We're silent. Or Katya asks something, but I can't understand her words anymore. Time runs out, and the work stops only after Katya gets up and is going to leave: it is very late, she will come the next day. She looks at my side with curiosity, looks at what I have done, and tiredness on her face is added to sadness and misunderstanding. On the canvas there are her hands, and from the most noticeable point of these hands a red, burnt-out burr, rough cuticle, hairs, and knuckles sticking out looks at the viewer.
When she leaves, I sit on the floor in the middle of the workshop. Everything around me begins to swing as if the body had been placed on a swing with some catastrophically small amplitude, up-down, up-down... Again the dream comes true, the thoughts slip away, but I resist: what if the cat comes again? Although, on the other hand, a few more nights of insomnia, and I can visit the entire city zoo. Time flows around. I am in the middle of the dial and as if outlined by chalk. I feel like a new day begins. I lie on the floor, look at the ceiling.
On the ceiling, you can see islands of frayed paint, and a person moves looking from one island to another, like on a motorboat. The dotted line of sight stays on the ceiling, the light sparkling lines, and from this light points towards the side, like small, light fireflies. First, they spin under the ceiling, and then fly to the man, stick to his eyelids, pull them down. Well, we talked them into it. Eyes are warm, good. A man has no strength to close his eyes. But the fireflies decided to help, to lower their eyelids by force of their little clinging legs. It was late at night outside the window. I'm lying surrounded by my paintings, and they look at me with amazing pity and acceptance, memories crawl through my eyelids.
Under the centuries, dreams are like movies. I see two boys sneaking through the tall green grass, raising its hands like swimmers water. One of them goes ahead and moves clearly more courageously: he has binoculars hanging on his neck, a cap moved sideways, and a folded sheet of paper in his right hand. The second boy lags behind, looks around frightenedly, wrinkles from the crisp blows of grass. His clothes are a little too big, his skinny hands stretch out from the red sleeves of his T-shirt, thin as twigs. His hair is bluish-black, his legs are smeared with mud up to his knees, his sneakers are wet: he'll get it from his mother, oh, he'll get it. For going so far away from home, for cheating, for stepping into puddles, as if it were the right way to walk on puddles.
The sky begins to pink, pours in color, a few more hours and will become quite dark. The first boy stops, looks at his backward companion and shouts so loudly that birds take off from the grass:
- Lyusya, if you crawl like that, we'll be walking for a hundred years! Can you hurry up, well?
- Don't call me Lucy! I'm going, see?
The second boy is catching up, but he is scared, and scared for everybody: for himself, for the second boy, for his parents, even for this field, for the sky, for the dragonfly winding next to him. Fear comes next to them, as if the third. Now it will become dark, and it will not be clear how to escape from this darkness, where to wait for it, how to return. After all, at night, when you can not sleep, time stands still, almost does not move ...
- Mish, how much longer do we have?
- We shouldn't have had a break. You're the one who's tired, you're tired again, as always.
Mischa turns the cap back with a visor and straightens the collapsed album sheet with a red dotted line through it.
- Misha, Misha... Do you remember where to go?
- Don't whine. I've been here a hundred times. It's just grass overgrown, you can't see a damn thing.
From a loud word increases strength, but I want to say only one thing:
- Misha... let's go back. How can we find ourselves at night? Let's go, please.
- So go away, Lyusya. Go home to Mommy.
Misha looks at him boldly and bully, he's half a head taller, much stronger, and any Mishino word, even the most unpleasant one, seems to be a cruel truth. The word of his elder brother. The girl is so girl, Lyusya so cowardly, Lyusya so cowardly. The world around her begins to swim, her eyes pinch, the corners of her lips crawl down: she wants to run as far away as possible.
Mischa looks forward with a smile, then throws the backpack to the ground and approaches the tall, old oak tree, pulling the binoculars' lanyard slightly down.
- I have an idea, - Mischa slams her hand on a thick tree trunk. Even the lowermost branch is very high, but he grabbed it, raised his feet on the trunk and hung it like a koala. Then he turns over and his hands are all scratched, but he confidently continues to climb further, higher and higher. The second boy stands and looks at him frightened, then watches as the sun goes down more and more, hides behind the clouds, and the clouds are pink, but also ink-blue, to the rain...
To be continued on the next part