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Илай Колесников Earlyborn

The novel Earlyborn is translated from Russian into English by Lazutkina Aleksandra.

Chapter 1

She was charming. As early in the winter morning things happen, and white ghosts of blizzard shine through the window, so did she appear all of a sudden every time, at the crack of dawn, and dazzled everyone with her beauty. She was thought to be named either Irochka or Mashenka, but never was it decided. A chief physician of the maternity hospital once said, coming by, “Wow, whom do we have here, at the crack of dawn, early in the morning??” And here our heroine got her name. She enjoyed sitting by the window, observing teeny-weeny people shuttle about at the footing of the Eiffel Tower. She loved to look after them, inventing diverse stories about who they were. For one:

Definitely, this small person in a short red fur coat with a bag over his shoulder is Ded Moroz¹. Arguably, he came here, in France, from Italy, where he was said to be the most successful and highly paid Ded Moroz of the entire town. Arguably, wandering over there, somewhere under the lights of the Eiffel Tower, he made out its point and realizes his goal: to find a new dream. Arguably, that Italian dream was ruined, yet probably it came true—was reached. Arguably, there, in Italy, not only did our Ded Moroz just work but, perhaps, he saved up money for something. And he had become the best, as his job was exactly for his liking. Arguably, there, in Italy he was saving up money for his new yacht, craving to get it as soon as possible and sail away somewhere very far from here… Say, to Argentina. What for to act on a small scale? So, our Ded Moroz, we name him Luisian (for how can it happen that Ded Moroz has no name?), was saving up money to buy a yacht to head for Argentina. Why did he do so? Well, all that he wanted to become a cowherd of the famed Chianina cows and bulls, roaming around them and singing songs.

«Why is he in need of yacht, then?»

«Wait a min-ute!»

He needed a yacht in case some furious drunken bull… Whoops! indeed I meant “a drunken chief of bulls”… chased him, he would not lose his courage and shout, “Help me, kind people, lend a hand, give bread and salt or toss a coin!”—yet he would jump once, twice, shot out the tongue to one side, hop-hop, and sail homeward. But did our Italian Ded Moroz earn enough money to buy his long-awaited car (for we have started talking about him)? Yes, he did. Moreover, he had some coins in his pocket so that he could buy a bun and a cup of coffee from a salesman, when he was sitting in his brand-new yacht, and then, savour it, looking at all the hustle and bustle around him, and find that he had already obtained great success in life. Did he, Luisian, manage to get to Argentina, in that case? You have posed the right question, dear friends. He arrived in Argentina and did not blink. On the first day he argued with a chief, yet the consequence was not that in which the chef kicked him away from the island, conversely, he was chosen the new boss of cows and bulls; an old chef was sent back on his way, what is more, he was stupid to the extent that he did not have a boat with him. Wait! my kettle has boiled over!

That is that. Why, if everything was all right there, in Argentina, with bulls, did Luisian not look terribly content and happy here, in France? The case was next, dear friends, and I earnestly recommend you to listen to the case.

One day coming out of his ranch on a regular morning after a month had passed since he arrived on the island (he put cows out to pasture not at the continent itself, but at the nearby island, for he was paid more there with fewer cows), Luisian started marvelling at Argentina’s sunrise. It must be said that Luisian had rather good taste, and he even drew paintings in his childhood, wrote poems in his youth and during all the time before he became the best Italian Ded Moroz on call. The sunrise was this. If in summer you collected roughly ten thousand coins which are now in circulation in your country and at the full moon, midnight, got out of your house window on the rope or by a helicopter (it depends on the height of your house or a level of building you live on), and then bought a ticket to Moscow at the station, where (in Moscow) you moved some 186 miles straight away to my summer house, and after that (the final step) travelled across time to 4 August 2020, you would see exactly this dawn. However, what am I? I could say this more easily! It was that sunrise which was ten-eleven years of age! Again it isn’t that which I wanted to say… So, when Luisian saw quite a beautiful for his sense of humour and jacket sunrise, he said in Spanish, “Ah me!” It was that beginning of the story that was rather surprising, so that it could amaze even South American fur seals, although they cannot wonder. Anyway, that is all not awfully important! For us merely Luisian’s happiness from the real Argentinian dawn he saw is significant, and he was so happy that he desired to become a photographer.

Unexpected development, is it not? So be it, Luisian as any Best retired Ded Moroz on call, had a very strong love for unexpected turns of events. For this reason Luisian had quite an interesting and curious (everything is at your disposal, Luisian!) talk where the following was discussed: “Is it possible for an untrained person to fly to the Moon, but why necessarily to the moon if Costa Rica is a good place to start with?” This thought dawned on Luisian as a spring thunder blast. It was a deal. Luisian and a tipsy chef of Indian buffalos left their bulls to their fate that very minute and set out for an Argentinian market to buy a very old caravan. The one, you know, which can be usually seen in romantic films where you certainly need to shed a tear and a young couple is going to the South. Such motion pictures are often filmed in Brazil. Well, so is true for Argentina, thus friends managed to buy it for quite a sum of money. It was that very evening when the purchaser of Luisian’s yacht—by means of which Luisian had arrived here—was found, yet what on earth am I telling you? How, by your favour, would Luisian come back home? Basically, he left his idea to sell the boat, just like he left the purchaser who had quite a sum of money for Argentina in hands, and, moreover, Luisian got slightly angry, took his yacht, and sailed away. Huh! And why did they buy that caravan? Once Luisian made a circle and came back to the place where he wished the purchaser goodbye, but there was no one there. That was splendid. It turns out, Luisian went away to take a test shot with his camera (for his desire to be a photographer was not in vain, right? All the photographers without any exception are rather weird people. I tell you that for sure as I am a photographer myself :)), and he got a pretty nice picture. So he did his best, justly it is he who was the chief Ded Moroz, though retired. And what? Every person can retire. What’s resignation in general? That is merely the rank which was given to those who worked harder than their colleagues did; they grasped that a great move forward was needed. The more so since Luisian quit his job. Anyway, they went to Costa Rica. Yet we still do not know how and why Luisian got to France and where his beloved yacht was now. Never mind, I will answer all your questions. They would pull the yacht behind their caravan: they had found a platform with castors and put up scaffolding at which they placed the boat.

But now they for some reason were not driving. Why? They mended the caravan. Damn all impostors who sell goods and do not know a thing about prices of broken machines! If they fixed high prices, it would be clearly seen that the car is worn out and you should not buy it… But they are so silly and insecure and there is no drop of Jewish in them! They fix the low price and suppose, “Here is a dignified family of indigenous Argentines who decided to say goodbye to their loyal friend and give him a chance to work for the benefit of others.” Naturally! They gave machines a chance to work for others! It does not matter, as Luisian at long last knew that his father lived in France.

And here is the denouement, my dear friends, is it not? Nothing of the kind. Not yet, seemingly. But all right. So his father lived in France (after all, Luisian arrived to a decision to work as a Ded Moroz only on account of looking for his father when going to various houses. And then he could imagine a simpler and more achievable goal, the one which would not do harm neither him nor the deed—he sparkled with his eyes much). While the tipsy chief and he were repairing a dead carburetor, Luisian suddenly learned in an informal conversation where his father was. “Yet why did his father leave him?” you ask again. And that is a good question once more! You are like the tax inspectorate or… What am I, however? His father simply did not know that he had a son since his future bride did not reveal the details upon parting. But he, he was calmly sitting there, under his caravan somewhere in Argentina or already Brazil, and mending the carburetor when his passport, where the age of twenty-five is filled in fell out of his front shirt pocket. Why, then, the chef of drunken bulls was aware of his father? Happy coincidence? Is it a fairy tale? No, no! Simply, everything is simple. That boss of drunken bulls used to live in one provincial town in France with a mayor. That mayor was Luisian’s father. They arrived in Costa Rica with no trouble and bowed to each other. Luisian gifted his camera to the chief, and the chief gave him the keys to the caravan. The chef did not step back, for he loved to control the animals and settled down in Costa Rica where he became a manager of the crocodile farm. :) What a human! Dauntless! Luisian sailed back home selling the caravan to one local Costa Rican, which made him a bit rich to buy some fuel. And that was he now, in Paris, France, walking… He was wearing a heel-length fur coat, as he decided to call to mind the old days feeling sad because there was no money for a ticket, and his father was due to leave his provincial town to reign in some South French colony where it was hot, yet was no connection… Daybreak caught Earlyborn at the window of an ancient house, pondering about that tiny human at the footing of the Eiffel Tower.

Chapter 2

She went to the kitchen and brewed a second portion of excellent Dominican coffee. A clock with croissants, which did fit the interior, where a true French lady dwelled, said just the beginning of five, well okay, six in the morning. Meanwhile Ded Morozs were long walking in the streets… Or had it only seemed to be so to our heroine? What was she thinking about when sitting by her window at that jolly time? What did gnaw away at her thoughts, at her, who looked as the one who had everything? What did the solitary woman at the zenith of her power need if a flat with a balcony in front of the Eiffel Tower was at her service? Not to mention that it was on the sixth floor… Out of the eight available. I guess that is a rhetorical question and I believe in absence of necessity for me to put in italics the world “solitary” in one of the sentences above. Or is it worth doing it? What for? She went to the kitchen and brewed a cup of excellent Dominican coffee… She sat at the bar counter, took a whole saucer of ripe wild strawberries and got down to business—started to mix coffee with berries. She turned Russian, she was (under no circumstances will you think of her age) twenty five years old. She was born in Irkutsk, in the family of one Soviet military man and, as it befits, she had lived in a military town for all her childhood. It was a good dawn to spend the rest of the days in France, was it not? Earlyborn sat now, running her cold fingers, which were coarse from life, through some fresh wild strawberries. She reminisced the time of her youth. The air of this Paris kitchen filled with a question, appeared as the yellow awning of the summer above the dark winter, “Where is better? Here, in France, with no soul and no spark for which I wished to be kicking, or there, in the childhood, in the spring of life, where there is the mother, the father, the sister, a lot of friends and plans for the future, and I was plied with wild strawberries—there were that many of them; there was no Paris only?..” Sipping real Dominican coffee and admiring her impeccable fashionable tailor-made attire, Earlyborn started to comprehend: not all is gold that glitters and it is not everywhere where there is an answer to where questions were interweaved in the same way as Podolsk workmen pull electrical cables. Well… Had she ever thought that she would see the New Year in utterly alone, but in smart clothes and a new flat like a coconut forgotten somewhere on the beach, drowned in the sunbeams? It was face to face with palms and wanted to show off in front of these trees, which (the coconut understood that just now) ignored the large nut and would never appreciate its beauty. Earlyborn had a one-bedroom apartment; the first room (not a bedroom) was not used for something special, but Earlyborn enjoyed ornamenting it according to the season that was behind the window and the heroine’s mood: there were some paper snowflakes and figures of thousands of spruce or statuettes of red deer in winter; it was full of butterflies and bouquets of flowers in summer, literally the room turned out a blooming greenhouse that time; she filled the room with herbariums and baskets of apples, chestnuts and apples… The second room was, obviously, a bedroom, yet it was not less cozy, there: for example, there was a balcony with cane armchairs, where you could sit till the morning, reading some novels under a lamp post, which stood lonely in the silence of the street in summer, and observe these Ded Morozs with a prophecy to herself that she would be cold in her dress, yet with giving no damn about it and slowly drinking coffee. There was a kitchen as well.

The day began, and Earlyborn could not sit idle in her attire, besides, the jar of coffee was almost empty. Earlyborn decided to go to the supermarket for she had always been fond of short walks, yes, short (merely five-six hour lasting), she loved roaming around snowbound streets in Paris. No sooner said than done! She quickly put on some cloth that would warm: woolen boots, a scarf made of crocodile and… Ouch! I was jabbed with a pine needle right now! So she took all her clothing on and went outdoors. Although her house entrance had nothing extraordinary itself, our lady, who was a daydreamer and, therefore, had a flair for painting the reality in bright colours (let us bear in mind Ded Moroz), played with images born in her brains that someone genius, yet, lived in her entrance and appeared to change all her life right now. It had never come true, nor had it come so this time, however, when she tackled to leave the entrance door ajar, fighting with that still nasty wind which made her go out of the balcony, she ran into one young man.

«Ouch!»

«S-s-sorry!»

Without doubt, it was impossible just to picture that our wonderful heroine would come across with so not less wonderful a character as Ded Moroz, given that it would happen in her very entrance, when she would dare go out to purchase a jar of coffee, was it not? :) Do you think I am so naive?? Well, obviously, our heroine met Ded Moroz since it was morning, January 1^st, but who, who told you, pray, tell me that he was exactly that Ded Moroz, whom she imagined? And why was she supposed to make up a figure of Ded Moroz, not a firefighter sitting by the window that night on the sixth floor? Single women, I dare to say, are likely to love courageous Paris firefighters. Thus, there was somewhat particular in her mind, which led her to dream about Ded Moroz. So we must have someone unique there. Who was he? Right! It was her darling brother whom she was waiting for there, in France, to see the New Year in, but who, seemed, could not come due to family circumstances. And yet he was here, taking off his furry cap with a pom-pom, then, a cotton beard, scrupulously attached to his real one; Earlyborn was bewildered and scared since her thoughts which she cherished suddenly were brought in life. There was a sensitive conversation between siblings, then came tears, embraces and screams. Hearing all that, an old sleepy lady who lived on the first floor came out and explained in French, with no slight accent, if they were not about to stop making noise, she would call the police squad. Well, when the brother and the sister started whispering to each other in a bit abusive Russian, with no slight accent, it dawned on her that those people were her compatriots. Of course, after a frank talk lasted for an hour, they understood everything, and they three came to the old lady roughly at 7 a. m. to try her new cake, which, according to her words, was prepared of custard, a mash of mango, mint and a blend of berries, and an informal speech started. Oh, I know all that! Like I face these family and not scenes in the entrance of my house! It looks as if I, myself, live in France and buy fried chestnuts and acorns every day while my morning walks. Oh, all this is so familiar to me as those woolen boots or a crocodile scarf. The case did not stop with the cake, moreover, it was only the beginning, and Earlyborn’s brother, let us call him Zhenia, with no idea of what to do next, took off his shoes in order not to soil the table, stood on the table and gave her a present: the New Year trip to nowhere or anywhere Earlyborn wished and a ticket for a cruise to Antarctic. Earlyborn waited for that gift so long since it was her only dream, as a consequence, she started squealing (for a romantic person cannot switch to things at once), and that old lady who invited them and accepted their peculiarities, yet gripped the hem of her dress and was nearly to call the police. There was something in the air. Zhenia felt a shiver through his body; it was that shiver which appears when a person either surmised something or turned out very lucky, and now he was so to speak twice cheerful: individually and for oneself who was perplexed. This was in the air. As to the old lady, she put up with oddities of her guests and the wish to call the police, and she got red in face and the youth touched her wrinkles; she even began sharing the stories from her childhood. The New Year Eve is the time of miracles, that is why Zhenia and Earlyborn immediately felt like little kids, and their mood flew far away as was with characters from Esenin’s poem: “What’ the matter? Speak and speak!” And the granny spoke! She, as it befits not a young woman, gave her speech at ease, with the confidence in voice and, besides, with interest, like a good teacher who is young and full of his creative powers. There were not any fairy tales or Heaven forbid! simple recollection of irretrievable adolescence and the baggage of lectures, but there were worth listening intelligent memories, which nearly constituted a difficult to understand parable, formed a whole thing, as already fallen snow in February did with drifting snow; people could get it only given that they were bright enough to make some speculations… The old lady spoke:

“Well, surely, I cannot conjecture what was the reason for that unprecedented story to happen, however, I say, why unprecedented? Have I never seen what the human brain can reach together with the progress? What can the human language reach? For my long life, I have seen stranger things occur, yet that time the stars formed not so usual constellations that they made me ponder this way… Imagine: the USSR, fields around, rivers, groves, lakes, Gorky, 1965… Summer. If I am not mistaken, it was June, or, perhaps, July – anyway, all that happened sometime between the first and the hottest months of the summer… Here came the night, crop fields, just fields… The air was filled with warmth and, seems, moths were flying or stars falling… I, maid, stood on a hill awaited a tryst with my sweetheart, which was arranged at 3 a. m. precisely there and everywhere; he promised that he would show me literally everything, and if I wished, we would go to the sea… And there, elsewhere far away, few cows were put in pasture, a cowherd was sitting on the grass and flicking his cigarette lighter as if he was playing with the night: he winked her, and she, as he thought, should have sent him something in return… Silence! It was so quit that if I were not Liubava Sergeevna, but a popular Soviet poetess, I would definitely be famed for a poem about that silence… It was so quiet that I managed to hear the Volga river rippling, sturgeons and carp splashing around and a lost tractor mourning his last hope and aim in life. It was so quit that I started singing my song. That song was a song of pure love, and it even calmed down the tractor, so that he moved forward and roared; as to me, I saw my beloved and experienced those sweet feelings, which now Zhenia had when he guessed with the present, Earlyborn. And the morality of such a parable is that if you are unhappy or exhausted and reckon that you simply cannot get down to business—just walk a bit and wait; there is power in waiting—come out and gaze at the stars if not in the sky, try to find them in your imagination and inner world. It won’t take happiness much to appear, then. So you got this joy today: you, sad, went to buy some Dominican coffee, yet at heart you were waiting for you dreams to come true. You’ve met your expectations, and any day now you are going to Antarctic… So did you, Zhenia, you were getting here, to sister’s, with no knowledge of how she would welcome you, but you travelled, travelled and waited, and the morning, January 1^st, could not be better than it is now. Either way, I assume, if it wasn’t like this, it would be so tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or it would be already like this yesterday; all this keeps the secret of life—to wait, to live and wait, and try to see the beauty everywhere. The case was that I didn’t go anywhere with my sweetheart, moreover, we didn’t marry, and everything happened not according to the plan, but that day gifted me the idea of the importance of waiting, and my life never lost the meaning…”

The cake was delicious, and the brother and the sister spent all their time almost till lunch sitting at her table.

Chapter 3

At first, Zhenia was astonished, as Earlyborn did, “How is it possible to live here, in Paris, in front of the Eiffel Tower, and be not contend?” That is true—any person reflect in this way when comes here. Yet life is hard, it is sophisticated as the picture of the human DNA, the fundament particle of the whole creation, and it is also challenging to learn the life. Furthermore, life, as the human DNA, is very slippery, for it was not in vain for this acid to be the basics of anything. When some people say the life in Paris is mint, other argue that it is salt, life can be really a palatable pie. In which, no doubt, salt is used for baking, and mint for decorating. But you should put a lot of effort to find an oven, in which that pie would be baked thoroughly. However, looking at faces of citizens, touched with French snow, Zhenia still could not realize how people lived there and were unhappy… Admittedly, such a state is typical of a colossal number of people, including those who live on the outskirts and from there come in Moscow and wonder: how can Muscovites not see all this magnificence? How can Muscovites be that angry, always in a hurry and not manage to do things in time? Meanwhile this corresponds with civil laws and cannot be vice versa. Yet the essence of the human is to develop, but Muscovites gradually stopped noticing the beauty of massive buildings contrasted it with their life trifles and unimportant events and, finally, dismissed that richness. Muscovites forget that it is thank to them in the past and their ancestors they are now in the present. Thus, they simply should love the life, save all that you have and do not dwell on something huge. Unfortunately, the majority of Muscovites do not appreciate a thing. That is arguably the reason for the USSR collapse; maybe authorities, maybe citizens or even some higher forces in space influenced people so that they at once gave up collaborating around their idea of communism. Most likely, since the idea is not folklore and needs to be written down constantly. But the thought conveyed from mouth to mouth during that time as the normal state of things, so only Lenin and, perhaps, the members of his party could perceive the real message hidden in it. Continue you doings, dear Muscovites, and do not back out of what you started.

As soon as Zhenia came in Paris, he began dreaming about one. He scarcely considered that city as his future residence. Zhenia simply wanted to go for a row on the Sena, then set sail with Earlyborn: he intended to go round Africa or Cape Horn and go back to Paris to move towards home—Russia. He imagined how he, terribly jaded, tanned and with that outstanding glimpse, would sit on the train to Amsterdam from where he would go to Moscow by bus. He saw himself, exhausted, yet full of spirit of ventures and happiness, coming in his hometown, Irkutsk to continue his job as taxi driver, to exult at life again and again; he even hoped to gather with friends to go fishing on the Baikal and to visit his parents in the countryside in summer, and, perhaps, life would bring him some more golden raffle tickets for he bought the trip for his sister with one of them. Let us see whether Zhenia’s dreams on his and his sister’s future will come true. But now he simply decided to have a walk.

Speaking about Dionysius, a friend of Luisian, the chef of drunken bulls, created by Earlyborn’s imagination. How was he there with no money and no friend settling his life? How would he find Luisian who had forgotten his mascot—a bronze bee—in his suit pocket? Yet would Luisian bother looking for it? However, Dionysius knew and saw with his own eyes how the mascot could affect that person. So, probably the lost bee was to be blame for the broken caravan… Yet Luisian found it roving over the ground near the place where they stopped. Fellows soon managed to mend their car. As Dionysius was a meticulous Argentinian he understood that as soon as his old friend discovered his lost mascot, something would definitely occur. Dionysius could not help leaving his acquaintance without his talisman, hence, he would directly pop into a shabby hut of one old fisherman, a bowing acquaintance of his, to drop belongings, and then he would go in search of money for Luisian. It turns, dear readers, that we have clinched at least one matter.

Some words about Luisian. It was hardly possible for Dionysius to seek for Luisian with no coordinates of his, even if he was in the nearest hut… What an idea, however! Maybe Luisian naturally made up his mind not to sail away from the Costa Rica shore and waited for some time, say, in order not to go to sea at night. Eventually, he had to do it as Earlyborn met Zhenka². Instead of developing the story on the way to the shop, our heroine made Luisian sleep. Moreover, Earlyborn, seems, forgot that she located him back to France where he was to find his father. Well, doing it was forgivable. For a drowning man will clutch at a straw, and the play with imagination was that straw in waiting and grief for Earlyborn. She possibly created Ded Moroz as she remembered her brother… It is he, by the way, Italian, whom great half of this book is devoted! So Luisian decided to wait a bit and noticed the loss. Then he moved back towards the place where he said goodbye to Dionysius; apparently, he made his home in a neighbor to Dionysius hut. A hostess Lunight put him for the night. Yet she was not that sociable and immediately went to another room. I deem her a witch. There was a caldron in her closet where the smell of sour and mint filled the air… Luisian did not mind her absence and came out on the porch and started pondering, skipping pebbles across the surface of the water.

Chapter 4

Earlyborn and Zhenia started a long journey. They went out after lunch, walked along and across the Seine, visited the Notre-Dame and enjoyed the time, only they did not get into the Eiffel Tower. They did not do it only because Earliborn said, “I’ve got a lot more fascinating view behind my window!”, but still even after they went boating they felt lack of satisfaction from today’s stroll. Thus they came to a decision not to set out tomorrow (not to mention at the crack of dawn :) ), at least, after lunch or when they would be able to do something about that lack of satisfaction. When they headed for the home, they had a look at the Eiffel Tower, which Zhenia saw on his calendar in the kitchen and came across on the road to Paris many times: it was depicted in various banners, painted beautifully as patterns on trains, and it associated with memories about dreams of youth in his consciousness that towered above all his later life as the Eiffel Tower, and the sun, grown up for the day, was shining on the back of their heads. If you call in mind that incredibly pleasant sense in feet when you have just moved to another country, or observed your town from different side or been working as a food delivery man with no rest, and eventually sat on a bench ruled with the weight of you full with impressions head, you will realize the desire of Earlyborn and Zhenia to sit on a bench below their window and view the red blush of the aged sun. It was worth watching. Appearing out of depleted during winter chestnut brunches near the Eiffel Tower, the Sun gazed at wanderers with warm light, it had written an excellent ingenious poem. From her small travel backpack Earlyborn took a silvery thermos, which was getting the colour of setting beams as though they were not the beams, but the skates of the Sun, and the Sun was not the Sun, but a famous ice skater at the children New Year competition, who was invited there as a special guest. The thermos with the colour of skates smelled of something warm and light as a feather, maybe of steam, however, when Zhenia unscrewed the cover with his stronger hand—of hot mint tea from the Caucasus fields which they managed to brew being at old lady’s.

At times, we are asked questions on the meaning of life, at times we ask them, and that often mostly happens on the hoof, in a hurry; so is same with answers, for example: the reason to live is in a spruce. Live in the way you can gain the wisdom of that tree and may the events in your life pass as fresh as the smell of a spruce and fit together like needles on a brunch in the winter frost. You see it is heresy. Sometimes as now, drinking tea and looking at the disk of the setting Sun, you may well understand: the meaning of life is to always have a ready-brewed thermos of tea and see the Sun still setting but not hiding in the dark of the night. Zhenia shared tea with Earlyborn and, staring at the icy Sun’s rays, started musing over the idea of how it was good that his sister had exactly that name. To tell the truth, he loved his sister since she had grown up into that extraordinary individual. To tell the truth, he supposed himself particular mainly because his sister was so. As happiness is not everlasting, so the Sun, as it befits, also hid behind gloomy clouds of the time, left the dusk and the rest day, all remaining sunbeams, which were send there, down to the Earth, yet had not touched it, for the moon and night to eat. There were no more tea after some frost, some snow, the evening and the thirst took over the siblings. It must be said they were not disappointed on that account for the end of one is the occasion to start something another, new. An empty mug of tea is only the point to brew some new tea, which (just as you choose) may be hundred times better than the old one, as the Eiffel Tower happened to be more beautiful from the Earlyborn’s balcony than from its one.

Termination of any doing of your life has, definitely, a sprinkle of frustration. And the bigger this frustration is, the more opportunities to alter your future grow up. To excel yourself in doing your next action comparing to your previous might-have-been! Imagine what a great number of thoughts attacked your head in a brainstorm when you merely (it happened like that) could not get up in time for about a week in a row. Two weeks in a row… So how strong must your indignation be in the case when you cannot cope with yourself for a week or two? If your indignation is truly powerful and sincere, something should happen, something should come to your mind, something that will cause huge changes and give you an impulse, a portion of genius! Say you got rid of that very unhealthy habit or of mental disorder, which was on your road to the full living, and, all in all, not only will you be able to get up in time, but hear people and see their point as no one else under the sun can! The chief thing is to continue doing. How will you be tortured by the idea that you do everything but have nothing to reap if you do not continue, after all? You will more likely berate yourself for doing nothing, and, as a consequence, of course, will learn how to manage with everything, but it would be more time-consuming. The desire to work is said to emanate from a person himself.

Again sitting on her much loved tiny balcony, Earlyborn puzzled herself with only one question. It floated into an abyss of wind, into that cold time when two or three hours after the sunset passed away, “How am I to live?” Neither the Ursa Major, so suddenly appeared in the starless winter sky, neighboring the Orion’s belt, nor the young Venus could not or did not want to answer her question. Meanwhile Zhenia went to bed, and she was about going to do the same, yet she did not do that; on the contrary, she came out to the place which was the only one that could gladden her in Paris, and decided to immense herself again into the fairy-tale night of meditation and bright melancholy. Besides, the answer to the question she posed to the stars or gloomy twilight could guide her even not in Paris, but, for one, in Strasbourg or somewhere on the outskirts; she would go after the answer wearing her nightgown, well-tailored as fashionable as those winter patterns in the starry sky, only, being not ashamed of her slight bareness. I suppose, we all, naked and in nightgowns would be ready to run after that answer, like after the treasure fallen so unexpectedly as the Christmas wonder together with snow, and to creep as troublemaker kids somewhere in that snow in attempt to discover the answer as a needle in a haystack with the joy about the snow which the only one was present. There is still no answer, the snow does not fall in the darkness as on the head of grieve Paris night, and those who were lucky to unearth the answer one day, have already hidden, like needles of answers in the snow, in the earth interior, covered with seven blankets, or speak with each other in a secret place in a beggarly hamlet, so that it is impossible for us to find them anywhere. We are forced to sit in nightgowns—as a kind of sign to the fate and life showing that we are ready to run as it is, almost naked. Yet we are not yet those who deserve getting the answer. These speculations did not let Earlyborn feel better, and she, sipping a new cap of Dominican coffee, continued basking frosty beams of January cold. One aphorism is said to be familiar to you: he who seeks, will find; while Earlyborn was looking for the answer without giving up, by the way, a curious thought came into her mind: “We should live absolutely in movement for only looking ahead without dwelling on how you skate, you will grasp the process of skating at the life ice rink, and then and only then you will adore doing that.” “Nice,” Earlyborn said, observing the area beneath her balcony and the lights in the Tower, “but how to start focus on action?” Here is one of the main matters, which we are going to tackle throughout the book… For now Earlyborn examined starry sky: the Ursa Major was right above the roof of her house, illuminating the young lady with string of lights with shapes, similar to Christmas toys and fireworks. Earlyborn planned to draw a projection of the stars on her life, like with a thin brush of gouache on the space canvas, and to mark out the course to Antarctic precisely with these patterns. Enlightenment, seems, dawned on Earlyborn at that very moment :) All of a sudden, she understood that all miseries and failures which snowed her under, were not that important neither for her and certainly nor for the Madagascar cockroaches in her head, which visit any woman in Paris. She realized that she was to exult. She realized that if you have nothing to change in your life to be blissful or you have to alter everything, that means there is no need for you to change anything. Except for the attitude to life. On that joyful bass note Earlyborn continued her night adventures, forwarding her glance in the dreamworld. The left crater on the Moon started jerking…

Chapter 5

Luisian got up and was willing to continue working. And there was a phrase which learned him a lot for he had never heard it more often than now, in the house of the weird, although ultimately kind and generous hostess. “Carry on with work,” Lunight told her little child, whom she yesterday went tending to the closet, “keep working, otherwise you will not earn for your bread, and who will feed his mummy?” And the son went away, with some sparkle in eyes, obediently going on painting tin shapes. The case was that not long ago Lunight’s husband left her. However, it cannot be deemed that he actually was with her: he had small romantic relationships that resulted in a birth of a baby. When the husband (who is not really a husband—a villain) learned that his “sweetheart” would have children, he moved in a different residence. Yet Lunight was forgiving, and that is a greatest side of poor natures, who are stuck in nasty living. Poor people see through life and will see further; they will not lose the ability to experience that it is not money which is the main criterion in society to estimate people. Even not that: a person can be still that particular person, as a matter of fact, they can be more honorable with no money; a person remains himself in Africa, and money is a supplement which leads people for existence, not enjoying the life. All poor people believe in the absence of the reason for living, as they suppose the meaning to be only a direction, which compels us to work and live with the desire to live for the achievement of an obscure goal. That is what I intended to convey now, and I feel it is time to finish. So will do I. That is the end. Thank everyone, mother-father, one who listened is well-done.

But, wait a min-ute… “Thank everyone, mother-father, one who listened is well-done,” said Lunight’s child too on the stage of a small theatre in Costa Rica. Lunight and her six-year-old son made their living by selling toys—tin cans, which the ocean surf brought on the beach; they also performed for charity in a small children theatre. There were charity providers in Costa Rica, and Lunight got approximately a half of the money she earned at the fair. So Luisian learned the chief rule of the life: “Keep working.” Moreover (Lunight was so generous today), he was told the main principle of life: “Do not worry if you cannot obtain something—it happens! You live today, and, maybe will live tomorrow, in addition to that, you know that you lived and was full up yesterday, and the other things are not the reason to be sad. And this idea helps you to live; any imaginable meaning of life bring the idea that the very reason for being is simply to be, to live, and only this makes you happier, only for this reason you should work hard. Yet if you do work hard, but do not manage to do, what is then? You have clinched your aim – you are alive, and with you carrying on working, you may finally double what you have achieved.” There was, obviously, some fruit of Luisian’s deductions in these words for Lunight did not baffle her child with them. Everyone does doings, which they deem useful for themselves. At any rate, Luisian realized that it being always cheerful is a must, particularly when you do not know “How can I be alike? Speculating about being cheerful, following the life principles and dealing with life this way, Luisian spend the first half of the day and that marvelous time when you just start your doings, and it is like you do not live, but eat some fresh bread of life… Unfortunately, everything comes to its end, and these reflections blew away. Luisian got down to business, and those high spirits that attended his mind in Costa Rica faded away. Actions were required, and Luisian, as never before, started thinking over his situation. He sat, pondering about the development of diverse events and gazing at the life river called the World Ocean.

***

It was already midday. Dionysius got to the airport in San José and bought tickets on two planes: to Atlanta, and then to Paris. It cost him much money, yet he was a cheerful person, as all people in the South America (how could! We should try that!), and did not care about money. Furthermore, he considered money to be evil, and as soon as money fell into his hands, he spent it as soon as possible. That was more comfortable for him. So was now: he took some money from his bank—a massive wooden chest with handfuls of golden coins, which lay there for quite time, as a family inheritance, he decided that if he was going to do a good deed, money must be used. Dionysius had to be in the plane in a couple of hours.

Looking at a stream of red taxis, lined up in such a manner that it reminded car racers gathering there from the entire town, Dionysius contemplated the variety on one hand, and, on the other hand, the sameness of towns on the Earth, in which he was. Take these palm trees. Or the sky, an old white building, similar to the White House in Washington, and the slightly cracked from the sun dry light-gray asphalt—all this Dionysius could not digest with the thought of what, he wondered, he would see in the narrow snow-covered Paris streets. He, eventually (maybe because of the heat, maybe because of his hunger), concluded that similarities and discrepancies, life and death, love and hate, even the globe and everything beyond it—is one and the same thing, as though we compared the snow and the rain.

Dionysius lost his ticket on the plane. It occurs and means that he is not the most lucky person. Or, perhaps, was that the influence of Luisian’s lost mascot?? As Luisian lost not only the bronze bee, but the heap of adventures which could wait for him, be he not in France. He behaved good.

Dionysius lost the ticket to Atlanta… Probably, he dropped it when tried to hid some yet cold water in his backpack when went in the toilet in the hot weather. It may well be taken by a hapless and dishonest Costa Rican. Perhaps, the ticket was just lost, and Dionysius would come across it. You now, at times people experience so strong emotions that they do not bother about what will happen next, no in two hours. I call this life. Actually, it is the truth. If only a person could always forget about everything and only with a fact that he saw a butterfly that a wink ago tickled his nose! Can we do something about it? Dionysius came to the decision: nice if he would find it; damn it if he would fail! He was not that honourable to return the bee at all costs. It was more likely that there was no place in heaven for him if there was any heaven. Another case was that Dionysius had spent his last money, and he was either to find the job or to starve in the nearest future. It is a fact, when the person is truly in need, he sees the time frames to be approachable, they are not looming, but lucidly distinguished on the horizon as a real thing, like a Geometry test in childhood. Dionysius got the decision: may the ticket be as it was, since our downs are the part of our experience—as an injured lion is still a lion; he began searching for the ticket in his rucksack again and generating ideas which could afterwards be called “experience”—some call it the through-life experience. Before the plane appeared, Dionysius was supposed to be reckless and do a careless deed which would teach him the life. He also reflected: it is quite possible to find some money during these two hours which were at his disposal (incidentally, not that much time), giving the next instruction to his brains: “Earn some money for me to buy the ticket on the plane, if not, you’ll die”. And this could come true for it was not to buy a ticket from Moscow to Australia or Columbia—it was simply a flight to Atlanta, not far, like a flight on sky shuttle, so that it would cost no more than five thousand rubles in Russian currency. And then a plan on how earn the money at least for the way in homeward direction occurred to Dionissi; maybe it happened on account of the heat that influence people differently (Egyptians were said to build the pyramids especially because it was hot. I mean to say it was their brains which could come up with such an idea) or the reason for the plan was a bit salty water, flowing in Costa Rica water supplying system. Dionysius spotted few coconut trees some kilometres before the airport. Technically, he could easily reach them, in about three-four minutes, as he trained enough while running after cows and other cattle that lived on Argentina farms. And then he may sell them in handfuls, as many as he was able to bring to the tourists who would have been so generous to purchase all the coconuts. No sooner said than done—Dionysius, producing some steam, as the Caribbean sun, was speeding up, leaving no asphalt behind him.

Chapter 6

He came to the coconut trees really fast, but climbing on them took much time… On the way, he met a same merry fellow as he was himself who, for some reason, caught few butterflies fallen asleep and was going to sell them out now. That fellow had a motor scooter. Dionysius, with the help of the eloquence got from his French mother, managed to deal with a guy to buy a basket dangling on a scooter, to which he promised not to tell the police that he was a witness of something alike to butterfly smuggling. He picked up lots of coconuts in the basket and lost one—as the result, he was compelled to drink the coconut milk so that it would not blot his snow-white T-shirt permanently. Yet the T-shirt became dirty. “No big deal,” cheered up Dionysius reckoned and took off the messy clothing. People in Costa Rica take this for granted more often than in Europe, and almost everywhere you could meet a man with a naked torso or a woman in a bright swimsuit. “I definitely need to put on glasses… A sort of ones a drug baron in American motion pictures has; it will be outstanding. There, on the summit of golden mafia!” Dionysius at once came up with the idea. If you live reckless, life is wonderful, and the inconveniences you experience merely bring you the precious experience. What an interesting surprise—almost always when a person pulls himself together and do not stuck with empty pockets, which is adjacent to the death and the wondrous laziness, almost always a person struggled poverty and had that experience I told you about, once making his way through the true way, would be the more rich and successful, the poorer he was. But wealth is evanescent. This already dawned on Dionysius when we took a half of parents’ money from the chest buried somewhere on the snow-white Costa Rica beach. Of course, soon after that he built a house, almost an English villa, and married a notable young lady. Suddenly, although it happens, there happened a breakdown. The answer to a question “Why?” is still a secret. Probably, the cause was in his indifference to the events and that all was the echo of the past. Dionysius concluded that good life satiated him. “That is the same as with the diet and healthy eating,” he reflected, “absolutely that, since once when you were eating chicken breasts for a month, and suddenly stopped and almost found the meaning of your life in a tiny toast with jam and nuts.” So was with Dionysius when he began eating one toast each day and soon was gone off pleasure. Were his considerations moot? Perhaps. However, Dionysius is a stubborn Frenchman. He abandoned his apartments and decided to lease out them to the tourists, opened a bank account where he deposited the money got from them while letting out; he personally moved there, at the Argentina farm.

The only dream he had was to make his children’s future decent, using the money from that bank account. But using rationally—not as the others did. He did not want to put his children in a private school, where they could have got not under good influence – on the contrary. No, his children would study in a public school in France, wear usual clothes, with no marks of trends and names of brands, they would not play any video games with console all evenings long—would read classic works of literature. He expected his children to enjoy life just when they ate an ice cream after long-lasting walks, in general, so that his children did not attain too much pleasure from life. That being said, Dionysius chose he would not work for hours till the morning. Given such a sum of money, he was not going to note down his job higher than the family in his list of priorities, and they would make it a habit strolling in the park before dinner. His wife and he would be blessed with two or three kids for so splendid a living gladdens. She would not waste her money on plastic surgeries and mink coats, never! If his wife found an appropriate occupation, he would definitely help her to succeed in it… In addition to that, Dionysius would have a sum on his account for expensive gifts. Never would he spend much money for himself. How excited made him this coconut milk! :)

Dionysius went, shaking his wicker basket with the delicacies, which one, oddly enough, may not deem like that. From the sky that was still sunny and clear, as the skin of some not yet ripe orange, fell now, seems, freshly squeezed juice. And that was understandable: the summer in Latin America was often tropical, and as a little boy in Russia would go out to buy some bread and naturally would catch the snowflakes with his tongue, so here the local children ran out once they heard rhythmic strains of rain, coming down like the freshly pressed in a lemon-squeezer juice of a five-star hotel. A fellow who was a butterfly smuggler passed him by and noticed how to take back his basket. The smuggler twigged that the person whom he gave the basket was right at the moment was making the crime not less, maybe more than he himself did (since coconuts were the property of the town whilst butterflies were not), he grabbed the basket from the robber effortlessly as it was when he first gave it to him. Seeing this, Dionysius was not upset. He was not an easily upset person, although he seemed opposite at first glance. Under no circumstances must you believe initial impression. If for no other reason that most interesting people, trying it as the sort of checking your strength for no purpose, never act to show their real potential. The rain started, and even the thread of our speculations could not stop it, nor could they prevent a little boy first came to help his father and earned much money at one go from running into a rack with coconut milk, so scrupulously stored on its shelves. He did it startlingly right in front of Dionysius’s eyes. Dionysius did not expect that turn of events which were just as ones in a film created by a short-sighted director, who did not want them to live up to any expectations, but be estimated by the impulse they brought, by their very existence. Sometimes life, not cinema, is predictable, which means that everyone will reap what they sow, and no one will be afflicted with justice. Dionysius felt unduly pleasant gladness, as after the languor, which appears when you do something complicated and at the same time useful for a long time, immerse yourself entirely at the work and became so exhausted that you want to interrupt it, yet, finally, do not give up and keep working. It happens when you are not aware of how many more seconds or minutes you will endure to beat your record, and when you do not how gradually you may probably improve the situation. This can be compared with the path you stand on to beat the world record. Dionysius felt intuitively that he had to go to a father and a son and put some coconuts, which he could not place into that now stolen basket, so that he found a nook for them in his pockets, next to the family, since a child should not be sad and bothered on the account of the ruined rack. His legs guided him forward with somewhat jet or alien force. Yet it was fate’s will that he caught the look of the father and a boy and no flow of mutual attention in it, which could have lead them to the further coherent action. In other words, there was no collaboration between them that usually happens with you and that wonderful greeter in a perfume shop or at the travel agency. At that very moment the fate seemed to encourage Dionysius to make his own choice. And he made his decision, following one trait of character which he got when the tax inspectorate came to him at his farm. He approached to the family and gave them the coconuts he had in his pockets and which were not theirs. That happened accurately as he wished. He left them as soon as his pockets where empty. The rain was coming down in buckets as everlasting film and touched the numb from the pleasure of the finished deed Dionysius’s face.

Obviously, Dionysius bore in mind that the ticket he bought was left in inspector’s hands—the reason is that Costa Rica is a hospitable country, and here a seller and an inspector is one and the same woman, but as there was no paper to feed into the printer, she promised Dionysius from behind the window to let him board on the plane without the ticket. He being a credulous person who believed in fairness agreed on it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Dionysius could still not be on the plane if it was not that café, the chef of which ordered him a cup of coffee with a bun at no charge. This is the morality of the sixth chapter, my friends. Never have good doings left with no equal ones in return. He was looking through the mad and dust specked silvery window and suddenly he felt that something covered his heart and now was sitting in his heart: it was the dust. While a flight attendant was handing around refreshing beverages, Dionysius thought that it was weird that people who had seats in business class still had not realized that the true power is in humility. Dionysius was in such high spirits now that he asked the nearby passenger, who was a young man with a laptop dressed smart and with that rejection of beauty and fashion which only programmers have, about it. “What is the real might?” Dionysius was not ideal, so he forgot at times about the idiosyncrasy of people. He did not remember that everyone has his own opinion on what the truth is, and no one knows who is certainly right if the truth itself exists. Taking this into consideration, all the people are initially mistaken. In this case, the phrase from the poem “Silentium” by Tyutchev “A thought once uttered is untrue” is absolutely suitable. The young man with a laptop did not answer Dionysius not on the account of misunderstanding or being impolite, but since he was deaf. Then it occurred to our wanderer that he was a right dimwit. After all, the universe is not eternal and imperishable, yet we believe it to be so. Meanwhile people with disabilities have totally their notions about the world and see this world in a different way, hence their own meaning of life opens in front of them. It is hard to get. Flocks of birds flew behind the window.

Chapter 7

It was nearly the first time when Earlyborn got up late, seemingly because she became exhausted at night. Nothing unusual. The young lady was so enthusiastic about making up stories about teeny-weeny people shuttling around that she was doing it till her brother woke up. She wanted to make breakfast—succeeded, straight away brewed an alarm clock and soon dozed off with no mighty under her consciousness. The alarm clock set off but no one listened for it, since it was impossible to hear the alarm clock when it was placed into an electric kettle. Earlyborn was particularly creative about various breakages: out of thousands of places to put the alarm clock in she, sleepy or after some poor sleep, preferred that very container. It was very good that there was no short circuit or something of that kind. As Zhenka was a great prankster too, he took a series of shots depicting his sister from different angles while her snooze; some young ladies would even feel jealous looking at those photos as they did not think of them at their autumn photo sessions. Those pictures were: Earlyborn with the electric kettle, and with her left eye half-open, and with her right one covered with a frying pan – he was satisfied. Zhenka decided to develop the joke and made a quest for his sister to find her phone earlier than he would manage to delete any photo from it, but he put them all into self-deleting. Obviously, Zhenka did not arrive here just to ruffle Earlyborn, but to perk her up slightly, since he saw there was something wrong. He wanted to do that next way. He saw his sister as a sack of potatoes, in which there is probably somehow little tea unmixed with sugar, so that such a state of affairs does not gladden you. However, if you pick the suck for a while, mix tea with sugar and potatoes, potatoes will happen to be middle-sized, and the tea—a little too sugary. So it was roughly that what Zhenka planned to do with Earlyborn. What could he do instead? He was not supposed to be Earlyborn’s personal psychologist, was he not? All the same she would not say a word, but notice that everything is visible, and would withdrew into her shell, back into a lair of affliction and fear, from which she was beckoned by the way of bluff, pressure and the huge surprise effect. Now Zhenka was not to keep something which was already beckoned. Zhenka somehow learned about his sister’s dream to travel following the map of stars (she drew the Ursa Major for this reason) and sketched maybe a dozen of diverse routes, when she was sleeping and the alarm clock was boiling. One of them led through the whole Russia; others, conversely, did not lead across any country—they got round islands and continents. This all lay in one place, and Zhenka expected Earlyborn to be extremely happy, so that it would rejuvenate her. She found her phone and those drawn routes and did not offend—she brightened up and felt so for the rest of the day. Zhenka saw the sparkle in her eyes and thought his efforts were not in vain. She again went away abruptly to continue sleeping, and he had nothing but to accept that that sparkle was simply the reflection of his own sparkle. Her own sparkle was still napping… Earlyborn another time headed for the balcony, seemingly till the dawn.

As it mainly (almost always) happens when you stop waiting for anything, or when you become less demanding in your expectations, there will definitely be an event similar to one which was in the past. There will surely be an event which suggests you to agree with what you already refused. Whether it occurs since you put an end to building hopes and start gazing at the world from different angle or it happens as it happened now? Coming out at the balcony, Earlyborn experienced what made her happy during her years, decades of her youth. You cannot describe that feeling with words. Metaphors are helpless there, as it was the emotion which comes to you if a train that you missed suddenly crawls back to you, or which you bear through after a nightmare when you assure yourself that everybody is alive and it is time to live. Merely because you are like the line x in the coordinate grid, and the sine curve of happiness interweaved with you in harmony. So now you have nothing to do to be delighted for all the time when it is in that phase. Earlyborn looked at the Eiffel Tower as though she looked at an underachiever who contrived to get B for a test and she was now pointing out him mistakes he made, and he realizes that he put a foot wrong. Earlyborn, it seemed, consoled the Tower that the human being does not live forever whilst the Tower—does; she likened the things mentioned to the romantic story, so that the midnight Paris air filled with power, which was a hundred times mightier than the spirit of bright Esenin’s sorrow. Something dawned on Earlyborn this marvelous Paris midnight. She observed those feverish faces that all at once routinely wondered at same things and rejoiced insincerely, bursting with laughter seemed to be poured from cast iron. Those people do not have imagination and, as the result, they have the limited view on the world! It depends on their mental growth and more often such people stop just at gazing in amazement at their idols and do not pay attention at anything else.

She passed her already sleeping brother by, who, with no doubt, did not devote his precious time to these aimless speculations, to take her phone from the phone charger. She flatly unplugged her phone, and an unclear image rotated by 180 degrees appeared on the lock screen with a 72% charge. She had never let her phone be not fully charged, but now she did it and went to the balcony. She counted to ten, looking at hateful to her crescent moon and the annoying Eiffel Tower (as if nobody could invent something more sophisticated for a change!) and, I think, did not see them—she spoke to some supernatural forces of darkness or light as kids do when lying in bed… She exhaled deeply and deleted her Facebook account. And then the Instagram, the Twitter, even the Telegram account—went rogue! Earlyborn raised her hands up and was about to throw away her phone right down from the balcony, like a basketball player (for she was a basketball player in her childhood), yet she heaved backwards, recollected herself rapidly and gently put her phone on a shawl. All at once a sparkle loomed in her eyes, as though a preposterous idea came to her mind; it was that sparkle which Luisian had at the beginning of his doings and Earlyborn’s brother craved to see in his sister. It appears when you do not go to bed for three days. It was like Zhenka shared his light with the sister by his mental wish. Again she passed the doorway by, and the curtains, as house dust mites (if they do exist), were astonished to see her come to the balcony that often: she usually went to the balcony once in the evening, which was the whole life for those creatures.

Earlyborn put on her just a little cold boots, which were not for the weather outdoors (it was in the 20s, dressed in a warm fashionable coat, you name it, a hat with dinosaurs and went just as for a walk, armed with some household appliances. It is needless to hope that she would not be robbed in that clothing, but a reckless person, at times, is worse than a mad bear, and it was good, actually, that no one tried to steal a thing from her hands, since he could get multiple lacerations from blows of a microwave. Hopefully, she did not take a washing machine with her. But what am I talking about? Earlyborn decided to sell her lots of unwanted appliances: some were purchased just on account of her wishes, some—by the advice of a designer, but our heroine did not get their use, and was going to give all her possessions to different shops. To which? Oh, do not worry, for Earlyborn already was not a child and had a number of acquaintances in shops. Apparently, few men manage to find fresh flowers even at night on the outskirts of towns. And women, in return, can sell iPhones and household appliances. In the end, Earlyborn disposed from unwanted things and came back home early morning with fragrant croissants, baked out of soft and fresh dough, which was absolutely of excellent quality and, therefore, exorbitant. But Earlyborn made up her mind on the healthcare and concluded not to economize on presents for the brother. Since he was little and helped their father, mother, and, moreover, grandpa to push tractors on occasion, he had a dream to have a car. Despite now he was twenty two and earned good for Irkutsk money, he could not afford so magnificent a thing, because their family was said to be not the most well off one—they were middle-class. So Earlyborn dared to buy him a car, furthermore, the time for them to set off was soon coming, and in Antarctic, it was more likely to have no internet. The brother would be incredibly happy. She sold her possessions in total for one million rubles and went to take extra three millions from her bank account. The time came when I can reveal a secret that suddenly, out of nowhere, a wealthy grandfather appeared—he was virtually a king (a father of her mother’s first husband); his death was sudden too, but he left her quite a heritance and a house in Dubai, which she leased and lived for the money she received. At times she was scared. Money is evil, and despite Earlyborn was all but first woman of fashion in Paris in her street, she clearly comprehended that once you started wasting money, you would not stop; that was now the reason for her to spend only a half of the legacy and live on the profit from the rent in Dubai. She dealt with everything: twenty euro were usually left and she carefully credited her savings account with it and after that she sent a sum to her family, in Russia. Her family was her stepfather. Mother passed away, father too, and that another woman… Generally, in this case “They did not suit each other” is said. To cut a long story short, there had to be enough money to purchase a premium car. Of course, not Porsche, yet here is the point: the more expensive car you buy, the more expensive one you crave to get. As if you took part in a voluntary racing with kids, where you, being a year older than others, wanted to come not in the first ten, but to be merely the first. Earlyborn beautifully wrapped her credit card, put a couple of croissants on it, and saliva of pleasure began to flow if not out of Zhenka’s mouth, then, out of his very heart. She brewed a cup of mango coffee for herself with no sugar, since she watched her already slim enough figure. Earlyborn, by the way, back in the days was a model for covers of fashion magazines and sometimes of man journals. She was a shameless lady, as some granny on a bench in Saratov would describe her. Let it be so: her shamelessness brought her up to ten millions in a year. It seemed, Earlyborn would be truly happy if there were not this feeling of satiation and sadness in the eyes. To get the happiness Earlyborn could marry and after, wrapped in a shawl, sing his son, lying in a bed from IKEA and yawning into an IKEA multicoloured night light, a lullaby with that tenderness, which only a mother, not a young lady, can have.

Chapter 8

Dionysius’s plane was approaching to Atlanta. A local airport had his own sparkle of life, and, amazingly, it was dear to Dionysius’s heart, while it was alien to his soul. It is like you always dwell on the outskirts and suddenly move to the downtown. The plane was landing in a dangerous manner: on one wing and with Costa Rica pilots’ mastery. When some people next time will ask me what they do wrong, I will show them these pilots: “Learn from experienced people.” The touchdown was a miracle. A seasonal storm, looking as a hurricane—either Katrina or Alice, but in Russian it would be just “Damn this aircraft! I’m terrified!” These were the words shouted by a Russian passenger, who was on the board of that airliner, looking at a palm tree behind the cabin that reeled from side to side as a person who went astray on the life path. They flew law, and pilots could not understand why they felt like fish out of water: because they could fail to handle with the airplane or could survive and yell like Dmitry Guberniev after the Russia triumph in biathlon. They landed perfectly; people succeed in their professional doings, but at times stress hampers the success.

Fighting with Atlanta weather, Dionysius went towards the town along the short avenue, but today it seemed to him of compelling length and breadth; there were no buses at that time. But he needed to walk, because it was the only rule Dionysius followed—to be always in movement. He did not appreciate any breaks, so he set off far away to find Luisian. “It is not the result which is crucial, but the constant work,” he said. “People who work for the result make a big mistake. Without doubt, these people will attain their desires, maybe even faster than somebody else. Yet the meaning of life is not in the outcome, and a person will not die if he does not fulfill the things he wanted. And there rises a question: “How can a man who turned a winner in a competition and afterwards is depressed live on?” He worked towards the result and got it. Actually you ought to work for work itself. As one man of wisdom with a beard said, «Work is important, but to notice the process of work is more essential». If work is your first priority, you will not lose the interest to work after the achievement of the result,” so thought Dionysius, reciting his poems to wind of the hurricane. The weather worsened, and, perhaps, there was a state of emergency imposed in the town with hope that there would not be a seasonal hurricane that often appears in North America latitudes. Dionysius could only conjecture about it, for example, watching a young palm brunch flying in the distance. He did not imagine his life with no adventures and with now, let’s say, this palm brunch hurt his head and leaving him the long-lasting experience. For this reason Dionysius was full of joy and excitement to see something new when he saw the hurricane approaching to Atlanta. He was dauntless and somewhat crazy—it was his nature. Call to mind the story, when being in the motherland, France, Dionysius was walking one beautiful May day after his university lectures among beautiful avenues, and there was no sign of trouble… A couple of minutes later, a policeman and he were running away with a watermelon stolen from a small shop. Dionysius walked, and the heavy rain changed into a hurricane, as if it was still the rain which took him by surprise in Costa Rica; this rain was like a symbol of his life, it reminded him that the winds of life will never stop blowing, and he will be to live and enjoy the life with them.

Dionysius went and pondered about peculiarities of his life. To be honest, he did not realize how people around him could be clumsy and heavy as aged trees and be much fond of self-analysis. He both did not and did understand how these people might looked like—as Costa Rica and Paris placed close to each other. However, people unlike towns have consciousness… Yet consciousness of towns is built on people’s consciousness. The airport in Atlanta is considered one of the vast and busiest airports in the world. A school-leaver sees the world as a cluster of things depicted as negative and inappropriate at school; the colossal anthill of people, happened during the hurricane in a modern building, proved that anything can come true in this world—the thing is to make right question. It also proved that the majority of people are weak when it is time to do something extraordinary, given that any person is easily able to do that. The road where Dionysius went resembled a new Hollywood film. Everything was unbelievable and a company of zombies seemed to appear right from under flooded asphalt and to settle into that area. Dionysius walked along real American highway with six lanes, and the heavy rain was pouring down, and palm brunches were flying at that time. As someone placed that scenery into a wind tunnel and started filming. There were no cars on the highway and it was better for them, because it was unpredictable whether they would be overflowed with water as last time or not. Dionysius was perplexed, “Why can’t people once desire something, get it? Anything is possible in our world!” Yuri Gagarin was in cosmos, so is now: you should just start sleeping every other day, and you will get more than a hundred of extra working hours after a month. Dionysius always achieved aimed doings, and he soon became bored, overtaking others, although the outcome was far from the impeccable one. Dionysius found himself in today and literally repudiated the past. It gladdens, my friends, when you just try not to remember something for a joke! Dionysius had a pittance in a pocket: it would be enough to stay in a hostel somewhere in the center of the town and to buy a couple of hot dogs with a cup of instant coffee. Is anyone happier than this person who is going to the warm place after a rain storm?

There was a ramp on the right side of the highway. Probably Dionysius reached the town center. It took him approximately two hours and a half. Of course, it was not much, but Dionysius pulled himself together since the beginning of his forced and a bit absurd journey, and, as a consequence, did not pay attention to the occasion that he could shorten the way by running. Some people coped with marathons within such time given—he did not. The second Dionysius’s rule was the perception that time passes by quicker, when you do something.

***

And now time passed by too.

Dionysius planned to move on, return the mascot to Luisian and then make his old dream to experience working on construction site in Russia come true. Why this dream? The fact is that his first memory of the childhood was a picture, in which his father and he were going near a huge house, and he saw a man eating noodles on a crane. Dionysius saw with his childish eagle eye that he devoured every piece of the dish with pleasure beyond words and during brakes looked at the moon’s host full of great secrets of the night, who observed the entire town from his height. It dawned on Dionysius that the life never ends, so you should always move forward and tick carried out doings. His dream seemed childish and foolish for others, but it was new for Dionysius in its oddity and simplicity. And he thought that construction site in Russia (this country always attracted him with the creative chaos) would be the most marvelous place. You could learn the craft of life there, then turn it into art and meet powerful and interesting people. Speculating this way, he ate a hot Detroit-style pizza—an iconic dish for that hostel in the town center, since the hostel owner was born in Detroit and treated his guests to it. He looked not young: his condition was as if he was an instrument in a three-day use. You could not imagine that hostel owner with twenty years of given none of these details, as you cannot imagine autumn without yellow trees and rusty cars with no sharp lines and bumpers. He said to Dionysius, “You are a strong and clever fellow. I see no defects in you, but when you start, you may well excel yourself. And there you are menacing for yourself. As menacing as the biggest shark for it is always difficult to befirst and constantly ward off enemies with dullness. Be careful, Dionysius, and find the energy to stand up if the wand of peppered life will slay you. At times life forces to cook food in trays. Yet it worth pretending this food at times. This is the last mistake of strong people, who can forgive themselves. It is the mistake of their pride.” Despite it was dark as in the evening, the sun rose. The storm of life was leaving the American town.

Chapter 9

The hurricane occurred these nights first in America, then Mexico, and Brazil, and Argentina with Costa Rica changed dramatically the huts of local fishermen. Some now looked like schooners turned over by Mr Megalodon, others transformed into a pile of abounded log houses, and the last ones metamorphosed into flocks of migrant birds—they were that light. Fortunately, there were some undamaged huts. Seemed, it was the chance from nature to the people to improve their deeds. The Lunight hut was not damaged at all, although the neighbouring houses were totally collapsed. It was a sign for Luisian that he was a mascot himself. Lunight confirmed that. Who else, as Noah, could stop the storm and save them from the inevitable distraction? And Luisian saved. Lunight asked him many times to stay with them, but he refused. Luisian headed for Paris, because someone whispered him that Dionysius was there. A surprise waited for our characters—a slightly scratched by Costa Rica sand yacht was brought by the sea water and furious winds outside the Lunight’s hut; Luisian suggested the hostess to paint and sell the yacht. That was done, and in a week Lunight and her little son moved to the town center, where she helped the baker and earned a half salary, yet which was enough to renovate the new flat and to live happily. Luisian saw Lunight in these high spirits on the day of their last meeting when the ticket to Paris was bought and there were just some hours before the flight. When he went upstairs, he noticed as all his impressions of life ruined and changed with fresher and more sincere ones; he did not fell in love, but grasped something what could become his meaning of life. He saw a beautiful light-green sofa entering a right-hand flat on the twenty fifth floor (the Lunight’s son was a fan of high buildings, and his mother wanted to delight him); the furniture matched the wallpapers in the flat that much, so Luisian was about to exclaim “ah”. He supposed abruptly, “Why can’t I be a wizard who helps people to build golden houses? And not all is gold that glitters, but almost all is gold that is loved. Luisian made his mind up about his future job for he needed to become someone beyond the best Italian Ded Moroz. Lunight brewed tasty Caribbean tea with popcorn and some sweet thing, perhaps, with real passion fruit. There was a harmony in the flat drowned in sunbeams of the setting sun, where the sum of money payed for the design was as much so that it could be said that there was no coin given simply so. Luisian was sitting on a white carved chair, in which there was nothing in particular and dreamed he was drinking the very time seemed rolled up and now leaking away, like the jelly, like the honey from a glass jar, out of the flat into the Mouth ocean. Yeah… There are moments in the life when your body seems to be born again, or perfectly suits the vital rhythm, or still seems to be born again, and you do not think more that life was ever unfair to you. You merely imagine how you drink this fresh milk of space without a stop and realize that you will not once more be sated with it and that it will not be excessive to take a nap after this speedy and too wonderful evening.

Luisian opened his eyes sitting in a plane. He could not remember a thing at first. Than he collected his thoughts, and the memory told he visited somebody; he started to elaborate, but then gathered his wits and the need for the further movement was remarked on. Something new and a bit incomprehensible was craved by Luisian’s heart. Something what is usually chosen by undetermined people—“yes”: between “yes” and “no” they agreed to opt for “yes” all the time.

***

Let’s make happiness, my friends! Earlyborn got up, brewed some Indian tea for her brother and her and went to wash the dishes in the mood as if she knew that the very moment she would go to the shop and win in a free lottery arranged by some entrepreneurs. The atmosphere behind the window was probably like the one which happens in Sochi mountains at the New Year midnight: it was cold, scaring, dreadfully dark, but incredibly lovely, given that you was aware of existence of a festive mountain hamlet behind a huge town spruce which was soon removed. Yet it was irresistibly cold at home. At that time real severe Russian Epiphany³ frosts came to Paris, but Earlyborn did not bother about it, since her under-floor heating managed to do his job for one hundred percent. Despite the brother (as it generally happens in a family formed from a sister and a brother) was an intelligent head in the house and was in charge of his reckless sibling, he was habitually sleeping: whenever the morning started, he got up ten-fifteen minutes later than Earlyborn. How can we solve this riddle? There is nothing to do – when Zhenka went to bed stoutly (for he regularly dozed off and woke up quickly. As the saying is: to love means to love with the very heart!), Earlyborn crept to his bed humming something, softly turned him on another side, so that his body did not look at the wall and a pillow, and then a bit bent and stretched herself to see an alarm clock. She timed the position of hands and went in the bathroom to have a shower, cleaned her teeth with a cutting age of medicine—an electric toothbrush—and set off the alarm clock at the time so that she would get up earlier to give her brother a cup of coffee with her half-cunning and half-sympathetic smile. So do we, my dear friends, when we want to achieve something, say, to learn drawing, we take this graceless, but right step. Firstly, we just come into a class, yet, maybe not in a class as a room, but as one of the groups of people in society and try to obtain the trust of other people. We meet a class teacher and look with respect at students who were taught there before and some of them—it appears—know a lot beyond the course of study. You may get it glancing at the teacher’s eyes: they emanate joy and exhilaration. We cheer ostentatiously when we succeed in something or, conversely, explicitly get upset; after that we pirouette as Earlyborn did: we dig up remember what an A student does to be first and go away showy. There is no need in school as a life giving thing and the most delicious part of life moisture. As there is no need in a water filter if a person discovered a spring or an artesian well. The truth is that you always can find this spring, since it does not hide. When we comprehended efforts put by the A student into learning, we find a nook at our house at night, in the early morning, or after lunch when everyone is asleep in hope to excel him in it, so that we can do twice (or even more) as much as he does, and enjoy the life. As if it was slalom, where you was somewhere in the middle of the piste, yet approaching to the first participants rather than to those who were behind him, and you craved to win and eventually found the way out. Left ski-track for an unknown reason becomes faster than the right one, but no one, except you, payed any attention to that, and you ski with high speed, deriving pleasure from the nature with your nose membranes during brakes between taking breaths. When you reach the finish, you will long for the forest which was taken aback, but soon realize that breaks you made between breaths saved the spirit of the forest, and it will forever with you. Earlyborn was staring with her shifty eyes at her brother’s awaken ones, jerking in tune with the alarm clock. Earlyborn was that type of women, who can live without make-up, since she was charming, yet sometimes she let herself put on some lipstick with two careless strokes, making long lips, like a swan, or put the eyelashes. When Zhenka finally got up, she ended drawing the last strokes in her creativity. It looked as the moon moved to its dressing room to compete in beauty with our heroine, and the stars were cast with clouds of fume or steam, which rose from the cups with fresh Indian tea brought at the balcony.

It is so nice to come out at the balcony of an old house with a cup of tea in the middle of January when the weather in Paris tells that it is already Moscow and see that modernly dressed women and curious tourists together with the Eiffel Tower still wave at you and do not go away. Then you stand, rocking with worry, and ask it, “Are you standing?” And the worry answers, starring at you as at an inanimate string of light which suddenly became alive, “If now we have a look whether there is a green one at the warehouse, and if there is, you can pay for the car and take it.”

“If now we have a look whether there is a green one at the warehouse, and if there is, you can pay for the car and take it.” Zhenia and Earlyborn were found standing in a car showroom after two hours of agreeing a deal on the car purchase. Nothing went wrong, and the car was chosen; the problem was that siblings deemed the purchase as an adventure, as though it was a rehearsal of their journey to Antarctic. They were roaming around the car showroom for a long time, sat into the biggest and into the smallest cars in turn and tried to play hide-and-seek: one hid on the front seat, another counted on the back seat and next started searching, and an odd thing is that he did not find at once. Then they decided on the model and wandered around it, questioning the assistants which colours they have. Earlyborn was particularly interested in this issue, for she was a true aesthete with her dull-red lipstick. They agreed with a lead manager about the test drive, who estimated their choice, got in a traffic jam at first and soon were supposed to drive at the far end of the town: they ran out of petrol. They drove enough and got an ocean of pleasure. Earlyborn made a circle in front of the car showroom, imagining how she would make the same circle around the Tower after extorting from her brother, where the keys to the car were, getting up fifteen minutes earlier than him… Then they were completing the documents and choosing the wheel rims: Earlyborn wanted to have some big ones, and Zhenka—some practical ones. They reached a compromise, and when the evening twilight appeared, the world saw Zhenka’s new dark-orange—of the fireplace colour—car. Zhenka literally jumped out of the car, turning right—he glanced at his beautiful sister and the Earth through the side window. Siblings again started playing hide-and-seek. Earlyborn hid in the boot, although they concluded not to hide there, and Zhenka left her and went for a stroll alone to teach her a lesson.

Chapter 10

***

He sat and looked at the fire without noticing the sunset dancing on the other seashore. There was a bit rusty bunch of keys next to him, made from hard metal that it seemed they were from cast iron. In truth, they were from tin. Gulls were screeching. On one window, if to be more accurate, not far from the one of them, was a magnet from Montenegro. The sunset was warmer and huger, which was not typical for the area, as the yolk on a frying pan that was a bit overcooked; it was thought to have a light with a mystery inside within a probability of ten-fifteen percent. Perhaps, there were aliens inside, or the meaning of life itself. Such light was widely used on the rolls of film in the past to hold back the evidence and arguments in court. Ages passed by, ears of rye were ready to reap, do not try to hide this sandy colour of life, as you will never hide it all. Moreover, winners can’t be judged, so the beach is not court, yet the area where the main action takes place. What action? The adventures of our characters. There was a windmill somewhere on the left, and it seemed that you moved in Holland; the mill turned its sails like an exhausted for the day bee, which is, perhaps, about to die after hard work, but still is alive and kicking.

Did it take Zhenka much to drift away from Paris, playing hide-and-seek with Earlyborn? How did he find himself here, at the Holland seashore? Yet maybe he was not alone and managed to hide in a different nook in Paris, have a nap, start the car, pick up his sister in the new car and get here at night, ignoring the Highway code. It isn’t Holland, is it? Such questions rise when a person is doubtful. Then “yes” means “no” and “no” stands for “yes”, and there are no natural powers to make him change his mind. Zhenka and Earlyborn (I do not know why you supposed they were in Netherlands) were at the seashore in France, where occasionally windmills may be found, as free horses, crossed the foreign frontier, where it would be nice to drive to the snow-white beach by new car with big wheel rims and wait for a ferry, sitting by the fire, as they did now. Zhenka and Earlyborn needed to go to Bermuda to reach Antarctic and they thought, “Why not to go there?” Zhenka chose Bermuda, since he had a reach fantasy. And the whole journey was their own adventurous enigma.

***

The guitar was heard. Waves touched the beach as often as the slightly slowed film goes. Back and forth. Back and forth. Each time the waves’ flames came closer to steps, which lay idle relaxing in silence. The sand was fabulously white and scarcely bigger than you if once you diminished in size a hundred as much as you were before and fell down into high-grade flour. The fire with ugly, but hard and long-burning logs was splendid in concord with the background of the darkened to a degree which is only possible in warm countries of January sunset. People usually see the sea from a different angle. Firstly, they imagine the summer. Russians can’t accustom themselves to the fact that somewhere far from here, in those sunny countries of January, which warm better than the polar bear’s fur, there are warm seas even in winter. Secondly, whatever people talk about the beauty of snow-white beaches, only the yellow sand can form the true atmosphere of the beach. At times piles of rubbish, or something sharp and disgusting, say, tin cans can happen in it, however, in this case it would stay attractive and home with the majority of people on the Earth. The further you go the more interesting things you meet. When there are people with healthy faces in the room that means the air there, in the space around should be fresh; only some of the people after meticulous considerations would dare to name this beach with clouds and cold roaring winds the one for the fine swimming. Others would rather willingly call it a place to train your skills for survival in this area. A beach must be warm. Furthermore, it must be warmer than any beach in winter in countries of January.

The beach was desolate. There were only footprints of somebody massive and strong, perhaps they were left by seagulls or wheel trucks, and there was also that smell of the human kind, or two people, who just surmised something genius and now lived with their conjectures, as kid lives when he is told that the grandfather with a beard is the main magician. Seems, a tiny idea came to Earlyborn and Zhenka during their frugal picnic. Well, let us call dog handlers, wait for some time, and probably the dogs will show us the path of verity.

Chapter 11

Our characters got their map. It was not the map which inveterate tourists, who lost in Norway mountains, had. This map was different. It looked as a drawing made by the carbon paper that future flat owners put the plan of their apartments on. Earlyborn and Zhenka scrupulously made their map. They started it in Earlyborn’s flat, looking at the Ursa Major and drawing its projection with a thought that this would be their route of the journey. The number of stars in this constellation was the number of stops they would make on the way to Antarctic. The first star turned Bermuda. The idea which visited the siblings, who were gazing at breaking waves, which promised them to bring a ferry, was to change the climate and settle down on the Islands of Bermuda if their parents approved of it. Yet if not on these islands, they would definitely choose other ones (the Saint Helena island or the Madeira island) as they were more happy to experience the light mood of melancholia in those places reach with yellow sand and warm sea, than here, in France, with cold white sand and a single windmill in contrast to the economic expansion of the country. Drinking mate⁴, which was, as Dominican coffee, sold in a shop on the corner of Earlyborn’s house, Earlyborn was dreaming so profound that was ready to sell her old and precious flat in France and change her dwelling. “Hey!” Zhenka interrupted her reflections. “Did you think about me? What will my neurons say when they realize I would never gratify them with sceneries of the Eiffel Tower from behind the window?” To which Earlyborn said, “Don’t worry, my darling friend, you will please them with views of the sea, tickle them, swim away from new (my note: how else can we translate “очередной; ещё один”) shark, or from a suddenly resurfaced plane with a wish to devour you.”

Thus, with talks and jokes, throwing some pebble stones into the depth of the world ocean, then swimming after them for a bet, or, on the contrary, discouraging each other from messing around aimed at getting money (for money is not omnipotent) they saw a ferry to Bermuda. The jetty was not right there—maybe some five kilometres from the place our characters were sitting. They started pushing the car from a sandy captivity by turn, in which it somehow managed to get, than they were answering frontier guard’s questions for quite a time, so that they almost missed the boarding on a ship. They were last, as it is usually shown in good Hollywood films, where the car gathers speed and, nearly flying, drives in the closing parking zone. Neither Earlyborn, nor Zhenka had not experience so strong and bright emotions since their childhood in Irkutsk. This problem appears in our life as a lonely palm may happen in pine forest of curious problems. Why, when we were children, did we have clear plans for the adulthood which, say, would be tomorrow: we would be astronauts, police officers or firefighters? Being kids, we could play in the playground with Kolka from the neighboring and Mashenka – a mysterious unknown girl from the park. Why do we forget about this all when we become older? Why do we let politics, disputations and quarrels in our minds? Perhaps, the truth is not that children are naive and silly, but, conversely, when we become older, we start thinking cynically and with prejudice against everything? You say that lessons of life should be blamed for that. Of course, they influence us: it is unconceivable to be happy when we buried more than ten people and changed many jobs! But the thing is in our attitude towards these issues. If a person dies, a child mourns and weeps, but soon gets back to normal and goes to build sand castles in a sandpit. He gets back to normal. Yet people for some reason suppose we must change our lives and break our habits at times when the bad occurs to us: the more misfortunes we face with, the more profound alterations we ought to bring into our lives. In fact, we ought not. ) These are just wrong made up beliefs.

Earlyborn and Zhenka sat on the deck of a ferry, sailing towards uncertainty. It is not often when we have a chance to change our place of residence. The sea of life will forever be rough, and our dream about the eternal happiness is impossible. We should cope with winds, accept that we cannot multitask with everything, and we need to take for granted that our little joys may well fade away at any minute.

***

They drank cold coffee glace, looking at waves which reflected the past that left on the land. Probably, Cro-Magnon men looked at monkeys this way before they began their evolution. Cars on a special deck got those sea features which any car gains after a fresh shower of splashes. The new Range Rover seemed beautiful standing in the sunbeams and sea spatters. Zhenka went on a panorama deck. He stood, gazing at not yet setting piece of the sun. Zhenka had a habit: in army, he did not smoke when his colleagues did—he went jogging among fascinating sightseeing of Irkutsk. For nicotine is a drug. So now Zhenka chose a place far from those who smoked. Zhenka grew up and once he stopped jogging. He started running with his eyes. He trained the sharpness of sight. He had a nickname “Hawk” and shot a rifle better than others in army. Zhenka saw the sunset going to bed and sang it a lullaby. The dusk put on the blanket, tilted from one side to another and was thankful to Zhenka. One sailor approached to our character. As appeared later, he was a captain of the ferry. He lighted a cigarette as the people around. Actually, people enjoy being in herds. I came to this idea when realized why people yawn. If someone decided to play harmonica in breaks of a workday in the day, people would not smoke now instead. The sailor lighted a cigarette.

“Nice weather, guy. Methinks, we will arrive with no adventures.”

Zhenka gazed at him with his sharp eyes, which the sailor, unlike others, was not familiar with. It was not that Zhenka did not feel like wanting to talk – he thought as the one who ponders whether to have a sleep or not has and, in the end, arrives at the decision to watch a film for two more hours.

“You have a long face, my friend, and you aren’t a good actor. What’s up?”

The captain, obviously, was not used to this straightforwardness, so he choked secretly for others (since he is a captain) on tobacco. But he was a rugged sailor in the first place and told Zhenka everything as it was.

“I recently started examining the sea. Elders are said to observe the clouds this way before the death to understand whether there was paradise or it was a myth. I’m a captain and I accustomed myself that I’ll die together with my ship. And after that I started staring the sea waves. I began to notice various sea creatures more often: dolphins, sharks and crimson octopuses. They reminded me the thing I could not think of. Some surmises told me that it was a craving for art, others that it was the senile depression if not dementia. After some considerations it dawned on me that it was the wish to leave something after myself. I realized: since the time I lived in a family, which was proud of the ancestors—famous fishermen and carpenters, and was graduating high school in Costa Rica, I had always dreamed to build the underwater city. Now I’m rough and stung by my years as a man who postponed something for the summer sees as a first June wasp stings him. There is no other way round. I’m a bear at bay. It is a few seconds that prevent the dogs and hunters from killing me. But I fought a lot before have come here. I’ve learned much, and like a bear at bay does incomprehensible things, so am I dangerous for the life. I need to learn more.”

“Continue, Captain, I’m curious. At times I find myself in your words.”

And the captain continued, lighting if not the third, then the forth cigarette.

“I suppose I need to learn much. However, I found my family in my ship and crew, and the family, as it befits, always takes all free time. There are not such hours at my disposal to do sport, swim and dive in the mornings, study English to go to a highly prestigious university, write a book that I will leave for the citizens of my future town and to love my ship. I give up my plans for a hundred time, yet the time passes by, and soon I won’t make my dream of the past come true, given that I won’t look younger again. What shall I do?”

Zhenka answered after a long observing of the first night stars’ colours and the disposition of Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and diverse constellations.

“Can you see the stars? They stay idle, sprawling in the sky with the natural grace and do not do a thing except for appearing to light at night and next move homeward. However, there are so many people who are inspired to do good deeds. And here, you see, there is a Chinese lantern floating in the sky. I don’t know who flew it, but, I’m sure one did it to delight a relative. Maybe to motivate one who is like you to go toward goals. Meanwhile you will laugh precisely at this lantern, wondering at how this person could waste money on such a trifle. The same happens in life. You should not have just one goal, but invent new ones on the way you try to reach your first goal. Of course, planets I described are not as careless. Perhaps, they come in the sky to speak with stars and make them fell happier. They do a tiny deed, and, as the result, a person is excited when he can see bright Mars and writes a genius poem…”

Chapter 12

The ferry was to sail for four days and nights. Earlyborn and soon Zhenka got to the weather in that rainy January time would not stop bringing them joy with its heavy rains and storms. There was no day yet when the sun shone for the whole day, only leaving its duty to have lunch. I would like to say, by the way, that the nap after lunch has its power; I will return to that not once. As a person will never be bored gazing at the snow fallen after the first winter snow flurry, so will I again and again have an hour sleep after coming home to have lunch.

***

There is a particular justice in life which can be grasped. Now Luisian was on the road to Moscow, not caring a damn about the lost mascot, and Dionysius, in his turn, suddenly came up with the idea: “What’s the reason for me to run after this crank at the edge of the world? Let it be a lesson for his future. Hope then he will grow up and stop trusting his fate to the mascot…” I guess, my dear readers, you have a question, “Where Luisian was going?” It is even interesting for me, as we forgot about our supporting characters who are in this story beyond the main ones. And we do not the place where we left Luisian. He was a determined person and notwithstanding his a bit strange life values, he had rule to constantly excel himself. Luisian found the meaning of life in work. Exactly when the person start feeling sadness or light melancholy when you wish to strangle yourself with the beams of your dishonour, that means you should continue your doings harder until the cry full of exhaustion “I can’t!” comes out of your chest, and everything will be alright. Furthermore, a person will be contented after that.

The day we left our character was not well. He baffled himself with a question “What do I like most: the right or the left?” and began answering it until he asked himself whether it was worth thinking over. But the majority of deeds we did in the past will not repeat in the future. And this, I reckon, is pleasure. So Luisian answered he enjoyed the fact that whatever side (either the right or the left) you choose, you will accomplish your goal, and the life will made such a circle with you that you will get on the summit of a mountain by a serpentine road and will see the bottom. All of a sudden, Luisian heard a voice. “Don’t swim against the current, my friend. Without doubt, it is good when you find strengths to work when others burst into tears, but someone who will dear to heal your hurt heart will face huge problems helping you. You’d better go to the Caribbean.” The voice belonged to one seller. “Did they all agree to tell my about one and the same thing?”

It happened to Luisian not long ago, when he was the highly paid Ded Moroz in Italy, as if it was yesterday. Luisian sat on a porch in a café after one of his clients in the morning, looking at the ideal slightly golden surface of the velvet sea and heard: “A recent survey showed 100 percent of the Earth population were in favour of visiting the Caribbean sea.” But Luisian, fingering slowly his beard which became light-brown from the scalding sun, lonely sat in Italy, as an enormous octopus that gobbled the life on the planet an was looking at bare areas, and Luisian literally drink the icy Mediterranean Sea in with his cup of tea. Here Luisian met Petrupavius.

***

Petrupavius, or just Petri, and Luisian sold tables with curved patterns, sofas made of fur and diverse cloths. Petri was glad because he found a new companion to start up the business, and Luisian was glad, since he was free of boredom. The last one, as you remember, was a hard-working person and, therefore, always got satisfaction after work.

Each of them was happy. Luisian settled down, which was the wish he wanted to bring into reality. He began to live under the mansard roof of the main building in a town. Greeting dawns and feeding pigeons would be perfect there. Surprisingly, it would simply good to greet dawns. Somehow Paris pigeons disappeared somewhere this January. It looked as if they moved together with Earlyborn, who often fed them at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower early mornings. Truly when we inspires someone to wake their desire to live, we inspires them greatly in their eyes. As those planets in the sky. Luisian was alright. Yet one feeling still stayed with him and bothered his weary brains: Dionysius could not get out of his mind all the time, as if that person started dwelling in his head, he wanted to tell him something, help him or seek for Luisian’s help.

Moscow beckoned Luisian. Although he had never been to this town, he dreamed to see Moscow churches’ domes as never before; his childhood dreams about visiting Argentinian pastures were less strong than this one. He carried on living under mansard roof, greeted sunrises, and bade farewells to sunsets, reading a wonderful book about the Earth. He cherished the travel to Moscow in his mind and got used to a thought he would never see his bronze bee. This humility gladdened him, as any humility in life that is not hard for the soul or heart to endure. That is so, since humility let us realize: it is possible to live on one piece of land during the whole life without exploring other areas of the world and be happy.

Chapter 13

Life always imposes its rules and create circumstances. If once you became a collective farm chairman or a lottery winner, know you should thank life for that. Yet if there are no blessings in your life, you are helpless to improve it. Luisian seemed, on the contrary, to succeed in his business. He worked with Petri and earned the money he had never got for simple work. “How will you spend your money?” That very minute Luisian craved to live according to the Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs⁵. If life placed you on the top of happiness, you cannot oppose its will. You hardly ever will ponder about higher art than popular art. As Luisian started to earn more money, he looked at life differently. An adult looks with sadness at his paintings he created in childhood and at the cartoons he loved back in the days. He calls in mind his plane and realizes he cannot change a thing. Luisian bought smart suits, played chess, he even became a member of a Literature club, then of a Gentlemen one, went to the theatre on Sundays; as he had too much money, he purchased a pair of glasses: so small that you could not make out his age behind them; he looked marvelous in them as apples taste delicious when are ripe. Luisian tended not to bother about alterations happened with him, since he knew he was able to choose something only as long as life would wish it; the wealth he had could disappear as surprisingly as it appeared. Therefore, when the fish take the hook, under no circumstances must you leave this fishing spot. Luisian deemed his work as a usual thing and understood that if now when he had all which he wanted, he still thought he felt bad, he was a raw fish that could not be eaten. Luisian suffered from mental turmoil and altered his attitude to life and his psychological needs: he maximized and minimized the time given for sleeping, eating and communicating with people. You may get it if imagine your cat dressed wearing an expensive fur coat and yourself hugging your pet with passion. The cat would ran away immediately. Why? Everything should have frames. Luisian tried to forget that there is another life for so long time that one evening forgot, sitting on the porch. He was so scared that got away. Never do and never did spare money do good to anyone. Nature cannot be fooled, and Luisian was perfect, playing with his most fashionable suit jacket, so that it floated, throwing away annoying glasses and, in addition to that, taking off his shoes, which he polished just a couple of hours ago. Yep… People do not run away from wild animals like this—they usually do this to avoid themselves. More often people rush so, because were too confident in themselves and bit off more than one can chew. Luisian could not find anything more pleasant than to buy a jar of Elysees honey⁶, sat in the long-distance train, and he, like a child, began to pick the wallpaper patterns with his fingers. Well, any outcome in life can be deemed as outcome, which means life tells us that everything is possible, and if you want to go—go. Luisian went, unable to bear the wealth that fallen on him, bringing problems, and he became relieved. However, it does not mean you should run away any time problems attack you. No. The same is at sea. Not any wave will cause the storm. It needs serious reasons to do that. I would say, “It is always better to stay at the place than to go from it, for if you stayed, no one would blame you for betrayal. Moreover, to leave the place you need to be cautious and always explore new areas. Scouts are highly paid, although posthumously. Yet if you decided to go—go till the end. Run without a backward glance, withdraw formidable obstacles as a person who is running from a tractor chasing him on the pavement in snowstorm. Run without a backward glance; the pavement has its edge, and the tractor does not have endless portion of fuel, but you will run, as if you were the eternal engine, further and further, drawing a supposed pavement in his mind in front of you and simultaneously destroying it in front of the tractor.

However, if you do not enjoy the life as it is, try playing with it. Life always appreciated the brave ones. Life can be compared to a crazy and stern chief, whose mood can be changed any minute: he can either award you or send to a long journey to let you die there by the sword after you did one and the same thing. And you will go there. You will go as a loyal dog realizes when its master betrayed it that it surely goes towards death, yet still it goes automatically, given that the owner has never hurt his pet. Everything can happen for the first time, and Luisian should eat his jar of honey carefully. He might get diabetes this way, providing that he gave up eating sugar and meat for the last couple of years. At last, Luisian simply can satiate himself with honey that he will think he had satiated himself with life long before. Life is tricky when it comes to failures, that is why when it seems to you that there is no hope, it is not worth powdering your head with the ashes. Perhaps, life simply forgot you, and you may just kick it, and life will remember you. Probably, it will apologize. But never be crestfallen. Your spirit cannot stay permanent, so when we lower the level of our self-estimation, we act as a little boy who plucks leaves from a bush. Leaves will grow again, he knows it, but today this can spoil the mood for some time. Yet what is mood itself? This is the marker of how greatly we spoil our life. And this is the reason for the mood to be never ideally good. There is no universal truth, the snow does not fall during three hundred sixty five days in year and there is now barberry water with the taste of strawberry. There nuances and comparisons rise. Venus at times resembles the Moon so much that you look at it and wonder, “Where have I been all that time?!” But you have a nap, and the new morning comes, which means everything will return to its usual course. You should only have your own jar of honey.

***

Let it all out, my dear friend, let it all out. Luisian was going in his train. For the unknown reason train is a symbol of progress for the majority of people. We are not going to dispute with them. Without saying, Luisian moved towards his progress. His condition can be described with three words: an old oak. Have you ever walked in the alley in your favourite park near your house? Have you ever greeted the dawn on the Seine river together with pigeons and an oak copse? The oak is truly an everlasting symbol of life. Seems, especially in the oak trunk growth rings, unlike in other trees, can form the infinity sign when cut. Admittedly, oaks have their beauty. There is no copse that could have seen more sunrises and sunsets, break-ups pigeons than the old oak copse not far from the burnt Notre-Dame. Probably because it lives for a long time. Probably, people admire the oak’s power, and all curious deeds are done under its crown. Have you ever touched the coarse bark of the oak? “To coarsen as the oak’s bark” is said not in vain among people. It means something! So if you have not touched yet – touch. If only I once caressed a crocodile, I would tell I touched the oak as the sense is same. It is true, since the oak endures more than other trees, I suppose. It suffers from more wind, light, feelings, worries, velvety sand, brought with Kaliningrad wind, and knowledge. And the oak is strong. As iron wheels of a small rusty van somewhere on a small railway station in Alupka go back towards their home, they just become tempered, so the steel inside of the oak’s soul hardens too as the time passes by.

One day while the heavy rainstorm, being still in Italy, Luisian came upon an oak cope. There was a river flowing beneath. The summer night was as warm as only can be the one awaken by the heart-rending screams of thunder. Luisian went, shining with happiness after the night tryst. He was eighteen. All of a sudden the lightning stroke into a very young oak near the river, something cracked, scraped and fell into pieces, and only the wind mourned for the loss of the oak cope. Luisian did not pay his attention to it, since he was under the sweet languor of the meeting. So is the life: it may well not notice us when we are overfilled with emotions. Wise is that oak which decided to interview its brunches with its brothers ones. Wise is the nature. Let it all out, share with a first stranger or accept the fact there is no one to share it with. In this case, the nature estimated you as a strong one. The evolution carries on this way. If you water the peach tree much often, it will be the surfeit of liquid for it. If you do not pick up the ripe papaya for a long time, it will go off. However, you can get the most delicious stewed fruit especially out of slightly overripe fruit. Make your choice. Perform an experiment right now, let it all out. There must be no misery in the world.

Chapter 14, Alkaid

Any toy is okay that keeps the baby at play. (Russian saying)

Let the nature-child play with anything, but look after it, so that it would not make the weather bad. As they approached to Bermuda, they had a baggage of memory seen the colossal number of storms, and it seemed no one had got in so many of them before. Our siblings placed the new Range Rover (it was not clear whether it was defective) on the deck of the weather-beaten ferry, but they drove from the ship on a rough, tanned and a bit dirty jeep-discoverer. The Islands of Bermuda at the same time are famous and not for its surroundings. I guess, it is the last place people think about when choosing calm and comfortable rest. But Earlyborn and her brother did not think this way. They chose adventures—to reach Antarctic, so they could not back out from their journey, like a person who made his mind on staying awaken for the whole night looks in disdain at a strong desire to close his eyes at 9 p. m.. There was something worth seeing on Bermuda. To be honest, Earlyborn and Zhenka did not know about it, so, probably, that was the reason for them to be fearless and enthusiastic to arrive there by ferry. There were many curiosities. What can you say about tame sharks near the pier? They belonged to a smart local boy, and their meaning was merely to amaze arriving people with the colour of the area! Yes. It was so. Unexpected and simple.

It seemed the elements were furious above the Atlantic. A tiny crab, which came at the white sandy beach now to explore the world, became too worried from what he saw and would see so that it close its face with claws under emotions. Earlyborn and Zhenka looked like this crab very much when they saw each other sunburned. They left their car at the harbor parking as a thing which they would need, but not at the very moment, and now sat at the ocean shore after the storm and looked at the west, talking and thinking simultaneously about their own ideas. Irkutsk was left somewhere behind with its frosty tangerine winters, glamorous Paris that, seemed, smacked his lips with each wind gust was also left somewhere behind—anything that could restrain a free person from enjoying the life was left far from the Islands of Bermuda.

***

They were confident in the day of tomorrow and were not confident in the past days. They conjectured now how their journey would continue. According to the main rule of life, an uplift comes after a stagnation, which means our characters did not have to bother about it themselves. Earlyborn and Zhenka had gone far from the old problems and could think sensibly. They could draw their plans on the sand, frighten and caress the already scared crab, pretend they were parrots and swim from time to time. It happens throughout life: if you would like to lose something, try to love. If you want to be fit, do exercises. Perhaps, this is so, since only sufferings help us to excel and improve ourselves. An artist who is full up is believed to be a bad artist. It turns, then, that the serfdom gave us the prosperity. Arguably, this process in Russia took us more time than people in other countries, yet it was vast, and now we are tought that it is better to do everything just by plan and do not do anything beyond it.

The sky was darkening. Yet it was not the sunset suddenly fallen on the ground – it was the next storm. Earlyborn stopped being afraid of it since she overcame her strongest fear: to see the globe lightning. The siblings sweetly chatted about something. If I am not mistaken, Zhenka said that he did not manage to examine his heart in Irkutsk, because one doctor went on holiday, and another doctor became ill. This topic was chosen accidentally, but the sister abruptly began to worry about brother’s health. “Never mind, sister. Remember as Pushkin expressed with the words of his character Emelian Pugachev?⁷ It is not a good idea to eat carrion for three hundred years. It is better to live for twenty, thirty years freely.” And so spoke Zhenka, “Sister, do not think about doctors, as my heart does not hurt now, which means everything is alright, and we are well too. Furthermore, we do not have medical records neither at the university hospital, nor at the psychiatric one. I prefer not to know about my illnesses for fifteen years, than to go to hospitals each of my twenty years. This is the truth. There haven’t been any wild animal that could have win the human being in patience when was at bay. And men are helpless to change the nature’s will. If something is needed, it must be given. Cows make way for each other in herd when they go to a water trough, although they go in rows.”

Earlyborn was disappointed when looked at Zhenka’s contemptuous attitude towards his health. But she understood him, for she was a young woman. She, herself, often lying in a bath with soapsuds, exaggerated her disease and instilled the feeling she would die tomorrow. This disease is faith. Hope springs eternal. The sunrise must not die. And Earlyborn (as you remember, she got her name, since she was borne at the crack of dawn) seemed to reborn every day. Sad thoughts came to her mind almost every evening, but as the morning came, she kept them away in attempt to start the new life and merely be happy, looking at the sun. Faith does not let an ill person die, and only the lack of belief make people die. Belief in your strength to withstand life in the battle for the youth and territory. Belief in your abilities to change this world gives you the reason to live. Accidents are the God’s will. “How many ships did sink while last storm spread to Bermuda and the northern part of the Atlantic,” Zhenka thought, rubbing one sharp pebble stone with another. It was stunning to gaze at life powder that spattered the ground after this process. If we speculate properly, we will find out that anything, even diamonds, gold, appeared from one molecule or from the simple Big Bang. Then we can call ourselves dust. And the dust—our brother. Zhenka called in mind memories of his childhood, when he skipped extra drawing lessons, to which his mother took him nearly under pressure, so that he did not spend much time playing with the rabble and running to the Lake. Zhenka did not appreciate these efforts. Years went by. His mother, who learned him so much good and brought him up as an individual, passed away; that rabble also passed away, once fallen under the ice in the Lake in winter. All of a sudden, Zhenka discovered the love to drawing in himself. Although he did not have a gift for this, he continued making and polishing sketches of one thing. It was a small lily and his mother’s darling face that he brought through his childhood. She often came with this lily in her threads in summer, as some people come with a bunch of chamomiles from the field. She told Zhenka the lily was a symbol of her life to him. Everyone on the market was baffled about the purpose of the lily she purchased every day, yet she knew there was beauty in it. Recently Zhenka started drawing a different portrait of the mother—as if it partly reflected his sister, who was younger than he and did not manage to learn skills and secrets, which we should definitely inherit from our mothers. Zhenka drew Earlyborn with the aloe leaf behind her ear. He wanted to warm her heart doing this, to help her soul feel better, since he saw her health problems and strange examinations she did at the doctor’s. They soon went to bed. As the dawn came down the earth, Zhenka got the clear picture of the aloe leaf. It was literally fragrant on the paper. Earlyborn sniffed its smell, lying on the hammock at the seashore, and smiled, while Zhenka, like a manly soldier, draw her portrait and guarded her sleep.

Chapter 15

When the next morning Zhenka disentangled the hammock after Earlyborn’s night fall on the cold from the night storms sand, he was humming the tune of the unknown origin: it was either the old or the composed impromptu one. How vast is the discrepancy between the thoughts come into the mind of a person at the time different. I do not take into consideration the long timespans. Only the ideas of a person who did sleep enough and the one who did not. Such a condition could be compared to one when you lie on your back at the beach, looking above, in the sky, for some time, and when you lie on your stomach and see nothing but sand for another time. There is quite a difference. As Earlyborn slept well, her glance at the world, Zhenka and the tiny crab had changed now, and it seemed to her they moved to another place. Did she miss her apartment in Paris? You bet! People who do not miss, do not live. A person must always await something. Anticipation is a strong feeling. On Monday a person should anticipate his walks towards home during the weekdays; on Friday—how he would have a good sleep at weekends; at midday—that he would do yoga in the evening. In his childhood, a person may well anticipate driving his own car and going shopping on his own. “Turns scarlet the dusk—December, the blueness with colour of ginger; all have and don’t ask a stranger” These words, probably, appeared in a tiny crab’s head when it came out at the beach and became intoxicated with freedom. It got used to the diversity of life around. There are school teachers and the course of study. They tend to teach us following a defined system with the use of undefined methods. How on earth can studying at school be defined? People are not robots. If you ask me, what the school is for, I would say it is folklore, where nerves are the main characters. I reckon that education make people believe: people feel awkward because they are bored. Then it becomes clear why there are many awkward teenagers today. Everything is simple: now they are frowned and placed into a stuffy classroom instead of sitting by the fire and listening to the flames cracking in November. Yet conditions are same for everyone. We should study just for three reasons: this will help you find your vocation, it will make your mentors and relatives, and, in addition to that, you will be able to earn a living with it. Everyone asks, “And where did the nobility disappear?” On the whole, it did not disappear. We cannot get rid of habits that built our souls at once, as a diver is not able to swim quickly back to the water surface from the depth in two kilometres, even though you will seek for his help. Differences in underwater pressure are huge. Noblemen and peasants are with us. Only relationships between them changed. Now it is named “capitalism”. Zhenka went to drive his new car among the undiscovered areas, keeping it secret from Earlyborn, who went to wash the clothes in bay. Everything had been alright before the crocodiles began to cross the road.

***

Luisian was getting on fine. Passengers in the train did not bother him much, and he found the way pretty well, sitting in the air filled with tea. He changed the train in Brest. It was a Russian long-distance train. Now they passed Smolensk. It was about four o’clock in the morning, and almost entire train slept, although there were some morning larks here, among Russians, who got up ten if not twenty minutes ago. Luisian was still lazing in bed. Getting up was not in his plans, however, he opened his eyes more likely in order not to fall down from the top shelf in the economy class, catch his leg on metal constructions and wake up everyone around. Luisian simply wanted to feel that amazing atmosphere of mystery, which every person, who wakes up at night on the road to another country. There were lakes behind the window. The smell of winter fell on Russia. Even in Brest, changing the train, Luisian discovered that the frost made his nose feel uncomfortable. The temperature was exactly zero degrees Celsius. It was the last day of January, and tomorrow was going to be February. Such weather did not turn to be the maximum for the Russian winter. Luisian lost the hope to see swans and storks he wanted to see during his way from Paris out of the window of the carriage. He also thought that Smolensk is one of the southern towns in Russia. But there were not any swans. January snow spread like a melted bar of chocolate on the surface as wide as the eye can see—for hundreds, thousands kilometres around. Now it was covered with the light of the moon and a myriad of stars, so that it seemed to sparkle with colours of the night rainbow as if the sun was replaced with a sapphire moving back and forth. Obviously, there was no sapphire. A sapphire cannot live for a long time in Russia. The same is to drive the import car in the forest. It makes people worry about the vehicle very much. It will be caught on a tree branch, scratched and filthy. So if a hungry bear does not come out after its hibernation and eat the sapphire, a crow may well take it to its nest, up in the trees. Luisian looked behind the window and saw the forest, towering above constellations somewhere on the south-east. There was the Sirius on the left beneath. Luisian will not see the Sirius as he had not reach the appropriate age yet, and his time had not come yet.

This situation brought some inconveniences to Luisian. Almost all his life he spent wandering around the world and he had not settled down for now; his deeds were either the ones which a child or an easy excitable first year student. He rushed about. He had itchy feet. I am sure this happens to people for a week or two after graduation, or adults after the midlife crisis. The happiness is that there is no right path in life. Without doubt, there is a kind of truth, but we can reach it with the help of totally different ways. Fortunately, these ways can be found on any path. For one, yesterday, in Brest, when Luisian helped a woman to lift a baby carriage with an effort (since he already had enough things to carry with himself), he suddenly remembered as he helped Petri to carry boxes with bananas just like now. Firstly, it dawned on him: “How fast is the time!” Yet then he developed the idea, and other, more profound thoughts came into his mind. There is permanent and unexpended storage of energy in a human’s body. There is always some energy left to exist. And even the main law of conservation of energy states, “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed—only converted from one form of energy to another”. This energy overfills the goblet of our consciousness at times, so that it begins to spoil. Our mind can be compared to a full container for wastes on a factory. Cleaning-up without the call of a mechanic is needed, in order not to wait him for an hour or two and not to force open it. So the best decision is simply to burn this energy. Your intellectual work will hardly be enough for burning. We cannot concentrate all our energy on this type of work. Here the labour is required. If you go to chop the ice near your summer cottage, you will reveal the secret of energy consumption. Jogging, cooking or cleaning of your room are suitable for this as well. Two or three hours are usually enough, but ideally you should work till the time when you start getting the real pleasure from work. The time it will take you is based on the energy which you already have. As soon as you dispose of the unnecessary energy, the work will satisfy you and you will be delighted with any thing happening with you, including the achievement of your goals. And all illnesses, mental and physical, are caused by this needless negative energy. Awkwardness, boredom, depression, frustration, laziness, aggression, rancor—almost all taints are borne from it. I deem the meaning of life is to regularly lower the level of such energy. Yet we should leave pittance of it. “What for?” you may ask. Only having something of this negative energy with you, you will be able to see the changes occurred to you clearer.

You should live for the life. You should live, so that you have zero negative energy with you. Take to heart this theory, dear readers, it will be famous. At least, in heads of those who can sincerely believe in it.

Chapter 16, Mizar

Zhenka had already finished driving his car. A thought that their journey with Earlyborn would not live up to their expectations did not come to his mind again. Seemingly, the fresh Dominican wind blew away the part of the frontal lobe which is responsible for doubts. The guide arrived the next day after Earlyborn was borne again. It was in the evening, and the guys were very glad to see him; after about two hours they sailed in the rough Atlantic ocean. When they projected the Ursa Major on a map of the Atlantic, it appeared that locations of the stars in the sky coincide with ones of the capitals of countries or the very countries, as if the Maya peoples precisely figured out their positions. The furthest star from us, the one, which people with poor eyesight can hardly scrutinize, and soon will do I for I began to write very much, coincided with Dominica. Zhenka and Earlyborn were looking for ways and an appropriate time to have fun. They wished to drink some tea in a small tavern in Venice, and Earlyborn even promised to make that place their final destination. And to have warm tea exactly with roses just cut from the bush in front of it. And to have the spring blooming in the air.

What should you do if you still wobble like that palm over there? Our travelers went along the marvelous Dominican beach and realized it was a bad idea to visit the Atlantic in winter. Yet we cannot turn back to the past, I think you know it, and the past teaches us a lot. It teaches there is absolutely no need in standing under palms while Dominican wind. One of these trees was just rooted out and floated somewhere into the distance, towards the irresistible wind and to any outcome.

So what do you have to do when you rock? The key is to accept the existence of the wind strength, calm down and come up with how you can get the maximum advantage from it. For example, if the wind blows, you can at least set sail and move at full speed in the direction of your goals. Zhenka and Earlyborn had great goals. They were enthusiastic about travelling, notwithstanding fierce wind attacks on the land, and they craved to have a trip around the world. Would they meet the Carcharocles megalodon? If yes, they would take a photo with it. And what would they do if they turn shipwrecked? They would break the world record in swimming breaststroke. Various thoughts literally leaked out of siblings’ ears, they had fun, and if the wind was to blame for it, the wind had to stop blowing. The wind stopped blowing, and fun disappeared. Such changes like these, with the weather, occur in the mind of a dubious, yet mostly steady person. When the storm finished, they continued walking alone the beach. It became sunny and amazing, and you could well tell there was no disaster if there was no pit after that palm tree was ripped out from the ground. The night passed by, and exactly during this part of the day all the colours mix together, and the world draws as the dark matter, consisting of black holes. And, conversely, we face with white holes of our consciousness that craves to realize why we are so afraid of night.

The lesson Earlyborn and Zhenka learned yesterday was that he laughs best who can laugh well. They argued, sitting under a small tarpaulin awning of a hut near the shore, about what is better: to live in comfort, working hard and from your heart, but a bit slowly, on your favourite doing, say, writing poems, or to work tirelessly, as a black raven that caws at 3 a. m. in the Moscow sky. They disputed a lot and then went for a stroll, still pondering about. The siblings found neither of their ideas good.

In this life two things are not worth doing: to believe other people’s ideas and use them obediently, as though it is the universal truth, and to argue with somebody and stray them from their conceptions about the life. When we sincerely want to help a person and try to speak with him, we still argue. It is better to be silent. Humility often leads to good continuity. The restlessness, on the contrary,—to good discontinuity. The last good can easily go from you to other people. I have a piece of advice for you, my friends: you must never believe anybody. Believe your parents only, yet, maybe, also that seller on the beach, who told Zhenka and Earlyborn that the coffee with bananas and mint he made today was, frankly speaking, not excellent. Stop trusting other people as soon as they start imposing you thoughts that breaks down your morality and your theories on being successful. The storms at the beach continued and took away the boredom from our characters’ minds.

If only someone could take away our boredom like this! If you have not read my book “Honesty", I will explain: imagine that you have an execution in a moment, and you will feel your tedium fading from you. I mean when you are in danger, you realize that your life is the complete enjoyment. If you have not read my book “Kindness”, you have now the chance to do that and learn that there are people, either soldiers or unknown people, who died to let us live happily. And here again you should not get way to sadness. Let’s have a look at reasons for melancholy. The first one is when a person runs himself ragged, like a runner, who breathes wrongly, or a horse ridden to death, and cannot get his breath back to write the word “life” so that “l” does not touch “i”, and “i” does not touch the lower line. This person is most lucky, to be honest, since he is able to continue his doings (for everyone has their plans), and he will succeed. Others, for instance, those who are sad on account of luck of goals in life, will be glad to hear that everything which can be returned to its normal state, will sooner or later improve. And what cannot be improved, should be consigned to oblivion. Why does a person need some unnecessary information? Most directly, if you feel sad, but not mourning, you either continue your doings or start everything from the beginning, what is, to tell the truth, is more satisfying. Well, in all three situations, it is better simply to go and work. Then the sadness will surely disappear.

Chapter 17

Luisian arrived in Moscow. So pleasant a feeling you experience when you get right into real Russian frost! This emotion cannot be compared with any of the life attractions – neither a massage session on the Bahamas islands, nor the satisfaction of the hunger. It is equal to a dining table after the New Year’s Eve, where there is nothing except black and white bread and a little bottle of water.

There was approximately minus twenty degrees Celsius. The night fell on the city when Luisian arrived. The carriage which brought him here had no boredom and sadness inside. One of his travelling companions managed to bring an electric fireplace. It smelled wonderful and emanated warm light through the darkness of night. Obviously, Moscow is a city of thousand thousands lights, but I suppose each Muscovite should draw in mind a picture for a moment that his pleasure finished, and cold autumn came to Moscow, and all the lights were cut off. The clocks showed already ten p. m. Luisian arrived at Kievsky Railway Station in the city center. And where the city is, there the Red Square also is. There is a well-known esplanade along the Kremlin—the beloved area for strolls as everyone enjoys walking there and still walks. Imagine this city with no famous lights, just without those charming gleams of Krasnaya Presnya, reflecting in the eyes of Peter the Great’s monument right in front of the Krymsky Bridge… Moscow. Imagine how changed people’s way of life for the quite short period of time—some hundreds of years! Some twenty one hundreds! How strong is the impact of the social networks, computer, TV and, which is the most predictable, going to bed late. That is an awful feeling when you see you can hardly do things in time, you are always in a hurry! I say, these talks are rose from nothing. Here you can either move to the village to be calm down by the drizzling rain of years or to take for granted the situation in which everyone lives in society and prefers to be on the same footing. Yet and computers, and social networks do not influence on our position in society.

Let’s dream there will never be any light in the world. People will use to it, and the sadness will vanish. Things will return back to their origins – savage era, where veal stakes will be replaced with mammoth ones. There will be no colossal changes in life. At times you should think about yourself and not others. This is better for your heart. The minutes come when your health is needed in your care. If you want to live for two hundred years (as I do and put it as my first goal), you should take care of your health first. You will not worry about trifles. Are you interested in your C mark in maths? Well, now you are. But in twenty years you will deem it a little thing! And in two hundred? We often fume about nothing. And this is the reason for people not to live up to the age they wished to. Yet they wished. It worth not to be on tenterhooks that much and not to hamper yourself from reasonably walking toward your aims and not hamper other people. You should meticulously work on yourself and move at a slow pace through the field of your aims, as sometimes a submarine moves through the freezing in ice when the temperature is about zero degrees Celsius.

Often the advice on how to deal with troubles and not to slip over a rock turn to be most important. Here is my advice, my dear friends: do not try to fulfill a lot at once. Start from doing it bit by bit. Take care of your health. Multitasking is equal to the winter sun, which shines but does not warm, since it is not productive. Do it in a different way, if the time lets. Start again from the beginning—from the health in our case. Build your schedule so that you have an eight-hour sleep, eating healthy diet and an opportunity to have long walks at night and during day, in winter and summer. Next, two actions at your schedule that help you earn a living and enjoy the life, doings, which will help you love this world. Add more and more new doings gradually. I, personally, added some getting practical information and writing books, but I felt it was not enough. I included writing a poem per day and studying English. I have a little time now and can do whatever I want for an hour or for an hour and a half. What else can I add? I think, sport. Jogging in the mornings or doing weight trainings. As I want to learn more about history beyond school lessons, I may read extra books on that subject. It is perfect. Doing and speculating this way you should go in life and live till two thousand years.

Sometimes take risks, sometimes launch an initiative. Just live and love the life you have now and which is left in the future. Delete your accounts in networks. Plan serious doings. Act.

Chapter 18, Alioth

Earlyborn and Zhenka continued their journey. Now they with a guide were on a beautiful yacht, which was in a good condition as it befits, if for no other reason than they paid for the trip. Their guide was a strong and, to a certain extent, plump little man. He went about his business in a captain’s cabin. The siblings were looking through the map of the stars. In Paris Zhenka simply made a sketch of their journey, but now they were looking at the bay sunset, scrupulously comparing the map of Latin America with the pattern of the Ursa Major in the starry sky. This constellation consists of seven stars. The guys wanted their journey to last longer, so they arrived at the decision that they were supposed to stay in each country they would visit as long as they could. They agreed to stay in Antarctic for fourteen days. The first star on their plan was Alkaid. This is the north star, which coincided with the area where the Islands of Bermuda were located. Our characters got a huge experience being there. So a palm tree starts to believe in itself when is watered. It starts to blossom much, and people who watered it begin to regret they poured this tree. Mizar follows Alkaid in the Ursa Major constellation. Its feature is that this star is divided in two ones, and one of the last ones is said to be divided in two more ones. But I have not seen it yet and do not know a thing about it.

There was a severe storm in Dominica when the siblings arrived. They assumed that in Puerto Rico, where they intended to move, was the same storm a couple of days ago. But the two Europeans were to struggle with obstacles and visit an unusual for their minds country. They planned to be in San José on January 29^th to discover this town for themselves as new-coming travellers. No sooner said than done. Gazing at the warm and exquisite picture formed by the waves, like real painting, siblings supposed that it all was a dream. I am not talking about a paradise dream, which, as I read, is described by other authors. No. Our characters saw everything fuzzily, since there was the very reality around them. They still did not have any aim, although their perceptions of how the life goes, was totally changed for the better. “Our goal is to have fun and take pleasure,” once Zhenka said, which was somewhat banal. Practice makes perfect—that was the most important lesson they learned in Dominica. What else can you do if not repeating to yourself one phrase after you were safe from the hurricane: “Oh, how I’m glad the wind haven’t touched me!”

“We need warm sand after we bogged down in that wet and slimy dull European life,” Zhenka suddenly came up with an idea. “Something more sophisticated than a simple unhurried travel to various warm countries is required.” The guys began to think over actions on how to improve their state of affairs. The answer happened rapidly enough for such a crucial to them question, for ingenious ideas are very plain since time immemorial. To get the human pleasure, you should think like an ordinary person. The answer to the second question came faster than the one to the first, and they felt the ripe, a bit sour, tropical taste of life. To live the life of ordinary people, you need to have an amount of money ordinary people have. Money is the easiest way to make your desires come true. You may be happy to sit on the balcony in a five-star restaurant or to feel legs tightness after a day of adventures and walking in the capital… Taking different paths to happiness, you will still get this feeling. Our characters figured out what they could do make their journey interesting. They had a limited sum of money and decided to watch each of Russian telecast “Oryol I Reshka” episodes and then go ahead like people who finally manage to get $100 from a bottle thank to this TV program⁸.

***

They reached Puerto Rico at night. The majority of locals were about to go to bed, while the tourists yet dressed in expensive attire in front of the mirror. Siblings faced with a brightly shining liner at the entrance to the harbor. It was tremendous unlike Puerto Rico waves. The guys landed on a warm shore that had not cooled down during two evening hours yet. They said goodbye to their captain, left almost all the luggage on a yacht, except for their camera and went away from that island. The island which wiped from their memory as an oil stain with drops of fat can be removed from the surface with the help of water. That very moment they thought they probably found a refreshing cure, like the cleaning agent in the kitchen, to wipe out this dirty island twice as fast. This was a piece of advice they caught from the sea depths. You can reach everything you need, including happiness, without money. It seems a great computer game, which you can easily play through on a hardest for you level. Merely because you could experience more pleasant dotted changes, expanding like a mountain spring in your body. Why dotted? As you should consider your plan in such a detailed way, according to the difficulty of the game.

***

Why do we all want to move to warmer countries? Possibly because we have a nice feeling from a long time ago that something warm and soft gladdens. That feeling was first appeared in Africa, where our ancestors are from. Eating a pineapple when you climbed a tree and now look at the odorous sand is sweeter than to eat it gazing at a hungry bear shuttling around beneath. This is the humans nature. People evolve not in vain, and they try to get benefit from anything they discover. That is why, I suppose, nuclear energy is one of the most future up-and-coming energy recourses. It has a mystery. It can burn a person in a way that the fire did in the past. It shows we are helpless, and this source of nuclear energy can easily destroy us. Be strong, my friends! Recently our siblings watched one episode of “Oryol i Reshka” and noticed a person who experience positive emotions is the strongest one, as these feelings prolong the lifespan, which everyone craves to have. These people are respectable. And they a different attitude to life. Why does a person, whose help is appreciated by someone, suddenly feel better? The reason is same. Never does such a person ask a question about what his meaning of life is. These thoughts were discussed by our characters in a café in the city centre. They ate a local dish—mashed bananas. The café faced the sea. It accurately situated on a boundary between the sea and land. Earlyborn and Zhenka sat under the lights of Puerto Rica lamps decorated in Spanish style. They followed the shadows of the carnival in their glasses of Piña colada⁹ that took part somewhere in the next street. Probably, it is better to leave all doing which were not left yet when you are in Puerto Rico. Take a very old scooter and move to the outskirts, closer to forests and lakes, or a rugged coast—a tiny harbor of life.

Our characters intended to do so, yet later, since they were bound with a different business. Now they waited for one person whose apartment they arranged to rent. As in “Oryol i Reshka” is drawn that the hosts of the show stay for a night at houses of those not indifferent and helpful people who are willing to let them in. Earlyborn and Zhenka watched one such an episode and agreed with someone called Khaulo to meet in a café on the main streets of the town. Khaulo was late. The siblings did not want to waste their precious time and started looking at shop windows, locals and anything that could tell about the culture and secrets those locals had. They stared at an advertisement for tourists, and suddenly their gazes switched to another wonder—the deep water lakes and those evergreen forests further on the island (my note: how else can “в глубине острова” be translated?). They looked and experienced that calmness which comes to a person when he immerses in a warm bath. Earlyborn had a warm bath now for the first time after they sailed from Paris. She and Zhenka sat in the Khaulo’s veranda and discussed the problems of transferring unique tropical butterflies from the north to the south. If there was any secret on how to live, they knew it was in giving up on urban life and daily routine. They tried to travel freely and eventually got the way of thinking of people who are inveterate extremal travelers. Earlyborn was also an inveterate person when it came to baths, and that evening she could not help lying in a bath filled with her thoughts and dreams.

Chapter 19, Megrez

Luisian made his childish dream come true. It often happened in the last century that people faced with each other on a bus stop, where there was no bus, and asked: “What’s wrong?” Now somewhere in the construction site in Severnoye Butovo District—not the closest one two the Moscow centre—similar friendly relations happened among second shift of the group of workers number one. One worker said to another one, “Life is so wonderful! And we are so miserable in our situation, in which we deem our workas nothing of interest and do not see plain wonders as the star Megrez in the starry sky. But, look, here there is a person come here from Italy (from where! Just realize!), or from Argentina with the only purpose to work on the construction site while Russian frosts!” That is always true, my dear friends. Where someone finds a thing, another one loses it. Someone lives with an impossible for them dream to move to Denmark or on the east coast of Switzerland, while another person lives in this place in real life. Some people want to change something in their room since the placement of objects does not satisfy them, but can hardly determine themselves to do. However, other people cannot help altering the appearance and keep the beauty they made for a long time. It is never true that one thing has the same positive or negative emotional effect on different people. I have dream to drive, as Earlyborn did, my own Range Rover to the white coast of France and to greet the dawn, sitting on a windmill. Yet someone could have seen enough sunrises and has now wish to sit an hour or a day near that windmill, and like the pilgrim from my book “Honesty” strictly begins his journey. Never is it possible for two people to have the same feeling. If scientists were to perform an experiment on whether each person has got his own idiosyncrasy, I would suggest them to carry out a survey asking two hundred thousand people about one topic. Then the survey would live up to expectations and show that definitely each person is an individual, for even questioned with “Do you love the life?”, I am sure, each person on the Earth would tell his unique idea. Even if they spoke with the same words, they would mean different concepts. I will work notwithstanding the time, weather and other hazards. The words I will say now are deemed, if spoken, wrong, yet I will speak them, tell what I feel: “Probably, even be I on my deathbed (and I wish not to be there in the nearest two hundred years), I will improve myself or simply contemplate the idea—how it is to perfect yourself.”

Luisian sat in a cabin of a crane, which was, seemingly, located thousands kilometres above the land. Suddenly he heard the higher forces. They were not any kind of a kind faceless person with a beard. They were not angels in the flesh. They were calm wind gusts that knocked in trembling window. They seemed to him somewhat weightless, which caused a feeling as if someone looked at your back but had no intention to do you harm. This happened to Luisian February 13^th. Then it occurred at him that numbers are of no importance nowadays. “Today is Friday the 13^th, and what is the matter? Someone still got a nice present and experienced magic. Someone experienced the failure in the achievement of their dream. And what then? People are not able to cope with emotions, and numbers are not to blame for that fact. Luisian asked wind a question, “What should I do?” And the wind answered like a real old man of wisdom – in strange, obscure manner, with riddles and long pauses. It said he should find the roots. And the issue was next.

Luisian was drinking up a next mug of real Russian tea with lemon. He fought with his lovely hat with earflaps that refused to fit his head. Suddenly the wind roared. It was both harsh and light. It was a usual wind, but Luisian was confused. Perhaps, the thing was in Russian mysticism. Our character felt that someone was behind his back. He quickly turned around. He saw a second row of seats, which is often a part of a long-distance trucker’s cabin, where a bed, the TV or a fridge are placed.

Something changed in Luisian. He experienced some new, unknown powers. He looked at the mirror and exclaimed, “Ah!” It seemed to him, a badge “Li-san” was on his T-shirt, and he himself resembled a Japonese or a Chinese.

***

Megrez shone very bright, and Earlyborn and Zhenka wondered, “Has something burst in space?” Yet nothing, unfortunately or not, was burst in space. There were just caracaras flying. They seemed to fall like millions of splashes in that hot midday—either winter or summer one. The sky above Caracas was clean and purely blue, and the siblings could not understand why they went to the city with some kind of anxiety. Why is this town one of the bandit towns all around the world? But soon they discovered the answer. They were about to get off the boat when Earlyborn screamed. The fear touched her dress. The fear she would pass away and leave nothing after herself and never get the knowledge of stability. “Continuity is the power of progress.” Bandits, who live their life as if there is no tomorrow, palm and birch trees—anything confirms continuity to be the crucial part of life. If you are a Godfather, who does not manage to take a knife out of your pocket, some mightier gangster would replace you and become a ringleader. Zhenka gazed at birds that seemed to him the years he lived in his life and minutes when he pondered. He then speculated, “What is wrong with my life?”

The guys felt some changes happening with them. They experienced verve in their bodies to fulfill their plans before they would reach the land of Antarctic. It was not clear what brought the changes. Arguably, the reason was in Caracas, which proudly demonstrated remarkable and expensive skyscrapers on one hand, and somewhat reminding Brazil favelas under the heavy rain on the other hand. Arguably, they were caused by the fact our characters finally started their journey on Bermuda. Unexpectedly, Zhenka got a security key fob to car sent him a signal that someone wanted to break into a car. However, it was hard to do so, since it was far from people—in a cave near the bay, under the shades of coconut trees. The danger, which the car could face with was the a hungry tiny crab that wanted some iron to eat. They guys wanted to develop as they saw the beauty. Some three-five kilometres from there was the beauty. Beyond the human mind was Venezuela nature, which seemed to trail on the globe from the body of America, like a branch of fuchsia. The gist of this chapter depicts the relevant and marvelous characteristic of life, “If you suppose that life is meaningless, then you ought to go on working, because such work often turns to be the most important one in life, yet as the practice shows, people are not able to estimate it truly.”

Earlyborn and Zhenka went to greet the dawn. The sky grew scarlet.

Chapter 20, Phecda (Phad)

Earlyborn and Zhenka continued their journey. It was a torture to call for someone in Venezuela. They phoned their captain to inform that he could sail where he wished for ten or twelve days, yet then by with them on the dot! The Ursa Major constellation has a turning in the middle, so our characters were to turn according to the projection they made and head for Costa Rica. Yes, they had a great deal of plans. After inhospitable Venezuela any country, even the one which requires huge turnings in two hundred kilometres, would be alike to the place that is not paradise, but not hell at the same time. Moreover, we know that Earlyborn created Luisian with her imagination when she was sitting by the window in France. This is the evidence she was also, as her character, willing to visit Costa Rica.

It was at the dawn yesterday. Zhenka sat in a cosy hotel room in Venezuela and wrote a poem. His love to sister made him bear creations next to her. He looked at her sleep and thought he was her guard. Protecting her peace was his priority. He scrawled his ideas attending his mind so as not to nod off. “Costa Rica will wait for me; I am not sure you will./ There was one lonely Latin day and a storm from Caribbean sand.” The siblings decided to hire a small plane and fly to Costa Rica without a minute to lose.

***

What had our characters already learned during their travel, given that it can end any time now? Do not worry, I am not going to show you the ending of the book – I have something more to tell about in a couple of chapters. Yet there is another question: “What will happen if our life, like a book written in a hurry by some careless writer, will finish any day now?” Then it is quite logical to puzzle yourself with a question “What have I managed to do within this time? How much time did I waste? How did I occupy myself? What comments can I leave on my doubts and emotions I had a long time ago? Did they worth anything? Or were they nothing, like the fog which disappears as the sun rises?” You cannot find the answer to this issue before the hour x comes. Never will anyone guess when this our will come, which means this riddle will remain unsolved. Be that as it may, we are able to presume that the answer is in the meaning of life. And here we face with a fact we are helpless to get it all. So what is the point to understand this question? Maybe it is simpler to accept that we should just consume and produce emotions? This question is intricate. But I can easily say the next: when you get the reward after the hard work you carried out despite difficulties, you feel pleased. As it is widely known, almost everything ingenious is plain. This phrase certainly does not intend to convey that geniuses are fools. It means that there was no sophisticated thought that could lead to practical ideas. The thought which was not hard to explain, but hard to digest. Like there is no healthful gas not just with big molar mass, but with the colossal one. The case is that all thoughts which confuse us, do so, since they look like the lead among thought with its inexplicably enormous mass.

When the siblings approached to the capital, they were told a Caribbean typhoon fell on Costa Rica. This disaster allegedly chased the guys, who decided to develop for one reason—since no one knows when they could die. It chased them like a strict teacher, who has a passion for examining his students, and he is ready to clamp his students’ necks between his teeth with a crocodile’s power in case if the lessons he taught them would not be learned. Yet our characters were calm. They were calm like a patient person with rich background, for whom examinations of life were not new. But even in his hear a question rises “What do I have to do something for if not for the doing itself?” This thought gladdens him.

The characters landed in a town near the coast. Oddly enough, Earlyborn and Zhenka did not collaborate to decide what to do next, but they drank a cup of real Costa Rica coffee with cinnamon and vanilla each and then joined to a local volunteer community. They did so as they wanted to bring good to this macabre world under the moon. The good is the main honesty from ones which exist. Remember how you were excited in your childhood when your mother and you went to throw away rubbish in a bin. You estimated highly this event, as realized there was somewhat beneficial in it. Imagine how many more happy kids’ faces you will see having a job of a volunteer. Earlyborn and Zhenka defeated their wish to leave everything and go to the place where the night meets with the morning. They began working. They were happy. They grasped what you will never grasp living in front of the Eiffel Tower. The grasped what they followed making a plan of their journey at home. What do I mean, my friends? You will understand it. They got that happiness is not to live up your expectations, but to hope without waiting anything. Just to live is happiness.

Luisian sat on a crossbar of a fence and dangled his feet. He did it in tune with vegetation that bloomed behind his back. There were flowers looked like peonies and roses but that were a mix of these types. Luisian was delighted. I cannot conjecture what dawned on him, but he eventually learned what the greatest power of human beings was. “Don’t be sad, never be sad,” said a mother to her boy in a plane when he dropped a glass of tea on a seat. Luisian sat at the table of life and suddenly bid a farewell to that solemn ball of sorrow he visited in his soul when many times mourned the dead father. And I think this was a right step, for his darling father, obviously, would not be happy to his decease made his son grieve over him. There were also some tasty fruit falling down and bumping each other behind Luisian. Some of them got dimples, but they were not discouraged, since knew what else that mother told his child in a plane. Any dimple adds some courage to a person’s soul.

Chapter 21, Merak

Begin with what is important. We often do not understand what to begin with and what to continue with. To learn how to find out what is important, you should compose logical lines of thoughts in your mind. You should have a strong belief that you truly ought to fulfill the action you named your priority. Yet there is no point of forcing you to believe. You should be honest with yourself and act according to your heart.

***

Earlyborn and Zhenka moved forward checking the map of the stars they drew. They did not hurry up to set sail, so they met their guide in the middle of the Atlantic ocean not soon. The point of Merak on the map was a bit dimmer than the other ones. Zhenka suggested there was a secret they would reveal when they reach the point of destination. He thought this way as yesterday, when they rescued people from the typhoon in Costa Rica, they seemed to grow up. What does a person discover the next day after his birthday? Well, nothing new, except for one more dawn, one more seen or missed dusk, aging for one day and giving a promise that the person will mature with this passing away year. He does so, because he and we all have no choice, but the point of no return. We all are rockets, and a rocket cannot return back to the Earth soon after its last stage separation. We all are these aircrafts, yet we fly with different speeds, having the same fuel inside. The guide realized that and show his “different speed”. The siblings did not head neither for Brazil, nor Uruguay and Argentina, as the ones who examined the map would reckon. Despite Merak was to coincide with a place of that area, they moved at another direction. It was the guide who decided to do it. He acted like a wise teacher, who opens something beyond the school course to his children to show there is something of higher importance than what they already grasped. The guide brought them to a common silent and dark place. It was about plus twenty degrees Celsius. They could hardly make out Guinea, Gabon or Nigeria looming far from them. There was approximately a thousand of kilometres between our characters and the land on either side. The place was a treasure of energy, which no one, seemed had discovered before them.

“Begin with what is important.” Zhenka’s words were right. He continued.

“All is not as bad as you deem looking at the older generation that wants to improve their children with a help of singing and dancing around the pagans’ tambourine. Everyone there is right. We still can be the ones we wanted to be. We all look for problems and try to solve them. Before your dreamed future came true, you have to learn much and now how to control yourself. We, older generation, will help you to gain this knowledge. You should just live in peace with adults and try to understand their lines of thoughts. Understanding of other people is the basics. It is known since the times of primitive society that there will be now honest rule without a dialog or some drawings on a cave’s walls. This leads to a concept relationships among people are crucial at any times. And particularly today, when the boards between communication and the absence of communication—a brief exchange of opinions—are blurred. We become confused. I say, people have not changed, and their nature is to mix up the thoughts. To return back to the right path of the development of communication, we should either step back to the previous path or to become rather strong for this one. As the evolution shows, we can choose any option and develop it, then it will turn right. Now it is easier to choose the one related to actions we know. This is to increase the amount of time we have for face-to-face meetings. Why? The cobweb of social networks hangs on us. We are addicted to them. It is not enough just to delete your accounts in networks. You may feel changes only after the social networks will be deleted from you: otherwise, it is useless. Unless you, Earlyborn, had not forget your previous life stage, you will not find peace in the new one. Yet no one says this will happen instantly. It would be hard for you, yet this is the life. The main lesson is patience. The real joy is in minutes when you go and work when your work is needed.”

***

And Earlyborn stood up now, as if she finished eating the durian of her previous life, and stopped dreaming. She again brewed a cup of Dominican coffee this beautiful morning after the New Year’s Eve, phoned his brother in Irkutsk and congratulated him with the New Year which came. Then she deleted her Instagram account and went to the market to buy a bird. She walked along one of the paved streets in France and all of a sudden met a person—it was Ded Moroz. His glance at her was strange. He, seemed, waited for her to act. A teacher stands near the blackboard this way, when his student solves an equation. Earlyborn acted like it was expected. She approached to this stranger, jerked his beard for three times and politely told him where to get off, using the great and mighty Russian language. Then she booted a rock she found nearby to show her strictness, and the stranger ran away, looking at the strength, which was hidden in that young lady. Do this with your problems, and they will disappear. The sun shone again. Earlyborn called Luisian the parrot she purchased on the market. It sang quietly and flew to the market constantly. Our heroine understood her pet needed some freedom and did not stop it. She forgot sadness, which was the first right doing of Earlyborn in the new year. She watered phloxes…

Chapter 22, Dubhe

Calm South waves swinging bothered Zhenka’s awaken at night imagination. He was overfilled with emotions. The case becomes simpler when you use metaphors. I know, Zhenka found his metaphor to understand the world. Earlyborn met Luisian. The boat sailed with the current, moving through the unknown waters, where anything could occur—where the depths could devour them. Yet remember what I admitted in the previous chapter—people’s relationships are crucial today.

Yesterday night the siblings lost any hope to survive, as there was a crack in their boat, when Luisian flew to them by a plane. He listened to his heart and finally decided he wanted to become a rescuer. He bought the tickets to our (and his, of course) loved Costa Rica. Then he flied a small helicopter to get to his ranc, from which he set off to his first, almost studying, flight. The boat where Earlyborn and Zhenka were had a tracker, so that if something happened, the signal would be sent to the Rescued Department. The siblings threw away their phones so as not to be addicted to them, and soon after that the boat got a crack. It was a sign they acted perfect. The closest ship to that boat now sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, yet Luisian was near. He flew notwithstanding the awful weather—there was a usual sea storm. And who did know that Luisian would say not just a stranger, but a second mother in this boat he was to rescue? Somehow turned that Luisian disappeared, however, he managed to take Earlyborn and Zhenka to Antarctic. They became cold there as soon as arrived, but managed to see and feel that beauty of the frost which you can embrace with the entire soul. This frost was like an angry kitten that wants scratch with his paws, but cannot. The invisible cover made from the fresh Italian tea protects you from everything. And then the light comes.

***

Earlyborn woke up one more time. She did not sleep for the whole previous night, and even Dominican coffee could not take all these dreams out of her mind. She phoned Zhenka to assure that it was just a dream, and she felt alright. Yet such a behavior was appropriate for a woman who wants to go in Italy to enjoy the life and gaze at charming sunsets.

In four hours she sat on the roof of a small house on Sicilia. She spoke with houses about the eternity. Some of them had stucco works on walls, others had high spires and towers. She sat dangling her legs. She had a white plate with a yellow border in one hand, from where some bunches of grape looked at this world. There was a glass of mineral water. She sat, looking somewhere forward, far from there and was extremely happy. A person who missed the most important flight in his life understands abruptly: here is the happiness. Just to sit on a small island of time. Earlyborn looked at her past and realized she need to have a new goal. The rain started to fall down. She saw: two months of this year passed by. There were ten left. Ten more months—ten more hopes and ten more journeys, one in each months. How many times would she meet her reflection in a lake under the moon? Endless! Earlyborn polished off the plate with a last grape and went on living. A great painting appeared in the sky: the dawn of the moon met the dusk of the sun. “Do you love the moon or the sun?” Earlyborn asked herself. She knew with her a bit dyed fair hair: the moon. Now she loved the moon.

Earlyborn did not want to continue this book. She created a plan in her mind on how to get the valuable information without a telephone and a thing. She looked for the way of how she could become a real Italian firefighter. The luck greets people who just stood on the true path. And she stood on it. In the century of technologies we confuse he good and the bad ways of life. To clean up your mind, you need to delete all your accounts in social networks and try to live without them for a week. Without all of them. As we realize those enormous hazards and joys we faced from our beginning, we would get the pleasure from life. The light post shines into our window like a symbol of the higher powers… Happiness.

***

A maiden, majesty of codfish,

Has climbed suddenly the curtain holder.

She sits, and eyes her wink.

Legs dangling under her.

And there is nothing in the world she’s needed.

No thing to brighten more.

Yet, seems, there is one—breeze blowing

From seas and lands abroad.

A maiden, majesty of codfish,

Has climbed suddenly the curtain holder.

She is the greatest actress,

Playing the roles, which no one

Had played so charming as she does before.

The dusk will hide us once,

Like side-scenes after a performance.

There is a cloud high in the sky,

Resembling two wild foxes.

She looks and dreams. She’s named Azis.

A maiden, majesty of codfish,

Has climbed suddenly the curtain holder.

Примечания

1

An old man who have magic powers. Russian Santa Clause.

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2

The diminutive from “Zhenia”.

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3

These are the frosts which appear after Epiphany in Russia (on the night of January 18) and believed to be the most harsh during the whole winter.

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4

A traditional South American beverage, which is similar to tea and prepared from a plant called yerba mate.

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5

The work of the American psychologist Abraham Maslow, which presents the hierarchy of things people are likely to have. First appeared in an academic journal in the USA in 1943. Is used to learn person’s behavior.

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6

The honey bought in the Champs-Elysees street in Paris.

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7

Zhenka speaks about the abstract from the Russian novel The Captain’s Daughter by Alexander Pushkin where the Don Cossack Emelian Pugachev tells Petr Grinev a Kalmyck fairytale.

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8

This is a telecast about travelling. In each episode the show visits different places in the world and tells about them. The telecast is named so because hosts toss a coin with head and tail to decide who receives a credit card with unlimited credit  and who is supposed to to spend the weekend with US$100 including all expenses There is a tradition that show presenters of “Oryol i Reshka” hide a bottle with 100 $ in a place where they film an episode.

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9

That is a national beverage of Puerto Rico. It is made of coconut milk, pineapple juice and white rum. It can be either alcoholic drink or not – depending on presence of rum.

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Оглавление

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14, Alkaid

Chapter 15

Chapter 16, Mizar

Chapter 17

Chapter 18, Alioth

Chapter 19, Megrez

Chapter 20, Phecda (Phad)

Chapter 21, Merak

Chapter 22, Dubhe

*** Примечания ***