Extraversion Of Death

Illustration: https://sun9-57.userapi.com/impf/ek0LCM1y1BOFtOxMzg3VeEG8f-Isz9MZ14tFCQ/535uN6zr7pE.jpg?size=2196x1808&quality=95&sign=46c2288f006b8a30b5a52cb58128567b&type=album *** Immanuel Kant said: “If you punish a child for evil and reward him for good, then he will do good for the sake of profit.” Nonsense. For, in this case, any conditional action of a child with a plus sign will be devalued. Brought up this way, he will get lost in this world. A person should feel the return from an early age in order to know his worth and not to work idly © Marianne *** My mother, as I noticed, was constantly running around the house with Andre, hastily collecting some documents… I didn’t want to go into details — I thought they were dealing with the remains of the business. In general, I could feel their pride in me — they were both delighted with my appointment as headman, but it brought me more and more suffering. Almost every day, I hid the guys and Lottie’s skipping classes, knowing that there was no other way to get into their company. I didn’t understand Ryan’s relationship with that bitch, and I was just bursting with irritation! If they are together because of the ratings, as his father wants, then he is playing too naturally… too plausibly involved in the role. Because he let her whisper in his ear, touch his neck with her hands, especially in front of Theo. Ryan immediately started flirting with her solely because he appeared in sight. After that, the three of them, of course, left. I had no desire to return to the studio, especially remembering every time about the competition, for which I did not do anything. My appearance on Friday should be the last, and I decided to take advantage of it. Hanging around and going out at home seemed like a lousy idea. There were an unusually large number of people in the audience… Half of them were older than us. They discussed the competition entries and Jeffrey’s concert, which I no longer dreamed of. Out of habit, I sat down at my desk and took out sketches to make prototypes of images for patterns. “Has your competition paper already been submitted?”, look at this, right on a sore subject! I turned to face the cheeky man who was standing behind me. He had a septum*, tousled brown hair, a tattoo on his neck in the form of a coiling snake and very light blue eyes, the look of which only irritated me now. “No”, I snapped, “I haven’t even started.” Looking at the crowd in the distance, it became obvious to me that I looked very detached and hostile, which is why I attracted his attention. “If I only knew what they said in the first two classes,” I relented, and pulled out the chair next to me, motioning to sit down, “I don’t know what to start from.” From the despair that had accumulated over the week, I began to spill everything to my new mysterious stranger: that there was an absolute emptiness in my head, as well as on the Internet about this singer; that no one I knew could even come close to helping with the idea. This guy, who seems to be a couple of years older than me, listened very attentively to everything I said. “Do you really want to go to his concert so much?” This question seemed absolutely idiotic to me, but the stranger was serious. “Of course, who doesn’t want to be here”, I pointed to the crowd discussing the drawings. “Have you listened to his music?” “Does a couple of tracks count?”, he shook his head, and I remembered that I didn’t like them — there was techno electronics with dubstep, and it blew my skull apart. “These are my favorite songs,” he gave me both of his headphones and turned on a playlist, maybe they will give you some ideas. The first notes of the synthesizer started playing; dubstep was added after that, but the whole composition turned out to be much calmer than those that I heard. After that, the next one was played, and then another. All this time, the guy was sitting next to me and looking at the sketches of dresses, and I did not protest. The tracks really stirred up my imagination — it seemed to me that the author was trying to get out of the stereotypes of society, jump out of them, and this can be depicted with the help of palm prints of neon colors… And there would be skulls lying under it. They would symbolize the victory over the age-old foundations. But it was still not enough. “Thank you”, I took off the headphones and handed them to him, “the image is close, but I can’t feel it. It’s a pity, I don’t even know what the performer looks like.” “None of them knows this, his music is popular on the Internet,” he nodded his head at the crowd, “but his appearance will be a surprise for everyone. However, I saw him.” I didn’t know that everyone was on equal terms — and I was so offended at myself, at the others! Andrey is right: I don’t represent anything special, because I couldn’t come up with anything anyway… “Really?”, I suddenly became interested in talking to him. “Yes, my mom worked with him”, he turned to me, crossing his legs and propping his face on his palm, “Jeffrey looks the same as his music sounds: white dreadlocks, nipple piercings, suspenders, tight leather pants, focusing on the penis…” This stranger was giving me all the insider information while the puzzle in my head was finally forming. “If you want to impress them,” he meant the commission, “then use these details.” I just got a fountain of concepts! I immediately rushed to pencil and paper in order to have time to sketch everything and not forget. “What’s your name?”, He stared straight at me while I was completely engrossed in my work— for the first time in days. “Marianne,” I didn’t look at him, “and you?” “Louis!”, a girl about the same age as him came up to us, “let’s go, we need to discuss something else.” He got up from his seat, ready to say goodbye to me, and I decided to ask: “Are you Lina’s brother?” Louis nodded affirmatively and followed the girl. No, this is not the Louis who pushes drugs, like Theo. I remembered that the girls were talking about a certain Louis in the locker room. No. Definitely not him. I was left completely alone to sit on the sidelines when Louis disappeared into the hallway. Absolutely dizzying ideas took hold of me like a whirlwind, so the rest of the time in the studio I sat at a competition paper: on a huge sheet, even larger than the table, I outlined in pencil the main proportions of the silhouette of a man, skulls under his feet, neon flashes, palms of hands; for a wristband, I also managed to sketch an idea — a motley pattern, alternating with metal inserts and neon stripes. And the inside is with the texture of snakeskin. I didn’t have time to evaluate the originality of the idea, I just wanted to give my best, especially knowing more about everyone around me. Yes… Louis inspired me. Gratitude from my heart was so eager to get out that I found a way out for it in drawing all night long — that’s why I didn’t even do homework. The whole weekend was spent on detailed drawing of the poster, painting it with gouache, and applying it on wristband paper with maximum imitation of suitable materials. I tearfully asked my mother not to bring Adele these days because of my busy schedule, but she was brought back and entrusted to me. My mother didn’t have time; they were still fussing with paperwork. However, I was serious about submitting the work for the competition, especially since I was allowed to deliver it on Monday, and everyone else’s deadline was on Friday. “Look”, I showed the dolls she asked me to make, “they are almost ready. But I’ll give them to you if you help me make an application.” So, Adele was interested in this job herself, and I almost completely give it to do for the child. She cut out, glued, carefully filling in the empty spaces while I dealt with the huge poster. I wouldn’t have come up with the idea of iridescent colors without it — after all, children are the best source of fantasy. On Monday, I copied all of Jade’s homework, not really understanding the topics. “Wow,” she looked at the drawing while I hurriedly looked first into her notebook and then into my own, “with such a poster, I would give any money for this concert.” I stopped writing and looked at her — she was admiring the poster and smiling. This was the first review about my convulsive three-day job — and it was the most pleasant. And from whom? From an emotionless friend who would not praise in vain. *** After lessons, as a prefect, I was obliged to look into the principal’s office and hand over the lists of laggards, absentees and latecomers to classes. Some of the results were faked—and I was afraid he’d figure it out. After knocking, I heard the secretary’s voice inviting me in. The principal wasn’t there; I would have waited if I hadn’t had to rush to the studio to hand in the work. Silently, I went to his desk and left my papers. I was about to turn around to leave when something stopped me. It was a document of all college payment debtors by grade. I leaned closer, finding ours. Theo was the first on the list of deductions… Next to his name was a sum in euros. This week was the last and meant that if he didn’t repay the amount, he would be kicked out of here. The document was under the signature of the director, and so far it was not final. I straightened up and walked slowly towards the exit, feeling confused. Why were his parents so slow to pay? September was coming to an end, and he could be suspended at any moment. In any case, the thought of handing over the job worried me more than his fate. When I entered the studio, I didn’t even look at the people sitting in it, and gave the curator two rolls — one a giant, twisted watman, and the second the size of an elbow, with the concept of a wristband. “Marie!”, I turned at a familiar voice and saw Louis, “Well, did it work out?” He called me by my shortened name… I glanced behind him and realized that the lyceum students were studying on Monday, one of them turned out to be my friend. “Yes”, I was glad to see him, after all, he helped a lot, “thanks to you.” He smiled, and when I was about to leave, he said, “Listen”, he picked up his phone and waved it, “we need to find each other.” Although it was unexpected, and I was not particularly eager to communicate with him, we still subscribed to snapchat and Skyrock** profiles mutually. “Send me your most favorite songs, — he waved his hand when I had already said goodbye and pulled the door handle. Of course, I didn’t do that — I forgot about it ten minutes later while I was getting home. Mom and stepfather were generally in a fuss — she called cousins, inviting other relatives to visit, and Andre was typing something on a laptop at the table, sitting in the kitchen. I was even glad — they finally stopped bothering me! Even though it was unusual… On the bed, in my room, I almost returned to my favorite activity — Ryan’s cyberstalking on social networks, but I noticed a lot of notifications in the messages. 18:30: “It was nice to see you today” 18:50: “How are you?” 18:55: “I hope everything is fine?” 19:10: “Write me when you’re home” 19:11: “And I’m waiting for the song” Wow, does he spam every person like that? I couldn’t believe it…. Does he really care? But I didn’t care, because these were not messages from the person I was looking forward to them from. I answered this way, without attaching any importance: I sent a song at random, and the answer came at the same minute. Such obsession was already annoying, and attention was scaring away. I couldn’t think of anything more idiotic than writing to Jade about what I found out in the director’s office to escape from this “communication”. Deep down, I liked being taken care of. But I thought it was undeserved, so I chose to ignore it. “Theo is going to be expelled in the near future” was enough for Jade to immediately read the message and take it as a guide to action. Now, because of Louis, I didn’t want to go online at all — it will be shown that I’m online, and he would immediately start writing. It was alarming. Now I understood why Ryan needed a backup private account — for such cases. That’s why he limit communication. I thought about it after playing volleyball in the gym: even though I was expelled from the section, no one canceled the usual classes — a new batch of notifications came from Louis, and I only felt guilty that he helped, and now I, apparently, have to pay with communication. Does Ryan have such a queasy feeling about Lottie? I was just watching him in action — he was really happy playing. And he was surrounded by classmates, congratulations on another victory. I was so sorry that he was trying to please his father…. Wait a minute: Jade and Theo were standing at the other end of the hall, chatting casually about something, laughing. I went over to them. Of course, they immediately fell silent and looked at me curiously. “And we were just talking about you,” Jade smiled, and I raised an eyebrow, “can you get us both off?” Deja vu — has Theo been running away with Ryan for a week, and now with Jade? At first I was surprised. Then I got angry. And the last chord of the symphony of horror was revenge for all these feelings. “Are you going to do something about your expelling?”, Theo was surprised at my remark, but Jade interrupted me. “That’s exactly what I’m going to help with.” Yes, I was definitely saying something Theo hadn’t counted on. They got up from their seats to change clothes and I had no choice but to follow them. “You’re not going to sell drugs, are you?”, provocation. In the women’s locker room, I deliberately waited until everyone had disappeared from the room and began to interrogate my friend. I really believed that she would not dare to do this. “There are less than three days left,” she angrily threw things into her bag, not wanting to continue the dialogue, “we don’t have a lot of ways to earn money.” “What are you talking about?” “We made a deal: now I’m helping to find the money, and then he will provide me with it.” I didn’t understand anything at all, and it seems that they weren’t going to tell me about it. I still had a sense of self-worth, so I absolutely didn’t want to impose myself with questions like Louis. Because after two days of his attention, I was already pretty tired. In the evening, as soon as I returned home from the studio, where I was working on the wings of my doll, I immediately went up to the attic, but… my mother and stepfather had a conversation with me. They were both hugging each other, beaming with happiness, at the set table. In honor of what? I thought it was probably in honor of the business that was sold. I immediately started eating, as if I hadn’t seen food for hundreds of years — it was so amazingly delicious. They sat without touching their dinner, waiting for the right moment to announce something. “We discussed everything and decided”, when did they become “we”? “that it’s time to say it, and there’s no point in dragging it out,” Andre squeezed my mother’s hand, “especially since we’re going to need your help.” How will I help them sell their business? “Andre and I have a registration scheduled on November first”, mom exchanged glances with this idiot, “on his birthday we will become one family.” Suddenly, all the swallowed food settled inside like cold stones — I felt sick and dizzy. “And also”, as if one piece of news wasn’t enough, “I decided to keep the baby.”