LITMIR.BIZ

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ship. “So, are we going to keep quiet? Do you intend to talk about something?” Zozo nervously asked. The king of disposable towels did not answer. After finishing the ship, he took the next napkin and made a toad. “Hey! I’m here!” Zozo shouted. “Is it possible to find out what you’re thinking?” Again, she did not get an answer. The duke of hygiene, without raising his eyes from the table, kept silent and planted the toad into the ship. “That’s it! I’ve had enough! I’m leaving!” Zozo decided. She was already almost getting up when the waitress appeared from the kitchen with a tray. Two tall glasses of carrot juice stood on the tray. Caught unawares, Zozo remained on the spot.

      On seeing the juice, the single-use dandy came alive and began to move his fingers. “Here are some plain glasses! I love everything elegant!” he said inopportunely. “What a coincidence! Me too!” Zozo said, glad that her collocutor had come out of his lethargic dream. “Imagine, recently I bought an excellent box in an antique store. Here indeed is a feeling of style!” “Ah, what’s so special about it?” “Well, it’s all so… ancient… carved, from mahogany… on the lid the sun and two such winged… dragons, perhaps? Everything with great taste!” Ogurtsov had difficulty describing it precisely. The little fellow hunting the radish froze.

      “And what do you keep in the box?” Zozo asked with the tenderness of a psychotherapist. But Ogurtsov had already become quiet. He took his fork and with disgust began to scrutinize it in the light, checking if it was washed. “What? Medicines, which must be stored in a dry dark place. The box is excellent for this. Above are several small compartments, and a deep one below. Furthermore, there are several drawers. I store vitamins there,” he said edifyingly. “And where do you store your vitamins, Zoe?” “Eh-eh… In the fridge,” Zozo lied. She thought that if she had vitamins for real, in two days Eddy would pig out on them and have an allergic reaction. Her brother eternally suffered from an undivided love for anything free.

      Ogurtsov chewed the asparagus critically. Before swallowing, he processed each piece with saliva no less than thirty times. One could read the thought on his face that the digestion of food was an important and necessary labour. The muscles of his strong cheekbones moved vigorously. Zozo looked at him with irritation. She wanted to hurl the plate with turnip at him, then catch a taxi and go to bite someone. Having put an end to the asparagus, Ogurtsov looked at Zozo in the manner of a bird and, making up his mind, started to gurgle with the carrot juice.

      “It’s bad to live alone. Solitude depresses me. I need a beloved soul next to me. Zozo, a man cannot exist without a woman. Downright unreal after all,” he complained, full of suffering. Zozo choked on the juice from surprise. Passing from an innocent conversation on a box to family life was much too unexpected. “No, Zozo, a man cannot be without a woman at all,” Ogurtsov continued to develop the thought. “Here, for example, if he has problems with the heart at night, who would phone emergency? I’ll teach you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Zoe! And we will give each other injections! You have a light hand, I hope?” Zozo began to look around uneasily. She in no way expected this turn in the conversation.

      “So will you agree?” The encouraged Ogurtsov was enthusiastic. “Will I agree to what?” Zozo did not understand. “What do you mean to what? To marry me.” “So soon? I don’t suit you. I don’t know how to make mustard plasters. It’s better for you to look for a nurse,” unexpectedly for her, Zozo blurted out. Accurate female intuition suggested to her that before her was a complete and incurable psycho, whom no injection could already save. The employee of a foreign firm extracted a feeble bird sigh from his powerful chest. He was not offended. Rather he was distressed. His eyelashes were long like a girl’s. “A nurse? Do you think so? I didn’t think about it. Perhaps it’s better than a doctor-resuscitator? This, in my opinion, is more reliable, what do you think? In other words, more extensive!” he seriously asked. “Absolutely. All the best! And good luck to you!”

      Zozo got up and began to move back. She was already imagining buying a large chocolate bar at the kiosk. With the thought that chocolate was harmful, she started to feel better. “Please stop! I probably should escort you?” Anton asked. “By no means! I can manage!” Zozo refused and forever disappeared from both the Dream of Yogi restaurant and Anton Ogurtsov’s life.

      The king of towels finished drinking the carrot juice in small gulps and felt his own pulse. The pulse was normal. As if Zozo’s departure also did not affect his blood pressure. Ogurtsov thought with relief that all matters of amour were finished today. At the same time, it seemed to him that the little fellow with the crushed face and pushed-out shoulder blades winked insidiously at him from the adjacent table. Acting in the best traditions of a public health ministry, Ogurtsov was not immediately disturbed. He paid the bill and left, again wrapping the door handle with a serviette in order not to get microbes – airborne ones – on his hand.

* * *

      Ogurtsov walked home: good it was not far. He walked and fearfully pulled his head into his shoulders. The insolent stooping little fellow with the crushed face – the same one that had winked – in some mysterious manner seemed to him to be anywhere and everywhere. He jumped in shop windows, passed by in trolley buses and taxis, with a leash on his neck ran after small dogs and, swinging his legs, sat on the fence of an avenue. One time he even managed to grin slyly from the street ad of a fashion magazine, where, smacking his lips over the empty casing of a sausage, he sat unsteadily on the shoulders of the very young model. Ogurtsov’s mouth went dry. He felt like a complete paranoiac and began to consider in earnest a visit to a psychiatrist.

      Having finally forced his way into the entrance of his building, he stared at the concierge, as if suspecting to see the sly stranger. He stared and calmed down. The concierge was the same as before. A clean little old lady was sitting in a glazed room with geraniums, listening to the radio, and reading something. After greeting her and having gotten a “good evening” in response, Ogurtsov was about to walk past her when suddenly something compelled him to look around fearfully. The concierge was reading – Oh God, no! – the Iron Men magazine for bodybuilders, with the same dreadful insolent little fellow staring out of the cover the whole time. He was naked to his waist and emaciated as the skeleton of a Caspian roach. After ascertaining that the minister of cotton swabs noticed him, the little fellow began waving at him and sending air kisses.

      Ogurtsov rushed into the elevator and, after poking a button with his finger, got up to his floor in a hurry. On finding himself in the apartment, he slammed the door shut, turned the key four times, bolted and chained it. On legs like cotton, Anton set off for the kitchen and there, knocking a spoon against his teeth, he hurriedly drank three tablespoons and one teaspoon of red wine. Ogurtsov was never like this. It was already akin to a reckless attempt to pour alcohol into his liver. However, the Herculean organism of the king of serviettes managed even this.

      After hiding the bottle and spoon, Anton limply wandered into the room, intending on lying down on the sofa and thinking over a call to the psychiatrist. After pushing open the door, he froze on the threshold and… started to croak in horror. On that very sofa he was aiming for, a pillow behind the back, the insolent person with the lively, somewhat flexible face was lounging. In his hand was a large pistol, which the shady character, tongue hanging out from enthusiasm, aimed directly at Ogurtsov’s heart. “Hands up! Everyone stand, lie, sit! No one leaves, walk together! Bang boom, everyone is dead!” he said in a vile voice. Ogurtsov’s knees buckled from fear. His pulse went off the scale.

      Meanwhile the little fellow jumped from the sofa and ran around the room, shattering everything around. Glass clinked, a chair toppled over, pills gushed out from the overturned night table. Yanked out pages of the medical encyclopaedia fluttered, demonstrating terrible colour pictures of trophic ulcers. “Where’s the box? Confess voluntarily and we’ll let you go in half the sentence!” the little fellow shouted threateningly, brandishing the pistol.

      Ogurtsov did not answer; however, his doe eyes slid by themselves to the cabinet. The strange character ran over and jerked open the door. A collection of cups rained down. The last to fall out of the cabinet was the ill-fated box. The insolent little fellow stretched out his hand, but immediately, having said “oh,” jerked it back, after barely touching the lid. One of his fingers flared up and burned almost to the joint. The agent began in panic to shake his hand, groaned, and started to mould his finger

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