THE POWER OF OLI

PRIVATE BUSSINESS

I was entrusted with deep secretsBlok, "Stranger" I understand that I need to help my wife carry bags from the market. But I don’t like walking along the counters with all the fibers. One to go to the market - still all right. For example, a wife calls the editorial office: “You...

Deaf mysteries entrusted to me

Block, "The Stranger"

I understand that you need to help your wife carry bags from the market. But I don’t like walking along the counters with all the fibers. One to go to the market - still all right. For example, a wife calls the editorial office: “Will you by any chance buy apples along the way?” I can go in, but what about the money? Well, do you have a stash? You buy it, and I'll refund it later.

When alone, I trade like a Scythian and an Asian. And with his wife, he once began to be a client in the market who is always right, and then he received a short message from her: “Well, why are you climbing? Everyone here knows me and sometimes they say about surrender, “then you will bring it in,” and they choose what is better, and you spoil my relationship with people.

One day I read about a serious study: it turns out that after 15 minutes of walking with his wife along the counters, the likelihood of a stroke increases dramatically. Of course, this conclusion was a serious argument. Science is not a pound of raisins. And since then it has become easier to go to the market with my wife. Just a little, a hidden anguish appears on my face, and she herself mutters: “What, is it not good for you? Just be patient, we'll be leaving soon."

But bags are a must. The family is big: a son and his wife, a student daughter, a dog Dasha and two turtles without names. And every living person needs a mother. That is, while it is there, the table is covered with a self-collected tablecloth, and the chambers are removed, and the bed is made, swept and washed, and whoever brought food from the market and cooked it, who cleaned it and covered it, as if not. And if the mother gets sick or leaves somewhere, then something hangs over the house, and it becomes uncomfortable, the dog lies motionless in the hallway, and at a glance it is clear that someone close to her has died and will never return. And turtles rage in the aquarium, demanding grub and fresh water; the filter and heater come off the walls, and the dinosaurs' contemporaries bang them against the walls, threatening to break them, and scurry restlessly in the cloudy water. Dinosaur contemporaries also had mothers.

Turtles are capricious, like everyone else, they completely refuse cheap lemonella and want cod. Carrying water in basins for them is also not sugar. But no one can fuse them. “Well, when I give them back, look - I go up to the aquarium, and they recognize me and rejoice: my mother has come, cheers! No, I can't, they're looking into my eyes."

And he carries heavy bags. The tablecloth is a self-assembly, it’s not covered out of thin air.

Why is a mother sacred, and a wife, as it were, not? What is the difference?

And if not for her, I would now serve as a stoker of some sort. Or he collected empty bottles. Because from childhood he was prone to indifference and universal sadness. After the polytechnic, the head of the research institute asked me: “Will you decide whether you will be a football player or an engineer?” I promised to think about it, but soon, by order of the director, I was transferred to some kind of household work in order to play for the institute for the city championship and, of course, not go to any work.

What normal girl would want to marry such a jerk?

Maybe there, in heaven, some contacts closed incorrectly, and God still gave me a Wife. And he ordered her to cling to her husband with all the fibers of her soul and with all the big and small meanings of life. Or maybe he didn’t order (I didn’t hear), but she herself did so.

“They got together”: Dragon and Fish, Cancer and Dog (to guard the hearth?). Matched like two pieces of a puzzle. There was no possibility. So that in one place and at one time. Therefore, I do not doubt the Divine providence.

God did not give the Wife right away. First, I held a rehearsal, at which it turned out that there was nothing for me to do in this world. That is, he formally found a companion, but nothing good came of it. And as soon as the doubts dissipated, I immediately indulged in my favorite thing: indifference and universal sadness. Even with relief. The curious can go home: the rehearsal has failed, and there will be no concert.

But then everything changed, and the past life fell off like a shell of a caterpillar: my wife herself created me from the ruins, while doing nothing of the kind, and before that I could not even imagine that this detuned piano could make any sounds at all.

She is very proud of my co-correspondence and reads the newspaper like her own, from cover to cover. And to all her acquaintances she ardently describes the merits of our newspaper with her, so that they buy it. But objectivity is not given to her. "You are not in the room - and there is nothing to read."

She is afraid when strangers or unfamiliar people call me and offer to meet outside the editorial office. What if this is a trap? After all, many have crossed the road. Nothing like this has ever happened at such meetings, but she is still afraid: who and why? Olenka, well enough already, tired!

And if they report another attack on a journalist or a murder, she becomes painful and quiet, as before tears. Closes in the kitchen and smokes.

Sometimes I think: I was handed a young, tender creature, and it is growing old before my eyes, and I can't do anything about it. I should do it, but I don't know what. Not enough mind.

A wife is like the alphabet of all life from “a” to “z”. In the morning the smell of pancakes, the children are still sleeping, and the wife hums softly in the kitchen. You don't know yet, and this is the best morning of your life, and it will never get better.

Or at night: she cries. No sound, but you're awake. Nearby is a failure into the abyss, and she dies there, but it is useless to extend a hand or say something. Only despair rises from the bottom of the soul and drowns, and nothing can be done.

And in the morning:

- Are you awake? And I came to wake you up.

- It was necessary before. Now I myself can wake anyone you want.

The abyss has tightened, and we pretend not to notice it.

She knows the mood of her husband by the doorbell. Even on a phone call. Maybe electricity, superimposed on the aura, changes the tone of the sound.

Together we feel annoyed that we have such a boorish, ill-mannered government. Also deceitful unusually. As one of the nobles in Dumas said, they don’t duel with such people, they beat them with whips in the backyards. There's just no one to do it.

Sometimes we say out loud the same words and even phrases. Then it turns out that the train of thought was the same. Although everyone knows that this does not happen. And if thoughts do not represent a secret, then nothing can be hidden. At first glance - horror! But when there is nothing to hide, it suddenly turns out that special wisdom is hidden in this. You return to the night, and the wife asks: “Where have you been?!”. And you begin to weave a rope from theoretical circumstances. It seems grief that you come to this very night, but the Hamlet question: where have you been?! We don't sound. She knows everything. And you don’t have to answer: “Where, where, I drank beer! ..”.

Perhaps, in return for this gift, I have to do some great things. But I didn’t and I don’t even know what they want from me.

And when I die (before her, of course: men in Russia live up to 58, and women - sixty-something), she will die on the same day. She herself said. These are, of course, beautiful words, but beauty has nothing to do with it. It's true, I know. Therefore, I will do my best to live until the average female term, and then we'll see. This is in all seriousness, and I like it so much that I myself have a lump in my throat.

Time flows towards autumn, although we are far from the patriarchs. The children were once small (“Mom, I got an A in behavior! Yes, if you knew what it cost me to sit it out!”), And now they are adults, and the daughter is already a student. Completely different people than those in the wheelchair. Sometimes it seems: just neighbors in a communal apartment. And the wife... I saw this on TV: the birds are chasing the chicks, which it is time to fly on their own, and everyone is trying to push them back into the nest. They are naive, these birds, and are doomed to be left alone and sit on a branch, chirping in confusion. But the wife and daughter-in-law adopted them as chicks (“Vika, where are you without a jacket? Do you know how cold it is there! Put it on right now!”), although quite recently - or three hundred years ago? - she herself was a student, and her elastic silks wafted with ancient beliefs.

Day and night meanwhile are changing faster and faster. Get up, get up, get up - Happy New Year!

Getting old. And the souls are the same, young, but no one knows this. Soon they will generally say: the old man and the old woman have gone. Although my companion actually remained the same - breathing spirits and mists ... And others are trying on her elastic silks. Daughter, for example. And he has no idea who they are.

But autumn is also good. Every morning someone manages to repaint the world in new watercolors, and if you look at it slowly, you can see how someone unknown gives you signs, and guess the great meaning; it just doesn't come out without haste. It's nice to think about how silent theatrical snow falls all day outside the window, blankets on our knees, and white puppet hills grow on the windowsill outside the window, like scenery; cars on the road are almost inaudible, and on all the roofs lie, as if on trays, puff cakes of snowdrifts. Or is it my wife and I standing at the window and holding our little son, so that he also looks at what it is like, winter outside the window, and the dear daughter is still only in the plans, and a whole life lies ahead, and, shackled by a strange closeness, I see a dark veil ...

SOCIAL POLL

March shopping spree

93% of Russians - 94% of men and 92% of women - are going to congratulate women on March 8 Day. On average, each of these 94% of men will congratulate five women, and each of the 92% of women - seven. In total, there will be an average of about a dozen congratulations per capita of the female population.

This holiday pleases 88% of women. He also pleases 87% of men, because congratulations are also a joy. This holiday pleases even those who are not going to congratulate anyone on it - 81% of men who do not congratulate anyone and 69% of women. But still, this holiday brings more joy to those who congratulate five, eight, nine, ten women (95-100%). So the more we congratulate, the more we rejoice.

With two reservations. For both men and women, for some reason, it is more joyful to congratulate a single woman (89%) than two or three. And congratulating more than ten women is already too much, especially for men. The joy from this is exactly the same as if you did not congratulate anyone (81%).

Alexander GOLOV, Levada Center