=== ===
– I think I’m coming to life.
It was no longer a voice – it was a ray of light emanating from the very core of the Character lying on the bed.
Soft, velvety, enveloping – this ray of light fell in love with the hearts and heads of everyone who could hear it.
But few could.
“It seems like they’ve messed with my ears once again,” she lay next to me, lightly massaging her temples, smiled for a split second and stood up to shake off her slight drowsiness.
– You don’t seem to trust anyone? — The character turned to face her and methodically examined.
— It seems I had good teachers.
Morning was just entering the space of their new world.
“I don’t think I really know where we are.”. And it seems to me that I don’t care how we ended up here,” she tried to smooth her long dark hair, but without a comb there was no use.
“It seems that now we have nowhere to rush, which means we can finally get to know each other better,” The character smiled slightly, but quickly took control of himself.
=== 1 ===
“I think my name is… Hellas,” she began. — I’m 22 years old, and I’ve always been a good girl. I never had problems with people – they loved me, I loved them. It’s like a contract with everyone at the same time, yeah? “Let’s not cause problems for each other, and you won’t get into trouble.”.
– “Problems,” whispered the Character.
– And, it would seem, live and live, rejoice and be happy, taste the fruits of life and taste, but no – at one moment I decided to leave all my friends, family and go to the east, where, as they said, everything is completely different than we can only imagine. You know, all these religions, all these incense, all these new meanings – it seemed to me that I lacked fullness, lacked integrity, lacked smart people, and, of course, I would never look for them nearby.
– Seek and you will find, seek and you will find. — The character got up from the bed, leaned against the headboard and, closing his eyes, but continuing to carefully watch the girl, continued to listen.
– And I found… nothing. A year of empty wanderings, a year of living with those who sheltered, eating from handouts and… the oriental flavor was interesting, but there was the same thing as here – and exchanging an awl for soap… Another advertising brochure from those who do not even receive money for advertising – instead of their own opinion, they simply have this nonsense from those who actually receive money. However, this trip proves that I am no better than them, and perhaps my lucky ticket, which has always saved me from the trouble of exposing hidden elements of disappointment, has finally expired. But I needed to escape, you know? From this sterile and all-consuming steel abyss of emptiness of everything, green artificiality and thick faces, guaranteeing that in two minutes everything will be even more sterile and purged of meaning. That is better.
In the light of the breaking orange sun, it seemed that Hellas’s eyes sparkled, but she quickly turned away, lowering her head, and the Character was forced to stop carefully peering into her face for a while.
– But you found something? — after a pause, the Character decided to break the prolonged silence, interrupted by the girl’s rapid breathing.
– Yes, right on the way home. Mom sent me money and said that even though I was stupid, she wouldn’t leave me in a difficult situation, especially when I came to my senses. I discovered the idea that there is nothing terrible in discovering the identity of what is happening. In the end, no one promised that this game would have anything interesting for those interested in a special type of goods. — The crossed arms on the chest dropped, and Hellas raised her head, still not looking at her interlocutor.
— Manufacturing production still makes the same type of products. If you want something interesting, do it yourself. Grow yourself. Come up with it yourself. Patent it yourself. Rule by yourself. Take care of yourself.
— The rules are the same everywhere, yes? — the girl turned to the Character.
“The rules are the same everywhere,” he echoed.
=== and ===
– It seems that for the first confession of a person you barely know, it’s enough, but? — Hellas smiled slightly, but quickly took control of herself.
“I wouldn’t like to be led, but if you insist, then pass the baton, get yourself in order, sit down and listen to an amazingly incredible story from the most non-existent person on the entire coast,” The character smiled slightly, but quickly took control of himself.
— You need to pay for the entrance ticket? “I think I’m broke,” patting her pockets and even jumping a little, the girl made sure that she had no paper money or coins.
“The first dose is free, dear visitor to the best story establishment in the world, but if it becomes addictive, just call Jimmy – I’ll leave his number – and he’ll switch you to cocaine – it’s cheaper, and with my discount you’ll obviously like it better,” squinting slightly, the Character closed his eyes, moved closer to the edge of the bed, giving way to Hellas, and, completely relaxed, in a barely audible hoarse voice, typical of him, started talking.
=== 2 ===
– Non-uk-casinos.co.uk I think my name is… Angel. I think my parents were some kind of Mexicans with no imagination and little time to consult with smarter neighbors in order to choose the most suitable child..
“Angel is almost like an Angel,” Hellas whispered dreamily.
“… a catchy name, and yes, don’t think that you’re even close to Heaven just because you’re lying next to an almost Angel,” the Character finished a little hastily.
– I grew up as an interested child, but one day – if you watched the news at the age of seven, you can remember, yeah, yeah – having gone to the beach with the whole flock of little rodents from the orphanage, we, no matter how it may sound, found ourselves in the wrong situation, and even at the wrong time. The compilers of the schedule for two hundred thousand years in advance rarely take into account such trifles as the current weather, weather forecasts (although here I can understand them), the state of the country and the general economic situation in the world – however, the Mexican or Spanish sectors always care little about the economy..
— Or Portuguese. Or maybe you’re from Latin America, how do you know?? – Hellas giggled.
– … people, how can I tell my wonderfully amazing stories, when one person from the whole stadium of attentive ears and beautiful eyes can ruin the whole show? – Angel exploded playfully, quickly opening his eyes and turning his head to the girl.
– Even if you are a rebel – most attentive ear bearer and beautiful eye? – continued Hellas, lying on her side and carefully peering into the eyes of the Character.
– “Ear Bearer” and “Eye Looker”? It looks like I have serious competition for original speech, and? — returning to the position of the character lying in a relaxed position on his back with his eyes closed, Angel, after waiting for a few seconds of silence, continued.
– And I settled on the fact that we, the children from the orphanage, under the leadership of our main sheep – Mr. Winston, black as the dirtiest black man in America – went out in a herd to the beach, where there were already few enough people to care that someone would disturb us. We ran, frolicked, swam, but bad weather set in fairly quickly (okay, just a secret: there was literally a wall of rain) forced us to go back to the building, despite our protests that it was much more fun to swim in the rain.
Returning to the building, we were missing three guys: Merry, Helen and Violet. They were about six or seven, like the rest of us, and it was obvious to us that they were heroes who, having escaped the captivity of the insidious system (about the system and captivity, I realized later – maybe you will understand soon), punished everyone and everything, and now in their lives they will have a lot of parents, a lot of toys, chocolate and, maybe even a TV after nine in the evening. In a word, we were jealous, and we were jealous loudly, constantly raising the topic that we should perpetuate their memory with drawings on the walls. The adults did not share our children’s delight, even then the rebellion that was pouring out, and some downtrodden, sad, upset people walked around. And they had a reason when, a week later, a heart-rendingly screaming teacher, who woke us all up, discovered severed children’s arms and legs in the main hall. Legends say that her sanity was never restored, but, to be honest, I don’t care a little – judging by the peace emanating from the Character and the ever-diminishing voice, it seemed that he would either fall asleep or start purring something under his breath, like a real contented cat.
“And here we are,” Angel woke up, “sleepy schoolchildren in a month, standing in the lobby of our house during these years of childhood, we see the teacher who has fainted, her squeal is still in our ears, we feel how the rest of the slow mummies descend to see what happened, and, looking around, we inhale the metallic smell of blood, which is smeared all over the walls.”. A moment of greatness in depraved death with its sophisticated looks that tasted like Merry, Helen and Violet. A moment that added ten years to our age for sure, and I don’t envy the girls who are now, it turns out, thirty instead of twenty,” opening his eyes slightly, the Character sighed artistically, with a characteristic sound ran his hand over the light stubble and put it back on his chest.
— My mother told me about this incident. These kids were not the only murders of that maniac who had been caught for many years… whatever his name is… ah-ah-ah… something non-standard… – the girl frowned.
– Mr. Hi-I’m-A-Normal-Guy-Although-I-Kill-Children, probably, although I don’t remember either. And who is he to remember at least one of the names – even the real one, even the driving one?. I’m sure that in the next world God will show him the right path to torment,” the Character laughed.
– And how did this affect… your whole life, Angel? — the girl asked carefully, already preparing to receive the standard phrase of all Americans.
— Manufacturing production, Hellas, manufacturing production. Manual labor of identical workers is to create identical people who work equally within given averages. Division of labor – you do one thing, I do another, so that in the end we raise an ideal standard little man, assembled from those mental details and schemes that other hard workers have made. The scheme works flawlessly.
Angel turned to the girl – now they were lying, looking into each other’s eyes.
He smiled charmingly, but his eyes expressed only a calm, calculating coldness, and not the warmth of a good disposition towards his interlocutor.
— The scheme works flawlessly, Hellas.
“The scheme works flawlessly, Angel,” she echoed.
“It all seems funny,” he smiled.
“It seems that we are reaching a new level of knowledge about each other compared to yesterday,” she noted.
– It seems that time flies so quickly, but at the same time so slowly… You didn’t have the feeling that you were in double mind, as if there were several pieces of you inside you, each of which perceives time completely differently? Leading a double life? You think opposing thoughts, but are convinced of the truth of each of them? You hear this music that hits the brain, which, pulsating inside, forces us to be on the same wavelength?
“It seems we are still far from understanding ourselves.”. We don’t understand ourselves – how can we tell each other about ourselves??
– It seems your voice has cleared of humanity. He became angelic.
– Thank you, Angel. And your thoughts are far from reality.
– It seems there is no point in continuing to lie, Hellas.
– We don’t lie, Angel – we reinvent ourselves, erasing what shames us in our own eyes.
Rising from the bed and sitting in a deep chair standing nearby, the Character rested his elbows on his knees and rested his chin on his crossed fingers.
– And what is your story really?? – Angel asked loudly, as if filling every corner of the room with his voice.
– My name is Esther, and I would really like to go to the east. Learn religion, get to know people, find yourself. But I’ll never go. My life is a recurring nightmare in which I keep waking up. I can’t hold down any job for more than a month, there’s more alcohol in my blood than blood itself, and I don’t have the strength to fight with myself – and I don’t have the strength to let anyone fight for me. I dance and sing, and the Green Fairy sings and dances with me, but in reality I sit still and pour into myself more than necessary. As a child, I was always told that I had the potential for enormous development, that I could do something useful for the world, become a good person – but in the end I had no education, no stability, no inclinations to achieve anything. Angel, I gave up. I want to leave, I want to change something, but I know that in a day I won’t have enough strength to live, and I will again go to bars twenty-four hours a day, and any attempts at a ladder from this hole of sheer disappointment in myself will burn out along with the very fact of the existence of a potential ladder,” Esther no longer hid her tears.
—What brought you to such a state, dear Esther?? — The character smiled slightly, but quickly took control of himself.
“I was a very open, trusting girl who wanted to help everyone and everything on this nasty planet, but, as you understand, there were quickly people who wanted to take advantage of this and make me regret that I once chose such a path.”. In endless frustrations, the depressions that came one after another brought me into a field of loneliness, detachment, isolation and fixation on my experiences, and I was never able to find my way home. My parents died early, I was afraid to try to make new friends, I quickly pushed away all the young people who were interested in me with my actions, and in the end I am where I am – in the emptiness of my own fears, cockroaches in my head and the incurable thought that there would be no other way – despite the flowing tears, Esther tried to look straight into Angel’s eyes.
“And it’s even more surprising how, after meeting in that bar, we ended up alone for the whole night after I, albeit in an intricate way, still offered to go to my house after another magnificent Red Stag with cherry juice,” the Character noted in an even tone.
“It seemed to me that you were different, that with you I could count on the fact that at least some things inside me would change, and… I didn’t really think about your proposal.”. And how everything will happen.
— Anything else you would like to add to your story?? – Angel continued emotionlessly.
— I’m very sorry that this happened, Angel. I’m very sorry that I started everything with deception, but I didn’t want to your the deception hit me, Esther, directly, and therefore I asked the fictitious Hellas to protect me on the spot. And then… then somehow I told. I’m a big coward, Angel, but I don’t want you to give up on me, like I gave up on myself,” Esther noticeably calmed down, her voice stopped trembling, her breathing became even.
“Lies beget lies,” The character looked away.
“Lies beget lies,” Esther agreed.
—What it feels like to live a life in which nothing is real? – Angel asked, looking again into Esther’s brown eyes.
“It seems that they have once again put noodles on my ears,” the girl repeated and smiled slightly, but this time she did not destroy this beauty with an effort of will.
– It seems you’re right. But since in the end you found the strength to admit your own weakness, it looks like I’ll have to reveal the cards of my uninteresting story. I’m sorry, but yours was like that,” the Character smiled slightly in response and also did not do anything about it.
“Start, if you need to be among those who will again strangle me with their actions,” Esther sighed, upset, but smiling, and then, descending from the bed, she sat down right at the feet of Angel, who was still sitting in the chair.
=== 2 ===
“My name is… call me Character,” he began hesitantly. “I never wanted to be in an orphanage, I never wanted children to disappear, I always loved to walk in terrible downpours so that my bones would get wet, and I was always quite romantic in nature.”. I had wonderful parents: my mother is a teacher, my father is a laborer, but in the end they gave me a first-class education, excellent knowledge and life skills. And a little seduction – without this there’s nowhere in my business.
I pretend that I’m working, I pretend that I’m living, but in reality it’s just an imitation in order to look in your eyes—and the eyes of others like you—something normal, something humane, something understandable and pleasant. For you to come with me from that bar. To stay. To open up. By the way, you did it faster than anyone else, for which you have a special low bow to the ground – less strength to complete the ritual.
— Ritual? — in Esther’s eyes for a second one could notice either fear or curiosity.
— Do you remember those missing girls from the orphanage, Merry, Helen and Violet?? I saw them. They became my ticket to the Truth, to an understanding of who I am, why I exist and… what is happening,” the Character’s eyes excitedly sparkled with new colors of energy inside this person, and Esther thought that the room became lighter, warmer and more comfortable.
“Father showed them to me,” the Character whispered enthusiastically, “all three.”. They were no longer breathing, and then he said that his ritual would soon be completed, and he would become what he called himself. I asked: "Who are you, dad??». He didn’t answer. And only then, many years later, when the police caught the serial killer, he, without blinking, said into the camera: “Call me Personality.”.
He taught me these years. He taught self-knowledge, taught how to control yourself, how to hear yourself, how to see yourself from the inside. I taught you to listen to your desires and taught them to make these desires less and less. Ultimately, through several murders that were completely done by me, I realized how to get rid of fear.
How to get rid of headaches.
How to get rid of disappointment.
Out of sympathy.
From thoughts that do not allow you to be happy.
From desires, following which we become overexcited, cannot calm down, cannot sleep, cannot think rationally.
From this uncontrollable love fever that only harms both parties.
From an altered state of consciousness, when you extol someone above others just because you see qualities you like.
It’s all trash. The trash is inside each of us. The trash is inside you. Why did you leave with me? She found support in me, found her wave in me, found understanding in me? Wake up: you are a nobody, and I am still a nobody, because we make mistakes too often, and we make mistakes deliberately, getting into our heads that this time everything will be different. This time I’ll do it right. Now everything is going right, and everything will end right, right?
No, that’s wrong.
Nothing changes and you will always wake up in the nightmare you mentioned, from which there is no way out.
“And… you deal with it by killing people.”? Killing girls? – the girl sighed.
– Not everyone. I only have eleven on my account. And I feel that I need the last, twelfth victim in order to finally calm down. Accept things as they are. Accept that something is happening and that something is out of your control. Today I can only control a smile, but soon… – the Character literally smelled of calm and tranquility.
– 12/12, that means..
– Just like months. And until then I’m just a Character. A fictitious person with no real name and nothing. Just like my father who taught me the basics. He became a Personality, having gone through his own path, and after that he didn’t care what happened to him.
I will kill myself by killing others, and from a Character I will be reborn into a real Person.
I will gain strength.
I’ll finally enter a new day.
And I’m close.
Close.
=== . ===
“I like you though,” he continued. – I really like you. There’s a certain amount of desperation in you that caught my attention. I think we could be friends, don’t you think?? — the Character asked hopefully.
– We could, I suppose. Although what difference does it make now, since it turns out that we are both lost, and we need serious help?. I just want to tell you that, no matter how it sounds, I trust you. I believe you. And for me this sounds much stronger than “I love you,” Esther modestly folded her hands on the Character’s lap, and then slowly lowered her head onto them.
– We must remember this moment. I like him. Very quiet, calm, peaceful. It’s good with you,” he calmly stroked the girl’s hair.
“We need some kind of morality, some kind of closure,” Esther said, almost without moving her lips.
— What can we learn from this story?? Or from hundreds of others told by people here and there.
Stories about how people meet, how they recognize each other, how they try to tell interesting events from their lives, how they reveal themselves as the overall plot progresses, how they fall in love, get married, die together, but before that they leave a part of themselves in the form of children, and so on an infinite number of times. An infinite number of people, an infinite number of stories in different variations, but about the same thing. About human happiness? About human needs? About human tragedies? About the meaning of every person? And who knows where is truth and where is fiction in order to seem better. Where are the guarantees that self-deception has not sprouted from the desire to turn a blind eye to one’s vulnerabilities, and where are the guarantees that you will not be deceived?. Where are the guarantees that in wonderful weather they won’t throw you off a beautiful bridge into the blue river water as soon as they realize that there is a better society – and maybe a better society is equivalent to the absence of your society, and that’s all? Many stories. Lots of doubts. Much distorted. There’s a lot of wrong in right. A lot of destroyed.
– Don’t trust anyone, yeah? – Esther whispered.
“Don’t trust anyone,” the Character nodded.
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