19 19

In an ordinary apartment in a bedroom community on the third floor of a nine-story building, a family of three gathered after work. It was an ordinary Monday evening.

Irina Skolkina, thirty-two years old, was fiddling with the stove. She needed to feed her husband and ten-year-old daughter. Her blue eyes looked a little tired. Her brown hair was disheveled.

Denis Skolkin, Irina's lawful husband, walked into the spacious kitchen, something they couldn't dream of in the USSR. He was dressed casually in dark blue sweatpants and a shabby blue T-shirt with "Here" written in white and frayed letters on the back.

Today's housing standards have changed for the better. The houses were warmer, the apartments more spacious. Their two-room apartment looked more like a three-room apartment thanks to a spacious kitchen. In addition to the standard kitchen nook, there was a folding sofa, a large table, and even room for a desk, on which there was a domestic monoblock - a large flat screen and serious hardware, not inferior to their foreign counterparts.

Denis was tired after the shift at the housing department of his district, where he worked as a plumber. In his thirty-five years he looked like a respectable man. Tall, broad-shouldered, but his figure was a mess. A three-x-size T-shirt fit around his big belly. He hadn't always been like that. In his youth, Denis had done kettlebell lifting and even won second place in a regional youth competition. But work and a family, consequently, the lack of free time, and also laziness forced him to give up training, and his wife's delicious cooking contributed to his weight gain as well.

- Honey, what are you going to make us happy today?

- Do not interfere, - not turning around, said Irina. - You do not want the cutlets to burn?

- Mmmm..." Denis licked his lips. - Cutlets... With macaroni?

- With mashed potatoes. You'd better go and make sure Masha doesn't surf the Internet instead of studying.

Denis put his arm around her waist and pushed aside the collar of the calico cloak and kissed her tenderly on the neck. Then he walked imposingly to his daughter's room.

Suddenly he was taken by surprise by the ringing of the doorbell. He froze in the aisle and turned back.

- Darling, are we waiting for someone?

Irina looked at her husband with bewilderment and shrugged her shoulders.

- No.

- I'll go and see who's there.

When he opened the front door, he found a familiar face on the landing. For some time he tried to remember who it was. He did not immediately recognize his wife's relative.

- Dmitri?

Thin and short, with his average height Karpov looked like a puny teenager compared to the big man Denis. On the way to his sister's place he had time to put on his usual clothes bought at the mall: dark blue jeans, the same color red-striped cotton shirt, inexpensive Soviet sneakers, and a brand new big backpack on his back.

- Hi, Denis. I'm sorry for being so late and unannounced, but I didn't have a cell phone until today. I just got it. I'm in town on business, but I haven't had a chance to rent yet. And I remember your address.

Throughout the whole speech Denis stood in the doorway like a statue. He shook his head slightly, as if to dispel an obsession, and then moved aside.

- Come in, come in. We weren't expecting you, but it doesn't mean that we have to send a relative to spend the night in a hotel. It's expensive.

- Denis, who is it?

- Your brother has arrived!

- Brother? - she asked in amazement. The woman even stopped cooking and looked out into the hallway. Her eyes widened with amazement. - Dima? Indeed! What brings you here?

- Passing through, - he answered calmly. - Good evening, Irina. You have lost weight and become prettier since the last time we met. I am sorry for the uninvited visit. I am in town on business, and will be here for some time. I thought I'd check on my sister. Don't worry, I'll get an apartment tomorrow.

- Do you have money?!

Ira looked at her brother with surprise. She noticed that he had changed for the better. He had become more muscular, no longer slouched, his posture had become aristocratic. The wrinkles on his face had smoothed out, his skin bronzed with tan, his face weathered, as if he had spent a lot of time in the open air.

The last time Ira had seen her brother, he was different. He had begun to drink, he was unkempt. Now it was as if there was a different man standing in front of her. And that was good, because the old brother disgusted her. No one likes an alcoholic, even the drunks themselves do not like other professional tasters of strong drinks.

- You look better," she said.

Linael flared his nostrils.

- Sis, there is something burning?

- Oh," Ira said with a wave of her hands. - The cutlets!

The woman rushed into the kitchen.

- Come in, - invited Denis. - Dima, you are sleeping over at our place tonight. It's out of the question. We have a wonderful fold-out couch in the kitchen. So far no guest has complained about it.

- Oh, thank you.

A curious face with long loose blond hair peeked out of the room. Masha curiously looked at the guest with big blue eyes.

- Uncle Dima arrived?

- Hello, Maria," Dmitry smiled warmly at the girl. - You have grown so much!

- Hello, - she answered and disappeared into her room.

- Dima, come into the kitchen, - invited Denis.

The men took a seat on the couch at the kitchen table. Karpov sat on the edge, put his backpack on the floor and began to take out some presents.

- Irina, I brought you some forest delicacies. There are fresh hare's meat, smoked and dried fish, blackberries, nuts, mushrooms and healthy herbal compositions. I signed all the sets and the recipe, how to brew and take, from what diseases they helping.

- Wow, is it"a little"!?!- Denis looked at the table with big eyes. - Yes, you have already laid the entire table top.

Irina was puppyishly delighted with the amount of gifts. She couldn't believe that her brother had brought them. She had expected him to ask for a loan, not this.

- Dim, where did you get all these things? - she asked.

- Gifts from the forest. I spent the whole summer wandering in the taiga gathering all sorts of things, fishing, and hunting. By the way, it brings a good income. My pension wasn't even close to the results of my four months' work.

- Isn't it dangerous?

- Absolutely safe, if you're familiar with the forest.

- But you have never been in the forest, Dima! - My sister objected.

- I've learned.

- Well..." - Denis rubbed his palms together. - For such a pleasant meeting we can drink. Yes, dear?

Irina shifted her eyebrows with a frown. Her look did not promise her husband anything good. She cautiously looked at her brother.

- Sorry, Denis, without me, - shook his head subtly. - I don't drink.

- You don't drink? - Irina's eyes went up to her forehead. She looked at her brother as if she had never seen him before. - You, and you do not drink?!

- I don't drink. I quit once and for all.

- What had to happen," the woman continued, "for you to stop drinking?

- The bathhouse burned down," Karpov said as if he were talking about something distracting like the weather. - My bathhouse. And I almost burned down in it. All because of alcohol. I don't drink after that.

The Elf was torn with internal contradictions. On the one hand, these people were his relatives by physical incarnation. On the other, they were simply alien homans from another reality. If his kin were to learn that a firstborn so lovingly communicated with the Homans as a close kin, they would have their brains scrambled. An elf asking to spend the night with humans! This is madness!

Maria came into the kitchen. She curiously began to look at the presents. The girl sat down on a chair next to Karpov.

- Uncle Dima, did you really live in the forest?

- I did.

- And did you see a bear? - Curiosly asked the girl.

- I saw a bear, and wolves, and other animals.

- And they did not eat you?

- They did, - smiled Dmitry.

- But you are alive! - Masha was indignant under the good-natured sneering looks of her parents.

- And I chewed up the bear's stomach and climbed out of it! - said Karpov in a cheerful tone.

The girl puffed out her cheeks, becoming like a funny hamster.

- You're lying to me!

- Just kidding, - he patted the girl on the head Dmitry. - Masha, and you know about technology?

- A little.

Karpov took out of his pocket a new Soviet-made smartphone.

- Will you help your uncle learn how to use this thing?

Masha took the phone in her hands and examined it carefully. She poked her fingers deftly at the screen, entering various menus, and then closing pages.

- Oh!" she fairly rounded her mouth. - It's the new Neptune-R7 on the Aurora 8.0 operating system. Oh, cool! All I have is a Neptune-R3.

- Is it any good? - Karpov inquired with genuine curiosity.

- Top ! - Niece confirmed with a significant nod. - Quad-core processor, top graphics card, increased battery, which should suffice for three days of active use on the Internet, the camera for thirty-two megapixels.

- So the salesman didn't deceive me," said Karpov. - So how do you use this thing?

- Here, look...

The girl spent a long time explaining to uncle the nuances of using the smartphone. It was hard for Linael to understand, but he tried. In the end, by the beginning of dinner he got the hang of it a little, and with difficulty distracted himself from the Internet, which stored an infinite amount of knowledge. Perhaps even the length of an elf's life would not be enough to read and review all the materials accumulated by mankind..