Sometimes I realize that I am wrong. But I do not admit it to anyone. A man must have his own little secrets.

The Lost Keys

4 years ago. and September.
“Nadia, I beat someone else’s child – a bell in the middle of the night, a interrupting voice. Sleep as never happened.
My longtime friend called, the "fighting" about which I already wrote.
Telephone and Internet friendship now. But still though. I will call her Xena. She lives in Poltava, in the area on the mountain called Monastery.]
This cannot be! Don’t worry, I’m trying to reassure you.
*** by
After a hard day of work, with bags and a 10-year-old daughter who walked all the way, not wanting to go to the mountain, tired Xena got home with the only thought - to rest.
The stove and the house were unlocked (somebody was at home), so she did not immediately notice the loss of the ligament from a pair of keys.
But they had recently been in a suitcase on the way home! I seemed to have gone somewhere along the road. It’s dark, I have to go look for it.
The monastery mountain is almost ringed by a railway, built before 1917. Trains on it are not so fast; on this section, the usual - 40, and express - 60 km / h.
Xena and her daughter have already reached the railway, but the keys have not yet been found. There were no people, only a lonely miniature teenage girl, rushing forward. They crossed it and crossed the iron. I heard a train approaching. Ordinary and not quick.
What caused Xena to look around?
of something.
The girl they had overtaken was standing on the rails. And the train already seemed... She ran to her, crashed, pulled away. But the girl, although small, but strong, proved and did not change her intentions. He was on the rails again. Xena again rushed her from there, and the train had already blinked by, but the girl did not give up attempts to account for her life, rushing under the wheels again and again. It looked like a fight; Ksenna had already grabbed her fist, and broke her clothes, and scratched her hands in an attempt to hold back. The girl was crying, screaming something.
He kept, leaving a blue on his hand.
Having found out where she lived, they took her home.
And at home the girl had a daily celebration! In the very height. Fun, vodka, companions... Who is there mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, Xena did not find out. The neighbor came, explained the situation, took the girl to her - she often stayed with her.
Returning home, Xena somehow put her daughter sleeping from the slightest noise.
(The girl cried a few days after seeing it.)
She called me, she told me.
I was shocked and could not think of anything else:
Have you never found the keys?
I found. In the jeans, in the back pocket.
What if I wasn’t lost?
A fifteen-year-old girl would simply not exist.
In the morning, she went to the administration of the college where the girl was studying.
A few days later, she was given a room in the dormitory. Xena for four years unnoticed for the girl was interested in her life.
She appealed to the social service, but advised "not to deprive the child of the parents".
He was aware of her success in school. The girl did not want to contact her. Teachers also participated in the fate of the girl.
From some indirect phrase I understood that I also helped materially.
This girl recently got married and left.
Her parents still have no idea what happened to their child. They have the same holidays almost every day.
Xena says she doesn’t like other people’s children. And I believe that this is the highest manifestation of love, effective love, agape.
I asked her carefully about this difficult event. Not much extended.
I consider her a heroine. She does not agree. She’s still ashamed of that stuff.
“Everyone would have done so. And I, on the contrary, could have fallen into a stupor when I saw the blood,” she said. Only a few people know about this case. Now is you.
At first, she said the phrase "beaten a strange child."
To whom is this child a stranger?

A deputy speaks in the hall and says that schoolchildren have begun to go to unauthorized rallies, for this they need to be deprived of parental rights.
The voice from the room – what if yours goes?
My will not go, the deputy replied, he is studying in London.

Take my grandchildren for a walk. I received instructions from my daughter. The elderly carefully examines the things on the bed. Then he thoughtfully asks me:

To wear a shirt?

My mom said everything was on the bed. Is there a shirt?

and no.

No need to wear!

“Yes, and then my mom will say to me, ‘Why didn’t you wear a shirt? “” I said, “There was no shirt.” And she will tell me, “T-shirts are on the shelf in the closet. You do not know?”

I had nothing to answer. In his fourth year of life, a guy understands the logic of a woman.

Why not report housing thieves as self-employed? No one is hired, services are provided by themselves, report only if caught.

In the middle group of kindergarten for the September morning my grandfather prepared me. The theme of the festival was animals and birds: how they meet autumn and prepare for winter. Poems, as far as I remember, were not distributed to us, and if they were distributed, the grandfather rejected the teachers' proposals and said that we would read our own.

With this, he chose the outstanding, without fools, work of Nikolai Oleynikov "Tarakhan".

It’s hard to say what they were leading. Grandfather himself never visited the kindergarten, so revenge was for nothing. My teachers were wonderful women. I do not know. Per he wanted to make a note of high tragedy into the everyday flattery of whites and scourges.

So, in a gorgeous autumn morning, I went out into the middle of the hall, took on a dress sprinkled with leaves of barley paper, wrapped the gaze of the spectators and insightfully began:

The turkey sits in the glass.
The red foot.
He got caught. He is in a trap.
Now he is waiting for execution.

In the "Theatre" of Moem, Julia's first lessons of acting skills were given by her aunt. I had a grandfather instead of a aunt. We did everything: pauses, gestures, proper breathing.

The turtle clamped to the glass.
He looks, barely breathing.
He would not fear death.
If I knew there was a soul.

Gradually my voice strengthened and gained strength. I approached the most terrible moment.

He has sad eyes.
Looking at the couch,
Where with knives, blades
The visitor is sitting.

My grandfather didn’t see me, but he could be proud of me. I declared with a deep feeling. And the fact that on the "visisectors" the faces of educators and mothers began to change, explained for themselves by the influence of poetry and their talent.

“Here’s the cat coming to him,” I cried loudly. And when he touches his chest, he finds under the ribs what should be pierced!

The hero is mercilessly killed. One hundred and four instruments rub on the patient’s part! (My voice is trembling here.) From wounds and wounds, the cockroach dies.

In this place the drama has reached its peak. When I later read in Lermontov’s school “On the Death of the Poet,” it turned out that the entire dependable spectrum of emotions, from anger to sorrow, was overtaken by me at the age of five.

– All in the past, – condemned I breathed, – pain, trouble. There is nothing more. Underground water flows out of it.

I took a long pause here. The faces of the adults were shining with hope: apparently, they decided that I had finished. ha ha! The tragedy of an orphan?

There, in a large closet,
Everybody is abandoned, one.
The son whispers, “Daddy, Daddy!”
The poor son!

Crying out the last words. Look up there. Silence by breathing.
The room was silent with me.

But it was not the end, either.

“And there’s a lame visector above him,” I said with a dark hatred. Stupid, hairy, with spikes and a saw.

Some of the weak-minded children shouted.

You, the bastard wearing the pants! I shouted in someone’s face. A dead cockroach is a martyr of science. Not just a cockroach.

Dad gave a strange throat sound that I couldn’t explain. But it was also insignificant. The waves of poetry brought me to the end.

guard with a rough hand
From the window it will shake.
In the garden with the head down.
The pigeon will fall.

and pause. and pause. and pause. Behind the window still yellowed the chestnut, some kind of puddle ran on the roof of the veranda, but it was all over.

“On a flooded path,” I said sadly, “at the very doorstep, he will shake his legs and wait for a sad end.

Impossible to drop hands. to stumble. A person who has lost the meaning of life. And clearly, withholding the crying, say the last four lines:

His bones are dry.
It will rain,
His eyes are blue.
The chicken will cuddle.

and silence. Someone has blinked, maybe I myself. A barley leaf fell from my bottom, fell, rolling around, to the floor, breaking the shell with the oppressive silence, and then, finally, somewhere deep in the basement, the cockroaches flourished stormily, desperately, in full growth.

In fact, of course not. And we had no cockroaches, and the sheet did not fall away from me. I was struck very carefully, apparently afraid of causing a bust outbreak, brought crying children, struck on the cheeks of those who lost consciousness, gave water to the softened teacher of the younger group and handed me some kind of funny children's book like the stories of Bianka.

Why is? My grandmother asked my grandfather tonight. The anger was caused, among other things, by the fact that she was lonely in her anger. My parents didn’t have to wait for an understanding: my dad whispered, and my mom said she hated the mornings and I could even read “Mein Kampf” there, it’t get worse. Why did you teach this poem to your child?

“Because it is uncomfortable to declare ‘Antisemite’ in one person,” said the grandfather with sincere regret.

One old party worker taught me:
“If you don’t sleep with your secretary, someone else is sleeping with her.
And if someone else is sleeping with her, he knows your secrets.
Therefore, sleeping with a secretary is not a mess, it is part of the hardware work."

One day, when I came back to work, I discovered that the internet had disappeared. The devices displayed a page with a hardware scheme requesting the provider to check the connection settings. I checked it did not help. I made an application. The next day the brigade arrived - began to dig in the shield and on other floors in search of the reason for the lack of signal. As a result, it was established that the next day the neighbors on the upper floor connected to the internet (from the same provider), and the installer, in order not to bother laying wires, just took and pulled out of the shield my apartment, inserting instead the cable of the apartment of new happy subscribers.

A colleague at work tells me.

His son began to stay in school, decided to take his discipline. Among other measures, the television (modern some apparatus, with wifi, etc. So that the child does not get stuck. In the evening comes - the son is sitting, YouTube is watching TV. It turns out that the password does not apply to YouTube. In fact, Diane is only looking at him.

I say to my colleague, “Congratulations, you are Roskomnadzor!”

In the 1960s, an International Congress on Artificial Languages was held in Italy, developed by mathematical linguists to communicate with extraterrestrial minds if discovered in future space expeditions. During the break, several delegates, including one of the developers of the ALGOL language, John Bacus, went for a lunch at the cafe, where a nice Italian woman spoke to them. The mathematicians did not know the Italian language, there was no translator nearby, and then one of them was obscured.



“Listen,” he said to the developer of Algol. There is no doubt that this sinorina is a intelligent living system. As such, it must understand your ALGOL, which is considered powerful for understanding even unknown to us extraterrestrial beings. Try to talk to her!

The scientist immediately drew a series of obvious mathematical formulas on the towel, as he thought. She quickly looked at the message, scratched something underneath it and returned it to John Bacus. He turned the paper and saw under his formulas the answer: $20.

In the reflection, I noticed what aunt was watching my phone. Include the porn.

Aunt is watching, but already with a red face.

So we drove.

I go to work. In front of me is a father with a son-oboltus aged 14-15. The father (p) warns his son (c):

How many times have I told you! Do not scratch the pimples on your face! has spoken?

c) He said...

Q. Are you chewing?

c) The Chechnya...

You know I won’t even blame you anymore, you punish yourself! All your friends will have girls, and you will have a bicycle.

Regional Gas: Prepare the tranche under the cut.

I: So long ago I hit it all and I buried it all!

Regional Gas: You have not been hit. Prepare the trance.

I: Okay, I’ll go now and open all the cranes, I’ll check.

Local Gas: No No is! No is! Do not open anything.

There is no gas, right? There was no stroke.

Don’t worry, we’ll send you a specialist tomorrow morning.

The husband noticed that the wife before cooking cuts the tips of sausages.

Why do you do so?

I don’t know, my mom always did that.

I called Tess.

My grandmother cooked that.

The grandmother stumbled when she heard a conversation:

Are you still cooking in my little pot?

A long time ago, when I was working in a furniture salon, we received a request for a very large wall. We called the customer, agreed that on this day we can deliver during the day, but we will not have time to collect. They got "good", the wall was delivered minute by minute, well, and the evening began to shake.

It turned out that by phone we agreed not with the customer, but with her daughter, as a result the customer called us at 21: 00, an approximate dialogue:

Why not collect? ! to

"We had agreed in advance that we would deliver, but the collection brigade did not have time today.

You did not agree with me! The boxes are here!

We called on the number specified in the contract.

This is my daughter’s phone. I did not have to negotiate anything with her. She only had to open the door!

-Please, but this is not specified in the contract, the phone is indicated as contact.

You could guess! So, all, send me your collectors, let them collect.

No one is working today, the assembly is scheduled for tomorrow at 10: 00.

How do we sleep with these boxes? ! to

You have a wall, not a bed. Can you wait until tomorrow?

My baby is sleeping in this room. ! to You are forcing my child to sleep in a room with boxes, like in a warehouse, you understand? ! to

Sorry, I can’t help at the moment. You can write a complaint to the director tomorrow.

I don’t need your claims! I need this wall. My baby is sleeping in this room, you know? ! to I am pregnant, you know? ! to

Then a lot of word. Later it turned out that her 25-year-old pregnant daughter was sleeping in this room. The child is pregnant...

I sit down in the morning, scratching the fluid and not touching anyone. At half ten a.m. a favorite boss calls on his cell phone.

- Hear, there, up to ten people will jump to the interview. Let’s go, get a cockpit. You know what to do, I don’t teach you.

A few words about how we conduct interviews. We don't have that you go through many stages, each of which you need to like everyone, from the general manager to the cat living at the guard. It is easier. You are invited, you fill out a small questionnaire on the A4 sheet, communicate with hr, then immediately with someone of the specialists on your profile and all. At the end of the questionnaire there are two columns, where they leave feedback about the candidate. We have an open vacancy in the department for six months, which will not be closed, so I and my colleagues periodically go to communicate with applicants, but so far unsuccessfully.

I called the staff department, they say, yes, there is a candidate, and I am waiting for half-on-one. She went until she issued him a pass to the main territory and went to an interview.

I come. A young man is sitting. HR says everything is fine and puts his visa in the questionnaire. I take the "victim" with me and go on a tour, reading the questionnaire. 34 years old (look younger), the education is profile, there is work experience. I begin to figure out how. At first I was embarrassed (I’m sure I was beaten up by my non-earthly beauty, he-he), but then I spoke. And the more we talk, the more clearly I understand that he has to be taken straight and dragged to us, because the candidate is ideal. And the most interesting thing is that he is happy too.

She called the boss, pleased him, and he says it will be in the afternoon. The candidate, he says, let go, it will not go anywhere. Well, okay, I took a man out, went out to lunch myself.

At three o’clock the boss calls. I bring the questionnaire and say, the applicant is ideal - we will introduce him into the course of affairs in a week and a specialist will be ready. And the boss looks at the questionnaire, looks at it, and says no, we won’t take it. I am standing like a fool with the eyes of a cowboy.

“Look at yourself,” says the boss and ticks his finger into the questionnaire. He is 34 years old, right? He has no car, he has no right. Every normal man has rights. If he is not right, then he is either crazy or sick. Such are not needed. Let us continue to search.

I went back to work and told my colleagues about the circle. And they calmly say that the boss is right. Cars may not be, but the right is an indicator. There is no reason to think that a person has a problem.

Sometimes unnoticed, we went from “No Money, but You Hold” to “No Money? What if I find?”

A little about opera.
In the early and mid-70s, opera theaters often put operas such as "A Tale of a Real Man", the opera "Mother", the ballet "Angara". When I was younger, I preferred the classics.
This story took place in 1974 in the glorious city of Kharkiv. We took our eighth grade to watch this very "Mother" in the production of the local opera theater. I can’t say I was incredibly happy to see this action. But under the fear of the two in the literature quarter had to go.
Come, sit down, turn off the lights, the show begins. Nothing interesting I remembered, not even the opera itself. But it was very well remembered to visit the DND Support Point, located next to the theater. What have I forgotten there? Not alone, but with the company. For what? The case was so.
While the opera was going, the boys and I quietly chatted anecdotes and did not disturb anyone. Then break and cake with lemonade.
The next action. Shut down the light. Anxious music. The curtain opens, on the side of the scene a door, in the middle a simple wooden kitchen table, the table is ordinary, on it sits Paul, dressed in a shirt, boots and a pinjack. There is a huge book on the table, a grand bucket. Paul whispers something and leads his finger on the book, like a Jew on the Talmud, such as studying science, engaged in self-education. Through the doors pass workers-peasants in pants and shirts tied by a thin belt and workers-peasants in shirts and long sweaters. They become a half-circle behind Paul, the most important comes forward, putting his hand on Paul’s shoulder and a beautiful, powerful baryton:
and Paweel! I have yours! The Jeandarms have gone on!!! to
The chorus follows:
“Your mother, your mother, the gendarmes have led.
It was the straw that broke the back of the camel. It should also be understood that adolescents of the transitional age look, almost without brakes. I answered the first word with a loud voice:
To have yours.
Immediately there were followers. From the other ends of the room was heard:
Your mother...
The horse rose terribly. I think, even the teacher. The show stopped. But I was taken out and a few more, so to say, “volunteer singers-assistants.” We were taken to this very “point of reference.” There is a lieutenant of the brave Soviet militia. They put us in front of him.
So what happened?
What did we do? You will think, just laughed. Cho, you can’t laugh anymore.
The word, for the word, had to lose this scene in the face. I would say without boasting, it was no worse than in the theatre. Most importantly, the audience was delighted. The laughter began with the first replica and did not shut down until the end of our small performance. The lieutenant, wiping his tears, advised him to enter the circus school.

What is it?
Program of exploring the moon.
- So... plaster, sand concrete, parquet, tiles, Italian furniture... Norm. Where to sign?

My favorite feature of Pratchett in novels: if he describes fierce wildness and absurdity, then most likely it is a completely real fact from the history of Britain.