Inhabitants

Enkidon. Street.

Red snow. Wet. Sticky. There is eternal dampness and draft in a torn shoe. Enkidon walked, walked, slipping on the sprinkled ice of the road, Enkidon walked, afraid to twist his foot. He walked, saying: “I shouldn’t have tucked in...” But instead of “foot,” “fate” slipped out. The snowdrifts hid the first floors, the snowdrifts turned red, melted at the edges, became covered with scabs, became heavy, and under the windows there were dark holes in the snowdrifts from fools jumping into them. A week ago: the snow was light, white and kind to fools.

Enkidon was afraid of catching a cold. Getting sick in a town means you won’t be able to get up. The paramedic has a thermometer and alcohol. Enkidon did not like alcohol. He met old Eperspel on his way. Although, “old” is still the same as Eperspel. Nobody knew the young man. Outlived everyone. (“And me, he will outlive me,” thought Enkidon) Eperspel is bent, as if once upon a time his head, neck, arms, shoulders and right leg were twisted and pulled towards the chest center of his dry body. The left leg was longer than the right, it remained free and made it difficult to walk, dragging. There is no need for Eperspel to wander along such a road. In the city, if you fall, you can’t get up. But how did he get to this day? Enkidon did not envy the old man, he shook his head: “Take care of yourself Eperspel.” The old man twitched his lip, released a quiet sound from his clenched mouth and walked into the Juice store. Water". Neither juices nor waters have been sold for a long time. Moonshine was distilled by Ekerkhil. She drove it, butted it and poured it into half-liter bottles. Lent. Eperspel owed her a pension. But to someone in the town: if you don’t drink, then it’s impossible to get up. Eperspel has left the street and will not come in soon. Enkidon can't see through the door. He won't hear. But why not stand? Breathe. Imagines Enkidon. As if he knows: Ekerhil still needs to be persuaded, promised: “The train is about to come.” The old man makes signs to her. Dancing on the right, shuffling with the left.

And the train—the train won’t come. Enkidon will remain silent, will not say anything to either Eperspel, or Ekerhil, or those fools who strive to jump into the red and heavy snow.

Ephemtopl. Train.

Time was racing against the carriage and the locomotive. Catching up, sometimes running ahead, inviting Ephemtoplos with him, and he, Ephemtople, Second Class Conductor, turned on the water heater, looked out the window and counted the telegraph poles along the road measuring the time. Although... Although Enkidon... And Enkidon speaks as if he knows. He, Enkidon, did not agree with him, and for some reason he called Ephemtopla a turtle, laughing at the frail time. Enkidon knows nothing, nothing. He considers himself smart: there, off the road, in his sleepy town time. Off the road.

There's childhood there. I don't really remember. Childhood is a separate Time. Inside it are you, and the paths you have trodden, and your friends: Enkidon is still in dirty shorts and torn sandals. Why does he always have trouble with his shoes? Yolk and white. The yolk is ripening. Excises protein. And later...

Later the cracks spread. That time is exploding. You push through. You crawl out. And you're on the road. And the First gives you a student badge. Here the zero pillar is left behind. And you will find out that the first on the route is far from the first, and you are definitely not the last. Another pillar, and another. And the First one goes for a promotion. And when you take his post, you take a can of paint, paint over the walls in the carriage, hiding other people’s questions and answers.

There, off the road, is a divided, dissected world that has no limits. There's a mix of times. And it seems: it is impossible, impossible to look at the world from the outside, to take a look at it, to take a closer look and see at once: there is the First striving for his Station, there is Enkidon wandering in tattered boots, on his eternal path, along the Street, and there are his parents carrying him, Ephemtoplus, wordless, loud, light, carrying him to their home.

Ephemtople tried to remember his first day on the road. So long ago: The first one handed him the keys to the carriage. Then I went to see the Driver, warned about the change of the Driver and stayed on the platform, waiting for a new route. Somewhere, Ephemtople imagined, somewhere between the Stations, the First continues his eternal competition with time.

On the wall, near the heater, someone scribbled: “Ephemtopl, why?” The inscription has absorbed layers of soot and grease. Don’t try to scrub it off: the wall is just whiter, and the inscription is louder. To answer, the place is untouched. Passengers are waiting and waiting. Let it be. Early.

There, behind the road, everything is different. There, far, far away in the steppe, time is different, it is not in a hurry, it is like a cat wrapping itself around you, putting itself and everything around to sleep, but here: the three hundred and eighty-fifth pillar from the last station, and the measured gossip of wheels and rails, and today’s two passengers in the first, only car of the train. And we need to make tea for them. The water is warm. Today: the road from the town to the Station. There should be a way back tomorrow. Hurry up, time, we are now - so it seemed to Ephemtoplu - we are overtaking you on the way to the town.

Enifir. House.

The rope lasts. It lasts throughout the house: from Enifir’s wrist, through the room, down the corridor. Lasts and leads. Where will it lead? Where? Enifir sits on an untidy bed. It's cold in the house. I had enough strength to wake up. Gray-brown dreams. There have been no blue and yellow in dreams for a long time. They never have a son. No one turned to look at her in them. Enifir tried to remember: did she call out to anyone? The dream is getting thinner. Like a nightie. Washed, crumbling. Not warming the aged body. Enifir could not warm herself. The rope stretches from her wrist. Pulls. The first nodule is next to a beating vein, on the left arm, under thin yellowed skin. And it's quiet in the house. Why can't you hear your neighbors downstairs? Once upon a time, it seemed to Enifir, once upon a time, every winter, in a frozen house, in this apartment, somewhere in the rooms, you could find your son and come across Empitocles, grumpy from a young age, and...

Dream. It's getting thinner. It fades. Enifir decides to get up and go. The icy floor was waiting for warmth. From the first knot you can move further, go around the wrist. On to the next one. In fact, Enifir realized, there weren’t that many knots.

“It’s a shame,” Enifir decided, “It’s a shame if that’s the case.”

So many winters have passed in a cold house. So many winters in which the three of them could see each other. They could wait, endure, not endure and not wait. They could have known. Or think like this: they say, we know. They might as well not do anything for each other. And more often, more often,” Enifir recalled, “more often they agreed with the idea that they would make it.

Nobody turned around. She didn’t call out to anyone. They left. The rope lasts. Bare feet on the bare floor. Why is there so little blue and yellow in the room? The tension on my wrist eased. Enifir holds onto the rope with both hands, it leads into the corridor: through a chair with a robe on the back, through a table with an open notebook written in her hand, through a chest of drawers and a mirror, past the window, into the corridor. Enifir followed the path of someone's care.

In the notebook: the dreams and laments of yesterday's (?) Enifir (her handwriting, hers) are written on... Two bright spots on a piece of paper. Blue and yellow. A comb was taken from the chest of drawers, and in the mirror the aged Enifir changed her mind about unraveling her hair. It's coldest by the window. Ice forms on the glass from cracks in the window frame. But for now you can still see the town street, buried in the red snow that has approached its windows. The slacker Enkidon can be seen standing near the Juice.Water store.

“And the rope,” Enifir remembered, “the rope still lasts.”

Further. Further.

Enkidon. Street.

(Enkidon is coming. We’ll write about it a little later)

Ephemtopl. Train.

The train stopped. Ephemtople looked out the window and heard the compartment door opening nervously. Ephemtople did not turn around. Ephemptople looked out the window: the white sky was spilling snow onto the white field. Away from the road, falling knee-deep, waist-deep, the Machinist walked, crawled, rolled, rose, without turning from his path. A dark blue figurine with a red cap band in its head and crimson hands.

-Where are his gloves? - Ephemtopl asked himself.

Water boiled in the heater. Behind him is a surprised question from a passenger: “Are we having an accident?...” This one, from the seventh, lower seat: bald, thin, in a worn, shabby suit, he sleeps in it straight up, doesn’t take the bed, with a hoarse voice from under a knitted scarf wrapped around his long neck and with woolen tassels sticking out of his jacket; with eyes under the triangles of the eyelids - always looking past you. And the jingling of spoons in unwashed glasses, which the passenger brought with him. Ephemtople thanked him, took the dishes, put on his overcoat, and for a long time could not get into the sleeve: “Don’t worry,” Ephemtople buttoned up the first button on the third attempt, “I’ll be there now, I’ll be there soon.” Tea, drink tea." Ephemptopl, sinking his feet into his felt boots, looked at the autumn boots of the man who had caught a cold: it seemed he was sleeping in them.

“Don’t worry,” Ephemtopl repeated at the exit, at the vestibule.

There is only steppe around: white turns into white. The green paint of the diesel locomotive and two cars: one passenger, the other freight, are covered with soot and cannot be washed off. The white sky spilled snow onto the white field. Recently cleaned tracks - black stripes of rails, intermittent, on white.

But the driver didn’t close the door behind him, didn’t lower the ladder, and jumped straight into a snowdrift.

Driver.

They saw each other twice in ten years. And Ephemptopl’s back always answered. In the summer of the first year, the blue jacket barely audibly said, casually: “Well done, replacement.” At the end of this tenth autumn, the blue overcoat cleared its throat, stopping and hesitating: “It’s not time, eh? Replacement?"

Ephemtopl did not know his name. And scream. Ephemptople did not shout after him. He didn’t climb into the cabin and press the horn. If only I could catch up with him. To make it before time, flowing somewhere out there, in another stream, pulls him away, carries him away. “We have to be in time,” Ephemtople told himself and followed the tracks.

The driver is now nowhere to be seen. Maybe he’s tired, lies down, looks at the white sky, becomes covered in white? And be on time. "For what? - the Driver will ask him, - This is your way. This is your “not to be in time” Do you see my path? No? Not to be seen. Out! - and waves his hand to where one devil everything is equally white. But he, the Driver, knows better.

Dark blue gloves were found. What a time: “follow-follow” and the right shoe meets. Old, broken, with his mouth slightly open on his unstuck sock, he waited for Ephemtoplos, waited and saw him off.

“Hey, Enkidon, you know everyone in town.” That's what they say. Why didn’t I ask you whose back has been talking to me for the last ten years?

Step. Step. Step. Follow-follow. Falling through. Step. Falling through. Step.Step. Rolling. Crawling. Rising. Step, step, step.

The overcoat lay with its sleeves spread out to the sides, its interior empty and open.

From it, further, there are four traces, and each subsequent one is smaller. The fifth is almost invisible. The sixth is just a touch.

The white sky spilled snow onto the white field. And somewhere behind: recently cleaned tracks - black stripes of rails, intermittent, on white.

Enifir. House.

to be continued