Red Star

Chapter 2

How long or short, but I somehow calmed down. With difficulty i got up from the floor, rubbing my frozen ass with his right hand, moved to the kitchen. Finally, I put aside that damn iPhone, washed my face, wiped it with a kitchen towel that had turned up, apparently, and acquired the ability to think somehow.

First of all, I went around the whole apartment and turned on the light everywhere. For what? I do not know. Probably, it was easier this way and nothing seemed to appear in the dark. In the process of walking around the apartment, I finally became convinced that all THIS is actually happening to me. I am in past.

I learned all the things, even those that seemed long ago and hopelessly forgotten. In the kitchen i stood and held on to the gas water heater, well, yes, for sure, we did not have hot water supply ... I forgot ... But I instantly remembered a vase with porcupine quills, which I had collected in the Sochi zoo, standing in a large room on a German piano. Apparently, in those childhood years, they seemed to me an important souvenir of summer holidays! 

In the bedroom, eyes caught on the bedside table, or rather on the chain lying on it, which was threaded through the ear of a small women's neck watch. Also, it seems, German's. Mom wore ... Was popular once ... Or is it popular now? Here? Where is it ?! Feeling a wave of hysteria that was growing again, I shook my head and breathed deeply and noisily. It helped. Lets go ...

Again i went out into the brightly lit corridor between two rooms. Here the glance highlighted, among other things, a folding bicycle "Salute", a great rarity and my pride ... in those years ... in these years ... f**k!

- "Calm down ..." - my voice sounded hoarse in the empty apartment and with a kind of screeching ... I tried to clear my throat and realized that my throat was completely dry. As soon as I decided to move to the kitchen to drink some water, I noticed a flickering shadow out of the corner of my eye. Frozened in horror. My heart pounded madly in my throat. And only after a few moments of icy fear that bound me, I realized that it was a part of my reflection that flashed in the mirror of the corridor hanger.

Slowly, as on his last journey, i began to approach , completely unsure of what I would see there, wanting to see it and desperately rubbing it ... I was looking at me as a teenager. Almost naked, in some red "family men", tousled matted hair, adhered to a wet forehead, unnaturally brightly glowing cheeks and LOOK ... Some feverish and hunted ... childishly.

For several minutes I stood in front of the mirror in silence. Then i turned sharply and went to the kitchen. Hanging for a couple of moments in solving the problem - how to drink water, I nevertheless moved from the sink tap to the kettle standing on the stove. In several awkward sips, spilling water on my chest, i got full and, taking the iPhone off the table, trudged into the bedroom. Then i went to the bed, collapsed into it and tried to wrap myself in a blanket, as tightly as possible.

How long I lay there, chattering my teeth from the cold and stress, I don't know, but gradually I was able to warm up and ... fell asleep.

A sharp unpleasant ringing, on the increase, screwed into my mind. It seemed to become louder and louder and filled all of me, causing purely physical pain. I finally opened my eyes and tried to comprehend what was happening. Something rang, the sound was loud and disgusting, it was repeated at regular intervals and it was definitely not an alarm clock. One glance around me was enough to understand that I was still in my Leningrad apartment from childhood. The sound disappeared, only to reappear in a few seconds and continue to torment me.

- "Damn, it's a city phone ..." - finally, the obvious came to my mind. I got out of bed more or less briskly, but immediately stopped. Sleep, no matter how long it lasted, was good for me. The ability to think, at least partially, returned. It was already quite light outside the window, even the sun was peeping through. And in the very note that caused a hysteria in my kitchen, it was written: "when you wake up, call." How long I slept - I don't know, but apparently for a long time, and without waiting for the call, my mother calls herself. What to do?! How to talk ?! I am not ready!!! But if I do not pick up the phone, then she will just come running home from work, since it took about 20 minutes from her research institute  to our house.

As if in a dream, I go into the corridor to the sound of a tearing red ebony nightmare. With difficulty, as if it weighs several kilograms, I pick up the phone: "Hello ... hello ... Vitya ... hello ... can you hear me ?!" - Mom's voice almost shouted into the phone. With difficulty unstuck my dry lips, I squeezed out some sounds into the tube. "Hello ... hello, what did you say? Vitya ?!" - the degree of expectation of an answer, at the other end, has grown to a critical one, prompting for action. - "It's me". - "Are you crazy, why don't you pick up the phone so much, you little bastard! .. I've been calling for half an hour, I don't leave the phone, I don't let people call ... I can't work, but he doesn't pick up ... what are you silent?! have you measured your temperature? what's wrong with your voice .... have you been asleep or something, I woke you up ?! " - a waterfall of angry questions, reproaches and anxiety, requiring an immediate reaction on my part, oddly enough, helped me to gather my courage a little and wheeze into the phone: - "I slept ... did not hear ... did not measure ...".

- "So, you also lost your voice!" - the slightly calming voice of my mother stated accusingly - "Now go put on the kettle, then put a tablespoon of honey in a mug of boiling water ... there is a can in the refrigerator on the wall ... drink as quickly as possible until it's cool. Then measure the temperature and I'll call you back in half an hour. Pick up the phone right away! " - at the end the voice again went up angrily.

I imitated something that looked like an uguk and put the receiver down on the device, pressing down the small black buttons that emerge from the solid red plastic carcass of this antediluvian communication device. Then i returned to the bedroom and collapsed on the bed again.

- "It means not a dream. Still, not a dream and I am a child again."

I got out of bed and, already more confident in owning my legs, went to the toilet. Another chronoquake was waiting in the toilet. There was a toilet, and it was white, but there was no cistern. More precisely, I just did not notice him right away. It was located higher than my current height, and a chain with a white faience polyhedron at the end stretched down from it. - That's right, that's how it was, just forgot again ... and remembered again. Picking up the toilet seat, which looks quite ordinary (apparently, at least something resists the flow of time successfully ... heh ...) I tried to fulfill a small wish of my small organism again.  

FUCK !!! The instrument for fulfilling "wishes" also turned out to be ALL small and awkward, like someone else's, held by me with two fingers! I caught myself thinking that, at almost 50 years old, I was standing over the toilet, holding my childish little p***y and looking at it with absolute tenderness ... The absurdity of this toilet situation and all the tension of the wild and fantastic event that took place struck me into unrestrained laughter , in the process of which, already my bladder burst for the long-awaited relief and, as a result, I simultaneously whinnied loudly, tried to stand on my feet and, portraying Robin Hood, tried not to miss the toilet, holding my little "hose" with my fingers, like with tweezers !!!  

I left the closet and went to the kitchen. Washed my hands and face, grimacing and poured water into the kettle from the tap: "Filters, filters ... Okay. Let us be comforted by the fact that the water is still clean, but we will still boil it" - suddenly i noticed that I began to calm down and talk about the prospect of life in the existing conditions.  

"Although, what remains ... or maybe not for long it all ... today threw it here, tomorrow it may throw me back" - I thought without much hope. 

 I lit the burner on the first try - the matches were in plain sight. Nostrils eagerly sucked in the smell of the sulfur burnt on the match. "Lord, I haven't felt that smell for 35 years!" - the thought was some ... joyful, or something ..  

"So, stop with joy!" - i commanded to myself. "Soon my mother will call, I need to talk normally. Since I am sick now, I need to take advantage of this time-out in order to think over one damn important question alone - I headed to the bedroom, hoping that the thermometer should be somewhere near the bed.  

The thermometer was found on my desk, which was in the bedroom. There were about thirty years left before the personal office in apartment. "It would be nice to be more precise over the years. And so far only a small p***y is from the frame of reference!"  

But let's figure it out first with the temperature.  I tucked the thermometer under my arm, picked up the iPhone from the bedside table and went back to the kitchen.

The gas hummed evenly in the burner and the kettle had already begun to emit some sounds, showing that even without an electric cord, its descendants were able to warm boiling water. I went to a rag bale on the radiator. It turned out to be a pan with cheesecakes, wrapped in a towel and placed on a hot radiator to keep warm for longer. The cheesecakes were still warm, a can of loose sour cream was found in the refrigerator, but the impending snack loudly and unceremoniously interrupted the loud phone call. I almost dropped the can of sour cream and rushed into the corridor to the phone.

-"Hello?" -

 "You drank tea with honey? What is your temperature? You lie there in bed and do not think to get mad! I ask what temperature ?!" - 

Baffled by the half-forgotten young pressure of my mother, I frantically crawled under my arm for a thermometer - "Mom, I have 37.7 '..." - I depict the answer in a hoarse voice. - "I see. Blow into bed, you have a strict bed rest today. Set your alarm clock and every three hours a cup of tea with honey. If the temperature is above 38, take an aspirin tablet and call. Maybe tomorrow we will call the doctor at home, since the temperature has returned." That's it, try to get some more sleep, if anything - call! Kisses. " - beeps sounded in the receiver. I hung up and went back to the kitchen to the cheesecakes.  

This time the conversation was easy for me, although I said at most five words. Putting aside the thermometer with its shameful 36.1 ', for the next 10 minutes I literally devoured four delicious curd cheese cakes with raisins and a crispy crust, then screwed on almost half of an 800-gram can of sour cream and black bread, which I cut off from a round rye, found in the breadbox. Then came the turn of my mother's 'lemongrass', for which you could sell your soul, it was so delicious!  

Having finished drinking the second cup of tea, I realized that I had to crawl out from the table, otherwise I would die of burnout. Having already settled comfortably in an armchair in a large room, I was able to estimate with surprise the amount I ate. I chalked it up to stress and thought that in my past childhood I was not a particularly athletic guy, and if I have to live in this, then there is no point in repeating the flaw. So this gluttony should not become the norm.  

But damn it, how delicious it was! I didn't cook myself, and my financial situation allowed me to eat in Moscow restaurants all the time. But there I did not experience even a tenth part of such a taste delight as from today's breakfast. Either the taste of long-forgotten natural products, or the still young taste buds of a teenager. By the way, it's time to find out what year it is on the street and how old I am!  

Waddling, after overeating, like a pregnant duck, I hobbled over to my desk for my schoolbag. Then for about 10 minutes he studied his diary with interest, in the process of which he established that it was most likely at least Monday, February 20, and certainly 1978. The last entries in the diary were on Saturday, and since my mother is at work, the work week has begun, but what day of the week is still unclear. - "Okay, we'll figure it out." The grades in the diary are all sorts, but mostly good, I always studied well, but with absolute reluctance. I received all knowledge from books, of which I read a lot and avidly. He returned to his chair and decided to reflect, summing up the intermediate results.