And they had only a few days left to live ... Only a dying person can answer the question of what else he wants to do in these last days. Sin torment dying bustle. Today, I really understand why my mother's roommates in the ward were so talkative, despite the fact that every word they uttered was given to them with great difficulty. I was twenty-five when my mother was gone. So my grandmother and I stayed together, and she replaced me literally all: mother, father, girlfriends, friends. I cried, pouring out her maiden sorrows, and she stroked my hair, calming down and saying: "Oh, Nastyushka, is not this grief! It will pass like a rain. You, child, only here and cry. And nowhere else. People do not like the tears of others: no one will regret. I believed her, but this confidence in the hardness of people did not make me more closed or hard. I had a great job at the bank, a lot of friends and a loved one. The first bell sounded when my grandmother went off. The neighbor agreed to look after her while I was at work, and then I did not go away from my grandmother a single step.
Medications, procedures, calls of doctors . We began to drastically miss the money, and I decided to ask the head of his department.
"Oleg Pavlovich, may I come in?" - I asked, timidly entering the office. I tried to objectively explain the situation to him without the chilling details and could not restrain myself, forgetting my grandmother's covenant: I burst into tears. The chief winced disgustedly and asked:
"What do you need?" Loan, material assistance? The main thing - calm down.
- No no! I ask you to give me the opportunity to take on additional work at home. I really need money. The chief brightened noticeably. I did not ask for money, but the opportunity to earn it. Oleg Pavlovich took the trouble to get out of the table, embraced me in a fatherly way and said grandly: "We all have to remember about Christian morality. You are a noble and strong person, Anastasia. I will help you! I'll look for additional income for you. " If I knew that he would "find me", then it would be better to wash the floors in the front room. But the very next day I was dragging home an inordinate folder with documents that I had to process in the next few days. For pennies ... It was some kind of nonsense.
The whole day I worked hard at the bank , then I rushed home and did not leave my grandmother until the night. When she, at last, fell asleep, I sat down for podrabotku. I could sleep for a couple of hours. Puffed with caffeine, like a somnambulist, spanked to work. How I waited for the weekend, when it was not necessary to go to the bank! Then I managed to sleep a little longer, though not much: grandmother, washing, cleaning, work. I lost seven kilograms, became irritable. And even Valerka, my beloved, in which I was always sure as in myself, began to get tired of our fleeting quick visits, hurried telephone calls.
"It can not go on like this!" - He was indignant.
"Look at who you look like!" Need to do something.
"You can only do one thing," I answered evilly, "to strangle my grandmother with a pillow!" I hope you will help me?
I was thrown by a loved one. because he was very tired of my problems. I did not expect such a terrible betrayal from him
"You are neurasthenic," he insisted.
- I can not do anything. Suggest something serious - even more angry at him.
"Maybe I'll take my grandmother to a nursing home?" He cautiously advised.
"My grandmother?" I began to laugh hysterically. - For what? For the sake of making it more comfortable for you to fuck me ?! And who are you after that ?!
"You've never said that before." What a vulgar thing! - Valera even flushed with vexation.
- So I've never had such a fucking life before! - I cut off. "I do not like it. Go to the devil!"
I did not have time and energy to long to be sad that my beloved left me, although I remember it to this day. Because love can not be forgotten. I remember everything about us until the evening when he left. And this "everything" was beautiful! But that evening a completely different person left from me: my Valera could not do this. Grandmother gently smoldered, half a year and died on my hands. Her last words were a strange and unspoken phrase. She smiled and said:
- Do not get in the way ahead of time, and when you open the door, be sure to smile to your relatives, even if they offend you. Then you'll figure it out. But first, smile. And everything will be fine, baby! What was she talking about? I did not have any close ones after my grandmother's death ... The first few days after the funeral, I just slept: I woke up only to have a snack. As soon as I went to work, Oleg Pavlovich called me and said:
- Anastasia, you wrote to the accounting department statement on the planned leave. But now is July, the season of holidays. If I signed it, it would mean that one of your colleagues will go on vacation in December. Do you think this is fair?
"No," I answered and blushed with shame, trying not to burst into tears.
"So you do not mind if the month you were absent from, we will consider it a holiday at your own expense?" He asked. "I do not mind," I wanted to get out of this trivial trap quickly. Unpaid vacation ...
I was so hoping to get vacationers and at least somehow survive until my salary. There was no hope. After the grandmother's funeral, there was only twenty. I searched all the kitchen boxes, the closet and even the grandmother's nightstand. What did you expect to find? A handful of buckwheat? I found the ornaments wrapped in a handkerchief. A golden ring with a blue pebble, a thin chain and earrings. I cried over them and carried them to the pawnshop. For all this I was given only 120 hryvnia, but I was happy about it. At work, the situation was tense. Whether I was sorry, or did not want to join my grief, or just nervous because of the possible transfer of holidays, but the staff were pointedly polite, dry and detached. And only my close friend Galka remained the same, as always. "The great Christian" Oleg Pavlovich now himself offered me a part-time job, and I realized that if I refused, he would take it as a protest.
I had to agree. Now I at least slept. In the rest everything remained as before. Until five in the evening - the bank, then until midnight - part-time. Six months later, I was so tired that I decided: everything, I'll ask the boss for a small sip of freedom. I did not go to work on Monday - I went to the hospital. It happened in the early morning. I stood in the bathroom and brushed my teeth, when I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my side. Dizzy, my legs gave way, I crawled to the phone and called an ambulance. Then she opened the front door and went to the sofa. I woke up from the smell: it smelled so much in the ward where my mother was dying. The old doctor beckoned me with a finger, and I followed him. The same scary smell was in the medical room. The doctor washed his hands, sat down at the table, seated me opposite and began to question everything in detail.
The doctor said that I stayed with my six months of life. I did not even tell anyone about cancer.
A family? Children? "No, no," I shook my head negatively. - Nobody here! While I'm all alone. " He sighed, got up from the table and sat down next to me.
"Then you'll have to stay in the hospital for a long time," he said. I was scared, but then a desperate determination came from somewhere, that I still made this doctor tell me the whole truth.
"You need to be urgently sent to the oncological center," he said wearily.
- Doctor, - I was looking for arguments and found. "I'll leave and never see you again."
How much longer do I have to live?
"You can count on a normal active life for six months." So what is next...
God only knows! In the world, sometimes the most incredible miracles happen. So the second and, probably, the last bell rang. If it were not for the illness, it would be worth writing a book about the discoveries of this period of my life. A long and detailed description of the behavior of people caught up close. I firmly decided not to tell anyone at work about the disease and try my best to work as long as possible. Why? To earn a piece of bread, when I still want to eat, there is, but I can not work anymore. For some reason, remembered Valerka. Eh, man, you've run off in time! Probably, it would be simply unbearable: to see him next to him - a healthy physically and simultaneously sick soul.
And such an infinitely loved one . On the very first day after coming to work, I could not resist telling Galke about my sorrows and problems.
"Galya, I'll tell you something," I said. "Only swear that you will not say a word to anyone."
"The grave!" - Galca vowfully joked. And then, remembering my neighbor from my mother's room, I told her that I had a hard struggle for every extra day, and the time would end - I do not know. And I really need money, so I do not want to be aware of my illness at work. Galki's eyes were round with fear, she nodded in agreement.
The boss frankly survived me: he somehow learned about my illness and decided to fire. But I always tried so hard!
already starting me with a heart of regret:
"What are you talking about, Nastya?" I will not tell anyone! Well, I ran - it's time for me! Ten days later strange things began to happen at work. First I was summoned by Oleg Pavlovich and said:
- Anastasia, I do not like how you cope with the extra load. How can we all understand this?
- Excuse me! I will be more attentive - I wanted to fall at his feet and beg to not deprive me of work.
"This is our first and last talk about work." The next time you just write a letter of resignation, "he muttered.
Then I happened to hear a conversation between two employees who went out for a smoke break.
"And why did the boss suddenly cling to Nastya?" - Asked one.
"I think that our Palych simply wants to survive it," suggested another.
- What for? It seems that the girl works fine, and even pulls home every day, - the first was surprised.
The second lowered her voice a little:
- They say she's sick ... Something oncologic. But do not tell anyone! I think the boss does not want problems. Well, how will you fire her after she croaks? I leaned against the door, biting my lip. If this turkey Oleg Pavlovich tomorrow fires me, I'll just disappear ... Life changed the rules, and I was moving now on a different, but to the same hard schedule as before. Up to five - the bank, after five to seven in the evening - procedures, then - get home and work again. I refused myself everything. Money was spent only on meager food and medicine. So two months passed. At work, either got used to the idea of my illness, or simply did not believe in it, but the situation became a little warmer. Only the chief moved inexorably towards his goal. I knew that he really wanted to get rid of me, but decided that I would stick to the last.
The forces melted, and one day I lost consciousness right at the workplace. I came to myself literally in five minutes, a sharp pain tore my side, but I smiled and tried to laugh it off.
"We called an ambulance," the officers answered in an obliging chorus.
"You do not need an ambulance, I'm all right," I said through force.
And then Oleg Pavlovich flew into the office.
- What's going on here? He cried nervously. - We have a report on the nose!
"Nastya is not well," explained Galka.
"Anastasia again?" - he stared at me, and then unfolded and slammed the door of the office.
But he did not stop acting. On the same day, Galka helped to drag me home a huge stack of documents. It was Oleg Pavlovich who called me half an hour after I fell into a swoon and said in good-natured tone:
- Tomorrow auditors come, you need to prepare these documents.
I knew that I would not have time to process the papers by morning , but some unknown hope still smoldered in my soul: and suddenly ... In the morning I went into the bank and heard the colleagues arguing loudly outside the door.
- Let's skip at least a dozen, - Galka begged all. - Nastya worked with us for five years. Who is to blame that the chief is an idiot; and she was fired.
"I do not believe that she is dying," the economist Yuri objected to her. "It's going to die,
My employees turned out to be very callous people, which I did not expect at all from them. In my troubles I rely only on myself then and I'll put on a wreath! So I found out that I was fired and at my funeral there will be exactly one wreath from the compassionate Yuri.
- Collecting her money is stupid! What do we say? Here, they say, Nastia, you got fired, here's to your poverty ... it's humiliating! - I heard the voice of a young Julia. And so it was discovered that the employees do not want to humiliate me.
I suddenly remembered my grandmother's last words, opened the door and, smiling broadly, she said loudly:
- Guys! I found a new job! Today I resign. From me - glade! For lunch we will walk! Do not go out and eat up!
- Well ?! What did I say? Yuri yelled triumphantly. - And you...
- And what kind of work? - the girl's zatary. "Tell me, Nastenka!"
- The work is called - do not hit the bed! - I honestly said.
They exchanged glances, but did not specify. Oleg Pavlovich looked at my "glade" for a long time and lamented for a long time that such a valuable and competent employee left the bank ... I sit in the apartment and listen: when the pain subsides a little, I will try to leave the house. I have a lot of work, and do not understand healthy, why I seek to settle these things, and not others. Somewhere I heard: driven horses are being shot ... I do not fight for life anymore - I just live. Here I will sell an apartment and leave this city forever. I found a place where the driven horses are not killed. This is a secluded, poor women's monastery in a dense forest ...