Читать книгу The Choice Era. Part 1 - Nata Kay - Страница 2

«Why did you even start remembering all this?» Harry was sitting motionlessly, leaning relaxed against the chair back. He desperately wanted to smoke, but as far as Mona was pregnant, he had to forget about smoking in the apartment, likely for the rest of his life.

«Just for fun,» Bob shrugged his shoulders. «This is our history.»

«These are relics of the past,» Mona got up to make another cup of tea. The first weeks of pregnancy didn’t affect her appearance and motions. Friends and acquaintances, unaware of the good news, didn’t suspect anything. «Are we going to look back to primitive people?»

«Why not,» Bob grinned. «Next time we’ll definitely look back to all our charming hairy ancestors. But our today’s agenda is to reflect not so distant times. When people already knew how to make fire using a lighter, but they still couldn’t choose their sex.»

Bob sighed dreamily.

«Just imagine,» he continued. «What would have happened to you if you had been originally born as a boy or a girl. Stop frowning. Come on… Let’s have fun.»

«I don’t want these kind of funs,» Mona muttered. It was supposed to be just another night, full of fun and conversations about nothing, and it was such a night until Bob started focusing on some odd topics. Mona enjoyed it less and less. She got back to her seat and stared into her cup. «To be born originally as someone is pure wildness.»

Harry said nothing and gave every appearance of supporting his wife.

«You’re all boring,» Bob said slowly and frowned. He was trying to get his friends excited for a good half an hour, but they kept resisting.

«But you’re too funny,» Harry tried to joke. He didn’t like that Bob’s topic was making Mona nervous. Though humanity invented a way to stop the genders evolution long ago, no one had yet devised a medicine guaranteeing the normal fetus development while maternity stress. Scientists were certainly working on such product, but so far the results looked mediocre and unconvincing.

Harry didn’t like and always tried to avoid those moments when Mona was nervous. Usually such state was about annoying voice, sudden moves and, of course, a bit childishly pouted lips. But even in such moments Mona managed to be surprisingly charming.

In fact, nature was favorable to her. Only the ones who saw her without heels, knew that Mona was below average height. However, even a passer-by would appreciate her slim figure and harmonious forms. But no, Mona never put anything out to the world and refused any vulgarity and artsy-fartsy stuff, and the same time, in matters of style of clothes emphasizing her merits, she would give a head-start to a lot of people.

Her face features were never out of fashion – large hazel eyes, a neat nose, graceful expressive cheekbones and pale pink pouty lips. Her dark hair was always styled and well-groomed. Mona also didn’t give it any right to grow longer her shoulders.

In short, almost all her relatives and friends considered Mona attractive and only a few didn’t take an opportunity to make Mona a compliment.

But as for Harry, he was one of those men who were not considered to be an example of absolute beauty. He had a slightly elongated face, thin lips, the most ordinary gray eyes and dark hair which Harry flatly refused to cut in not classical style that Mona considered a bit boring.

Fortunately, all the inconsistencies with ideals were compensated by Harry’s ability for self-presentation. Harry always displayed confidence even in those moments when he really lacked it. At the same time Harry respected the limits between the confidence and self-confidence, and despite some people often neglected such limits, Harry strictly complied with them.

Harry’s facial expressions could be called lively and active, but Nelson never stooped to grimaces. He also preferred the right balance here.

«Sense of humor…» Harry looked at Bob again. «Sometimes it is dangerous, you know».

Bob grimaced, got up slowly, walked over the window and leaned against the frame staring out into the street.

The rays of the evening sun lit the street and decorated the pavement with long figured shadows. These shadows were generously casted by signs of any self-respecting street – houses, trees and people. Summer was just getting started, and the hottest days had not bored the citizens of Lydres yet.

So while a new summer was setting in and examining the territory, cars, as timeless as the sun itself, were rushing along the streets. Cars passed so fast that one could hardly mention them. All of them were definitely in a hurry.

Citizens were also in a hurry. It was only them who knew where and why exactly they were going to. Nobody even tried to examine the «neighbor» on the sidewalk. In a world where everyone focused only on themselves, no one paid the minimal attention to people around.

The lanterns had not yet been lit, and the light brown house, located across the road, still hadn’t got the mystery rewarded by dark every night. Nevertheless, the windows of this house were slowly filling with electric light, and in those apartments where residents hadn’t yet bothered with the pulled curtains, one could easily see the flickering figures.

People who lived there many years ago were observing the same picture. It seemed that such similarity with the past couldn’t be possible in a society marching by leaps and bounds… However, it could.

Despite the fact that technologies were moving on rapidly, people eventually realized that it was important to leave some things at least partially intact. It was about, for example, charming architecture, that continued to delight the eye, to inspire and to give coziness. Surely architecture hadn’t been preserved everywhere. Some cities were growing promptly and brought the most modern fantasies of architects to life. But Lydres wasn’t one of these cities. It kept living its own life filled with a light scent of the past centuries.

The only thing that was different from the past was a lack of cars parked on the sidewalk. Numerous underground garages and parking lots had freed the city from the need to contemplate immobile cars. The streets now looked much wider and more spacious.

«I’ll bring you a few books tomorrow,» Bob looked at Harry through the reflection in the glass.

If Mona hadn’t been annoyed by the topic, she would have grabbed the phone and started taking photos. Mona loved capturing beautiful moments and a huge number of various photos were stored in her laptop’s archives.

Bob kept staring without turning around.

He was a little bit shorter than Harry, but it didn’t matter. His eyes were almost always blazing and, according to the widespread belief, it signified an agile mind, vivid imagination and obsessive desire to get involved into some adventure. Although such qualities were often not welcome, Bob found the middle ground between his own desires and normality a long time ago.

«A few books?» asked Harry and squinted. He still wanted to believe that Bob was just joking. This wasn’t the first time Bob attempted to add something unexpected and provocative in a measured life. Sometimes such attempts led to fun, sometimes to awkwardness.

«We have a library left in the city. Did not you know?»

«I suspected it,» Harry nodded gloomy. «But I thought that its only visitors are… freaks.»

«Well,» Bob smiled again, quickly returned to table, finished his tea in one gulp and loudly put his cup on the table. «You’ve spent the whole evening with a freak. Sorry.»

Harry said nothing.

«I visited it six months ago,» Bob continued. He wasn’t confused with no reaction. «By chance. I just couldn’t get over my curiosity. And then… Well… Now I can’t stop going there. You can’t imagine how interesting to read books it is. The real books. The old ones, I mean.»

«I wouldn’t be interested in it,» snapped Harry.

He gently put his hand on Mona’s arm. Her following sigh expressed gratitude and at the same time emphasized the fact that Mona started to get tired of what was going on. Perhaps Bob also understood that. According to the majority point of view, he honored his friendship and wouldn’t finally upset his friend’s wife by his love for oddities and craziness.

«How would you know? You have never tried to read them…» Bob noted it and turned to a new, more familiar and more approved topic.

The rest of the evening went in pleasant calm conversation squared with appropriate jokes. Mona no longer felt irritation or stress. After the subject was changed, she was back to herself, so her pretty laughter could be heard in this most ordinary city apartment.

The next day Harry forgot about the events of the previous evening and carelessly went to work. The day was going to be warm and pleasant.

On the way to his office Harry popped in a supermarket to buy cigarettes. When he came out, he stopped to let go a group of children, who were probably heading to a tour. Harry smiled.

Children were walking in a column, two by two. Each child was dressed in a warm, cozy sweater of a certain cut. Harry knew that the concept of form in schools was quite particular, but still it provided children and parents with a room for creativity. For instance, everyone could choose the individual colors of a sweater, so the group passing by Nelson was playing with all the possible and impossible colors of a rainbow.

It is useless and senseless to resist this statement that kids always look cute. Public opinion clearly stated the message that children are one of the happy moments in anyone’s life. After he knew about his future fatherhood, Harry supported this statement even more eagerly than ever.

And the children kept walking. They barely spoke. Some couples were exchanging short phrases, showing each other something remarkable on the street, but the most part of this colorful trip was silent. There were smiles playing on the children’s faces. The weather was wonderful, and perhaps they were fascinated by it.

Behind all this sweet brightness Harry, just as other passers-by, didn’t really notice the similarity between children’s hairstyles and faces, though their skin colors were different. It wasn’t even necessary to pay attention to some general customs. For example, when parents were picking up their children from school, they easily distinguished the required children thanks to the intense green sweater and cute beige boots instead of which the other kids had chosen black boots or even sneakers.

One day Harry would buy a uniform for his child and he couldn’t wait for the moment he found out his kid’s favorite colors.

Meanwhile, Harry watched the last couple of children in the column, smiled, checked the cigarettes pack he bought and continued on his way to work, where a big surprise was already waiting for him.

Bob didn’t cheat him.

Harry entered the office and walked to his workplace in a good mood dreaming about something. However, he stopped suddenly on the halfway and stared at the table, or rather at what was on it.

There was a stack of books. The real ones. Tactile. Paper. The books differed from each other in color, size and volume, but they still seemed as a whole.

Book covers were obsolete and faded. On the first try it wasn’t so easy to read some inscriptions on the spines. But Harry was showing no interest in reading titles and authors’ names now. Moreover, he wasn’t going to do it at all.

Bob, who observed Harry from his seat, didn’t cover up his pleasure. He curled his lips. He was obviously waiting for Harry’s reaction.

But there was no response. At least a strong one. Harry let himself only to be surprised for a moment, rather defiantly. His eyes rounded slightly, but in just a second Harry returned to his natural face. He didn’t want to give Bob more reasons for malice and further provocations.

What Harry really tried to avoid was to catch some dirty looks from his colleagues. He knew how his colleagues would react. Books? On Harry’s desk? What does he think he is doing? He definitely shouldn’t be engaged in this kind of silliness, because the most interesting and useful information can be downloaded and read in electronic form, so all these anachronisms belong to the museum as the first phone models, portraits of seventeenth century generals, Celtic coins and mammoth bones.

Harry forced himself to get off the point at which he had frozen. In a few seconds he was at his desk.

There were six people in the room and most of the time Harry was glad to see his colleagues. After several working hours it was pleasant to take a break, to have a word with someone, to exchange news and ideas, to joke, to take the pressure off. But now Harry feared that communication between men and women he was working with would do no good.

Fortunately for Harry, the rest of his colleagues hadn’t yet showed up in the office. It was Harry who usually came to the office first. As for Bob, he was never punctual. There was no doubt that Bob’s early arrival at work was deliberate. Bob was ready for terrible sacrifices, even to get up early for such an important case as a joke on his friend.

«Do you seriously think I’m going to read this?» Harry stressed the word «this». He didn’t want to say the word «books». His mind hardly approved this letter combination.

After turning on the screen Harry started tapping on the mouse to speed up the system. It didn’t work, but Harry was faithful to many rituals.

Nelson didn’t look in the Bob’s direction.

«Open at least one,» said Bob. He didn’t give up. «Not necessarily now. You may do it later, when you are alone, and now you may keep showing your indifference. I don’t mind.»

«What would I do without your permission…» Harry sat down in a chair, opened a drawer and immediately closed it. He wanted to hide the books at first, but then he changed his mind. He decided to let the others see them right away. If the books were hidden, Bob wouldn’t rest and come up with something that Harry would later be very ashamed with.

Harry imagined Bob approaching his desk in the middle of the working day to ask for a stapler, for example. And then Bob could open the drawer and take out one of the volumes with his usual artistry. No… Harry must prevent such performance.

Colleagues were entering the room one by one. As Harry had expected, all of them casted their eyes to the books. One colleague showed bewilderment, another expressed mocking, the third barely concealed some contempt, unlike the fourth who failed to hide it at all. He frowned with a sneer of disgust.

«Please, blame Bob for all this disgrace,» Harry waited until everyone gathered. He said it staring at the screen. It was easier for him. «This month he subjected me to provocations. I hope next time he will find another victim.»

«So that’s that,» Tim, sitting at the next table, grinned. It was he who couldn’t hide his contempt when he entered the room. «Since that’s all for Bob, there’s nothing to worry about. It took a long time for us to get used to his quirks, but I wouldn’t like to lose you, Harry.»

«Oh no…» Bob tried to make a sad grimace, though he could hardly hold his smile. «I thought you liked me.»

«Who said we don’t like you?» Tim played along for him. «Our life would be gray and boring without you. We appreciate you, love you and don’t want to lose you, but two Bobs in one office are too much. By the way, are you sure you want any competition in matters of unpredictability?»

«You’re damn right,» Bob laughed. «I don’t want competitions! I want to be the one, the only.»

The others also smiled, and Harry was simply happy that this awkward situation was resolved painlessly for him. He did everything possible, any other actions could lead to trouble. Harry silently praised himself for choosing the most appropriate behavior pattern.

A working day was going as usual. Fingers tapping on the keyboard or on the table meant the active chatting with clients and partners. From time to time someone couldn’t stand it, picked up a phone and switched to verbal negotiations, after which he immediately returned to the keyboard to document everything. Undocumented negotiations were not regarded as negotiations.

A few hours later it was time for lunch, which included a traditional march to a local cafeteria, a set meal with its subsequent eating and a few minutes for a smoke break. Harry couldn’t smoke at home, so he allowed himself to smoke more at work. It was a double satisfaction from cigarettes especially after the long lack of access to them.

And then correspondence, negotiations, plans drafting and their implementation again. Coffee and work went hand in hand without any harm to the process. And another day was getting away outside the window.

It seemed that one day was like another one, just as the another one was like the next. However, despite all the illusory similarity, days can’t be the same. The world is constantly changing, technologies are running ahead, people’s lives are turning like pages one by one. People are gaining new experience and memories. By all accounts people can only decide whether they are ready to notice changes and seize moments, or they are happier when they just go with the flow without looking around.