Читать книгу A Man from the Future. 1856 - Евгений Платонов - Страница 9

Dmitry spent Friday evening at home, lying on the couch and mindlessly flipping through TV channels. But his thoughts were far away – in the past, in a childhood that now seemed somehow unreal, as if from someone else’s life.

When did everything change? he thought. When did I become like this? I was a child once, I dreamed about things, I was happy about things. When did it end?

He closed his eyes and tried to remember himself as a little boy. There he was, seven-year-old Mitya, sitting in an armchair at his grandfather Sergei Ivanovich’s place, listening to stories about the war, about the siege, about how people died of hunger but never surrendered.

“Could you have died for the Motherland, Grandpa?” little Dmitry would ask.

“I could have, grandson,” Grandpa would answer, stroking his head. “Because there are things more precious than life. Honor, conscience, love for your people.”

Honor, conscience, love for your people, the adult Dmitry thought bitterly. And what do I have? I update antivirus software and get paid for it. Where’s the honor in that? Where’s the conscience? Where’s the love for something greater than my own belly?

Grandpa died when Dmitry was twelve. In his final years the old man had been ill, but until his very death he kept a clear mind and a love of books. He had an enormous library – shelves from floor to ceiling, filled with historical works, memoirs, fiction.

“Mitya,” Grandpa would say, “books are the only thing that remains of a person after death. Not money, not things – but thoughts, ideas, feelings that he managed to pass on to others.”

And what will remain of me? Dmitry thought painfully. I haven’t written any books, haven’t passed on any ideas. I haven’t even had children who might remember something about me.

After Grandpa’s death, his parents sold the apartment and the library. “Nobody needs these old books,” his mother said. “Better to get money, spend it on your education.” That was when twelve-year-old Dmitry felt real pain for the first time in his life – not physical, but spiritual. He understood that his closest person was gone, and everything that remained of him was being sold off.

Maybe that’s when it started? he reflected. When I understood that everything in this world is temporary, that people die, and their legacy gets sold for money?

At thirteen, Dmitry discovered historical films. First it was Soviet classics – Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible, War and Peace. Then American ones – Braveheart, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven.

He watched and envied the heroes of the past. They lived in an era when you could perform great deeds, fight for justice, die for an idea. And what had fallen to him? An age of consumption, where the main goal was to make money and buy something new.

That’s when the dream was born, he remembered. To travel to another time, another era. To become a knight or a warrior, to defend the weak, to fight injustice. Childish dreams, naive, stupid.

In high school he took up historical reenactment. At first he just went to festivals to watch, then tried his hand as a squire, and by graduation he had his own armor and sword.

“Mitya, enough playing war!” his father would say. “You’re an adult now, you’ll be going to the army soon, and you’re still playing at knights.”

“It’s not a game, Dad,” Dmitry tried to explain. “It’s studying history, culture, traditions.”

“What traditions?” his father would snap. “Dead people’s traditions! You’d be better off learning programming or English. At least that pays.”

Money, money, money, Dmitry thought. For my parents, nothing existed except money. Dad worked as an engineer at a factory, Mom as an accountant at an office. Honest, hardworking people, but so gray, so faceless. They lived their whole lives without understanding anything about it, without feeling anything.