Immortality
Rare customers were rolling their carts sadly across the trading floor. There were about 15 minutes left until closing time. Lida was looking forward to when, in the end, it would be possible to go home, the weekend and a possible meeting with one of the gentlemen were joyfully ahead. She walked dreamily between the shelves of her department, trying to guess who would call her first: Serega or Ivan? Perhaps Arsen? I wanted it to be Seryoga. Then she saw two suspicious types, whirling in the cognac section and whispering something to each other. Both looked over 60. They were dressed strangely, and they looked thieving and fraudulent. She immediately realized that in front of her was another drunk who intended to steal a bottle of expensive cognac. And for the loss, Lida would have to pay from her salary. She silently walked over to them and stood behind. The two men did not even notice her presence.
One, the one that was shorter and thicker, with the anxiety and nervousness of a parrot, threw himself from one label to another, and the one that was taller and in a ridiculous checkered coat, which was clearly not enough for him, now and then thrust his five fingers into his crazy hair, reminding Einstein, who in the morning forgot the meaning of the theory of relativity.
- Well? Well? - He said nervously, - Found it?
- God, I completely forgot the name, - answered the fat man and again rushed to the new bottle, studying the label through the thick lenses of his glasses.
- Call the Master, they will close soon! - the long one lamented.
- God be with you Milorad Valerianovich, the Master hates telephones. He's been from the time of Peter.
- How inopportune you forgot, because today is the Moon in Saturn and October! And if you wait more …
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“17 years old,” the fat man prompted in a trembling voice.
- God! After all, we can perish, and everything will go to dust! What about our immortality?
"Shiziks," Lida realized. She coughed softly into her fist, which greatly frightened both of them.
- Can I help you? She asked with a scornful smile.
The fat man hesitated and looked at his friend in a frightened way.
- You see, the girl. A question. Where to begin? How long have you worked here?
- Third year.
- You see. We are looking for a specific drink. Elixir, so to speak.
- Elixir? - Lida thought about it. - This is the cognac department.
- Yes of course. This is cognac. Such, you know, rare. You must certainly have it, - he suddenly became alarmed.
- Cognac "Elixir", is the name?
- Not like the name. I have forgotten the name, but you have such a choice here.”He looked around the endless rack.
- Take something else, - suggested Lida, - here is an excellent French cognac Courvoisier.
- Not! No, that's not it, - he continued to move along the row of bottles and suddenly threw himself on his knees with a squeal. - God, here he is! Milorad! We are saved.
- Pafnuti Kapitonovich, you are a genius! - and with these words the long one kissed the fat man on his sweaty forehead.
They immediately forgot about the girl and both, holding the bottle as if there were a dangerous bomb in their hands, went to the cash desks, and Lida, turning her finger at her temple, went to change, as her shift was over.
It was October outside. The moon was full and the weather was lovely and magical. Windless and quiet. The dark city fell asleep. Lida walked along the alley where dull air lanterns were burning, and suddenly she saw her recent customers. They emerged from the bushes and ran like naughty teenagers under a lantern where there was a bench.
Long shouted joyfully:
- This is our last night! You understand? Last night!
- Immortality! The fat man shouted after him.
“But such, after all, they can attack,” Lida thought suddenly and out of harm's way, she went into the bushes. Lida was well over 30, and she was not a beauty. Wide bone, short legs and absolutely not graceful face of the most vulgar courtyard girl with a nose - a potato. She attracted men only of a certain type, and this variety was far from the first. But who can understand the complex inner world of a schizophrenic who is over 60? Feeling anxious, Lida walked silently along the ground, trying not to touch the branches. When she drew level with the lantern, where the crazy old men were staying, curiosity seized her. She squatted down and began to watch. It was obvious that the two crazy alcoholics would throw something out. Taking out her phone in case of filming a YouTube video, she hid.
- Yes, - said the fat man, breathing fresh air. - I've been waiting for this moment for 73 years! For us people, unlike reptilians, it is much more difficult to acquire immortal bodies. Other blood. But we will remain all the same entities as now.
- You know, Pafnuy Kapitonovich, at first I assumed that immortality is life in your body, but here is such a surprise.
- Do you need it? Living as a crumbling old man? You will be born young and fresh, you will choose your own body and, most importantly, everything that you are now will remain with you. Your consciousness is eternal. That's what's important. And so, changing bodies, you will live in this world until you understand its piercing, unthinkable beauty to the end, and, having absorbed all this, you will go further, into the next world!
- Yes, this is amazing, - the long sighed and looked into the sky like a tired dog, - and we'll meet with you again?
- Well, of course! Yes, we will agree right here and now, - he thought for a minute. - Resolved! 20 years later at the Eiffel Tower. On the day of the first moon. For example, I will put on a red cloak and you will recognize me.
And from that moment Lida realized that it was time to shoot. Both were absolutely insane and, apparently, decided to kill each other, after getting drunk. She pointed her phone at the old men and waited impatiently for the denouement.
- When will we be born?
- Tomorrow at dawn.
- In this country? - the long one was frightened.
- It doesn't matter, you will be born where the body of your choice will be born. Child. And believe me, with your knowledge at the age of 20, you will have everything that a person can only dream of. You have completed the full course?
- Sure. 30 years of studying the material. All knowledge of the world. The main principle of the game. The master was merciful to me. It was he who revealed to me the secret of immortality. Consciousness is eternal, but spending it on stupidity and base pleasures, we lose …
- Yes, yes, that's right, … but everyone could. But people are stupid and lazy. However, it is not for us to judge them.
With these words the fat man poured cognac into plastic cups.
“How strange,” said the long one, “the simple cognac sold in the supermarket is the last elixir.
“It’s not so simple,” the fat man winked, “and it is sold all over the world, for people like you and me. A simple, uninitiated person will never buy it. He'll just walk by. There is an element of magic here. Remember, even I forgot the name.
Both laughed and drank. Lida was filming, barely holding back her laughter, and suddenly something strange happened. Two old men sparkled with Bengal lights and these sparks briskly and freely went upward in two beautiful pillars, scattering in the night sky, and the burnt clothes fell to the ground. Lida dropped her phone and sat for another 10 minutes without blinking on the ground, comprehending what she saw. Finally she got up and walked over to the bench. A half-full bottle of cognac stood on the asphalt in the middle of the smoldering rags. Picking up, she read the name - "DEUS XOXOXO elexir".
“I also want to go to eternity,” she said, looking hopefully at the beautiful stars, “into the new body of a beauty, and the main thing is that the family is richer!
Looking at the moon, Lida threw back the bottle and began to swallow the elixir burning her throat. Her ears rang. The stars blurred, turning into bright, cosmic arrows and she felt how the body, disintegrating into billions of hot particles, is carried away into the sky. However, she did not feel any body now. She felt that she was, but it was difficult to understand what it was - “she”. She wanted to scream, but that was now impossible.
Suddenly she felt movement, an unprecedented surge of strength and freedom. Lida saw everything around her, although she had no eyes, she heard the wondrous sounds of space, although for this she now did not have physical organs. Then she saw how a sparkling and, probably, living sphere, larger than the Moon, Earth and the Sun, revolves in the black bottomless ocean, of infinite space. Lightning waves splashed over the body of the sphere, and Lida was irresistibly drawn there. Some unknown force, irresistible gravity, sucked her in and she, unable to resist, obeyed.
When she passed through the border of the sphere and saw an indescribable world consisting of many fractals of wild and unthinkable beauty, which changed every second, she remembered that she had been here for a long time.
“Soul,” she heard a warm and dear voice, “you have passed your way of life, you have absorbed all knowledge, fully comprehended the experience of one life, given to a person, and now you are free from the circle of samsara - oblivion. And if you lived righteously and purely, if the energy of your consciousness was not wasted, you will easily answer the main question - what is life?
Lida noticed that now she again has a semblance of a body, only it was transparent and shimmered with rainbow colors, like a soap bubble in the sun. She realized that she could speak again.
- A life? Well, how is it like that, - she hesitated, - how to say? Life is kind of not easy. To live life is not a field to cross, - she remembered someone's stupid aphorism.
And at the same moment, from a mass of changing fractals, a flexible, snake-like stem emerged, ending in a bud in which a sapphire eye shone. He swiftly approached Lida's face and blinked in surprise.
- What? She asked, frightened.
- Intruder! - she heard from all sides a ringing and heart-rending cry. The bud of the stem instantly turned into a tenacious brush, grabbed it and threw it somewhere with such force that it flew through space and time. Thousands of other people's lives, events and minds flashed before her eyes. Suddenly, something painfully hit her forehead, Lida closed her eyes and immediately opened them abruptly.
She seemed to wake up after a wild nightmare. Everything was spinning in front of her, and she could not understand where she was. She felt that she was running somewhere and that some colored object flashed before her eyes. Stopping abruptly, she felt her body spinning in the air three times and then throwing the stinking sawdust and urine onto the floor.
"What?" She thought. - "Where I am?"
Raising her head, she looked around and saw that she was in a strange room like a cage, in the corner of which was a large, two her height, drum for a hamster, from which she had just been thrown out.
- What is it? She screamed, but instead of screaming, a faint squeak came out of her mouth. She ran to the grating and, grabbing it, shook it. Then she saw her hands. They were not hands at all, but paws in pink skin with long crooked claws. She saw that in front of her was a room huge, like the city of New York, in which a giant girl was sitting at a table at a computer.
- What have you done to me! - Lida shouted, but again, instead of words, a squeak escaped from her mouth.
The giant girl got up and walked over to the cage. Bringing her face, huge, like an airship, to Lida, she gently asked:
- Dusya? Dusya, are you crazy, what are you peeping?
- What? - an even larger woman entered the room.
- Yes, mom, our hamster has gone crazy, screaming for no reason.
“We need to give her drops,” Mom suggested, and Lida, realizing what had happened, lost consciousness and fell unconscious on dirty, smelly sawdust.
Mikhail Bochkarev