Chapter - 3

- Attention, attention, attention! There are exactly thirty minutes left before the curfew. We kindly ask everyone who has not yet been vaccinated to go to the inspection points. For the wearers of white bracelets, please leave the streets of the city in advance, in order to avoid incidents and clashes with the military police," said a voice from the speakers.

A children's playground, a small football field, a scattering of benches, a gazebo entwined with vines. The courtyard was crowded as always. Teenagers were chasing a ball, kids chose a playground, older people occupied benches and a gazebo. An ordinary Russian courtyard... the speaker hung in a spacious courtyard for several houses at once. After the words that came out of the speaker, the fuss in the courtyard of the house suddenly died down. There was a murmur, people looked around and looked worried.

A military UAZ, which was accompanied by an ambulance, slowly drove into the courtyard. The ambulance stopped at the curb, an orderly came out of the cabin. I took out a mobile table, laid out ampoules on it. Sealed, unmarked. But every one of the residents knew what this strange turbid liquid was.

- Why don't I need a red bracelet? - the old woman shrugged her shoulders and followed the queue formed near the ambulance. - I feel great.

- This is discrimination, - the second woman agreed with her, she adjusted the bright red bracelet on her wrist. - Their whole strain, the virus.

The queue increased, the old women got lost in the crowd. Two old men were arguing in unison with the old women. They believed that some kind of government experiment was going on.

- Everything will be revealed! The old man kept repeating furiously, wiping the saliva spurting from his toothless mouth.

The other in turn chuckled, replied, as if the common people would never know anything.

Someone, like a man in a wide-brimmed hat and a worn-out jacket, kept repeating:

"Up there," he pointed to the sky. - They took care of the people, and free vaccinations are a continuity of the experience of the Soviet government.

Finally, the middle-aged woman was convinced that her letter had been read by the President himself. She was holding a prescription for free insulin and was waiting for the distribution of this vital drug.

- Where has it been seen that the medicine could not be obtained! – she wailed.

The guy next to her shifted impatiently from one foot to the other, nodded back at her and pretended to listen attentively.

Four men were watching what was happening. About the same age, a little over forty years old, not shaved, dirty clothes with a smell. In the hands of plastic bottles filled with running sewer water. One of them, a gray-haired fat man with bald spots, finished smoking, threw the butt on the ground, planted the sole of his sneakers.

- Isn't that what they're telling us, guys? he grinned maliciously, gulped down his water, raised his hand with a white bracelet on his wrist.

- Mice in burrows, Sasha? "what is it?" asked the second, a powerfully built man with a small beer belly, a bull neck and a shock of red hair. He turned over his bottle and slowly poured the rest of the water into the smoldering butt of the interlocutor.

- If you don't want to go into the hole, get up and get vaccinated, - a third, tall, with sharp knees and elbows, long hair caught in a ponytail, entered the conversation. - No one is holding you, Artem.

- Not a bad idea, Victor, and there will be no curfew for you! The fat man burst out laughing. - Then tell us how you feel on the other side of the barricades.

The fourth man, Caucasian, with marble-white skin, beard and long hair, shuddered after the fat man's words. His hand clutched the cross hanging on his chest.

- He won't tell, - the heavy gaze stopped at the fat man, Sasha's smile instantly disappeared. - It's God's will. This is no reason to joke, you know. Remember how much you've been through, remember what you came with and now think about whether it's worth laughing?

The fat man bowed his head.

"Father Robert..." he couldn't find the words.

"Don't forget how many each of us has lost.

There was no response. Robert looked around the trio.

- Get to the point. Is everything in force? - he asked.

- Everyone is afraid, scoundrels in uniform have intimidated people! – Artem took the floor.

- Someone believes in a rehabilitation center for helping "whites". Have you heard about the changes? Sasha picked up.

Robert nodded almost imperceptibly. Heard. Weekly provisions were now replaced by monthly ones. Separate distribution points of essential supplies were closed. There were interruptions in the supply of medicines.

Without communications, cut off from the world, people marked with a white bracelet were dying out. Well, the rehabilitation center... Complete nonsense. No one was going to help anyone. Robert did not rule out that at the very beginning the authorities intended to help citizens, but then everything turned upside down. The center has become just a deception.

The men sat on the burnt-out bench for another minute. Then fat Sasha got up from the once bright green bench, stared at the queue of "reds".

"Disgusting," he said.

He put his hands in his pockets and hobbled towards the private sector, where his one-story house was lost among other unmemorable buildings. Cousins Artyom and Viktor followed from the site. The brothers squinted at the patrol-a heavily armed military police unit. The military watched the "white" men with genuine interest. There was a lot to see here. There were few places where the "whites" could gain the audacity and go out into the people.

Robert stayed on the platform. I was left alone with my thoughts. I lit a cigarette butt, now cigarettes were valued at their weight in gold, I thought about it. Things were lousy. Neither Artem, nor Sasha, nor Vitya, none of them understood how seriously the situation had changed over the past few days. How serious things really are. It remained to pray that the children's minds would not be clouded by turmoil and hope that trouble would bypass them.

Robert blew out bitter cigarette smoke. He coughed.

The authorities played with the "reds", forgot about the "whites". Countless vaccinations, work with the available "material", the desire to build a new model of society.

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