She wanted to be up there too—on the top of the tree, closer to that same sky. Without the ridiculous comments of her brother's animated tattoo (how was that even possible?), without the explanations and endless commentary that sounded suspiciously like her own thoughts, coming from nowhere.
She just wanted to be up there. And then… what? Who cares, if you can simply stop thinking for once.
That's it, pick up the pace. The hearts of suffering girls—and men too, just so no one accuses us of sexism—are slowly melting. So go on, girl, keep acting like an ecstatic nymph!
"I'm not listening to you!" she shouted, already perched on a branch, earning a slightly surprised look from Denzel. Being a true gentleman, he chose not to interfere and simply pointed toward the window they were now facing.
They were sitting, by the way, on the largest and thickest branch imaginable—one any beaver would gladly trade a fortune to use for a dam. There was no danger of it snapping beneath them.
- We definitely don't look like fallen angels, - Denzel said calmly. - Or angels at all, really.
And once again, he pointed to the window.
Behind the cloudy, long-unwashed glass, an entire performance was unfolding.
A procession of children moved across the space, dressed in the style of the old Soviet Union: white silk shirts, shorts, and red neckerchiefs hanging down to their stomachs. In their hands were toy sabers, which they raised in salute to the hushed audience.
The room was filled exclusively with adults—presumably parents. They clapped in perfect unison each time the children lifted their weapons overhead. Accompanying this rhythm, a small girl shouted:
"War and Peace!"
The whole thing looked eerie and deeply unnatural, something Denzel couldn't help but note.
- I won't pretend to judge the director's level of conceptual depth," he said thoughtfully, "or why the artistic vision stopped at a single act. I'm simply not qualified for that. But don't you feel the emotions look… forced?
- Absolutely! - Pixie Luchador exclaimed, as the setting of his tattoo shifted again. Now he lounged in a plush chair, wrapped in a long scarf, wearing a beret, and stroking a Persian cat. - If they let me in there for even a second, I'd tear that production to shreds.
But clearly, these kids and their parents don't have much of a budget. So—pfah!—to hell with this mockery of artistic fundamentals."
He actually spat. The image froze again, the droplet becoming just another permanent detail of the tattoo.
SeaAsia came up with a far more down-to-earth question:
— How did so many people gather there if the school is clearly abandoned and, as we've seen for ourselves, the doors are boarded up?
Denzel took out a small pair of binoculars, studied the scene for a long moment, and delivered his verdict:
— I believe there's no one there at all. What we're seeing could be echoes of the past, or something that is yet to happen — or perhaps something that will never happen at all.
— What do you mean by that? — SeaAsia asked, stunned.
— I'm stunned too. That line wasn't in the script, — a voice echoed in her head, and Pixie's Persian cat briefly came to life, gaping in shock and dropping a packet of cat food from its paws.
— I wouldn't rule out accumulated generational memory absorbed by the walls of this School. And now those walls are staging this farce, — Denzel replied simply, then immediately changed the subject, — tell me, what do you personally enjoy?
— If you mean hobbies, I can't settle on just one. I'm interested in everything, so I'm constantly monitoring the Internet for curious facts about this world.
Leaning against the trunk, one leg crossed over the other, the young man nodded vaguely. It was impossible to tell whether he liked the answer or not. Encouraged, the narrator decided that this time he wouldn't throw her off balance:
— For example, did you know that the little-studied Rapa Nui civilization created the famous monuments on Easter Island in order to immortalize themselves? They somehow calculated that in the future these statues would be used as emojis and stickers to express the emotion of a "poker face" in communication. And that's incredible!
The further SeaAsia went with her explanation, the more awkward she began to feel. Her confidence wasn't helped by this:
— Sometimes I think I'm a moai too. But then I remember I'm just a drawing on the skin made of the fibers of your solid muscles. Not bad, — Pixie commented, though no one had asked for his opinion.
Without reacting to her fascinating fact, Denzel continued his enigmatic conversation, as if addressing the air itself. And when the little girl's cry of "War and Peace!" echoed once more, he grew thoughtful:
— All I got were headphones. My connection to the surrounding world. I used to listen to opera through them, various programs about the history of music. And later… through them, I heard Them.
Those were the very extraterrestrial voices that once contacted Tesla and persuaded him to build a tower to communicate with them. Technology has advanced since then, and now, to maintain contact, all you need is a pair of ordinary Chinese wireless earbuds.
— And what did they tell you? — SeaAsia asked with interest.
— That my end will not become a new beginning. And that it will come very soon, — the young man shared this terrible news with a serene, relaxed expression. Then he gently touched her shoulder, — please turn around. Someone wants our attention.