Happiness in poverty

In such a gloomy time, he dug up one of his early gloomy short stories.

Invented around 1990, recorded a little later. After 91 went optimistic dvizhuha, not an example of what is now. Something inspired by The Strugatsky's “ Billion Years Until the End of the World ”, one of my two favorite science fiction works.

Happiness in poverty

He finished writing another sheet and leaned back in his chair. Then he got up - it's time to eat. However, it was said loudly - for breakfast, as well as lunch and dinner, it was always the same thing - old, already dried bread, a small piece of cheese and tea of ​​the N-th derivative. Of course, there was no money for anything else - the research institute where he worked did not pay salaries for a long time. What he did was of no interest to anyone there.

And he was engaged in the theory of supersymmetry (she is the general theory of the field, she is the theory of quantum gravity, she is the general theory of everything). When graduating from university, he thought that he was guaranteed a lifetime salary of 80 rubles / month. This is certainly a minimum, but the most basic needs should have been enough. But the reality turned out to be much worse - perestroika struck, state. offices went bankrupt. He had been living without a salary for four months. Only the occupation of science supported his body, the brain, plunging into the jungle of equations, made the body live. He had no relatives, and one could not even think about women and some other entertainments with his financial situation.

So why not go to some commercial firm? In the end, he is an intelligent person - he could be, for example, a programmer or an accountant. Yes, even at worst, if no one takes it, you can collect beer bottles - and you will get at least some money, at least for food! Of course, his brain, refined to solve much more complex tasks than maximizing personal income, within a few seconds looked through all the options for his prospects when working in commercial firms, moving up the corporate ladder, creating a family, etc.

Alas, all this was a taboo. Once from above he was given such abilities, then working as a programmer and writing some kind of bookkeeping or creating a family would be more than a terrible crime. This meant unproductively discharging one's talent, burying it, throwing it in the face of the person who gave this talent. He was forced to use it, and use it to solve the most complex problem - general field theory. There was no second to lose. What a trip to companies, what women! After all, very little remains.

There is very little left - a little time to finish everything. Then - he knew what would happen. He has set aside money for international envelopes. Of course, he would never spend them on food. He will rewrite an article about general field theory fifteen times in English by hand and send it to 15 pre-written addresses of organizations abroad. Half will be opened at the post office in search of money in envelopes and thrown out, half will be thrown out by the secretaries, seeing - "Ah, a letter from some Russian, the grant probably asks." But a few - he was sure - would be read. And then the whole building of physics will be crowned with its dome. This is what he lived for.

Therefore, he was in a hurry. There is almost no food left, but we still have to fall into a hungry faint on the way to the post office - these are two blocks. Very far in his condition. Therefore, forces are designed only for the way there. And then - probably a couple of days in some hospital a nurse in a dirty robe will give him injections and bring a liquid portion of porridge from the remnants of unstolen foods that he will not touch. The brain has sucked all the vital forces out of the body, and the body can no longer be helped.

But all this is not at all important. He sat down again and continued to write. He was absolutely happy.