Morning on the Saltovskaya line

One of the terminals of the Saltovskaya line of the Kharkov metro is the “Historical Museum”. This is the city center. The other final one is “Heroes of Labor”. It was with her that the morning torment of the passenger crowd began. The lamps at the station hummed so pleasantly that they could create home comfort. If it weren’t for the uncomfortable sweaters and wet T-shirts underneath, if it weren’t for worries about the iron and burners, about tests, about an angry boss and hungry children, then yes, it would be cozy. If upon arrival at other stations there was no need to get off, it would be absolutely wonderful. But people then had to walk through the spiteful, fucking January frost, when the calendar showed only the end of September. At the far steps stood a frail, bespectacled student with «Click on» under his arm. The most ordinary-looking character that the directors would turn into a hero-savior and a boyfriend of a pretty girl. You've seen these a hundred times: in «Adit» it's Malyok, in «Chernobyl. Exclusion Zone» - Gosha, and in «The Cabin in the Woods» - Marty, who indulges in «rubbish». The student, in addition to glasses, had a mustache—teenage-sized, small, gray hairs above his lips. Such a mustache irritates many people. Not far away, with her feet together and warming her hands without gloves with hot breath, was a studentgirl in a blue cap. She didn’t repeat anything because she couldn’t stand the cold notebook cover. And she thanked her mother and the Lord — mostly her mother —for at least making her put on a hat. A homeless man was wandering somewhere nearby. Nobody drove him away. Basically, he didn't bother anyone... yet. A seller of all sorts of junk arrived there. A poor man who looks rich in one single, but cool suit. «The suit is blue. Blu-u-ue suit. And this is a blu-u-ue suit», was wanted to sing to the tune of «White Cocoa». Apparently, the beggar was also an alien. Because in such a fucking frost, a mere mortal from planet Earth cannot leave the house without a jacket. The board showed that the train had been gone for three minutes and five... six... seven seconds. The student in the blue cap looked into the tunnel for the third time. So, she thought, the train will arrive faster. And this time the witchcraft worked. The dim red light that escaped from the tunnel turned into two large headlights after a couple of seconds. The rumble filled the entire station and the train stopped. Exactly at seven zero five in the morning. The last carriage entered: a bespectacled student, a student in a blue cap, a beggar salesman, a homeless man and a large old woman. The main parts of her body were very, very large buttocks and two bags, slightly smaller than her butt. And the arms, legs, torso and head were attached to the old woman as an addition. Several «extras» came in with them, all wearing black jackets as if they were being selected. You would think that the men in black wanted to apprehend an «alien»—a salesman who wasn’t cold. (Moreover, at the beginning of the second part of the film, Jay worked in the subway). But the same color had a simple explanation: stylish, fashionable, youthful and at a good price-quality ratio, available on the «drum». (Market at the Akademika Barabashova station). The train started moving, and the student almost lost his mind, remembering how much English he needed to repeat. He wiped the purple bags under his eyes, adjusted his glasses, yawned and opened «Click on». He started repeating the theme «What a story!» “Rub-bi-ry,” the student whispered quietly. “Robbery. Ka crash inta i tri. The car crashed into a tree.” “Students want to sleep”, the studentgirl thought, looking at the guy and yawning herself. “Attention passengers”, the salesman suddenly shouted, “handles are two and fifty! Black. Blue. Reds. Simple pencils. Two hryvnia. Wet wipes. Four hryvnia. The latest handbook of traffic rules. Ten hryvnia”. A couple of «men in black» bought pens and napkins. The others «fell asleep» because the “alien” began obsessively shaking his wealth in front of everyone. It is sometimes more difficult to get rid of something like this than from a granny who wants to sit in a crowded carriage. In front of the student, apparently judging her by her appearance as naive and giving in to the sellers, the man twirled three different hands. Look, they say, what a purchase! It’s like flying to Paris for free or receiving all George Martin’s books as a gift. But nothing has changed. The student did not buy a pen. In general, she saw the junk trade like this: «Attention passengers! Red shorts of Mikhalych. Joke store turd. Sasha Gray boobs pics. Last year's buckwheat with excellent mold. Stuffed Chihuahua». Fortunately for the passengers, the salesman left the carriage at Studencheskaya. He went on to torture people. And a whole crowd of working people and students came in. Among them were two men arguing excitedly. Everyone turned around at their sublime syllable. — What the fuck?! — the first one yelled. The student in the blue hat shuddered. For some reason, such quarrels made her feel funny, although it was more scary. —Fuck it! – answered the second one. And then the first pushed the second. —Why the hell do you do that, faggot, whore? —Are you crazy?! At «Akademik Pavlov» the men spilled onto the platform with fists and strong pushes at each other. Everyone thought that these idiots would stay at the station, but the one who first asked: «The fuck?!» returned. His friend stayed. Everything was quiet, but then the man broke through and he started yelling at his grandpa, who was calmly leaning against the door with the sign: «Do not lean». „Granddad! You see...“, a stream of words began. Either about the skin, or about the scum. Granddad was quiet holy shit, because “he was very surprised” is an inaccurate word. On the «Akademik Barabashov» the cattle left the carriage. But passengers were in for a new blow. ... I remember not such a bad day at all. Natasha and I, laughing friends, were stuck on the topic of curly-haired people. We noticed them everywhere and laughed with our mouths covered. Now a man with dreadlocks will come in, now a dark-skinned boy, now a curly brown-haired man, now a curly-haired blond. How special! Then they noticed another tall, curly-haired man in an ironed suit... Wow! Yes, it's him! Or is it not him?.. Or is someone just very similar?.. All the way we were wondering whether Quarta was coming with us or not Quarta. Alexander Kvarta is a participant in «Ukraine’s Got Talent», who danced merrily and sang «Signorita, I’m in love!» — a driving, youthful, positive song of recognition. He performed in a yellow suit, so my grandmother called him «little yellow». When Natasha and I decided that yes, this is him, the artist went to «Akademik Barabashov› (he performed somewhere there, the advertisements said at one time). I stayed, and Natasha followed him. »I didn’t catch up with him. He ran so fast», she said the next day. Yes, it was fun. Not at all like the passengers on the last carriage that morning. The majority of people come to «Akademik Barabashov». And people go to the end or get off one stop before the final one. Therefore, the train, especially in the morning, resembles the Kama Sutra. Every day on the train they come up with new poses. Now they were like this: «Students in the first month of autumn», »A screaming child hugs a stranger’s leg», «A granny buzzing over a man», »A granny fluttering with bags»... And new ones were invented every second. As in the real Kama Sutra, there were dicks. Various colors (the color was dictated by the trousers) and sizes, they stuck out at the eye level of the embarrassed girls. Those had to get into the phone or look between two dicks at the advertisement. Some were overcome by curiosity, and completely unfazed, the girl looked from the cheap apartments on Sparrow Hills to the folds of the fabric of men’s trousers. In conclusion, to the similarities between the Kama Sutra and the metro, it is worth mentioning the eight different types of markings described in the book. Ooh, the morning metro is full of marks: from bags, from legs, from elbows. And there will be over eight of them. Especially when turning almost before and immediately after «Akademik Barabashov». At such moments, in order not to fall, the studentgirl recalled an American cartoon from the 2000s about four teenage friends; they often rode the waves. So she imagined herself as a surfer, trying to stay on the waves. And she held on. Now, fortunately, she was sitting. She wiped her sweaty forehead and decided to take off her blue cap for a while. There was a “house” on her head. Why not the house on those “Sparrow Hills” from the advertisement? It was as if the sparrows had flown in, then the pigeons were pecking, and after them the dump truck drove by. A studentgirl without a blue cap had a complex about her hair (or rather, the lack thereof), but people didn’t care what was wrong with the student. There are a lot of worries. And several citizens added to these same concerns. The homeless man in the confined space began to stink. At first, only the clothes stank. Then the homeless man's face turned red. The eyes almost popped out of their sockets. And right above the nose of the pleasantly perfumed madam, a drawn-out and loud: “Prr-r-r-r-r” was heard. If it had been: “Pu-u-uk,” the homeless person would have been understood, forgiven and accepted as family. But this “Prr-r-r-r-r” spoiled the mood, which was already not very good in the morning, the comfort, charm and perfume of the beautiful madam. Someone laughed, someone neighed, a granny with bags slightly smaller than her butt said: “Oh God!” (And what is he to blame for? He sits in his own heaven and is not responsible for the body of the homeless). Those who were in close proximity to the subject of no fixed abode ran away from him in all directions. A chain reaction began. The part of the carriage in which the homeless man's rear was revealed, the general council decided to disembark the homeless person. But she didn’t do this later. The other part did not understand what was happening at all. Except that everyone is pushing. “Don’t push me with your bag, please,” the boy asked granny. And she stands like stone. The guy doesn't know where to put his feet - will they be crushed by grandma`s eggs or whatever? Then he’ll get insolent and put a bag on you - then you’ll need to take care of your testicles. “Grandma, put away the bag“. She twitched, as if she had heard something unclear, waved it off and, as if on purpose, piled even more of the bag on the boy’s feet. He couldn't stand it. He touched the granny's pocket and said louder: “PLEASE GET THE BAG AWAY FROM MY FEET. “Yes, I hear you! Not deaf“. Bent over. Removed... On another guy's legs. Nearby (where exactly - it’s hard to say, because the creature is playful) was the creator of the pose “A screaming child hugs a stranger’s leg.” The stranger remained tactfully silent, and the child, one year and N months old, walked along the passengers. Children at this age do not distinguish between “mine” and “someone else’s”; they need to be taught. But they didn’t make any special comments to the child, they only called him by name twice, Christina, and didn’t explain anything. Christina began touching other people's bags, glasses, key chains, wallets, straps on bags... She, like a magpie, swooped down on everything that glittered, silvered and moved. Passengers began to be indignant. Only one girl was touched and even gave her her keychain. But for some reason the rest did not want to be touched and give anything. A face covered in foundation, pouty pink-pink lips and white hair extensions expressed the rich inner world of the young mother. Leopard-print leggings, on the one hand chewing between the buttocks, and on the other, digging into the front part in the tradition of the best porn films, showed how modest the “I`mamother” was. The man who was next to the homeless man, angry from the bad smell, caught Christina. He didn’t pick him up, he just stopped him and held him. ”Ahhh! Don't touch the child!", the young mother squealed. Everyone turned around at her terrible scream. ”Are you fucked up?” ”Gammer, watch your child. And behind your tongue”. “Look at what a boor!», the mother was indignant and literally tore her daughter out of the hands of no less than a pedophile. “Is it normal, tell me, to grab a child like that?“ “Lady, calm down,” one of the grandmothers said quietly. Because the man was as speechless. “I'mamother” really calmed down, but as she got off at the sparsely populated Kievskaya, she silently hissed angrily at the passengers. Before they announced: ”Oberezhno! Dvery zachinyayutsya. Nastupna stantsiya – Pushkinska” (“Be careful! The doors are being repaired. The station is “Pushkinska”), the passengers of the three carriages clearly heard the clicking of the heels of their mother’s rich boots. Everyone traveled to Pushkinskaya without incident. Only they were still breathing an explosion of farts and diligently pretended that they didn’t feel anything, which is why they had funny faces. The student moved his lips, momentarily stretching his mustache forward, and began to repeat the topic. To tell the truth, he had already repeated everything, now only English-related jokes came into his head. But the guy opposite, a student who was sure, was taking pictures of him. Therefore, the student did not remove “Click on” and thought: “Take a photo, like I’m smart.” And he felt something pleasant from the casual glance of a student without a blue cap. Pretending to read carefully, the student remembered his incorrect pronunciation. “Cycling” - how could cycling be read as “kickling” and not “cycling”?! What about “danger”? "Danher" instead of "danger". The student remembered that he had not translated the text and was trying to get out of it as best he could. Having seen the unfamiliar word “companies” in a topic about a telephone, he did not guess that these were “companies” (although it was simple!), but managed to say that these were telephone... POSTS. And the topic about Zodiac Signs? This mistake was made by a classmate. "Pisces" - Zodiac sign Phe called... "p i s c e s" (pussy). Everyone laughed! Twice, with a break for an attempt at seriousness. The third time, when Larisa Viktorovna wiped away a tear with a handkerchief and said with a playful reproach: “Horror,” a single giggle was heard. A tall, dark guy walked into Pushkinskaya with an android in his hands. Nothing foreshadowed trouble. Until it turned out that the guy has no idea about headphones! No, no, quartering, wheeling, torture with rats - the deep Middle Ages. In the era of high technology, torture with music is common! And on that gloomy morning, it was not Mozart and Beethoven that the sleep-deprived citizens enjoyed. “Well, how did this happen? I opened up like a flower. And you trampled on my confessions.” Perhaps not everyone in that carriage hated “pop”. Maybe some people enjoyed modern, domestic pop music. But not when she's screaming through the speakers! And there was nothing more painful than this pain... Without listening to Polyakova, the guy turned on the next track. “Tell me, mom, what I did wrong” - on these lines the passenger was already making comments. Some people just looked at him like he was an eccentric. Without waiting for the end, the guy also hurried to switch this track to another. “Thank God that Slava ([slava] = thank) is over,” thought the grandmother with eggs or whatever. The names of the singers were so well known that the granny began to distinguish them not only by their neckline, panties, hair colors and kokoshnik, but also by their names. “Lada Seda-a-an! — drum beat. - Egg-pla-ant. It was too much! Everyone dreamed of throwing the connoisseur of beauty “overboard” along with his phone. But then a miracle happened: both the long eyelashes and the black eyes that had destroyed the boy with their beauty—everything calmed down. As it turned out, the calm before the storm... “Pushkinska Station”! The guy turned off the music and didn’t bother anyone anymore. After a while they stopped paying attention to him. Moreover, a local star appeared on the “underground stage”. All these “Eggplants” are just downloaded recordings, no live sound. And the Actress without an Oscar—that’s what they’ve called her on the Internet for a long time—is all about talent, natural beauty, and vocal abilities. In addition, the ability to pass off bullshit as truth for more than ten years. The Oscar-less actress entered the carriage in her sexy black, yellow and green sweater, with hair the color of clay after the rain. And she began a new, sad, sad story. “Good people,” the Actress howled pitifully, “forgive me for contacting you... Once upon a time she looked like she was pregnant. Then she had a child, Down, and needed money for treatment. The actress did not specify whose treatment - perhaps her own, in a psychiatric clinic, but the soulless Kharkov residents misunderstood and not everyone opened their wallets in unison! The new legend was this: The actress was raising money for cancer treatment. Someone even joked: “Get cancer.” The actress “worked” for so long that on VKontakte they said: “It feels like my grandchildren will still find her.” Photos of the high-class beggar appeared so often that people joked: “Everyone is catching the Actress instead of Pokemon.” The story with the Actress lasted for years, and the episode could have ended with two good-natured suckers. If only the sounds of hell hadn’t started coming out of the Actress’s mouth, hoarse, with a hint of vocals. Oh, if only she didn't sing!.. Polyakova, Timothy, Slava, Zabiyaka from “Chile”, “Serebro”, good, bad and mediocre songs - I would gladly listen to all this instead of the Actress. Is this really her cunning move? To pay money, just to keep quiet. At the “University”, the Actress, caught in the camera frame of two smartphones, came out. Her well-fed, fleshy face, gloomy and cunning, only spread negativity. And then it became easier for people to breathe (they didn’t yet suspect the bonus of traveling), and besides, a lot of people came out to the “University”. Some headed to Skovoroda University, to Freedom Square, to Sumskaya Street, to Ivanov, Girshman, Mironositskaya, to Pravdy Avenue... Others changed to the Gosprom Alekseevskaya Line. Then the studentgirl came out with a blue cap in her bag. Not a single living soul paid attention to her disappearance, except for the bespectacled student. He visually remembered the shade of the blue cap, not knowing what it was called. (Smalt, or what?) I remembered the “house” on my head and the sweat on my forehead. I remember funny tights under wide trousers. Endless embarrassment. Awkwardness. Mind... The way she strained her forehead, they don’t strain from simple discomfort and minor problems. When the doors closed and the train left for the final station, the student became sad. And how hard it turned out to be for the other passengers a minute later! Do you think the whole story is just banter? No matter how it is! This is a very vital work, executed according to the laws of literature. Here is at least one of them: “If in the first act of the play there is a gun hanging on the wall, then in the last act it must certainly fire.” From the very beginning, from the very “Heroes of Labor” - consider the first act - there was a homeless person riding in the last carriage. His body had already failed once, and it could be equated to a warning shot. Now the “gun” has truly “shot”. The already stale air was filled with a caustic stream of a second, more powerful: “Prrrrr... Kwa.” The homeless man blushed with shame and discomfort caused by “Kwa”. Everyone who was nearby jumped up and went to the door, moved away, rushed into the crowd, now not so crowded and without "I'mamother". This time the homeless man didn’t just fart. He naturally, well, CRAPED like that (only capslock and nothing else). And this was worse than the “yazhmother”, a connoisseur of musical art, a swearing redneck, and an actress without an Oscar combined. Terribly smelly and disgusting. —Whose nonsense? — someone laughed. “Ho-orror,” one grandmother said, started coughing and took out an inhaler. "Damn". "Fuck". "Fucked up". Highly intellectual words were heard from everywhere. The embarrassed part of the passengers only whispered, although the unlucky homeless man released something cooler than a “whisperer”. The minute of waiting for the “Historical Museum” lasted forever. And when the train arrived at the terminus, the passengers rushed out of the last carriage first. Someone gave the homeless man three hryvnias and said that there was a toilet here, at the transition to Constitution Square (formerly Sovetskaya Square). After all, we have kind and understanding people. When they no longer had to wrinkle their noses, the guys from one company began to joke: “Historical Museum” lives up to its name. You feel? This is the smell of history!" "Simply retro!" "We have experienced a historical moment". "That's it. Miraculously, they survived". The student was one of the last to leave. Behind him is a homeless person. Both walked in the same direction, only the homeless man remained in the toilet, and the student moved to Sovetskaya - he still called the station in the old way. It smelled so good in the metro itself! Without the homeless man's pants, without that carriage... The student's thoughts turned to the studentgirl in the blue cap... It's a pity that he won't see her again...

***

The next day, the bespectacled student decided to write to the group “I’m looking for you. Metro Kharkov" such a post: “On September 23 at 7:05 we were traveling together in the last carriage. You were wearing a blue cap, which you later took off. And I thought a lot about something.” He wanted to finish writing about the Actress and the homeless man, but changed his mind. The girl was not a member of the group and did not read the post. But under the post they managed to make jokes in the style of: “The bespectacled guy pissed” and “She won’t let you.” The students met anyway. (I told you, directors make cool guys out of passive bespectacled people/outcasts/freaks and give them meetings with the fair sex. Why can’t a “peace-maker” do this?) And this is how the piano in the thicket is explained. It turns out that the guys studied at the same pedagogical academy in the same specialty - primary school teacher. Only the student was in her third year of budget studies, and the student was a contract worker in his second. They got off at different stations, because the student changed at the “University” and got to “Ploshchad Vosstaniya”, and the student changed at the “Historical Museum” and went to “Gagarin Avenue”. From different directions they reached the same educational institution - KHPA. A student accidentally noticed a fellow traveler from the metro on the third floor in front of the office of Galina Nikolaevna, one of the English teachers. He was lucky not to blush in front of her classmates: the girls had not yet approached. The student did not immediately remember her neighbor on the carriage bench, and then laughed. Her boisterous laughter could not help but put a full stop (or a comma, depending on how you think about it) in the student’s feelings. "What’s your name?" "Katya". "And I’m Lyosha". ...There were many more dialogues and meetings. This is how the train on the Saltovskaya line and the subway characters united the destinies of two people. Two Kharkov students.