Прохор Озорнин - On the Wings of Hope - Prose

Some soul would probably tell us, that a single year – it isn’t quite a term, and there is no reason to dive into hysteric and confuse our noble readers here, – but that depends on how to measure. If to measure this term in seconds, which precisely like a herd of lambs come one after another in a never-ending chain – one can easily turn into a sheep himself. And if to measure in events of his life –one will certainly cry and there will be no more wish for counting. The ideal option would be to measure in years – but what’s there is to measure then? So Tommy had either to howl to the moon like a wolf, or to the dog like a kitten or to go at once and register without a second thought in a club of anonymous losers. There was still, however, one other option to become a family of totally and irreversibly enlightened people – but financial opportunities of Tommy’s family didn’t allow them to place such a great number of lighting fixtures in their house. Therefore, his family hasn’t conducted calculations of own misfortunes for a long time, for it’s an expensive procedure – to measure own sorrows, especially when you are swimming in low waters.

And for the last three months, everything was on the decline, though absolutely not forever. Salary at the enterprise, where Tommy has been working, was constantly delayed, and all its workers were in literal and figurative terms fed with breakfasts. In literal – because he as an employee of a dairy factory was subject to be supplied with milk and its derivatives, and in figurative – because terms of final payments were as changeable and unsteady as women of easy virtue – even uneasy ones – never happen to be. Mainly for that particular reason, he felt more and more like a small sprat in a bank – that particular bank when he, having trusted colorful words of marketing specialists a few years ago, has issued a mortgage.

A typical story, you will tell us? Typical, but not typically. Not typically from the word “absolutely”. Because in that significant day something absolutely out of order of his previous accidents happened to him.

***

During that Saturday morning Tommy couldn’t find any peace in at least two meanings: firstly, because bank workers were already going to literally throw them away in the upcoming future from their cozy dwelling due to failure to pay the credit; and secondly, because not cats were scraping his soul, but impudent mice instead, who have bred in fair quantity due to cats constant fatigue.

“What for? What for, Lord, have you given us all these trials? Don’t you see how hard our life is? Even though we live in the most beautiful and democratic country of the world, bank clerks don’t become better, housing doesn’t get cheaper and milk doesn’t form rivers with a land of milk and honey,” so Tommy Whistler mentally lamented, walking to and fro in his bedroom since early morning.

Here we have to mention, that our dear Tommy wasn’t quite a believer at all – in the sense that he, unlike a lot of other proud of themselves and respectable citizens of his small town, hasn’t spent Sunday hour in a local church, listening to ardent speeches of holy priests, fattened by parishioners. But so hard life has jammed all organs of Tommy by this moment, his heart included, and limits of his powers turned out to be so limited, that both his soul and thoughts were aspiring somewhere to limitless heights in a hope to share own grief with someone unknown, someone so much bigger than all his sorrows taken together.

“So where do you lead us, aye?” he continued in the meantime to mentally address to some unknown and far-reaching distances. “Have you abandoned all of us a long time ago? Maybe you even relaxing now somewhere up there on a cloudlet while we down here in earth dirt are trying to build our lives as we can. Phuh, perfect one! Good for you there, comfortably! I would like to be in your shoes – lie idle, do nothing in general, just help somebody from time to time so they don’t forget about you at all. Not even a life, but a fairy tale!”

So, winding himself more and more and quickening more and more own rhythmic pace, Tommy wandered about his own bedroom. Movements of his legs were becoming wider and movements of his hands steeper, so the soil under his legs was figuratively more and more crumbling under his feet. In a literal sense, it crumbled when a sudden ringing of a not-so-really-his home’s doorbell distracted him from these strange thoughts. Tommy faltered from unexpectedness and fell down on a floor. He would have lain like so, with a downed interface, for several more minutes, if that persistent guest didn’t continue to press the bell’s button time and again, thus producing a familiar, yet somewhat banal, “Dzin!” sound.

“Whom, lung as on mention, did the hard life brought again?” Tommy was thinking to himself while hastily putting on his business suite. “Maybe it’s neighbors who have again come to agitate me to come for a Sunday prayer? And what if this is the bank worker together with a bailiff this time? No rest from foul vampires!”

“Greetings!” with a smile in response to a gloomy and distrustful Tommy’s look answered the young man in a white suit with a red bow tie. “Is this the place where mister Tommy Whistler lives with his venerable wife Valencia?”

“Perhaps,” Tommy answered gloomily. “And who might you be?”

“Oh, so that’s you, Tommy? Fantastic day! It means that I was correctly directed to a required address. I was afraid that estimators will mix up something again – they, you know, don’t have your all-seeing GPS, – and the way to this world and place was, trust me, a far one.”

“I see nothing wonderful in this accursed day!” this strange mister began to irritate Tommy more and more.

“I am not here by accident, I assure you!” smiled again, replied this unusual guest. “My name is… well, it’s really unimportant of how you would like to call me afterward. You can call me simply as Agent. I am honored to represent our fine company LLC ‘Center of Desires Fulfillment’. Quite recently we received your inquiry, performed necessary preliminary inspections and came to a conclusion, that we can aid you in fulfillment of your desires. Congratulations, your candidacy suits us!”

“If you are from a local church, then I am not going there,” Tommy replied harshly. “I am a non-believer and don’t run business with strange folks in general.”

“Don’t worry, we are not a religious organization, we stand… how should I put it clearly… somewhat higher. Your last inquiry to our instance passed this designated religious structure and got straight to our processing center for incoming wishes. It’s only necessary to settle some small formalities, and everything will be just fine – you shall become our VIP client.”

“And what does it mean exactly – to be a VIP? What’s in it for me? If only you get something – a bonus for another handed off the flyer, or concluded by deception financial contract – then fuck off to… Iraq!” Tommy muttered.

“No deceptions, no Iraq, we are not in the UN!” smiled young representative of the mysterious organization. “And, by the way, their desires were fulfilled by our direct competitors who wear black suits as a rule. Only a few clarifying questions and a short induction, if you allow it.”

“Well, drag it on.”

“Fulfilling first dragging,” young man laughed the matter off. “You are Tommy Whistler, forty-two years old, your wife is Valencia, thirty-five years, you have a little daughter Mila of seven years and son Gregory of twelve years. Correctly?”

“Correctly. And where actually have you got such information? What, did the service of bailiffs leaked it to you?”

“Oh, not bailiffs at all, yet this has some distant relation to a court, you are right,” confirmed a young man, ticking off somewhere in the questionnaire. “Recently you have been experiencing emotionally hard and unstable conditions – or, in other words, a depression, which has relation to your financial hardship. Correctly?”