My spouse and I are far from the church. No, not like that: he is absolutely indifferent to this side of life, but he takes the strangeness of people calmly. I am suspicious of other people's cockroaches, and I'm not trying to tame them. You can't get enough of your dichlorvos insects.
That is why I constantly get involved in all sorts of stories. As the saying goes: "God is not Mitroshka, he sees a little."
It was 10 years ago. We had a chance to go to the neighboring province on a sad occasion: my husband's mother died.
Mournful deeds are not done in one day, so I had to spend the night with my dear aunt Taisia. A kind woman was good to everyone: quiet, smiling and hospitable. Only her religiosity went off scale. Grandmother constantly babbled prayers, bowed to the images and sighed sadly about Lydia's early death. But I will reveal a "terrible" secret: neither my husband, nor even more so me, the death of my mother-in-law did not shock. She lived for her pleasure: she never cared about her son, and from an early youth she had a strong friendship with a bottle. From this heartfelt affection, she died in the prime of life. The mother did not cause anything except irritation and shame in her husband. Therefore, when the grandmother hinted at the funeral service, she was gently sent to hell.
I will not bore the reader with a long story about the ordeal of the next day. When it was over, we got ready for the return journey. Despite the protests, Taisiya decided to solemnly bless us. Reverently, she took out from the red corner an icon depicting some unfamiliar gloomy people, and offered to kiss them. I can stroke a stray dog without fear and disgust, and then eat bread with the same hands. But licking dubious cleanliness, greasy and sooty boards - no, thank you! The salary splattered with fingers and the dull, dull glass caused an immediate gag reflex in me.
The grandmother was not embarrassed. She quickly took a vial from the pocket of her robe and deftly opened the lid. A suffocating, heavy and sickening smell of something sweet and sticky spread through the room. Without asking our consent, Taisiya quickly anointed my and my husband's forehead with a foul-smelling compound. Deftly crossed herself and muttered some parting words. I didn't hear the whole phrase: there was something about guardian angels, and a good road.
That the path would be wonderful, I realized right away: a thick milky fog hung on the track. The markings were absent, and the black ditches scared the bottomless depth. My head was splitting in the literal and figurative sense of the word: the whiskey ached, my nose was disgusting from the sticky church smell. He seemed to have impregnated the skin. Fighting sleep, nausea and migraine, I grabbed the steering wheel and tried not to wiggle from side to side, catching a weak line of marking.
"Oh-pa, and we got lost" - someone loudly declared in a sick head. I shuddered and realized that I absolutely did not understand where we were, and where the hell was the main track! By touch, she slid to the side of the road, turned on the emergency gang.
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The road was completely empty. Neither passing nor oncoming cars were observed. We got out of the car. The November chill penetrated to the bone, and the fog could be touched with your hands. The area was completely unfamiliar. The silence was broken only by the familiar and comfortable roar of the engine. The landscape was disgustingly reminiscent of a scene from a classic thriller. As if on purpose to enhance the similarity with Hitchcock's plots, the car made several convulsive sobs, grunted a couple of times and stalled.
My first thought was that I forgot to refuel. The second is that you need to prepare more carefully for long trips. The third did not have time to take shape. In the ensuing silence, there were not even natural sounds. Even the dogs did not bark, which suggested that there was no civilization for ten kilometers around. Panic seized me, my head squeezed like a hoop, my ears were ringing from emptiness. The husband boldly climbed under the hood: but what can be done in complete darkness, and even with a foreign car, whose engine is carefully covered with a protective cover? I climbed into the salon and leaned powerlessly on the steering wheel. Everything that was happening seemed to be an unreal dream: well, how could you get lost in three pines and stall out of the blue!
Anger took over all other emotions. Several times I hit the signal with all my might and yelled: “Yes, such an infection! What do we need now, to spend the night here or what ! Even the fog seemed to shudder at the harsh sound and reluctantly receded. The key is to start, and lo and behold! The car started up, slowly picking up speed. We started forward until we stalled again at idle.
I stubbornly pressed the gas pedal, as if trying to slip through an invisible wall from acceleration. I was no longer afraid of the prospect of flying to hell with the road at the next dangerous turn. When the speedometer needle froze at the "one hundred" mark, the landscape around suddenly changed dramatically. It was as if someone had torn the veil from his eyes: the outlines of a small village appeared ahead. Smoke from the stove pulled through the open window. We could have sworn that it took no more than five minutes from the moment of speeding up to the first houses on the outskirts. It turns out that we were very close! But why then did they not hear sounds and see lights? As if someone had deliberately averted their eyes to scare! I don't believe in such devilry and mysticism. The only reasonable explanation for the collective insanity is the deep trance in which we arrived from the moment Granny muttered her spells. A sharp signal turned on the brain.
There were no navigators and advanced smartphones at that time, so we wandered in the dark along country roads for a long time, checking the map. While we were getting out on the track, remembering the devil and swearing, the smell of incense, or whatever the granny poisoned, finally disappeared. The head stopped cracking. And oh, a miracle: a large junction appeared in front of us, leading to the Yaroslavl highway. The husband rubbed his head: “Grandma blessed me from the bottom of my heart. It would be better if she did not do this: they would have arrived without incident. Apparently, not for the future, the parting words have gone to us atheists”!
But why the car suddenly stalled, and then magically started, we did not understand.