And around me is the tundra, around me is ice
I watch as everyone rushes somewhere,
but no one is going anywhere.
B. G.
A room with a white ceiling
I woke up in a small room with a white ceiling. I was alone in the room. I lay on a bed that resembled a hospital one. My hands were tied to a metal frame. There was no one in the room. Only a lonely fly was buzzing around the fluorescent lamp. I thought that if a fly somehow made it here, then maybe I could find a way to get out. I had a poor idea of what was outside. The room had a window with an iron grate, but from the bed, I could hardly see outside. Only something that looked like tree foliage. I lay there for about two hours.
After two hours, a white painted door opened, and several people entered the room. One was in a white coat, one in a cap, there was also an elderly woman with a man, and a young girl. They looked at me from a distance and talked about something. Although I could clearly hear all the sounds, the meaning of their conversation was unclear to me.
The Return
The young girl burst into tears, broke free from the hands trying to hold her back, and approached the bed. I looked into her tear-stained eyes. Suddenly, something within me began to change. I recognized those around me and started to understand what they were saying.
— Misha… Misha, do you remember me, I’m Sveta… well, Sveta.
— Sveta… Of course… Sveta, hi, how are you?
I wanted to hug her, but my hands were tightly strapped to the bed. Everyone else stepped closer quietly. The man in the white coat let out a sigh of relief.
— Good! Good, he spoke. This is wonderful. It means he is not a threat. We can untie his hands.
Rubbing my hands, I looked at those around me, wondering what would happen next. And of course, I recognized my dad and mom, who were anxiously looking in my direction, barely holding back tears. My mom asked with a trembling voice:
— Doctor, please tell me, what happened to him?
— It's hard to say, but it looks like poisoning from counterfeit vodka.
— Counterfeit vodka? – Mom cried. – But how could this happen… He hardly ever drank anything… My boy.
— It's a complicated story... He was found in the suburbs of Krasnodar. He was almost naked. He was growling and biting at people. We had to call for help. They brought him here to the Krasnodar psychiatric hospital. We were afraid to put him in the general ward, so we placed him here, in a special cases room. But maybe the lieutenant will tell you more details.
A man in a police uniform removed his cap and took out a sheet filled with small, illegible handwriting from a folder.
— This case is not very simple. We have painstakingly reconstructed a somewhat accurate picture. If he hadn't been detained, we would never have been able to piece together the facts, and it would have remained unknown. It seems that the suspect…
Mom started to cry.
— It seems the suspect used books to master a particularly strong form of hypnosis. Then he sneaked onto a train to Novorossiysk. In Novorossiysk, he tricked his way into using a city taxi service. It gets worse.
— Worse?
Mom threw her hands up.
— He gained her trust and then seduced a junior researcher, a girl of good standing. By the way, she is still missing… And her monograph 'Medicinal Plants of the Coastal Zone' was supposed to be published soon...
I cautiously glanced at Sveta. She turned red and nervously bit her lip.
— But that's not all.
— Not all?
— Using the employee's trust, he infiltrated the premises of a restricted area. Unnoticed, he roamed around there for two days, enjoying free meals and utilities. In the end, he organized an attack on the director, stealing and destroying equipment worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
— My God, what will happen now... what will happen...
The doctor, adjusting his gown and straightening up, approached Mom and said.
— What will happen, what will happen... nothing special will happen, right, comrade lieutenant?
— Yes, comrade... comrade doctor.
— Who needs all this investigation? You have to understand, the object is of great importance to the economy of the country; they have to work... And we'll patch up your boy. How much time does he have left until his leave is over? About two weeks? That's great, he'll rest, recover – and go back to work.
Hearing the words 'Back to work', I pressed myself against the back of the bed and wrapped the blanket around me.
— What work does he have? Look at his condition.
— Don't worry, modern pharmacology works wonders. Soon he will be as fit as a fiddle.
First day at work
And here I am at work. It feels like there was never a vacation. On the desk is a pile of paperwork for current projects, and on the screen is the development environment. I need to concentrate somehow. Just as the first lines of code appear, the boss comes over.
— Ah, Mikhail, back from vacation, I see. You’re tanned, I see. Write up that report for supplies; they've been bugging me for a month. And I keep saying, Misha – I'm on vacation. Oh, and what happened to your face?
He pointed to the scar across my cheek.
— I cut myself with Occam's razor.
— How's that?
— Well, I thought it couldn't happen, but it turns out it can.
The boss pondered, trying to grasp the meaning of the phrase.
— This is what you should do. Shave like all normal people — with a Gillette. Stop ordering all that nonsense from Chinese sites.
He patted me on the shoulder and walked into the next cubicle.
My God, I'm at work. I can joke without fear of being understood. I touched the scar. They think I’ve lost my memory. But I remembered everything in the smallest details; I just had no one to tell it to. And no reason to.
And also. They all didn't know the most important thing. In my heart — I'm still beyond the perimeter. Somewhere Nastya is waiting for me. In a year, another vacation. And I will come up with something again.
(And thus ended this small phantasmagoria on the theme of summer vacation. Thank you to everyone who read to the end and experienced all these strange events with me. The text turned out to be not very short, and I apologize for that. I hope it wasn't too boring. For convenience, I’m publishing a table of contents.)
Source: habr.com
