Casino [short story]

The curtains flew open and two people entered the hall. The last ones. There will be no one else.

The hall was quite small. Subdued, and rather dim light, dark walls. A gambling table in the center. Not everyone got into this hall. Few knew about it. Of these few, only some knew how to find it. And of this small part, even fewer had at least some interest or desire to get there. Therefore, for the most part, the mystery was not due to the fact that not everyone would be allowed there, but because there never was a stream of people willing to get in.

The location of the hall was as from some cliché-rich movie. You should get lost in the middle of tangled narrow streets, accidentally get on one less sightly, but certainly fraught with something, walk to a certain building, go into the courtyard, see a door visually not suitable to the surroundings, open it, enter some bar or casino, walk confidently to its farther corner, where the curtain will be, through which you will get inside.

There were five chairs round the table. The last two who entered took their places. They went in together, but, as it turned out, were not even familiar with each other.

“Good evening. Let's get started,” said the man sitting in the center of the table and, apparently, playing the role of the dealer. “Before we begin, you must present your gifts.”

The other four people began to take things out of their pockets and bags and put them on the table. Each person had to give one item. But special, of value. They laid down on the table: an old photograph with a torn edge, some book, car keys, and an urn with ashes. The dealer looked around these gifts, a couple of times, looking at them, thought for a while, once smiled slightly, and then, after replacing all of them from the table onto the low cabinet behind him, said:

“Well. Let's move on. Here is a roulette wheel. As you can see, it is not an ordinary one with numbers. This one has just empty pockets. However, each of them has a meaning. I am entrusted with the knowledge of these meanings. Each of you spins the roulette wheel once, after which I say the meaning.”

“But how do we know that what you say is actually the correct meaning?”

The dealer looked at the questioner with a face impassive, glared at him, and simply said:

“Everyone ready to play?”

Silence was in the hall. The one that meant consent. Consent, which companions are fear, uncertainty, indecision, awe.

The first person to spin the roulette wheel was the one who gave the car keys. When it stopped and the ball fell into one of the empty pockets, the dealer turned and said:

“Stand up and hit the person who brought the photo. And you…” he turned to the one who brought the photo: “you must not allow this person to hit you.”

“But I haven’t yet…” the person with the photograph began to object, but the first player had already got up from the chair and was heading towards. Then he jumped up and ran to the side. The owner of the keys did not stop. From his appearance, from his gait, it was clear that no verbal convictions, appeals to morality would stop him. And then the chase began. They first ran around the hall, around the table, and then ran out of the hall together and never ran inside again. The chase continued somewhere outside.

Having waited a couple of minutes, so that even the ringing in the ears would die down after this excessive activity, the dealer gave a sign to the person who brought the book - now it's his turn.

He spun the roulette, the ball again hit one of the many empty pockets. The dealer paused to think (it was his special attitude - he made pauses in almost every action, consciously or not - maybe it was assumed that this would make more sense of what he was doing or saying), took the car keys, which the first player brought and gave to the one who was now spinning the roulette without a word. He took the keys and remained at the table.

The turn of the last player has come. All the same. Roulette. Ball. Empty pocket. And almost instant words of the dealer:

“Go away.”

And the last player got up and left. Only the dealer and the one who got the keys remained in the hall. He continued to hold them in a slightly outstretched hand, as if not fully accepting them. Then he just threw them on the table saying:

“I don’t need them.”

“Well ...” the dealer put them back on the cabinet. “How is it outside? Still only a few of those who are interested?”

“Perhaps yes, the same.”

“Do you know the interested ones yourself?”

“No, none in my network.”

“Would you like to work as a dealer?”

“To be honest, I have no desire.”

The dealer sagely nodded his head. The question that he had long ceased to ask seriously. From time to time, he suddenly asked someone, when the conversation was going well, but usually it was like that, automatically, without expecting a positive answer. And, at times he wondered, if suddenly someday someone would say “yes”, then most likely the joy of liberation would be immediately followed by sadness - after all, who else but him knows how to do this business! It is unlikely that he would be able to leave it...

Emerging from the abyss of his thoughts, the dealer saw the last player pulling the curtains and leaving the hall.

One Long Moment [short story]

Fingers slowly tapped on the table. Their rhythm told of some kind of independence: as if they did not belong to anyone, as if there was no think tank behind them, which would control them and give them commands - “tap steadily, now faster, and now just stop and make neat movements along the table surface".

Hardly that! There was decisiveness in their every movement, the will was manifested: the pads of the fingers alternately went down and up, the surface of the skin caught in a split second the warmth and roughness of the wood and, between touches, oxygen penetrating into the pores.

The intensification of all these sensations was facilitated by moisture - small droplets of perspiration on the skin of all the same fingers. The day was not too hot, but steaming. And you would like that someone, while you are at the table, would come up to you and douse you with cool water from a basin, and so that you keep sitting, in your clothes, and by inertia you continue drumming with your fingers for a couple of moments. And then it’s as if it dawned on you, so that this cool water just by this unexpectedness would wash away all this alien heat, all this unnaturalness from you, and so that the palms calmly, fully spread over the surface of the table, would move from edge to edge, without fear of getting splinters, they would feel the edges and legs. So that the fingers themselves could feel the play of light and shadow, which so poetically paint pictures on wood.

Closing your eyes, you are chilled, because, although it’s hot, you’re soaked. Water flows down your hands onto the boards - you raise your palms, and stains remain. Gradually, soon they will dry out: evaporate or be absorbed. But first, they will run water over you, wash you.

The Third Water [short story]

“How to say... Water is everywhere here. You can swim... No, not swim. Rather float, as if you soar. The water will chill you instantly, but will not let you get overcooled. It has this kind of a wonderful characteristic. You’re like becoming cold-blooded. And the waves from the wind will hammer you to the granite, which grows vertically upwards. Maybe you drift a little with the current, and then you will return back with the counter drift,” he spoke slightly confusedly and very dreamily. Now he even quieted down, as if continued to speak, but to himself. They were at the place where the embankment adjoined the bridge, and looked at the water, which could be painted with only black paint.

“What else?” she calmly let him finish his internal dialog with himself and only then asked her question. “Where else the water is?”

“It also falls from the sky. And all this is also surprising. Because it seems there is not that much of it descending from heaven, but it fills everything evenly. It saturates the air, it penetrates the lungs. It unites with that river water. It was a cloud, and then became a river. These drops are unexpected here. Every year it is the same, but they still take you by surprise. And, given that this is nature, the truth, it would be great to learn to react to these surprises with a smile... Do you like rain?"

They walked across the bridge, trying to bypass the puddles and then stepping directly into the water. They walked without umbrellas. A fine drizzling rain left drops on their faces, and then the wind blew them down.

“You know...” she answered. “The rain is beautiful. And it is here for a reason. So it should be so. Imagine there were no rain at all on this planet. Then there would be no life.”

He listened to her, thinking over every word. They were simple. They were just words. But through them, beauty was revealed. The rain, meanwhile, intensified and now, without waiting for the wind, flowed right down their faces and hands, uniting with puddles, overflowing them, spilling down from the bridge into the river.

“And by the way,” she continued, “I know what other water is. Water inside. In every person. Everyone is filled with it. It flows from the fingers to the heart, it can flow out of the eyes and into the mouth. It is deep. And it revives. It brings purification. Just let it spill. And do not darken it, do not mix it with anything. Let it be. Let it act. I see this water."

“Yes, you’re probably right,” he looked into her eyes and saw the river and rain in them.

They reached the end of the bridge, turned onto the embankment, stopped, and looked at the bank from which they came. The water soaked them from tops to toes. They felt how the water inside was merging with the water around.