I gnashed my teeth, barely able to contain my anger. How long can this go on?! They must have conspired to work against me. There they go again! A slight whisper behind my left shoulder, and then the rustle of a paper wrapper. I tried to follow them with my eyes, squinting to the left without turning my head. I didn’t see anything but didn’t turn around – I didn’t want to give myself away. This was MY place. I won’t fall for their tricks, and I’m not leaving. I’ve been searching for it for a long time, and now I come here regularly to rest, to relax, and to collect my thoughts. It is my refuge, my safe place, my vacation resort. I feel different here.
What is happening?! I hear whispering again, this time on the right. The voice is lower, guttural, and the words – as always – unintelligible. Fighting the urge to turn around, I tried to distract myself by imagining what boiling blood would look like. Pink bubbles slowly rose above the agitated crimson liquid and burst like my patience.
Apparently they noticed the progress of their sabotage because they made a noise that sounded plastic; a cold, artificial sound that caused me to feel a new surge of anger. «Sit and don’t move!» I shouted to myself in my mind. «That’s all they want!» Sweat broke out on my forehead from the inhuman effort to calm myself; the gnashing of teeth could probably be heard from several feet away. «I can make it!» came the thought.
But they decided to strike a decisive blow – I heard the gentle creaking of a chair and the moaning of the floor under the weight of a body rising to its feet. That was the last straw. I exploded up from my seat, turning in his direction, and barked in his face: «Could you PLEASE let me listen to the sermon?!» A sickly-looking man, half up from his seat, who a few seconds ago had answered his wife’s question that he was not well, and having asked for a headache pill, wanted to go and get a glass of water, suddenly went limp and, slowly sinking back into the chair beside his petrified wife, lowered his head and looked away.
I sat down victorious. After a tactful pause, the pastor continued his sermon on brotherly love.
Read the original short story in Russian.