Adventures of Canned Food Seller and his friends. Adventures of Afrikancev

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It was the end of summer. Company N has moved to a new office: seven departments now were located in a new disposition of the open space, so each staff had to deal with new neighbors.

Surprisingly it occurred that heat-loving Artem Afrikancev from the Grocery Department now was sitting right next to the frost-resistant Matrena Ledokolova from the Accounting section. Therefore, summer and winter climate settings around the two teams changed very quickly when Artem or Matrena left their places for a minute. The other colleagues tried not to interfere into the “climate battle” preferring to pull over a sweater during winter and wind up the sleeves when suddenly summer arrived.

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In the end of the year, Artem had to go on a business trip to Yamal peninsular, to meet with a canned factory. He booked via internet an aisle seat, switched off the air blower, and dipped into reading the board magazine, seeking for a story about snow countries. Turbulence shook Artem into sleep. Another shake woke him up when the wheels of the airplane touched the ground of Salehard city.

Artem was quite tired, upon arriving to the hotel took shower, and went to bed immediately. Strange dreams about icebergs and white bears looking like snow monsters made him wake up in cold sweat and hard breath. He did not feel like continuing watching thrilling dreams and went to the casino on the ground floor of the hotel. Artem recalled that during his study at university he read “The Gambler” by Fedor Dostoevsky, where the writer described his tactics of playing the roulette. Now the young businessman had a chance to see how Dostoevsky’s theory would work in practice. He played 6—7 games by minimal risk quarter stakes and was lucky enough to win slightly over than he invested into the chips. Gambling excitement took off his emotional tiredness and he could sleep until 7 a.m. without nightmares.

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