At the end of the eighties of the last century, I had to deal with one strange mystical incident that happened during a flight to Lena Pillars.
At that time, I worked in one educational institution that belonged to the Ministry of Consumer Services. It was cold, autumnal dank weather in mid-September. It was cold everywhere - outside and at home (the heating had not yet been turned on), when you wanted to come home as soon as possible and, having sipped hot tea, duck under a warm blanket with some interesting detective. Therefore, the offer of our trade union boss Lyubasha - to go for the weekend on a hot ticket to Lena Pillars, was met with little enthusiasm. What to do there in this weather? Sitting in the cabin?
As it turned out, for some centuries our enterprise was allocated as many as four vouchers at a ridiculous price somewhere around 15 rubles, or something … In general, I was persuaded, although something inside me strongly opposed this trip. There were several reasons. Firstly, on Sunday I had to meet my mother and daughter, who, as usual in the fall, came with a large baggage in the form of jars of jam. Secondly, in addition to Lyuban, two women perked up to go, one of them, Margarita, was especially overly noisy, overly frank, and on the verge of hysteria. Neighborhood with such a woman did not at all dispose to quiet rest inside a warm cabin, with unhurried cozy conversations. In general, I was going reluctantly.
The third colleague was traveling with her son, a boy about five or six years old, whom she gave birth quite late and utterly spoiled. Some kind of eternally whimpering child with a capriciously protruding lower lip, he often came with his mother to her work, and as pretty as a girl. I remember the headmistress, a woman of enormous stature, with a loud voice and sergeant-major manners, and reprimanding her mother in the eyes and behind the eyes: they say, the boy needs to be brought up differently, why are you dressing him like a doll ?! To which she only curled her lips contemptuously.
In those days, the store counters were well, completely empty, nevertheless, the table set in our cabin with Lyubasha turned out to be great. As usual, they opened a bottle of dry wine. The soloist, of course, was Margot, who, in her repertoire, non-stop washed the bones of her next lover. We could only listen patiently and nod our heads.
It must be said that Margarita always managed to step on the same rake and choose men who were completely inappropriate for herself. Surprisingly, just a few years later, when not only our enterprise, but even our own ministry will not exist, it will be disbanded, the restless Margarita will finally get married, and very successfully. Now she is an important grand lady who has long forgotten that she once rented a room in a communal apartment with her teenage daughter. When it comes down to talking, when not. However, it was she who became my guardian angel, she inadvertently took away from me (and from herself too) something dark and terrible that happened on board this ship on a dark rainy evening.
Outside the cabin window, a fine autumn rain was sowing, so there were no people who wanted to admire the beauty of nature, everyone sat in the cabins. The time was approaching midnight. A colleague's son has long been asleep in my lower bunk.
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Outside the cabin window, a fine autumn rain was sowing, so there were no people who wanted to admire the beauty of nature, everyone sat in the cabins. The time was approaching midnight. A colleague's son has long been asleep in my lower bunk.
Finally, the mother got ready to go to her cabin, which was not nearby, around the bend, closer to the exit to the deck. Lyubasha helped her to carry the sleeping child and returned. All this time, yawning mercilessly, I listened to the twists and turns of Margot's next love story.
Finally she fell silent, and in this interval of silence a terrible cry suddenly rang out. We froze in fright. Then there was a stamping of feet, and there was a drumming at our door - it was Inna (our colleague, the boy's mother). She was shocked, she tried to say something, but nothing came of it. She was literally shaking, her hands were shaking, her eyes almost popped out of their sockets. With great difficulty they calmed her down, the thrifty Lyuban had a whole first-aid kit with her, and there was also a sedative.
“I put Seryozhka down and decided to go to the toilet,” the frightened Inna told us. - It is dark in the corridor, somewhere far away one light is burning dimly. I came to the cabin and immediately fell asleep. Suddenly I wake up from some indistinct rustle, as if someone is scratching at the door. I think: Rita can't open the doors. I get up, still half asleep and open the doors - no one, I go out - and here she, in the corner, such a terrible figure in black, stands and looks at me with burning eyes!
I must say that Inna was a sober woman and, so to speak, strict rules, so it was impossible not to believe her. What to do? Lyubasha, as a trade union activist, had to go to sleep with Inna, and I listened to Margot's outpourings almost until dawn. Moreover, she tightly held me by the shoulder, then by the hand and did not let me go anywhere.
We fell asleep in the morning, when it was getting light outside the window. In the morning, a very pale Lyuba came, it turned out that at night they were again scraping into their cabin. She could not bear it and looked out (apparently, as a determined woman herself wanted to make sure of what had happened to Inna), did not see anyone, but she felt a terribly fetid odor (it smelled like a rotting corpse, she said).
Time passed, and life scattered us in different directions. I returned to school - as they say, sow what is reasonable, kind, eternal. Very rarely, somewhere they crossed paths with former colleagues, because our city is small. Then somehow, quite by accident, I find out - after the fact - about the death of Lyuba (from heart disease). Some time later, Margo talks about the death of Inna and her son (first, Sergei dies from a severe, fleeting illness, a year later Inna - from oncology).
So, in a short time, all three people died, who in one way or another collided, felt the pernicious influence of something otherworldly and terrible during that last flight to Lena Pillars.
If it were not for Margarita, who clung to me with a stranglehold, who at that moment worried only about the vicissitudes of the next novel and the possibility of being left without a grateful listener, I would also have rushed out into the corridor to see with my own eyes the “terrible black figure”. And so, it turns out, it carried …
Or maybe it should have happened, because, according to experts on unknown phenomena, all kinds of spirits, ghosts, phantoms of people who have died a bad death can only be seen by those people who are soon destined to leave the world of the living.
Yana PROTODYAKONOVA