Бесплатный фрагмент - Were not were

Accident

It happened at the end of summer, at noon, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, when there was no one on the road. An old jeep, bought on credit, loaded to the eyeballs with all sorts of things, under the guidance of a well-worn lady who anxiously fussed about her junk, had an accident: a frivolous new Volvo flew into it, driven by an uncontrollable young blonde. The accident shook the woman, tired of living, like a hurricane of an apple tree: in broad daylight, getting hit in the ass with all your might is the same as losing your innocence in public — all her plans for the future instantly crumbled to the ground and shattered. It hurts and it’s embarrassing. It’s impossible to talk about the back of the car at all — tears and tears. And now, in hot pursuit, returning home, the injured party tells me all this in person, and I correct her.

— You see, a real blonde drove into me.

— Are you envious?

— What? Because she’s a whore!?

— Why did you decide so?

— Because it contains the owner of a car dealership. He immediately followed her!

Maybe it’s her husband?

— Ha, she herself said that she ran away from him: she quarreled, got into his car and pulled off.

— Love! Asisyai!

— Stupidity! One stupidity. She, consider, stole a car, drove it without documents.

— That is, she was in a state of passion.

— And he just came to excuse her from the criminal case.

— So he loves.

— Ha! Why love her? Gets out, so long out of the car…

— Not long, but high.

— Ha! Well, high, doll!

— That is beautiful?

— Ha! Well, beautiful, but painted!

— That is, a natural blonde?

— What are you all clinging to words! All so overdressed, in black glasses, her nails and lips were painted black, in a black dress, and even in expensive tsatsks. Pale as death. As if from the other world showed up here.

— Not from that, but from the higher. And not light, but society.

— Ha! What kind of society, if she can’t even speak, but only foul language? Why!? Why is everything for people like her and nothing for others like me?

And now I have nothing to answer. Because I don’t know — and really, why?

Maybe it was really funny

A man sits and just chokes on laughter. He is asked why he is laughing, and he, swallowing the words, answers:

— You won’t understand.

It turned out that he was mentally ill.

It’s a pity. So no one knew what he was laughing at. Maybe it really was funny?

Author

He was the most remarkable personality of his generation. He lived as if the world around him did not exist. He wrote about what he did not know and so poorly that it was already becoming interesting to read. Critics eagerly awaited each new book of his by cannibals who wanted to feast on a fresh delicacy: everyone was curious if he would be able to surpass his former self and write something even worse. He did not notice his enemies and envious people, which drove them to extreme fury: not on purpose, but simply because he did not know that they existed. An amazing disregard for the reader has always been credited to him. Readers paid him the same. His prose among them enjoyed constant success as kindling for stoves and fireplaces. They joked about her: “Literature with a twinkle.” He claimed that he created our world at lunch, between soup and meatballs. It took him about seven hundredths of a millisecond to do everything about everything. As an indisputable proof of his authorship, he cites an irrefutable argument: the world is too imperfect to be the work of someone else — there are extremely many inconsistencies in it. At first he did not attach much importance to this, and then he began to be burdened by it. There were too many extra people around. He despised them, considering them the fruits of his imagination, but they pestered him like flies or horseflies on a summer afternoon. And as a result, he disappeared. Could not resist. He vanished into thin air in front of everyone. Just between soup and meatballs. And now we have to clear up all this porridge that he brewed, but did not manage to properly cook. Don’t start something if you don’t know how to finish it. Especially such troublesome business as the creation of the world.

Infernal public utility

It turns out that for more than a decade, an absolutely outstanding person has been at the head of the legion of janitors and locksmiths in our city. Although, if you look closely, it’s more like a little man: the creature is slender and almost ridiculous in appearance. By the name of Biryukov. But this is only an appearance. His appearance is the most remarkable. One might even say fabulous. He looks like a negative character from some old Romm’s movie fairy tale. The nose is hooked, the ears are upright, the teeth are crooked, and the eyes are angry. Under his strict guidance, the municipal services of the city are struggling with every season as with another weather disaster: it’s raining — guard, it’s snowing — guard, the sun is shining — also guard. Even the reconstruction of the central streets that has set the teeth on edge — which is certainly a full guard — is also the work of his unstoppable pens. Truly, not a man, but some kind of Koroviev from the retinue of Satan himself. The most incredible rumors are circulating about his past. The most exotic — he is the former head of the Lefortovo prison. If this is true, then it becomes clear where he got a downright demonic ability, if not an anomaly, akin to Kursk, with just a glance to ignite any object that he looks with anger: after all, in Lefortovo, they say, the gates to hell are hidden, which were built during Stalin’s time by People’s Commissar Yezhov, and they are vigilantly guarded in case of an emergency evacuation of the entire Kremlin. Because of this damn anomaly of Biryukov, the former mayor Luzhkov stopped wearing hats. Luzhkov will come every time to some communal meeting to catch up with the janitors, and Biryukov give his hat with a glance, and set it on fire. Each time there was one continuous embarrassment. Again, rumors spread that it was not without reason that the mayor’s hats were on fire, I suppose he stole something, since the hats were on fire. Luzhkov had to get an asbestos cap, although, according to rumors, it pretty much rubbed his bald head. Because of this, they say, Luzhkov burned out: he wore the wrong headdress. He was dismissed with the wording: “Not on Senka’s hat,” but Biryukov remained. It came in handy for the new mayor, who goes without a headdress at all. Fundamentally! He now organizes parades of garbage trucks at Sobyanin and manages the organization of traffic jams. Very successful in this matter. Whatever he undertakes, any business he burns. Neither give nor take — hellish communal worker. Although, if you think carefully, then what else, if not like this, should be in our “best” city in the world — the capital, no more and no less, but the Evil Empire itself.

Antivirus

There are girls in Russian villages,

There are guys in big cities.

Both usually strive

Make love in haystacks

***

But the damned virus does not sleep,

Dropped the price of gasoline

He doomed all the virgins to idleness,

The guys were quarantined.

***

In a country that calls itself

Great, with a two-headed coat of arms,

People curse the Chinese

And puts up with his own evil.

***

This virus was not brought by a Chinese,

This virus has been here for a long time.

It’s called the ruling party

People are just shit to him.

***

There are girls in Russian villages,

There are guys in big cities.

Both of them are now only dreaming

Make love in haystacks.

Suicide Bank

All who wish to commit suicide now have the right to open an account in a special bank, which guarantees the realization of their desire to die quickly and painlessly. At the same time, they sign an obligation that their bodies after death become the full property of the bank. The bank takes them apart and uses them for transplantation, making good money on it. Everywhere social advertising, such as “save the life of another and give your own”, or “your contribution is a contribution to someone else’s life”, finally, “bring life to the altar of the fatherland.”

Death is no longer perceived as a necessary evil. Euthanasia is welcomed by society, and people perceive each other as a means to help each other. Transplantation is ubiquitous. People are divided into those who parasitize on others, striving to live as long as possible by changing organs, and those who sacrifice themselves, not wanting to live long, wanting to die young and beautiful. A new religion will arise — the transformation of Christianity into a new Stoicism. A new attitude towards a person will become clear — he will become the main value in society, because his organs give life to others, a kind of spiritual and bodily vampirism will triumph.

What is life like in such a society? What goals and values do people profess? What do they live for? Suffering and pain in such a society are declared the main evil: crucifixion is forbidden, as a symbol of suffering. The main goal of man is proclaimed — the enjoyment of his existence and narcissism. It will truly be a world of universal prosperity, where the cult of free will is at the head, from sex to death. Hyperegoism and respect for someone else’s will will lead to the fact that children and parents distance themselves from each other from the first years of life.

Headless

Ivan lived. Not that he was a fool, but many considered him a jerk. He said that the Mother of God appears to him in a dream all the time. Well, it is and is. Who cares, tell me? Yes, but in what form! And she always appeared to him in a short red dress with a deep neckline right down to the navel, with loose hair and high-heeled leather boots. And everyone was invited to dance. And he kept refusing, until one day he took it, and agreed on his own head. And she swirled him in a dance. Has swirled. So, he completely lost his head from happiness. Clean. And in the morning he woke up, went to wash himself and sees in the mirror that he really doesn’t have a head. The body is there, but the head is gone. Died to hell. And how he sees himself now is completely incomprehensible. Some kind of devilry, God forgive me. He was scared, of course. Jumped out into the street and let’s scream. Say, save, help, lost his head! The people ran and surrounded. Everyone is surprised. They touch. They check. The police formed. She dispersed everyone with batons as participants in an unauthorized rally, and took him to the police station. As the organizer of the provocation. There he was tortured for a long time, where did he go. And then they let go. Investigator him, you see, compassionate caught. He explained that he did not have one head. And that without a head, they say, a nice person, you can easily live. So even better: no need to shave, wash, go to the hairdresser. And that all bosses, forces, authorities and thrones also have no heads at all. And nothing, thrive. And what he takes for their heads is all an illusion. Solid masks show. This is how he lives now. Ivan, our fool. Headless. As everybody.

No problem

In a society of victorious corruption, building and coordinating without money does not make sense. In a state that has completely rotted under the burden of cynicism, the main drivers of the economy are only bribes and personal enrichment of the participants in the economic process, and the ultimate goal is kidding your partner: in addition to economic benefits, this also gives the beneficiary moral satisfaction. Those. like they’re all bastards. And this excuses personal meanness. And here I am, imagine, I know one developer who decided to live honestly. Not because he has any moral qualities. Because the money is gone. For bribes. He loudly declared to everyone that he would live according to the law, and not according to concepts, like everyone else. And what? His building permit expired and he began to renew it. I submitted all the documents in one window: a simple formality, because the permit had already been issued once on the basis of all these documents, and was refused. With such wording that if he continues construction, then only under a different government. Now he thinks where to find the money. For a bribe. To like everyone else — to live without problems.

Without dancing

In the choreographic school, in the fifth year of study, a parent meeting is stormy. The teacher leading the meeting, blushing and embarrassed, announces to the parents that from this year they will expel future ballerinas according to a number of criteria for reasons beyond their control. Parents lively react to this, worrying about the future of their children. After all, each of them wants to see his daughter as a star of the corps de ballet. Especially in the Big. One stubborn mother loudly demands to explain by what criteria they will be expelled. After all, her daughter regularly goes to all classes and diligently studies. The teacher, burning with shame, announces publicly that if, for example, her daughter grows breasts of the fourth size, then they will be forced to expel her, because. You can’t dance with breasts like that. “Yes, if she grows breasts of this size, we will take them ourselves,” mother is surprised, “With such breasts, she herself will settle down. Without any dancing there.

Without skulls and outrageous

In his youth, my father was a very original and liked to shock others with his behavior and appearance. He wore a beard and mustache, dressed in some unimaginable rags, in his dorm room he painted all the walls, floor and ceiling black and always received guests by candlelight, holding a real human skull on the table for final chic. Neither stand nor take, but a kind of Prince of Denmark, playing a performance in front of ungrateful spectators called “melancholy dulce melody”, which, translated into a public language, means only “melancholy pierced my heart.” Among his guests was my future mother, a woman not only beautiful, but also practical, who appreciated the acting potential of her father and took patronage over him. First of all, she told him to shave, because the beard and mustache prevented her from kissing him. And then, step by step, she dressed him in a particular suit and forced him to wear a tie, returning ordinary people to society, for whom a chicken is needed to lay eggs, and not fight over the problem, which comes first — a chicken or an egg. When I was born, my father had no choice but to accept his fate, try on the role of a father and live the rest of his life, thanking his mother for giving him a son and saving him from false illusions to change this world. The world is already good enough to just live in it. Without skulls and outrageous.

Immortality

When we met, he was in a state of half-life: everything human in him had not yet completely burned out, and the remnants of his personality eked out a completely miserable existence in the company of words and alcohol, otherworldly plots appeared from him like scab gold, denouncing him in a shroud from the memories of his former lives, and he stole plots from all his interlocutors, real or imaginary, and smeared them like butter over a thick layer of loose syntax until he became famous. Now he, bronze, stands on the boulevard and pigeons shit on his head. Such is the price of immortality.

Demons

The most incredible things sometimes happen in the cemetery: after all, it is a meeting place for the living and the dead. Obliges. A crowd of village women went to remember their relatives on parental Saturday. They even hired a priest on such an occasion to serve a memorial service right in the open air among the graves. So that everything was in order. And when he began to incense and proclaim, two hellish faces looked out from behind the tall uncut grass among the gravestones and rickety crosses. They were clearly seen by everyone and were speechless. The faces have disappeared. The priest crossed himself and tried to continue the memorial service. And again, have faces here and there. Right out of the ground. And they are clearly coming. What started here. Some are screaming. Others are crying. Pop is silent and only shakes his beard. And the demons in the grass and among the graves flicker and get closer and closer. Finally, the priest could not stand it and launched a censer at one of them with a cry: “Get lost, evil spirits!” and hit. There was a screech and a black pig of fair size rushed past them to hell. And then the second one. For company. It turned out that they were piglets from the nearest yard, which got used to the cemetery in search of earthworms. True, the priest still does not believe and claims that it was he who turned the devils into pigs with his censer. This is what the Orthodox faith does!

Saucer

One girl decided to give her sister a cup for her birthday. And I didn’t think to buy a saucer for her. She showed her gift to her mother, and she said to her: “No one gives a cup without a saucer. Your sister won’t understand.” “It’s nothing,” the girl replies, “I’ll put 1000 rubles in her cup. Instead of a saucer. When the girl gave the gift to her sister, she at first seemed indignant, but looking into it, she immediately calmed down and said: “Okay, the cup is also okay. Thanks for that too.” In the evening, the mother asks the girl: “Well, did your sister like the gift?”

“Yeah,” she replies, “but she especially liked the saucer for the cup.”

God’s Punishment

Bryansk has been quarantined. And the traffic police had a financial crisis. The money is over. Due to the fact that motorists have disappeared on the roads: so contemptuously the state dubbed those eccentrics who are ready to take risks in order to travel by private vehicle. Nobody has been on the roads for a week now. Except city buses. There is no one to take bribes from. And this is very embarrassing. For the State. There is a striped wand, there is a form, there is a “brick” sign, but it’s not clear what to do with it. The value of attributes of power has been reset to zero. And you want to live like before.

In order to earn at least something, the traffic police patrol stopped at the entrance to the grocery store and tried to fine everyone who wanted to enter it. For breaking lockdown. As they say, if there is no reason, then you need to create it. Only from the very beginning the idea did not work out. The patrol collided with grandmas. And grandmas are still that force capable of resisting anything. The very first old woman pretended that she was deaf and blind and did not see the police. The second patrol swore. The third beat them with a stick, calling them fucking pioneers. The fourth one was the trickiest. She handed the police 200 rubles and demanded: “Well, since you are in power, don’t let me go to the store, take my money and buy bread, milk, sausages, a kilogram of pasta and sweets. I love sweets and tea.”

The police were taken aback and answered: “Yes, this money is not enough for what you want to buy.”

And the old woman, insidious, scoffs: “And you add yours. You are the government, you must take care of the people. So pay for the difference between what the government promised us and what we are actually given.”

The police did not answer the old woman. They got into the car and left, cursing to themselves this damn people, who are not a people at all, but only God’s punishment.

Ladybug

As a child, it was perhaps the only creature that I was told not to offend. So to speak, the principle of “do no harm” in action. A small red beetle with black dots on its back. He had to be carefully put on his finger and wait for him to fly away, repeating: “Ladybug, fly to the sky, bring your children bread.” The first sincere request, almost a prayer. I believed that in the clouds near the ladybug there really was a house where her family lives. This belief in a miracle remained for the rest of your life, despite the fact that everything around you turned out to be completely different from what you imagined it as a child. Only now, instead of the beetle that you released into the sky directly to God, you need to go to church together with everyone, light a candle and sing: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and bestowing life in the tombs”, believing that this will help and something in our lives will change. For the better. And maybe the truth will change. And may God keep us from ourselves and our rash desires.

No more friends

Two people meet and one says to the other:

— Tell me, as each other, but honestly, what do you think about my work?

— To be honest, I’m not happy with him.

— You’re not joking, but in all seriousness you think so?

— Well, yes, you yourself asked to tell the truth.

I didn’t think you were such a bastard. I didn’t expect this from you.

So tell the truth after that.

They are no longer friends. But he could lie, a fool, to his friend and would live as before — not noticing each other.

Bigger than God

He is ill. Or, to be more precise, it had a parasite in it. Something deeply alien, foreign to him, nestled inside his body.

It entered him in a dream. How it happened, it was no longer important for him, but what was important was only WHAT was now mature and growing in him. Something that lives off his body, his thoughts, his life force.

He was often tormented by mood swings, when an unbearable blues was suddenly replaced by hysterical fun and fits of unbridled rage, which he could not, and did not want to control. What lived in him against his will was torn out, and he realized with horror that he was ready to die, if only to free himself from the presence of a stranger in himself.

And finally it happened. He gave birth. He gave birth to something that he had never seen in his life. One fine day, or rather, one terrible long dark night, his offspring crawled out of it. One only, but what!

Baby, the little one that he had nurtured under his heart for the last nine months: fed with his own blood; grew out of my mind. A monster, more beautiful than Frankenstein’s homunculus, born of Mary Shelley’s sick fantasy. A bizarre mixture of insect and plant.

But children are not chosen: those who then bury their parents. A child can only be proud of. And he’s proud. Now. Because father. By my son. A son worthy of his father. Son equal to God himself. Bigger than God.

The fight for longevity

Petrov was told to take care of his health. If he wants to live long. And keep a diary. Self-monitoring of blood pressure. Every evening at the same time he had to measure it, and write down the testimony. Here he sits, so serious, focused on his longevity, he measured the pressure and wants to write it down. But the pen does not write. He shakes her. Does not write. He knocks it on the table. Does not write. What he just does not do with a pen. Does not write. As if to harm him. So, the poor man, he got nervous that his apoplexy was enough. Here they are, the fruits of the struggle for longevity.

Future

What will the world be like tomorrow? I can definitely answer — the same as yesterday. And in a week? The same as today. And in a year? With a high probability, the world will remain the same as it is now. The only difference is that you may change something in your environment: buy a new phone; update your wardrobe; change jobs or move to live in another country. But all this will not fundamentally change your life. And the world you live in. The future will not come. The future we all dream of. And we dream of a future that will be fundamentally different from the present in which we live. A future where everything is possible: immortality; panacea for all diseases; general prosperity and the absence of poverty; gaining omnipotence.

Being and Consciousness

People learn about changes in their lives in different ways. For example, in the morning, going into the bathroom, they do not find their reflection in the mirror. This is exactly what happened to a professor of philosophy, a certain Fintiflyushkin. Oddly enough, but the absence of his reflection, he was not at all surprised.

“Some kind of Kursk anomaly — the only thing that came to his mind while he continued to brush his teeth — but they live without a reflection. For example, vampires, although this is probably an unfortunate example from life.

On the way to work, he encountered the blatant indifference of those around him to his outstanding personality: everyone, as if on purpose, did not notice him. Even the conductors did not require him to show his ticket when he got on the bus. Anyone else would have panicked long ago, but not our Fintiflushkin, a great lover of verbal aporias and a militant atheist. Finally, finding himself in his auditorium, where he was scheduled to have a morning lecture, he sat in complete solitude for two classes in a row, but not a single student appeared. Leaving the audience with a pretty bad mood, he went down to the university lobby and already here, to his amazement, found an obituary that spoke of his death.

“However,” he could not believe his eyes, “this is someone’s stupid joke. I have always denied Descartes with his banal “I think, therefore I am”, but here there is some kind of cognitive dissonance. If I do not exist, then how do I think?

And then he disappeared. Without a trace. As they say, being determines consciousness. At least for an atheist.

1.5 times

While sorting through my father’s papers, I came across a letter with the following text: “To Comrade Kolosov B.I. Deputy ch. editor of Atomizdat dated March 26, 1970, the manuscripts of the collection “Theoretical and experimental problems of non-standard neutron transfer” were returned for final editing and reduction of their volume by 1.5 times …». The manuscript itself was attached to the letter, consisting of continuous mathematical calculations with rare linking sentences, such as: “We will seek the solution of the equation by the method of successive approximations. To this end, we write it in a finite-difference form. I never thought that editors ruthlessly cut not only literary texts, but also mathematical proofs. I wonder what the proof of the Pythagorean theorem would look like if it were reduced by 1.5 times? As one of my acquaintances says, it’s as if Little Red Riding Hood would immediately ask the wolf when they meet: “Well, how are we going to eat grandma? In finite difference form? Or will I have to ask, why do you have such big teeth?

In the underground

Rush hour on the subway. The girl knocks on the back of the person in front, as if on a locked iron door, and, leaning against it, asks in a whisper: “Come out?”

The back snarls languidly from somewhere above, like rolling thunder somewhere in the distance: “No-t-t-t-t-t-t-t,” and reluctantly makes way for it to exit the crowded car.

In anticipation of winter

The wind is blowing outside the window. Long and mournful. It’s like he’s asking for a house. After all, there, on the street, it is cold and damp, but here it is dry and warm. He beats on the windows, begging him to let him in and rages when he is not noticed. Or maybe it’s the wind in my head, blowing all my thoughts out of me. It’s cold and damp inside me, drafts chill my soul and my heart is always cold in anticipation of winter.

I guess, yes

The two had a heart to heart talk and one confessed to the other:

— All my life I dreamed of acting in a porn film, in the title role.

— And how did it work?

— I guess, yes. My whole life is one continuous pornography.

In a desert

Mind is the ability to think. And, in fact, the ability to control your mind.

Apparently, initially the word mind meant “to strike with the mind” (time — blow, mind — science, skill) or, to paraphrase, the ability to attack and defend. Just a verbal designation of a tool with which a person was able to improve his ability to survive in this world. Like a knife or fire, thanks to which people have achieved dominance in the wild and created a new, artificial habitat.

Reason changed the original nature of man, forcing him to live in the second signal system, in the space of words and ideas. This freed man from the power of the body, from innate instincts, but not completely.

On the one hand, in the new reality for a person, only artificial, made things now have absolute value: something that is subject to exchange, and on the other hand, a person can enjoy only through the body, and it is the acquisition of pleasure that is the main meaning of individual human existence.

Through the measure of pleasure, the value of each life lived is determined. In societies where there is no opportunity to live for one’s own pleasure, the value of life for people drops to zero: in such societies, life is considered only as a burden or as a duty, but not as the highest good; from which it is necessary to get rid of without any regret.

Thanks to the mind, a person has found leisure, i.e. free time, and what is free time if not idleness — the source of all knowledge according to Aristotle, with the help of which people created knowledge and invented a culture, thanks to which they learned to multiply, preserve and transfer this knowledge to themselves through time and space. And many knowledge, as you know, only many sorrows.

Having gained knowledge about himself, man realized his natural imperfection. And moreover, thanks to him, he suddenly discovered that the mind, which he was so proud of throughout his history, is just a pure accident, a side effect of evolution, which nature initially did not even think about when it created man as a species: the mind is not embedded in the human biological program.

The faint spark of reason in each of us flares up into a living flame of an inquisitive mind only when we communicate with each other, exchanging ideas through language. Therefore, language and people are always the same: language binds us all together and knits itself from words. It is easy to extinguish the spark of reason in a person, but it is simply impossible to ignite it again: there are plenty of examples, from Mowgli children to old people who have lost their minds. At the same time, using the example of idiots, a person is clearly convinced that in order to feel happy, reason is absolutely not needed. Moreover, it is the mind that dooms a person to unbearable suffering with the mere thought of death. After all, of all living beings, only man is aware of his mortality, knows about it and cannot come to terms with it.

The mind in man refuses to accept the fact that he is finite. Hence the belief of people in the afterlife: an attempt by the mind to explain the purpose of its existence as a merger after death with an out-of-body, eternal and indestructible super-mind, of which the mind considers itself a part.

One can, of course, endlessly wonder and think about the starry sky above us and about the moral principles within us, but this does not negate the obvious and extremely annoying fact that the mind is just an accident. Just a cry in the wilderness that no one will ever hear.

Tower of Babel

Future. Once upon a time, this word inspired everyone. Now it’s scary. Everyone used to hope for the best, now everyone expects the worst. What is it — a tribute to time or general psychosis? It is amazing, but now humanity knows why it arose and what is the ontological role of man in the evolutionary process that once began on our planet.

Having arisen as a by-product of the vital activity of our body, the second signaling system, our speech, gave rise to the mind, and the mind elevated man to the top of the food chain, making him the king of nature. Thanks to the mind, a person gained knowledge, and in order to preserve and increase knowledge, he created a civilization. Civilization launched the flywheel of progress, which led humanity to the need to create artificial intelligence in order to solve the issue of personal immortality for people.

Artificial intelligence will save humanity from the need to be smart, because the mind is what makes all people unhappy. And to be unhappy and immortal is unacceptable. By delegating the mind to inanimate matter and ensuring the continuity of its existence outside the forms of biological death, humanity will fulfill its cherished dream — it will become immortal and happy. The idea of God will disappear because every living person will become a god.

The Tower of Babel has always been a symbol of human insolence in an effort to overcome the boundaries and limits of being set for it. The Tower of Babel was conceived to use it to ascend to heaven and become gods. Realizing over time that God does not live in heaven, but in the human heart, the need to storm the sky disappeared. But the idea for which the tower was built did not disappear — to kill God and make a name for himself. What is not a goal for which it is worth daring. And continue to build the Tower of Babel, even if now it is called differently.

Your coffee

Here, in one godforsaken hole, metropolitan tourists were brought. They went to a local catering point and ordered, after much deliberation, choosing between coffee and tea, tea. Reasonably believing that they probably don’t know how to cook coffee here, and tea is somehow reliable. You can’t spoil the tea. The waitress brings them some unimaginable vodka in glasses on a tray. Seeing that tea is not tea, they decide to change the order from tea to coffee while they still can. The waitress, with a completely unperturbed face, takes a new order, lifts a tray with glasses and immediately puts it on the table with the words: “Your coffee.”

Spring

— Finally, the smell of spring has wafted, — Galya said happily.

And she inhaled the invigorating aroma of thawed manure and the sweet stink of country latrines with full breasts.

The evening was a success

Then I have a friend named Vitya decided to invite the girl to his home for a “romantic” dinner. With all that it implies. Vitya, I must say, is still that character in itself. He is almost forty, and he has never married. He still lives with his mother. Classic sissy. She cleans him, feeds him, and, ultimately, takes care of him from “all sorts” of girls. And then it dawned on my mother that if not now, then her Vitya would never marry and she would have to hang around with him to the grave. And she wants to live herself. At least in old age. So she gave him full carte blanche for one evening and retired to visit him all night. Moreover, she managed to study Vita’s chosen one far and wide during her timid visits to her and her son at the dacha. Vitya, without a mother, showed enviable culinary ingenuity and bought a fair amount of food for dinner at fast food: two buckets of chicken legs at KFC and several packages of fried shrimp at McDonald’s. And two bottles of the cheapest red wine in the nearest supermarket. A sort of gourmet porn. And now our not-so-young young man Vitya was all in such, you know, extreme impatience, waiting for the girl and getting nervous and nervous: the love vitamin played in him and didn’t even let him sit. To somehow occupy your hands, Vitya and let’s eat chicken legs. I didn’t even notice how I had knocked down two buckets. He switched to shrimp and immediately consoled himself with the thought that the girl would not come to him for food, so there was no need to worry. The shrimp disappeared unexpectedly quickly. There was only wine left. “Wine is good,” Vitya thought, “wine will help in communication. Liberate. I’ll drink a glass.” One glass, two glasses. Look, the bottles are gone. And then the doorbell rings. The girl came. For dinner. Vitya escorted her to his room with all the solemnity of which he was still capable. And on the table set for dinner, there was nothing but a sheet of drawing paper as a tablecloth, two candles and a bottle of wine. “I ate everything while I was waiting for you,” Victor honestly admitted, “but food is not the main thing. And the main thing is our communication with you. So to speak, a dialogue of two loving hearts. Let’s have some wine, it will help us get to know each other better. Only you will have to drink alone, wine does not fit into me anymore. “However, what a uniform disgusting,” the girl was offended, but she didn’t show it, “I was getting ready, you know, I was dressing up. I hoped! And then it’s oh-la-la!” But I decided to wait with the scandal. And she began to drink wine. There was no choice left. The girl quickly got drunk and the “dinner” was already rolling towards the finale planned by Vitya, but then there was an embarrassment. With Vitya. Fast food in his stomach did not find a common language with drunk wine and asked to go outside. And the rest of the evening and almost the whole night, Vitya and the girl spent on opposite sides of the toilet door talking, periodically changing places. And they confessed, they confessed. As they say, there is nothing to be ashamed of on the potty. Everyone knew about each other, as if they had lived together half their lives. When they parted in the morning, the girl confessed to Vita that she had never spent time like this before. Well, what can I say. Apparently the evening went well.

Taste of happiness

Sweets are a universal remedy for adults to solve problems with children. Remember as a child? As soon as you started pestering your parents, they gave you a candy or a chocolate bar and sincerely believed that they solved your problem or at least calmed you down. Probably, on their part, it was dishonest: they kind of bought us off, and we had no choice. We did not know that this is not love, but a deal. And now we are adults. We sell everything and buy everything, from time to time we betray and are largely disappointed. Especially in the fundamental values of this world. But the taste from childhood, the same one, remains the only holy feeling that reminds us of ourselves, the real ones, as we were in childhood. Happy and naive. Sweet tooth.

How does it happen

The following story happened to the poet Fedyashkin. He stopped hearing voices. More precisely, one voice that whispered poems to him, and he unsuccessfully tried to write them down. But the life of a poet is not the work of a stenographer, from 9 to 17 every day. No, it’s not that simple. Climb, for example, Fedyashkin in the shower, and then the voice begins to dictate. He is from the shower to record, and he immediately falls silent. Back to the shower — dictates. In general, not life, but flour. This voice always sounded in the most inappropriate places and at the most inopportune times. And he, Fedyashkin, was torn between the desire to write down poetry and live normally for his own pleasure, like everyone else. Rest. Fedyashkin suffered terribly, but kept to the general line of being a poet. It’s a pity for him, you know, it was to miss everything that came to mind. Yes, and it came, to be honest, all some kind of nonsense. So, zilch, verbal commotion, and nothing more. No one published his poems, and he was embarrassed to read them publicly. He was terribly poor, but he was proud that he was a poetic genius. And here again — and silence. Inside. Dark and quiet. And the darkness is, you know, quite comfortable, and not such that the devil knows what hides: the horrors of the night in all their diversity. In general, the soul is dark and boring. Like an empty wardrobe. No poetry. Realizing his poetic sterility, Fedyashkin decided to return to his former profession. I started working as a proctologist again. In the clinic. He will come to work, look at the patient in one place and wait, maybe someone from there will begin to dictate: “I remember a wonderful moment, you appeared before me, like a fleeting vision, like a genius of pure beauty.” And in response, silence. She spends the whole day looking at patients with no result. No revelation. Out of grief, she will go to the urologist Parnokopytov. Together they will drink tea with gooseberries, they will discuss the nurse Zoya, and go home. Now he lives like everyone else, on one salary. And he can’t understand everything, is he happy or not? As it happens.

Ascension

Here one incident happened. You could say it’s an incident. Well, straight to the chickens for laughter. One little man, in fact no one, took it and ascended. Just like that, in front of everyone and for no apparent reason. And most importantly, if someone worthy, well, then it’s clear. Boss type. Or someone else more important, all strewn there with laurels or wreaths of honor. And so — some rubbish. A certain Cyril. Snot, not a person. I broke away, you know, from the earth and the team, without knowing it, and hung. In the air. From the very beginning, he did not understand that he had lost his foothold. I thought someone was playing a joke on him. Kicking around like some son of a bitch on TV, with no result. Out of fear, he even tried to fall on his back. It still didn’t work. Hanging, you know, like some Indian fakir in a circus. And cursing. Clearly so and every word on the case. And then he soared to the ceiling, hit his head and fell silent. Until the paramedics tried to get him out of there. Yes, but nothing happened. As they put him on the floor, he again strives for the ceiling, like some kind of bubble with gas. Just an experience in physics class. Then someone gave a smart advice that he should have given him a weight in his hands. Then, they say, it will definitely not fly. Well, then and there, they got the weight. Pudovaya. They pinned him to the floor and thrust him into his arms. But he still took off, and dropped that weight on the doctor that he had come with the orderlies. There was a screech, as if a live pig was being slaughtered or a sawmill turned on. All around the poor fellow, the doctors are running around, bruised, but they forgot about Kirilka the bastard for a while. Do you think that’s the end of it? It wasn’t there. Kirilka slowly, like some kind of fly, crawled along the ceiling to the window: apparently he wanted to sneak away, while they forgot about him, and so that straight into the sky and forever. And we, then, are here and with nothing? But who will let him just leave if he owes everyone. This Cyrilka, a well-known licker, only did that he shot money according to his own special method: he would come up, the scoundrel, he would say compliments and immediately ask for a loan, and after that it seemed embarrassing to refuse, that’s all they gave him. Then someone shouts to him, seeing his insistent intention to retire from here forever, they say, pay off the debt before you fly. You won’t need money there anyway, but you will respect us all. And he, either in the agitation of a new life, or from an excess of feelings, how he began to pour out everything that he really thought about his creditors, that somehow everyone immediately became embarrassed. Even the doctor was silent. He turned out to be an ugly person, he simply exposed himself. But then something went wrong with his ascension: probably, in heaven they also heard that he spoke about everyone, and they clearly did not like it there. And he went straight back. On the floor. In the company, so to speak, of his “friends”, about whom he spoke so recklessly. This is where the ambulance comes in handy. And the orderlies had something to do, besides a doctor with a weight instead of a head. And everyone forgave Kirilka for this. After. So we did not have a new Elijah the Prophet. And thank God. And all because we have a way — without a team, nowhere. Even to the sky.

Memory of the future

In the future, when people achieve relative immortality and live almost indefinitely, and all carnal needs are satisfied through special personal androids, the process of reproduction will be extremely selective and put under strict control to improve human nature. Eugenics will be revived again, but under a different name, and the moral arguments that previously rejected it will become a thing of the past. People of the future will live in a world consisting of a strange mixture of permanent euphoria and hallucinations, and the main goal of their existence will be to acquire happiness: absolute pleasure, the manifestation of which will be either creative work or work to achieve moral self-satisfaction. In the light of practically achieved immortality, the attitude towards death will also change. It will now be considered the inalienable right of every person to freedom of choice, perceived as an opportunity to be freed from the duties of life: an act of final disobedience to society. Outwardly, people will change a lot, races and countries will disappear, everyone will live in their own hermetic little world. Love in its current understanding will die out, it will be replaced by friendship as an opportunity for a person to interrupt his own solitude for a while in free communication with others. Friendship will henceforth be valued as the most sincere and pure feeling, devoid of everything carnal, as a selfless principle in human nature. Inner nobility will become a new cult for all mankind, deprived, thanks to the achievements of technological progress, of all their basic natural instincts, which from now on will cease to influence human actions and behavior. It will be a new wonderful world in which there will be no place for people like us.

Happens to everyone

The entertainer announces: “Now the well-deserved and somewhere even popular, among all foreign rabble, our famous and beloved bath-and-laundry singer Razdvaplyuev will perform with his unfading hit “I messed up your life.”

A perky boy a la Basque jumps out onto the stage, dressed as a pastoral shepherd boy. He waves his arms, the orchestra plays an energetic overture and freezes. Razdvaplyuev turns his back to the audience, lowers his pants and, bending down, exposes his bare ass for everyone to see, from which he loudly blows gases. Hall applauds.

After speaking behind the scenes on the sidelines, Razdvaplyuev sincerely admits: “I did everything I could. There just wasn’t enough for more.” Fans applaud him and assure him that it was real art.

This is how it happens with everyone. You think it’s art. And look closely — one good thing.

That is how we live

Numbers are funny. It turns out that almost 2 people die every second, or rather 104 per minute. 6250 per hour, 150,000 per day. 54,750,000 per year.

At this rate of mortality, it will take 47.5 years for one generation to die and 142.5 years for humanity to be completely renewed. It turns out that we are not dying fast enough; thanks to progress, we begin to live longer and longer, which means that the achievement of active longevity is not far off, when you can live without old age: it is to live fully, and not to live out.

At the same time, one person produces 145 kilograms of feces per year, and all of humanity produces 1,131,000,000 tons of shit per year. We produce even more garbage — 3,120,000,000,000 tons. We all live in a huge landfill. Where we bury our dead. We bury or burn 4,106,250 tons of dead flesh every year.

In fact, our civilization is a civilization of garbage dumps. The thicker the cultural layer, the richer the culture. All our future we draw from the past. All our ideas are borrowed from previous generations. In the dustbin of history.

We are convinced of the progressive nature of our civilization, that it has a specific goal to achieve which it strives, while the universe around us demonstrates the aimlessness of its existence.

As Parmenides taught, the world is self-sufficient, eternal, has no beginning or end, and feeds on itself. Everything in it moves in a circle, from atoms to planets and stars. But man refuses to believe in the closed nature of world existence, he hopes to find the point of its beginning and the point of its end. In space and time.

All this is due to the fact that people live in a linear world, the personification of which is the cube. The cube is the antithesis of the ball. The cube has a beginning and an end. The cube is counted and measured. We strive to reduce any circle to a square.

This limitation of our thinking results from the limitation of human life, which has a beginning and an end in time. Which people refuse to put up with. The circle of human life is broken by the human mind. He refuses to believe that human death is the beginning of another human life. Man considers his own death as the greatest curse that must be rid of.

Man does not want to be mortal. Choosing between personal immortality and the survival of the entire human race, a person does not hesitate to choose the first. And this is very understandable. Does this remind me of something? Oh, right, I remembered.

The late architect Meyerson used to say, “I love every single person. But all together, humanity, I HATE. That is how we live.

Like lifeless

Two return from the funeral and share fresh impressions with each other.

— Gorgeous funeral. I would like to be in his place.

— And it seemed to me that the dead man did not look like himself. He lay in a coffin as if lifeless.

Lies like a navigator

I do believe in progress. Well, how could it be without him. There are different gadgets, all sorts of Google and Glonass. This is our everything! I get out, you know, from the house, I go to the bus stop and ask my navigator on the phone, like a progressive person: “When will the bus be?” He regularly shows: “In one minute.” I am waiting. A minute or two passes. There is no bus. I look at the navigator, and he regularly reports: “The bus has already been. The next one is in fifteen minutes.” And so every time. One of two things: either I don’t see the bus, or our “famous” Glonass… that still global ass! Now about all those who wishful thinking, I firmly say: “He’s lying like a navigator.”

Liar

There are people who lie as they breathe. They seem to be born to make any fiction come true. The only thing that gives them away is the details. After all, as the architect Fomin said, God is in the details. I knew one of those. He was always late for work and always found excuses: first one thing, then another. The masterpiece of his lies was the following story. Justifying his regular absenteeism, he fervently argued that he could not leave the apartment all day just because a counterweight from the elevator was put on the outside of his front door, which was changed to a new one that day. Here’s just one thing: his apartment was on the second floor, which for some reason he mentioned at the very end, trying to add credibility. But in vain. They almost believed him.

Everything ingenious is simple

A toddler helping his mother take care of his twin brothers is asked what their names are. The peanut frowns businesslike and points his finger at the brothers in turn:

— This one is called Uovka, and this one is another Uovka.

Everything ingenious is simple!

Still won

She was frighteningly beautiful and unhappy. In the depths of her blue eyes, crystals of pain froze, preventing her from smiling. Just six months ago, her husband left her and everyone at the table knew about it. Celebrated her birthday. She saw this and could not calm down, demonstrating to everyone the icy indifference of a wounded woman. Her whole appearance said that she was at war.

She had cut off her lovely frivolous curls and now sported a boyish half-box, and overly bright make-up looked like the war paint of an Indian about to scalp his enemies. Mostly relatives were sitting at the table, but this did not make it easier for her. Curiosity brought them all here to look at someone who was unlucky in love.

Only her grandfather, who did not have a soul in her, fussed around her, protecting his pet. And looking at the old trembling hands, which awkwardly tried to put a piece of “better” cake on her plate, she finally burst into tears. For the first time in six months. Love still won.

Meeting

Once, on Sretensky Boulevard, I met God himself. It was a nondescript bearded old man of a rather shabby appearance. Sitting on a bench with his eyes shut and his toothless mouth wide open.

He was overshadowed by a rose bush growing right out of his bald head. And bees flew in and out of his mouth, swarming around the multi-colored rosebuds on the old man’s spiked tiara. Amber gold of honey oozed from his eyes, and next to him, on a bench, lay a string bag with a bottle of cahors, a bible, and a loaf of bread.

“I never thought HE looked so ridiculous” was the first thing that came to my mind. I decided to see this MIRACLE of nature better and went closer to it. And unceremoniously stared at him, not at all worried that HE would notice me: his eyes were flooded.

Imagine my surprise when the old man unclenched his left fist, and in it was an eye that looked at me so that it immediately became clear that HE sees me.

“That’s what it means — self-existing and good,” — the only thing that came to my mind. I also wondered if Chukovsky snorted cocaine when he wrote his Moidodyr. There was an irresistible desire to grab the old man, the very Lord God, by the beard. In order to put into practice a well-known proverb in narrow circles.

But then the pigeons spoiled everything. And not one and white, as the iconography promises us, but a whole flock. Grey. They say about such: “Born to spoil can only fly.”

God, with his right hand, plucked a hefty piece of bread from the loaf and began to crumble it and throw the crumbs right in front of him. And then I felt these winged creatures mocking me. Organized seraglio rushed to feed.

A cloud of birds covered the old man, and when a gust of wind swept them in different directions, an empty bench appeared before my eyes. All in bird droppings. And a lonely bottle of wine, untouched by pigeons.

“Lucky, so lucky, however,” I thought, trying on a homeless drink. And then, as if hearing my thoughts, an old woman of the most domestic appearance hurriedly crossed the boulevard. And she expropriated the drink of the Old and New Testaments for her own benefit.

I had no choice but to go home empty-handed, surprised at what I saw:

“I wanted to grab God by the beard, but in fact he grabbed the devil by the shameful hair. However”.

That also happens.

Choice

The house was cold and hot. There was deafening silence in the street. The table was bursting with empty abundance. It was so bright you couldn’t see anything. I wanted to go and sit. My heart is joyful and bitter: so bitter that you laugh; so happy that immediately into the loop. Life flowed and stood. Nothing happened and everything changed. Sincerity or lies, what to choose? You don’t understand, but you have to. Is there a choice?

Nail

It’s strange, but it feels like a rusty nail is hammered into the head of each of our people at birth. Right in the hospital: so that he lives and then does not think about anything, as long as the nail in the brain rusts. At the same time, exceptions occur, one might say misunderstandings, which lead to the appearance of any undesirable intelligentsia among our people. Take, for example, a doctor-villain and, through an oversight or just out of some whim, he will drive in a baby instead of an ordinary galvanized nail, as if wishing him to brighten up his miserable life. And only then, poor fellow, he lives and suffers for the rest of his life. And, which is characteristic, the intellectuals from this everything goes into a rage and against the people. And all because this nail is galvanized: it glows, an infection, like a real antenna, receiving suggestive signals from abroad, and makes you doubt the correctness of the existence and structure of our state all the time. Instead of being like everyone else, with ordinary rusty nails in my head, I’m bullshitting and listening to the Chanson radio. Enjoy life.

Hero of our time

Her name is Zosia. A remarkable name in our unremarkable time. God deprived her of beauty and endowed her with a frantic temperament. She doesn’t walk, she dances. He does not speak, but recites. Not silent, but pauses before bringing down an avalanche of words.

Her irrepressible thirst for life is manifested in the fact that she constantly organizes poetry evenings, at which the same blissful obscenities like her jump over each other’s heads, and Zosia sings songs of the most obscene content to them, accompanying herself on a fairly out of tune toy piano, which always carries with it on a string.

She proudly calls these outrages mysteries, arguing that our whole life is one continuous mystery. Mystery Buff. From the outside, it looks like a real coven of all city wickedness, but she calls her evenings art. This is how she lives. Zosia is the queen of burlesque. Unknown hero of our time.

Gogol decided to listen

Here, in one restaurant, they decided to introduce the people to culture. And they began to broadcast Gogol’s stories. Through speakers. In the toilet! You come in, you understand, just to relieve yourself, and they read “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” in such a soulful voice. To the accompaniment of running water. Somehow, after the innovation, two friends, with a difference of several minutes, visited such a corner of spiritual corruption due to small needs: the first closed himself in a booth, and the second, who later came in and did not suspect that he was not alone, attached himself to the urinal. He looks at the ceiling, murmurs so cheerfully and listens to how immortal prose is read to him. And then the door suddenly opens behind him and the first one, the one in the booth, loudly and reproachfully throws at the back of the second: “What, did you decide to listen to Gogol?” The poor fellow who peed had a heart attack from fright. They were taken away in an ambulance. They didn’t bail. At his grave, a friend who joked so unsuccessfully ordered an epitaph from Gogol: “You need to be honest with words.” And in the toilet, after this incident, Gogol was replaced with a mazurka. To stay away from sin.

Head

From childhood, there was a rumor that he had a bright head. Parents of the soul doted on him, they showed him to everyone as a miracle of nature. The father and mother were Jews, and they simply revered their son. First Saturdays, then kashrut, and everything ended with a synagogue, Tanakh, Torah and immersion in the Talmud. In his 20s, he acquired a reputation as a tzaddik and emigrated to Israel, where he took up the study of Kabbalah.

For the next thirty years of his life, he ruined the Sephiroth tree and the study of 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, earned a lot of money, a family and hemorrhoids, and ended his life with a lamppost. On the eve of his dizzying finale, he celebrated the Jewish New Year in a close family circle and served fish heads on the festive table, which amazed everyone except him with their repulsive appearance.

He did not attach any importance to this, pondering the mystery of deciphering the name of God, and the next morning he smashed his head to smithereens, crashing his bicycle into a lamppost. Evil tongues gossiped that damn fish heads were to blame, but no name, even if it is the name of the Lord God himself, is worth losing your head for it.

Voice

One woman decided to go to Israel. Just like that, for no apparent reason. You see, she had a voice that said: “Drop everything and run. To the homeland of your ancestors.”

She left her husband, son, and parents here. They did not want to go with her, because they did not consider themselves Jews. And on the contrary, they dissuaded her in every possible way. But the woman firmly stood her ground. She divorced her husband and accepted conversion. That is Judaism.

Before leaving, a neighbor came to her and asked her to repay the debt. Well, since they say, you are leaving, it would be good to pay off, otherwise it somehow turns out not humanly. And do you know what the woman said to her neighbor?

And about duty, you understand, her voice said nothing.

Hospitality

In the troubled 90s, one promising businessman Gosha calls his friend Lesha and asks: “Friend, shelter people for the evening. It is very important for me. And I will pay you well for it. Straightaway. When it works.” Lyosha, a purely Soviet person, readily agreed. After the Yeltsin reforms, he was as naked as a falcon, and any reason to serve someone has a chance of boredom. He fusses, goes to the market. Buys three kilograms of pork with all the money and sets the table. Guests arrive — 6 Chechens. Serious people. In essence, abreks. He feeds them a frying pan and two pots of tea. Puts to sleep. In the morning, for breakfast, the leftovers of fried meat are eaten, and when they say goodbye, Lesha from the bottom of his heart wonders if they liked the pork? In response from the abreks, icy silence. And until now Lesha does not understand why Gosha did not pay him. Disappeared suddenly, the devil, and no one knows where. Somewhere and in something, apparently, Gosha miscalculated in his business. Or maybe the devil beguiled. And Lesha? Everyone is waiting for a call from a friend. He hopes that all the same he will be paid for his hospitality.

Citizen and boy

The nameless hero enters Red Square on legs half-bent with fear and tries to scream at the top of his voice, but comes out somehow unconvincingly, almost in a whisper and for some reason in falsetto:

“I learned the truth about our government. It’s not real! We are ruled from abroad, and the main enemy is in the Kremlin. Do you hear me? Do you hear?

A citizen passing by stops and looks at the hero with surprise.

“Did you hear what I was shouting?” the hero shudders in fear.

“And then, every word,” confirms the citizen, “Every student knows this only. What are you so upset about? Do not believe? Let me prove it.”

He stops the first guy he comes across in punk clothes and asks:

“What do you think of our president?”

“Are you talking about this bald asshole in the Kremlin?” The boy spits at his feet with contempt, “So he is a bespontovy thief. I’d strangle the bitch if I could.”

And it goes on like that, as if nothing had happened.

“Well, I made sure that what you were shouting about is already known to everyone. So go home from here. Swell up and live like everyone else, pretending that everything suits you.

The disgraced hero leaves Red Square with his head held low.

And an hour later, the citizen and the boy stand at attention in front of the commandant of the Kremlin.

“Well done, comrade officers. Stopped an attempt at an unauthorized rally. Killed hope in another person. They prevented, so to speak, the birth of a hero in time. Well done.”

“We serve Russia,” a citizen and a boy shout at the top of their lungs.

Grimaces of nature

Imagine that you stumbled upon a deer at a watering hole in the forest. Surely this will set you in a romantic mood, you will immediately remember Bambi and all that: Disney rubbish. And if he also dies right in front of your eyes, taking his last sip of water before death, then this sight will surely break your heart. And you involuntarily shed tears. Think, I suppose, how tragic, damn it, what is there to hide. A kind of drama in nature. Immediately all sorts of philosophical little thoughts will come into your head, like here it is, the circle of life. And so on. But here’s what’s amazing. Cockroaches, like deer, also come to drink before they die. But this somehow does not inspire anyone — the sight of a dead cockroach in the kitchen sink. Even somehow the other way around. Causes disgust. Maybe because the cockroach does not have branched horns and it lives with us, and not in the forest. But, in fact, these are two phenomena of the same order. As they say, before death you will not get drunk and you will not inhale. What can I say, grimaces of nature.

Heaven’s Gift

He had a stout figure, almost square. A large, shaggy head with a cozy face and a large mouth with fleshy lips. He looked like a real Balda from Pushkin’s fairy tale. A kind of cunning little man with a double bottom: either a saint, or a murderer, or maybe both at the same time.

The movements are smooth, the speech is unhurried. And the voice?! And the voice is enveloping, warm and bewitching. In a word, charming. The real voice of a storyteller. As once in childhood, in the Baby Monitor, when the radio began to sound: “And now, my friend, I will tell you a fairy tale.”

It turned out that he served as an actor. At the Youth Theater. Played Winnie the Pooh. The children adored him. That’s what the voice means. Heaven’s gift.

Two extreme

Somewhere out there, beyond the borders of our sovereign Internet, where no one wears chastity belts to their homeland and everyone strives to despise any spiritual bonds, shamelessly flaunting their intellectual exhibitionism, here in this God-damned land, where milk rivers flow among jelly banks, any self-respecting artist values his name more than his own health. After all, his name is everything to him. Not just a trademark, but much more — style, individuality, handwriting. Ultimately reputation. These weirdos spend their whole lives trying to get people to associate all their work directly with their names. And when they tell you Picasso, you know for sure — this one will portray you in such a way that your mother will not recognize you in the portrait. Well, if Andy Warhol, then it will be a hand-colored silkscreen of a very large size. And if you come to Chagall to order a portrait, it is useless to ask him to paint you in the style of Modigliani. He will only portray you as Chagall, hugging a cow, and such a request will simply offend him. In fact, he doesn’t understand her. Because if you don’t like Chagall, why would you order a job from him? Go to Modigliani if you like him. And Chagall under Modigliani will not be forged, he has a name! Reputation! But they have it, but it’s not like that with us, oh, it’s not like that, guys. With us, the Customer comes to the Artist not for the sake of his creativity, but to assert himself. Naturally, at the expense of the Artist. And the first question that the Customer asks our Artist, even if he is at least three times famous, will he be able to write like such and such or such and such an artist. Our Maestro, of course, is mortally offended at first, but when he is offered a double or triple price, he still agrees. Because he understands very well that in our country reputation and name mean nothing. And that means only money, on which this very reputation is created. The most expensive. The most sold. The most successful. Well, what can I say — two worlds, two extremes.

Girl without complexes

With false eyelashes and no panties. Amazing self esteem.

Delicate person

Arriving at sea, he found that his wife was snoring. Unpleasant surprise on honeymoon. Hearing in the middle of the night the monstrous sounds made by a rather slender and in daylight even very pretty creature, which was his chosen one, the first night he struggled with the desire to wake her up and tell her the whole truth about her snoring, on the second night he wanted to strangle her with a pillow, and on the third I was going to divorce her. Finally, after three sleepless nights, he went to the pharmacy, a secret from his wife, bought earplugs and has been living with her soul to soul ever since. That’s what a delicate person means.

Dementia

Wife to husband. “Today you need to deliver a note from me to Vera. Come to her room 205 at 11 o’clock, she is just having a break between couples, she is waiting for you. “And who is Vera? I know her?” “You introduced us. Have you forgotten? “What are you doing! Do you know what my memory is! “I know. Holed like a colander. You suffer from dementia.” “And what is it?” “senile dementia. Or don’t you remember? “Well, how, how, I remember very well. Dementia! What a word! But I don’t have it. Exactly. Otherwise, I would have remembered it.”

An hour later, husband and Vera. “Excuse me, but who are you?” “I am Vera, your wife’s friend. Don’t you remember?” “How, how, I remember very well. I have business for you. I have to give you something. That’s just what? I don’t remember, — he feverishly pats his pockets, — That’s a memory, everyone would like this. Remembered! Well, exactly! How, how. I have to give you dementia, but in which pocket I put it, I’ll never know.”

A day in the life

White tablecloth. Flawless white porcelain. White wine. Cheese with white mold. White grapes. White cool shade. White sand at the edge of the sea. White lambs of the waves. White clouds in the sky whitened from the heat. Another day in the life of a “white” man.

Rustic hospitality

The apples were on the table. Yellow and red. The table stood in the middle of a hut, naked as a baby, like a throne in a temple. Surrounded by the aroma of ripe fruit, in a thick and impenetrable veil of shadow, and outside the flames of a summer day raged. Bumblebees and bees hummed in the garden. Daggers of white-hot beams burst dangerously through the closed shutters, smoking with rage in the cold, creaking twilight of the old house. A loaf of rye bread darkened among the apples, and a long-necked jar of milk, covered with a towel, proudly rose. Real gifts of the transubstantiation of a fertile summer, offered to us by the very providence of rural hospitality.

Rooster

Chickens are usually despised, considered the most brainless creatures in the world. If they want to offend someone, then they directly compare it with a chicken. Or with a rooster. What is even more offensive — for men. But there is always an exception to every rule. It’s about a rooster who cheated his death. Neighbor Galya, nicknamed “summer resident”, in the village only had chickens for the summer: in the spring she bought chickens, and in the fall she slaughtered them for meat; she kept only laying hens, and closer to the middle of summer, when they began to lay, she bought them a rooster. All summer with their eggs, and back to Moscow already with their meat. And so every year, until one day there was an embarrassment: a rooster, watching how his chickens were killed right in front of him, one after another, got scared; realized that his death from the butcher’s knife was waiting for him and fled, flying into the neighbor’s yard. As Galya did not look for him, she could not find him. She spat in her hearts and drove off to her Moscow, closing the season. A rooster a couple of days later showed up in a neighbor’s chicken coop, where it safely overwintered and even came to the yard. It would seem that life is a success: trample chickens and know yourself crow. An, no. In the spring, the summer resident Galya returned. And not alone, but with a fresh brood of chickens, which soon grew up and turned into neat young chickens. The cock, looking at them, went completely crazy: he abandoned his chickens and kept rushing to Galya’s yard — to trample on her chickens. When she bought them a rooster, he pulled it up, not tolerating a competitor. In the end, he moved back to her. He exhausted everyone, but he achieved his goal — he again became Galina’s rooster. Despite the fact that at the end of the summer season, death awaits him. But what is love without mortal risk. Even the roosters.

Village

Since we are talking about a rooster, it’s just right to find a couple of words for a pig. The saleswoman Lyubka somehow broke off happiness. The truth is not happiness, but a pig, but what a pig! Other villagers will live their whole lives, but they will never learn to behave like people. And this pig did not need to learn. Clean and without words understands everything. Clever is just awful. Well, real person. She found it by accident: a car knocked down a piglet near her yard, and she picked it up and carried it to the barn, not hoping that it would survive. And take the piglet and get well, then independently got out and showed up to her straight into the hut. Just like any cat. He even had the most suitable color for this — black. It’s wonderful, and that’s all. Well, what kind of pig is it? The pig is big, pink and dirty, like the neighbor’s boar Borka. And this one is small, thin and black. Real pet. For the soul. Although she also had something to hide, a tail, a piglet and hooves. Just like a real pig. Neighbors, seeing such happiness of Lyubkina, involuntarily became envious, and decided to spoil it for her. They came to her without an invitation and announced that it was not a pig at all, but a mini-pig: the animal is so terribly expensive and overseas, and it probably has an owner. Lyubka is an honest person, she does not need someone else’s good for nothing. She wrote an ad and posted it on the door of the general store where she works. So, they say, and so, a piglet, black, mini-pig was found, the owner is wanted. A day later, an unfamiliar pockmarked woman with a bag comes to her store and announces: “My, they say, piglet.” Well, Lyubka gives it to her and asks: “What do you need, such a slut, this overseas miracle Yudo in the household?” And she answered: “Yes, I bought it on occasion from my hands. For meat. I’ve been fattening for the third month, and he, the parasite, doesn’t grow a damn thing. And, which is characteristic, he behaves in a completely un-swinish way: he runs away from the barn and everything rushes into the house like a madman; he walks only along the paths and is terribly curious, like a small child — he cares about everything. I don’t know how the further fate of this very mini-pig turned out, they made lard or jelly out of it, but Lyubka is still in shock. You have to be such a dense person to take a rare pet for an ordinary pig. One word — “village”.

Tree

It was an old pear, fairly worn by time. She grew up in the backyard and under her shadow grew more than one generation of the inhabitants of the grandfather’s house. The best place in the whole wide world. In the spring, when the pear blossomed, we played in its shade, and in the summer we sat on the branches all day long and ate the still green fruits, and these were the most delicious pears in my life. When autumn came, it was always mourning for the best days of the year: the pear dropped its leaves, and we were forcibly separated from it and sent to school. Only on New Year’s Eve did we meet again and rejoiced at the opportunity that had happened to spend the entire winter holidays together again. Only now the branches served as a place for hanging homemade bird feeders for bullfinches and tits, and around the trunk they made a snowman and played snowballs and drove each other on sleds. And so from year to year, until one day we grew up and stopped noticing the old pear: our world tree, huge as the sky, strewn with the fruits of goodness, around which our entire childhood passed and which raised us and let us out into the world. And I am grateful to fate that such a tree happened in my life, a real tree of the knowledge of goodness.

Dilemma

Just now, a friend broke his arm. Well, not exactly a hand, but a finger. On the foot. But it still hurts. I met him in a cast and with a black eye. I’m keenly interested in what happened. And he in response, they say, slipped and fell. I sympathize with him and assume that this happened due to obvious negligence on the part of city utilities in the face of idle janitors. It would be necessary to sue them, if only for the sake of compensation for moral damage. He sadly agrees with me, but clarifies that he was not quite sober at the time when he actually fell. Why, he’s not sober, but he was downright drunk in zyuzyu. About what in the emergency room they made a corresponding entry in his medical record. There, you know, he got excited with the doctor, who, because of his intoxication, refused to treat him, and cleaned his clyster mug for him. Well, so as not to forget the Hippocratic Oath and know that the victims also have some pride and rights to free medicine. In the same place, he broke his finger on his leg while kicking the doctor. And he knocked out his eye. Now this victim of “gravity” does not know whether to write a complaint against the Aesculapius, or to thank him for the help in eliminating the consequences of the fracture, when he plastered his finger. A real moral dilemma.

Debt Above All

— Well, Katenka, how will you please us today?

The student lays out the drawings of her ridiculous club on the table in front of the teachers and looks wistfully at the professor, trying to understand from his expression whether she will be able to agree on her idea or will have to redo everything again. And the professor stared into her empty black eyes and imagines what he would do now if he were given free rein.

“Don’t you have any ideas?” “Nope.”

“Do you want me to show you now why you need your head?”

Without waiting for the student’s answer, the professor takes out a hammer with an elongated claw-claw from his briefcase and hits the student on the head with all his strength, breaking her skull. There is a crunch of bones and the lazy voice of his assistant comments:

“However, I did not expect, colleague. Pleased, at least some variety, otherwise you can die of boredom.

The professor laughs ominously and with the help of a nail puller deftly opens the student’s skull like a tin can, licks his lips carnivorously and exhales:

“Fresh brains. Colleague, do not lend your spoon, I forgot mine at home. I’ll give it to you as soon as I try.”

Having received a spoon, he scoops up a pink gelatinous mass from his opened head with a slide and swallows it greedily, squinting like a cat with pleasure.

“Well, how?” the assistant asks.

“Fresh,” exhales the professor and greedily stuffs two more spoons into himself, munching loudly.

“Shouldn’t I call other colleagues, what is now in the department?” — the assistant is interested when the professor returns the spoon to him and kindly gives him the opportunity to taste the contents of the student’s head.

“You eat, colleague, eat. There is nothing to scatter the brains of our students. They have their own. If there is anything left, then we will invite you.”

Alternately changing the spoon, they devour the brains until they are saturated.

“That’s it, I can’t do it anymore,” the professor sighs and orders, “Call the rest, colleague.”

The assistant exits and immediately returns with a group of professors, mincing one after another and happily mumbling: “Brains. Brain. Brain”.

The meal continues until there is nothing left of the student but an unsuccessful club project on paper.

The professor sighs, slowly pulls the drawings closer to him and begins to correct them, cursing himself for the fact that professional duty is always above all for him.

Job title

Petrov, having spent half his life trying to become a director, found himself in an absurd situation. Because of the epidemic, which happened as a childish surprise, he felt humiliated and insulted. Petrov could not go to work because of the quarantine and refused to believe it. All ways to get around the ban did not work. The state did not need his services, and all attempts to obtain a permanent electronic pass failed. His company was not included in the list of enterprises vital for the city and he was forced to stay at home. As everybody. This was something that pissed me off. As everybody? But he could not be like everyone else, Petrov was a director and, therefore, he should have had privileges. Which, as it turned out, was not. From resentment for being leveled with everyone, Petrov could not find a place for himself. He sat at home like some kind of castrated cat, and gloomily looked out the window at the street, along which only couriers moved freely, as if quarantine was nothing to them. And it dawned on Petrov. He decided to enroll in couriers. Fictitious, of course, to get the coveted pass. I sent out my questionnaires to agencies and waited. But all his attempts to secure a vacancy for a courier were a complete fiasco. Nobody wanted to hire a director. Even the former. Apparently, they either did not believe him, or were afraid that he would sit up. Petrov became a victim of his own ambitions, because there are no former directors.

Dear Lenin

My mother once gave me a whole two rubles for my birthday. metal. Anniversary. Both with a chased strong forehead profile of Ilyich. And she promised that one day they would be worth a fortune. I put them in a beautiful metal montpensier box and waited. It was my very first investment in my bright future. Years passed, a lot of things changed in life: both in my and the whole country, but the rubles remained lying at the bottom of the same box where I put them as a child. I just didn’t need them. Do you know why? I grew up, but the future is gone. Together with the country in which I was born. But Lenin remained. It still lies in the granite box like the fiat ruble where Stalin put it. The main value of our entire state. An investment in the bright future of my entire country, which is also gone. Apparently, when they put Lenin in the box of the mausoleum, they believed that he would grow in value. And they were wrong too. And it’s a pity to bury it, this mistake cost everyone too much. I, too, cannot throw away these two rubles, the toad is choking. I’d rather leave it to the kids, maybe they’ll be lucky. Get rich.

A worthy end

When they met, they immediately came up with playful nicknames for each other. He called her Baby, she was his dad Carla.

When they began to live together, she turned into a bee, and he into a bear. Having married, he became a Boy, and she became a Cannibal. Children appeared and they did not even notice how they changed the luxurious Boy with the Cannibal to the banal Father and Mother. Hello Mother. Hello Father.

And so for twenty years, until they suddenly discovered that everyone called him Grandfather behind his back, and her Boy-Baba or, in short, Boyboy. So she remained Boyboy for him, as if she had always been called that.

But for her, the evolution of his nickname on the banal Grandfather did not end. Pretty soon he became Old Man, then Old Stump, then Senile, Beast, and finally just Animal.

When she buried him, she wrote on his gravestone: “Here lies the animal that ruined my whole life.”

A worthy end to an obsolete love.

Friend

I have a friend. No, neither he nor I think so. Let’s just say, a friend. Although this is too strong a word. More like an interlocutor, but so unpleasant that I prefer not to talk to him. I can’t see him, his face is so annoying to me. He is a complete egoist: he always and everywhere speaks only about himself, as if there were no other topics. He is convinced that he is a genius. And I am sure that the genius is me. Least. Or maybe someone higher. And he is nothing, in essence, so — a burp of God. Therefore, we always argue, but silently. He is condescendingly silent when he sees me, hinting with all his appearance that I am nobody for him — a real bunch: a shameful misunderstanding. You could say it’s nothing. But I don’t go into my pocket for a word and eloquently keep silent in response, loudly hinting that I don’t notice him either. When he calls me on the phone, I know for sure, without further ado, that it is he. At the other end of the tube, they are so expressively silent. And there is no point in fussing and saying “Alla, I can’t hear you” or “Speak”. He has no suitable words for me, only contemptuous silence. I answer him the same. So we, sometimes, are silent for an hour or two, until we are separated. But, here’s what’s strange — I can’t be without him for a long time, and he can’t be without me: he immediately stops missing something. There is nothing to breathe, as if from within the breath intercepts. Therefore, once a week we meet on neutral territory, take a bottle of vodka for two and drink it silently. Like two old friends who no longer need words to speak. And then we silently disperse. Without even shaking hands, without looking into the eyes. This is all because a person desperately needs someone whom he can hate sincerely and from the bottom of his heart. At least once a week, but to really, like the last time. And for this, you need someone like him. Real. Friend.

Thought about death

I’ve been thinking about death all night. I really didn’t want to die. I even cried from resentment that this should happen to me. Twice. And then he was afraid, lying alone in the dark. Abandoned by all. Nobody needs. I fell asleep by accident, and then in the very morning.

I woke up with a brutal appetite. To life. He made himself some toast of Prague bread, anointed them with melted cheese, put thinly sliced smoked salmon on top of them and covered all this splendor with fried eggs, richly seasoned with dry garlic and freshly ground pepper. And ate with a glass of hot, strongly brewed black tea. After breakfast, I decided that I would definitely dine in a Georgian restaurant. I will order khinkali. Piece five. Hot, juicy, with lamb. And always with sour cream, but with chopped garlic. And a glass of tea. Better two.

Tonight I’ll think about death again.

Dream

Did you have a cherished dream? Real, unattainable. To straight through the thorns and by all means to the stars. Here I had a friend. Since childhood, he dreamed of his own three-room apartment. Finally saved up and bought. Moved. And yearned. He got so bored that he choked. When they buried him, everyone just did what they wondered, what he lacked in this life: family, children, — all the same it was. And I know. A person who has managed to realize his dream loses interest in life. Nothing more to strive for. He, the fool, was mistaken with a dream. I would dream, for example, of an attic in Montmartre or a penthouse somewhere in New York, I would still live. The dream must be unattainable. At least for you. Personally.

Fool

Here a man lived, he lived. And then he took it and died. There you go, fool. Ruined that story.

Should have bought an ax

It’s amazing how young we were, how we believed in ourselves. Rereading V. Rudnev’s book “Winnie the Pooh and the Philosophy of Everyday Language” now, I found my poems for 2000 on the back flyleaf of the book:

Oh unmanifested word

Great, good and holy.

With your simplicity you overshadow

The beauty of the sky and the bounty of paradise.

By you I set the limits of the abyss

And outlined the boundaries of the entire universe

He who is the Creator of all and the Existing,

Great in goodness and eternally waiting for us.

Put on flesh, the Word changed

The course of history and the world.

Many people in the world have been looking for you

Only those who are bright in spirit will find it.

O unmanifested word,

Great, good and simple.

And why did I write all this, you fool, I had to buy an ax and earn money on old money-lenders.

Devil triumphs

A dead child was born to a woman, and in desperation she prayed to the devil himself, praying to revive her son. At any cost. And her prayer was heard.

A very decently dressed man of indeterminate appearance appeared before her with a cigar in strong teeth and blew a stream of tobacco smoke right into the face of a dead child. And the child came to life, and the devil took the word from the woman that now the child belongs only to him. And disappeared.