Chapter 1. 8. Souvenir

  The van swerved and lay on its side.

  Our truck climbed onto the highway.

  The policemen realized their mistake in a rage, looked around in fear, tried to lift their car, but I was already accelerating along the excellent road.

  Megaphone loudly demanded to stop.

  Lagoon was definitely asleep and snoring.

  There were distant pops of firecrackers and wild screams. I knew about these graceful, irregular ricochets.

  We burst into the sanatorium Reflex at full speed, disturbing the sleeping streets.

  We stopped at the square. Everyone got out of the car.

  Lagoon also got out and looked around sleepily. He did not understand where we were.

  “I know a popular hut here,” Vitamin said languidly. “Juice is poetry!”

  The far-sighted favorite of women traveled around the entire coast with his girls, using their cars.

  “I'm going to the capital,” I said.

  “This is news!” Lagoon was surprised, immediately waking up. Sometimes he expressed himself quite correctly.

  “We'll see each other tomorrow.”

  Vitamin, not surprised by anything, took Lagoon by the shoulders. Lagoon was displeased.

  Effect, throwing quick glances at me, reached for them.

  Slowly, without ceasing to scold me for my unsociable character, the eagles moved away, and I watched them, holding the steering wheel with both hands.

  On the other side of the square, the signs of the bars were lit invitingly.

  The resort quickly ended. I drove along the highway, dispersing the darkness with my headlights. A car appeared ahead.

  I overtook it and looked in the mirror. The lights quickly fell behind and disappeared around the corner.

  I did not slow down and overtook several more cars in a row. It was very cozy in the cabin.

  The indicators were green. A muffled pulsating melody grew louder and weaker.

  I stopped. There was not a soul around. I leaned against the car. Not a single car had passed during all this time.

  There was only one road here. The cars I had overtaken should have passed by now.

  I decided to be patient and wait. The empty road resembled a frozen river.

  The darkness thickened. The wide highway was still deserted.

  It wasn't even about those cars.

  There is always traffic on the central highway Catastrophe at night. Maybe it was a coincidence.

  But the more I thought about it, the more anxious I became.

  I drove on. A café appeared ahead.

  I turned toward its lights and, looking closely, suddenly recognized one overtaken car in the parking lot, then another, open, with several women.

  I stopped. No one appeared. I looked around in confusion.

  Everyone was completely motionless. I stepped back, peering tensely at the motionless figures with the smell of fresh paint.

  “What is this...” I said quietly.

  I couldn't move from the spot, becoming similar to people around.

  I don't know how much time passed. I slowly moved along the glass wall.

  One woman was sitting, another woman stood opposite, her mouth slightly open and her eyebrow raised picturesquely.

  I stood there, holding my breath, and peered into the frozen faces.

  The woman standing was a powerful middle-aged blonde. I tried not to look at the people sitting in the cars, as if in ambush.

  It was a restaurant for tourists.

  At the entrance, people were frozen like bushes. From inside, oppressive music was coming.

  The fashionable cheerful motive Civilization.

  I stopped in front of the huge porter. His eyes focused right on me. I touched him.

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  His hand was like heated wood.

  At my touch the porter, suddenly swaying, began to fall, straight as a board, and stretched out face down at the entrance.

  Lying down, he continued to maintain a provocative pose. One external side. Masquerade.

  In the hall there were groups of men in expensive suits and women in exquisite dresses, as if someone had arranged them for a fashion show.

  One of the men had a cigar smoking in his mouth.

  The women's faces were frozen in faint smiles. One woman stood with her head thrown back in silent laughter.

  I walked through the restaurant as if through a museum hall, listening to my steps, not approaching anyone.

  The mannequins were made very skillfully. Everything around looked wild.

  The silence was tangible.

  The surrounding figures were like ordinary people ready to wake up. I could see the restaurant kitchen.

  Steam was coming from the large pots. One cook's hat fell off.

  A very successful imitation. Maybe this is a demonstration restaurant pavilion?

  Thinking about this, I suddenly wanted to eat and sat down at the first table I came across, then, realizing that no one would serve me, I found a place where the waiter had just completed the order - there was an untouched dinner on the table behind the column.

  It exuded a tantalizing aroma.

  No one had started eating yet. The girl was sitting down, holding her dress, looking up at her companion - a man with a mustache like a cockroach, with tightly compressed lips.

  He pretended to push his chair back. The girl was wearing blue clothes.

  Her neck was open, her cheeks were blushing.

  After all, the girl was pretty. I glanced at her figure, her rounded hips.

  But she chose an unsuitable companion for herself. Most likely, this is her relative.

  I, having broken the composition, pulled a quite high-quality ownerless roast towards myself, at the same time stole a salad from the mustachioed man and began to eat, glancing in between at the neighboring tables, at the back of the departing waiter.

  I filled a glass, thought, poured a girl in a glass too.

  “Don't be shy!” I said, trying to act as natural as possible. “Come and keep me company!”

  I froze at the sound of my own voice, then drank. I got a light juice.

  On the bottle, I could see that the juice is expensive.

  I wanted to drink something else, something stronger, and I headed to the bar.

  I poured myself some syrup and drank it. The girl behind the counter was amazingly beautiful. I drank some more and couldn't take my eyes off her.

  The girl’s hair was dark, with a deep tone. In the semi-darkness, her dark eyes, round cheeks and full mouth looked unusually good.

  Her eyelashes were lowered.

  I could look at her forever. She was pouring from a bottle.

  It was outrageous for such girls to be behind the counter, so that anyone could pester her.

  I took the bottle from her hands. Her fingers unclenched. I touched her face, feeling a faint warmth.

  With genuine childish curiosity, I leaned over, turning my head to meet the secret gaze of beautiful dark eyes directed downwards.

  Then I straightened up.

  I saw the girl’s eyes. It was incomprehensible. She could not be a doll.

  It was a living creature, frozen for some unknown reason.

  I sat down next to it. The multi-colored lights of the bar glowed softly.

  The music began to play softly again.

  I had already gotten used to it. If this was all a hallucination, then there were sound applications.

  I thought about it.

  The capital Feast used to be on the coast.

  It was a festive city, designed as a show in the form of an artificial model of a civilized environment, where each person could find his place naturally on the attraction.

  Only ruins remained.

  Any construction was useless.

  We found and sat dolls at the table.

  When all the seats were filled, it was enough for a person to become superfluous, to be not who they were taken for, and a show would appear, as if someone, like a tour guide, knowingly called everyone, and the holiday would begin.

  A holiday is also something unreal, someone's cheerful grimace.

  Captured by the abundance of our common holiday, we lived a full life.

  We want to decorate this world with what we like, and remove the excess, not to our taste.

  A person perceives everything as a true value.

  One idea came to my mind.

  I decided to brighten up my loneliness. I tactfully sat the girl down in a chair, giving her the necessary pose of an attentive conversationalist and friend.

  Her body was pliable and flexible, but not flaccid. It was as if the body was frozen in a certain position.

  I placed one of the girl's hands on the chair, inserted a glass in the other hand, and then, when the beauty's pose acquired the required ease, I poured juice into her glass and slightly inclined my head, assessing.

  I turned her head so that now she was looking almost at me. Her eyes were shining. I didn't even know her name.

  Maybe someone put her to sleep. Everyone is put to sleep by someone. I've read about such cases.

  I shuddered. The juice from the girl's glass flowed in a thin stream - her hand gradually straightened.

  A wet spot spread across her dark skirt.

  Something seemed to push me. I stood up and began to get out into the street, still trying to keep away from the motionless figures.

  The man in the hall had a smoldering cigar flame reaching his mouth.

  I splashed water from a bottle on his face. If there is a fire, everyone will burn. It will be a shame.

  This amazing similarity is necessary for our holiday.

  Everything must be done with such complete precision, brick by brick.

  Everything. We don't need to invent anything.

  A masterpiece can be improved, in such a compliant environment, under such rustproof conditions.

  I drove away and looked back, and suddenly an inexplicable shudder ran through me.

  The highway was still deserted, then fast and silent cars began to rush towards me from time to time, like mechanical ghosts of the night.

  I adjusted the mirror. My face was reflected in it, almost like someone else's in the darkness.

  Soon I saw a sea of ??purple lights hanging next to each other.

  The night space above the city shimmered. Everything was shining, sparkling, exciting and oppressive at the same time.

  I was racing at full speed along the concave, hammock-like bridges, level with other cars, of which there were unexpectedly and mysteriously many at the entrance to the capital.

  Skyscrapers were growing around, many people were moving between them - life in the metropolis never stopped.

  If the center was bustling, then in the sleeping areas there was a night silence.