A holiday to take with you

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

I got to the door of my apartment after another working day sluggish and angry. The elevator, of course, did not work.

"

I froze on the threshold. Something was wrong. Something has changed. The atmosphere is not the same as always. Feng Shui has changed …

I tensed … Nothing. Only silence in response. Soundless.

Lenka. My beloved, the only one, etc., damn it, my wife, who always met me at home at that time, was absent! She was not there! The apartment was empty. Glancing briefly into the rooms, I went, following the male instinct - into the very heart of the apartment. I crept there, where the refrigerator is, into the kitchen, carefully and attentively …

On the side of the refrigerator, visible from a distance, a note was curving obliquely, pressed by a magnet. I got closer to reading distance. I read it, involuntarily folding a fold of surprise on my forehead:

Scattered in the dust of the shops

(Where no one took them and does not take them)

To my poems - like noble wines, The turn will come …

Like this. The teenage poems of 16-year-old Tsvetaeva, written in the handwriting of my Lenka. Why is it stuck on the refrigerator - I don't know. Where the wife is is unknown. In the unknown - hunger. In the refrigerator - half a packet of kefir and that's it. In the breadbasket, three pieces of loaf are clattering with old bones. Informationlessness.

From the doorbell I did not flinch, but my back went cold. The call needs to be changed - it's too harsh. He went up to the door ready for everything, crossed himself finely and opened it slowly. Nobody. Carefully leaning out, I was once again convinced that there was no one outside the door. I listened to the stairs - absolutely quiet.

Hmm … It was not me who said: "Hmm", it is on the left, in the opening of the neighbor's door, in the twilight of their apartment, practically unrecognizable, in a long evening dress, my wife was standing and shining with a smile.

- Len, what are you doing ?! - with laconic idiocy for this situation, I asked. She beckoned me with her hand and retreated into the twilight of the apartment. I followed. There was a slam behind my back. Lena came up sharply and hugged me.

After a couple of minutes of long marital kisses, I broke the romance of the situation, following the lead of male logic, starting to demand explanations.

- What are we doing here?

- Everything!

- Why not at home?

- And Marinka and Sashka left for their parents.

- Neighbors out the door - and we, then, to them?

- Now you will find out everything. Let's go to.

By the hand, she dragged me through the thick curtain separating the corridor from the room. I also thought that I should do the same at home …

The room was lovely. The room was twilight, calm music, a set table, champagne, the smell of some Indian smoking sticks, and my beloved woman.

- What's the celebration?

- Well-ooh … You're just tired, and just - I love you!

And we had dinner and we danced. And it seemed that everything was for the first time, and I was getting to know my wife again. And everything was as always, but not as always. Well, what I learned next is simply impossible to describe on sites without the "three x" icon. All the same, the censorship will not let it through. Happiness.

We were lying on the carpet of a neighbor's apartment in front of the TV and playing Sony Playstation. Tearing each other apart in a virtual fighting game, without taking our eyes off the screen, we talked.

- Len, so why not at home?

- And at home - not interesting.

- Why neighbors?

- Marinka asked to water the flowers. Yes, and she and I once said that everyday life seizes, that it would be good to somehow shake things up. So they figured out that we would exchange apartments in order to arrange such a date with our own husband.

- It now means that as we leave somewhere, they will walk with us?

Lenka, looking up from the screen, looked at me, and immediately her fighter missed the blow of my boyfriend.

- What are you against?

- No … It's worth it!

The smile of my beloved woman was my answer.

- You see, Len, - I began, putting aside the joystick, absolutely unable to stop being boring. You correctly noted that I have been depressed lately. And you, wife, have found a wonderful way to cure me!

The paradox of the situation here is, Lenka, that you are the main reason for my depression. And it's not about you. The point here is something global. I need you very much. In you is the joy of life, but at the same time the reason for the ordinariness of our life. You are my boredom, and you are a holiday. After all, if I didn't have you, I would have figured out how not to get bored. Wait, don't interrupt!

A man, by definition, is absolutely self-sufficient. He is a cheerful and light creature who feels great and carefree in the midst of men like himself. And we, Lenka, are full of joys - from drunkenness with friends on a fishing trip to football; from lying under your favorite jeep to "swinging" biceps in the gym; from a fight in some closed "fight club" to enrollment in the French foreign legion. And all these cool male mischiefs are almost always incomprehensible to you women. The woman, Lenka, as such, is sometimes of interest to a man and not at all, not in the form of a friend. For friendship, a man will find himself, someone more logical and understandable. For example, he will start a smiling dark brown Rottweiler and train him on people.

But, one day, suddenly, Lenka, it happens that a man, in the midst of those, to whose legs and waist he is drawn by the basic instinct, he meets the only one, the one with which he suddenly wants to stay. And then, my wife, on a glorious and uncomplicated path, lined with a yellow brick of joys sweet and pleasant to his great heart, the man stops, suddenly realizing that he has met the woman he has fallen in love with. And he does the act. He gets out from under the car (at least, he is there only if necessary). He stops fishing and rarely visits the stadium. He stops fighting, like the Porthos of Alexandre Dumas, for the sake of the fight itself - and begins to avoid it, participating in it, only if absolutely necessary. He refuses, albeit hypothetical, but the opportunity - to make love with Klava Schiefer and Sandra Bullock, and with both at once, in a group sex. He gives up all this voluntarily, for the sake of her alone, and marries. And you know, Lenka, he is happy in this sacrifice. At first.

And then, over a succession of days, over endless cycles: work-family, work-family … More and more often memories from his past life begin to come to his mind. And here the crisis begins. And here it all depends on you - on women. But, Lena, all these candles, evening dresses, it's all great, but not decisive. After all, if the main thing - love - is not left, nothing will help. I'll just hug you, breathe in the smell of your hair, press you warm, homely to me - and that's it. And I, wife, don't need anything. So few and at the same time so many. And once again I want to tell you: "Thank you for everything." Then I shut up, because my wife piled on with kisses.

- Len, what kind of poetry on the fridge?

- Tsvetaeva … I just remembered and wrote it down. That's all.

- Clear…

The middle-age crisis of the average man in central Russia has disappeared, disappeared, as if it had never existed. In my life, there is always a holiday. My wife. My family. This is the holiday that is always with me. What E. Hemenguey found in Paris, I found at home. Right at home. And by the way, I have a strong feeling that soon our family will become bigger …