The Rascally Romance (in a single helluva-long letter about a flicking-short life) - Сергей Николаевич Огольцов

Early in the morning, we went there from the high platform of the Nezhyn station – the team of 10 students from different groups and Zhomnir in his teacher’s raincoat and dark blue beret, gripping his briefcase with cave-in sides.

(…everyone dresses to fit their role model.

Beret, raincoat, briefcase – read "teacher". Can you imagine a plumber in such an outfit?. That's what I mean…)

Before the practice, my mother sewed me a jacket. It looked like a geologist anti-encephalitis jacket but from a thicker tarpaulin of green color. I liked it, especially the color of so a Robin-Hoodish hue…

The most vivid impression from the practice was left by the football match between the sugar factory team and that from the locomotive depot of the Fastov station. The game in the championship for the Cup of the Trade-Union Committee of the South-Western Railway took place on the school football field. I went out of the school building for a break between the classes and got stuck.

It was a warm and sunny September day. On the green grass of the field, some 20 men were chasing a single ball, and a separate mujik ran in their wake and whistled with shrill trills. The crowds of fans were represented by, firstly, a grim man in black overalls and, secondly, me. I start the count with him because he was the first to stand by the field edge, and he was a more intent watcher – it took me a while to go under the trees behind one of the goals for to stuff a joint. On coming back, I left a respectful distance between me and the other fan not to tease his sense of smell with vain hopes or odd reminiscences. I just stood in the sun and enjoyed the championship match.

A sharp sting in the neck threw me from high. I recoiled, slapped the wasp, looked back and saw Igor Recoon sneaking up from behind with a guileful grin.

I hid neither the joint nor the smoke, "Igor, when you have any questions come up openly and speak easy."

He effaced the smile and said, no, he was just so, and then hurried to the school where sounded the long bell for classes.

A young errand-boy arrived on his bicycle with a bag-load of doping for the local bozos in the field. They jogged, and gulped, and passed the bottles to each other to furiously rush to attack.

The right halfback of the visiting team passed the ball to the central forward, who went to the corner of the penalty and with a slight but accurate blow rolled the ball into the bottom left corner of the goal. "Goal!" shouted the striker together with the rest of his team.

"No!" roared the local slobs.

Jogging back to his half of the field, the striker came across a wall of 3 locals. "No goal!" they howled at him.

"As if I argue," answered he bypassing their line, unable though to suppress his contented smile.

There was no way to prove anything because the goal had not any mesh and the referee at the goal moment was looking up in the sky together with the bottom of the bottle handed to him by a local footballer.

I approached the first half of the match-watchers, and put a direct question, "So, was it a goal or what?"

The mujik in overalls surly nodded. I rejoiced that the truth, even though mutely, was still present in this world, at least among the working class.

The match for the Cup of Trade-Union of the South-Western Railway ended in a draw, 0:0…

Zhomnir warned that as Head of the Practice, he couldn't put me more than "three" for the chronic absence of lesson plans written by me though they were the must. And I couldn't force myself to at least copy those f-f..er..I mean, fanciful plans from Igor because I was physically unable lining dolls in a row on the piano lid.

I asked Zhomnir not to worry and put whatever mark he could. I really did not give a f-f..er.. I found it meaningless, I mean… When on the third floor of the Old Building the fourth-year students' practice results were fixed next to the Time-Table, I was the one and only having "three". Zhomnir alarmed and started to convince Deaness of the English Department that it was wrong, and he could not have imagined I was so unique. She impregnably advised to look before jumping.

The current Deaness always tried to have the looks of Alice Freindlich from "The Office Affair" movie, only that no Myagkov turned up for her, and she stayed a flinty bureaucrat. Yet, in her cupboard, she kept the skeleton of her divorce on the grounds of sexual incompatibility, because the girls from the English Department did not leak unverified information.

Okay, enough is enough, that'll do for the strangers of all kinds…and now enters…you!.

~ ~ ~

Your personal conception took place on the fourth floor in the Hosty. That particular date Eera arranged herself since it was a room of Phys-Math girls and among the students of the Physics and Math Department I knew only that pair of cooks from the student construction platoon, but they lived in the city.

Shortly before the event, I once again fell in love with Eera but, at first, I did put the end to my polygamy. And could it be otherwise? To Eera alone I owed that salvage shot from gonorrhea.

So, on arrival in Nezhyn for the final academic year, I became straight and reasonable. And I dryly informed Sveta of my reformation when she attempted at the former familiarity. We became just a nodding acquaintance and vague recollection to each other.

And I also returned Maria the book borrowed from her several months ago. Though, I chose a late hour for nullifying that bifurcation.

She opened her door to the staircase landing, in the unbuttoned robe over her nightie. If we assume the possibility of time shifts, then at that moment