"Green door"
Of course, he was drunk in the insole. Only a very drunken person will tell such things to a random drinking companion in a dirty dark bar, where disgusting music plays, gives not the first freshness the beer is three times higher than in the store and ten months above the price that it deserves, where the cockroaches are calmly talking, moving a mustache, on a sticky rack, behind which the girl is naughty, who pays no attention to the surrounding world.more than on the traces of someone’s rop in the corner. Sometimes even the closest people do not tell such things – out of fear to seem crazy. But at the bottom of his eyes, red from drinking and tearing from tobacco smoke, so dense that he could be scooped up with a glass, did not glow – he shone with yellow fire so genuine horror that understanding came right away – he would passionately want the person to exclaim: “Yes, you are completely crazy! This just can’t be!". Then he sighed with relief, he would go to the doctor, spoke about the nightmare who pursues him, and the doctor, a person with a good and all -understanding gaze, would have a prick and sent him a couple of months to a quiet place, where in the ward for four beds they live the same as he, crazy – everyone with his own nightmare, which was never a manner. To know that it was a hallucination, nonsense, a terrible dream – that would be a reward for him. But he was pressed to the earth by the awareness of one fact – it was, in reality, and this is not only his nightmare. Who knows how many more people were there? How much has returned? And how much is now sitting all night in dirty bars, if only not to fall asleep, they look at the world through the red veil of insomnia, go to work, like sleepy flies only because they could not overcome the curiosity?
– You loved to read in childhood? – a decent man of about thirty -eight, or maybe forty, who had just plowed a glass of vodka and, judging by his appearance, was far from the first this evening, turned to me. His eyes were watery, opened from him like an old drunk, but his cheeks were smoothly shaved.
I do not like to communicate with drunkards, especially in places where the next sentence will be "came to me, drink and all that". I generally accidentally wandered into this bar in a foreign city, but there were three more hours left before the train, and I didn’t really want to sit at the station with the homeless. I opened my mouth in order, as usual in such cases, to politely explain that I appreciate silence and peace, for which I usually send rudely, and if this does not help, then it follows a blow, but his face, and especially the look, stopped me. I realized that this person does not intend to pester me or even more so. He just desperately wants to speak out, and I, as a stranger who will dissolve in the night after three hours, so that he will never appear in his life, I am an ideal object for this.
“Yes, I loved,” I answered, looking expectantly at him. Most likely, now the question will follow whether I loved love novels and a tearful story about an abandoned and lonely sad man. Or not?
– Me too. Especially I loved Wells. At first I was fascinated and scared by the "War of the Worlds", we had nothing more at home, but after I took a collection of stories in the library. Perhaps this is the only thing that I stole in my life. I did not return it because I could not part with her, you understand?
I nodded. I myself have read a huge number of books in libraries in my life. Nevertheless, the conversation began to occupy me, I desperately hoped that his story would not disappoint me. Apparently, this person is interesting, and although he barely turned his tongue, he thought clearly and stated no worse.
– You know, from which story I could not tear myself away and re -read it fifty times? "Green door". Lord, how I wanted to see this door someday! So that there is a clear sky, beautiful houses, kindly tuned children who will not drive me away, but immediately call me to play. And the lady who fed him with a delicious dinner … I told myself that if I found such a door, I would have stayed behind her forever. H-hell, if I knew … how now I hate this story! Hey, pour me yet! He shouted to the girl at the counter. She shuddered, raising her head and opening her eyelids. Then she looked at him as if he was a dog excrement adhering to the shoe.
-You have money? You sit here all evening, drunks. Pay, come on, you are eighty -three rubles of forty kopecks. He meekly climbed into the inner pocket of his jacket, took out a shabby wallet from there, in which the only fifty -ruble was found.
“Listen, I’ll bring you on Wednesday,” he turned to the girl prayer. – I have a pay on Wednesday.
– Do not lie, you will not bring anything. Give me money, or now I will call the cop, – the flame of an irreconcilable struggle flashed in the awakened girl in the eyes. And my interlocutor had the appearance of simultaneously humiliated and full of that strange dignity, which is inherent in the once respected, but now descended people.
– Yes, be you a man! He exclaimed with despair, but then I took out two hundred from the wallet and handed it to the girl.
“Please pour it while enough,” I asked. The girl took the money, measuring me with a destructive look, but poured two glasses of vodka. Having moved mine to me, I began to twist it on the rack. The interlocutor drank his own in one gulp, grimaced, sniffed his sleeve.
“Thank you,” he said and extended his hand. – Sergey.
I shook his hand and introduced myself, but he waved his hands at me.
– No, don’t tell me what your name is. I want to tell you one story, and if we are familiar, then I will not tell you anything.
I shrugged, sipped from a glass, washed down Coca-Cola.
– So what did I stop at? Ah, yes, on the dream to find a green door in a white wall. Honestly, I was surprised how she could be in London. Because I did not need to look for her, I knew exactly where she was. Only Wales disappeared, and mine was always in place. But I dreamed of finding her, because I never had the spirit just to open her and look inside. Not that I was afraid. That is, of course, I was afraid. I was afraid to see behind her what it should be there – a raw dirty basement, smear the stink of musty water. And I wanted everything as in the story.
– You didn’t go there? I asked, because he was silent, clasping his glass with his palms and looking at him, like in a well.
– No, I went. And more than once. But you’re not rushing me. It’s hard for me to talk about it.
– Why?
– Because I’m scared.
Then I fell silent. Scary?
– I was about fifteen then. I didn’t even believe in miracles with a child. Terribly wanted to believe, forced himself, but even in Santa Claus he never believed, and everything was clear to me with a storker. I used to sit, dream, squint my eyes, because the expectation of a miracle was very strong, I thought – I will open them, and I will see a miracle. But when he was already ready, a voice said inside – there will be nothing there, this is all nonsense. And no miracles happened. But that evening it happened to believe. I was at my friend’s birthday, there for the first time in my life I tried alcohol and got drunk in the insole. Now I am still sober, and then the "mother" could not say. I crawled home on karachi, knocked on the door, my mother opened it and said to me: "Go at first soberly, pig, then go home". I didn’t even ask her, my mommy was flint-baba, dead. And I went outside, it was autumn, end of October. The downpour is cold, the wind is terrible, I get wet to the thread, even squeeze. And then I look – the same house. We had one house, so white, no one lived in it. He went to demolish, but still did not demolish him. And next to the entrance, you know, are such doors where the garbage chute? There was a garbage chute in that house, although it was old. And the door there was green. Peeling, dirty, but still a green door in a white wall. And I just walked past the house. The door to the porch was boarded up, and even that too, but here I look – open. And I know what mood was! I feel bad, I drank it, it’s cold, my mother kicked out, but the other day I quarreled with my girlfriend, well, I think what will happen! I will go to the green door now, and there is the sun, warm and everyone loves me. I will stay there. Well, I went in.
– And what? – I leaned forward. The story captured me entirely. Maybe he is lying, but how much he is lying, the dog! You can listen all evening.
– Pour vodka, beauty! – He disturbed the girl again. She poured without opening her eyes. Sergei exhaled, closed his eyes and swallowed vodka like a liquid flame. I was worried that he would chop off before he was clinging to what he saw behind the door, but it seemed to not take him. He held out his hand and bit off the sandwich, who stretched for the whole evening, a tiny piece and stared at me.
– And you don’t drink? The night is long, and I will talk for a long time. You better drink it, I have already learned a little, but you first listen to the first time. I know what I’m talking about. I looked once again at his red eyes, at his black hair, here and there pierced with gray hair. What was there? I obediently drank vodka and again turned into a hearing.
– I opened the door. I look – a web, an old shovel in the corner is standing, an empty cigarette pack, crumpled lies. Only one thing is unusual-in such closets there is nowhere to turn, but this healthy. But I think-the house is old, there are all rooms large, why not be this hefty? There is nothing here, I think, but even if the rain is not a drop. I’m sitting on some kind of box, suddenly I hear-from somewhere in the corner the laughter comes, a girlish laughter, such a sonorous! And it comes to my mind – Marinka! The head is drunk, I don’t think where Marinka came from at half a second night in the garbage closet! I get up, I say: Marin, it’s you? And I see myself, Marinka is in the corner. Naked at all, hair on the shoulders scattered, smiles, laughs, beckons with his hand. I became like crazy, the boy at all, the girls naked did not see. It darkened in my eyes, I rushed to her, I run, and I undress on the go. The jacket threw it off, pulled the shirt with buttons, just jumped out of the boots. But I take steps, but she doesn’t get closer. The main thing is to run for a minute, no less. There can be no such premises, so as not to run like this in a minute! Here I run without boots, in socks and trousers, then Marinka stopped. I look, but I stand on the grass, as in the story. Only there was a clear day, and then the night, but what! The moon is complete, huge, in a half-neoba, as on a Mars of some, red as blood, but it seems that as if in the sky is drawn, because there is nothing around the same moon and Marinka around the very moon. But Marinka glows, with such light light as a ghost in the film. She stands, looks at me, and I stopped. I have all the hops from the head. And here I understand that this is not Marinka. But I repeat, and the voice trembles: “Marin, it’s you?". And then she comes up to me, hugged me, presses me, I have everything with a handful, but I understand – I do not want it, whatever it may be. But I can’t do anything with myself. Here I feel – the pain is wild in the back, where her hands. I was torn away from myself, shoved it away, but only to no avail. My hands passed through her. And she smiles, drives her hands, in front, on her chest. I look, and where she spent, the blood flow with a stream flows. Then I yelled in full could and rushed back and rushed back. I’m running, and she floats after me, laughs with this lame with a depraved and from time to time my hand – rras, once, I yelling, and she is behind me. So, I ran there for a minute, and from there – half an hour. I never knew how to run, but here I am flying like a bird. I think I set the Olympic record that night. And still, I got out longer than I got.
He pushed the glass through the rack without words. The glass lingered on the very edge, swayed there, but did not fall. The girl, waking up, poured again. A big shiver beat him, as always happens when you say something that has long been tormented. I realized that the girl and I are the first listeners of this story. It is possible that the last.
– I escaped from there then. He flew out as scalded. He crawled home. Mother said that I was beaten and robbed – I crawled in some pants and socks home. And now, you believe or not, from that evening and until last week I have not drank more than three glasses of wine, and then on holidays. No, there was one more time. The next day it seemed to me all this just by a nightmare. What is not in delirium. Yes, and my memory slipped me some four drunken guys who broke me off for getting into a foreign area to Boyan. Look!
He unfastened his shirt. Thick wool grew on his chest. Everywhere, except for two places. Long stripes of scars stretched along his chest, starting upstairs like fingerprints. Semi -fingered palms. I hit me like a current. I looked at these scars, unable to believe that I see. I know a lot about scars, and I can say for sure that such scars remain when the skin is cut off from any place. Not all, but very thick upper layer.
– Lord, how did you not lose Kwiff Casino consciousness then? I whispered, holding out my hand to touch. But he suddenly exclaimed excitedly:
– You believe me? You believe? It was, I’m not crazy, it was! Or was not? Tell me, it was or not?
“Judging by the scars, it was,” I said.
– I still have several on my back. You see your palms, printed? Can be such palms, tell me?
I shook my head. Horror, burning in his eyes, now seemed to me a reflection of my own. I sipped good half a glass to calm the trembling.
– Do you want to listen further? He asked, looking at me intently. – Tell me, if you don’t want, I will understand. I myself would not want to listen to this.
“Yes, I want,” I answered, but I was not sure about it. But now, after what he had already said, I did not feel the right to leave a person alone with his nightmare.
“Marina died three days later,” Sergey continued, staring at his hands, folded on his knees. – I was at her funeral, although I was shaking when I walked there. All together fell upon me, I loved her madly, and then her mother calls me and says: “Marinochka hit the shock, in the bathroom. She died today at three in the morning ". She speaks through sobs, and I myself stand like a fucked. Then I feel – I suffocate. I was numb from grief, what can I say, and here as a lightning – its laughter is in this closet, the hands with which my skin was torn alive. And like a dream in reality – I see everything, here is a wall, a phone, a window, but I see everything as if through it, it stands opposite me, smiles, laughs, laughs. Her mother I hear, and her laughter rings in her ears. Then everything disappeared. When she was buried, I walked behind everyone, crying to cry, and it was too much of my relatives ahead. Then, when they began to say goodbye, everyone passed by, she kissed her forehead once, I came up. I don’t know if I can kiss her or not, and she is in a coffin, as a living lies. I decided to kiss. He leaned toward her, wanted to kiss her cheek, so I lower his face, suddenly I see – and she opens her eyes, looks at me and smiles at me. And in her mouth she has a full teeth, sharp, like peaks, blood flows through them, and she looks at me with a look. I almost yelled, but blinked – and everything was gone. She is dead again, and does not smile at all, and no teeth. But then it seemed to me that the corners of her lips were still raised. She seemed to be prepared to smile, as if she said: "Wait, my friend, I will come to you tonight, baby". But then no one noticed anything.
He fell silent. Then I raised my head and noticed that the girl was looking at us in all eyes. The expression of her face did not promise anything good. She went a decisive step towards us, put her hands on her sides and said:
-So, well, get out! There is nothing to scare decent people here! Here’s the change, I don’t need! So that your spirit is not here! A minute in a minute to leave! On her face, I realized that she was scared to half death. I expected that now Sergey would become isolated and I would not hear a word anymore. I almost hoped for this. But he got up, looked at me and said:
– If you want to listen, let’s go, there is a playground nearby, there are houses – mushrooms, you can sit.
“Yes, perhaps,” I agreed.
– Hey girl, you can! – the girl called to me. I went to her.
– Well, you, in your mind, no? This is a maniac, I tell you exactly! She announced a theatrical whisper, squinting at my interlocutor. – Get young, and remember what they called. Sit here, I will pester, I will call the police, here the police through the house. Do not go with him anywhere!
“Thank you,” I said, appreciating care. “But I don’t think he is a maniac. I’ll take care of yourself, don’t worry.
– Well, go, fool! – suddenly angry the girl. -What am I, I care about you. Go, let him let you go!
I shrugged and went after Sergey, who stood, leaning over, and cooked, covering the weak light of the lighter from the gusty wind. I lit a cigarette. On the way, we took another bottle, went into the dark, smoked courtyard, a little silent.
– Since then I understand well whether I have been sleeping or awake. I’m thirty -four now, and I’m already all gray. The nineteen years have passed since then, but if it all ended then, I might have forgotten about everything. Four years later, the house was finally demolished, and I hoped that I could forget about all this. For four years I went around, making one and a half quarter of the hook, just not to go next to this damned house. Once I dreamed that I was standing in front of this door, holding it with both hands, but it still opens, slowly, leisurely, but true. It opens, and a hand sticks out between the jamb and the door, all rotten, with worms. And laughter, all the same laughter. I then raised the whole house with a cry, my mother came running, and I lie, look at my hands and yelling. She didn’t notice anything, but I will tell you: pieces of peeling green paint were stuck between my fingers. I then wet the bed, but I am not at all shy.
Anyone would wet in my place. Tell me, it could be, and? This cursed paint could, which somewhere far on a landfill is lying along with the door, get into my arms from sleep? Maybe someone took this door for firewood, burned it in the stove. But I hope that no one touched her, I do not want it to anyone.
Sergey said, not looking at me. I realized that if now, for example, I will go somewhere, he will continue to speak. And I did not interrupt him. I was scared even just to look at the person with whom this happened.
“I was there twice there,” he said unexpectedly. – Do not believe? Six years after that case, two years after the house was demolished. I wandered back and forth, did not know what to do. It was a day, quite clear and ordinary. I’m going where my eyes look. I turned somewhere, did not look at anyone. Then he thought whether to visit a friend, just passed by his house. Panel house, white tiles finished. Malyars are busy with the next entrance, paint the door frame. If I looked what I was doing, I would not go there in my life. But somehow I did not think, an idiot. Well, imagine, a clear day, the sun is shining, birds sing, people walk around. What difference does it make that the door was painted with green paint?
I suffocated in anticipation.
– I went into the porch, called the elevator, drove to the last floor where my friend lived. He opened me, but he looked somehow discouraged, as if, say, a girl and I came at the wrong time. But he led me to the kitchen, put a kettle. We talked a little with him, and then he apologized, said that he would come out for a short while and went to the bathroom for some reason. After a while, and a friend did not go, I listened and heard that some strange blows were coming from the bathroom. As if on the mattress something is pounded, splash of water and the cursing of Vitka. I went into the bathroom and was dumbfounded. Vitka stood, naked to the waist, the whole bathroom was stained with blood, she was everywhere, on the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling, in his hand he has an ax, and in the bathroom a female corpse, without arms, without legs. And in the sink lies the head. I took a closer look, and this is Vitkin’s mother, I hardly recognized her. Vitka turned to me, grinning in his mouth and says:
– Well, since you saw, I would help!
I, like a fish on the shore, open my mouth, but the words do not pass, the air does not go. Finally I coped and say:
– What have you done, idiot!
– He will know how not to give me money, old bitch!
Then he turned to the sink and spat on her face. And she opened her eyes and creaks in such a voice, you know, as if the door of an unexplored, such piercing screech:
– And I will not give, and do not ask! I’m not a money bag!
Then she looked at me, laughed and said:
– Why are you standing, Serezhenka, help a friend, once came!
I flew out of the apartment like a cork. I run out on the stairs and see – this is not Vitkin’s entrance. The old staircase, with a wide span, and marches on both sides of it. I run down, jump over the steps-I look, but I ran upstairs! He ran back! And both stairs lead only upward. But there are no marches down. That is, they are, but the floor is below, and jump there – three meters, only break your legs. And then the door claps and Vitka comes out, in one hand an ax, in the other – the head. And both look at me and yell, screaming so that the ears are laid, they scresh, especially the head tries. I threw my legs over the railing, and they stopped yelling, Vitka looks into my eyes and says:
– You think you can run away from us? Green doors – they are everywhere. From today, even your sorting door is green.
Then I about the height and forgot, jumped into the flight. Since then I have been limping slightly. And you know what happened next?
I shook my head.
– I ran out of the entrance. And it was not Vitkin’s house! I stood in the middle of the construction site, in the place where there was the old house. I ran out to the site, and there was not a single door near me – neither green nor any other. Sergey wanted to drink, but, shaking the bottle and looking at it with disgust, he did not. But I became. A little better, and I stared at him again.
– I was sick for a long time. I was treated, thought, these are stress at work. Clear business, I did not tell anyone about the door, I was afraid, on the one hand, for my whole life to thunder in a psychiatric hospital, and on the other, I was afraid that they would not find any mental illness for me. This is what I was afraid. Needless to say, in a week neither Vitka nor his mother became. Fire in the middle of the night, everything burned out. They buried them in closed coffins, but I did not go to the funeral. I didn’t leave the house at all. I took off all the doors in the apartment, even took off in the toilet, since I lived alone. My fear of doors has grown into a mania. I quit my job, and I did it by phone. Thank God that there are friends in the world! I would not even go to the store. I called a friend, explained that I broke my leg, I could not walk, and he brought me a bag. I lived on this for a month, but then the fear is not that it has weakened, he moved somewhere to the background. I lived with him, breathed him, but he no longer loomed before my eyes. I found the strength in myself, no, I forced myself to open my white door and go outside. If the door in the entrance were repainted in green, I think I would go down from the window on the rope, so I wanted to go out into the street. Six months later, I realized that I could avoid trouble if I carefully examine the door before entering. It even occurred to me that I need to carry a bottle of paint with you, and if I really need to go into the green door, I will smear it with paint. And it will no longer be green, but striped. Then she will become safe. Sergey looked at the sky. The moon in the third quarter shone very brightly, the lanterns did not shine, but there was enough light. In this light, I saw two wet paths drawn on his face. Despair, horror and longing were in his eyes. I handed him a bottle, he nodded, and killed its contents into one sip.
– I happily avoided the damned door for thirteen years. I moved to the other side of the street, even if the shade was slightly close to green. I understood that any other color is not dangerous. I left trouble, smashed and looped like a hare. My company lost a solid amount of money, only because I could not force myself to open the door of the office of one possible partner, but I do not regret it. I know that he would not be behind her and the deal would not happen anyway. But now I lost, and lost in a large. That’s why I tell you everything.
– You got plunged again? I asked.
– Like that. And he got into a deep manner. You can’t imagine stupid. There was nothing special this time. I ate something very stale and rushed to the toilet heading my head. What color, what door! I just flew there and opened the cabin door. Someone was sitting on a push, I wanted to apologize and go out, but the one who was sitting on it raised his head and looked at me. At first I could not understand where I saw him. And he looked and began to laugh, just laughing loudly, holding on to his stomach. He laughed to tears, but blood flowed instead of tears, blood flowed from everywhere, he oozed it. He raised his hand and pointed to me with his finger, stopping laughing as suddenly as he began.
– You! He shouted loudly. – Now you! I got caught! I got caught!
I slammed the door, clutching her with my back. Because of her came angry screams, the ringing of the beating faience, laughter and abuse. But I didn’t care. Because there, inside, I was! I sat on that push and pointed to myself with a finger, and oozed blood and raged there, inside – I!
Suppressed, I looked at him. He clung to his hair, shaking his head, as if trying to drive away a nightmare.
-Listen, why don’t you leave somewhere? -I said, just to give him at least some hope.
– Stupidity! Where to go? Where can you leave this curse? And besides, trains have green doors ..
– But there should be a way out! Just behave carefully! Avoid everything!
– I can not avoid anything. I’m sure everything will happen simple and natural. I can sit at home and die from a heart attack when the door of a closet will be painted green and a hand will come out of it. No! I was gone, this is already a failed fact. I just wanted to tell someone my sad story, so I told you. And now – goodbye. Thank you for listening to the end. I’ll go home. You are a good girl.
He shook my hand and wandered into the depths of the courtyard. I looked after him until he ceased to be visible, and then, tormented by the experience of this man, turned and went to the station. Time was running out, the train left in half an hour. On the way, I wrapped it in the same bar to buy something on the road, knowing for sure that I could not fall asleep. There were no more girls in the bar, there was a briskly fussing another, probably her shifter. Having bought a bottle of beer and heels of sandwiches, I went out.
I have already headed to the station when the gnaset and the wars of the brakes came from behind, a blow, and then a short scream. I looked around. On the asphalt someone was lying face down. A dark spot spread near the head. The car that knocked him sped off at night, not providing assistance. Realizing who exactly was shot down, I did not even try to help. I knew that Sergey is dead. Instead of looking at the body, I looked at the bar. Rather, on his sign. I don’t know why, but I expected what I saw.
Shimmering with faded neon tubes, some of which were not burning, its name glowed above the entrance to the bar. "Green door".
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