Well that's that, at least he knew where he was going, chose between death and life, he chose life. From that time being had he to identify some other solutions to the issues, than jumping from the roof of a high building. Sometimes the solutions to the issues being identified of its own accord, sometimes it takes the one, whom problems visited, something to do to find the solution.
The depression shows fight. There was no exit out of it as before, but there was intention to exist further. He went downstairs, breathed in summer fresh air, so lovely smelling after the rain, looked up into the sky and sighed. Brooding sadly he was unaware of what come to pass round about. Slap, he heard a thump and got sight of a man of about forty, who had fallen from the roof. The man was grizzly in temples, with a head thinned of hair, dead pale colour, he was dead. Oleg was astonished (that was the name of our hero) by the fact that the man did not utter a sound, while he was falling. There was no blood over the body. Probably, this happened by reason of falling to the green fodder. The same thing might have happened to me, Oleg thought. By little and little some people gathered around the body. Mainly that was old folks, pensioners. Somehow swiftly a militiaman appeared. Probably he hung about, but he hardly could help in any way the man, that was lying without movement and was not breathing. I am breathing, I am living, Oleg thought, and I am standing on the same grass. I am who was about to make the step but stepped back and the one who had made the step. By that moment, pensioners started telling the militiaman, what had happened here in detail, although not a bloody one was there at the moment of the man's falling. On the other hand there was his neighbor, old lady, pensioner, who told the rest that the gone lived alone, his wife left him long ago. According to her story he was a decent body, he was neither a drunkard nor a rip. Someone suggested a theory of murder, and everyone started, full of hops, discussing the suggested theory. The irony of fate, the thought went with a whizz in Oleg's mind, as recently as he was about to act the same way and there now...He went further. Witnesses of the event, that none of them had observed, gathered in body. Oleg went back home. He put a teapot and welded to himself a cup of coffee. Coffee ,coffee, at first it improves one's mood and then the depression comes back with double force, he thought, but any way I will overcome it somehow. It is not easy to put up with loneliness, yet there are people to put up with whom hard twice. His former girl was exactly that way. She had been exhausting him with her high claims, to which he would never correspond. She wanted her boyfriend to become rich and successful, and the main thing was for him to become a subject of her girl-friends. The last thing was not the least for her, which was especially important, but neither he had not yet become rich nor successful. Well, he had not become equal to her expectations at all, and she left. He had not been noticing the way she exhausted him wile they still were together. He loved her, expected that things would straighten up, but the things went different way than he had expected. He lost his job, lost his girl-friend, yet he retained his life. Having taken a sip of hot coffee, he looked out of the window and was knocked of his pins. He saw the wood, the sight of which he always could catch from this window, but there was something else. On a tree bough hung himself up with his own belt a young guy. The guy was pale, with moustaches and dead. Some kind of epidemic of suicides, he thought. He drunk up his cup of coffee, and again plunged into the gloomy thoughts. From entrancement he was pulled out by a sharp, shrill sound of a phone call.
Oleg picked up the phone, he could hear some hissing noise in the receiver, and then, someone on the yonder side, cleared the throat and started talking:
--
I am calling you in reference to your resume. We have received it, have considered it and would like to suggest you to come for an interview?.
--
Oleg asked?
--
- How is your company called, and what kind of job would you like to offer me???
--
- Our company is engaged in investigation abnormal activities. We investigate unusual cases. Is it clear?
--
Oleg nodded assent, recollecting all these cranky seekers of green little men, UFOs that or flying saucers, that is by the way, is not at all an anomaly, and occurs at any scandal of many young and elderly spouses, and other devilry.
--
- Would you become a member of our research group??
--
- What is the object of the investigation that your group is engaged in? - Oleg asked with irony.
--
- I have already told you?
--
- All right, - Oleg calmed down, if he was about to jump from a high roof, and then changed his mind, what the hell is the difference, what to be engaged in. He asked.
--
- What about the salary?
--
- The salary? Not great sum of money, you see, but still it would go a long way and would be quiet sufficient for your needs. If you are interested in our offer, you could come tomorrow at three o'clock to our office, located by the address: Tchitcherin's street 22 apartment 408.??
--
- Well, I will come. Thanks, well, and then see you tomorrow?
--
Oleg hanged up. But tomorrow, all the same, will come for me, he thought. Behind a window has already darkened. Oleg fell facedown to the bed downwards and fell into a deep sleep.
La viva continua 2 The morning still came. All the same, it came, Oleg thought. There came a new day, some new cares, disappointments and, probably, small pleasures. Perhaps, there would be also some new possibilities. Now Oleg thought of, whether any higher education was necessary for his possible potential work, if to be a part of these odd fellows, in general were possible to call some kind of a job. He came to the conclusion that it was not really a job. But, at least, they would pay some money for it, it wouldn't be very much but even quite sufficient that was necessary for him at that moment, as well as to any who is doomed, to earn one's living . His father was not the oil oligarch, and even the businessman of an average success he was not, and, this question with a daily bread was to be solved on his own by earning money. Hiss previous job was socially quite prestigious, but is extreme a coffee-and-cake job. He worked as a teacher in Minsk Linguistic College, as the teacher of Oral Practice of English language. He had worked a year under the contract during which he tried to find out, why for the work on one and a half rate he got such small salaries. It was not possible to find it out, but the college administration managed to solve the problem with the obstinate teacher, simply without having prolonged him the contract. And more than a year he had already been earning as a non-staff translator. It brought him very little money. There were few orders, and his former girl turned to be former. She left him for another man's sake. In the beginning it was very hard. He wanted that she would return, and all would go as it were before. He was humiliating himself before her, having forgotten about pride, begged her to return. But she would never return. There were days, months. Mental anguish went together with them and he still had this mad hope that they would be together again. But it never occurred. He wished he would die. And in attack of despair he came on that roof from which point our narration has begun. Now he recollected, how recently, walking through the city, he met his two former students from the college, where he had worked. Julia and Dasha, two very lovely in every aspect girls. In the beginning, he noticed Julia standing on a porch of the Linguistic University, that in which, he himself was the student once. Julia, the dark-haired girl with grey eyes, smiled to him, he smiled to her, and they started talking. Julia passed an examination in mathematics, as students pass examination in general educational subjects in case it would not be possible to enter the Linguistic University that then not to pass the same examinations, trying to enter any other HIGH SCHOOL. Then Dasha joined them. She had a short lovely hair dress and brown eyes. They talked. Students were talking about this difficult examination in mathematics that they took, talking about their plans for the future. Girls lighted, felt that they were already bothered by the society of the former teacher and politely said goodbye, went something to drink. Oleg came into the nearest cafeteria to drink a cup of coffee, where an elderly woman asked him to give her at least a pair of the Belarusian rubles, complaining that she just was about to go mad, together with the husband. Oleg gave her some money. She asked still more. He gave her a little bit more money and she thanked him and left the place. Oleg's wallet was almost empty. Oleg again felt loneliness and unpleasant feeling that he was avoided by everyone. He recollected, how quickly tired his society the former students, because of that he became even more sad. However, the life is a life. He recollected all that now for some reason. This morning he welded a cup of coffee to himself again, cooked some breakfast and began to eat, switched on the TV set, having stopped a choice on the musical channel. Listening to music, he drank coffee and thought what he would do before this interview. Nobody sent him any orders for translation yet. He had practically forgotten everything that he did, as he spent the days after this attempt of suicide that had not taken place. Probably, it was a shock. He recollected Hemingway, whose attempt of suicide has tragically torn off a life of this talented person, who loved life so much, but for some reasons decided to leave it. Oleg decided to esteem. He read. "To have or not to have?", the book written by Hemingway, the actions of the plot occurs in Cuba. Oleg's father said to him once, that he happened to be in a small house of Hemingway in Cuba when he served in the army. Time for the interviews neared. Well, the teacher-loser, welcome in a company of the idiots, who desperately searching for green little men, and from that had become green, he thought, and, having put on in an official style, went for the interview.
--
La vita continua 3
--
When Oleg was approaching to house 22, Tchitcherina Street, he had mixed feelings. Something within him protested, repeatedly saying that he was worthy some more dignified things in life, something more than could suggest the seekers of green little men. He agreed to it because of some feeling of the contradiction, which was tearing him apart, and perceiving with irony paradoxical things of a normal life. A normal life?? Normal people?. He had already acquired for a long time what is the normal? - This concept is in every respect rather and, rather relative. Having risen on the lift on the fourth floor, he already called at the office door; he was about to turn away and run away downstairs. The door was opened by an elderly, getting grey man, beginning to grow bald and amazingly reminding the same mane, whom he saw so recently, lying on the grass, dead. Well, well, one anomaly, I have already met, here he is, stands directly before me and corrects the position of his glasses, and he thought and politely greeted the man. The usual hypocrisy that is so conventional under the name of politeness.
--
- Good afternoon. I have come for an interview.
--
- Come in, - the man in the glasses made a gesture by his hand, inviting Oleg to enter. And Oleg has entered. The door slammed. Oleg shuddered from unexpectedness.
--
- Do not be frightened, - its grey-haired, growing bald man calmed him, rubbing a bald head with his left hand, (it means that he is the lefthander, Oleg noted inwardly)
--
- It is automatics. We are, you know, scientists.
--
Oleg hardly bridled an ironic smile. He did not believe in any kind of supernatural things, and he was brought here exclusively by his depression and despair, and there was still some kind of possibility to earn a little bit money. There was no way to think of any prestige in this case.
--
- Why do you want to offer me this job?
--
- Because of an error in your resume.
--
- An error, - Oleg, - What kind of error? He lifted his eyebrows with astonishment?! Oleg was dawned by the thought that he came by the invitation of a madman, who somehow got his telephone number. The further speech of the last only strengthened Oleg in this opinion.
--
- You have made an error in the resume, it corresponds to specificity of a definitely law, your error characterizes you, as a proper for us person. You have made a typing error in your surname. By mathematical calculations we have counted your psychological type. You are appropriate for us.
--
-Probably, you are not appropriate for me. The tings that you said, convinces me that you should visit a psychiatrist. Well, after all I knew that there is no use to come here. And here I am, have lugged into this cranky place.
Oleg started to get angry with himself, with this mad man and with the whole world. He went to the door.
--
- Wait! - It's the man called him. Oleg turned back and saw that there was a tennis ball hanging in the air at man's face level
--
- Listen, I do not have time for your idiotic tricks. Just visit the doctor, and that's all.
The door opened. Automatics, Oleg thought and he went home at a great lick. Well, well, all the same I am still an unemployed with rare orders for translation of any kind of documents. The crisis. Oleg thought. Probably, it was necessary to work as a not qualified worker somewhere. Again that is the way the things are and again problems. If he had jumped from a roof, would be lying the same way just as that man, who was lying in the grass, dead and pacified. Oleg was angry; more likely, he was enraged. Then he calmed down a little bit and plunged again into that viscous, as if a bog depression. That moment he was trying not to think about anything. Then he did not go home, but he went to the wood. He ducked a curtsy on a snag, closed his eyes. He wished he would die this very moment. When he opened his eyes he would not believe what he could see. Something shaggy, low, chisel colour, rolling over from a foot on a foot and swinging shaggy hands, moved downhill. The being reminded some kind of a children's clockwork toy, only the growth of the thing was much higher than of toys and much more below the average person. Oleg has hastened behind this being. It was slowly disappearing behind a slope, and as if it were evaporated. The roof goes slowly, with silently slate rustling? (meaning that he started to lose his mind) - The children's proverb in Oleg's consciousness was carried by. Probably, the madness is infectious, - he solved. What is further? - He asked himself, - Flying pink elephants and whistling cancers? It would be necessary to talk to a psychiatrist if something like that would again appear before his eyes. He did not go to the psychiatrist, and just came back home and went to sleep, although till the moment when the night would come, was still very far. He got awake about 12 o'clock in the evenings. He opened his eyes, and saw what should not be seen agreedable to the common sense. On the brink of his bed the being of chisel colour, sat, more likely, it reminded the brown dwarf with humanlike lines, but nevertheless differing from any person considerably enough. The being was not similar to green little men, was rather like any spiteful dwarf from a fairy tale, by whom children are usually frighten. The being grinned. Oleg throw at it one of his slippers. The being has dexterously evaded the throw, and, having jumped out from the open window, that was opened earlier by Oleg because of the heat of the day, and climbed in a drainpipe. With some strange roar got down downwards in a drainpipe and, having got out outside, quickly enough and it run somewhere dexterously. The next day Oleg visited the psychiatrist. The doctor did not find that Oleg had any deviations from the norm, and all his visions he explained by some emotional shocks and the nervous overstrain. He advised Oleg to spend more time in the nature environment, prescribed some sedatives. Having listened to a doctor's advice, Oleg followed all the doctor's councils. The next day he spent in the wood. Somewhere at about noon he saw a white figure as if, someone had thrown white bed sheet over himself, somewhere in the distance. The figure straightened the hands reminding from apart, wings and, disappeared. The devil's stress, Oleg was enraged. If, I would tell anybody about this, they would send me to a mental hospital till the end of my days. And he did not like the idea at all. Oleg hastened home. Has drunk sedatives, and, calmed down a little bit. The devil's loony, he was angry with himself, and then the depression came again. In his life everything occurred just exactly opposite to what he had expected from it. It would be impossible to tell that he waited from his destiny too much, but even that little, that he expected from his life, and that the majority of people have, he had not received from a life yet. In the novel by Charles Dickens "Great expectations?", where the main character expects from his life too much, and he got at the end what everything he so desperately had been longing for, nevertheless he receives it, but everything occurred the other way than he expected it could happen, and he got it without having avoided sufferings. Oleg suffered, as well as many of us, he also had not avoided the sufferings, but he still got nothing from his life from what he had expected to get, and he did not yet receive anything from it. Sometimes it seemed to him that he punches some kind of an invisible wall all his life, but it remains firm and unshakable as if it where a rock, absorbing all his violent and desperate efforts. The night came. This time he saw a flying, burning torch from a window. The torch flied, so as if someone invisible held it and, flying up more closer, considered the inhabitants of the house who were engaged in by the daily affairs. Here he has noticed on other balcony astonished faces of the company of young children, they were telling each other something and showing towards a torch direction. It means that I am not the only one who can see that. Oleg was surprised. What is it? The collective psychosis? What kind of the devilry is created? And what was before? Hallucinations or was it real? It is necessary to understand it. He decided to visit that cranky again. But in the beginning it was necessary to arrange a meeting. Telephone number of that odd fellow was defined in its phone. Oleg called.
--
, I came for an interview at your place?
--
- I have recognized you, - that strange man who interrupted him that one, who was correcting the position of his glasses and rubbed the bald head with the left hand till it would shine.
--
- It was not very pleasant to communicate with you!
--
- I apologize. I was wrong.
--
- All right. - Your apology has toned down my anger, you should come. I am waiting for you visit.
--
- When? Now? -
--
Yes. The man answered stiffly and hanged up.
Oleg was approaching the same door again, but this time with other feelings and other thoughts. That moment they sat against each other. The man correcting the position of his glasses, sat, conveniently having relaxed in an armchair, and with curiosity observed, how Oleg tells him about recent events so chaotically and confusedly.
- That is the reason that has brought you here, - he said.
- Yes
- Но, you still consider me as madman.
- Absolutely not. You told me about a research group, but I couldn't see anybody except you here.-
Our work is top secret. Very few people know about our existence. Probably, you have taken us for one of the groups of enthusiasts, who involved in investigating UFOS. It is not exactly so. A subject of our research is the abnormal phenomena, only possibilities and access to the certain information in our dispose much more diverse.
--
You mean that you are something like the agency in which Molder worked.
--
The elderly man in the glasses smiled ironically.
--
- Yes, there is something similar to that. In certain cases we co-operate with our Special. Services, but we have different work. We are not agents of the national safety. We are the researchers of the abnormal phenomena, the fixed abnormal phenomena. We've got only the checked up information.
--
- When will I meet the others?
--
- There is time for everything. We need to check up you. Nobody said that we would take you.
--
- You have said that I am appropriate for you.
--
You are not the only one, there are other candidates. If we choose you you'll be the first to learn that. We will meet in a week, - the elderly man said it in the tone which permitted of no reply ob. - All right - Oleg answered. When he went out of the doors, he felt on himself drizzling drops of a summer rain. He was in a high mood without any visible reasons for that. That's life, - he thought, - the life goes on.
--
La vita continua 4
--
A new day came. Solar beams made the way through a window. The singing of the birds was audible through the opened window. The morning sky was clear and deep. Oleg, to his surprise, was woken up again in a good mood. During his morning walk, a young guy approached him, and again, the guy amazingly reminded that young guy that so recently left this world through hanging himself, according to the statement of the local all-knowing elderly women, he had done it because of his unfortunate love. The same moustaches, the same sight. That for delusion. The guy started talking to him, as though they were some old acquaintance.
--
- I know what kind of job they have offered you.
--
-Но I do not know you. Who are you?
--
- A human being. That is all that you are supposed to know to learn the rest is not necessary for you. This work in the agency, which is involved in investigating the abnormal phenomena. It is not really a job. You are needed for some experiments.
--
- You, probably, one of the competitors for the given vacancy. A strange method you have chosen to eliminate possible competitors, composing fairy tales.
--
I suppose, you have felt recently yourselves as if in a fairy tale. They tested the device on you, the device influencing a person mentality. After all, you are a suitable psychological type, whether not so. It is sure, that test extraordinary lifting up your mood, after long period of depression, you probably even tried to commit suicide? Oleg grew cold. Whence he could learn all that?! - Are you watching me or is it any kind of a check?
--
- Neither I am not watching you nor is it any kind of check. It is simple. They have done it all to me. I know what I am speaking about, as I had been working for them. More precisely they worked with me as with a laboratory rat.
--
- I saw the person very similar to you recently? - He hung up.
--
- He is my brother, the twin. He was under the influence of this device instead of me and was lost. By mistake. To their error. It is their experiment. I should have died instead of him.
--
- I heard something about his unfortunate love.
--
- My brother would never do such a thing. You did not know him.
--
On the face of the young guy tears appeared.
--
- That's it, sometimes we lose much more, than we receive from our life, - and Oleg told him the consoling words, having tried to encourage the guy.
--
- That man, in the office. I saw the similar person. He had committed suicide too, jumped from a roof.
--
- I do not know anything about it.
--
- Those things that I saw. Is it a game of my subconscious ness, hallucination? - It is not really something real
--
. All that you had seen was real. Their device aggravates perception of a person. These beings always lived near us, in parallel way. They break from the modern people. The ancient people saw them, as their perception was much more subtle, than of the modern people. It was reflected in myths and legends of many nations of the world. They have been living near us till the present days like foxes and hares, who, undoubtedly still exist, but you hardly will meet them during an ordinary walk, especially a fox. They hide from any modern person; avoid the field of our vision, even if they are absolutely nearby, they avoid us. They are as they were not existed. They hide from people. Their purpose to convince people that they do not exist is already reached. People always harmed to these beings, and they began to hide.
--
- Do you trust all that? Probably, this device has affected you too much.
--
- It is not necessary to sneer. I do not simply trust. I know all that. And you are to be convinced of it soon. Whether you want it or not.
--
- Probably, - Oleg agreed, - we are not yet familiar, - Oleg said, giving a hand.
--
- Peter, - answered the stranger. Peter was of a low growth, had brown eyes. The same moustaches, as his the brother had. Some thoughtful philosophical look gave to his countenance a shade of the press of wisdom. Though, he was enough young in his years.
--
- Well, it is high time for me to go, - he said.
--
Oleg suggested, - I suppose, in circumstances we should keep in touch. -
--
Peter smiled ironically,
--
- People are always so polite at the first meeting, at least. Usual hypocrisy. I will find you.
--
Oleg was confused and became puzzled a little bit. As the succession of these events was not included into the frameworks of his expectations of what should occur in this nearest future.
--
-Everything is possible. Remember that-
--
Peter told him, having turned back, and walked somewhere away in the rain.
The summer rain continued to fall, but it was cloudy and cool. Oleg stood a little bit, observing, as Peter was walking away, turned and walked home, thinking that it was necessary to remind of his existence to the translation agency, that he worked for. As the refrigerator in his house was already almost empty. That's it, these life problems, in our country they are not so simply. Oleg got an order for translation. But the customers for some reason all the time reduced originally stipulated terms of the performance of the order for translation. Then have tried to fall down on Oleg one more order of anther translator who had refused to work under the terms. It was required to execute the order in the same deadlines. Oleg did not managed to finish the work in time, and the customers just did not pay. The next day he called concerning the work of loadings. Misha, his acquaintance, sometimes gave him opportunity to earn additionally by the loading work. Misha's firm had the specializing in loadings. This work was very hard, but the money was paid right at the end of each working day. Sometimes he filmed in crowds too. He beach combed in other words. During one of his walking, he met Peter again.