Mandarinese

Sanitary technician Ivanich was sitting in his roasted kitchen in his solitary berlog. I drank bitter. His company was made up only of red cockroaches, who felt voluptuously among unwashed plates.
Yes, life has not happened. But I dreamed of becoming a teacher of physical education, so that until old age with the boys to pursue football. The strange dream is not to be a pilot, not a sailor, but rather a bodybuilder. He dreamed of marrying his classmate Olechka, a beauty for the whole school, Olya seemed to be building his eyes, and after school went to Tbilisi.
And he what? Sleep a little, and what if you don't sleep, if you look in other people's toilets all day long and you make bottles of sludge. And all of them said to him, “Ivanishch to, Ivanishch to, get there, bring that.” Even his paternity sounds disrespectful in their speeches. No one knows that he is Sergey Ivanovich Krotov. No one knows that he had a twin brother, Dimko, who died of leukemia at the age of seven. He loved his brother, although he was very often in hospitals and hardly played with him. Dimka dreamed a lot - wanted to grow up and become a geologist. I wanted to visit the North Pole.
Drunk tears flowed on the cheeks of the alcoholic: "Oh, Dimka, it's my fault for your death, and all because of these damn mandarins. “Sorry brother...”

Sergey has long been tormented by the ridiculous and childish guilt, spiked in the heart. He remembered his poor childhood. Poor, because the brother was sick and the mother dealt with the sick son, hardly paying attention to the healthy. All the time and all the money went to Smoke. The New Year was approaching, and the father brought from work two balls of gift candy - him and Dimke. The sweets were the cheapest, ladenci, pomadka, batons, but among the sweets were two large mature mandarins. Sergey loved the mandarins.
“You eat one, and leave the other to Dimka,” said the father.
Of course Dad.
Sergey remembered how delicious, fragrant and truly sweet his mandarine was. I didn’t even notice how I ate the second one. When he realized what he had done, he was ashamed. The mandarin skin flew from the balcony.
“It should not seem that there were mandarines in the gifts,” he thought.
He was "lucky", no one remembered the mandarins, because Dimke became worse again, and he and his mother were taken to the hospital by an ambulance. And then Sergey remembered how many relatives came to them - grandparents, grandmothers, aunts, uncles.
The grandmother of Varia all told her mother that there was no place for the child at the funeral, but the mother left him next to him, and he saw himself—depleted and almost transparent in a small tomb. I saw and did not believe.

And then, after the funeral, he was hit by his head like a shoe: "Dimka would not have died if I had not stolen his mandarine."
It was a stupid thought, but it settled in the brain, turning it into a finite hooligan and ham. His conscience was bite from within, he was rude to everyone not to hear it.
A year later, the father left the family, leaving on his childhood shoulders all the burden in the form of an everlasting mother. I went all my life in a crap. Women’s hysterics, screams and tears so tired him that he decided not to start a family. And now he drinks with the cockroaches.
“Oh, brother, I would go back in time.”

Shaken and suffocating from excessive drunkenness, Sergey went out to the balcony. The city had already lit the lights, the stars were not visible. Sergey raised his eyes to the sky and almost trembled. Almost all over the width of the night sky shone a firey clock. Sergey clearly saw the numbers and two arrows - small and large - hour and minute. Sergey looked at a miracle, and the clock looked at him. Then the clock arrows suddenly moved from place and went in the opposite direction. Sergey could not take his eyes away from them, yet he felt strange. It seemed to be reducing in size, as if it was getting lighter. He looked at his hands, where were the mushrooms? His hands are like children. He stumbled, opened his eyes. He stood on the balcony of his child’s apartment and heard his mother chatting in the kitchen. I heard her voice.
“Ma-am,” Sergey whispered surprised.
His mother came out of the kitchen.
What are you noising? Smoke just fell asleep.
My mother was unhappy.
Smoke is alive? He barely stumbled, but held the scream in time. And then the key turned in the castle, and in the hallway entered the father with two bags of New Year’s candy and mandarines.
“One mandarin is eaten by yourself, the other is for Dimka,” said the father.
Sergey finally took himself into his hands and began to think clearly. He knew what to do. When his parents went to watch television, he took the mandarines out of the ball. The smell was overwhelming, he swallowed a thick piece of saliva. He took the mandarines, cleaned the skin and took the room to Dimkin. My brother moved slightly.
– Smoke, wake up, Sonja, I brought you mandarins from Africa, or maybe Georgia, I don’t know.
Sergei broke the piece and put it in his brother’s mouth.
It’s delicious, grey, you eat too.
I had eaten, I had four.
Eat more, eat more.
Do you want me to get rid of my allergies? I do not want.
“Grey, and I don’t want to go to the hospital tomorrow. Tired already.
“No matter, you’ll be treated, Dimka, and you’ll become a geologist. I read that there are whole underground plantations of self-colored flowers in the Urals. Imagine how much there is!
Dymka did the last mandarine.
“What do you think, Serega, will I be able to find some mystery in the earth if I become a geologist?
Of course, you can, just as I will train my football team.
Sergey hugged his twin brother and closed his eyes not to cry.

He woke up from a strong shock in his shoulder: "What do you throw, the shale will burn, the storm!" Sergey opened his eyes. In front of him stood a laughing wart with his eyes and a smile.
The D smoke?! to
And who else? Right from Kamchatka. Ivory brought, and crabs, and a whole druze of mountain crystal.
Sergey looked around. He was sitting on a shop in a cozy pavilion. The winter was just as pleasant. From the house came out women and two girls - his daughter, wife Olga, and the bride of Dmitry Katya. Still not believing what was happening, Sergey entered the house and looked in the mirror. It looked good: tightened, tight, youthful, as the physique is supposed to. Covers were placed on the table. Smoked ears, decorated the table with strawberries and sandwiches with ivory. Sitting at the table, Dimko put a bottle of "white" on the table.
No smoke, I don’t drink. I generally had such a nightmare dreamed of me as if I was a drunkard, torch in the kitchen with cockroaches. And as if I’m alone, and you, Dima, don’t. As if you died as a child.
You are grey? He died because I have a wonderful brother. I was sick, it is, but do you remember how you fed me mandarin? I also lied to me that the mandarins were four. I remember it all, Grey. At that time, I took my teeth for life. It was then, brother, that I realized I couldn’t just give up. Yes, by the way, you want to look at my geological finds, I have a whole backpack.
“Well, Smoke, I’ll come now, just breathe a little more fresh air.
Sergey Ivanovich Krotov raised his face to heaven. There was no figure in the sky, but Sergey said somewhere in the clouds: “Thank you for everything, great thanks...”