Here I am writing a book — or rather, translating it into English. At the same time, all sorts of new passages and exits keep cropping up. I'm a creative person with a tremendous talent for the art of procrastination, so of course I can't just walk past them — I try to plug them as I go, but sometimes these tunnels refuse to be plugged and lead off sideways… or into the distance… or deep into the centuries. So deep, in fact, that you can't uproot them. So this text is not the ravings of a madman — it's an echo… or a spoiler. A spoiler from those very depths, when your favourite pastimes were either collecting roots or skinning a freshly caught fish. So: catch a fish, eat it — now you can sleep. Sleep — now you can eat. Catch another fish, eat it — well, you get the algorithm. And the question arises: what about leisure? How did they spend their downtime in prehistoric times, when there wasn't even chess?
Today there are more entertainments than candies in a candy store: want ice cream? here you go. Want a pie? here you go. Want to say you're flying on a motorcycle? go ahead. Want to actually fly on a paraglider? be my guest (or when they fly you in an aeroplane — though that's a whole different thing). People have forgotten what boredom is — when instead of the internet you had a campfire at the cave entrance, evening stars, and an accordion instead of an electric guitar:
All our meetings, alas, are doomed to partings,
Quiet and sad is the stream by the amber pine.
The campfire's embers are covered with timid ash.
And so it's all over, Ptyś…
Now every second can be filled with a screen, a sound, or some sort of movement. But back then? Terrifying! I'm not talking about some ancient Triassic or Jurassic periods — I'm talking about the relatively recent Cretaceous. The only form of entertainment that comes to mind is riding dinosaurs. Just think about it: there's nothing to fly on! Someone might say "pterodactyls," but no — flying on them is forbidden, because pterodactyls manoeuvre very poorly and often crash into cliffs, and the passengers then spend a long time trying to find each other. Scuba diving on marine lizards? Who are you going to negotiate with? Which animator do you ask not to mistake you for food? Even fishing is dangerous: ichthyosaurs are swimming in the sea, and they won't get your fishing jokes. Wade in up to your ankles — you're left without ankles. Wade in up to your knees — you're left without knees. Wade in up to your waist — well, you get the algorithm.
It would be nice to take a ride on dinosaur… dinosaur-drawn sledges, but no — it turns out the wheel hadn't been invented yet. This immediately brings velocir... velociraptors to mind, but as it turns out, they don't have wheels either. Besides, they were small but bitey, the little pests, just like the neighbour's kids. So there you are, sitting on the shore of the primordial ocean, smelling of sulphur and flowers that no longer exist, and you think: "What to do?" Fishing? Jumping off a cliff with leather parachutes made from pterodactyls? And suddenly — chomp! A velociraptor sinks its teeth into your backside, having crept up unnoticed under the guise of a magnolia — they spread their tail feathers in such a way that you can't tell the difference. In short, it was a time when you couldn't trust anyone — not even flowers!
So the next time you complain about boredom in the modern world, remember: you don't have to entertain yourself by jumping on the back of a Tyrannosaurus rex who at that very moment thinks you're breakfast. And that's already a big plus.
And now, no spoiler: you‘ve probably already guessed that I make about as good a translator as a sieve made from a dog’s tail — because I completely failed to get the meaning across. The thing is, in Russian, velociraptor sounds like a raptor on a bicycle (velo- means “bike”). And as for the song — well, the rhyme just evaporated. Yes, yes, that was a song — you could say it was the tourist‘s anthem…