Читать книгу Deja vu. Love - Sergey Zybolov - Страница 11

WHITE

The service factory bus departed from the house where the ants lived on a Sunday schedule, at seven-fifteen, punctually according to a strictly time-honored schedule, since along the way it was necessary to go around several more points in order to “load” all the working people. Our comrades just had enough time to spare, a toe to toe to get into funny striped black and white overalls from comfortable and very thin, but durable raincoats, designed for painting work, in which they looked like hilarious exotic zebras, and go down to high-speed elevator to the first floor.

Ski, already dressed in colorful attire, humorously portrayed an impatient horse waiting, – mischievously and sweepingly hit the imagined hoof on the floor. He opened the door wide open, and, with a friendly wave of his left foot on Ave’s goodbye, the other pressed the red button for calling the elevator several times. The doors of the lifting device swung open silently, and at the same second Rond jumped out of the apartment, fastening the last button on the move. It was obscured in the half-darkness of the elevator, where there were already a dozen of the same striped ants like them.

– Have a good leap for you today, zebras! Victory at the races! – Cheerfully chased after Av, but it was too late, the elevator doors closed. He decided then to cheer himself up and sang aloud. – Go-o-o to work! Go-go-o-o! There are forces, and we will overcome everything without problems!

He bounced high on one leg, then on the other, shaking zero the last, stuck in a passing consciousness, invisible drops of sleep and, turning around, continued his housework. The duties of the duty officer on Wednesday and Sunday included: a trip for life-giving nectar, the release of accumulated garbage, a shopping tour to the supermarket for groceries and a number of household chores.

Ave never wondered what he liked more: housekeeping or working in a factory. The most important thing is the work that is beneficial. For Ski and Ronda, there was no difference either, the cult of working with the Damocles sword hung over all ants, imperceptibly, subconsciously. They could not help but work, and plowed tirelessly almost around the clock, on a small condition: if only they were given time for short lunch breaks. And no matter what they do: they worked on the assembly line or washed clothes, raised domestic animals or harvested, cleaned the house or cooked food, any useful activity nurtured an ever new and indefatigable desire for work in them. It was a kind of sophisticated drug, more and more dragging red-haired creatures into its nets. Why and for whom did they work?

Such a difficult question fell apart into tiny particles at lightning speed. Each working individual had to work according to the law of the Charter, rather dryly and bluntly. That’s the whole explanation! For the sake of the common good! Once, trying to break away from the general labor service of ants and openly taking an interest in the one about the purpose, actually, and for whose good he should bend his back, four other ants unanimously picked up and carried him to Legal inspection. The next sunny day, the questioning ant did not appear at his workplace, which, apparently, he was tired of. “You do not want to work conscientiously, do not work, but do not bother others, do not lead them astray!” Some individuals tried to understand what strange thoughts they visited the new rebel, but did not come to any logical conclusions and decided that perhaps he was crazy at the age of forty, nobody remembered his name, and so he remained in his memory all “lazy ant.”

Joyful Ave slammed the front door and returned back to the kitchen. First, he had a simple job – to wash the dishes, and then wash the overalls. The main burden on the kitchen battlefield was on the shoulders of the electronics: the dishwasher, which Ave loved more than other devices, suddenly “conceived” and broke down last night, and the service mechanic called by Rond was due to arrive at nine. There was more than an hour before the repairman arrived, but Ave could not sit idle and decided to wash the dishes with his paws. This has already happened sometimes, in the memory of Ave, three or four times, when the automatic friends were lazy and refused to help, simulating a breakdown. Three years ago, after frequent technical failures of the notorious “dishwashers” in many condominium apartments, it was decided to replace all models with completely new modernized cars. The warranty period of the new project was at least five years, but still the equipment could not withstand the hard work and sometimes “fell asleep on the go.”

Hastily finished washing the dishes, the ant planned to take up the washing of work clothes, which remained after a hard week, but, before it even started, the washing process was interrupted by two short doorbells.

“Maybe it’s already a mechanic?” Ave thought, and quickly headed for the door.

Out of the corridor, out of habit, he glanced at his watch; it politely shone half past eight.

“It’s strange… for the mechanic it’s a bit early! Although, anything happens!”

The front door swung open wide, with a squeal of whistling, and on the threshold an ant materialized in a brand new, still plainly ironed and slightly giving off irritating mothballs red-green uniform. His wide trousers-trousers reminded Ave of some kind of rascal joke heard recently on TV, and he involuntarily swam in a smile, but immediately stopped, and froze on a half-screwed ironic note. Through a light leather cap with a voluminous and indecently bulging plastic cockade, on which flaunted an openwork letter “P”, neatly mounted on his head, peered long tarry antennae with a light fluff. Without saying anything, the calling postman energetically handed the landlord a tiny little cylinder.

– What is it? What is it? – Ave burst out twice, and the half-smile completely disappeared. – Who is it?

– It is for you! – there was an answer (courtesy itself). – Please sign a receipt, please.

– Me?.. Well, ooh, good! Thank you! Of course…

The landlord quickly scribbled the scribbles in an outstretched postman’s notebook, a thick journal-style album, and the ant instantly evaporated.

Ave and Rond constantly received electronic picturesque messages from an old friend of Kint: the regularity with which a former classmate wrote to them could only be envied.

The life paths of a too self-confident Quint with ants of a more domestic type, Ave and Rond, radically diverged immediately after leaving the boarding school. Few individuals decide, like Kint: to take, pack up and leave to go to study at distant lands in a nautical school, in a frightening distant distance, into the unknown. An enthusiastic sea romance, firmly settled in the heart of an ant about two years before the end of the boarding school, was born after swallowing one after another of art books about the fascinating travels that he took to read in the boarding library. Behind the brilliantly picturesque pictures of the majestic sea-ocean and composed by the victories of brave travelers, one could not see the hard and exhausting work of the real workers of the sea, no matter how pathetic it sounded. Plus, the most powerful impetus for choosing a life path was an excursion to the naval museum, organized for pupils in the year of graduation. At that time, ants carried out unusually many various trips and excursions in terms of professional self-determination, the ants fell into a “wave” when it was possible to choose a profession: the government of the country recommended that all educational institutions pay increased attention to the future of simple working ants. It seems that the excursions really worked on some individuals… For a year and a half, Kint graduated with honors and excellent performance from a specialized seaworthy school and from there went straight to work on a hefty fishing liner somewhere in the northern seas with a great, but still somewhat hazy, hope for universal romance. And, as it turned out in reality, enchanting and neatly combed enthusiastic tales of captivating travels around the world and the harsh, difficult realistic everyday life of “serfdom of the sea” – two opposite poles. Kint went into a harsh, inhospitable sea on a dull gray working shift for several killer exhausting weeks, and upon returning home he carefully described his sea voyages to old friends, not at all embarrassed, relying on the artistic experience of romantic writers. Three to four days of home rest, and then again on an exhausting, labor trip. But, despite all the endless difficulties, the unbending romantic ant never regretted his life choice.

Ave didn’t always succeed in answering Kint’s letter at once, often he put off the answer “to tomorrow”, which grew day after day into “the day after tomorrow,” and, at best, into a week-long delay. Ant did not really like to talk about his life. Yes, and what to write? Everything to perfect smoothness is monotonous and trivial, sloppy and monotonous, and it looks like this will be until the end of days. The life schedule of the movement is the only one: home-work, work-home. For everything else – there is simply no free time and energy. Sometimes time appears, but there really is already no strength… no strength and that’s it! There are none! Rare rainbow-colored magical days fall when it happens to color everyday life with the brightest colors, but this is very, very rare. Take, for example, the spring carnival, which has been held according to one scenario for years, decades, centuries…

The last electronic news from Kint arrived with the postman not a month ago, as usual, but much later – it took as long as three or four months. But Ave and Rond did not even notice the long silence of the old friend, and only now Ave remembered the navigator.