For Mushrooms
One day my parents, Aunt Nina and her friend went by car to the forest near the pioneer camp "Swallow" to look for mushrooms.
They scattered in the forest. My aunt went deep into the thicket and then she heard a strange sound, as if someone was coming towards her, beating a stick on a galvanized bucket.
The sound came closer. Neither my parents nor her friend, the driver, had the buckets with them, and she didn't really want to meet strangers in the forest. She decided to go back to the car. She went to the edge of the forest and saw that her companions were waiting for her there, sitting unhappily with full baskets of mushrooms:
- Where have you been? We've been waiting for you for over an hour! We've been calling and honking, but to no avail. What have you disappeared to?
- What does an hour mean? - Auntie was surprised. - I was only gone for a minute...
An Accident on the Railroad
Such lapses of time and space happened to my aunt more than once.
One day she was returning home from work. She crossed the railroad under an overpass.
Freight trains always stay here for a long time, but that evening the path was clear.
I'm walking, she remembers, and I notice the unusual silence. I don't hear the horns of locomotives, nor any noise, nor the echo of the station. Usually the dispatchers talk to each other over the loudspeaker, but here - nothing, complete, a kind of dead silence.
- I thought about it, and suddenly I saw bloody pieces of flesh scattered along the tracks. Blood everywhere, as if a train had just hit a man. As if in a dream, I walked over this mess, and in my mind I was indignant: where are the police, why does no one come here? And in the same second I felt an enormous push.
The silence broke with a crack, and the aunt was hit by a barrage of sounds: the rumble of wheels, the whistling of the wind, the sharp squealing of brakes, and the shrill blast of a train horn.
And at the center of this cacophony was someone's loud scream: "Stupid! Are you fed up with living?!"
A train whizzed by. Auntie turned to see a man in a sports jacket standing next to her. He was a passer-by who, on his way home from work, heard the sound of the approaching train and saw a woman's figure leaning over the tracks in the light of the train's headlights.
The woman did not respond in any way to the train driver's signals.
The woman did not respond in any way to the train driver's signals.
As my aunt later admitted, she simply did not hear them because she remained in an incredible silence all the time.
So the man jumped up to her and managed to push her aside at the last moment.
- Why were you standing there? - he asked her later.
- A man was hit by a train, - she said, pointing to her feet. - Look, there's blood everywhere.
- Where?!
Aunt Nina looked at the tracks in confusion, went one way, then the other. When she came back, there was no blood, no severed arms or legs. Nothing at all!
The man watched her with obvious suspicion. She didn't look suicidal to him. Nor drunk. Crazy, maybe?
He offered to call her a cab, but my aunt refused, saying she didn't live far away.
- My rescuer went ahead, but he kept looking back to see if I'd pull another stunt. I don't know what was wrong with me. Probably I had somehow managed to see my future, and the person on the tracks was actually me, or could have been me if a passerby hadn't come to my rescue.
Stop a moment!
I too had often experienced the metamorphosis of time. Sometimes its flow accelerated rapidly, and sometimes it dragged on as if in slow motion. Sometimes it stopped altogether, as if someone had pressed pause, giving me a chance to think about what to do next.
It was March 2001, and I was rushing to the Ice Sports Palace for a concert by my favorite rock band. It was dripping from the rooftops, dirty snow crunching under my feet.
Suddenly I heard a suspicious rustle above me.
I looked up and saw a huge piece of ice moving from the roof of the house. It moved slowly, as if in a dream, and then just as slowly began to fall directly on top of me.
Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to write that the block was flying down, considering we were only three stories apart, but the block of ice wasn't - it was hanging in the air as if on invisible strings.
I could see it turning lazily from side to side, the water ice crystals glistening in the sun and splashing in a rainbow fan.
The sight was enchanting, but completely inexplicable. Of course, the ice could not fall from the roof for so long, I understood that clearly. I had to do something immediately. So I ducked my head, took a quick step forward, and at that moment, the block of ice whistled just a few millimeters from the back of my head, shuffled across my hood, and shattered with a rumble behind me. I didn't even have time to be afraid.
X Day
We all have a birthday - the day we came into existence, but if everything in the world has a beginning and an inevitable end, it would be logical to assume that we should all have a day when we leave the world, right?
As long as we are alive, this day invisibly accompanies us. Year after year we pass through it without even realizing it. Or do we sometimes feel it?
What are we doing on the day and hour of X? How are we - pensive, sad, happy? Maybe sudden tears are echoes of distant (or near) misfortune, a bad premonition. And laughter without reason - a protective reaction to something that has not yet happened to us, but will soon.
Or is it a day like any other, ordinary, unremarkable?
A man once said to me:
- All my life I thought death was something that happened to others, and for me an exception would be made.
That man is long gone. He's gone like all the others before him.
Sometimes I have similar thoughts. I don't think I'm going to die, I can't believe it. How will it happen? Where? When?
Maybe the future has already happened while I am writing these lines and someone reading them will grin. He already knows everything about me - and where, and when, and how....
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Just as I know about those who are no longer in this world.
I would compare my stay on earth to checking into a hotel.
I come to a resort, I rent a hotel room - clean, empty. But I'm not the first guest. I wonder who he is - the one who lived in this room before me? What was he thinking, lying on "my" bed, brushing his teeth in "my" bathroom? Where is he now?
The people in the neighboring rooms seem to me to be old-timers, wise men. They know everything here, go to the restaurant as if it were their home, walk on the beach, make friends with the waiters and porters. As for me, I'm just a confused new tourist.
I just have to learn everything here, make new acquaintances. So I walk along the coast, happy, stunned, putting my face in the salty spray, inhaling the spicy smell of the tropics, looking at the unfamiliar stars of the southern hemisphere.
I feel like I have my whole life ahead of me, even though I know for sure it's only two weeks.
So I mentally count the days until my departure and try to live them in such a way that I can enjoy every moment I have left in this paradise.
In the evening, the tenants leave the room across the hall, and I'm glad I'm not one of them.
And after one week I already feel like an "old-timer" - I look at the newcomers condescendingly and at the same time with a little envy - yes, they don't know anything here yet, but unlike me, they have everything ahead of them. They'll be here when I'm gone.
The days pass and the guests dwindle. Now there are no "old timers" left in the hotel. I'm the next to leave. And when day X comes, I go to the sea for the last time, swim, bask in the sun, then return to my room, pack my bags and go to the airport.
"My" room is washed, cleaned, and an hour later it is clean and empty, ready for guests. They will enter it when I am already in the sky.
I wonder if they think they're not the first ones here. And not the last...
A cry in the forest
One day my husband and I went on an overnight rafting trip on the Cheptsa River.
We knew the route well, but on the eve of the rafting trip I felt a vague sense of fear. I was afraid to go on our trip!
I'm packing my backpack, and the thought that this is the last time I'll do this, and we won't need any of this stuff.
The images before my eyes are more horrible than ever. But what could happen to us? Could we have an accident? I don't think so. The danger will have something to do with the river.
What if we run into some drunken thugs? I wouldn't want that. So we should choose a place to spend the night away from the villages. Especially since we have the right beach in mind.
We wanted to take an axe with us - for possible self-defense, but something told us that if we had a gun, there would be a situation where we would have to use it.
We didn't want any bloodshed, so we left the axe at home.
We arrived at the starting point. We inflated the boat. We loaded our things and set sail.
I sat on the oars, Andrei fished on the spinning rod. And somehow it happened that we did not count the time on the way, according to our estimates the beach should have appeared soon, but for some reason it was not there. Meanwhile it was getting dark and we were very hungry.
We decided to dock the boat, get out and cook dinner.
While we were building the fire, a line of tractors loaded with hay passed us along the shore. The engines were humming incessantly, the collective farmers were rushing to get all the hay out of the fields before the rains came. Suddenly I heard a different sound, something like the rattle of a motorcycle. As if it was about to come out of the forest...
But as the minutes passed, no one appeared. So I thought it was just my imagination.
We took the boat further out. The sun was almost behind the horizon and the beach was still nowhere to be seen. It was as if it had vanished into thin air! Suddenly I heard a desperate bird call from the thicket. My hair stood on end - I had never heard such an eerie cry in my life.
It seemed that a hawk had grabbed a woodland bird and was torturing it, strangling it, devouring it alive.
Soon the screams stopped. We sailed on in silence, trying to figure out what it meant.
We still could not see the beach.
And then a fishing net appeared out of the water. Not a soul around. It looked like someone from the village had set it up for the night and left. That's probably whose motorcycle I heard on the shore!
We can't stand poachers, we always cut the nets. So we brought the boat closer, took out the knife....
Judging by the floaters on the water, the net was huge, a hundred meters long. It was a good fishing net, and I thought: where did the poor villagers get it?
It would take at least half an hour to tear it and pull it out. What should we do? Leave it in the river? And even though my inner voice whispered: "Get out of here, it's none of your business," it was stubbornness that got in the way - how could it not be our business? Why should we encourage poachers? We have always torn the nets and we will continue to do so! "All right," the voice agreed, "I see your point. But let's not do it this time."
Maybe we really didn't have a choice - it was getting dark, and we didn't know how much longer we had to sail. So I pulled on the oars.
The beach appeared around the next corner. We gathered firewood and set up the tent in the dark by the light of a headlamp. Just as we were setting up our things, we heard the sound of an engine somewhere nearby, and the black surface of the river was illuminated by the beam of a powerful searchlight.
A motorboat passed us at a slow speed.
Inside the boat were three armed men in camouflage. They looked at us unkindly, spitefully, as if they were enemies.
Their eyes were dead. Not eyes, but shotgun muzzles.
During the night, we were awakened three more times by the roar of a motorboat as the poachers checked the nets.
And every time I thought about what would have happened if we had cut that unfortunate net, a chill ran down my spine and my hand involuntarily reached for the oar that lay at the entrance.
In the morning the local fishermen told us that it was the cops. They have been setting nets on the river for years, they feel like masters here, they are not afraid of anyone. The villagers avoid this trio, they know that there is no scarier beast than a Russian policeman-poacher.
I think we would hardly have gotten away with a beating and a pierced boat. The places are remote, there's no cell phone service. No one would have found us. There'd be no trace of us.
In someone else's tunnel
The writer Vladimir Serkin in "The Shaman's Laughter" has a concept of a tunnel.
What he means is that we move through certain tunnels all our lives without realizing it. And as long as we're in our own tunnel, we're safe.
But when we enter someone else's tunnel, which is unusual for us, anything can happen. It's called being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The question is, why did we end up there?
I remember that warm August day. I didn't want to go to the river.
But I thought, what else can I do? What a beautiful day! It's not good to sit at home in such good weather! So we had to pack our backpacks and go out into nature.
Surprisingly the fishing was good, we caught two pike. There was another bite under the water intake. A huge pike! But it was gone. Our actions were too hasty, even desperate.
Suddenly it started to rain. We caught our spinning rod on someone's old fishing net full of dead fish. It smelled terrible. We pulled it out in disgust and threw it in the bushes.
The rain stopped. A rainbow shone across the river. There is the city.
We landed on the shore and pulled out the boat. It's the same as always. But not really.
He came out of the bushes unnoticed, like a shadow. He hung around bored, as if he didn't care about us. I didn't immediately realize what was wrong with him, but I felt danger in my back. And fear. Sticky, paralyzing fear.
He must have felt it too. He came closer.
He had a tattoo of a web on his leg with a spider in it. So he was in jail. In prison jargon, a spider's web means addiction. That's right. He was holding a bag of glue. Strong, pungent smell of Moment glue.
He walked unsteadily, but not like a drunk. And his gaze - piercing, probing, persistent. You can't look into those eyes, it's dangerous. But I had the indiscretion to do so.
Something growled menacingly in the toxicomaniac's chest, and he stepped back. But he quickly returned. He reached for our live-fish cage with the pike in it: "Give it to me! My husband grabbed the cage and yelled, "Get out!"
The guy snapped at him. But he didn't leave. He lurked.
We put our things down, packed the boat, and started up the hill.
He followed us. At any moment we expected a blow to the head, but there was an unknown man at the top, and I knew that as long as he was there, the toxicomaniac would not touch us, he would be afraid.
The best thing to do would have been to take a taxi, get in and go. But our house is right next door, it's just a stone's throw away. Why do we need a taxi?
The toxicomaniac didn't leave us one step behind. He followed us like he was glued to us. He will never give up.
My husband took off his backpack, took a decisive step toward him, and punched him hard in the chest with his fist. Slim and skinny, he didn't even stagger! "Like a sack of potatoes, - Andrei remembered later. - Totally insensitive to pain".
And when my husband saw the eyes of the toxicomaniac, he admitted that he was really frightened. He realized that only death could stop such a man. Kill him and go to jail?
- Call the police! - I yelled.
The guy thought we were bluffing and grinned. But my husband really did it.
Our stalker's face immediately changed. He freaked out and backed away. He let out a stiff animal growl again.
As he ran away, he hissed angrily, "All right, I got you memorized!"
The police arrived and searched the yard, but they didn't find the toxicomaniac. Although I had a feeling he was somewhere nearby, maybe even living in a neighboring house. But I also knew we'd never see him again. We have different tunnels.
And yet the fact that we met him was no coincidence. We recognized ourselves in him - as we were at that moment - weakened, frustrated, angry, greedy.
And he, like in a mirror, saw himself in us and was also attracted. So he followed us with one desire - to harm us, until he (or we?) were blown out of the unfriendly tunnel.
To be continued