it seemed that he did not even think of waiting for the minibus to leave as soon as possible, and she was not at all upset that the wheel of her car went down very inopportunely.
His jaw dropped slightly, and a small smile floated across her face.
“Here it is, the alchemy of love?!” he thought.
“Here it is, love at first sight?!” she thought.
"Why didn't we meet before?" both wanted to think.
The shootout of their views was suddenly interrupted by a minibus that stopped between them, and for a moment they let each other out of sight.
"Will he leave?" she thought.
The minibus, which had stopped in the hope of accepting another passenger, suddenly slowly started moving.
She seemed to drive her away with a look, trying to find out if the stranger she liked was leaving or not?
He noticed how she, with noticeable relief, discovered that he had missed the minibus.
They both smiled at each other and he leaned towards her.
Ka  it seemed that it would be enough for one of them to open their arms, as the second would immediately accept them, as if they had known each other for a long time, but neither he nor she had the determination to take this step.
- Could you help me? - She turned to him in an undertone, leading him to a flat tire and never ceasing to smile.
- Do you have a pump? he asked in a serious tone.
- Yes, but it doesn't work. Spoiled! she waved him off in annoyance. “I wouldn’t bother you, but I need to urgently take my mother to the doctor…”
- Give me the pump, let's try to pump up the wheel.
While the lady was looking for a pump in the trunk, he furtively glanced at her mother, who had just noticed him in the car.
An elderly, well-dressed woman in her seventies, without any excitement, examined her well-groomed hands.
“Here,” her daughter said, handing the pump to the stranger, who, after checking it, shrugged his shoulder in annoyance.
- In principle, I also have a spare wheel, but for now you can replace it! In addition, there is no jack or wrench. Now, if we managed to pump some air into the wheel, we could get to the doctor. It's not far from here! And then I would call my husband on the cell phone and he would sort out our problems.
"What's stopping you from calling him now? - he thought about offering her, but realized in time: - Then she would not have asked for help from me, - and restrained himself. - What to do?" - got excited and suddenly with joy noticed a familiar parishioner of his church descending.
- George, come here, please, for a minute. Ask!
- What's the matter, Misha? - immediately responded George.
- Yes, you see, the wheel is flat. The pump is not working, there is no jack, no key. But if you get the key, can you and I handle the role of a jack?
- What are you, who will raise such a colossus? - Georgiy was horrified, - auto prevention is right there nearby!
- Yes, but today is Sunday, doesn't work, I guess?
- Ah?! Completely forgot. Or maybe there is someone on duty? George suggested.
- Where where? - Picked up the hostess of a foreign car.
Georgy began kindly to explain to her where the auto prevention was located.
- Don't, - Mikhail interrupted him, - he won't find it anyway, but rather get lost in these nooks and crannies. I'd better go, wait for me a little.
“And what if the master breaks the price of help?” flashed through Misha's head. He hesitated a little, paying for the problems of an unfamiliar, married, even pretty woman, whom he would soon lose sight of and, perhaps, never see again in his life, what?
- Wait, - she managed to shout after him, - I'll go with you! In another situation, these words would have pleased him more, but even now hearing them was not bleak.
Leah, where are you going? - threw her after her mother from the car.
- We're coming soon, Mom! Let's find the master and immediately back! Don't worry and sit still.
All the way, to the very dispensary, Leah, to Misha's pleasure, jumped to the beat of his step and, without stopping for a minute, narrated the events that led to today's incident.
Misha suddenly felt a kind of emerging closeness to her, the need for guardianship over her, protection, which became especially aggravated when in the yard, at the entrance to the auto-dispensary, they were met with barking by a whole pack of dogs, which were not without difficulty appeased by the watchman at the entrance.
Georgy was right, and Misha and Leah soon returned to the car, accompanied by a vulcanizer with a jack and a pump.
After some futile attempts to pump some air into the wheel, I had to come to terms with the fact that it would have to be replaced.
Taking out a spare wheel, the vulcanizer found in the trunk, in a specially designated inconspicuous place, his own car jack.
Misha and Leah looked at each other in bewilderment.
The matter remained small. There was no special wrench, but Misha immediately borrowed it from an unfamiliar driver who drove up in a foreign car to a nearby five-story old building. But the key in the form of a saving cross, alas, did not help, because soon after the replacement it turned out that the supplied wheel was also flat and could not be pumped.
- I get the impression that the car is not yours. Did you accidentally steal it? Show me your documents, - Misha demanded, smiling at the owner and getting a smile in return:
- My! Mine, but I haven't used it for a long time, but today I had to.
There was no way out, and the vulcanizer offered to overtake the car to a dispensary, to which Leah could not but agree, and he sat in the back seat waiting for the owner.
- Maybe I should go with you? Misha suggested to her in the meantime.
- Thanks! I already bothered you and took so much time, - Leah looked away, lowering her head and running her hand over his chest.
- Well, what are you? For you...
With a half-turn, she opened the car door, looked up at him, and froze for a moment.
A silent moment that perhaps flashes once in the life of every person, maybe everything can be turned over in it by some counted, small number, proving once again how cruel and merciless fate is sometimes with a person ...
Leah kissed Misha on the cheek with a quick jerk, thanked for everything, quickly got behind the wheel and gently pulled away.
Misha looked at her for a long time, as if bewitched.
ice.
Leah didn't take her eyes off the side mirror.
A large, old, mechanical clock, built into one of the windows of the metro control building instead of the former electronic ones, worked quite well, so that you could safely compare your wristwatches with it. At one o'clock in the afternoon, there was a decent, intense flow of people entering and leaving the Vokzalnaya Ploshchad metro station.
A lot of people were also waiting for a meeting, a date in the cozy and beloved by the townspeople hall of the station.
One of those who came up to join the ranks of those impatiently waiting, showed amusement on his face and, going up to the man who was waiting for him, clapped him on the shoulder in a friendly way.
- Hello, Goga, old man, how are you? he exclaimed cheerfully.
- Ha! Hello Tengo, hello! Long time no see! And classmates too! - friendly responded to him a fellow student.
- Uh, it's called mine told you! And you?
- Well, myself ... you know, I suppose, what a dog's life we have now ...
- What's the matter with you, Goga? Today you are some kind of… - Tengo was wary. Did something happen?
- It's happened, it's happened, - Goga confirmed, shifting from foot to foot, - it's impatient.
- So what's the problem? The train station is nearby! Tengiz was surprised.
- Well, firstly, I was waiting, and secondly, to be honest, I have only one two-lark, and taking change from the toilet is unpleasant.
- Ah, - Tengiz stretched out with a smile and rummaged in his pocket, - it's clear, here's a crumpled twenty tetri for you. I won’t fuse for several days, no one accepts.
- And there, too, the price has risen, thirty tetri, - Goga announced the news.
- Bastards! Tengiz was jokingly indignant. - For thirty I'm not going there!
- Here, here, I myself ... come what may!
Goga dived and soon emerged from the underground passage past the city fool sweeping the stone stairs, singing at the top of her voice and hurting passers-by.
Tengiz is chatting cheerfully with Mikhail, who has already arrived at the meeting place.
- Oh, - Misha was delighted, - hello, Goga! So, how are you, buddy?
- But how? So somehow...
- So who are we waiting for? Misha inquired, looking at his watch in a businesslike manner.
- Maybe Datoshka will jump, hopefully expressed Gog's proposal.
- Yes, hardly! Tengiz doubted. - Yesterday, he said on the phone that if he comes, he will come on time, but if not, then so that they don’t wait.
“It’s already twenty past two,” Misha remarked, if we don’t go already, we’ll be late.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Goga agreed.
The trio moved to the bus stop.
It soon became clear that only two cars were working on the line instead of four, and the crowd was still there.
Goga's persuasion to ride standing was resolutely and completely rejected, and after a short bargaining with a taxi driver, they raced in "eights" for eight chests in an old Zhiguli car - a wreck, potholes and potholes.
On the way, Goga was teased every now and then.
- No, it was necessary to send him on a minibus, - Tengiz shook his head with regret.
- Yes, a person would spend time with benefit, knocked his head on the ceiling, - Misha echoed him.
What is his cap for?
- Just for such occasions!
Goga grimaced, but did not answer. Didn't want to get involved.
- Nothing, nothing! The streets are paved all around! Maybe they will get to these places, - he snapped a little later, when Tengiz and Misha had already collapsed in the back seat and switched to a completely different topic.
Having reached the roundabout of the road around the artificial reservoir, they hesitated, figuring out between themselves and the driver when and where to turn.
- No, after all, I think, to boarding houses, - Misha suggested.
- Yes, like there, - the driver agreed with him.
- There, as Marina explained to me, there must be a building that looks like a ship, - Tengo explained.
- Is it floating in water? Goga asked.
- Ah, here it is! It really does look like a ship! Misha rejoiced.
- Yes! Exactly, - Tengiz was surprised.
- Listen, Tengiz, this is what came to my mind, - said Goga, - after all, the street on which you now live is called Sheshelidze? After all, his name was also Tengiz!
- So what? Tengiz was surprised.
- How so what! You do not understand? Goga was outraged.
- Not! - objected Tengiz.
- Okay, I'll tell you later.
- So! Well, okay, you argue! Who will pay for the road? - Mikhail put the question point-blank.
- Like who? It is clear who, - Tengo explained, - who sits in front, pays. Law!
“But I thought you put me here out of respect,” Goga muttered with annoyance, “they showed respect ...
- Well, for God's sake! What respect are you talking about, in our time! Pay, if you can, otherwise Misha and I will go out, go to the memorial service alone, and we will leave you as a pledge, and let Marina or her husband Zura ransom you as they want.
- Well, in that case, I will pay for myself with what I have, two of my lari. And you yourself stay here.
- Do not bother, Goga, this is not enough even for one! After all, there are three of us, but we agreed for eight lariks.
- Guys, well, throw a little or borrow, in the end! - pleaded Goga, shaking the two-lark.
- Personally, I don't have any money in my pocket, - announced Tengiz, laughing.
- Eee! - exclaimed Misha. - Goga! Why did you get into a taxi without money? - too, laughing, resented Misha.
- Yes, who, if not me, persuaded you to go by minibus? I would pay everything silt, - Goga did not yield.
- And back on what? - Misha did not part with the logic.
- On foot! - Goga blurted out without hesitation.
The driver stood at the building indicated by the passengers and, without any excitement, followed the tug-of-war by the passengers.
Well, you, - Goga waved his hand, - here, boy, two of my lari, and let them pay the rest, - he made a movement towards the door.
- Eh?! - Misha was surprised. - Hold him, Tengo, don't let him out, otherwise we'll really stay here as a pledge.
Tengiz grabbed Goga from behind with both hands, literally nailed him to the seat by force, and ordered the driver to return the two-lark to him.
The battle continued, but Misha ended it with a ten outstretched to the driver:
- Here, take it, friend, from here!
Having received two lari change, Misha and Tengiz got out of the car, while Goga hesitated with this.
- Do you really want to stay as a pledge? Tengiz laughed, followed by Misha.
“Oh, if it weren’t for the respect for Marina, I wouldn’t go with you for anything,” Goga cursed and reluctantly left his seat in the taxi, “they found time to joke!”
A long line of people slowly floated up the open flight of stairs of a multi-storey, hotel-type complex, extended in terms of the building of a boarding house, and really outwardly resembling a ship, ready to plunge nose first, and then, already with the whole body, into the blue expanse of an artificial urban reservoir , on the sixth floor the line was interrupted.
One by one, they hid behind the door, condoled with the relatives and friends of the deceased person, walked around the honorary farewell circle and left.
Condolences after a classmate and her husband about the death of his father and going down into the yard, the friends retreated to a secluded place and began to look out for possible friends and acquaintances.
What did the poor man die of? Misha asked.
- Uh, Misha, from what, from what, we are already fifty, Marina's husband - Zura seems to be even older than us. So, my father was almost eighty. Besides, they are refugees. So think about what? Tengiz explained.
- Who among the greats said that life is the most dangerous thing, people die from it? Goga remembered.
Like this! We live, spin, spin, and at the end bang, and that's it, - Tengiz drawled dejectedly.


The ropes, supporting from four sides, smoothly lowered down into the ground the coffin with the deceased, whom many people came to see off, including family members, close and distant relatives, friends, acquaintances, acquaintances of acquaintances.
The spirit of the deceased hovered high in the sky, watching from above over his funeral, and lamented at what bitter tears the mourners shed.
Life passed like a moment.
A difficult childhood in the village was replaced by the same adolescence, youth, young, now being killed and comforted by sons, daughters, grandchildren.
Long years of work, but also prosperity, until the damned fratricidal war broke out, and until, being refugees, they had to start everything from scratch.
The new, third in a row, president of the country seems to be promising a peaceful return of refugees to their seaside city, but life has decreed it in its own way.
A hillock rose, and people began to disperse little by little.
Words came into force - instruction: "There will be no more crying, no crying, no sickness, for the former has passed" (Rev. 21.4).
Tengiz, Goga and Misha, worming their way into a small crowd, made their way along narrow paths, now and then stopped at the monuments, read epitaphs, gravestone inscriptions.
Misha thought about the words that everyone who believes in the Savior should not remain in darkness.
Tengiz noticed some confusion in his friend:
- Well, what, old man? About what?..
- Isn't it about what? There are many things to think about at the cemetery,” Misha admitted to him.
- Yes, indeed! I remember that a friend from Russia had been visiting me for a long time. For some reason, he often asked to be taken to the cemeteries, was in no hurry to leave, from the resting place and said that he was surprisingly charged with both thoughts and energy, and that this charge was enough for him for a long time.
- Well, I won’t say about the charge, I don’t know, but perhaps people should go to the cemetery more often, remember death and live with the constant thought of it. Many people have written and are writing about this.
- Hurry to do good! - Connected to the dialogue and Goga. - But relatively recently I came across a newspaper with an article that stated the opposite.
- Now, in general, everything is mixed up, both in the press and on television. No position... whatever you hear, Tengiz informed with skill.
“Where to partake of the truth, if not in church,” Misha confirmed thoughtfully.
People leisurely went out of the gates of the cemetery, sat down on buses and cars. Marina's husband asked everyone to honor the memorial table.
Tables, about a hundred people, were set in a small canteen-restaurant not far from the house of the deceased.
The table did not abound with a variety of dishes, but the necessary and ritual was in abundance.
They rinsed their hands, silently reached for the tables, and immediately began to eat.
- Have a bite, guys, let's honor the deceased, - Tengiz pointed to the dishes with an inviting gesture.
“Actually, of course,” Goga remarked, starting, “the poor fellow doesn’t need anything earthly anymore.
“It is necessary, it is necessary, Goga,” Mikhail interrupted him, “he needs our attention, care, molives.
- Leave it, Misha, do you believe in the afterlife? Tengiz noted.
- But for what then and for what do we live?
- Personally, I am for family and friends, - admitted Tengiz.
“And loved ones,” added Goga.
- And for his sake? Without Him, all misfortunes and troubles fall on a person.
- Leave it, buddy! Why have we fallen into such need, if there is someone to take care of us? Tengo was surprised.
- How why? It is said: "According to your faith, let it be to you ...".
Because, you think?
- What I and my family need, he gives, and more will be harmful, - Mikhail confirmed.
Tamada raised the first toast to the memory of the deceased, noted his merits and positive qualities.
They drank standing up without clinking glasses, adding to the toast from themselves, some aloud, some to a neighbor on the table, and some to themselves.
- A human life is nothing, - Tengo bent his, - you live, you spin, you spin, you get exhausted, and then bam and you are gone. And you give a damn about everything, children have their own lives ...
- Well! - Goga agreed with him. - Ask me, so a person should not die at all ...
- And he was created immortal, and became mortal as a punishment for original sin.
- Yes, but they lived for several hundred years!
- Sins reduce the age. People themselves cut the branch on which they sit. The farther one moves away from the Creator, the life is meaningless and shorter.
“Yes, the age is noticeably shrinking,” Goga drawled.
- The fruit of civilization and a sharp jump in scientific and technological progress, - said Tengo.
“Maybe it’s for the best?” Goga noticed.
- Maybe ... but they will not bypass our children.
A second toast followed, to the parents of the deceased.
“And yet, I don’t wish myself a particularly long life,” Tengo admitted, “let the children get on their feet ...
“Perhaps I, too,” Goga supported him, “better less, but as I want, than more, but as I don’t want ...
- The homeland of man is heavenly Paradise, he lived there before the first fall. Therefore, one cannot cling to anything earthly. Whoever tries to establish himself on earth will lose heaven.
- That's why I don't like either women or apples, - Tengo smiled but immediately caught himself.
“Yeah, it’s better to be careful with these fruits,” Goga did not lag behind him.
- No, guys, just before use, they should be thoroughly washed, - a neighbor on the table found a compromise.
- Both the fruit and the person have their own purpose, only how to find it, - now another neighbor intervened.
We reached the toast to the children of the deceased with sympathetic, encouraging wishes.
“And yet, the most important thing is work,” Gog returned to the topic of conversation, “it’s bad without him ...
- I agree, Goga, - now Tengo supported him, - a person wants or doesn’t want, leaves something behind in this damned life, a house, a tree, a son ...
The funeral feast was coming to an end. Kakhetian did its job. The noise grew, it was not easy for the toastmaster to shout over it and once again commemorate the deceased under the filed final shilaplav.
“Work is work, but the main thing is to remember death,” Misha did not retreat from his. “Memento mori,” said the ancients, and the new ones agree with them.
- But not me! I can't do that, - Tengo protested, - you need to be active, go somewhere, say, to the states. There, where there is good earnings, so that people live well today, now, here on earth, and there come what may, - he almost groaned.
From the stop, they left one by one. Everyone had their own way home, to life and to the end of it, to another, to a better world, for everyone should have been rewarded in the end, according to faith and according to his deeds.

17.07. 2005
;
Son of a bitch! Or Alexandra

Narrow cramped streets of the old part of the city between one - two storey old houses with front gardens, long in need of major or at least some kind of repair. Bezhan slowly made his way to the desired address, not being afraid of sudden movements of cars here. Climbing up the ladders and lifts, he clearly felt how he was being taken over by especially lofty thoughts, not at all those that tormented him in the dusty lowland.
“So it should be, in principle,” he thought, moving steadily along a broken path, peering into the bizarre architecture, “the closer to the sky, the clearer the thoughts and the warmer the look at yours, your whole big city, spread out below, before your eyes. .
What do they do with a man of height?
Different - physical, geographical, geopolitical, social?..
Why are people so attracted to them? Is it really just because to rule other people or sometimes show off in front of them? After all, the higher the height, the more painful it is to fall from it. And sometimes you have to fall.
Pride and vanity, striving for superiority, an uncontrollable passion for possessing the best, than for others, acquisitiveness, gain.
All this is unpleasant to observe in others, but, alas, all this is imperceptible, secretly laid in each of us, grabbing us by the scruff of the neck, in order to drag and ruffle us throughout our lives.
Bejan looked up at the sky and noticed two hawks hovering over the area in a circle, looking for prey below.
Approaching the house to which he went and which he visited regularly, once a week, after a service in the church, he saw, as if growing like a tree, from under the ground, a tall, thin man of about sixty in a fashionable gray suit.
- Oh! Batono Murad! Hello! How are you?
- Hello, Bezhan, - the man also greeted - you ask how I am? Well, how ?! There is no work, the prices for everything are crazy. For example, I recently lost a button from ... - he pointed to his suit, - he went around half the city until he picked it up and bought it for two whole lari. Can you imagine?
- And who sewed? Bezhan asked.
- Oh, - Murad waved his hand, - better not ask! Wife, of course, Venus. Who else?
- What, are you dissatisfied with something? Did you sew badly?
- Three lari lured me for work.
- Yes, too much!
- In total, all this cost five lari, can you imagine?
- Nothing, the money given to his wife will not be lost, - suggested Bezhan, - but in general, one wise man said that contempt for money is not uncommon, and especially among those who do not have them.
- They also say that money does not smell, but disappears, - added Murad, - and also that money is the face of a man, and the face is the money of a woman. And my wife and I are almost the opposite!
- And what are you doing or waiting here at the crossroads? Bezhan asked.
- Yes, here I stand, I take my soul away, at the same time I think about the meaning of life. But he, having washed away life, also, it turns out, is a dynamic concept and over time either smoothly, or abruptly changes, or even disappears altogether. It seems that for a long time, but he looks and appears again ... and so constantly. It seems we are like this, people, where did we come from, where and what are we going to, why do we live in this world? Have you ever thought about this question?
- They, Murad, have not interested me for some time now.
- From what? Has it become painfully smart?
- No, I just received quite satisfactory and comprehensive answers to them a long time ago, and now I'm thinking more about their implementation.
- Yah! Where did you get the answers to them and why are you sure of their accuracy and correctness? Murad doubted.
Bezhan looked up at the sky, Murad followed him, and both froze at the sight of two hawks soaring in a large circle for a long time.
“Perhaps you are right,” Murad agreed, “all questions that arise on earth, perhaps, have the correct answers only from heaven.” What do you think, don't the questions that appear in heaven receive answers from the earth?
- Perhaps, in part, - Bezhan muttered uncertainly, - one good thing is that when a person has such questions, they inevitably, willy-nilly, lead to heaven, and the most fortunate ones bother to catch the right answers. It is bad when such questions do not appear, as they should, among the hawks that are now hovering over our heads. They, like some of the people, have the same thoughts about their daily bread - how to track down their prey, prey, attack it from above, unexpectedly, with frantic speed and force, capture, satisfy their physiological needs ...
- "Are you only to blame for the fact that I want to eat?" Yes?
“Something like that,” Bejan confirmed.
The thing is, Murad, that every person must come to the knowledge of the truth, through which opens all the vitally important and necessary doors for him, including the resolution of fateful questions. And when someone talks about it to someone, it is not always understood correctly and is not always met with approval.
A certain Rotenberg said that when someone imposes something on someone without leaving the right to choose, then he ceases to respect both the one who imposes on him and what is being imposed.
One thing I can tell you firmly is that all vitally important questions have had the right answers for a long time...
- Only everyone needs to find them himself, not Is it true? - Murad was ahead of him with the answer.
“Yes,” Bejan confirmed. - Well, okay about this, Aunt Shura at home, at home?
- At home, where should she go!
- Well, isn't it enough? It happens after all, what goes out, then to the store, then where else?
- I do not know! Half an hour ago, when I was leaving the yard, I looked at her, she was at home. Come on, you'll be happy. You know how she always waits for you!
- Yes, I'm going to, - Bezhan threw already on the go.
- And I'll wait a little longer, - Murad explained, - maybe someone will need a car, at least I'll earn extra money.
On the way, Bezhan grabbed hot lavash.
Opening the black metal gate, Bezhan peered into a suspended loggia recently built on the second floor, from the base of which a new plastic sewer pipe stretched, entering through an arched entrance into a small Italian-style courtyard, connecting with an old cast-iron one leading to a special sewer hatch.
The first thing he saw in the small courtyard was a smiling Venus and standing over a tub made of stone in its center.
At the sight of him, a perplexed question froze on her face.
Lavash is a Georgian bread baked in a special oven.
- I'm looking to see if it's leaking somewhere. he explained embarrassedly.
its appearance.
- No, it doesn’t leak, don’t be afraid, - the smile returned to her face, - the neighbors from the second floor give a full guarantee that the new sewage line will work!
Long and prolonged calls, and then a knock on the first door to the right of the gate did not receive a response from the depths of the apartment.
- And you try to get through the window on the street, - advised the nearest neighbor, Rita, a plump woman of about fifty, like Venus, whose advice turned out to be very useful.
- Aunt Shura, hello, - Bezhan greeted, who appeared at the unlocked door an ancient, eighty-seven-year-old old woman, wrapped in woolen robes and keeping her balance with the help of an inseparable stick.
- Hello, hello, dear! - tears of joy flashed in the blind eyes, - come in, my dear, and I already thought that today you should not come.
Aunt Shura, groaning and sighing, sank down on a chest near the entrance and with a glance pointed to the guest at a low chair-stool opposite her, at an oblong table.
- You haven't been waiting, have you? How could I not come when you were waiting for me?
“I don’t know, my dear,” Aunt Shura drawled in a creaky old voice, “she just closed the door, and before that she kept it slightly ajar for a long time. Were there many people in the church today?
- A lot, Aunt Shura, as always. Here's some bread for you, hot pita bread, don't you want to break off a crust right now, - suggested Bezhan.
- No, my dear, I do not want to, thank you. Go to the kitchen, put it on the table.
- Here are candles for you, put them on later, and this is a prosphora, divide it into several parts so that it lasts for several days ...
“Yeah, thanks honey, I’ll do that. Put it on the table in the kitchen too, - thanked Aunt Shura.
Bezhan involuntarily caught a mouse running and diving behind the hills of dishes with his eyes.
- Oh, - Bezhan drawled, - Aunt Shura, it turns out you have mice running around here.
- I know, what can I do? she complained.
- You need to get a cat ... or borrow her cats from Aunt Rita.
It's true, but you know, they have wonderful kittens. She recently took them out into the yard.
- What kind of cat is this? Bezhan asked.
- At the black one and at Maximka, the Siamese cat, around which all the cats from our street curl around.
- And she's going to keep everyone?
- Yes, while Rita's daughter Masha lives with her mother. And so Rita was going to drown them.
- Oh, - Bezhan drawled, - how can you, it's a big sin!
- And she does this every now and then, she says, there is nowhere to put them.
- So it's better to let him take it out into the street and attach them somewhere, maybe some kind person will come and pick it up.
“Yeah,” agreed Aunt Shura.
- Masha is a good girl, but what, she doesn't live with her mother now?
- No-no! - drawled Aunt Shura. - She's married to us.
- Second time?
- Yes, she has a son, Romka, from her first legal marriage. She says that the characters did not agree with her first husband.
- Well, God forbid, to be lucky even now, once you need to make a mistake, it seems, Leo Tolstoy said, - Bezhan remembered.
- Yes, she is a good girl, still young, some thirty years old, her whole life is still ahead. And her mother, Ritka, will look after Romka, and he himself is no longer small, fourteen years old. It's easier than messing around with a baby.
- Yes, of course, - Bezhan agreed, - what about your upstairs neighbors, above you on the second floor?
- Uh, Aunt Shura drawled, - what are they? They do their job and don't care about others. You are a witness, Bezhan, how much I begged them not to put a bathroom and toilet on the attached balcony. Can you imagine on the balcony? No matter how I begged them, and cried, and asked, and threatened to complain, they still acted in their own way, but what can I do with them? I am alone, and there are so many of them in the family. If my son, Valerik, were alive, he would talk to them for me. And now they know that I am lonely, (upatrono),  that I have no one and that they can do with me as they please. That's what they do!
- Well, why are you like this, Aunt Shura, you are not e patrono, - Bezhan explained, - you have a younger sister - Tatyana and a niece, her daughter - Valentina.
- Uh, - Aunt Shura drawled again, lightly tapping her wooden stick on the wooden floor, - what about sister and niece?! They themselves are sick, and they themselves need care. By the way, was Valya at church today? she asked about her niece.
- No, - without hesitation, Bezhan lied.
- And when it happens, it doesn't always come either. The neighbors told me that he was passing by calmly, but he wouldn’t come to me ..? I'm old and no one wants me anymore.
- Well, why, Aunt Shura? Do not tell a lie, - Bezhan opposed her, - I myself am a witness how she worries and asks about you, and visits from time to time, brings
something to eat.
“Yes, of course, she is so attentive and kind, but apparently I can’t visit more often,” Aunt Shura did not argue with the guest.
But Zoya, a neighbor from the second floor, is watching me, she will bring hot borscht or soup, then porridge, she brings her pension home. He does everything I ask. Well, how then to spoil relations with her because of the balcony and because of this ill-fated sewer? She and her daughter Leah are very grateful to me, and they say that they will not forget this kindness all their lives and will pray for me.
“She sold herself to them for a plate of borscht,” Bezhan recalled Valya’s remark in one of his conversations with her about Aunt Shura’s upstairs neighbors, “she herself allowed them to stretch such a long balcony over her head, and now she wants me to deal with them.”
- They blocked the sunlight with this balcony of theirs. What should I do, since they don’t understand human, kind language and words, and I can’t swear and fight with them. He does not allow me, - Aunt Shura pointed to the icon of the Savior. I myself do not like to swear, especially with the neighbors, ask whoever you want, I have never quarreled with anyone in the yard and have always tried to do only good to everyone. For this, I was always and everywhere loved, both at home and at work.
- Oh, - Bezhan drawled, - yes, you are a happy person, aunt Shura. Not everyone succeeds in this, - Bezhan praised her.
- Here, I remember, there was an incident at work, one of our employees, Shaliko, had a big argument with our director, Ilya Grigoryevich, oh, what a golden man he was, and Shaliko was not bad either. I went up to Shaliko and asked something, on purpose, in order to dampen his ardor, distract him from the dispute with our boss and thereby save him, but Shaliko somehow rudely brushed me off, which did not escape Ilya Grigorievich's attention.
- To whom did you answer that?! he took advantage of Shaliko's slip. - Shure?! Just go for it and write a letter of resignation right now. Then I burst into tears and began to beg Ilya Grigorievich so that he would not expel Shaliko, and began to list all his merits, after all, I was then a member of the party bureau of our printing house.
Shaliko assured that he was not leaving because of me, I asked both him and the authorities, but nothing could be changed. That's how I was loved at work.
Suddenly, a fluffy gray Siamese cat rushed past the conversation, like a bullet, and jumped out through the ajar door to the yard.
- Maksimka! Look, you dragged the valerian again?! - Aunt Shura was alarmed.
- How, such a sin is observed behind him?
- Another one, as soon as he smells the smell of valerian, he rushes to me after her.
- Can you smell valerian, but no mice? Bejan was surprised. - An unfortunate drug addict, he hunts for valerian?
- Shura did you have valerian in tablets? Rita asked from behind the door.
- There was, - Aunt Shura confirmed, - I just received it just now and left it on the table, forgot to put it in the sideboard.
- So here it is, your valerian, take it! - the neighbor Aunt Shura handed the vial, barely holding back her laughter.
- You imagine! So he always steals it from me?!
- Family friend! Bejan joked.
- Shura, how did your Bezhanchik come, did you ask me about him today?! - asked Murad, sticking his head into the gap of the door.
- Oh, Muradka, you're just in time! - Aunt Shura was delighted. - Come in, please, I want to ask you and Bezhan to install the refrigerator evenly, otherwise it collapses with me and the door does not close.
Murad readily responded to the request, and soon he and Bezhan were moving the refrigerator from side to side.
- Look, Bezhan, what's going on with the floor! - pointed with a glance at the gaping through holes in the floor Murad.
- That's where the mice come from! Bejan exclaimed.
- Yes, an elephant will probably squeeze through such holes!
Tensing, quarreling with Aunt Shura, who was scurrying and interfering, the men pushed the refrigerator in the right direction and, having covered the holes in the wooden floor with pieces of tin, after several unsuccessful attempts, installed it in its original place and tightly closed the door.
- Oh, my golden ones, - Shura exclaimed with joy, - how grateful I am to you! - and, rushing to put its contents in the refrigerator, doused her feet with borscht.
Shura, you son of a bitch! Get away from the refrigerator, - Murad roared obscenely, - where are you in a hurry, why can't we do everything ourselves?
- Stop it now! Bejan demanded. - Shame on you so yell at her!
- No need to quarrel, Bezhan, I'm not offended, thanks to him for helping to install the refrigerator!
- Shurochka, you are my dear, you know that I am not from evil! Murad laughed.
"Wow love?" Bejan thought.
- Okay! Let's go home, - his wife Venus came for Murad.
“That freak Muradka,” Shura smiled after him. “What’s true is true, and the neighbors in my yard are all wonderful,” she almost shed a tear.
- Painfully motley people, Aunt Shura, - Bezhan remarked, - both in age, and in mind, and in mood.
- Oh! Yes, - Aunt Shura agreed, - in our small yard with two-story old houses you will find people of all ages, from babies to very old people, and of many nationalities.
- Do not tell me that you are the oldest here, but Aunt Shura?
- No, the oldest Lamar, we recently celebrated her anniversary, ninety years old! Then I go, then Marusya, she is eighty-five. The poor thing had a stroke a few years ago and can't get up now.
- And who is looking after her? Bezhan asked.
- The son, Merab, comes to her, and so a woman is assigned to her, - Aunt Shura explained.
Having measured Aunt Shura's blood pressure and pulse at the end of the conversation, Bezhan soon got ready until the next Sunday...
With the onset of winter, the issue of heating sharply arose in the city. They were heated in different ways, as best they could. Some with gas, some with electricity, some with wood, some with kerosene. And only in a few places one could still find remnants of the past, socialist reality, boiler houses that were preserved in working condition, working under the central heating system.
The cheapest, of course, was to heat with gas, although it has claimed the lives of many citizens, due to the misuse of them and gas heating systems, over the past fifteen years. Handicraft stoves, sluggishness of users, low-quality fuel were merciless to freezing people ...
Even the prime minister of the country, a well-known figure almost all over the world, an experienced politician, died from a gas leak ...
One February morning, fire engines, accustomed to the frequent calls, rushed through the streets of the city at high speed, with the roar of sirens and flashing lights.
- Here, here, quickly! A woman is burning there, - the voice of a woman from the crowd in the yard met the brigade no less sharp than during the siren.
- Leave, Rita, late! Poor thing, Marusya can't be saved! She probably burned down a long time ago, - Shura restrained her with tears.
- Wait, Shura, we'll try anyway, - Rita shouted, dragging several firefighters deep into the yard.
- Quickly deploy the system and supply water! commanded the brigadier. Two, follow me!
The other three, in fireproof jackets, rushed up the stairs to the second floor.
All the arriving crowd anxiously awaited their return.
The fire approached the lying patient closer and closer. Murad prudently smashed the glass of the veranda with a stone and some air entered the burning room.
Opening the door to the veranda with a stick, the sick woman got up in fright, but immediately fell and now crawled her way through the fire to the windows.
She was already out of breath and could not muster the strength to call for help. Literally hanging in the air, wooden ceiling beams kept falling and blocking her path.
Three firefighters sent to her aid were dragging their foreman by the arms and legs, who had fallen under a burning beam.
Soon water came from the hoses.
The fight against the elements lasted more than half an hour. The completely charred body of Marusya was carried out into the yard.
Neighbors screamed, clasped their hands, sobbed.
- Aunt Shura, are you alive? Didn't get hurt? - her niece Valentina, who had come running from work, asked in fright.
“I’m alive, but poor Marusya burned down,” Aunt Shura responded, choking through her tears.
Several nearby houses were flooded with water, and they were then restored for several months.
With the death of a beloved neighbor, much has changed in the minds of the survivors. At night they could not sleep for a long time, tormented by the terrible pictures that rose before their eyes.
- How did this happen, Aunt Shura? - Bezhan, who visited her once again, was horrified.
“They still don’t really know, either from rotten wiring, or from a gas explosion,” suggested Aunt Shura, whose apartment, only by a lucky chance, was not damaged by either fire or water.
“The fire wouldn’t have reached me anyway, but it would, so He would have stopped it,” she pointed to the large icon of the savior, wiped away a tear, remembering her dead son.
What happened to him and when? Bezhan asked.
- When ... as soon as this transitional time, full of anxieties and unrest, began, be it wrong, and his wife and parents moved to live in Russia. She also called Venus with her, but he did not go, he said that he would not leave his mother alone. She left, and he became sad, depressed, fell before my eyes, lower and lower, began to drink, then to wander, made some strange friends for himself and even brought them home. I scolded him for this, drove his friends out of the house, could not watch how they drink out of grief and ruin my son too. I lost and lost him. He promised, he promised that he would not leave his mother alone u, but left it anyway, - Aunt Shura burst into tears.
“We'd better pray for him,” Bezhan consoled her.
“I pray all the time,” Aunt Shura wiped away her tears, “only she lost her peace from the fact that she had not been at his grave for a long time. Would you take me there in the summer, Bezhan!
- I would love to, but how can I get you there on such a steep slope! I'm afraid, Aunt Shura! You will still get hurt, but what and ...
- So they would bury me next to my son.
- Okay you! This is also much more expensive, - Bezhan smiled. - So live long until your pension is added.
“And it’s really a long wait, I definitely won’t live that long.”
- Why, Aunt Shura, are you cursing us?
- I don't curse, but I know when...
- Aunt Shura, hello, I came for you, get ready and go to us, - the cold voice of her unexpectedly appeared niece, Valentina, suddenly rang out.
- No, no, what are you! To whom will I leave my house, - Aunt Shura objected.
- Oh, yes, who needs your cracked wreck! Come, spend the winter with us, and then back home. We are warm, cozy, and it will be easier for me!
- No, I can't...
- Well, now, you complain that you are cold, hungry, bored ... I call you to my place, do not go! But it’s a pity for me too, to run between you sisters, besides, I also have my own affairs and work.
Heavy and futile persuasion continued for a long time.
- Well, well, it's up to you! - threw in parting excited Valentine.
“It shouldn’t have been so abrupt with her at the end,” Bezhan suggested, escorting her to the fork.
- Well, what to do, Bezhan, when she is so stubborn!
- Happy, - thought Bezhan, at the sight of children playing snowballs, - careless! They are not up to the time in which they live.
Glancing back at the kids flying off with a screech and laughter on a sled from a hillock, he suddenly slipped and crashed, causing even more excitement among the children.
A young girl extended her hand to him with a smile to help him up, in response, to which he shook his head in confusion:
- If I had not fallen, I would certainly have thrown a snowball at you, and you are holding out your hand to me for this?
- Have you guessed why you fell? the girl smiled back at him as she continued her way up the street.
Bezhan got up, brushed the snow off his coat, threw away his earflaps, and looked for a long time after the departing girl:
- No, whatever you say, but they are much more humane than we, men ... - continued his way down the street.
The children frolicking around vividly reminded him of his not very close childhood.
The louder and louder singing and the call of the birds persistently reminded of the inevitable approaching spring.
Worries increased both for them and for people.
In the villages they plowed, mostly by hand. Collective farms, state farms and the agricultural equipment that served them were looted, and something left was rendered unusable.
Awakened nature also joined in the invisible work. Bejan brought several flowering branches from fruit trees:
- Look, Aunt Shura, what a beauty! Plants perform a miracle that is not available to a person, even the most brilliant!
Putting twigs in a jar of water, Bezhan suddenly exclaimed in surprise:
- Wow! Who is this and where did it come from?
- Yes, he came! - Aunt Shura threw a glance at the white-brown lump crouching on the couch behind the mutak.
- Let him stay with me, it's more fun with him!
- Nice cat. Wow, how sparkling eyes!
- I called Nazibrola, a delicate lens. But strangely, he does not eat anything but bread and water. I don't know what to do...
- You need to ask Vali.
- Vali! Valya was about to go to Russia. Prepares documents, passport and visa. Didn't she tell you about it?
- She said for a long time that she would like to, but did not specifically specify. You will need to go and find out.
- That's right, you should!
- It's time to appear Nazibrole - Bezhan noticed.
- Yes, all the time she is next to me, on the couch. And the mice no longer swarm! Such a sensitive, attentive, looking into my eyes, trying to please. It settles at my feet and purrs.
- Oh, that's very good! She takes away negative energy from you, - Bezhan explained, - they say, where there is a cat, there is no doctor.
- What is there! Right now I'm having problems with my left eye.
- Wah! I'll take you to the clinic sometime.
- No, where do I go so far! Let, - she waved her hand, - one eye sees, and thanks for that!
“Well, how is it possible, an ophthalmologist’s consultation is still needed,” Bezhan insisted.
- I have a doctor, Venus, and that's enough. And he monitors my pressure, soldering it with nootropil and cynarizine.
- Aunt Shura, do you have anything to eat? Maybe toss?
- Yes, thank you! I ask in prayers to give me my daily bread, and he gives, my merciful one. When there is bread, I am not hungry, I thank Him and, before eating, I kiss.
- Oh, just like Nazibrola, - Bezhan laughed. - Well, okay, Aunt Shura, since you don't need anything else, I'll go to yours.
- Hello, Valya, - Bezhan greeted a few minutes later with Aunt Shura's niece and sister, - well, how are you?
- Well, how ... today the doctor came again, the fluid was taken out of the lungs, - Valya said almost in a whisper, - now she lies weakened in the room.
- I heard you were going to leave for Russia?
- Yes I want to. I'll straighten out the documents, move out zhu, and to grandchildren, and further to the son.
- How is he?
- He does not work, he drinks, he also needs to be saved somehow, no matter what, but he is the only one I have.
- Yeah, that's what failure in love does to men ...
- Hey, leave it! I told him, do not return to her, he obeyed, - she wiped away a tear.
- It was probably not worth it last time to bring it with you from Russia, - suggested Bezhan.
- Well, how was it to stay there without a passport? True, here, too, everything did not turn out the way we wanted: there was no work, my friends were so-so. In general ... Maybe I'll bring it here ...
- Again?! Leave this venture, you see, nothing is going well with him here. It's hard for all of us to get a normal job here. Don't you have enough nerves?
- So what to do? Don't disappear for him. What is he to me, not a son, but someone?
- Aunt Shura has some problems with her left eye, it will be necessary to bring a doctor to her, - Bezhan remembered.
- Oh, these are her problems! I tell her, she does not obey, but the problems are on my head. Do you know what she does? He drinks nootropil in the morning and drinks it with large cups of coffee.
- What are you! Can't live without coffee... You should talk to her...
Having finished his glass of branded Hibiscus tea, Bezhan said goodbye to Valya.
He walked down the street past a long row of garages and enjoyed the freshness of the awakening spring. This time of the year is probably his favorite. It infected him with nature, heavenly energy. Heaps of garbage piled up along the house, and he recalled the hot, but not bringing the slightest result, appeals, speeches and demonstrations of the Greens and Greenpeace.
The intoxicating aroma of Brazilian instant coffee PELE, in addition to increasing blood pressure, also invigorated, uplifted, refreshed, gave strength necessary to move and overcome loneliness.
Alexandra was inhaling the fumes and aroma of freshly brewed, hot coffee when she heard a knock on the front door.
- Aunt Shura, is your bell not working? Bezhan's cheerful and cheerful voice rang out.
- Oh, he did come, but I already thought, - Aunt Shura burst into tears, - he quarreled with Tata, but what have I got to do with it? Aren't you going to come because of my sister?
- What happened, Aunt Shura? Bezhan asked.
- She told me everything, - Aunt Shura did not have time to wipe her tears, - she said that even her husband had never yelled at her like Bezhan. In addition, he also beat on the table and pounded with his fist.
- Ah, - thought Bezhan, - why did you have to talk about it? We would take care of everything...
- I don't know, I don't know, she's very offended!
- And they carry water on the offended!
- But what happened anyway?
Last Sunday after you I went to her. She had her old friend, a neighbor. They were talking so sweetly that she was not up to me. And on Monday evening, she calls me and says that Valya from Russia asked me to pay for the phone. I tried to clarify something about receipts, there was an argument about cash and lack of time. She got offended and said she didn't want anything from me. Having abandoned all urgent matters, I rushed from the other side of the city to their telephone exchange, settled some misunderstandings there, paid out of my own, and in the evening put the paid receipt on her desk. Nevertheless, she continued to grumble and grumble.
I may have raised my voice a little, but I didn't scream. He just spoke loudly, well, like with you and with my father, because you can't hear well. It turns out that I'm yelling at her, but I'm not doing anything good. And all the more so I didn't knock on the table.
- Forgive her, old and sick ...
- You are also sick, but I never hear reproaches from you. When I go down from the church, I have to turn right home, and every time I deviate to the left to go to you, and then to her. Do you think I need it? Yes and no! But I, of course, am upset that she forgot the kindness that I did for her for six whole years in a row!
- Do not say that! - Aunt Shura was alarmed, - everything that we do, we do for Him, and everything that we do not do, we do not do for Him, the Creator of our souls. So do not worry, Bezhan, when, as they say, the gentleman, Valya, arrives, she will judge you.
“She’s not my master,” Bezhan corrected Shura, “I try to serve only Him, I do what I can to people, and what I can’t, I don’t even need to demand that.
- Well, of course, you have your own affairs, your own problems, - Aunt Shura agreed, - and I pray for you. It’s no joke, you still haven’t managed to complete your life, but you run after others and help.
- Shura, I brought you a hot fish soup, - the neighbor who ran in was pleased.
- Oh, thank you, Zoya!
- Where did she get sturgeon in her ear at such a difficult time? Bejan was surprised.
- And she buys scraps in the market. Beautiful! Delicious, healthy, nutritious and, most importantly, cheap!
- Yes, Aunt Shura, it's great here, as I see it, they settled down!
- Shura, today is the last day of Shrove Tuesday, so try hot pancakes, - another neighbor, Rita, wrapped up.
- Aunt Shura, here are the medicines I brought you, the good ones that I promised you, - Venus also came in.
- Shura, you son of a bitch, how are you, still alive? So the day before yesterday I scared, - with a noise he tumbled in after his wife and Murad.
- Thank you, Muradik, - Aunt Shura was delighted, - thank you, golden one, you are my savior.
- From what it is you saved? Bezhan asked.
How has she not told you yet? Murad was surprised. - She felt bad with her heart, didn’t get through to the ambulance, called the fire brigade, and the guys contacted the cardioexpress, a special cardiological help service. So a fire truck rolled along with them, followed by a patrol. What happened here! A mother would not take her own child in her arms!
Aunt Shura nodded in agreement and sipped something from a cup.
- What are you drinking, Shura? Murad was worried.
- Coffee, but it's already cold!
- So the doctor forbade you, you son of a bitch!
- Stop calling Shura like that, Murad! Venus slapped him on the arm.
- So I'm loving, isn't it Shura?!
Stop it, you fool, stop it!
- Wait, Shura, I'll bring some of what you can! - Murad went to the front door.
Soon, almost the entire yard gathered at the table, from young to old. The oldest inhabitant of the yard, ninety years old, long and thin Lamara, hobbled along.
- This is your Nazibrole food. By the way, where is she?
- She is shy, wild, afraid of people. So she rushed into the yard.
- Well! In our time, this is how it should be, - Suren, Aunt Shura's closest neighbor on the floor, noticed.
- And why are we not, eh? Murad chimed in.
- Hey, Murad jan, how many years we live together is another matter. Anything, it’s true, happened, but all the same, you see, you can’t spill it with water.
- Well, how not to drink for it!
They clinked glasses, unanimously praised Murad's wine. Raised a toast to Shura:
- Well, Alexandra, come on, you son of a bitch and know that you are my favorite son of a bitch in the world!
They sang the song, got emotional, remembered the global problems of the world and their own troubles. They were especially perplexed about the cash registers with which they threatened to furnish all market traders, to their fear and horror.
Shura nodded to everyone, smiled and, apparently, rejoiced in her soul.
Bezhan, as a person from outside, secretly looked at the faces, and found that the face of Aunt Shura was the most beautiful.
“Love for people makes a person not only happy, but also beautiful.”
A string of hot days of a sultry summer scattered the townspeople to various saving places, some on the sea, some in the mountains, some outside the city, and some were content with relatively cool corners in the city itself.
Those who remained actively used air conditioners, fans, drafts, soft drinks if possible, melons and watermelons that were cheap at this time of the year.
In an embrace with one of these watermelons, Bezhan made his way through the lanes to Aunt Shura.
Near the house I spotted the plaintively meowing Nazibrola.
- Oh, hello Nazibrola, what are you doing? - lowered the watermelon on the sidewalk and leaned over his already friend:
- What a little, what happened? Did she really quarrel with Aunt Shura?
- Yes, Aunt Shura has already confirmed his assumption, - you have to clean up after her more and more often, but you need to look after yourself, - both agreed after crying.
Shura thanked for the watermelon, persuaded Bezhan to reconcile with her sister and niece.
- How can I do this, Aunt Shura, if Valya does not even want to listen to me? And remember, you also said that the master would come, the master would judge us. The gentleman arrived several months ago, but he did not judge us.
- Yes! By God, I didn't expect it. What does she say?
- And what does he say! Says he doesn't want to listen to fights. She has problems up to her throat. And I have enough of them, and more than once I listened to her for hours, as her son argued with her mother!
We Orthodox must listen and hear each other, and the Lord God will hear us for this.
- Yes, it's true. Forgive them, diseases overcome the poor.
Every now and then, neighbors ran in, brought something, inquired about something.
Leaving the yard, Bezhan met Murad, who was annoyed with his wife. He tore and threw at all the women of the world, finding in Bezhan an obvious like-minded person.
- So you haven't seen her? Don't know where she is? Murad asked Bejan.
- Murad, how do I know where your wife is? - Bezhan cunning. - Find out where mine is now!
- How? So you got married?
- Not yet, but for the same reason that I do not know where she is!
- Here is a bitch, where does she hide when I need her supervision ?!
- And you seem to comprehend their temper for the first time. They disappear when we need them and appear when we don't want them.
- Listen, what a fine fellow you are, eh! Straight sage! And I thought I was the only one who noticed it!
The trees were slowly shedding their summer attire. Golden autumn rules in the city, painting everything around in its soft color.
Alexandra loved this season more than anyone else.
Now, on a warm autumn evening, with purchases in one hand and an inseparable wooden cane in the other, she slowly walked up the street, along which she ran and walked, for almost the ninth decade. She remembered her parents, her husband, her son, who died very early. She hunched over, moved heavily, wondering bitterly if this was her last shopping trip.
Especially heavy were the thoughts of the son. An elastic lump persistently approached the throat. She stumbled, lost her balance, leaned forward, dropped her stick in turn, and then her bag, the contents of which rolled down the slope.
“Son, Valerik, help!” - managed to shout before falling n testicle and lose consciousness.
- Don't be afraid, mom, I'm Valerik, I'm here, I'm with you! she woke up, clearly and clearly hearing his voice.
- Is it really you? - half-confused, she asked a young and strong man who was lifting her.
- Well, of course I am, mom! Who else? Take a look, if you don't believe me, - the voice sounded more and more audible and recognizable.
- Lord, really? She got up heavily.
- Yes mom! Yes…
“But you died a long time ago, and left me alone,” tears poured from Shura's eyes.
- I'm not dead, mom, I'm alive, and I never left you! Don't cry, he wiped her tears.
Mother, not believing her eyes, felt him, making sure that what was happening was obvious.
She felt no pain from the fall, no heaviness in her legs, no prickling in her side, but surprisingly easily got up and moved quickly next to her companion. She excitedly talked about the difficulties in his absence, and he shared with her what he experienced and experienced himself.
He walked around the house, noticed some messes, knocked out a bed leg, fixed a mirror on the wall, straightened a crooked closet door, adjusted the TV, filled with cement mortar cracks and holes in the floor and walls, even under the refrigerator, redid a lot of other small things, and in the evening he asked for some money and some of his documents.
His mother beamed with happiness, washed and dried all his clothes and hung them on a chair in the morning. Having dealt with the chores, she went to bed only in the morning. And already half asleep she again heard the voice of her son:
- Mom, I'm leaving for a little while on business.
"Don't go," she groaned, falling deeper into sleep.
In the afternoon she was awakened by a loud knock on the door.
- Shura, you son of a bitch, are you alive? - frightened Murad burst in. We're worried about you, aren't we?
- Alive, alive! Come on!
- Is that your stick?
- Mine, where did you get it?
- Where you left it last night, or rather threw it or dropped it! In the middle of the street! It’s good that no one picked it up and took it away, otherwise you know what time it is now, and here is your bag and purchases. I collected it in the morning. How and what happened to you?
You know, I haven't been out for a long time. But it came out yesterday. Thank you for bringing... And my son brought me home yesterday.
- What son? What happened to you? From the other world, right?
- And stayed with me until the morning ...
- Aunt Shura, what's wrong with you? We couldn't find a place! - Venus, alarmed, also came running.
"Look at the wound on her forehead!" And hurt! Process them, and I went on business, - Murad instructed Shura to his wife.
“Yeah, go and come back soon,” Venus agreed.
“This is a shift, right? dear Murad wondered. “That hasn’t been enough yet.”
When he returned, he found Shura with a bandaged head, surrounded by neighbors, whom she convinced that her son had spent the night with her yesterday.
Soon the whole yard was whispering about whether Aunt Shura's head had gone crazy. Valentina also appeared, with difficulty and for a short while convincing her aunt that she had taken Bezhan for her son, whom she also managed to warn about what had happened by phone.
“They think I’ve gone crazy,” Shura turned to the photo of her son when she was left alone, “and meanwhile they themselves went crazy ... And who redid so many things for me yesterday?
She peered into the mirror, into the closet door, told about everything to Bezhan, who looked in, who took on the role of her son until she bombarded him with probing questions.
One way or another, the neighbors agreed on a common opinion, gradually began to shun her and avoid long conversations.
Bejan tried to make her promise that she would not resume the conversation about her son in the future.
But no persuasion and persuasion worked, she stubbornly stood her ground, even when she formally, outwardly agreed with the versions of relatives and neighbors. She did not agree to move for a while to her niece and sister, supported by joy from the appearance and, alas, the disappearance of her son.
A real winter with snow covers on the mountains ringing the city, cast a cold on it, although it had not really penetrated into it yet. But, one way or another, he was already living in winter mode. The cold was felt in everything and everywhere, in houses, on the streets, in the people themselves. They were saved by wearing a lot of clothes and brisk walking.
Bejan often resorted to this method and did not like to stop on the street for any reason, at least for the reason that he was now stopped by a tall thin man in his sixties, haggard but arrogant.
- Hello, buddy, where are you in such a hurry?
- Yes, here, nearby, to one old woman, Aunt Shura, if you know one!
“So who doesn’t know her around here?” And who are you to her?
- No one, just acquaintances!
- So, just acquaintances? Well, do you know me?
- No, - Bezhan hesitated.
- Ha-ha-ha! You see, he doesn't know me! Every dog around knows, and you blundered something? I've known you for a long time, but you don't know me! Why? Don't say it's the first time you see it!
- Excuse me, yes, - Bezhan tried to laugh it off.
Wait, who am I talking to? Is it really true that the slate has gone that you don’t know who you are talking to?
- No, I'm sorry, - Bezhan hesitated a little timidly.
- What are you, boy, really crazy? Open your eyes and take a closer look. I’m a hippopotamus, - indeed, like a hippopotamus, the interlocutor opened his mouth, not that rushing to close it and repeated the technique three times in a row.
Bejan stood silently, discouraged and bewildered.
- What will you drink? - the interlocutor asked sternly.
- I'm sorry, but I don't drink at all.
- What will you drink, I said! - the interlocutor repeated the question even more severely.
- I don't drink, I have an ulcer, - fortunately Bezhan recalled his illness healed a year ago.
The hippopotamus man threw a menacing look at Bezhan, but suddenly, unexpectedly for him, tempered his ardor, extended his hand for a handshake and even kissed his cheek.
"I'm sorry mate, I don't know," he apologized.
“Yeah, with my payment for a drink,” Bezhan thought, moving away from the importunate interlocutor.
“Nothing happens,” he added aloud.
- If someone sticks to you here, tell me that you know me, understand?
- Understood thanks! - Bezhan thanked and hastened almost to run away.
- Aunt Shura, what are these crocodiles and hippos wound up in your district? - he soon asked, retelling the details of a recent meeting.
- And who knows, we now have so many of them, and not only here. People went berserk, and naturally animal nicknames were used.
- Have animals, like your Nazibrola, been called human names? both laughed.
- And how are your rats and mice, Aunt Shura?
- How! The best. So I bought myself potatoes as much as a hundred kilograms, for myself and, it seems, for them.
- Oh, - Bezhan drawled, - be careful, Aunt Shura, it's very dangerous. I remember one of my employees, a long time ago, died of hepatitis of the liver caused by an infection, from mouse discharge. Suddenly, the then medicine could not help him.
- I'm not afraid. I have spent my whole life with rats, both at work, during and after the war, and at home. So my body has long since developed an antidote. Another thing is what they eat. Well, to hell with them, how much will they eat?
- Shura, son of a bitch, - please sell me thirty kilograms of potatoes, - asked Murad, who suddenly appeared at the door, - why do you need so many?
- What do you mean why? Aunt Shura was surprised. - Ahead of the whole long winter and the beginning of spring, when there will be nothing to eat. Besides, I didn't just buy it for myself, did I?
- And for whom else? Rats to fatten and distribute throughout the yard? Yes, I'm going to complain about you, you son of a bitch!
- Let me know for whom! For me and for my son, who promised to return.
- Ay! .. - Murad drawled, turning his eyes to Bezhan. - Again, she rushed to the wrong steppe. Well, okay, Shura, with me on this topic ... Talk better with Bezhan, and I ran. We'll still have to drag the potatoes from the market.
- And why from the bazaar, when they bring her here on special carts and wheelbarrows.
- My wife says that the market is cheaper.
- Oh, just think, it's cheaper, for some ten tetri!
- Ten tetri per hundred kilograms, that's ten lari for you!
- Don't you need to get on the road?
- Well, okay, come on, - Murad said goodbye, closing the door behind him.
- Oh, my head hurts again, - Shura complained, - Bezhan, son, please measure my blood pressure.
- Here, you see, increased, and the pulse is quickened ... where is our beloved korvalolchik?
- Thank you, my golden ... It's all because of these gasmen. They came to demand payment in full. And where do I get so much money at once?
- How? What about benefits?
- Oh, Valentina, apparently, did not hand over the documents, otherwise I would not have had problems with them.
- How did you not pass? Passed! Search well and show me.
- You have to wait until the benefits are credited to your account. Until then, you don't have to pay anything.
- How not to? And suddenly cut! The guys said they didn't want to lose their jobs because of me. And the official request was left. Here!
- Don't cut anything! Do not open to them, but ask the neighbors to intercede.
It turned out that this year Bezhan found Shura at home for the last time.
- She called her and asked her to pick up - Rita told him. - The cold pestered her, and her bronchitis became very aggravated. Yes, and collectors scared. So Valentina took her away in a taxi, and apparently she will stay with them until the end of winter.
“Yes, hardly. She loves her house very much,” Bezhan doubted, slowly going down the slope to the city center. And he turned out to be right.
Shura returned a month and a half later, with the onset of the very first warm days, contrary to the calendar.
- There are two patients without me, and my son can show up here. Every now and then I see him in my dreams.
“I always tell you that you can’t believe in dreams,” Bezhan reminded.
- He is here, he will return, he will definitely come! He promised, he had been a man of his word all his life.
- Oh, again the poor thing brings! - noted in an undertone, almost to himself, jumping into the light Murad. - Shura, stop assuring that you have a son, enough of this nonsense! Understood?
- Well, how? If you don’t believe me, move the refrigerator away and you will see that all the cracks and holes that you and Bezhan covered with tin are filled and filled with cement mortar.
- Yes, but for this this type, some rogue, probably or a homeless person, took money from you from the box!
Don't talk about my son like that! He always found a way out of the most difficult situations!
- Now I found it! Cleverly settled down with you for the night. Ate, slept for the night, pulled out of the boxes ki money and documents of your son, dressed up in everything clean, and was like that!
- It's not true, he didn't steal my money! He asked, and I gave it to him myself, - Shura clarified.
- Well, you son of a bitch, you are naive and stubborn. You do not believe what your loved ones say, and you believe God knows whom. Or maybe it was a runaway criminal who was looking for somewhere to hide, and then you turned up!
- No, no, - Shura hesitated a little, but immediately regained confidence. - And his voice, his face, his eyes finally ... No, the heart of the mother will not be mistaken, - she burst into tears.
- Well, as you wish ... as you wish! Blessed believer, - Murad got up and closed the door behind him.
Bezhan's consolations did not have the desired effect, and Shura spent the rest of the day in tears, praying for a long time, sorting through old family photographs.
Before going to bed, she ardently called out to the icons of the Savior and the Most Holy Mother of God, and lit lampadas and candles in front of them. I felt for a moment that my heart was about to break out of my chest and shoot up. But then she realized that what was supposed to happen to her heart happened to her spirit. She heard a voice assuring her that her son would return, that he would come, that he could not but come, and, pacified, she fell into a dream.
- Mom, I promised you that I would return, don't you believe me?
She saw and heard him in her dream for a long time. She believed these words, but was also surprised how it could happen that her son was buried on a high hillock of the city cemetery, where she could not get for so long, although she asked many of her relatives about it.
"Come back, my son," she pleaded. - Nobody believes me, and everyone thinks that I'm crazy ...
- Don't listen to them, mom! Let them think. The main thing is that you believe, hope and wait. Have a little more patience, and you'll see ... Only we both need to take into account our past mistakes, and everything will start again, - her son's voice comforted and lulled her.
All the following days she pondered over the words she heard, tried to fulfill the wishes of the voice. In order to get moral support for this, to replenish spiritual and physical strength, she asked Bezhan to take her to church and there she confessed and partook of the holy sacraments.
The priest, before proceeding to confession, asked her name.
- Alexandra! - it sounded hollowly under the dome, and then for a long time, already dividing, it echoed in the ears. - Alexandra Alexandrovna ...
Early in the morning of International Women's Day on March 8, she was awakened by a careful but repetitive knocking.
She hurried to the door.
Who could it be this early?
Opening the door, I was surprised to see a tall young woman in a coat and fur hat.
- Who do you want?
- Alexandra Alexandrovna, - the stranger smiled.
- It's me, - Shura whispered in confusion, - and who are you?
“Hello, mother,” the stranger’s face flared up with joy, but immediately tears rolled from her eyes, which she caught and wiped away with her hand.
- You didn't recognize me? Valerik, come here, son, - she called the child, who played with the kittens of Rita's neighbor, drew her to her, gently hugged her shoulders.
Shura peered at the child and, in turn, burst into tears: before her stood her son, but not yet grown up, about thirteen years old.
- Really you, Zina?
- Yes, and this is Valerik, your grandson, Valery's son. Valery always, and even in my current dreams, insisted that my son and I return here, home, to his origins. While my parents were alive, I abstained, especially since it was restless here too, God knows what was going on. I have now made up my mind and here we are...
- I think Georgia is our true homeland...
- But why didn't you tell me that I had a grandson?
- Valery knew, I wrote to him.
- Did you know? Didn't you tell me? But why? Shura wondered.
- Apparently, because I could neither go to us, nor leave you here alone, and I could not leave my parents, because I, too, had their only daughter.
- It is clear why Valery drank so much. However, you know about it. Where?
- No, Mom, unfortunately I know, because I have many friends left here ... But I think our family has reunited. There are three of us now, unless, of course, you refuse to receive us ...
- What you? What you? How can I refuse it? Shura was horrified. She suddenly felt a surge of strength and energy. - I may not die of this joy, and we will live together for a long time and raise my dear grandson. We have a lot to tell each other about the years we lived far apart. May everyone be rewarded according to his faith, - she remembered the words of the savior. - So, my daughter, let's offer together a prayer of gratitude to the Creator for uniting us.
- Shura, you son of a bitch, help me, Venus is hitting me, - Murad's cries were suddenly heard from the yard.
- Be back soon! - Shura answered them. - Well, here, wait a little for me, - she carried away her grandson with her daughter-in-law into the rooms. - Now I will bring them, dear to me .. or rather, now to us .. people.
“Life flowed, and continued happily ever after.

17.03. 2006

;
SAMSON PROKOFIEVICH GELKHVIDZE
"Creative portrait"

The beginning of Samson Gelkhvidze's work falls at the turn of the century, when the atheistic twentieth century, about which the poet Mikhail Dudin wrote:
Darkness over the past
Fog over the future
Humanity is mired in deceit...
The twentieth century. Blood Age.
What have you done, man?
a new, twenty-first century was coming, the first years of which were marked by a massive conversion of peoples to spiritual values, when new rhythms, images, idols burst into life, when again, for the umpteenth time, the chain broke, the connection of time was broken.
It has been repeatedly noted how difficult it is in a transitional time, as a rule, full of unrest and revolutionary denial of the old foundations and orders, and socio-political formations as well.
For Samson Gelkhvidze, the connection of times was not interrupted even in these troubled times, since he remained committed to the eternal principles and ideals to the end: love and gratuitous service, neighbors and God, which sometimes spilled over the edge of the cup of his heart and poured out sincere and confessional lines:
Still sick with love
To everyone and everything...
“A solid heart buzzes everywhere”, ... These words of Mayakovsky, the editor of his first poetry collection, a member of the Federation of Journalists of Georgia, Gleb Korenetsky, cited the title of the preface to it, noting that they are the most suitable for characterizing the poems and poems of Samson Gelkhvidze, which in turn confesses to its readers:
Poetry is my confession
My destination.
However, he is increasingly advised to take prose seriously, in which he has tried the pen since 1983.
There is a kind of rivalry between prose and poetry, from which he cannot part, and often admits to himself that poetry often prompts him to stay awake all night long.
The famous Russian poet Georgy Ivanov wrote his best poems in France, but for Russians. Samson Gelkhvidze lives and writes in Georgia, and also for Georgians and Russians.
He did not have to leave his country, but she herself, at the turn of the century, emigrated from Russia. Despite this, he managed to preserve in himself that part of Russia, in the culture of which he grew up, was brought up and which the people with Georgian culture studied with love and drove into himself from early childhood.
Literary ties between the two fraternal Orthodox countries, Georgia and Russia, grew together in him for life, revealing in him the single backbone of his entire inner being, helping him to walk boldly and confidently through life.
An ethnic Georgian, a parishioner of one of the Orthodox Georgian churches in Tbilisi, prays in Georgian, but writes and thinks mostly in Russian, and, as he often adds to his personal information, many of his friends are Armenians, and not only.
“And who am I myself, I don’t know ?!” - sometimes he jokingly asks a question, as if mimicking Cheburashka, from a famous cartoon.
These additions, to be sure, are a joke, since he knows perfectly well who he is and why he came into this world:
I am a ram from Christ's flock,
Finding himself in prose and poetry.
I am a fire lit for service
The ideal of peace and goodness.
And with a sense of great responsibility notes:
I am a freelance writer, in response
For the freedom of his writing.
Samson Prokofievich Gelkhvidze was born on March 26, 1958 in the city of Tbilisi, in the family of an employee.
His parents are railway engineers.
Father - Prokofy Samsonovich Gelkhvidze, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, went through it from beginning to end, built and restored bridges. He, the Honored Engineer of Georgia, awarded with many orders and medals, from childhood inspired his only son (besides him, he has three more daughters) love for the Motherland, for work and people.
In the post-war years, he worked at construction sites in Georgia, went from a foreman to the head of the republican repair and construction office, and before retiring due to age, he was the chief engineer of the Gruzplodoovoshchremstroy trust.
Mother, - Eteri Alexandrovna Kurdadze, who raised four children and four grandchildren, devoted a lot of energy to the family, but at the same time worked until retirement age, as an engineer in the design and estimate office of the Improvement Department of the Tbilisi City Executive Committee.
Samson grew up and was brought up mainly under the care and warm care of his older sisters, who from childhood managed to put warm and soft feelings for everything around them into their younger brother.
The sisters Pieri and Natela were twelve and ten years older than him, and Samson fully felt their care and attention from the age of twelve, until they got married in turn, and the younger sister Nana gave him a lot of trouble, and almost whether not before marriage, loving ruffled nerves for five years older brother.
Childhood, and indeed the whole life of Samson, takes place in one of the famous, old and nominal districts of Tbilisi - Nakhalovka. He liked to play yard games such as seven stones, Cossack robbers, football. They rode bicycles, sledded in winter, fought in the snow.
For about eight years he became interested, studied in one of the city chess clubs, and by the time he came of age he was already playing at the level of a first-class player. Also, from the age of eight, he was often taken to the Crimea, to Evpatoria, for fishing, of which he remained an adherent and lover For many years, and only recently, due to lack of time and material circumstances, he moved away from his beloved work.
Seriously, Samson took up school only in the seventh grade, and in the next three years he had to catch up and accumulate knowledge, especially in physics and mathematics. He takes an active part in social work.
In 1975 He graduated from the well-known in the city Russian 9th secondary school with a medal (with only one four in Russian writing) and in the same year, continuing the family tradition, he entered the Civil Engineering Department of the Georgian Polytechnic Institute, from which he graduated with honors in 1980, specializing in industrial and civil construction (PGS), with the qualification of a civil engineer.
Starting from high school times to this day, he regularly receives diplomas of the winner of various republican and all-Union olympiads and competitions.
Samson Gelkhvidze began working on the received engineering specialty "Industrial and Civil Engineering" in various educational institutions and research institutes, and in the course of it he published 75 scientific papers and patented 25 works and inventions.
Since 1982, in parallel with his work, he began to try his pen in Russian literature, in poetry and prose, but he did not dare to print his first stories and poems at first.
In 1986 he joined the ranks of the CPSU.
In 1989 defends his Ph.D. thesis, approved by the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC) under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
In 2001 becomes a member of the poetry club "Music of the Word", gets acquainted with literary circles, which gives him more self-confidence, and in 2002. publishes his first collections of poems: "The sacrament of confession, or confession in verse" and stories: "Pain merchants", containing what he wrote in 1982-2001.
In the first collections, the path of his spiritual searches and trials, which led to the vaults of one of the Orthodox churches in Tbilisi, is clearly visible.
On this path, many lyrical and truly confessional stanzas and lines about heaven, poetry, love and compassion for one's neighbor were born and shed. The carrier of a purely earthly profession of a builder, who made scientific contributions to the field of technology and received a degree in engineering, as it turned out, spends a significant part of his life ... in the sky, - writes the same member of the Federation of Journalists of Georgia Gleb Korenetsky, - carried by the wings of inspiration, or maybe be Merani himself.
In the "Sounds of the Heart" section, his whole essence as a poet was revealed. His meditations primarily render such feelings as love, compassion, joy, communion with nature.
... And day after day I string, as if on a thread,
A bewitching cascade of words calling you...
- we read in one of his early poems "Agate Beads of Happiness" (1985) and in his other poem:
I saw human tears
I drank human grief to the bottom ...
The troubled soul of the poet, who for a long time vaguely aspired to high feelings, to great sacrifices, received peace when S. Gedkhvidze became a parishioner of one of the Tbilisi Orthodox churches.
In many of his meditative poems, the heavenly theme is noticeable, and, in his opinion, poetic creativity is also prompted to him from above and is a divine gift:
The poet deeply believes himself and convinces the reader that the life of society without observing the Commandments is flawed, inferior, and sometimes leads to upheavals and crises:
There is no community of people without God...
A special place in him begins to be occupied by reflections on the sources of inspiration, creative impulses, and the essence of poetry.
The ability to sincere self-giving is manifested in his lines:
I sacrificed myself for my own happiness...
And in this I felt my purpose ...
When reading the love lyrics of the poet, the “spontaneity” of his work is striking. A sensual and devoted heart beats in it, full of "fireproof pain".
His poetry collections contain many finds, unexpected images and metaphors, and most importantly, bright feelings.
In her review of the first prose collection, about the stories "Dealers in Pain", journalist Inna Bezirganova wrote in the newspaper "Free Georgia" (dated 13.12.2002, N273):
"Pain Dealer" is the first collection in which Samson Gelkhvidze, by his own admission, tries to stop "flying time with an arrow."
The heroes of his stories are our contemporaries who, by the will of historical destinies, found themselves in the difficult socio-economic conditions of the post-Soviet space. This is also a kind of “lost generation”, to use a well-known literary term. It tries in vain to sort out its relations with the world. Lermontov's lines are also recalled: "I look sadly at our generation, its future, or let it be, or dark." Our contemporary experiences similar feelings: “Still, something was always missing in life ... and the search for this unknown, missing ... led him either into a rage, then into fatigue, devastation and despondency, coupled with the bitterness of hopelessness and the impossibility of success in these searches” .
The heroes of Samson Gelkhvidze cannot find their place in life, doomed to throwing, wandering ... They listen to their inner voice, think a lot, philosophize, but are not able to experience "social , spiritual orgasm”, that is, to be freed, to take off, to feel the fullness of life, to realize. The fleeting time, the impossibility to hold the moment, the frailty of being - the realization of this causes the heroes of Samson Gelkhvidze a sharp pain. In one of the stories, the image of a pink-blue sailboat appears - hope ... But, alas, it floats by so quickly that a person barely has time to realize the significance of the moment. “The moment runs uncontrollably, but we wring our hands and again we are condemned to go all the way - past,” - again a classic, this time Gumilev.
Another futility, according to Samson Gelkhvidze, is the relationship between a man and a woman. The heroes of his stories, as a rule, cannot find personal happiness, break up or are simply unloved by their chosen ones.
The minor intonation of his stories refers us to the era of romanticism, because the poets and writers of that time also experienced an acute sense of incompatibility with the surrounding reality. with life.
The reason for the spiritual impasse in which the heroes of Samson Gelkhvidze found themselves is social unfulfillment. And yet - the eternal human problem: the impossibility of finding happiness on earth.
In his preface to his second collection of short stories, The Return, released in 2004. S. Gelkhvidze notes:
The collection of stories "The Return", like the previously published "Dealers in Pain", is an integral part of one large collection of stories called "Stories of Youth", which were written by the author mainly in 1982-1998 and which are his attempt to delay, at least for one moment, for one moment, like an arrow flying time.
In the stories, an attempt is made to convey to the reader through their characters those moods and feelings that each of us could experience if we had not already experienced something similar. After all, each person carries the universe in himself and, at the same time, he himself is the smallest particle of this universe.
And every person sits in every person.
It is known that in order to know humanity, it is enough to know one person, and vice versa, in order to know one person, you need to know humanity.
Often there is a favorite genre - "plotless" stories, or, as he calls them, acquaintance with those subtleties and nuances of human feelings and experiences that often border on his deeply intimate, esoteric experiences.
The stories and stories described in the plots, as well as their heroes, often represent a mixture of events and characters that we meet in reality, virtual, a priori, possible, imaginary ... and other worlds.
Some readers consider his stories to be autobiographical. But, this is an incorrect vision of an attempt and desire to invite readers to experience all the feelings experienced by his heroes as closely and clearly as possible.
But, perhaps, if we talk about the most important purpose and purpose of the author's work, this is the red thread that stretches and permeates all his work - this is the attitude of people to each other and to God.
“Life without God is hell,” the author believes, and in his stories he tries to show in his stories what difficult and far from ordinary situations the heroes get into, who have strayed from the only true path - the path leading to God, which runs through the Church.
Throughout our “conscious” life, we, people, walk in painful and exhausting circles, invent a certain world for ourselves, subject ourselves to all sorts of trials and torments, invent a different “new bicycle”, while everything has been invented and said a long time ago. “I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:122), says the Lord God.
We, people, often do not follow Him, but follow each other or even follow ourselves, on the lead of our earthly desires, mindsets, feelings, passions. And, as a rule, as a result, we often go to the wrong place where our soul needs and needs for its salvation and resurrection. And when we find ourselves in a hopeless situation, then we begin to call for help from people who are often unable to help us, and sometimes do not respond to our call at all.
In many of the author’s stories, there is, at least for a moment, the ringing of bells, calling, calling heroes to oneself, to the Church, to that only saving ship of the laity, which is able to lead them out of the most difficult, confusing and dangerous situations for life and health.
In our today's complex world, it is not difficult for a person to get lost and lose himself and the good beginning that was originally invested in him by God. And in such cases it is very important to return to oneself, to one's beginning, to one's origins, and this return is possible only with the help of God and the Church.
In conclusion, he notes that a more experienced writer might have been better able to say and express what he was trying to convey to his reader.
Therefore, he hopes for the understanding and indulgence of readers, thereby asking the main question for himself: “Why, then, in this case, I write?” “After all, it is better for the baker to bake the bread.” To which he replies: “I am writing, perhaps not so much because I know how to write well, but because that I am made more exalted from this and draw nearer to Him!”
In 2005 the second collection of poems and poems by Samson Gelkhvidze is published: "Pain and Faith", which includes selected ones written in 2001-2004. poems, where attention to spiritual problems, to poetry, faith and love is more noticeable.
In the second poetry collection dedicated to "Heavenly and Earthly Love", the same Gleb Korenetsky in the preface from the editor "Heart on a Spoon" writes:

;
HEART ON A SPOON
(Editor's preface)

I would like to preface the second meeting of readers - lovers of poetry - with Samson Gelkhvidze with the same word "HEART", which was present in the preface and on most pages of his first collection "The Sacrament of Confession of Poetry, or Confession in Verses" (Tbilisi, 2002).
If Samson affixed the word “... my Pain ... and my feelings” on the title of the first collection as defining the essence of the author, then one of the later poems “begged for” the title of the second collection. It is precisely called by us "Capital".
Both of these feelings - Pain and Faith (it will not argue that "faith" is a conviction) have noticeably increased in Samson's fate and manuscripts since 2000.
To the pain of failed and interrupted "loves" was added the most acute pain of the loss of a seriously ill mother. The natural “cure” for these losses and pains was the deepening into religion, turning to the services of “priests of churches” who mediate with Heaven. This is the deep conviction of the author, which is seen through the entire thickness of the "sifted" manuscript.
In the header we read:
But truth and God
Save us from pain
Faith melts pain
Cold stream…
And in the final stanza, the thought brilliantly expressed by Alfred de Musset also slips:
“... a verse from the tears of the living
Sometimes - an immortal verse!
Heartache is also seen in the many years of futility of attempts to give “a heart for a heart” (not an “eye for an eye”!)... author on the "two branches" of love - Earthly and Heavenly. Just "love", "first love", failed, doomed, impossible, prickly, flying away ... And that's all - "NOT"!
The sad “spectrum” of the greatest human Feeling, observed (but not “coldly”!) by the poet and confided to us ...
In the section "Cherished", in "Cherished dream" - 2, echoing the first collection, the author bitterly gives the "exact term":
“I don’t know worse words in the world:
All my life I've lived in turmoil
Dreams and happiness "NOT MEET"!
With self-irony, Samson "consoles himself" with the fact that he still has ... a cherished dream - "for the rest of his life"!
And Samson's readiness for self-sacrifice on the "horizontal branch" of earthly love is truly immeasurable. This can be seen in the first collection, but especially clearly - in this one.
The image of a living, pulsating heart-strawberry, scooped from a glass of ice cream with a white "one-time" plastic spoon in the hands of a thin-lipped, cold beauty - gourmet ...
He was born into consciousness (and penetrated into the subconscious!) at the first reading of "strawberry ice cream" ...
The poet is ready to give his tender, loving, “strawberry” heart to be eaten ... But, having “cooled his lips”, they left the poet ... bitterness!
"And we parted with you soon ...".
"To each his own!"
So it was written above the entrance of the camp in Auschwitz ...
Without "black humor", but... the torn out hot heart of the prisoner still throbbed on the ground, thrown to the watchdogs. They raised their fur and fled from him in horror ...
Do not look for analogies! When there is a heart on a spoon, is it possible not to give yours in return, along with your hand ?!
The bright, “key image of a heart-strawberry, unfortunately, does not overshadow other, prosaic and bitter ones in the collection. Read "Death of Mom", "Mom's Corner", "End of Winter", "Black Sea", "All of us", "Waiting for the Third World War"...
Enough "earthly", modern disease-causing "pictures" ...
And only in the section “With a share of a joke” Samson softens the blows of life “with a sledgehammer on the head” ... The cow, treated to her son, smiles, the single “Kings” have fun, and a bow is tied to the hare.
The publication of the second collection of poetry by S. Gelkhvidze was preceded by another collapse of the author on the personal front.
He remains without his next, great earthly mutual love in life, yielding them one by one, to the whims of the chosen ones and their parents, as well as to the will of chance in life.
The collapse of the long-awaited earthly love brings a lot of pain, splashing out of the soul, indignation and regret from the fact that love is often hindered by many earthly trifles and trifles.
In confirmation of earthly interference in these lofty feelings, the poet's lines in his poem - Winds about love - sound:
Again the winds compose their song,
About the impossibility of love in this world.
Look for your love in the next world,
Where there are no factors that interfere with love!
The energy of the explosion and collapse of a pure, youthful attitude and worldview suddenly pours out into a special creative energy that awakens and helps him fulfill his dream in a great prose work, which soon came true, as if contrary to the lines in the following poem:
I'm not a tenant in Heaven,
Without earthly love...
In 2005 the first novel, The Nightingales of the Monastery Garden, is published in a small edition, one might say, in a samizdat way, in which all his previous books came out, except for the first collection of poetry.
In the newspaper "Russian Veche" (January 2006, N1 (39)) the novel was mentioned very briefly, under the heading "On your bookshelf":


To your bookshelf
SAMSON GELKHVIDZE

"NIGHTINGALES OF THE MONASTERY GARDEN"

 For a long time a novel in Russian did not appear in Georgia. And so he came out. The plot is captivating, interesting and captivates the reader.
His heroes are our contemporaries, and young people who have just entered into life and have already passed a considerable life path with certain gains and losses.
Each hero builds his earthly and heavenly home, in which he must spend his future life. And the only consolation in life - love, about which the poet Igor Severyanin once so gloriously said:
Nightingales of the monastery garden, Like all nightingales on earth, They say that one is a consolation, And what is this consolation in love!
The protagonist - ornithologist and playwright Avto and the main character - computer operator Eka, after a series of experiences, connect their fate with the church and serving God and people.
There are also elements of esotericism and mysticism in the novel, which gives it mystery and tension.
In fact, and by and large, all the literary work of Samson Gelkhvidze is permeated and saturated with great pain, which we, people, ourselves, with our own hands, inflicted on ourselves, expelling from the heart, crucifying on the cross and killing with a terrible martyrdom Love, Love immortal and resurrected, searching for to which we devote most of our entire intelligent and conscious life.
And he is deeply convinced that the stronger, brighter and more conscious this pain burns, in the lamp of the soul of every person, every poet and prose writer, the stronger his longing for the lost, for love, and for the brighter and brighter his work, even if at the same time he is denied the skill of self-expression.
A person is born every time when love for a person is burned out, and every time he dies when love dies in him, he experiences and realizes more and more sharply how difficult it is to be born and die again and again.
But, as one philosopher once noted, life is a slow death, and whoever does not want to die should not be born. I really want to believe that these words refer only to physical birth and death.
We come into this world with love and are obliged to leave it, with this unquenchable torch, carrying it through all the trials and intrigues of earthly life.
In this the author sees the meaning of life and all its trials, as well as in his work, for which he lives and which helps him to live, pleases and inspires him on his life path:
Poetry is my love
Prose is my joy
Literature is the home of the soul
Writing is life and reward!
And at the same time, the author does not forget to trust in the mercy of the Almighty:
Lead me, lead my Companion,
In order not to stray from Your path,
Lead me to be together
Merge with you, just accept.
Lead me not to die
And do not drop the thread of life,
To overcome myself, to resurrect,
On your day of advent - alive.

In conclusion, the author wishes his reader to find the thread of his life path and carry it throughout his life, wishes peace, love, kindness and fulfillment.

;
Contents
To the author's preface 3
To those who object, against artistic writing, believing Christians 6
Another attempt to reconcile the sinful Earth with the holy Heaven. 6
New neighbors 10
Abduction of the Moon 25
From fool to biopsychosocial fluctuation theorist and beyond 49
Outraged 56
Wind of change 66
Memento mori 79
Son of a bitch! Or Alexandra 94
SAMSON PROKOFIEVICH GELKHVIDZE 119
"Creative portrait" 119
HEART ON A SPOON 126


 

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Ñàìñîí Ãåëõâèäçå






âåòåð ïåðåìåí
(Ðàññêàçû)















Òáèëèñè – 2022
Samson Gelkhvidze - links list
to literary editions of the author
http://proza.ru/avtor/alekssandr
https://stihi.ru
1. COLLECTIONS OF POEMS AND POEMS:
1.1 The sacrament of confession or confession in verse
http://proza.ru/2019/05/04/407
1.2 Pain and Faith
http://proza.ru/2019/05/04/73
1.3 The soul longs for the Word
http://proza.ru/2019/05/04/86
2. STORY BOOK:
2.1 Pain merchants
http://proza.ru/2019/05/04/515
2.2 Return
https://www.litmir.me/bd/?b=645232
2.3 Winds of change
http://proza.ru/2019/05/04/79
3. NOVEL:
3.1 Nightingales of the monastery garden
http://proza.ru/2019/05/04/113
3.2 Budapest Moonlight Sonata
http://proza.ru/2019/05/04/59
3.3 Paradise Lost
http://proza.ru/2022/05/31/1459

E-mail: samsgel@gmail.com