Were not were. Alexander Kolosov

      Head

      From childhood, there was a rumor that he had a bright head. Parents of the soul doted on him, they showed him to everyone as a miracle of nature. The father and mother were Jews, and they simply revered their son. First Saturdays, then kashrut, and everything ended with a synagogue, Tanakh, Torah and immersion in the Talmud. In his 20s, he acquired a reputation as a tzaddik and emigrated to Israel, where he took up the study of Kabbalah.

      For the next thirty years of his life, he ruined the Sephiroth tree and the study of 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, earned a lot of money, a family and hemorrhoids, and ended his life with a lamppost. On the eve of his dizzying finale, he celebrated the Jewish New Year in a close family circle and served fish heads on the festive table, which amazed everyone except him with their repulsive appearance.

      He did not attach any importance to this, pondering the mystery of deciphering the name of God, and the next morning he smashed his head to smithereens, crashing his bicycle into a lamppost. Evil tongues gossiped that damn fish heads were to blame, but no name, even if it is the name of the Lord God himself, is worth losing your head for it.

      Voice

      One woman decided to go to Israel. Just like that, for no apparent reason. You see, she had a voice that said: “Drop everything and run. To the homeland of your ancestors.”

      She left her husband, son, and parents here. They did not want to go with her, because they did not consider themselves Jews. And on the contrary, they dissuaded her in every possible way. But the woman firmly stood her ground. She divorced her husband and accepted conversion. That is Judaism.

      Before leaving, a neighbor came to her and asked her to repay the debt. Well, since they say, you are leaving, it would be good to pay off, otherwise it somehow turns out not humanly. And do you know what the woman said to her neighbor?

      And about duty, you understand, her voice said nothing.

      Hospitality

      In the troubled 90s, one promising businessman Gosha calls his friend Lesha and asks: “Friend, shelter people for the evening. It is very important for me. And I will pay you well for it. Straightaway. When it works.” Lyosha, a purely Soviet person, readily agreed. After the Yeltsin reforms, he was as naked as a falcon, and any reason to serve someone has a chance of boredom. He fusses, goes to the market. Buys three kilograms of pork with all the money and sets the table. Guests arrive – 6 Chechens. Serious people. In essence, abreks. He feeds them a frying pan and two pots of tea. Puts to sleep. In the morning, for breakfast, the leftovers of fried meat are eaten, and when they say goodbye, Lesha from the bottom of his heart wonders if they liked the pork? In response from the abreks, icy silence. And until now Lesha does not understand why Gosha did not pay him. Disappeared suddenly, the devil, and no one knows where. Somewhere and in something, apparently, Gosha miscalculated in his business. Or maybe the devil beguiled. And Lesha? Everyone is waiting for a call from a friend. He hopes that all the same he will be paid for his hospitality.

      Citizen and boy

      The nameless hero enters Red Square on legs half-bent with fear and tries to scream at the top of his voice, but comes out somehow unconvincingly, almost in a whisper and for some reason in falsetto:

      “I learned the truth about our government. It’s not real! We are ruled from abroad, and the main enemy is in the Kremlin. Do you hear me? Do you hear?

      A citizen passing by stops and looks at the hero with surprise.

      “Did you hear what I was shouting?” the hero shudders in fear.

      “And then, every word,” confirms the citizen, “Every student knows this only. What are you so upset about? Do not believe? Let me prove it.”

      He stops the first guy he comes across in punk clothes and asks:

      “What do you think of our president?”

      “Are you talking about this bald asshole in the Kremlin?” The boy spits at his feet with contempt, “So he is a bespontovy thief. I’d strangle the bitch if I could.”

      And it goes on like that, as if nothing had happened.

      “Well, I made sure that what you were shouting about is already known to everyone. So go home from here. Swell up and live like everyone else, pretending that everything suits you.

      The disgraced hero leaves Red Square with his head held low.

      And an hour later, the citizen and the boy stand at attention in front of the commandant of the Kremlin.

      “Well done, comrade officers. Stopped an attempt at an unauthorized rally. Killed hope in another person. They prevented, so to speak, the birth of a hero in time. Well done.”

      “We serve Russia,” a citizen and a boy shout at the top of their lungs.

      Grimaces of nature

      Imagine that you stumbled upon a deer at a watering hole in the forest. Surely this will set you in a romantic mood, you will immediately remember Bambi and all that: Disney rubbish. And if he also dies right in front of your eyes, taking his last sip of water before death, then this sight will surely break your heart. And you involuntarily shed tears. Think, I suppose, how tragic, damn it, what is there to hide. A kind of drama in nature. Immediately all sorts of philosophical little thoughts will come into your head, like here it is, the circle of life. And so on. But here’s what’s amazing. Cockroaches, like deer, also come to drink before they die. But this somehow does not inspire anyone – the sight of a dead cockroach in the kitchen sink. Even somehow the other way around. Causes disgust. Maybe because the cockroach does not have branched horns and it lives with us, and not in the forest. But, in fact, these are two phenomena of the same order. As they say, before death you will not get drunk and you will not inhale. What can I say, grimaces of nature.

      Heaven’s Gift

      He had a stout figure, almost square. A large, shaggy head with a cozy face and a large mouth with fleshy lips. He looked like a real Balda from Pushkin’s fairy tale. A kind of cunning little man with a double bottom: either a saint, or a murderer, or maybe both at the same time.

      The movements are smooth, the speech is unhurried. And the voice?! And the voice is enveloping, warm and bewitching. In a word, charming. The real voice of a storyteller. As once in childhood, in the Baby Monitor, when the radio began to sound: “And now, my friend, I will tell you a fairy tale.”

      It turned out that he served as an actor. At the Youth Theater. Played Winnie the Pooh. The children adored him. That’s what the voice means. Heaven’s gift.

      Two extreme

      Somewhere out there, beyond the borders of our sovereign Internet, where no one wears chastity belts to their homeland and everyone strives to despise any spiritual bonds, shamelessly flaunting their intellectual exhibitionism, here in this God-damned land, where milk rivers flow among jelly banks, any self-respecting artist values his name more than his own health. After all, his name is everything to him. Not just a trademark, but much more – style, individuality, handwriting. Ultimately reputation. These weirdos spend their whole lives trying to get people to associate all their work directly with their names. And when they tell you Picasso, you know for sure – this one will portray you in such a way that your mother will not recognize you in the portrait. Well, if Andy Warhol, then it will be a hand-colored silkscreen of a very large size. And if you come to Chagall to order a portrait, it is useless to ask him to paint you in the style of Modigliani. He will only portray you as Chagall, hugging a cow, and such a request will simply offend him. In fact, he doesn’t understand her. Because if you don’t like Chagall, why would you order a job from him? Go to Modigliani if you like him. And Chagall under Modigliani will not be forged, he has a name! Reputation! But they have it, but it’s not