The Heart by Sasha Shudryk

- I’m tired of doing this, Axio-dear, -

seems like old Schreiber started riding his hobby-horse again. Hunched over, broken, with tousled hair and sweat instead of epaulettes. Pity was the only thing he invoked in Axio. This pity was Eke a pill of walrus fat for Axio. "And why am I always caring about him?" - he exasperated to himself. Silence. Axio taps his foot nervously. The fat pill is still halfway in his throat, neither sEpping in nor going back. It seems his heart is already outraged by the stench of this fat and turned his blood that flowed in him so lightly just a moment ago into a viscous ink. How else could he explain a sudden darkness in his eyes? Axio took a deep breath, and then exhaled sharply, swallowed the damn pill. Was there єл еї' an option? After all Schreiber is his friend. Probably...

- Your suggestions?

- I don’t know. We’ve never tried it, but...

- Oh-h, no, never, Schneider! I shall repeat it again: your idea is STOOPID!

- Please, Axio! No one tried it.

- Because it is a direct way to being thrown into waste!

- You think so? But what about environmental protection? They talk about it so often.

- You're not a plastic straw, Schreiber. You are a human. And, fortunately for this universe, there has never been a case when a turtle tried to eat a man and chocked on him!

A pause! Schneider is desperately trying to grasp the meaning of Axio’s words. After all, it is very important to be knowledgeable of all the world trends. So he was anxious to make it clear if he should conclude that their world is a place where turtles never eat humans, or ... if he should lean to another, more dreadful conclusion.

-А-and yet, there’s plenty [of cases] when people were disposed of in wastes.

- Well, there you go, - Axio exclaimed. Schreiber's ‘sudden’ insight made the blood rush to Axio’s head, an energy impulse made it hardly resistible for Axio to dig this old lamenting pancake with his boot. Yet he refrained, and decided to scrutinize the night-clad walls to build up his own tranquility. He started spinning around slowly, eyehig every bulge and curve of the workshop walls.

Old Schreiber, upon raising his head and witnessing that his friend is about to lose Ins own one, oh, that caring old Schreiber carefully took hold of Axio’s silvery uniform and pulled him down to the boulder he’d been sitting on. Axio continued as if there was no pause: - So stay quiet, and before you know it, they will give you a fine apartment as well.

Oh, I need no room, Axio-dear. This place is comfortable too.

Giaze your lies elsewhere. We, draftsmen, can say that. Our apartments have glass ceilings and soft pillows after all.

- As for me, the roof only makes it worse. Pardon me if I create some kind of phobia in you, but.. - Schreiber suddenly found a couple of pebbles on the ground. Axio, following the tilt of his head, noticed them too. “Sure, this is the best time to look for stones. Do you want me to get burdened with some nightmares here, and play with pebbles as for yourself? Oh, Schneider".

Schneider coughed gently, clearing his throat, while his hand was busy picking up the third stone, shaking off the fresh slate dust. “Oh, Axio, you never value life. This stuff is always pouring out of your sleeves. But there is nowhere to address this issue of our work, except here...”

- But isn't it safer without a roof, Axio-dear? - Schreiber dropped one pebble, and it gently buried itself into the polyethylene.

- What if one day a strong blow hits your house? Won’t your roof... crack? - another stone lost its support and flew down. - And then it falls upon you, and oh it’s unpleasant. It might even hurt. And think of the pillows, oh ...

- Siu e, I'd be really sorry for the torn pillows, - Axio growled. He wrested the third stone out of the old man’s hand, swiveled to the light of a distant lamp, and began examining the surfaces of the pebble.

- That’s why I don’t want the roof.

- Do you think I wanted it?.. Do you remember Zibi? And Herlitz?! - Schreiber saw the shadow of Axio shiver, then it put the shadow of the stone to its forehead.

- He had a kind and slim...

- No, it was the first Zibi. He had the wife. And daughter and a mother-in-law... He also had that goofy blue uniform.

- Oh yes, and the glass ... it was blue too. - Axio turned back to Schreiber, looking into liis eyes, which the old man immediately tried to hide, hunching evermore. Axio’s hand was still holding the stone, tightly hugging it and twisting it along random axis until all the slate dirt peeled off and either fell down or got grinded to powder and remained as a zinc coating on liis palm. Axio chuckled, forcing the smile to appear on his face. Wide, but weak as veil. It wouldn't stay there a second, but Axio needed that smile, and it glazed over and hung there. And no thunderstorm would break this glaze. Schreiber smiled bitterly and neurotically fiddled his chin. He didn’t need a smile at all, but it wouldn’t come off. - That was a pity. A very bitter accident, wasn’t it?

Having lost all hope for defeating the smile, he kneeled on the ground and laid his head on the boulder, hiding it under a fence of arms from the light of a distant lamp, from the eyes.

- Do you think our blood is really black? - asked Axio.

- What's the difference? Does it matter? It flows out - Schreiber's voice trembled, and both of them suddenly felt even funnier, with their torsos shaking with mute chuckle because of Schreiber’s voice. - and so does the life.

Axio laughed like a hedgehog, rapidly exhaling through the nose. Schreiber did not hide from Axio. He was hiding only from his eyes. And from the eye-hurting light. But when he heard another laughter, he grew bolder and unburied his head, stretched his hands to Axio’s forehead, and tried to erase the slate stains.

- Well, you still have a chance, - Axio patted him on the shoulder with his hand with a stone. Then, having noticed its presence, he flung it into the dark as far as possible.

- Oh yeah. The owner may feel sorry for me. I guess he will just buy a few new rods, and leave me in charge of them ... Oh, and don’t you grieve, Axio-dear! - his voice faltered slightly, as he saw how black Axio’s hands were because of the pebble. Lead, stile, ink permeate everything here: Every room, every pebble at this factory of elaborate patterns, silly curves and useless blueprints that never came to fruition anyway. - You’ve got plenty of rods in stock, don’t you?

- Oh, there are three rods, - said Axio, managing to keep the lie-fleeing eyes when they’d just moved a couple of millimeters aside.

- A-ah! You see! And they don't use your sendee that often anyway. There’s plenty of time!

- Yes. There is, Schreiber, - Axio got up from the boulder and, insistently removing his friend's hands off himself, began straightening liis silver suit, proudly raising his head. There was but one rod in liis stock. And due to the fact that the leadership was often altered, from a diligent and accurate master to some kind of hack, who, judging by his intellect, should have still been fighting for a diploma at kindergarten, that last rod could end any day.

Schreiber sat down, leaning his elbow on the very edge of the boulder so that he could watch the profile of the young aspiring draftsman. As far as, of course, the damned distant eye-scorching lamp would allow that.

- Do you think they will ever change the lamp here? Or at least start turn it off after the work shift?

- Thaaat I doubt. Not until the light bulb bums out. For the record, - Axio, straightening the last button at the neck, raised his finger and slightly turned to the old man. - The boss himself suffers just as we do. But the order that the lamp stays on comes from even higher authorities.

- This leads to yet another... - but then Schreiber laughed. His elbow slid off because of the laughter, and he fell down with dull squeal, and for a while - vanished in the darkness entirely. The silence sunk so deeply that it really seemed that there had never been any Schreiber, ever. And Axio, til ed of his work shift, could hardly hold his consciousness by the bridle so as not to believe in such a stupid, but... but also such quite possible and realistic nonsense. Just a second ago, Schreiber laughed. And yet another second passes - and he never existed at all. And no, there was no blood on the stones left of him, no terrible bones, no uniform, no bashful eyes and the ever hunched back of that old loser whose appearance and pessimism constantly forced Axio to swallow the walrus oil pills. But, dear gods! An obnoxious laughter came from the abyss beneath the rock. And the reality returned, not having dared to leave entirely. Axio shaped his mouth in an arch and rolled his eyes as the plastic laughter subsided.

- Do you know, Schreiber, how the second Zibi described your laughter? - Axio began this phrase seriously, even with some disgust, as if a second pill of fat was being thrusted into his throat. After all, the laughter was truly no good.

- How?

- After the first time he heard it and we strolled back to our homes, he said: 'By God, Axio, I can no longer work there. Schreiber's laugh is as infectious as cirrhosis of the liver! " - And here Axio also laughed. And Schreiber, albeit slightly offended by such a subtle teasing from the deceased, also burst into his sincere, nonetheless terribly disgusting, laugh. "After all, men don’t get offended for the truth, and cannot change their nature" - a thought flowed through liis mind like a balm, tightly closing an ineradicable ulcer inside its depths.

It would ... he said ... - continued Axio through the writhing of laughter that twisted his entire figure in a silver suit into a small moon snail, - It would make a walrus want to hang itself, with a determination excessive to succeed."

- Oh! - Schreiber howled, evidently with laughter, to such an extent that his lungs began to crunch. And they went on rolling in laughter for a long time. Because of the words spoken by the dead man, because of the very laughter, because of the stupid lamp that cut their eyes, because of the last rod that could end any day, the stupid slippery boulder stone, the lead stains on both of them, the black, black stains...

- Heh ... Okay, that's it. What did you want to say? .. It was you, wasn’t it?

- Hmm... - Schreiber looked down at the ground. Both of them looked into the abyss and seemed to recall the course of a game of cards. - Whose turn is it?

- It was yours.

Schreiber's gaze caught the blinding light of the lamp and he tracked back the thought: - Ah, it’s strange. The lantern hurt the eyes every day, it’s of no use, but unjustified harm - after all, the workshop could have been transferred to brighter area. And so - we’re stuck here as if to make the lamp’s existence somewhat justifiable. Besides, if something is wrong with the workers, they are cut down. But for the lamp - they just change the bulb. Where is this intelligence when they need it so much? Where is the frugality and care for environment?

- All of these are dead words, - Axio brushed off the air. - Don’t let it get to your head, or you won't be able to comb your hair without pain. Let’s talk tomorrow, my friend...

He leaned to shake Schreiber’s hand, but he waved him off and only waved the hand and winked.

"Really so offended by Zibi’s words?" - thought Axio. “Or is it because of all the memories about the dead? Well.. it’s probably better not to disturb you like that anymore, not until you get stronger, and tomorrow I’ll shake out more of your blues.”

He glanced at the yawning Schreiber for the last time before closing the door, and finally began the descend down an iron staircase that was playfully springy as always, urging Axio to make small jumps at each step, increasing the amplitude of its soft swings more and more.

- Farewell, Axio-dear, - Schreiber said with a terrible smile when he was finally alone. But his voice, though hoarse, was as lively and strong as never before. A cough escaped from his crackling chest. He tried to get up, leaning his right hand on the ill-natured boulder, but its sides were all inky, and the hand of the old man slipped and all he got were black drops that poured over his face.

-To hell with all of this. Darkness is better than eye-scorching lamp, - Schreiber croaked. However, he still wanted to get from under the stone. For some reason, the option of being found on the slope brought him ten or.

- What's the difference, what's the difference ... - but no matter how much the voice persuaded, the heart screamed of the opposite, spitting the remnants of black blood. His hands dropped to his chest and began to grope for terrible sharp cracks in the transparent case. Maybe ... maybe it's not that bad? Maybe he can still be used if he’s just handled in a certain way? But as liis thoughts were spiraling for comfort, liis hand stumbled upon a two-centimeter gap with no plastic at all. And in the mind of Schreiber who met such a stupid demise, an image of the former Draftsman emerged, or as the meat people called them with devaluation, a compass Zibi. The broken blue apartment. The ceiling shrapnel pierced everyone inside. And Zibi, two-faced in his stupidity, and his lanky wife Rulyara, who was always cramped in their bluish case and

And then Schreiber and Schreiber's heart screamed as one. And the beat of the chilling heart spewed out the last clot of ink, sea Eng then* unvoiced thought.