Mathematics

Anthony loved her since childhood. First for sitting nearby with him as a child, playing various games, then for taking him to school and often helping with lessons. Then, being a high school student, he truly fell in love and stood for hours at the entrance, expelling the numerous fans who appeared at the time to her, the student of the institute. For one of these of his guests Tanka still got married and for a couple of years left the city, appearing only when Anton was already called into the army.
Having learned that she had already divorced from her husband at that time, Anton asked for permission to write to her from the letter service and every week sent her newsletters about himself, in which he cautiously tried to hint somehow about his attitude to her. Tanka answered him, although in every way and tried to translate their correspondence into a friendly plane.
When Anton returned to his citizenship, Tanka welcomed him quite welcomingly, but kept with him emphasized straight. Anthony did not give up and continued his efforts. Several times they went to the cinema together, to the zoo and even somehow went to the McDonald’s, which then just opened in their city. There, at a standard American dinner, Anton got courage and told her all about his long-standing feelings, offering to become his wife.

- You understand, - when he heard his confession, Tanka smiled sadly, - you also like me, and I liked it before, but here, look - she got out of the bag of flommasters and took the side of the polystyrene cup of coffee number 27 standing in front of her - this is like I, you see?
He cried out.
“But here you are,” she painted on his glass the numbers 2 and 0 – twenty, you know? And when I’m thirty, you’re only twenty-three! And so on, it’s a simple progress... And never will my twenty-seven – she tossed a flommaster into her glass again – be less than your twenty.
She was silent.
Never ever? I asked Anton, what if he did?
Danny laughed loudly:
I will marry you, I swear. And, putting under the number 27 her signature, she solemnly handed her glass to Anton.
- We have agreed, - Anton cried out in response, - wait.
That evening, as usual, they broke up in their apartments, and the next day Anton did not call, to which Tanka was already accustomed, and generally disappeared somewhere. Waiting for a while, she went to his home, where his mother that he had been recruited to work somewhere in Kaliningrad. Tanka tried to call him on the cell phone, but the phone was constantly out of the zone of action.

He appeared to her only half a year later, suddenly handing her into her hands a large glass with the number 20, from which the astonished Tanka got the second, a tiny glass with the tiny numbers 27 and her slightly noticeable signature under them. After that, Anton firmly took her hand and, no longer hearing any objections, took her to the ZAGS, where they filed an application the same day.

Just for these past weather, he managed to hire an assistant of electromechanics on the research vessel "Academic Keldish" and go on it in the expedition to the North Atlantic. There he asked one of the pilots of the deep-sea apparatus "Mir" when diving to tie a grid with a glass to the body of the apparatus. When the deep waterfall dropped for several kilometers, the glass did not flatten, but (this is already its feature of polystyrene) simply decreased many times in size, compressed proportionally under the pressure of the thickness of the water.

Since then, eight years have passed. These glasses are still in their closet, and their eldest daughter is always wondering why parents keep them and don’t throw them away. There are even better cups at McDonald’s. It is already paper...
by robertyumen