Scratch...

A week after us, we returned with the last boat from the neighborhood. They came back without their cat. An enormous, grey bandit with no right ear. We fought with him all summer. Then he stole me food from the table, then he digged in the garden. In short, I am accustomed to him. And when he saw the couple returning without the gray, he was terribly upset and asked his wife to go and without any circumstances to ask where their cat went. Everything turned out to be just as bad as I expected. The cat was left in the house. I suffered and worried until the evening. Then I picked up the boss’s phone number and asked for a day off tomorrow. The woman breathed hard and said, “Be careful there. Ask to transport the boat. The weather has not been good since the morning. The lead clouds sowed a small, disgusting rain, and the wind pushed the frosty and frozen leaves to the asphalt. I wandered around the boat station hoping that anyone would be gathered on the other side for the forgotten things. No matter who found it. He was found a healthy man in boots of the fifth size. He drove into the motorcycle and crawled something. I explained to him that I forgot a very important, vital document and gave him fifty dollars. He dropped a paper into his pocket and explaining to the heavens everything about the holidaymakers, who will forget their heads, dropped the boat to the water. The waves were very decent. They stumbled desperately with cold foam, and threatened to overthrow the thick bowl. So, after half an hour of desperate struggle with the water element, we found ourselves on the shore near our villas, and accompanied by the hustle of a mournful man that for such delights would not hinder to get another twenty, I rushed to the villas. The sky gradually grew silver, and a small rain turned into an ice crust. Gray, grey, grey! I screamed in my throat hoping he was still alive. The grey appeared. Snooping and pressing at my feet, he complained. I took him on my arms and ran to the boat. Flying up to her and jumping, I put the cat next to me. The stunned man opened his eyes and opened his mouth. But here the Gray jumped out of the boat and somehow shyly pressing his only left ear to his head beggingly and quietly whispered. Then he turned and ran back. Stand up, stand up, stand up, where you are, fuck up! — I shouted. — Then I jumped out and, not paying attention to the mates, the curses and the promises to throw us to the devil’s mother, I ran after the cat. He went ahead and I followed him, cuddling and shaking his hands, and suddenly turned to the left he disappeared in the bushes. After running and pushing the branches, I saw a gray, one-early cat clinging to a little black cat. The cat was wet and eaten desperately. The grey guilty looked at me and whispered. I went down to the wet soil and wanted to take them both in my hands. But the earth was shaken from behind. This wretched man tossed his huge boots, erupting the streams of curses. He stood behind my back and suddenly silenced. Then, with a very calm and pleasant to surprise voice, he said, “Let’s go, let’s go.” Because now the melting will begin and everything will be taken by snow. I picked up a gray and a little black cat and we ran to the boat. How we got to the other side of the river, I don’t know. Per God just wanted it, because nothing was visible. Only a grumpy man suddenly said, blocking the roof of the engine and water – Skatin, you, however. I was confused. I wondered with concern when I looked at the water boiling on board. So the man continued. You cheated me for papers and shifted the money and saved the cat? You’re like a man, and I’m impure, how unhealthy am I? So what? So I was afraid that you would give up, but no one else could save him, I explained, the man was silent, squeezed, and we walked to the boat station. Then he searched for the cat's box for a long time and laid it with a warm towel. And when I was about to leave, thanking him, he said. You are what. There is no such thing as everything for one and nothing for the other. And when he came to Serum, he spoke to him, "You are what, you go to live with me. I go fishing. You are a good cat. You are the right cat. Man means you. I did not abandon the baby. The cat looked at me, blaming guiltyly, approached the grumpy man and stood on his back legs, holding his front in huge boots. The man raised him on his hands. And the big grey bandit grabbed his neck with his legs and pressed himself. The man turned aside and with a trembling voice for a minute only said – well, well, well... Then he turned to me and said with a strict and surprisingly soft voice – I invite you, young man, for the next weekend to fishing. And swallowed me. And when I got home and my wife and I were taking care of a black baby, she found fifty dollars under a warm hamstring towel. And now we go fishing constantly, together with a good, healthy worthless. And what if I sometimes come not completely sober and without fish? Fishing is life, I would say.

(Copyright of Oleg Bondarenko)