on a thin paw, and started off running. And somehow, unexpectedly, it turned out briskly for Aft to start, and not to stop. Far behind him already stood a friend Av, and a “hat” passerby, and an old man, and someone else, and another, and behind him another… Aft fled, as if flying above the ground, and behind his back, a shirt, which had no time to unbutton, caught up in a street spring breeze, flipped frivolously. He fled, and in the sky-high eyes he whistled, one after another, freshly printed huge posters all over the walls of houses depicting the president of the country Snai. He escaped, and the monumental phrase under indestructible portraits “Your LIGHT future is in your paws!” constantly catching up with him and with unpleasant meticulousness, annoyingly and clingily, as if striking the back of her head, she asked again and again: “After all, exactly? Is your future in your paws? Or, can you say that I’m wrong? Am I mistaken? Am I mistaken?..”
He, who completely gave his health, his life, all of himself to the altar of service, the idea of universal prosperity, universal life… and… the idea of salvation of the entire ant family.
“Helping others is the highest degree… degree… degree… and what, in fact, is the degree? And why – it’s the highest…” – It seems that they taught us in a boarding school, but I don’t remember everything already…
– But… what do these words mean now? – Aft on the run recalled today’s conversation with reporters of the Nineteenth Channel. “What do they mean now?” Specifically for you, here is for you, they determine something?
– For me, as for all of us, right for everyone, for us, these words helped us to simply survive on Streets, helped to cope with all the small and big difficulties, yeah, big and endless that were born and were born one after another. It’s hard for you to imagine it all… It’s not even very difficult, it’s impossible for you to imagine it. These… these words were sacred to us… This… well, it is impossible to describe in words… Here – as if another world…
– What about now? Do not regret that you made such a choice?
– Do you ask strange questions? Very strange, I would even say… And you yourself would not dare to volunteer when millions of individuals are in danger? Well, or let’s say so – the danger threatens only hundreds of ants… Would you go?
– Uhhh, – the moderator grumbled.
– Well, well, they persuaded, not even hundreds, but let them be ten, or just one ant… Have you really sacrificed yours for someone’s life? – raised to the highest degree of patriotism, Aft looked into the slippery eyes of the journalists present in the studio, ants-viewers, and confusedly, timidly and without initiative, he searched for elementary answers to his questions, which seemed to be the most complicated equations for the listeners. – Listen, we were all taught from early childhood… Yes, and what have they been taught? We have… – here he hesitated a little. – Am I saying something wrong? Not that?.. If I say wrong or illiterate, you correct me. In some things I’m completely uneducated, but somewhere it’s interesting that… somewhere, I understand something, ay-ay. Aft smiled mysteriously, emphasizing the last word, and completed his tirade. – Right or wrong, you have to disassemble the whole team, and I really think so, that is, as I feel with my heart, I say so. I speak from my heart. Thank you for letting me speak. Thank you very much! Thanks to all!
– Yes, you are just a miracle! You are a real miracle!
– Yes, save-and-for, thanks! – Apt shone embarrassedly.
– You say the right words, Aft! Everything is correct and exactly so, smoothly! – the host of the TV show suddenly woke up from such an enthusiastic speech, as if he had just been safely in another parallel world.
He manfully extended his paw towards the veterans sitting in a small handful, bowed to them and applauded wholeheartedly, after him the whole audience was hypnotized by the applause of the honored workers. Aft calmly raised his right paw, asking for general silence, and the audience instantly died down, the ant continued with a completely different mood.
– Only, here… Only who will remember tomorrow about our guys? About my comrades – about Dotra, about Nita, about Skill, about hundreds, thousands of simple working ants? About those who stayed in Streets forever and will not return… About those who will not come back anyway…
– How is it, how is it? We will remember… We… – it began hotly, it was a television journalist, but Aft already closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side, shaking his mustache with noticeable nervousness.
– Not sure, remember. Not at all sure! Is such an accident for the first time? Well, I ask – was such an accident for the first time? Well, no, not the first time! No no! And many have already completely forgotten what happened. So you remember about us, while this pathetic handful of ants is still alive. Well, I’m definitely telling you, in your-our-common vocabulary there is no such phrase, there is no slogan “We will remember!” This is pathos! It’s simply not there. Now there are forty of us left. Now – only forty, but three months a month ago it was twice as much! Mmm, do you understand this simple arithmetic? Twice as much, so what? How many of us will remain in a month? We just came and did our thing. I believe that we have fulfilled our duty to the Fatherland and these are not just beautiful words, but these are… These are we… – here he stammered, and fell silent, he did not want to continue the life-giving speech… The desire evaporated… For whom did he speak? For yourself?
Aft’s sincere monologue quenched all the fiery exclamations of the journalists and continued to keep the audience trembling with excitement that chewed on what the veteran had said. It was unexpected and bold enough, although no one could say anything against it: after all, everything was so, in reality, it was, and will continue to be…
It was decided to take a half-hour technical break. Filming, which went a little beyond the scope of the television show, was resumed only after the slightly petrified journalists proactively talked with other veterans of the accident.
“How many of us will remain in a month?” And will it remain at all? Will it stay? “We have fulfilled our duty to other ants and that’s all… and that’s all, and nothing more special…”
Aft continued to rush through the streets, almost fly, and already rolled up a hot and prickly ball inside, and he felt that there were no forces, no forces and that’s all, and he would have to go for a walk. “Ohhh, okay, I’ll be too late, but I really don’t have the strength to run and run!.. All our lives we all endlessly run somewhere, like mad squirrels in a closed endless wheel, trying to catch up to the ghostly… ghostly happiness… or what? Are we really going to always run after this alluring foggy happiness?”
A veteran award chain with a matte medallion frantically jumped over a tattered shirt. Plik-skokk, plik-skokk. Another painful lump with alarming perseverance rolled up to the flaming throat, along the aching neck plane and pronotom* on which the shirt still held, streams of sweat ran away, the aching body was ablaze with fire, the temples were unstoppably pulsing: tick-by-tick, tick-by-tick… In a muddy head, images and events suddenly seemed to dissolve, as if in a desert a dying mirage. Aft did not hear absolutely anything around, except for the black rhythms and hearts that were beating feverishly on the tom-toms, and his watery eyes distinguished only the narrow path of the tarry sidewalk. Most of all, the ant was afraid to think of an impending disease, which, shifting from one foot to another, in modest anticipation already stood at the threshold of his inner world and strove to cross it. He fought with all kinds of internal means in order not to let her in, not to let
