The impossibility of the island

I walk along a long, deserted white beach to a huge rusty gut with sails. It rises about two kilometers from me, and from afar not to make out what it is.

Along the way, I almost stumble about Stepa, who establishes Bologna’s awning for himself and the son at the very edge of the sea. Stepa is a master of the hot workshop from Murmansk. On this deserted sea of ​​Step, having quiting Murmansk work and selling a Murmansk apartment, he arrived with his family a year and a half ago. And right in the small van, in which they arrived, they began to live. "Right here, by the sea?" - I'm surprised. Instead of answering Step, he asks if I were in Murmansk. I nod. "Well, that means you understand that from the point of view of the place I won." I try to, waving my hands, ask about nostalgia at once, and about a career thrown halfway, and about old friends, and about unfulfilled hopes, in general, about everything that I thought about, walking along this deserted beach towards a rusty stack with sails.

“In fact, nobody needs me equally both here and here,” says Stepa, “but here is better climate.” And then in Hemingeevsky he looks somewhere in the horizon and adds: “The main thing is to stop hope that it will become better. Because of this hope, many pull with departure. I personally pulled for five years. ”

I agree. For example, I consider hope to be one of the most harmful feelings granted to a person. A man who has lost hope is inconsolable. A person who has never had her is invulnerable.

* * *

During the “swamp” unrest of December 2011, one friend of mine enthusiastically retold a conversation with the wife of a large television official. The wife trembled: “He is not his own, almost does not sleep. We are now choosing a cheaper country, understand? For an escape. "

What did I experience in that December? Probably the same as many then: hope. That justice will triumph. That they (these same “there, upstairs”) will become, if not afraid and respect us, then certainly to be considered.

At some point, a little reckless hope that the Duma, so outraged people with his fake election, would even be grown in me, and then we will take honestly and choose a new one. And this new one will be better than the same, illegitimate. Honest, more correct. Etc. etc. What can I say, the hope is also fraught with the fact that you are right from her.

Of course, the Duma was not dismissed. And even those of the Duma people who gave hopes for decency still remained in it.

The December was January, February and March. March was very important. Then, on the one hand, it became, on the one hand, it was clear that even if you are outwitted all sorts of fraud, then the choice of the majority - here he is crying on the screen. But on the other hand, the hope appeared that this is dutifully voting the majority - no longer so overwhelming. That people raise their heads from an affordable sausage taken out of the refrigerator bought on credit ...

... And, hoping for this, we closed the white ring, indignant at the false television program of the “Anatomy of Protest”, signed appeals and considered themselves waking civil society. Nadezhda subnightly slipped the options: to squeeze, but no - to wait for when they are weakened, to show not diplomacy, so cunning. Do not stop where and how to-give the prochindes by brisk slogans, mass demonstrations, mischievous photojabs and something else creative.

I wrote "Most likely." Because I still hope a fool. This is wrong.

Well, and all such inspired went to rallies and pickets. Flashmobes and near political humor are very blossomed. In general, we began to download the rights with a cheerful crowd, made it clear that before everything that was happening in the country, the city, the area, the entrance, we deal. Hoped that this would change something ...

At first, they really sat there more or less quietly. There was a hope that they would sit their own - how much is there? -Four or six years. And in Russia you have to live for a long time. And we will survive them. We hoped - we will survive. So April passed. And May came.

At first, slowly, they began to click on the nose of those who are more closely. Then dismiss those who are not in the choir. Then - plant. Just in that inaugural May, they began to plant especially massively. However, they somehow planted completely unsystematic: those who were, and those who were not and could not be, and those who were, but did not participate. There was no logic in landings. Apparently, this is how the ancient tradition of intimidation works, apparently, its law has yet to be comprehended.

The idiocy of hope is also that it does not allow to assess the situation as hopeless in time. I remember, in the fall of 2012, when they planted Tolokonnikov, Alekhin and Samutsevich, they still knew how to joke more or less about “when you reach the bottom, they will knock down”, and much more. And the square around the court on the day of the sentence was resembled an amateur festival: people, faces, music.

Around everything was already extremely unpleasant and unpromising, but we persuaded each other: in the end, because you can grow in yourself the possibility of the island - to live, work, inspire yourself with the theory of small affairs and commit them tirelessly. In this, they will not be able to interfere with us! Just work honestly and professionally, do not betray yours and do not cooperate with scoundrels. And what? Fine. Island.

Almost all the media, where my friends or journalists that I believe worked, during this time collapsed or ceased to be those media. Each of the dismissed, as someone recently noticed, now recalls his last work as “the best in life”. Because everyone understands that there is like no human work by profession in the near future. Now I wrote "Most likely." Because I still hope a fool. This is wrong.

What are you drinking? Who do you live with? In what position? How often? Who is the parents?

At first, the dismissed gave interviews to reporters who still worked. These interviews diverged, they were quoted, reading, shook their heads. Then there was no one to take the interview. And there is practically no one to talk about dismissal. Although, of course, it is clear that these dismissal are the tenth most important topic. But, for example, a person dies in some hospital, and negligence and lawlessness around. And they do not help him, and they even refuse to transfuse blood. How was it before? You went and made a plot. Or wrote a note. Or called the guys, colleagues: make a plot, write a note ...

Or, for example, they did not treat a child with autism for cancer, because he has autism, and was kicked out of the hospital. Or, for example, a person was accused of a severe article without a single evidence according to falsified indications. Or, for example, a business was taken away from a classmate in your hometown, because he, inspired by talking with you and your friends from your guest, returning home, suddenly refused to participate in the vertical of corruption. And he logically completely selected the business, and he himself was put for six years, as it were, for corruption, and he has three children and his wife was sobbing. Or, for example, your friends dragged a deadly ill child from the charity fund, found his foster parents for distant lands, so that there, in the thirtieth state, this deadly sick baby had the opportunity to live with everyone on an equal footing, to be loved and to develop fully, and then four hundred people who deeply spit on this child took this happy opportunity. Indifferent people told the president a hundred times: well, look, this law makes people badly, it hurts, and the president only shrugged and began to talk about how much America does not like. Or, for example, your neighbor, well, that’s the sand-colored tennis, with which you were ridiculously with your eyes in the mirror of the elevator of your house, some patriotic bastards at the bus stop near your house because he held his boyfriend’s hand. Or, for example, damn it, these guys, which for more than a year has not seen white light in the “swamp business”, sat down or sit down for our hopes. Or, for example ... these examples can be a million. All of them are long posts on the social network Facebook . With hundreds of reposts, dozens of comments and almost zero effect. And at some point, when you learn about trouble in which you could help two or three years ago, and now you can only a post in Facebuchik, your hands are lowered. This is a shitty island. But you are still holding on. Hope. You are trying to establish at least something on this island with the last strength, you try to be well done.

Someone is finishing with Greencard documents in the USA. Someone takes money and buys land or real estate somewhere in the EU.

And then they themselves come to your island, sit down at your table without an invitation, take it, turn in their hands and, with a finger, examine your cups. What are you drinking? Who do you live with? In what position? How often? Who is the parents? And this is - whose personal belongings on the chest of drawers? And by the way, the child is playing in your room - he is definitely yours? And do you behave well enough so that you are not taken away from you?

And here it is already stupid to hope. This is not an island, a friend. This was driven into a corner. You lost. We, with our hopes, lost. This is so obvious that it does not require any additional examples to confirm. And it is also completely clear that, according to the existing logic of things, the loser must leave. Disappear. It is in the air.

Three of the five most read materials in June in the magazine "Money" - about emigration. More than half of my friends have already managed to get a residence permit and a place for life in Latvia or Bulgaria, in Croatia or the Czech Republic, in Germany or even South Africa. If anything, they explain, you will only need to have time to buy a ticket.

Someone is finishing with Greencard documents in the USA. Someone takes money and buys land or real estate somewhere in the EU, where there are guarantees of a residence permit and then-a passport of a citizen of the European Union. Who can afford, tries to have time to attach children to study somewhere abroad.

This year, many former chief editors, or just good journalists, or just people who have lost hope and now not related to any constant work in Russia, went on long vacations in different countries with removable studios or even vans to try on this possibility of an escape, which they spoke for so long, but in the inevitability of which, it seems, did not believe until the last moment.

* * *

I walk along a long, white and completely empty beach towards a rusty gibberish with home -made striped sails. I just read the news from my homeland, and I shakes me a little. I saw the blue, swollen face of the guy, who was beaten in the face with his feet only because he is gay. I saw and heard how the Patriarch told the president that you, they say, in every sense of the superman, and even corrected the curvature of the history of Russia, and the president did not lead an eyebrow, did not stop him - what do you carry, your Holiness - and sat, happy, listened. I read about how in one hospital people are treated with cancer in a four -seater ward, and none of them know who is lucky to get blood transfusion today, because the blood is absolutely not enough for everyone, and it is unclear why they will die: from cancer or from the situation that has developed in this hospital. I read, although I did not understand a damn thing, all this nonsense with the inconsistent resignation of Yakunin and the associated undercover fuss. I saw a baby with a Down syndrome, about which a aunt from social protection in the plot confidently reported that he was a moron, in the sense that he could not remember his failed foster parents, and the educators of the orphanage closed their hands to the castle and tried to speak in an even voice: he watched the album with photographs of these future moms and pope, he loves them. Love.

I even looked fluently the program that was made at my former place of work towards the anniversary of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former coolest oligarch and the current most worthy politicalze, a man who spent one fifth of his life in prison because he hoped that they would not put him, and then hoped that they would imprison - but not so much, then hoping that he could defeat. And now we all hope that he will win. But in this hope there is also a lot - from hopelessness. And the transfer made at my former place of work, which, by the way, was called “murder as a gift”, just brought the line under hopelessness.

In general, I was shaking. I walked along this endless beach and realized that with any of these news I could not do anything: to fix, help, cancel. That is, nothing at all.

Nearby was the former Murmansk master of the hot workshop of Stepan. He said something about a rusty vessel with sails. Two -thirds I seem to have missed my ears: "What?" Stepa shrugged and began to tell again: this thing is the former combat amphibian of the Marine Corps of the Armed Forces of the USSR. The devil knows how she ended up here. But Stepa, who served in the army for about such, for little money helps Bulgarian Buse to serve her. Tourists are rolled along the amphibians along the sea: adults for six leftists, children over four, the second child - for free.

I did not believe very much until Stepan helped me get inside, did not get amphibia and made a circle along the sea and the sandy shore.

Inside the amphibians (it is Soviet), along with instructions for managing the water and on land, as well as what to do if the amphibia gets stuck, there was a sign that the enemy did not doze and eavesdropped.

A couple of years ago, I would giggle - it is necessary, Soviet atavism on a foreign beach. And then - shrugged. I suddenly remembered how vigilant citizens in the St. Petersburg metro hit these unfortunate hugging girls.

Styopa lit a cigarette. Having rested his foot on the side of the rusty dish, he smoked and was silent. Then he suddenly said: "In fact, you can still jump off, not a drift."

I jumped with rusty amphibians, which my son, by the way, from afar called the Flying Ship.

I went to tell the children what kind of flying ship is actually near. And I thought that the former Murmansk master of the hot workshop of Stepan, who left me on the “ship”, perhaps, is right. Probably, it is still possible: to leave, leave, disappear. To begin with, you just need to stop looking at whether the battery has charged on the phone. Stop writing and receiving personal SMS. Stopping, looking back, worrying how much you did not have time to go where you were forced to leave, how much you might have to do, stop clinging to the suburban. And stop, damn it, read this news, from which it shakes.

Understand what I lost. And decide on an escape, which implies either an early pension or a wonderful opportunity to live two lives in one.

And start with some simple and understandable point: how much tomatoes? Is it a tide or tide? Why does the tail have a long swallow, and the haircut is short? And how to feed the chicks, say, a cut, if they fell out of the nest?

Then remember what you dreamed of doing in childhood and whether it is now possible to master this profession. Or another. It doesn't matter. It is important before closing the metaphysical gateways to have time to inform the coordinates of your escape to those whom you love. Not hoping for anything.