Five years ago, neighbors invited me to go pick mushrooms with them. Having gathered, at ten o'clock in the morning we went to the place we had looked after for a long time. The road is familiar - we go there every autumn. Driving his Zhiguli was Ivan Sidorovich, a 50-year-old man, solid, serious, teetotaler and an excellent driver.
We drove slowly and talked. From the village to the mushroom place - ten kilometers. On the way - a log bridge over a quiet river, and immediately behind it, on a hillock, there is a small village. It remains about three kilometers from it to the mushroom spot, no more.
We approach the bridge, we see - behind it is fog. We did not attach any importance to this. We just thought: the sun has risen, warmed, and the water has gone down from the water. We crossed the bridge, began to climb the hillock. We are going, but there is no village.
We already began to look at each other in surprise. Where is the village? She's right behind the bridge, right next to the road. Then we go, but she's not there. Then we felt uneasy.
Gradually the fog cleared away.
We drove - visibility is good, there is a strange silence around, even the roar of the engine is almost dead. And some kind of unusual forest, as if untouched - not a single path leaves the road. Although berry-pickers and mushroom pickers passed these places far and wide and paved a lot of paths in different directions. We drove about a kilometer ahead, but we never saw the villages.
Then it dawned on us: something was amiss. Ivan Sidorovich grunted in bewilderment, shifted in the seat and turned his Zhiguli back. We crossed the bridge safely. We stopped. We sat there for a while. Everyone has one question: what was it?
We got out of the car. The sun is shining, the birds are singing in different voices, the wind is stirring the grass. We decided to try our luck again. It is a pity if a fine day off is wasted. We turned around and drove to the bridge.
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As soon as they passed it, they began to climb the hillock - here it is, a village! Then we go - there are a lot of paths around, as it should be. We arrived at our clearing, picked up full baskets of mushrooms and returned home safely.
Only we still cannot understand where the village disappeared for the first time? And why the forest around was gloomy and untouched. Have we really been in the past, when there was no village here yet?
Tamara Nikolaevna RAGOZINA, s. Kazan, Tyumen region
