When I was a kid, I dreamed of being an ice cream maker. Or what is it called? Ice cream seller. You are constantly sitting and eating ice cream. Decide for yourself what heaven is. What other purpose could there be in life… Neither mom nor dad need to ask for money for popsicle. Just sit in the booth and eat, eat …
Yes, and now … Fortunately, this is an immediate introduction to childhood. One day someone will write an ode to ice cream.
The crown of happiness was, of course, ice cream cake.
This tragic day is forever etched in my memory.
I’m 6 years old. Ice cream counter across the road, I wander around. Cake and I stare at each other for an hour. It costs five rubles. I’m not worth anything, I’m just my own daughter.
Somehow I manage to melt the heart of my mother, who loves ice cream, and she, without looking up from her phone call with her friend, gives me 25 rubles and keeps talking. For some reason she can’t be found as much as she should. I part with my fist clenched bitterly with the money. I cross the road with a purple piece of paper with Lenin’s profile in my hand (an incredible amount of money in Soviet times, a fifth of a month’s salary, in today’s money I think 25,000). I’m walking across the road in the heat. I feel my hand. I can’t feel my legs. I can’t see the way. Ice cream cake attracts me.
I reached the tent without any problems. I shook my hand. Not Lenin. It’s not a piece of paper. There was no money. The angels stole them. Wellness angels flying privately from the 21st century. They took the money out of my hand so that I wouldn’t eat oily food mixed with sugar.
Then, until nightfall, the whole family uselessly combed through every leaf of grass, grain of sand, and asphalt on their way from home to the ice cream tent, leaving no other sorrows. (I would really like to go back to that black, unfair, accusatory summer day so that my parents are so young again and I am small.)
Well. After that, to avoid this kind of drama, I decided to definitely grow up and become an ice cream girl. So that from now on without these blows of fate.
Then, when I grew up, my desires became more conscious, I realized that I didn’t want to be an ice cream maker, I wanted to be a winter concierge. Not even a winter, but a night winter porter, like that. Shovel the snow with the shovel, the shovel enters the snow slowly and the snow continues to fall and you clean everything like Sisyphus but peacefully. Fresh air enters the lungs, shovels into the pure snow, snowflakes dance in the light of a lantern.
And finally dreams come true.
No, I’m not a concierge. And not an ice cream seller. I am a courier. A simple dream come true. Nothing needs to be said, nothing needs to be taught, and the dark animal spirit is both pleasant and good.
After that, people were divided into two categories for me: “why do you need this, how shocking” ones and “how cool” ones. I don’t like the first one.
– Where are you? -My father calls, -Are you homeless again?
Yes, I am a courier. I’m homeless, as my father said. And I highly recommend it to everyone. Money – pennies. For delivery of the order – 200 rubles. Nobody gives tea. Never. And it’s not even in my head. There are zero interesting stories, no publications or nowhere to get material for a movie. People are gloomy, unfriendly. As in the drawings of Vasya Lozhkin. Treat the courier like a maid.
Overall I highly recommend it.
In a world that is becoming more and more unstable and incomprehensible, more and more worrying, it is necessary to structure life somehow. The app gives you an order and you go and go. From point A to point B. You are an ambassador. You bring something very necessary to a person. In times of disintegration and division – everything with everything – when everything suddenly falls apart somehow, you have to connect one thing: point A to point B, one person to the premise. What-no – and integration. What-no – but the meaning. Although short-term – but planning.
The world is unpredictable. The world is disturbing. The world is falling apart. You feel the need to frame yourself: from point A to point B. Up, up. A person needs specific points on the map at which he moves and moves in conditions of existential uncertainty. A kind of illusion of clarity.
As the most famous drunkard in Russian literature, Marmeladov, said: “After all, everyone should be able to go at least somewhere.” Marmeladov had nowhere to go. And he went to the tavern. Because at that time there was no delivery service yet. Thats the problem.
I assure you, this is an excellent psychotherapeutic practice. As soon as I’m done, I run to the “homeless”. How strange that my psychologist did not understand this: “Why do you need this, Yulia,” says Valery Viktorovich, the best living psychotherapist today, frightened, “Yulya, what an ugly thing.” What’s ugly? Nobody sees me. Neither my students, nor my colleagues, nor my producer ever called me to order. But I am ready for nice surprises.
Sometimes I get a rideshare service when I’m too tired in the middle of an order. Since the package should be delivered on time.
In the New Year I will go “homeless” and even with pleasure. Because I believe in the magic of the New Year and the healing grace of the courier.
“You’re homeless again in a mink-coat Mercedes. Come on.” Dad does not understand. “Yes, you will leave the shoes!” – aunt shouts into the phone. To stop. But how to reach the goal without breaking your shoes?
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.