that’s almost home!” Almost… There is nothing worse than this “almost”, there is simply either “yes” or “no”, or zero, or ten out of ten, and this unsaid “almost” flies out, and circles a ghostly yellow-bellied tit, and intends to sit right in you legs, but does not sit down, and suddenly it turns out to be not at all a tiny titmouse, but a big-legged stork. Almost at home… almost…”
Choking Aft, with an arrow, jumped out to the intersection of Sixty-second and Fifty-fifth, not noticing the racing pickup of the landscaping service. The crazy driver, trying to avoid a collision with a pedestrian who suddenly appeared, sharply pressed the brake and turned the steering wheel to the left, turned the car around, and with her treacherous right side she threw the veteran to the side with mighty force, as if an elastic tennis ball was bouncing off a racket. He flew soundlessly a few meters and rigidly flattened near the corner of a gray house; the car from such a sharp turn fell awkwardly on its side, young seedlings intended for planting somewhere in the public garden in the neighborhood, and which were still in a covered body a minute ago, spilled out on the road with friendly company.
At first one foot appeared timidly from the broken window of the overturned car, then, more confidently, the other, creaking from what had happened, the driver vigorously squeezed through a narrow glass rectangle – the door jammed from falling. A young ant passing by with a paper bag hurriedly rushed to the nearest phone – to call the medical care service. Passers-by hurried to the lying ant. Aft, spreading all six legs wide, helplessly sprawled on a punched propodeum, from under which a thin stream of transparent liquid – ant blood – slowly flowed out.
The wide-open torn shirt was decisively transformed from pale turquoise to gloomy ultramarine. The torn antennae spontaneously asymmetrically balanced in the air tense from the episode that had occurred – they were both completely broken and barely moving. The two upper legs also hung limply, as if in zero gravity, clearly not wanting to calm down and freeze. In Aft’s open eyes, life was not going to give up; he looked forward, not seeing anything in front of him.
– How many of us, eh?.. – Aft whispered faintly, but hardly anyone heard him. – How much?.. Who can say?..
They encircled the downed Aft from all sides, – well, what interest is there – the most interesting event, and even on the day off – at least some little entertainment for all the loiterers – the ants were stiffened in unnatural poses, and with guarded excitement they looked at their relative, and none of them bent down and touched the downed one, fearing to do something wrong. From the overturned car to the mottled ring of witnesses of the accident, the driver limped limply forcibly limping on his right paw – it seems that the damage to the paw was serious enough, since he could not calmly step on it. The crowd synchronously parted, and when the driver approached Aft, he closed the vibrant, glowing excitement ring again, he sank down to the ant he had knocked down and carefully took his paw in his.
The veteran’s icy sad glass beads seemed completely lifeless, but a tiny stream of hope with a sun-bouncing bunny ran down his gray-red rough wrist, there was no need to worry – everything was probably formed, and the driver was seated on a post here, on mouse pavement-petiol*, slightly bending tergites*, and began to carefully examine its wounded leg: hemolymph*, “ant blood”, there were not so many, but nevertheless, acute pain pierced to the very tips of the claws. Finally, a medical aid driver strained to siren arrived at the emergency intersection. Two ants in bathrobes jumped out of a fiery red-white door together and ran to the victims. A sullen ant doctor squeezed his way through the crowd, side by side, who really did not like to go to the scene of incidents, the number of which in the town had recently increased sharply.
No less nimbly jumped out of the car two more ants from the back door. They had to make the chief physicians, so they did. Dead silence reigned, wired life whistled in all the carriageways, where vehicles of all kinds and breeds were squeezed between a random crowd, an unusually deserted sidewalk and a half-dead “shifter”, slowing down, and some what happened here?”, Frightened drivers and passengers looked. Once in a flash, a sneeze and a wounded Aft were carefully loaded onto a stretcher and thrown into an ambulance.
– At the end of the month… – the veteran continued to whisper.
– What?.. Why are you there? – the doctor did not understand him. – Shut up, come on! Take care of your strength, you need them!
– What to do with the second? – sharply asked one of the white coats. – Take it or what, huh?
– Throw him too. Come on, take him too! He’s not so serious, but for the full set we will arrange it too! – briskly ordered the doctor.
From behind a mournful brick corner, the silent traffic police patrol car appeared, and she calmly drove to an upturned pickup truck. The business-like policemen took up their duties: they quickly sorted out the littered young seedlings, some trees were badly damaged, but they were still thrown uphill along with everyone, then nimble cops surrounded the overturned car from all sides and “o-o-one-two three-got it!” easily, naturally, without further fuss, put it on wheels. Witnesses of the incident began to silently slowly disperse, one by one they reached further on their small and big deeds, which they had followed before. Some fifteen to twenty minutes after the unfortunate disaster, except for the lazy yawning patrol, there was nobody on the roadway of the intersection, and after another quarter of an hour, the calm working quarter continued to live according to its usual schedule, as if there was nothing. All the same sleepy pedestrians, restlessly resting in a languid Sunday inaction, and hurrying on urgent matters – also, quietly passed by a motley gallery of endless multi-storey buildings, past universally pasted up glossy posters with the image of the president, past the ill-fated miserable corner, where most recently lay half-dead Aft. Everything seemed to freeze in the naive children’s yard game “freeze-die”, remaining in its spotlessly clean places, and what could change the usual course of the monotony of life: a casual episode, a meaningless accident, the death of an extraneous pedestrian, the death of a dozen ants or maybe the death of hundreds of ants? And, in general, can something really change the “usual course of events”? How tragic, terrible must the denouement be in order to at least somehow change the thinking of “passers-by”? Is everyone immersed in their own micro world?
Chapter 12
GREEN
Gently saving the crystal sparkle of happiness, sparkling with a gilded cloud of airy love, Amina walked with Ave along the picturesque alley of old-world rose blossoms and regal silky pears, lilyfully holding on to her paws. They enjoyed a light philosophical conversation about the industrial and cultural development of megacities, a couple tirelessly wandered around the street labyrinths of the city for the third hour, and fate fatefully pulled them to the coveted fontanel, which was always visited by those on duty from Sixty-second Street, and not only from her, but also with many others, for life-giving juice. As always, a small line missed a murmuring spring.
– Hi, friends! – as soon as the ants asked about the order, a completely unfamiliar ant approached them and started a conversation. – Can I ask you for one interesting question?
– Hi-hi! – the couple immediately answered in one voice, and, smiling at the fact that their answer so gloriously coincided, they looked at each other and laughed.
They examined the emmet from head to toe and, without saying a word, unanimously decided: “Let him turn, since he needs it so!” Approaching, like most ants waiting for their portion of juice, he was dressed pretty well, one might even say in his “corporate”
