# The Sky was a predator. Crowdness...

Елена Борисовна Косс

Авторский перевод романа " Небо было хищник. Толпование...

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The Sky was a predator. Crowdness...

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Chapter 1

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The sky, wrinkled withering, without clouds, with bruises of smoke, should have been changed a year ago. But there wasn't enough paint. Tanechka, who was assigned to the ever-melting permafrost to paint a new sky for the next three hundred years, lost the instructions of the union of artists who sent her to this permafrost,══where═a new sky was grown from pig and lizard stem cells, capable of regenerating after meteor attacks and space burns. The sky grew quickly and grouchily, sometimes the sky groaned like a wounded one, and it became scary and pitiful at the same time. Growing, it occupied the permafrost space and the polar bears reluctantly retreated, losing their possessions.

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The station had to be moved once a week, dismantling and reassembling all the buildings. No one knew what to expect from the new sky, but the old sky had a lot of Cosmos holes and was becoming dangerous. - It's time! - said the government. And people- biologists and Tanechka, the artist, were thrown into the station. Communication with the mainland was interrupted after the sky was spread on the ice and allowed to grow. It was impossible to walk in the sky: the sky was a predator. There was no one at the station who knew what colour the main background of the sky needed to be: biologists and Tanya herself were born under the old rusty sky.

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They were young and they loved the Earth, they loved the old rusty sky, which was a friendly reminder of childhood. The decision was made to toss a coin first, and according to the results of the throw, it turned out that the sky would be the same as it had been - rusty, golden at the edges with small brown wrinkles in the middle.

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══Chapter 2

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The President's consciousness will give birth to a new God, and geneticists will repeat his features in a biological embodiment. God will be dressed in a spacesuit so the sky does not reject or swallow him. And a lonely God will live in the sky so that people can think of him and ask from him. God will be created deaf═not to hear complaints, and dumb not to pity. God will be omnipotent, and people will love him more than their children, because God is fear. This was how the president of the ninth dynasty of Presidents conceived.

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══Chapter 3

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Love - a relic frozen in glass, a shell of the Soul of the past, a hillock of the consciousness of the doomed ... was broken during an earthquake. Thousands of people fell into the ground. Those who survived conceived a tribe of others right under the ground, those who did not need anything.

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══Chapter 4

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Time inhumanly did not exist outside of lives, being the imagination of everyone. Those who did not know time were omnipotent. The All-Powerful were caught by the soldiers of the Fiery Goddess, conceived by time and its accomplices. They were brought to the bed of the Fiery Goddess to dream of timelessness... The next morning, the all-powerful were executed by smoking marijuana, which every citizen grew in flower pots on the windowsills of their compartments for the sake of recovery. The government allowed each compartment to breed no more than three marijuana bushes. But large families grew three bushes on the windowsills and the rest under the windowsills, for children, so that it would be convenient for them to reach the leaves and smoke as needed.

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Pharmacies sold marijuana from morning to evening, and residents smoked it from evening to morning. Those who did not smoke were ridiculed in the squares and crossroads and smoked, not to die, but just to restore an order. Those who did not smoke were caught by the government to work.

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Chapter 5═

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A measure was set for everything, but not everyone understood it in the same way.

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Chapter 6═


On the dismantled boards of the biologists' house sat a new God, exactly as they had planned. He was naked, not very tall, and recognizable in appearance. He was seated patiently, almost not moving, but attentively, slightly bowing his head, examined the snow on the huge ice floe on which he had been created. An identification plate hung on the wrist like a hoop, succinctly stating: "God." He had been born only a couple hours ago, but he felt as if he had═been living for a═hundred years. He was tired and wanted to sleep.

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The parrot lagged behind a flock of green relatives flying back and forth, trying to keep warm, and fell into the snow: "Damn, give me some rum," the bird repeated the only phrase that second-grader Petka taught her before global warming. "I don"t have rum," God responded embarrassedly with a refusal to the first request in a long string of similar ones. "Damn, give me some rum," insisted the parrot, rolling his eyes. God got up from the stacked boards and went to look for someone who could help.


- Excuse me, - God asked the═biologist carrying the planks, - do you have any rum? - Rum? What for? - Parrot ... he lies in the snow and does not want to get up. - Parrot?! The biologist ran to the parrot, but it lay motionless with crooked legs pointing towards the old rusty sky. The biologist picked up the bird and put it in his bosom to warm it up. - Oh, you should wear something. We have a woman, an artist, at the station; it's not good if she sees you like that. "Damn, give me some rum," the parrot, having woken up from a swoon, obsessively insisted, having warmed up.

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Chapter 7═

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The parrot was sitting on the windowsill, in the kitchen of the station, not wanting to fly out into the street, forgetting about the green flock of exactly the same green relatives flying over the ice, he changed the vocabulary and amused everyone with a peaceful: - Tea, tea!══For Poor Me! If someone opened the door, he quickly turned away, with his back to the draft, raised his crown, chirped something and froze motionless.

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Chapter 8═

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Tanechka stood at the very edge of the sky, directing running brushes to create a pattern of fine wrinkles in the young new sky. The two skies looked at each other as if in a mirror. The sky, lying on the ground, suddenly shuddered and grabbed the girl by the legs with a champ, pulling her towards it. The polar bear, which Tanechka fed either with gingerbread or with bread, rushed under her feet and began to trample the sky with his paws. His skin was burned, but Tanechka was saved. The bear growled, the sky whining, curled up at the edge into a tube, interfering with the dry rusty and gold paints. When Tanechka left, the sky sighed and unfolded the edges, pale with glossy rust spots.

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Chapter 9═

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The sunset was black and dreary; the stars were visible in the holes in the heavenly veil. The stars frightened by the radiance and improbability of the existence of the incomprehensible. With each sunset, the stars became more and more. Consciousness sought to understand everything that the eyes saw, and anxiety did not leave this search, like a faithful nurse at the patient's bed.

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Chapter 10═


It took a long time to get to the planet Flickering Whistle. Alex"s best friend, Perchik, told him that it would be better to work the entire starry season than to be with his mother-in-law for several light years in the same Flaskule.

The mother-in-law was blown away,═frozen in her pose of reproach to═Alex, who offered to go on a trip on Flaskule, created by their institute as a prototype, when the flight was replaced by interplanetary jumps due to the Flaskule spring system and the provocation of the biochemical reaction of the neural connections of the passengers themselves to the emergence of an impulse SNAP-PETROVSKY, and was a materialized hallucination.

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The Whistle intensified its flicker and magnetized the stem cells so that at first it became cheerful, then ticklish, and, finally, yawning sleepiness attacked. Allochka, curled up in a ball, was dozing on Alex's left arm. She was so sweet, silent and touchingly defenceless in a dream that Alex wanted to kiss her.═

- I was then much younger than you, Alex; - the mother-in-law persisted, frankly about the cherished memory of the first kisses.

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- We confessed to each other and swore love. But nature cannot be deceived, a young man, and innocence turns into pregnancy. It is now that you are born as adults,═but═my youth was full of children's cries and male snoring.

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═Flaskule"s system alerted to turbulent hallucinations, the "buckle up" and "muzzle" signals lit up.... Needless to say, that mother-in-law did not even think of putting on a muzzle, she was giving out her hallucinations in details, with a serious look of significance, as some subjects tell dreams, having time to be offended or making claims to their unwitting participants. Alex in his mother-in-law's hallucinations occupied almost the first almost honourable place. He had to wake up Allochka when his mother-in-law's hallucinations turned into an erotic tone.

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Allochka was even amused when she was awake, but she quickly realized that "a cutie come here to me" - was addressed to her own husband, who was stuck like a chip in her mother"s turbulent stream of consciousness. Alex rejoiced, let them sort things out a little, he was tired of nit-picking and persecution of his mother-in-law, his skin ached from her even casual touches. He sat for days on top of high trees that she could not climb, he flapped his wings to fly, but the muzzle kept him tenaciously fastened to his mother-in-law.

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He was delirious, as in childhood, when he was left alone at home ... The mother-in-law woke up first, Allochka and Alex were sitting in front of her and laughing, kissing and laughing.═

- I always knew what I wanted, and only wanted what I knew, she continued chastely. Close stars curiously looked into the windows of Flaskule"s porthole, and it was not clear: was it day, or night ... and this incomprehensibility made═it═a little sad and═she═wanted to go home, climb into the capsule of family comfort, remembering all the lives, when people were dogs and barked at those who were people, then swim═in═green algae in the ocean of good and ill, then read something interesting.

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Alex was very fond of reading what cockroaches write about people. Creepy,but═interesting. Cockroaches have absolutely no verbs. Flaskule flew, leaving surprised stars in their usual places for millions of years. Alex did not have time to understand what happened and how, but suddenly Flaskule turned sharply, it's good═that it═was spherical. Perchik is a very smart designer, he knew how to create reliable devices; once he even made Alex's mother-in-law a lesson pointer that could catch the sidelong glances of students and write down their names in the class journal and automatically put═the═lowest scores in front of such name.

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The frightened mother-in-law grabbed the collar of his shirt. Flaskule turned═more, something terribly crackled, rustled and even howled. The mother-in-law was suddenly covered from head to toe in cellophane, which was used to wrap industrial waste in accordance with the Interplanetary Pollution Convention. The hatch opened, the mother-in-law, captured by jets of air, flew into space. Alex sat unable to move or think,═he did not know what Allochka, who had gone to the library to look at the only mirror on board of Flaskule, would say. Alex tried not to think about the moment when Allochka would return and he even tried to breathe more quietly and slowly. For a while, he actually succeeded. Well, Allochka is back.

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- Where is mom? She asked carelessly. Alex was silent. - Where is mom? She insistently repeated. Alex was silent. - Where is mom? - Allochka nervously demanded a meeting with her mother.═

- Allochka, dear, I beg you, exclaimed Alex, who suddenly understood something! - Don't touch my shirt! Don't touch my shirt, Allochka! -I?!═

- Yes, I have never touched and do not intend to touch your═shirts. Or═You, I need mom! Leave me alone! Why do I need to even think about your shirt if I don"t care═for═what's inside your shirt! She shouted angrily, becoming like her mother, grabbing Alex by the scruff of the neck, as her mother often did when she wanted to prove to Alex that she was right.

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A few seconds later, Alex saw his wife, Allochka, flying into space for disposal, packed in cellophane. And the cosmos, indifferent to her youth and beauty, took her into obscurity.

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Chapter 11═

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God was asked to enter the biologist"s office by loudspeaker, and he reluctantly, as if feeling something unpleasant, rather unknown, set off to meet his fate.═

- Get dressed, your things are on the shelf, - said the senior biologist, trying not to make an eye contact. God was not a fool, he immediately realised that his "things" were not things at all, but a capsule with a window for a face. It═was huge, not his size and beyond the strength of a young, just beginning to live God. How, it was not clear, but God realised that people do not want him next to them. He approached the biologist standing next to him and in a low voice began to beg him for a mercy.


- I beg you, God said, - do not send me away! I will work and bring a lot of benefits; I will learn a lot, I feel that I can do a lot.═

The biologist embarrassedly pulled away, a little to the side, a little obliquely, God was grabbed and hastily stuffed into a capsule.═

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-Oh hell, the biologists said, sending God to heaven, as they forgot to deprive him of his hearing and his tongue

-come on, to whom will he say something or what═will he═hear up there: the cosmos is silent.═

- Let's go for dinner -═we need to get up early tomorrow, a lot of work.═

God flew in space. He will fly for thousands of years, until a new God comes to replace him, in a new guise, a new fantasy.

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God wept. Seeing the Earth cold, frozen, the first thing he thought of, endless snow, squeezing cold, is how to help, how to make the Earth warmer, more liveable, for joy. And now he is alone again, he flies and no-one needs him. Suddenly he saw that a woman wrapped in cellophane was flying towards him. Her screams pierced the eternal silence of the cosmos. At first it seemed to God that these were cries of pain, but it turned out that the woman was cursing, she was cursing with ugly words that had neither logic nor meaning. God grabbed the cellophane with both hands and pulled the woman into his capsule, trying to help her.

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He═unwrapped the cellophane off the woman, the capsule was ajar, and the woman deftly pushed God out of his last refuge, designed for only one. So Alex's mother-in-law became the god of an entire planet for the next thousand years. Of course scientists can say:═

⁃═It═was not right═to identify God only by the presence of a capsule, that it was needed to come up with something else, for example, a password, a response, some words.

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⁃═What═words? Opponents would object. God is dumb, God is deaf. But anyway, no matter how it turns out, scientists will be able to adequately answer why God became a boring even for her own son-in-law, unknown to anyone, morally unexplored middle-aged woman,═a═former teacher of elementary grades.

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══Suddenly, God═found some buttons in a piece of cellophane he was holding in his hands, the buttons were coloured. God did not choose green: he had already seen the green sky, the yellow sky, the rusty sky, the green parrot. God decided to push the red button. And God was not mistaken: the red button meant a return to a base.═Green - ecological destruction of biological waste.

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Alex reflected on Perchik's treachery in depriving him of his mother-in-law and wife by placing a capture rejection device in the collar of his shirt. Ah, Perchik, Perchik, he left Alex without wife and even without the mother-in-law! Alex was suddenly horrified at the thought that, by some chance, Cosmos could dispose of Allochka, but at the same time leave a viciously annoying mother-in-law for the rest of his life. But what would he do?══Live alone? He remembered the nights with Allochka, playful and passionate, trusting and insightful, remembered the pancakes that his mother-in-law fed him, thickly spreading sour cream with raspberry, his favorite jam, so that Alex's stomach began to grow and arms and legs to decrease.

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- There was a life, - Alex noted not without regret.═

To marry again, for the fifth time, meant getting used to the fifth mother-in-law.═To over eat, perhaps, until the end of life with pancakes, grabbing them with shorter and shorter arms.═

- No, I'm not getting married; we will build an interplanetary spaceship with Perchik, travel through the galaxies and experience mutual feelings to the female Galactians! No mother-in-law, no sour cream, no pancakes. A piece of protein, a little bit of rum...

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Alex closed his eyes. When he opened them, he saw Allochka in front of him with eyes bulging from the tests she had endured, nervously tapping on the red and green buttons of the cellophane in which she was wrapped.═

- Allochka, he called, gently purring her name, although he knew perfectly well that Allochka could read thoughts from the wrinkles around the eyes and already knew about the disappearance of his mother-in-law.

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- Allochka, I love you, I am glad you are back! Give me the cellophane; otherwise you will fly into space forever.═

Allochka looked at him coldly, went into the library, deftly moving in a cellophane outfit on a specially designed═creaky═floor, looked for a mirror, came close to Alex and pressed the green button, which even God did not dare to press. A few minutes later, in front of Alex in his mother-in-law's chair, which still retained the smell of her persistent perfume; a completely naked president═was═seated.═

- I am Alex, Alex confirmed his name.═

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- Ivan Ivanovich, aren't you...?═

- Not Petr Petrovich? God laughed.═

- Ah, well, yes, I understand everything; forgive me, for God's sake.═

- Yes, come on, leave your ceremonies aside, - said Ivan Ivanovich. ⁃═Lets═eat something, at least some rum, or something...═

- Protein, have a snack with protein, - Alex frivolously persuaded Ivan Ivanovich, poking at him some kind of red, moving ****branch with many shoots. Ivan Ivanovich bit off a piece of stick with a crunch, and a long and loud groan rang out from under his teeth.

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-═Oh, it is not really possible, Alex complained,═

- a twig of protein is alive, you need to═bite═a little bit, it will regenerate in lessthan a second, but if you bite off a lot at once, it hurts the thing; biting a little by little, it will only feel a tickle and that's it. Then it will be able to grow and by morning protein will be twice as large.═

Alex sucked on the twig, and he or she chuckled at Alex in response, as if═it was,═in confirmation of his words.

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Chapter 12═

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An═evil══darkness═has come. Snow constantly fell on the boundless earth to draw purity. The parrot, rolling its eyes, pecked at something from small flat plates standing on the windowsills closer to the light and warm radiators. The parrot became fat and not talkative; he was waiting for Tanechka"s return as she always treated him with something tasty.

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The biologists were talking in an undertone about something; there were three and a half of them. Half was Zimir, he was still growing, and small legs appeared from under his shirt, which increased proportionally. During the periods of growth Zimir was always angry and hungry. He was the leader of the expedition, angry and strong, fair and helpless═during new moon, when his limbs were renewed, of course, this did not contribute to his longevity or life's pleasures, but nothing could be done after the amputation of frostbitten hands and feet.

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According to the protocol, he was supposed to restore only one limb, he could get the other three in a battle with the all-powerful. But he was afraid to slide down into the ground without limbs, and he arranged═with biologists, and they sewed on him legs═from═lizards smuggled out by its cells. There was only one inconvenience left - the growth of these limbs took═a period of twenty-one days. Zimir acquired a strange sensitivity, similar to fear, which he had never experienced before, and if someone sharply touched his limbs, then, like a lizards, they fell off and began to grow again.

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He is very tired. Over the past five years, he managed to stay whole for no more than a month. Sometimes he scolded himself for cowardice; it was an honor for earthlings to go down to the all-powerful. It was just a definition - "omnipotents", but they themselves will give everything you want. Once someone went down there for a head, and returned with another,a═female"s one. He cut off her hair, exposing her skull, but her voice remained shrill and nervous, feminine.

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Everyone who ever met the all-powerful became nervous and shuddered at every touch or bright light. More often than himself, Zimir scolded the government, including for the fact that he was not given a quota for restoration.══The surgery is inexpensive and the limbs are apparently in the warehouses, rats were═eating them, but the government is═always══optimizing═the benefit for itself: someone needs something, go and take it away from the almighties. The other three biologists were Jean and Fedya, and each was one and a half: Jean had two heads, Fedya - the kind one - four hearts and no stomach.

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Jean never slept, his head rested from thoughts in turn, and Fedya could not eat for weeks, which caused universal love and disapproval at the same time. At dinner, the comrades tried not to look at him, each carefully chewing their portion, and the rest of the time, chuckling, and reciting═to him the menu, which was planned for a month in advance. - Fedya, can you try Zindremer with mayonnaise? - Both Jean's heads were interested at once, specially woken up to discuss the menu.

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Fedya brushed aside the questions, artlessly baring his toothless mouth:═

- I'll wait until the manukara is cooked with orange seed noodles. Manukara, hearing her name, ran up and affectionately looked into Fedya's eyes, he stroked her and she ran away. At least once in a lifetime everyone has been eaten, some of the clumsy ones in the pre-dinner periods were caught and eaten several times.

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Chapter 13═

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Finding himself in the streams of star dust, slowing down the tireless Flaskule"s jumps, Alex called Perchik for a connection, he wanted to complain to his friend, and most importantly, to discuss not only "how it would be if ...", but also to dream about how it would be. Perchik was lying in bed with a woman who, turning to Alex's voice, turned out to be Allochka. Alex, who did not expect such deceit from his wife and his only, and, therefore, best friend, did not even have time to utter a reproach, when he heard Allochka's squeal:═

- Don't call me again,═you═idiot!

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He only took a breath to tell Allochka that he was not calling her, but Perchik, his friend, the designer of Flaskule, which Alex═was═testing with risks to health, and, possibly, to his own life.═

- Fellow, she's═right,═- somethinginterrupted his attempt═to═contact Perchik, who turned out to be a man who allows sitting on his head. The connection was interrupted... Flaskule was jumping, getting out of the garbage and dust... Alex felt loneliness═surrounding═him with indifference, boredom, foreshadowing despair.


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Chapter 14═


Next to Flaskule in the empty Cosmos jumped Flaskule"s babies, small models of Flaskule. They cheerfully, like snowflakes in childhood, looked into Flaskule's windows, circling around. Alexes were sitting in the captain's cabin; there were already ten people, in the passenger cabin several Ivan Ivanoviches were learning to play chess, introducing themselves to each other and to Alexes═as PertsPetrovichs, Mikhail Mikhailoviches and even Vladimir Vladimirovich. Alex ran up to Sergei Sergeyevich and turned pale with horror, there was not enough oxygen═he═yelled for a couple of hours: - Ivan Ivanovich!!! - Yes, be quiet, don't yell! Ivan Ivanovich is sleeping in the library.

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There was no room in the library for hundreds of duplicated mirrors. Ivan Ivanovich, carried away by the idea of creating similarity by similarity, cloned everything in a row, without much disturbing of his own imagination.═

-═There═is not enough of Oxygen, Alex barely said with bloodless lips.═

Ivan Ivanovich started replicatingoxygen, literally grasping the last molecule of this substance.═

- Air, clone it,═whole air, Alex made the necessary demand.═

Within an hour, the air bubbled and sparkled like champagne around every Flaskule passenger.


- What a vulgarity is this GMO of air, - Alex thought, with hostility taking into his mouth rainbow bubbles, created coloured for the sake of fun, which burst with noise and whistle so that it was hard to speak, he had to pronounce the letters as if chewing something. The namesakes played hockey. Some of them had already scored the fifth goal. Alex was sad, thinking about creating a woman, ready to sacrifice every single rib for such an event.

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Chapter 15═


Alex was sitting on Flaskule"s meadow - a small green rug that imitates nature here, in empty space, and thought, composing monologues, tried to enter into a dialogue with an imaginary opponent, the role of which he assigned to Ivan Ivanovich, deciding that it was necessary to take control of Ivan Ivanovich's capabilities. Of particular importance seemed to be the control of the creation of similarity by similarity, with which he was obsessed.

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- Well, suppose we can grow Flaskule, we will plant in each new═grown Flaskule═a new namesake like Ivan Ivanovich, in each═Flaskule we will send an Alex, unnecessary here in such quantities; soon they all just quarrel with each other, drink rum, and remember their mother-in-law, dreaming of a wife, but the main thing is to streamline life on Flaskules, you need to create comfort, Alex was in a hurry to dream.═

- Each namesake of Alex and the ideological namesakes of Ivan Ivanovich should be created═similar═to Allochka, although namesakes may like another type of women - but it was hard to imagine, Alex being in love only with Allochka.

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- The main thing is to create, and then they will get used to it, Alex thought, already regretting that he cares much more about the whims of others than about his own needs.═

Although it was extremely pleasant to imagine that there would be only Allochkas around.═Cheerful, sad, forgetful, fragile.

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He even closed his eyes, dreaming, as if looking at a panoramic picture; but when Alex opened his eyes,he═looked out the window at the little Flaskules jumping like fidgety satellites of the big Flaskule, without leaving the field of gravity of the mass of their prototype.═He realized:Jealously═he would not be able to rejoice at how another Allochka exactly the same as his own, will whisper about something or sit close to another Alex, even if, to someone as similar to himself as twodrops of water.

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Chapter 16═

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The parrot furtively looked around. Huge thoughts swirled in his small head:═

- I haven"t washed the dishes since lunch, and I still have to cook dinner in time.═

- The curtains, the curtains are dirty, but there are no windows.═

-═For a human is what for a human?═but═for an embryo══that's enough.═

- Smoking is harmful to health, and drinking is for making friends.═

- Everything is expensive in Ethiopia now, and the snow is the same over here and over there, so let's spend our vacation at home.═

- Crowd!!! Crowd!!! They crushed me completely.═

But the thoughts were more ingenuous these days, compared to dreams.

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The dreams crushed═his═chest and fluffed up═his═feathers, in the dreams the parrot was a man. At this point the═biologists began to worry: the government"s order was for═a═crowd on the day of the opening of the new sky: to greet, to speak, children to laugh, women to celebrate ... But qualitative and quantitative failures began to be detected in the biochemical processes of Crowdness launched in Petri Dish, window sills were filled in the biologists' house. On the one hand, crowdness was well practiced and did not require any special conditions: a small saucer, reminiscent of tea.═Crowd culture frozen in liquid nitrogen.

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With this technology.═Crowds, one of the government's most sought-after forms of human representation, have been grown for thousands of years in full range - a routine procedure available to any student. The new sky, here on Earth, was of extreme importance for the government, which had long been sitting on the planets of the Western Region of the Displacement of Galaxies, where the Galactians created a special zone of government prosperity and vitality for the incapable, but from the Earth they were supplied with Shurshunka - stone that were not found anywhere, Except on Mother Earth.

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Shurshunkes bred by division quite quickly, but only on Earth. In addition, first they had to be caught, grown in special installations sent by the government from their habitat and strictly guarded by the military, so that valuable stones would not be stolen or lost. And the minerals themselves were in no hurry to grow up to a productive age, their stone youth ended, they bred cubs and soon died from an acute sense of anxiety for the offspring, which was sent by cargo interplanetary transportation forever══into the unknown.═Parting.

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Shurshunkas were an urgent pharmacological need of the government. They played a major role in the governmental processes of digestion. "You can"t do a poop without Shurshunka," they said among the people. - And with Shurshunka, you could eat in loop ... The government took action and even issued a law "Against the oppression of the native language with superfluous words", where it banned all words from this saying, including the prepositions "without", "in", "with" and particles "not", "for", "what". And this clearly benefited the people.

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The people began to complain less about losses or the difficulty of fulfilling government orders, which were previously actively provoked by the pretext "without"; people began to ask fewer questions, not having contrived to dispense with the question without a "what" particle. Finally, the people stopped completely saying "no" to the government, since this word completely included the now illegal particle "not". Yes, and students at lectures stopped interrupting the speeches of lecturers with sudden joyful "A ..." it is understandable, they say that improved the atmosphere at lectures and increased the number of students involved in the experiment of obtaining knowledge in a state of shallow sleep.

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It was rude, but true: the government, over millions of years of evolution, could no longer resist non-abstinence in meals, and between meals, snacks, things were no better. But, after all, it all started from that same dinner many centuries ago, when the accountant Petrov famously figured out how you can eat deliciously and at the expense of the budget, reflecting the aftertaste in the "representation expenses" column. Since then, dinners have become a necessity, then a duty. Then the government began to collapse. Then scientists, having conducted a secret study, discovered Shurshunka.

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Earthlings, called common people or patriots by the government, tried to create private stocks of Shurshunka. It still remained unclear how to use it due to the significant difference in the digestive═processes between the government and earthlings. Many, although loyal to the government, patriots planned to influence the government or even a government coup due to the deficit of Shurshunka, which was vital to the government.

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Secret plans A and B were developed, according to which the government was given one and a half Shurshunka per month, according to plan A, and two and a half, according to plan B. Which meant that the government could eat no more than the norm of one or two earthlings? Plans A and B were discovered by the Vigilant,═andturned over to the government. The government, in self-preservation and with a sense of deep regret, in the midst of global warming activities, has taken measures to cool the Earth's climate, which has increased the general need for food.

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Chapter 17═

The crowd swelled and expanded inside Petri Dish, a small saucer. People grew up, basking in the warmth of the radiator next to the cold of the snowy window. Dreams began to appear, colorful, incomprehensible. Flowers do not grow on the event horizon, even weeds that scatter seeds everywhere are not able, with the mighty strength of their roots of annoying uselessness, to stay on the edge of a clot of hopelessness, the last sip into which hope falls.

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The crowd grew in emptiness. Petri Disch grew with the crowd. The parrot was still pecking at the seeds of the crowd. The biologists ran around like mother hens, trying to get everyone under the protection of Petri Dish, where there was a nutrient medium, the integrity of the process and the warmth coming from each other. The extreme ones changed with those who were in the middle. Those in the middle tried not to move towards the frosty glass. Three days later, the biologists opened the window, and the whole crowd was outside.

In the evening, biologists found a resister in the corner, and it became clear that the process of growing a crowd - Crowdness - was violated. There was a danger, the escape of the crowdmans. Parrot, lover of rum, pecked along with the nutrient medium a few grains of crowds. Outside the crowd, the crowdmans humanized and tried to become independent organisms with different destinies. Biologists caught whoever they could and vaccinated them with viruses of mass character and belonging. A child was crying under the bed.

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By morning, vaccinated with devotion and patriotic impulses, the child, escaping from the arms of his mother, crawled towards the crowd. His mother ran after him, not afraid of capture, sobbing, begging him to listen to her. The tentacles of the crowd grabbed her═child,═the crowd took the body of the baby and crushed it silently. Mother was dumbfounded with despair. The crowd passed, leaving a stone on the road. Crowdness is an affordable method of laying roads; mother and son were there, but she would never hug him again.

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Scientists have been surprised by the effect of maternal suffering in the process of crowdness, when one complex organism developed according to one pattern, providing for the variability allowed by the government. The government has defined indifference to the fate of the individual as the basic principle of the crowd. All body cells were young, of the same age. Both, the mother and the child, were the same in structure, playing different roles in the crowd, they both were crowdmen and had no other functions than submission to the mass of the body. But the Mother loved the child more than the crowd.

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Due to these failures in the initiation of the crowd, they tried to replace babies with old people. But the old people selfishly put their interests above the crowd, destroyed the crowd at the very beginning. If the crowd excluded children and the elderly, chimeras appeared in the crowd, the appearance of which caused indignation, and the unexpectedness of the forms of destruction. It was customary to leave children for primary disposal and mothers for the petrification of the landscape.


The seeds of the crowd had reachedmaturity,═a feeling was brewing in the crowd, a powerful, inevitable crowd. In a week or two, biologists will receive a dispatch with instructions on the formation of vectors, depth, density and purpose of the direction of the crowd's feeling. The crowd will feel nothing but unity, that state that a child can control, redirecting vectors according to the instructions: "everything to those who are in the crowd", "the crowd can do everything that a person cannot". The crowd is devoid of human qualities. The crowd cannot love, cannot suffer, be bored, think, show sympathy. The crowd - crowds were stuck together with adrenaline. The crowd can yell, run, demand, eat, trample.

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══

Chapter 18══

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"Food, kitchen, bed, warmth, shoulder, morality..." - poetry of the late period of the cockroach exodus to the city of Amlyampul, the city of prisoners in oblivion, the city of superfluous.═The history of linguistics puts forward three versions of the emergence of the language ZzzzShShShs; One══-cockroaches evolved to the ability to create food supplies, the need to take into account which was the reason for the intellectual leap: greed gave rise to responsibility.

═


According to another version, Zzshsh arose from the habit of parasitism. There is a legend how the Cockroach-roach tribe ended up in the house of a student-lawyer who, being broken by the betrayal of his beloved, closed himself in the house with a box of vodka, law textbooks and cockroaches. When a student drank, cockroaches hid in corners and in books, when a student snored, cockroaches looked for food, then a way out. Desperate, the leaders of the Cockroach-roach tribe witnessed the death of their fellow tribesmen, cases of cannibalism were noted. The spell of the shamans on the empty refrigerator led to the loss of faith in the leaders

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Ordinary Cockroach-rochers were looking for salvation. Unknown to the history of linguistics, the cockroach composed the first poem in the language Zsshsh: "student, exams, it's time." The poem was not an original of artwork it was a plagiarism. The student himself, while still able to move, wrote on the rain-weary window with lipstick, forgotten by his lover: "Be on the lookout, do not forget the record book for the exam."

The cockroaches adapted his message to everyday reality, laying out a mosaic of letters on the floor with their starving bodies right in front of the student, who, having stopped snoring, shouted with terrible force: "Cockroaches, cockroaches," and ran out of the house, dressing on the go and holding a record book close to his heart .

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The Zzshsh language is═international,the alphabet of the language was borrowed from the state languages of the area where the language is used. The Zzshsh language is exclusively written; Zzshsh has no oral everyday use. Zzshsh - the way of communication and exchange of moral principles and objects of art between cockroaches and people, the language is unidirectional from cockroaches to people.


Chapter 19═

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Alex was hiding from the similarities of Alex and namesakes in the library. He was lulled to sleep: "water, water,═sound, wet." He could read cockroach poems for hours, where a few words gave a sense of space, sadness, fate. The cockroaches surprisingly managed to capture the essence of conceptualism, a movement in art that led to the collapse of creativity in works of art, when one or two nouns, chosen, perhaps accidentally, led the viewer into his own mind, like hypnosis, like a need to create a complete image from the debris thrown artist to viewer.


"Love, chair", it would seem, how these two words can be combined, but the artist draws a chair and writes "love" on it. The amazed viewer finishes the thought: "love is expectation", "love is immobility", "I am waiting for you, beloved", "come back", "she is stingy, like a chair", "we are strangers". The artist draws a window and writes on it - "man", draws a cloud and writes on it: "cloud". The viewer looks, tries to finish, to close the thought, this is how consciousness is created - to understand what attention is riveted to. Museums are full of two-word hosts, critics write articles about what the artist had in mind.

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The Cockroaches picked up the baton of conceptualism, but are still slow to recognize texts of less than four words as poems, which═gives═rise to the ambiguity of the image of conceptualism itself.

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Chapter 20═

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Alex thought about Allochka, it seemed to him that his longing would be weaker if Allochka were not in the arms of the insidious Pepper. The sunset was not complete, the sun shone through the time-lined sky. Perchik lost count of days, the children grew up, Allochka grew old, Alex did not return. "Darling, I made pancakes according to my mother"s recipe," Allochka whispered coquettishly twisting her lips ... Pepper knew that young Alex was laughing in silent space, over his, Pepper's fate.

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Chapter 21═

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Dung beetles also wrote poems, having seen enough of cockroaches, they jumped, crawled, flew along the corridors of publishing houses, trying first to attract the blasé and weakened attention of editors, exhausted by the requests of all their relatives and all friends of all their relatives, to publish in the magazine everything that they had done their children and wives or the applicants themselves. Then the lucky ones, who had achieved the coveted, begged the censors, strict, in white coats and scalpels in gloved hands, not to cut carefully created phrases consisting of adverbs: "hot, hot, hot, hot, good."

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Chapter 22

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═Flaskules grew up and began to move away from each other. The namesakes were═worried,═a social revolution was being prepared. Satisfied with the government was a minority. Alex differed from the new Alexs, created by Ivan Ivanovich in large numbers, with old clothes and a habit of philosophizing. Dissatisfaction with the authorities seized Flaskule before the first signs of power appeared. It became clear that the initially created community of free people was ready to create power structures.


"I don"t understand," Ivan Ivanovich fought back from the insistent demands of his doubles, expressed in passionate speeches full of reproaches, strange metaphors, requests to lead or transfer power to namesakes Ivan Ivanovich. Threats and attempts to bribe Ivan Ivanovich began to appear. Ivan Ivanovich sadly hid in the random corners of the spherical Flaskule, disappointed by the idea of similarity. - And without likeness? The whole world will be inhabited by chimeras, and what to talk about with them?═he═complained to Alex═

- I was friends with═chimeras,═my wife even was a chimera. Of course, they do not want to live according to the laws of a developed society, but many of them like to live in small communes.

═

Myth, the father of my wife Zoe, was born from a donkey who had the head of the scientist Ziriumus implanted by the almighty when Ziriumus's heart almost stopped. Myth stubbornly defended the scientific achievements of the almighty before the crowd and the government, prayed for the entrance to the dungeon from which the omnipotent appeared and disappeared for two hundred and twenty years. Myth refused the social benefits that its people beckoned. He did not live in the communes of chimeras, where food was available every day, where the═entrance to the commune and the exit from it wereguarded by lions with shark teeth, where the ceiling was replaced by a holey sky. Myth fed on beetles and sagebrush flowers.

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In the spring flood, he saved a young donkey. She followed him all spring and summer, and in the fall she gave birth to Myth"s══daughter, Zoe. Zoe was distinguished by inhuman beauty. Instead of ears, Zoe had bugles. She had twelve little toes on her feet. Alex cried...

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When Zoe gave birth to a girl, Nya, whose body was covered with gold, because of which she could not grow through the body, her initially small ears, covered with fur, became large like those of her grandmother"s, Zoe"s mother, but unable to transmit the sounds of the world to her. Zoe, with little Nia in her arms, secretly climbed the mountain at night, generated by the imagination of the Myth for his descendants. And the imagination of the Myth swallowed up Zoe and the little cheerful Nya along with her cute teddy bear born in a thunderstorm.

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Chapter 23═

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To prevent the creation of power structures, Ivan Ivanovich took measures for the urgent resettlement of Flaskule"s according to the principle - Alex and namesake. Frankly, he yearned for unhurried, carefree conversations with Alex over a bottle of rum and a laughing sprig of protein. But, suddenly, for Ivan Ivanovich, the namesakes rebelled, demanding social cohesion, social structures and privileges over the Alexs, insisting that the Alexs are a people, a tribe equal to space dust. - Alexs should be the lowest in the social structure.

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- Let Ivan Ivanovich have as many Alexs as he wants, and we have three, two, even one Alex, just to create a social status. Ivan Ivanovich, day and night, invited the next namesake and Alex to the library. The library was the docking point for the Flaskule. With difficulty he stuffed a resisting namesake into Flaskule, gave instructions to Alex, and the new Flaskule, an absolute likeness of the original,═flew═in space, not knowing about the Earth. Then the process was repeated until Ivan Ivanovich and Alex were left alone.

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-It's easy to create, but it's almost impossible to put things in order, Ivan Ivanovich complained to himself, next to Alex, who had fallen asleep and was tired of social catastrophes. Alex dreamed of Allochka, she sculpted plump pancakes with her small, plump hands. She looked at Alex seriously and suddenly laughed merrily.

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═

Chapter 24═

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At the same time, Ivan Ivanovich had dreams full of anxiety:═either theparrot, with its frozen paws, pointed to the sky for the umpteenth time, and there, in the sky, there was nothing, emptiness, not even the sky, then it seemed necessary to Ivan Ivanovich, exhausted by the likeness, to create another pair -troika Alexis, reserve. What if something happened, Ivan Ivanovich was worried, but Alex was not at hand, nowhere, what to do then Ivan Ivanovich═was═even afraid to imagine.

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In the morning, trying not to look at Alex with a guilty look, he gave instructions to the new Alexs, generated by the doubts of sleepless nights, how to control Flaskules, which Ivan Ivanovich also created for balance. And now every Alex will get a namesake. But he was in no hurry to create namesakes, let Flaskules grow═up,═it"s not too late to create namesakes even in the last minutes before departure.


- The idea of similarity cannot exist for a long time without diversity, - Alex once said, making calculations of Flaskule"s flight trajectory at that very moment when Ivan Ivanovich passed by with a cup of hot fragrant tea. Alex has repeatedly tried to persuade Ivan Ivanovich to create a woman, but Ivan Ivanovich did not find any similarity in this. In the evening Ivan Ivanovich, looking sadly at Alex, said:═

- I am going═Create═a woman.═

-═Allochka ,═Allochka , it is necessary to create Allochka by all means, - the enamoured Alex beaming with happiness made the necessary clarifications.═

- I will create Alochka, Ivan Ivanovich agreed good-naturedly.

═

In the evening the dispatch of four Alexs was being prepared. The Alexs were sitting at the table in the library, attentively listening to Ivan Ivanovich's instructions.═

═══- The namesakes require power to keep the Flaskule system alive, each namesake must be loaded with tasks directly performed by the namesake himself, requiring fine motor skills. They should no longer need to achieve their goals by proxy.

═

- Those who strive for power should be obliged to do the work with their hands: cleaning, washing,═small═crafts for the holidays.═

- But, Ivan Ivanovich, - objected Alex, - Flaskule was conceived by Perchik as a walking interplanetary, there is no garbage on Flaskule, clothes are updated and there are no holidays. Ivan Ivanovich knocked over a glass of cherry juice, but the juice did not stain his clothes.═

- Maybe let them compose music, or write poetry?═

- Composing for them is categorically contraindicated.


- Let them write! But not═poems,═let them rewrite the books in the library. Suddenly, Alex's mother-in-law entered the library. I am Alochka, your═wife,═- she turned directly to Alex, ignoring his four doubles.═

-Woman,═thought Ivan Ivanovich and good-naturedly joined their hands together; where did he learn this?═

- Go, go! We're here on our own, he said indistinctly.


The mother-in-law gave a private look at Alex's apartment, busily inquiring about champagne. Alex tried to run. In the morning he felt two buttons on his mother-in-law.═

-Perchik! Alex pressed the green button without hesitation.═

The mother-in-law disappeared like a nightmare upon waking up.═

- Let's better work, - Alex said to Ivan Ivanovich, who looked interested, answering his impatient question:═

-Well, how?.═Ivanych Ivanych suddenly showed inhuman delicacy. And he did not say a word about what had happened, although, in the evening, after drinking rum, he specified:═

- Was it the button green?═

- Green, - Alex opened up unexpectedly for himself.

═

A young woman, about forty years old, burst into the house of old Perchik like a storm. Staring stubbornly at Perchik's shriveled figure, she said in the tone of a judge reading out a verdict:═

- I am Alochka, your wife. Perchik was frightened at first, knowing that Allochka , his wife, was preparing dinner in the kitchen and could enter room at any moment, but when he saw the buttons, green and red, on the neck of the new Alochka, he realized that this woman was a gift to him, Perchik, from his friend Alex in his old age. All of a sudden, Allochka entered the room, shuffling around with old slippers.═

═

- Mother! Allochka shouted joyfully.═

-I am not your mother? I am Alochka! From that moment, Perchik began a new entertaining life full of family adventures.


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Chapter 25═

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The last thirtieth anniversary of the president has been announced in the third millennium of his reign. Preparation for the holiday occupied the minds of all earthlings. Even critics and opponents of his rule rejoiced:═

- The President exchanged the fourth dozen! Someone even suggested that now the president will definitely begin to turn gray or go bald. The President, for long time hairless, was suspended by the air currents in a semi-sitting position. In front of him was a huge screen broadcasting events and everyday life of earthlings.

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He would like to run along the street with his puppy, Silent, kicking up an empty tin can, which, with a roar that frightens the afternoon sleep of the Old, dominated all street sounds. Lyalechka, tearing herself away from the black and white piano keys, ran to the window to wave her hand to him, but her old, almost blind grandmother began chasing her and waving a towel, rather deftly blocking her from his attentive gaze. Lialechka had already died six thousand and fifty-five years ago. She died young and cheerful, beautiful and desirable. They carried her, and the musicians followed her, playing Chopin. Lyalechka dissolved in sounds and memories, either with longing, or with pleasure.

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During his reign, the president experienced many romances with the brightest and most prominent women, submissive to his power so much that it made them all next to him similar, which made him bored. In the darkest alley of the darkest park, he met a girl who laughed and cried at the same time. She was sincere and a little mentally ill. Her father, the Head of the Diverse Patriotism Foundation, hid her from people. She gave birth to the President's son Vanya. Vanya also laughed and cried at the same time, when he was four years old, he said to the president, admiring his tie clip:

- I will grow up to be you.

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Two days later, Vanya disappeared without a trace, and the daughter of the director of the fund forgot how to laugh, and her father hid her in the tomb of "various patriots." In vain he hid her, the president would not harm her; she drowned among the tears of a dark tomb. Her father did not survive the loss of his grandson and daughter, jumped out of the window immediately after he died from a fatal self-wound in the head.

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The president was at the rally, young and slender. Why does he need all these clones - twin brothers? He did not feel affection, sympathy for relatives, earthlings. His regeneration does not require donor organs. Of course, three thousand years ago, donors were necessary for life. But now, when the cells of life, self-birth, are opened, which grow a new body without destroying memory and intellect, without destroying the Initiation of the process of personality, why should he see these intermediate ones, put himself wise next to these vile ambitions of his own youth?

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═

But the president could not influence in any way what happened on Earth or anywhere after he was captured by the comfortable at the beginning and now stuffy streams of embraces of his friends, which are now a simple ozone swing where he can move, see what is happening, but through which it is impossible to communicate with anyone, even with his mother, whom he hid in the lining of his fate three thousand years ago, and who can feel him, but cannot speak to him.

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- For the last time in this millennium, the President turned thirty years old! - proclaimed the speaker in the square.═

- Long years to the president, to be young and healthy, and thirty-one years old for more than one thousand years, - people wished each other on the streets. The festive street cake was huge numbers thirty-one, people leaned out of the windows of houses, with special festive tongs, reaching for the cake, break off a piece of happiness.


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The police made sure that the lower floors did not outstrip the upper ones, because last time, one, just one passerby, went inside the cake in search of raisins, grabbed a whole bag of raisins, managed to get out, and forty security agents died under the rubble of the cake. But even then, the crowd picked up first the pieces, and then the crumbs of the birthday cake, and the agents with the walkie-talkie and ammunition remained lying on the street until the morning.


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Chapter 26═


Ivan Ivanovich was preparing a happy surprise for Alex. According to his stories, he created for him Zoe and Nya - two chimeras beloved by Alex. Ivan Ivanovich did not repeat the gold coating on the body of little Nia so that the girl could grow up, but he could not stand and touched her ears and her mother's fingers with warm gold. Suddenly, Ivan Ivanovich opened the imagination of the Myth: he felt his will collide with something predetermined - both Zoe and Nya, sleeping in their mother's arms, turned out to be exactly the same as when they disappeared from Alex's house at night.

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Alex woke up in the night from crying═sound,═he got up reluctantly, trying to find a bottle of milk in an empty room. Then Alex remembered what had happened to Zoe and their daughter and sadly crawled back under the covers. The crying didn't stop. Alex ran to the library, which Ivan Ivanovich had long ago turned into his laboratory. He found the beautiful Zoe and Nia there, who demanded that Ivan Ivanovich return her bear cub. Alex instantly forgot about Allochka"s chubby cheeks and palms.

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Chapter 27═


A decree was issued that all thirty-year-old doubles of the president go to the disposal of public needs. An uprising of doppelgangers was expected, but a smart government knows how to anticipate, and in this case, the order was issued immediately after the mass disposal. It remains to catch the unutilized loners who managed to hide in the holes leading to the all-powerful. It was why the government issued a decree on the amnesty of the almighty, leading a burrowing lifestyle.

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Doubles, socially dependent and starving, came out of their holes and fell under the amnesty of disposal.═

- No, I can't drink rum, - Alex evasively reacted to Ivan Ivanovich's offer to chat as before.═

- Well, why not?═

- Zoe wants to conceive a son for me.═

- But you were an opponent of likeness, Ivan Ivanovich was sincerely surprised.═

- In the black forest there is a mountain, its owner is the wind. It throws stones in all directions. The wind makes birds fly and fish swim. Clouds crawl to give rest to the wind in the shadow of the Earth, where there is no place for═trees,═Nia described Ivan Ivanovich the image of the Earth.

- And the snow?═he═asked the girl curiously.═

-And the snow melted from the hot hands of the wind, she said, laughing. The girl liked to tease Ivan Ivanovich. She knew that on Earth he saw nothing but snow, a parrot, biologists and the artist Tanechka.

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Ivan Ivanovich took a sprig of protein and left Flaskule, leaving Nya instead of himself a teddy bear born by a she-wolf in a thunderstorm. He woke up on Earth in his own imagination. There was a blizzard and frost. Nowhere was the kind warm wind that the girl had told him about. Tears froze on her cheeks. The word "death" came out of his mind. Suddenly, he═recall═Myth and hid inside his own imagination...


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Chapter 28═

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The crowd picked him up.═

-We are saved, we are saved, the people shouted.═

It became hot from the running and breathing of the crowd of thousands.═

- We are saved, we have a new sky.═

A rusty streak appeared on the horizon, crossing out the old sunset. The lane was motionless, like a rail on a time-forgotten railroad. Suddenly, the rail moved and opened its mouth. The crowd stepped into the rusty sky with a thousand steps.

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The sky rose and the lower edges continued to capture those who did not have time to retreat back. Those who were behind continued to shout:═

-We are saved, we are saved!═

The sky threw out lightning, which gathered the remnants of the crowd with sticky edges. We are saved... Fedya saved the manukara. Ivan Ivanovich picked up Tanechka at random.═

-Save my son, a woman shouted, throwing the baby out of the crowd. Three of Fedya's hearts burst, and the stomach was regenerated from their remains. Fedya felt hungry.

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-I lost my brushes, Tanechka complained.═

- How will I report to the Council of Artists?═she═was afraid.═

Ivan Ivanovich carried in his arms the children whom he managed to pick up. -Everything will be, everything will be, he repeated stubbornly.═

With difficulty, he tore off the inscription "God" from his wrist and shyly tossed it aside. The sky rose, engulfing the sunset. Night has come...

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╘═Copyright Elena Koss(Косенко Елена Борисовна)

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