Book: Confessions of a mask

<... > I was shaking in the car and thinking only about one thing - how to escape from the love that I had nurtured with my own hands.

Never before has the addiction of people to eating food seemed so ridiculous to me. I rubbed my eyes. The diagnosis was clear: my reaction meant that I had completely lost all desire to live.

The algebraic tasks that life sets must be solved by deduction, as everyone else does, and not be clever by inventing your own ways! Out of all the students, I was the only one who chose the induction method - and now I "burned out".

Inexpressible, some kind of transparent torment, the nature of which I myself did not understand, tormented me. It bore so little resemblance to ordinary human feelings that I did not even feel pain right away. What would you compare it with? Imagine that on a bright and sunny afternoon you are waiting for a signal cannon shot, always ringing at exactly twelve o'clock. But then noon has passed, and the cannon is silent, and you gaze in vain at the blue sky, feeling confusion and horror: what if in the whole wide world you are the only one who did not hear the shot?

It's a strange thing: I suddenly felt that the breakup scene gave me pleasure. It was somewhat reminiscent of the most exciting moment of the game of hide and seek, when the driver, turning away, counts, and the others run away to hide.

Only now I realized how important this bag played. She was my shackles. After all, I cannot do without shackles, without some kind of heavy load - otherwise my conscience will raise its head.

A person who died saving his beloved from the fire was not killed by the fire - he was killed by the one he loved. And the mother, who was burned in the flame for her son to live, was not destroyed by the flame: her killer is her own child.

I also had a younger sister, but only one, so I always envied noisy families with many girls. I listened to the humorous squabble of the three sisters, and it seemed to me that this was the personification of the highest earthly happiness.

I thought: what if a bomb hits our house and we all die? I closed my eyes and imagined this picture. Inexpressible disgust gripped me - there is nothing more disgusting than the combination of death with the ordinary. Even a cat, sensing the approach of death, crawls away to some secluded corner so that no one sees her dying.

The anticipation of death filled my being with a thrill of unearthly joy. It seemed to me that I own the whole world. And it is not surprising - a person is most passionate about travel when preparing for it. He is rich in dreams and expectations, but once you hit the road, disappointments will begin - the wealth will be wasted. This is why travel is always so fruitless.

how to explain the mysterious structure of our soul, which sometimes makes us strive for what we really do not want?

At the school of life, I was a congenital poor student, but I also wanted to move from class to class, and therefore I developed my own system, familiar to every mediocrity: at exams, you need to copy the correct answer from your comrades and pretend that you solved all the tasks yourself. Often this simple method, even more primitive and unworthy than using a cheat sheet, turns out to be quite effective. The exam is passed, the student passes to the next class. However, classes here are already at a new level of complexity, and the poor fellow did not understand even simpler material. He sits in the classroom, seems to be listening to the teacher, but he cannot comprehend anything. The unfortunate dumbass faces two paths: either to give up on everything and disappear, or to pretend further, as if science is given to you. The choice is determined not even by how much courage and how much weakness is inherent in you by nature, but by what properties these courage and weakness are. Each of the decisions can be explained by both the first of these qualities and the second; and in any case there is an ineradicable, almost poetic addiction to idleness.

The afternoon sun slapped the surface of the sea with myriads of inaudible slaps, and the entire bay burned with unbearably bright radiance. In the distance, half drowned behind the horizon, majestic summer clouds froze, similar to sad and silent prophets. Their powerful muscles gleamed white with alabaster.

melt water has already dripped from the roofs. I felt like it was splashes of sunlight falling down. With desperate screams, they rushed towards death, down, right into the sludry of the dirty, foot-trampled concrete sidewalk ...