In the evening, Marina was in a great mood. She could not sleep, on the contrary, was drawn to speculate, to philosophize.
- How long does this winter last?
“Winter is good,” Katya teased. She knew the easiest way to make Marina talkative. And then one can calmly lie and listen. Marina immediately, not noticing the catch, reacted with her characteristic ardor:
- BUT! So good for you!? Oh you selfish one! And who will think about me? I am a thermophilic creature. Yes, and already tired of learning. I want summer and Crimea.
- Immediately summer? And the Crimea? - Katya giggled into the blanket, but this time Marina did not explode, but seriously thought.
“Yes, true, summer right away is somehow not good. How did I forget about spring? This is the most beautiful time of the year - spring, May ... everything is blooming ... and you know, I would like to die in the spring, when the earth blooms.
Katya raised herself on her elbow:
- Hey, what are you saying? What does death have to do with it?!
“I often think of death. It seems to me not scary, but mysterious, mysterious and alluring. As an entrance to another world, into another dimension, as new opportunities that I am deprived of here on earth, and I suffer because of it! I can’t fly, I can’t convey to you what I feel. I can’t suddenly be where I want to. I spend so much time for sleeping and eating! And when I die ...
- And when you die, a ninety-year-old granny, by the way, because you have excellent health and a hardened, trained body, you will calmly lay in your coffin and you will not want to fly!
“A ninety-year-old granny?” - asked Marina with distrust and so comically that Katya laughed heartily. Zinochka, who until that moment had successfully pretended to be asleep, could not help laughing. She always terribly liked to listen to what friends were talking about, but from experience she knew that if she intervened, the conversation would run dry.
But Marina continued quite seriously:
- No, I won't! And I don’t want to live long ... I would like to die young, in the prime of life, on take-off and certainly in the spring!
- Oh, you, Marinka, everything is the other way around with you, not like people’s. Normal people do not die in the spring, but fall in love.
- Fall in love? - and again the friendly laugh of the girlfriends. - Well, let them fall in love. And I do not trust love ... even afraid. I'm afraid to love, because I'm afraid to believe. This is something too unreliable. Today you are everything for him, he swears and carry you in his arms, but time will pass - and there is nothing. Remember, as in Tsvetaeva’s: “Yesterday he looked into my eyes, but now he is looking sideways” ... like Yurka! And what will you say? Man is not free over his feelings, and to force oneself to love is impossible. So everywhere and always it lasts just a month or two.
- You have been with Yura longer.
- Well, a year or two ...
- And you need it for...?
- Forever! .. But eternal love does not happen. Therefore, personally, I prefer friendship. I need a male friend who could accept me as I am. Could understand in any situation, protect. He would not be too vulnerable as is in the case of passionate lover. He would forgive my stupidities and whims, even my interest to other person - life is long ... I don’t know, maybe this is something more unrealistic, huh?
- Well, Marina, if not Jura, there will be another one who calm you down.
- Yeah! I like strong men with an unbending will, with whom I can cross my swod.”- Suddenly she jumped out of bed and made a graceful attack, as if piercing an unknown enemy with an invisible sword.
Katya laughed again, at the same time admiring her friend, her light graceful movements, and for some reason feeling sorry for her, while Zinochka, so that only Katya could see that, slightly twirled her finger at the temple.
excerpt from the novel "From Eternal point of view"