because the weather had got worse and she did not want to get into the storm.
Chapter 10
The virus of immorality
In the following three days Lika did not manage neither to see Rita nor to speak to her. Rita kept sending her a message a day saying that she was all right. As for Lika, she could not make herself stop thinking about the friend, Vlad, and Coco.
That day after lunch she decided to digress a little from those tedious thoughts and got back to the book she had started a while ago and had left it out because of the latest events. She made herself comfortable at the table trying to recollect the last passage she had read, but the sound of the income message in Skype distracted her. Imagine her surprise when she saw a message from Vlad. Immediately, the whole world was forced out of her mind. With an unevenly beating heart and fingers trembling with excitement, she answered to his “Hello, Lika!” Then Vlad called and told her about how he had settled in a new place. He also described the city, the river flowing nearby, the sunny weather and some guys he had made friends with. Apparently, he was very encouraged by the new life and the new place. Finally, he asked what was happening in her life. Lika shuddered. What could she tell him? About Rita’s pregnancy? No. Rita had asked her not to tell him about this, and, of course, she would not do it. About Coco? No way. “Undoubtedly, a talking cat could interest him but only if he could hear it himself,” she thought. Vlad would have thought that Lika had gone mad if she had told him about it. As a result, her account of the days spent in his absence turned out to be the most usual and even a bit boring. Anyway, Vlad seemed to be listening attentively to her. Then he inquired about Aunt Ann’s health and asked how Rita was. He wondered why she did not appear on Skype. Lika felt her face blushing, and her ears began to burn – she could not tell him the truth, and she did not know how to lie. Without knowing what to invent, she just dropped the call. She jumped up from her chair, and walked about the room, but to her distress, there was no time to think because the melody of the incoming call sounded almost immediately. The girl took a deep breath and clicked on “answer”. Vlad apologized for the quality of the connection; probably, he could not imagine that Lika herself interrupted the call, and then he apologized again, but this time for not being able to continue the conversation because he had to go. They said goodbye to each other promising to keep in touch. When his face had disappeared form the screen, Lika sighed with relief – this time it came to nothing.
Why does it all happen so in her life? Why can’t there be joy without pain? She was so happy to see the beloved person, but the happiness was shadowed by her inability to be fully sincere with him.
“Pain and joy always join hands;” Coco told her then, “that’s normal. You can’t only breathe in; you need to breathe out otherwise you’ll die. A heart is meant to shrink after it dilates – life is possible if only these processes go one after another in harmony.”
During those days, Lika and Coco really bonded. For two days the weather had been nasty, but as soon as the sun showed its face in the skies, Aunt Ann went to the summer cottage to visit her friend and Lika spent hours chatting with Coco. She did not notice how strongly she became attached to the cat, and their conversations started to influence her thinking, and, perhaps, her life in its right. Lika was impressed by Coco’s original thinking, her approach to life, in some ways the cat seemed to be wise, and the girl was curious to find out her opinion on any matter. Sometimes they argued long because Lika strongly disagreed with Coco’s opinions, but in somewhat magical way the cat always managed to bring convincing arguments and change the opinion of her mistress.
“The day after tomorrow Rita’s parents leaving for Turkey,” Lika told the cat after having read a message from the friend.
“Well,” answered the cat “it’s all coming to an end.”
“I haven’t managed to influence her decision,” Lika sighed, “If only you could talk to her…”
“Me? No! It’s out of the question! Do you want her to go mad? Just fancy! She’s in such a… poor mental condition and a cat’s talking to her!”
“Right,” Lika drawled, “I haven’t thought about it.”
Coco was silent and Lika got absorbed in thought. The night before she had googled about abortions. The thing that amazed her most was statistical data. According to WHO fifty six million of induced abortion occur each year in the world. “Fifty six million a year! Fifty six million of discontinued lives! Fifty six million of unrealized opportunities! Fifty six million of those who are not given a single chance! The worst thing is that it happens from year to year. Thereafter, the modern human race is considered to be sensible and humane. How is it possible that the mankind kill themselves, rob their own chances and opportunities but hopes to have comfortable future? Just imagine how many people like Einstein, Lomonosov, Pushkin, Charlie Chaplin, Mother Teresa, Salvador Dali, and Mahatma Gandhi and even like Jesus Christ could be born!”
“And what about those who could be like Judas, king Herod, Mao Zedong, Hitler or Stalin?” Coco interfered in Lika’s thoughts.
“But there were much more creators than destroyers,” Lika disagreed.
“Not as much as you tend to think. Just think: fifty-six million abortions a year. They are not done by creators. Creators don’t do abortions – they are meant to create not to destroy, they are here to support life, not to ruin it, otherwise, they wouldn’t be called creators.”
“You must be right and it is sad. Do you know which is the most difficult thing about it for my understanding?”
“I guess I know.”
“Twelve percent of all abortions are done due to medical reasons, twenty-three percent – for social, twenty-five percent are done to save a woman’s life and forty percent are performed due to personal desire of women. That is, forty women out of a hundred have an abortion just because they don’t want a child. But a desire is such a changeable thing that it may cause you want something today and don’t want it tomorrow, and then want it again the day after tomorrow. How can you be guided only by a desire? There must be something more you should take into account… responsibility, morality, love…”
“There must be,” Coco grinned, “What if there is nothing? How can you use something that you don’t merely have? So they have nothing to do but to be guided by what they have…”
“Why don’t they have these?”
“You know, lots of people will be asking this question in the future, and, probably, they will find the answer. In my day, the second half of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries will be considered to be the most immoral period of all times.”
“Is it possible that the things are worse now than ever?” Lika asked sadly.
“Firstly, it’s all become too pervasive,” Coco began to explain, “the Earth’s tainted by the virus of immorality, and almost everyone is infected to some extent. Secondly, the level of consciousness has grown… or at least, it’s meant to have grown by now. And if ancient people who had primitive mind were pardoned for their blunders, will the same end well for the modern society?”
“I don’t think it will.”
“Right. The third millennium will go in search of the answers to the questions created by the present time. The most urgent will be the human reproduction.”
Lika
