Point of Return
I am eight years old and my parents are on holiday. On the last day of vacation, my dad bought me a plane. I hired him for a whole month.
Amazingly beautiful, with screws on the wings. He had to rotate on a scroll around him and the aircraft, striking propellers, turned his head to nausea.
Sitting on the train. We got the last wagon. I went out into the rear tamper, and a wild adventure came to mind: what if I tied the plane to the train?
Flying or not? I had a thin leash. He jumped out of the car, ran to the end, scratched from the trunk and soon tied to the door. In the last minute, I jumped back and the train left. At first, the aircraft dragged, jumping on the spades, its noise attracted the attention of two men on the platform, they appreciated a good thing on a long spade and leaned... I stood in a closed tambour and could not help my pilot with anything. When he was almost in other people's legs, the man fell off the track. The plane took off.
Imagine: you’re eight years old and a plane is flying behind your train on an invisible shuttle. I watched him enthusiastically for hours, and at every stop, my heart was pumping horse-doses of adrenaline. Every time the same thing: the train touches, the plane crashes, people notice it, think, decide, let go. Apparently, the length of the leash was ideal, and the persecutors either stood behind with wild curses, or fell. One day, my grandmother started chasing my plane, throwing her grandson on the platform. Retained quickly. I always imagined that it was our pilot escaping from German captivity. In a word, a day after our flight, the plane absorbed so much human energy that it seemed to light up slightly in the dark.
Here is the last half-stop two hours before arrival home. Parking for 2 minutes. Around the forest. I see a boy of October’s age passing through the rails, in my psychic destroying proximity to the treasure. It is, I noticed. He lifted up and with one rope pulled off the leash. I felt like my arm or leg had been cut off... He was looking at the plane and didn’t believe his eyes, I didn’t believe my own. The train touched. A person always feels when he is looked at, and when he looks at the medusa of the hormone, he feels even more. The boy got out of the plane and met me with a glance. We looked at each other for three seconds and... he went after the train. Faster, even faster, I caught up with the fist, already on the run, somehow bound my feared airplane, let go and waved him with his hand...
Thirty-five years have passed since then, but I have never seen a more noble act in my life.
To a rural, Soviet, eight-year-old boy, released out of his hands such a trophy?
He was an extraordinary man.
I hope that now he is happy, rich and loved by his family, because on him, like a whale, holds a huge piece of world.
And the plane, all in a net of small scratches, is stored in my son’s toys.