Rus Like Everyone Else Read Online Free PDF Page A

perspiring. The sweat on his forehead felt cold, very cold. He stood up, pressing the money to his chest, and it was as if he saw the whole world for the first time at that moment: he suddenly saw all those people walking down the streets, on their way to something, carrying bags and suitcases, talking on phones; the cars driving along the square, the trucks; the builders on the machines shouting instructions, the cranes lifting bricks.
    THE SECRETARY AT WORK

    The secretary was sitting behind her desk in the Overall Company offices in the business district. On her lap she held a plastic bag with a new dress for the office party. The office party would start at seven that day, and it was taking place in the office canteen. The dress she bought was sea green. She had bought it during the lunch break. She touched the fabric with her fingers. The lady at the shop said it looked stunning, and she did not look away while she said it, which meant it was true. She was a nice saleswoman, the secretary thought. She’d asked the woman if she liked swimming, but she hadn’t replied. The secretary pictured herself coming through the door at the office party, the heads of her colleagues all turning toward her as they whispered to oneanother: “Is that the secretary? It can’t be but it is, it is her.”
    The phone rang. “Good afternoon Overall Company. I’ll put you through.” The secretary pressed the forward call button on the phone and opened her diary. It had a mirror on the inside. “Sorry, my datebook is completely full,” she said to her mirror-self. Her mirror-self did not answer. They looked at each other. The person in the mirror looked plainer and more distressed than the one in front of the mirror. It was three hours until the company party started.
    It is strange, the secretary thought as she looked at the clock above the glass corridor, that the ticking of the clock doesn’t really have anything to do with time. The hands are pushed forward by batteries, not by time. Although, if time slowed down, the clocks would slow down too, of course, because time determines the speed at which everything goes forward. She studied her hands as she slowly moved them before her eyes. The people who were walking down the corridor were laughing and joking. The secretary pictured herself laughing and joking in her dress.
    â€œShe is great,” people would say to each other, and then someone would ask her to go to a restaurant and they would be inseparable ever after, and if this person had to pick one person to be on an island with, it would be her, without a doubt and the other way around.
    â€œYes,” the secretary said, “at first she did not know anyone, but after the office party, she was the one everybody talked about.”
    THE SHOW IS OVER

    â€œYoung people don’t have respect anymore,” a man in a brown corduroy jacket said to Mrs. Blue as she rearranged her hair in the mirrored window of the supermarket. “All they do is talk on their phones. They don’t even know there was a war. They’re gonna yap all through the Memorial Service, I tell you.”
    Mrs. Blue did not reply. Just because she was old didn’t mean she wanted to complain about everything. She placed her fur hat in the basket of her rolling walker and went into the store. “‘Potatoes, chocolates, lettuce, hand cream, tea, butter,’” she read out loudfrom her shopping list as she pushed her rolling walker through the store’s aisles.
    The groceries she put in the basket, the hand cream under her fur hat.
    â€œNine-fifty.” The girl behind the register had a name tag that said CATHY and a gold plate on one of her teeth.
    â€œHere you go, sweetheart,” Mrs. Blue said.
    â€œOne day there will be a virus in those mobile phones,” the man in the corduroy jacket said, standing in line behind Mrs. Blue. “It will climb into their ears and eat their