Preface.

I recorded this story in the words of my good friend a young man. We are not friends with him, but we maintain a fairly long-standing, slightly more than a business relationship. Once or twice a week we meet over a cup of good beer in a bar we know, sometimes sitting for several hours in a row. Somehow at the end of the summer, he did not appear in a bar for two weeks in a row, which puzzled me. I called him, tried to find out the reason, he promised to come and explain everything. We met on a regular Thursday. He immediately seemed to me somehow puzzled or dejected. I waited and did not rush him. After the usual phrases on duty in anticipation of a beer, he asked me if I would mind listening to his narration on a rather intimate subject and whether I would consider it vulgar. I was not surprised, because in one of the traditional controversies, I gave him someone's words that talk about intimate relationships with a woman, just like betraying a friend. At the same time, he referred to the unusual situation and that he needed help. To share with someone else, especially to ask for advice, he no one else wanted. I set aside the beer, showing agreement, and prepared to listen.

Much later, I tried to reproduce his story with stenographic accuracy, omitting small details, and, in order to preserve the color, I reproduce it from the first person, as I heard it from a friend’s mouth.

I stood at the bus stop on the very outskirts of the city and hopelessly waved my hand to all the passing transport for about forty minutes. Saturday morning, and the next two days did not bode well. In the evening, friends called and told me that parents had to come to the country at the weekend, because they need emergency care. The issue was not discussed, we must go, and have not been there for two weeks. As luck would have it, on Thursday I put the car in for repair, they swore that they would do it by Saturday, but it turned out that the necessary details were not there, they would be brought from Moscow only next week. Therefore, after tormenting the night from stuffiness and rage, I was early in the bus station. To my surprise, long ago, without using public transport, I learned that I could leave only in the evening. After looking at the platforms clogged by people and realizing that fortune would not smile here, I drove to the outskirts of the city, where bus workers should pick up free-riders. Alas, and there he saw an equally bleak picture, the darkness of the people rushing at the bus stop, rushing under the wheels of any type of transport. The mood was completely spoiled. Anger superimposed on anger. Anger at a girlfriend, with whom I had a big fight, and who didn’t come and call the second week. Last night I had to while away the night in bed. I was angry at my parents, because they were impatient, at friends from a car service center, at bus workers, and finally, at the weather and again and again: ... At nine in the morning, there was already unimaginable heat, the sun did not rise to zenith, but it was mercilessly fried. The air rang out from the heat, a haze rose from the hot asphalt, and looking into the distance it seemed that the road was covered with a layer of water. Yes: a happy day was coming.

The last time, looking at the crowd standing at the bus stop, decided to leave it. Lonely people on the road will pick up faster, pity for one more than the crowd. The look snatched from the crowd of two attractive girls, especially one, taller, dark. They also seemed to be looking at me with some interest, discussing something and laughing, nudging each other a little. I could feel their gaze even on the back of my head. The faces were not visible in details, since both were wearing large dark glasses and identical baseballs with a long visor covering half of the face. I thought it would not be bad now to swim in the river and then get involved in a little darkness.From this thought it became even nauseous, waving his hand, as if doomed, quickly walked along the side of the road toward the distant cottage.

Moving my legs with confidence, I walked along the asphalt canvas, covering meters, kilometers of the road. Thoughts, as happens in such cases, swarmed in my head, jumping from one to another, but for some reason invariably returned to her, that stranger on the road, drawing the most incredible pictures. Soberly assessing the situation, I came to the conclusion that the heat is intensifying because of everything. Southerners are much more temperamental and light up from any skirt raised just above the knees, much faster than we northerners.

After about twenty minutes of walking, a little way through, the foreign car braked sharply, the door opened slightly, and a familiar voice called out. The face and voice were familiar, could not remember, but the paths somewhere overlapped.

- Where?

- There it is.

- Sorry, not on the way, I will bring up to the fork.

Three kilometers of the road flew instantly, we did not have time to figure out how familiar.

And again the bus stop, however, only about five people settled on it lonely in the shade. A tedious wait has begun; there must be some kind of bus.

About ten minutes later, due to the turn, the zachuhany sharaban in the common people called “loaf” turned out. On intercity flights such did not go, according to this, I disgustedly turned away from him to the side. But the bus slowed down, the back door opened, about five people fell out of it, asking if I could get to there, I squeezed in with the others into the belly of the loaf. The bus twitched, as if overcoming pain, then feverishly shook his back and drove along the road.

After the door closed behind me, I had the impression that I was in a corked can, thrown into the sun and which had already swelled and was about to explode. The smell of sweaty human bodies mixed with yesterday's fume and flavored with the exhaust gases of a bus blew into my nose. Strangely enough, in the cabin, if you can call it that, there was almost complete silence, or rather an even and quiet whisper, overlapped by the chatter of glass and the creaking of iron, issued by the bus itself. I was even frightened by the driver's shout about timely payment of the passage, which was heard above me from the speaker hanging next to me. Having transferred the money and felt like a full-fledged passenger, I set out to somehow improve my trip, the benefit was to shake for another hour. Taking one step up, I buried my grandmother with a pile of purses that stood facing me. Seeing my attempts, she suggested that I change places, because she was going out at the next stop. Having absorbed all the protruding parts of the body, I climbed between the headstock and the handrail, stepping over her wallets, and immediately found myself pressed against someone's back. It was not possible to exhale, whether the space freed by the grandmother was already filled. I frantically searched with my hands for a point of support, so that, thanks to it, I could move apart, breathe in and get out of my back, which I obviously pressed with great force. With one hand, I grabbed onto the handrail running along the rear window, while the other was dangling under the roof, clinging to the top of the handrail, then pressed against the glass. Slightly pressed standing behind, exhaled and began to look around, as you can even get comfortable. To the left in the very corner was a peasant with a backpack and fishing poles, he stared out the window and did not tear himself away from him. On the right, another back loomed, two pensioners stood in a half-turn by the window, fascinated by conversation, probably about politics. They had nothing to do with it. His eyes rested on his back in front, the white T-shirt covered the girls' shoulders, and from under the dark baseball the chestnut hair was hidden there. Bah, yes, it looks like it is the dark one from the bus stop, I thought, and for some reason I was overjoyed. She probably sat down earlier, at the bus stop I left. I shook my head within the limits of the possible, looking for her blonde companion, but she was not around. I tried to stretch my neck and look at least from the side in the face, but this did not succeed, the body was held down by other bodies and motionless.What confirmed my assumptions are the eyeglasses of the glasses that pass behind the stranger’s ears, and rarely a pop-up reflection of the face in a dusty glass when the bus fell into the shadow. Something very intrigued me, and I was already carrying out a plan for further action. To begin with, I lowered my right hand, so that she passed over her ...