This summer I spent two and a half months in H ****, this is a small town in the High North. I went there to work, but she was not the main motive, I once again ran and ran primarily from myself. I did not believe in myself and did not trust people. Inside, everything shrank from self-pity, I pleaded guilty to all the mistakes. I knew that by running away from myself, I would still return to myself, but, nevertheless, again I tried to do the impossible. Then it seemed to me that I live in a swamp, I did not have any emotions, I didn’t care what happened to me, I did a lot of things just mechanically. I was so tired of everything, nothing pleased me, and I got used to my little comfortable swamp.

The company I worked for rented me an apartment. I would like to tell about this apartment in more detail. It was located on the ninth floor of a panel house, all the walls of the entrance and the elevator doors were filled with the telephone numbers of the prostitutes, who thus advertised their services. Every time I entered the door, I held my breath and tried not to look at the numbers, next to which a heart was usually painted. All the way to the apartment door, I tried to breathe superficially. And just closing the door, I could relax. It was my island of purity and tranquility. The square room, a rather large kitchen, a loggia, a joint bathroom. The floor was entirely covered with carpets, at first I didn’t understand why, it turns out he was all in the pits and squeaked terribly when walking, the carpets at least smooth those defects. The apartment had everything for a normal life, there was not only a TV, then it didn’t bother me much, because I have a computer with constantly connected Internet. I could not fall asleep for a long time and just walked around the room from corner to corner, the creaky floor seemed to be talking to me, soothing me. With this apartment we were the same, two lonely and independent in the world of lies, betrayal and filth. The apartment windows looked out on the outskirts, outside the window as in the song the green sea of ​​the taiga. I only saw the sun at sunset, and since it was a period of white nights, it hung over the horizon at night. When I arrived, it had just begun, I was choking with delight, because the night did not come. And I love the day so much, especially the morning hours, when the sun only illuminated the earth with its rays and most people are still sleeping. The fragrance of purity, freshness and novelty spreads through the air, the day starts all over again. And here in this city almost at the edge of the earth this sense of novelty was especially acute. I was jealous of people who have no nights for three months a year.

The working day was as follows: in the morning I watched the mail received via the Internet, then, almost until late in the evening, I visited various trade organizations in order to promote the goods of our company. It must be said that Slavs worked very little in all these organizations, mostly people from the Caucasian regions who speak Russian very badly and do not understand my proposals. Usually they took me by the hand, stroked it and looked into the eyes with ingenious eyes, I understood the meaning of these movements and attitudes, and this made me nasty and dreary. I tried not to talk for a long time, turned the conversation on to other topics, went outside and wiped my hand for a long time with a damp napkin, as if I had touched something sticky and dirty. After such trips, I came home emotionally squeezed, I just needed silence. I gathered a full bath of hot water with foam and lay, sometimes I fell asleep in it for thirty minutes. In the end, after this procedure, I could at least think, I could perceive the information. After the bath, I do not wipe, I like the feeling when the skin dries itself and always when there is such an opportunity, I do it.Every day I sat in front of the monitor, reading a book, calming down after a busy day, thinking about future plans. So even then I sat in front of the computer with one towel on my head, hoping to read that neither be interesting on the world wide web, even if it was unwind, I wanted to talk to someone. When I connected to the Internet, I always downloaded a mail agent, I have a lot of contacts in it. Different people lay out their own and other people's thoughts for everyone to see.

One of the statements seemed interesting to me.

He: By the nature of my activity, I have very little relation to animal husbandry. However, for some reason, at work, I constantly come into contact with donkeys, goats and pigs ...

I thought strangely if I compared the people of animals to whom I would choose

I: and the rams and snakes have not met?

The answer came immediately

- And dogs and cats. And in general, I think that the fauna in our everyday life could do honor to any zoo.

Damn, how right he is. How often we, for one reason or another, try on the faces of various animals. We sometimes find it easier to appear as an animal than to be just a human being.

We corresponded for about an hour, it was the usual chatter on the web, when both people were amused by boredom. Nothing unusual. But my thirst for communication on this day was satisfied. The next evening I was reading a book on a computer, my favorite “Sister Kerry” Dreiser was so fascinated that she didn’t immediately see the signal about the message that had come. It was a greeting from my interlocutor yesterday. This evening we stayed in touch three and a half, and I did not notice how they flew. I had the feeling that I play tennis and give the pitch and I know for sure that I have a worthy opponent in front of me, and he will block this pass, and I know that I will need a lot of effort to beat him. I really like this spirit of rivalry, especially when your opponent is not at all inferior, and somewhere even surpasses you in skill. In our communication it was just like that.

The Internet provides an opportunity to see everything differently. Here there are no factors that in ordinary life obscure the very essence of man. For me, this is like a picture, which has a main theme, but is so loaded with all sorts of details that it is sometimes impossible to discern it. After all, what is man? Bone skeleton, covered with muscles and filled with various liquids. With the modern development of science you can blind anyone, even the brain is partially replaced by artificial intelligence. So what in us is that which is individual and that there is no substitute? Soul, what makes us human, and sometimes vice versa. This is what makes our brain work and our heart beats. It was then that I met another soul and I really liked it, I understood it and most importantly it understood me, it was related to me. In my head, this soul is overgrown with a physical shell and most likely different from the real one, but I know that if I could see in real life, I would see the image I created.

Every evening a message from my interlocutor caught fire on my monitor. He sent me music, books, videos. It was all so different from what I was listening to and reading before, making it necessary to look at familiar things in a different way. And every evening I was looking forward to his contact. Probably, because there was a certain barrier here, I could easily isolate myself from insults and offenses, it was enough to delete the interlocutor from the contact list. And, probably, because there it was not necessary to pretend to invent another life for yourself. Why, because in reality we may never see. But I broke the rules of the game, I launched the illusion in my life. I lived for her, she became my reality. Then I believed that this is the best thing that happened in my life.

The moment came when our relationship changed, at least for me. I distinctly remember this evening, to the smallest detail, I even remember its smell, it smelled of vanilla and lemon. This evening...For me, as a precious gift of such delight, I have never experienced in my life. Then I also sat naked in front of the monitor, and our correspondence was already quite frivolous, we crossed the edge of awkwardness, and the constraints that arise between strangers, we became close, ...