The trap for the oligarch

The store was empty, cool, quiet and brightly lit. If there were treasure hunters like me, our paths didn't intersect, the sellers disappearing behind rows of shelves, like computer game characters, like ghosts. For a moment it seemed to me that I had been wandering through the maze eternally and would never find a stroller with my books left somewhere. The hall began to rotate, my head spun, the aisles narrowed, the lamps on the ceiling flickered, and the aggressive colours of the books of a famous publishing house turned into a pack of dogs growling in my direction, ready to jump off the shelf to tear me apart, as such a pack had done with that poor girl in a small town in Siberia, who carried a music notebook in her backpack and a violin in her hands. The news did not report details, but perhaps the violin survived, because the girl did not try to fight off with it. I took a deep breath, rubbed my face with my hands. A minute later, a chocolate bar hastily put into my mouth brought me back to senses, the panic attack receded. It's time to leave this maze, where the world swayed and shown its wrong side. A stroller with books immediately appeared nearby, as if it called me, ready to roll upon the slightest demand. Even the cashier looked unreal when punching the receipt. She moved the machine for the bank card nearer, issued the receipt, put the books in front of me, and said something. It was not an act of personal communication, but a standard phrase like we are always glad to see you in our store. I was hurriedly stuffing the books into my small backpack. Fat Valishevsky, a Pole historian, would not share the cramped space with his neighbors, which were mainly biographies, but they got along in the end. But a thin, wide-format glossy book about kittens was not accepted into their company. A historian will somehow agree with a biographer, while the gloss and the intellect seldom get along, I thought, pushing the exiled one into the bag; there already was a package of cat food for Basque, bought on the way to the bookstore. The album in a fatherly way hugged the kitten drawn on the package. ”Merged in ecstasy", I muttered, putting on the backpack. God help me to get this bunch of purchases home!

In the doorway a monster pretending to be a huge man, just like this, stood blocking the exit. While I was trying to bypass the barrier consisting of a belly covered with a checkered shirt , this living turnstile continued to talk to his cell phone, with his head somewhere in the clouds, where my gaze did not reach. I could only see his reddish stubble, the one that the British exquisitely call “five o'clock shadow”, on his fat chin with sweating spots here and there among the stubble, like birds of paradise sitting on a golf lawn. The giant either did not see that he was blocking the passage, or was enjoying in such a way. At last he put the phone in his pocket, and his huge face with a triple chin loomed over me. He took a step back, I walked past him, smelling his sweat and lotion, through a dense cloud of aura, in the existence of which I believed at that moment, so dense it was. It seemed to me that I was making my way within a viscous substance that did not will to let me go, and I had to make great efforts not to let this environment immure me like a fly in amber. Getting outside, I breathed in the air filled with exhaust gases with pleasure and relief. It was a hot evening of a hot day. The sun hung over the metropolis, procrastinating to go beyond the horizon , throwing hot rays over the city. There was a usual Friday traffic jam on the road, in which the bus I needed had got stuck. I went on foot, glad that I had had time to buy books right before the store closed, and I hadn’t even left my bank card on the counter, as I often used to do. I was praising myself for visiting another store where I cat food and a new drinking bowl, and a brush for combing my kitten. In this manner I struggled with the panic that seized me. Soon the reason of the panic identified itself: someone had been following me for several minutes already, and his big shadow was trying to absorb my thin shadow alongside with my bag and my backpack, and at the same time, as I thought, with all my thoughts and plans for tomorrow. Without even looking back I realized that it was the " turnstile”, and I fastened my steps.

The shadow fell behind. Cars were still parked on the bridge, and the evening sun, like paparazzi, was shooting a picture of the car accident with its invisible camera. It was because of this very accident, I passed the bridge by bus in thirty minutes instead of usual two minutes, but now traffic finally stopped. I walked wondering if I could get home before the sunset. If the bus should come, there would be no problem. I looked around. There was no bus, and the fat man in the plaid shirt was walking fifteen meters behind me. Of course, he could not keep up with me, but even the Komodo dragons, slowly chasing the victim, always overtake it. I sat down on a bench, hoping that he would pass by, but the man stopped, pretending to look for something in his pants pocket, then plopped down next to me and winked.

– What is the reason for such a hurry? Maybe we're fellow travelers?

-- Sorry, but I'm going in a completely different direction!

I said the first thing that occurred to me, realizing that this was a worthy, albeit an improbable answer.

- It can't be so. Would you like to know why?

Seeing two policemen approaching us, I got emboldened and said:

- I am positive that your way is to a fat contest, but I go to an opposite one.

– Or maybe I want to help you, - the fat man was offended. – Your backpack is heavy, I see.

- Thanks, I'll manage on my own.

I jumped up and walked on, hoping that I had rejected the impudent. But he followed me like a faithful dog. One click of his finger could make my head fly away, and I was seriously alarmed. We almost reached the next stop, and I managed to jump into the bus cabin, leaving the pursuer behind, and could not but laugh seeing his confused face. But… what was he holding in his waving hand? A minute later I realized that it was my bank card! Surely, I dropped it when leaving the book store. Now there were two options, one was to get off and run to him, to thank him, to sniff his nasty lotion and all that. In this case I won’thave to contact the bank in order, firstly, to block the card, and secondly, to restore it.

Why do I always suspect bad intentions? The man wanted to give me my card, and I cheated him. Now I'm not in the bus I needed, this one turned left around the neighborhood, and I'll get off far from my house. Okay, to hell with it, with the card, I'll block it on the phone now, no problem, but I'll borrow money from Margarita.

I must hurry home, my home, to my shelter, the shelter of a lonely dancer, back along the sidewalk past McDonald's, optics stores, shoe store, video equipment and children's clothing, still existing, despite the the economic difficulties of the people and the country. The shop windows shone, reflected the sunset, and cars passed by with a dry noise, and I heard the rustle of tall lime trees planted along the sidewalk when there were no shops, no McDonald's, no hypermarket. The grass of the lawns was withered, although every morning they were irrigated by watering machines. The grass still smelled, despite the drought, it sent signals to the neighborhood saying that it was alive… the aromas of withering, dry grass, earth, some rare stunted flowers made its way through gasoline, dust and asphalt smells.

I hastened my pace, although the leg injury that long ago cut me off from ballet tutus and pointe shoes, appeared again. I wasn't limping now, but the ligament hurt. Should pain had a sound, it would be a creaking, intermittent note, the sound of an old door in an empty house, a dangling shutter from a low-budget horror movie.

I didn't slow down, hoping to cross the road at the traffic light, my house was close at hand to the crossing. However, another surprise was waiting for the pedestrians there. The three-eyed monster failed. This strange pattern was repeated so often just before sunset! It occurred to me that this electronic device had nothing less but evening depression. I stood reasoning on this topic out loud, and l a pensioner with a trolley, obviously going from a hypermarket, began to look at me suspiciously, trying to determine who I was talking to, because I didn't have a phone in my hands and there were no wires reaching my ears. At last the traffic light draw a green little man, and we moved. I, this aunt with her travois, followed by a stray dog - after crossing the road, the dog ran to the bath house, and the pensioner followed me for a long time, muttering about those ones who talk to themselves. And what do you teach your children, the compassionate old lady grumbled.

The sun, which until now seemed to hang in the sky, suddenly rolled down like a red ball, into the gates of the horizon. I dragged the shopping package in my right arm, the backpack full of books was pounding on my back, my wet hair stuck to my wet forehead, sweat was running down my neck. I tried to cope with a new panic attack, but the shadows in the corners, in the arch through which I had to run, in the grates of dry drains, gained strength, grew, moved, looked like lurking monsters. The messengers of the darkness, from which I managed to get out alive a year ago, were no longer as frightening as they used to be, but this hot spring weakened my body, and the consequences of the coma in my childhood made themselves felt again.

To be continued