§ 1. Thermals and Rotors
(Paragliding terminology)
A thermal. A warm, sunless autumn day. Over the summer, the trolleybuses had ground the asphalt at the stop into such deep ruts that they resembled permanent scars. The higher-ups, having reached the epiphany that trolleybuses and buses are not, in fact, trams, decided it was time to replace the pavement. They scraped away the ruts and began laying a new surface. Steam billowed from the trucks arriving one after another; steam rose from the asphalt paver, and since there was no wind, it drifted upward—steady, smooth, and purposeful. The first to notice this atmospheric phenomenon known as a "thermal" was Galk...
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[ DATABASE: UNDERBREATH ] [ FILE: § 9-10 ]
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[ CURRENT SECTOR: EN_ACTIVE ]
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Grandpa was jolted from his nature-watching by an insistent pounding at the door. Technically, the house had a doorbell, but his grandson, Yo-Yo, flatly refused to press it. It’s... well, it’s a long story: stupid childhood phobias involving monsters outside the window, ghosts in the closets, wolves under the bed, and so on. He had long since stopped believing in such nonsense, but he still wouldn't touch the bell out of sheer boyish stubbornness.
"Hey. How was school?"
"Ugh," he dismissed the question with a wave. "Same as always. They’re driving me crazy..."
It’s worth noting that someone or something is always driving him crazy: teachers, kids, his sneakers, the weather, and, of course, his grandfather with all the questions. This time, it turned out his sour mood was courtesy of his Belmova teacher—the Belarusian language specialist. Not only had she assigned everyone an essay titled "How I Spent My Summer," but she also had the audacity to remember it a week later.
"She's just... too much," he repeated, fixing himself a sandwich while peering over my shoulder at the computer screen. "Two crows were flying, one headed north, the other was ginger, and the third was a jackdaw... Grandpa, what is this? That’s not how it works! Have you started writing fairy tales or something?"
Now, what on earth possessed the old man to blurt out that he was also writing an essay?
"Really?!" the boy’s eyes rounded. "About what?"
"Well, it’s not exactly an essay. It’s a report for your parents on how their son spent his vacation."
"Oh, Grandpa! Let’s write mine instead? I mean—for me? Or rather—you write it, because I’ve got to get to swim practice."
What on earth possessed the old man to agree? Then again, what choice did he have? He was in the boy's debt, after all.
"Fine. Но first, I need the parameters..."
"The what?"
"The input data. First: are we writing the truth or not? Second: which specific summer are we talking about? And third: is this about your adventures, or your reflections on good and evil, the meaning of life, the—"
"No, no, no," he cut the old man off, even pausing his chewing for a second. "No 'meanings.' Only the truth, and only adventures. Skip the pirates. First, write about how we were captured by the Klingon Empress Shapoklyak, then how Crocodile Gena saved us with his faithful sidekick, Chekushka... actually, don't worry about the 'then.' That'll be enough for the teacher."
"But what about—"
The grandson didn't stick around to listen. "I'll check it tomorrow!" he shouted, slamming the door behind him.
Well, why not? If you’re going to write, write! Grandpa rubbed his hands together impatiently, licking his chops in anticipation of the task ahead, and began to clatter away at the keyboard.
§ 2. The Essay
"How I Spent My Summer"
(The Version for the Belmova Teacher)
Last summer was the most extraordinary of my life. While all the other children were busy eating their grandmothers' pancakes or sunning themselves at dachas, my destiny took a sharp, bank-turning veer. It all began in mid-July when an intergalactic cruiser touched down in our courtyard, and I was intercepted and reformatted by the Klingon Empress Shapoklyak.
I must say, life in captivity is a rather unpleasant business. The Empress, draped in a black lace mantle with a high collar, constantly demanded that I dust her laser cannons and feed her combat rat, Lariska, quantum croutons. There was very little meaning in any of this, but adventure—more than enough! While in captivity, I realized one thing: if you don’t have an interstellar engine, escape is a very tricky maneuver.
But I got lucky. Just as Shapoklyak was preparing to conquer a neighboring galaxy, the real heroes arrived to help. My cell was broken into by Crocodile Gena—a veteran space dog in a crimson beret. With him was his faithful companion and specialist in micro-sabotage: Chekushka. She was so small that she easily slipped through the ventilation ducts and disabled the prison's force field.
We fled through the thorns to the stars. Gena played the rebel march on his accordion, while Chekushka covered our tracks by scattering orange peels all over the ship, causing every one of the Klingon guards to slip and slide. This was the absolute truth and pure adrenaline, without a single redundant reflection on the meaning of life.
That is exactly how I spent my vacation. And if anyone says it couldn’t have happened—well, it just means their summer was dreadfully boring.
§ 3. Stupefaction: The Mock Amnesty
"No, Grandpa, no! Thanks for the essay, of course—the teacher is going to have a total meltdown—but we have to rewrite the beginning. I don't get any of it: the asphalt, the ginger crow, the... and why do you call me Yo-Yo? You give everyone nicknames. You even called the mail lady a 'Vacuum Cleaner'..."
"No, no, no. I called the vacuum cleaner 'Galya,' not the mail—"
He didn't let me finish. "What if I start making them up? Something funny and mean?"
"First of all, perhaps a person is born specifically to hand out nicknames. Second, I already have one—you couldn't come up with anything funnier if you tried."
"Really?!" His eyes rounded. "What is it?" "Not telling." "Grandpa!" "Not telling!" "Grandpa! Fine, fine, then I’ll just make one up myse—" "Ptyś."
"Whoa... why? And who? And why did they do that to you?" "It’s an old story. I'll let you read it sometime."
But the grandson wasn't listening. Returning to the previous topic, he rattled on: "You write like I’m seven years old, but I’m almost eleven!" He shook his splayed fingers in front of the old man’s nose. "And?" "I'm an adult now. I’m not afraid of any..." He hopped over to the desk and began shuffling papers, trying to find the right one. "Ah, here: 'ghosts in closets, wolves under the bed, and so on...'" "And?" "I’m not afraid of monsters anymore either! I don’t need your baby-talk!" He laughed and suddenly added, "Your Ptyś-talk!"
Putting on an offended face, the old man took the "wrong" sheet and used a marker to cross out the unnecessary parts. "Fine, I’ll rewrite it."
"No, Grandpa, don't be mad. I mean something else: let’s not write a fairy tale. Let’s write something adult... something..." He waved his hands, trying to remember the word. "An essay?" "No!" He kept waving. "A work of literature?" The old man tried to find a more "adult" synonym. He was about to keep waving... but then he gave up and nodded. "Yes. A work of literature. A dramatic one."
Oh boy, the old man thought to himself, but aloud he said, "Fine. Sit down at the keyboard, I’ll dictate..." "Grandpa!" He flared up like a campfire on a blue night, exactly as expected. "I have practice! And besides, I type slowly..." "Fine, go to your practice..." The old man decided not to tease him or mention that it wasn't the typing he was afraid of, but the fact that he could make four mistakes in a three-letter word.
The grandson ran off, and the old man, as usual, impatiently rubbed his hands together (the ritual). Anticipating the boy's reaction and laughing to himself in advance, he began to clatter away at the keyboard:
...The asphalt beneath my feet wasn't just asphalt—it was a black, frozen river, mercilessly washing away the tracks of anyone who dared to venture into the city after dusk. The streetlights didn't dispel the darkness; they only emphasized its depth, painting ghastly shadows on the walls that looked like hands reaching for your collar.
A ginger crow sat on an old, rusty fence. It didn’t caw—it stared with its bead-like eye right into my noggin, as if it knew all four of those mistakes I’d make in a three-letter word. This wasn’t just a bird; it was a sign: the past was no longer going to remain silent.
This is no longer a story about ghosts in closets. The ghosts changed into blue caps long ago; now they stand on watchtowers, monitoring us as we try to hack our way through the quagmire. When you’re almost eleven, you begin to realize: the scariest monsters don’t hide under the bed. They pulse with a feverish warmth inside books with empty pages, waiting for you to pick up the parchment and tear the tendons of space.
The train has already brayed somewhere in the fog. Ai-Yoi-Yachikichiki... it pounded in my temples. A rhythm that promised no salvation. Only another hiss into the void, where dawn is always dreamed of but never arrives.
In these labyrinths of the soul, dawn is not an astronomical event, but an eternal, unreachable amnesty. It always glimmers just around the corner, teasing with the promise of light, but it never arrives, fearing it might startle the cozy, stifling darkness where it is so convenient to nurse one’s wounds...
The old man stopped and re-read the text. "Hmm, a bit heavy... Did I overdo the suspense? It’s turning into a 'dramatic work' that isn't for kids at all. What will Yo-Yo say when he reads this paragraph? Won't he want to go back to fairy tales about wolves under the bed after such 'horror'—at least they’re more understandable? Tomorrow. I'll find out everything tomorrow.”
§ 4. The Dramatic Thermal
Outside Grandpa’s window, the city simmered in its own juices, heavily seasoned with fresh tar. The asphalt pavers—those clumsy steel leviathans—were stripping the skin off the streets, exposing their dusty, ancient innards. Thick pillars of steam rose from the black sludge. "Thermals." Invisible lifts for those who understand the currents.
But here, on Grandpa’s fifteenth floor, the air was of a different blend: it smelled of ozone, the worn leather of athletic belts, and that specific cold that emanates from people whose will has proven harder than their own bones.
Grandpa was finishing his daily run. The rubber belt of the treadmill hissed monotonically under his feet, swallowing kilometers. They didn’t bring him any closer to the horizon, no. They simply helped him maintain a respectable distance from inevitable decay.
His body—a tangle of tendons and gnarled muscles, like the roots of an old oak—functioned like a clock wound in the previous century. He wasn't just running. He was hammering a rhythm into reality so that it wouldn't, God forbid, come apart at the seams right then and there.
When he pressed "stop," the silence in the room didn't just arrive—it collapsed, like a felled pine. Grandpa stepped onto the floor, not even out of breath. Only droplets of sweat, heavy and shimmering like mercury, rolled across his shoulders.
And then, there was a knock at the door. A ragged, impatient rhythm. Yo-Yo.
The grandson brought with him the smell of damp school corridors and that particular aura of teenage gloom that usually makes candles flicker out and milk go sour. He stood on the threshold, slouching under the weight of his backpack and his eternal "everyone-is-driving-me-crazy" attitude.
Grandpa: "Ignoring the doorbell again?" He tossed a towel over his shoulders, his voice sounding like the crunch of snow under a boot. "Stubbornness is a good thing, Yo-Yo, when it’s directed against gravity. But when it’s against door technology—that’s a diagnosis."
"Grandpa, don't start..." muttered Danka, trying not to look at the corner where my sweat-blackened barbell lay. In their interior, it always looked like an altar to some harsh god of physics.
Grandpa squinted. In his eyes—transparent as ice on a peat bog hole—an ironic spark surely flickered.
"You look like a paraglider after a rotor, kid—all crumpled up, with zero internal pressure. Get in the shower. Ice-cold water is the best master key for rusted nerve endings. Five minutes under 'Zero', and the world will stop looking like it's made of cardboard."
Danka winced as if all his teeth had started aching at once. He knew that for Grandpa, cold water wasn't just about "toughening up." It was a way to "wash off the stickiness" and restore a person's authentic contour. Но Danka wasn't in the mood for contours.
"I don't want to straighten anything out!" he snapped, throwing his backpack on the floor. It hit with a thud as if it were filled with boulders rather than textbooks. "I just want to be left alone!"
Grandpa remained silent and walked to the window. Outside, beyond the glass, the steam from the asphalt was twisting into strange spirals. They resembled the silhouettes of creatures that shouldn't exist in a normal Minsk. The city’s ruts vibrated, resonating with something dark and deep. The world flickered, and his running in place seemed like the only way to stay in the saddle.
"Peace is a privilege for celestial beings and gym weights," Grandpa said without turning around. "But you and I are still in the flow, in the thermal. Even if that flow smells of burnt bitumen and injustice."
Grandpa turned around. His face momentarily lost its mask of the ironic old man, becoming serious as a well.
"Alright, Yo-Yo. Sit down. It seems it’s time to talk not about your failing grades, but about why this city has suddenly decided to shed its skin..."
"What skin?!" Danka waved his hands dramatically and dumped his school diary onto the table, covered in venomous red exclamation marks. "What am I supposed to do now?!"
Grandpa looked at the "bloody mess" in the notebook and nodded toward the door:
"Go to the kitchen...”
[ END OF FILE: § 1-4 ]
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