Inanity   ::   Малахов Олег

Выдержки из записной книжки, которую Он постоянно таскал с собой, закончились, им не нашлось места в его книгах, но он делился своими записями со мной, и многие из них я даже заучивала наизусть, проговаривала, чаще по ночам, мучимая бессонницей или рассматривая звездное небо, отвлекаясь от звучания радио и заоконных звуков.

I was a little school-girl living in romantic love sickness seeing senior popular boys, talking to girl-friends discussing dates. I never could think of meeting the one I met one day when the summer holidays were over and I became a high-school-girl. It was in the internet club I used to hang over in for hours writing letters to my boy-friend from Lithuania. I was a little bit tired and had no money to stay on-line longer. At the very moment I wanted to stand up he was standing hanging over me and asked me whether my work was over and I was leaving the place. He repeated it once again as I was not quite sure if I heard his words right and he noticed that. I saw a face of that man I thought once in my life before and it seemed as I felt as if it was quite common for me to see his eyes and answer his simple questions. I told I was just going to leave and proposed him to take my place. He behaved so as if he knew me for years and his manners were easy and natural. I got slightly afraid of his attitude toward me. Nevertheless I did not even think of stopping that unexpected acquaintance. There was some oddity covering his personality and giving charm to any gesture and phrase. Though at the same time its irregularity and rareness could frighten and I really felt confused time after time. But could not stop letting him swallowing me. We stayed in a cafГ(C) for an hour. When I took a cigarette and lit it he looked at me with a tiny smile of a slight irony. Generally he was not happy with my smoking. He ordered a strawberry shake but later suggested to drop in at the bar nearby to drink some posh beer as he said assuring there was no better beer in the whole city. That offer and the way how he made it were those essential details contributing to his mystique. Later on very occasionally he could lose that mysterious way of behaviour and turn into helpless and lost infant but I think the cause of those transformations lied in the deepest essence of his being I could hardly decode. I remember how he looked at me saying nothing.