Аннотация: Overcoat and briefcase (in imitation of Gogol and Pushkin). A story.
Overcoat and briefcase (in imitation of Gogol and Pushkin). A story.
Akaky Akakievich 's overcoat gave him a lot of anxiety.
But the briefcase created even more of worries.
Akaky Akakievich began to suspect the cabman that this coachman was trying to look into his briefcase.
What if he will stop a cab and will take a cab not near the house, but stepping aside, a distance, a block.
Suspicious people - from among the permanent inhabitants of the streets - began to try to look into the briefcase of Akaky Akakievich.
And if he will travel with a transfer?
And there was an answer to this: suspicious people began to sit (to enter) in the carriage together with Akaky Akakievich and to ride in the carriage with him. And in doing so, they tried to look into his briefcase.
Akaky Akakievich suddenly jumped out of the carriage and reached his destination through the passage yards (transition yards).
So what? There a cab with one of the suspicious cabmen was waiting for him.
"I need to stop worrying!" - Akaky Akakievich persuades himself.
He enters the right building, solves the problem, leaves. The suspicious coachman continues to stand in the same place. Looks at the briefcase.
Akaky Akakievich stops and looks around.
At this moment, an expensive SUV with foreign numbers (of one of the neighboring countries) rolls up.
"Surely they are looking at the briefcase through the tinted windows of the car!"
After a momental stop, the SUV rushes away.
The suspicious cabman, apparently, fulfilled his task. He pretends to be broken and slowly leaves.
Akaky Akakievich decides not to go by carriage, but by public transport.
He occupies a seat, which is separated from standing passengers by a handrail and a flat partition.
The public transport salon is filling up. Directly opposite Akaky Akakievich, a passenger is standing, who leans on the handrail, and extends his arm and brings the smartphone, held in his outstretched hand, directly to the face of Akaky Akakievich.
Akaky Akakievich pulls a gaitor [a neck warmer] over his face (from below) and a knitted headdress (from above). However, the eyes are not closed, and the passenger is poking his smartphone right in the eyes of Akaky Akakievich.
Akaky Akakievich turns, shakes his head - within the limits of the possible. But the smartphone is getting closer and closer.
To twist, or not to twist (by (with) head), but a good movie is obtained!
Akaky Akakievich touches the passenger's elbow with his hand (astonishment appears on the passenger's face):
- If I made a fig, dulya (three-finger combination) and kept it in my pocket, would it interfere with you?
The amazement of a passenger is transformed into a replica:
- Are you the normal? ("To try to justify? To say, that the normal?")
Akaky Akakievich does not let himself be confused:
- And if I brought my three-finger combination closer to your face (Akaky Akakievich demonstrates this maneuver and this gesture in practice), would you like it?
A passenger with a smartphone turns pale, blushes:
- And ... you mean a smartphone? ...
The smartphone moves slightly to the side.
Soon the passenger leaves, but before the leaving, he again brings his smartphone closer to Akaky Akakievich 's face.
"Good movie! Yes! Not bad."
After a few stops, Akaky Akakievich comes out.
He hears a heavy footsteps.
Behind him the bronze horseman is galloping.
"He is trying to look into the briefcase!!!"
Something needs to be done!
What options?
To change the overcoat and the briefcase for a sports equipment? To make it easier - to move?
Hide on one of the islands of the Baltic Sea? (How will the bronze horseman get there?)
To recall a skills of a health running?
The task requires an intellectual effort, a resourcefulness of the mind.
Now is such a time.
The country needs talented people.
January 18, 2023 22:48
Translation from Russian into English: January 19, 2023 00:07.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский " Шинель и портфель (в подражание Гоголю и Пушкину). Рассказ ".
{ 3258. Шинель и портфель (в подражание Гоголю и Пушкину). Рассказ.
MMMCCXXIX. Overcoat and briefcase (in imitation of Gogol and Pushkin). A story).
Vladimir Zalessky Internet-bibliotheca. Интернет-библиотека Владимира Залесского}