This day everything turned out the way I did not want. But as my daughter wanted.
I was doing wake up for a long time without much desire. The cats stampeded me before dawn, for two whole hours I was not leaving the belief that they would let me alone.
Around six o’clock, someone quietly knocked on the front door.
I thought that I was dreaming and continued to do my morning exercises in my mind.
The day was waking up outside the window, the horizon was burning in the sun embrace, the morning larks for some reason decided to take a day off and sat silently on the maple tree branches, crapping with yesterday’s seeds, generously poured for them by the gray-haired neighbor from the first floor.
When I had almost mentally finished the leg exercise, there was another knock on the door, much louder. This time, even the cats paid attention to the sound and synchronously ran for the exit.
I had no idea who could come at such a time.
Who visits others now?
Why do this, I do not understand. You can just write to the messenger. As a last resort, call. But coming… Knocking on the door… At 6 a.m… When I haven’t finished my workout and want to sleep a little more.
I, extremely dissatisfied with such a day starting, feebly rolled to open the door.
A boy about 10 years old was standing in front of me, holding a red gun. The boy’s expression did not indicate danger, but his gun was loaded for some reason.
– Here is a parcel for you, – he whispered barely audible and pulled the trigger.
The dirty porch morning silence was drowned by a loud shot, which was a real surprise for me, even more so than the color of his shoelaces, because they were exactly the same as mine – purple with yellow dots at the ends.
For the first time in my life, I heard a bullet fly, although I spent four days, six hours and seventeen minutes at the front in the far 2022.
The expletive flew somewhere out of my head along with the survival instincts:
– What are you doing, little one? – all I managed to say before I collapsed first on my knees, and then with my chest on the floor.
My ears began to ring, entrance savored the echo of a powerful morning visit, I was lying on the threshold of my own apartment and for some reason I really wanted to finish the leg exercises before I died. But the boy was determined decidedly and did a second shot, this time precisely in the left ear.
The buzzing stopped.
– I said that I will be together with Alina, no matter what, – he recited a small pre-studied text by syllables, looked at the still smoking gun and without hesitation stepped over the warm corpse, striding confidently into the kitchen, where he began to prepare coffee for his beloved.
This day, everything turned out the way I did not want.
I really did not want to be late for work…
ⓒ Volodymyr Zahnybida
(The text may contain mistakes. It was translated from Ukrainian and published for familiarization with the work. Author’s note)
