tattered boxes, shamelessly wrapped in torn clothes, which are strange to call clothes, everywhere to the dark blue the sticky streams of smoke of the abandoned country conflagration stretch to the black sky, and the mercantile-harsh, completely lifeless sun, akin to a fiery indefatigable bird with an amber-agate reigning plumage, calmly flies itself from place to place, but a life-giving, saving light that from her, from the solar star, alas, does not come. The depressed Amina sighed heavily and slammed her eyes, trying to turn off the pessimistic and gloomy picture in the mourning imagination.
Time flowed sluggishly through the sad irregular oval of the window, round, tired of expectations, Amina comfortably housed herself in a cloudy, wide, freely fit two medium-fed ants – almost a double, double-breasted armchair made of pleasantly soft skin of young dandelion rams, from which – there was an amazing aroma of a blooming lotus from a distant delta of the southern river, saturated with the inherent notes of working days of hymenoptera. The ant twitched slightly, as it happens in the first milliseconds of slipping into the slippery transcendental parallelism of sleep, but Amina did not sleep, and did not even doze, she looked into the distance, through a ghostly transparent, huge double-glazed window. Her lucid, velvety kind eyes sparkled unusually brightly – either from the joy overwhelming her, or from endless fatigue. Go, take them, these ant women, why do their eyes shine?
Every minute someone passed by her in a humbling manner: either jaunty, restless young medical sisters, now pregnant ants dazed by thoughts, immersed in the som-nambulistic world of the future, then restless doctors, sometimes laborers, business-like and important, like peacekeeping guards, and it happened, and small, still very small pearl ants ran through, noisily sorting out some of their intricate mischief.
“Where did they come from here?” – Amina was perplexed and smiled idly. – “Shouldn’t a special building have to be assigned to such a trifle For some reason, I always thought that baby-ants are placed separately? It is strange how such small ones were released into the general adult corps? And when will the weather improve and the world will become colored?”
Suddenly, a completely relaxed ant heard a couple of ghostly sonorous clicks, and an unfamiliar voice right behind me whispered faintly: “So, we work, we work, we work, friends, we start the process, we start shooting! Motor-motor-motor!” In dismay she looked around nervously, desperately got up from a friendly chair and confidently took several steps towards the elevator, but suddenly changed her mind and immediately returned to her former place. An accidentally flustered uneasiness melted in an instant, leaving no trace.
Here, in the city maternity hospital in just two days of stay, she felt so comfortable and calm for the first time in the last two months that she would love to stay here for a couple more months, she still has nowhere to hurry. Nowhere and no one to go to…
– Sorry, sorry, can I help you with something? – the nurse on duty kindly turned to Amina.
But Amina “lost consciousness” and did not hear anything at all, the medic touched her paw to the pregnant woman and repeated the question.
– No, no, everything is in order. No, thanks, everything is in order, – Amin hurried to answer. – I have everything… I will ask if something suddenly… Thank you!
“Caring paws! Caring, caring, caring! That’s why I didn’t have enough all the time. Here they take care of me and my future baby…”
Outside the window, through the hazy hopeless cap of clouds that covered the city, and indeed the whole world, the burning, living rays of the sun erupted, as if a mysterious surgeon had carefully made an incision with a mysteriously bright scalpel, and in an instant the gray and earthy houses and streets came to life, breathing, turning the gloomy area beyond the area into colorful and truly vibrant habitats. The gray-dirty industrial monster in an instant unrecognizably transformed into a polyphonic-colored town.
“How little, it turns out, is necessary for true happiness – for someone a tiny drop of warmth and care, for another – a few rays of the sun? Life-giving sun. Although, maybe it’s the same thing?”
– Admire our beauty? – with a proud smile, the approaching roommate of Amina, the ant Piyo, nodded at the marble-blue snake. “But today she’s hardly impressive!” Today it is cloudy, and not at all… She is very beautiful here! You just need another time…
– Yeah, I look at everything. To the city, to the river! I like everything very much, – Amina answered with a little confusion in her voice, and she was surprised at her shaky uncertainty.
– Yeah, our Miisa* is perhaps one of the most picturesque rivers in the whole continent. And for me – she is the most beautiful and is. The most-most-most! In the summer, especially on hot days, Miisa is generally irresistible! You look at her in the summer! What places will you be from?
– Have I seen few rivers? More precisely, this river – the first one I met, – Amin said a little embarrassed. And then blurted out joyfully: – But I really liked her! True, really liked it. We also have a river in the city, but somehow we couldn’t get to it. Do not believe it, I have never seen her. All work and work, but endless vanity, but there is no time for the beautiful… there is no time to think about the beautiful. It seems that work eats up all my life… And from the city I am from San-Prittu*.
– Well, about work – that’s what you are saying! So many folded. We have to plow from morning to night without a break and a weekend.
– Yes… Work is our everything… without it – nowhere…
– There certainly isn’t anything beautiful. All for the common cause…
– Yes, yes, everything is so!
– And sometimes it seems better not to stop and not think what we are for and why we all work… the main thing is the process itself…
– You are directly speaking in my words. Well, talk about work! – Amina said in surprise.
– So this, I think, not only you and I… but about the river… if you talk about the river, then in general, any river calms and gives an inexplicable force of life, – Piyo became sad for a second, thought for a moment, and began to think aloud. – I don’t know how to explain it, but the course of the river… It fascinates and captivates with its calmness, with such good calmness, it draws you in, attracts you to you. Chess-word, it fascinates and calmly so, calmly… you look at the current like that, you stand and look, and you think… you think… uh, now you would immerse yourself in warm water and completely relax! – dreamed Piyo immediately closed her eyes, and a slight smile froze on her face.
– Ahhh, and the truth, probably the truth, is so cool! Amin caught her thought, delighted in a completely childish way.
– Yes, this is not the right word, not the right word! It is cosmically great! Fine! Phenomenally! Be sure to swim sometime. Take your time and drive to the river… In the summer you need… – happy Piyo shone with emotion and added. – Highly recommend!
They stood still for several minutes in complete silence, enjoying the panorama of the city, which eagerly absorbed solar energy, and the picturesque river, until they were called into the dining room for a mid-afternoon snack.
Two loud gulls flew one by one outside the window, they made a small bend over the radiant smooth surface and disappeared without a trace behind a spiny bridge.
WHITE
