Молитва кордовой модели

A-She leaves the office and on her way to the elevators meets a vaguely familiar face. The face smiles at her brightly and floats out of sight when A-She gets a timely reminder from her guardian angel: the cell phone is still in the cubicle. And so to the cubicle and back again and saw the same face with the same smile on her boustrophedonic way. A-She is hit with sick embarrassment, as if she and not Face forgot to take off the smile - the supposedly sincerely delighted grin of meeting a nice person. The shock leaves her numb and nauseated, and it is all downshaft from there.

The AC in the car mocks her with cool air filtered out of all smells but the most violently synthetic ones. The slowly melting snow hill, black with soot and studded with trapped discards, is mercilessly cynical in flaunting its newest accessory: an umbrella. At home A-She is struck by the enormousness of the evening duties - dinner, dishes, homework – and their total insignificance. She is still stunned by the blow of the cymbals of existentia, when her daughter asks her to go to the park to fly a kite.

The weather is beautiful for kiting – not so for skirts and hairdos, but you cannot fly your kite and wear it. “See, mama? It sings.” First A-She figures out that she needs to listen, not look. Then she hears. The cheap thread hums the only note it is able to - unconcerned that it will be silent the moment the wind dies; that it may cut the hands that hold it; that its only purpose is to stop the multicolored thing of beauty and freedom from flying away; that it will have to change the pitch with the unraveling of the spool. Still the note is beautiful, essential and inevitable.

Старое про A-She

( жалобное самочувствие )

A-She selects a cup for her morning tea - one cup out of about eighteen she has, not counting those that she does not like, but had bought anyway, because they belong to the series she collects... or those she had become to associate with something unpleasant, like the one from the office... or the cups she selflessly reserves for other housemates that may want tea. All cups are of the same shape - approximately eight years ago A-She fell in love with these colourful cones, truncated, upturned and equipped with a sturdy handle, and has been collecting them ever since. It took her about the same time to figure out that she selects a dark-coloured cup, say, one with chocolate and navy triangles, when she feels in need of strength and support.

Is it some variation of Freudian envy, that in this case took the form of appropriating traditionally male colours, she wonders. After all, hunters - male hunters - went out after dark to hunt the next day's dinner, while women stayed in the (dark) cave with their (negative) feelings and (sinister) thoughts. Though it may be that she thus unconsciously protests against being perceived as a careless, flighty (blond) creature, that has got it easy - sort of a diplomatic note to the world in general.

The cups with swirly ornaments in spring and summer hues get chosen only when she feels able to stomp everything the world may nudge into her path. Or, of course, when the world cheats and hides in the dishwasher the cups that A-She would have selected were they available.

Anyway, now she pays close, superstitious attention to her choice - honestly trying not to double-guess the movement of the hand that hovers before the multihued array. It became a sort of a personal daily horoscope: "Today you will feel on top of the world. Use this opportunity to do some long-delayed, unpleasant chore," or "This Monday, your inner child will need attention. Bake and eat a dozen cookies."

But, thinks A-She, if the cups are to be really useful, she needs more of them. Where is a dark red and gold one, for a mature seductress' kind of day, or an foam-green and barely there pink for a romantically hip time, or a navy, orange and purple for a couture moment? Many, many more cups are needed. Having now a long range purpose, and one as unattainable as she wants it to be, A-She suddenly selects a turquoise, emerald-green and citrine-yellow cup. Life is rich - in cups, knowledge and opportunities for self-ridiculing.