Damned Voyage. В. Волмир

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СКАЧАТЬ tomorrow at twelve o'clock the contract will be signed and you will receive travel documents. At the same time and get acquainted with your voyage companion. Did you understand everything? Questions?

      – There are no questions, everything is more than clear. You could do it

      tell me earlier.

      – Then you would not agree to go on this ship.

      – So it's true.

      – See you tomorrow.

      – See you tomorrow.

      So that's it! The captain of this ship is a tyrant. Crazy captain. I'm great. This means that I will have to spend the remnants of nerves that I still have. And this is the right way to a hospital bed. It is necessary to think carefully about possible options for misunderstandings in relations with the captain. And what can I really do? According to the terms of the contract, I must silently carry out everything that is ordered. In any case, I'm a loser. Crewing just covered his ass with my persona. I have to cast a shadow over Crewing company reputation.

      «You must by honored with this» as they said at the Union. One can only hope for the support of the «white» members of the ship's crew. And what are they? Well, everything is in God's hands. Give up? It is possible. But these are unpredictable problems for the future, and I am no longer a «young man». In addition, I have given my word and it obliges me to keep it. The next day I met my voyage companion. Oleg. Radio officer. All life at sea. Medium-sized brunette, thirty-five years old. Fifteen years of difference is too much for our like-minded relationship. Signed contracts. All. All bridges were burned back.

      Just a few seemingly ordinary pieces of paper completely change a person's status. A moment ago you were a free man and suddenly you became someone's property, you became a slave. According to the teachings of Karl Marx, there are two types of slavery – forced slavery (captivity, sale, etc.) and its highest degree – voluntary slavery. You give up this and that, and instead commit to doing whatever your master tells you to do. If you get sick – go home. The company only pays if you need to pull a tooth. Do not treat, but only snatch. And only if you are very «lucky» – you lose an arm or a leg, or die, then the company will shell out and make some payments, but only after you can prove in court that you did it through no fault of your own. Strange state after signing the contract – you understand everything, but there is nowhere to go. It feels like you have become a rag and wiped your feet. Probably the same feels a frog that goes to the mouth of a snake. And why are you doing all this? For the sake of the family. An ancient law – if a penny disappeared in one pocket, it increased in another. Nothing disappears anywhere. If I want a little more in my pocket, I have to give part of my life for it. I will spend the next nine months in an iron barrel in the middle of the ocean. There is a plus in the contract. This is an opportunity to travel around the planet and you get paid for it. You have the opportunity to compare life in your country and in others. You can also communicate with many people from different cultures, with different levels of development.

      The director of the agency shook our hands and said:

      – I'm sure you won't let me down, you guys have already been beaten.

      Mister Vlad will be the senior. He is an employee of the shipping office and knows the business. You are leaving today at 8 pm by minibus from the square near the Opera House to Kyiv. Seats are already paid. Here are the travel documents: a ship's application in four copies, a waybill with the phones of managers in Tel Aviv and a letter of guarantee from the company. Tickets have already been ordered in Boryspil for your names. Come with these documents to the box office number eight and get tickets. Departure to Vienna at eight thirty in the morning. Tickets in Vienna are also booked. Receive immediately upon arrival. Departure from Vienna at eleven forty. At three o'clock you will be in Tel Aviv. There you will be met and taken to the port of Haifa where the ship is. The ship is called «Ivannis». When you receive your tickets in Boryspil, call me immediately so that I know that everything is fine. Questions?

      – No. As usual.

      – Then do not waste time, you already have little. Good by.

      I took the papers, reviewed them, and put them in a folder with other documents. We left the company's premises.

      – Oleg, do you know the place where the bus leaves?

      – Yes, I already left here.

      – Then until the evening.

      I arrived home at three o'clock in the afternoon.

      – Well, are you leaving tomorrow?

      My wife greeted me with a question.

      – No, not tomorrow. Today at twenty.

      – As soon?

      A tear slowly crept down his wife's cheek.

      – Again one for a whole year. As if not married.

      – Why one? The guys will not be bored.

      – So. The younger one still listens, and the elder one doesn't get away with it.

      – He already has hands to go to. He is already a man, do not disturb him.

      – I do not interfere, but he does not have a job yet and I have to provide him.

      – He is an adult and will not be idle.

      – I hope so. So, collect already on the table?

      – Do not hurry, there is still some time.

      – I'm not going to see you off. It's too late.

      – You will do well.

      I myself do not like when a healthy man is followed by a whole caravan of relatives. Sometimes even grandparents. One of the guys will help bring the suitcase.

      I was already there at nine o'clock. Nearby was a handful of people with children, next to a pile of luggage. After a while Oleg and other passengers came. Then a bus pulled up and we loaded our suitcases. In addition to us, there were fourteen other passengers. Forty minutes later we took our seats on the bus and it slowly went upstairs, turned left and half an hour later we were already racing on the road to Kiev. The voyage began.

      At half past five in the morning the next day, the bus stopped in the square to the left of the airport building in Boryspil. We half-asleep disassembled our suitcases and went to the waiting room. They were a little nervous, because the ticket office opened at eight o'clock, and at eight-thirty it was already leaving. But it all worked out. The tickets were ready and after checking the documents we were handed them over.

      Then customs control, baggage claim, border control and we are on the second floor in the departure hall. From the air we look at the Dnieper and Kyiv below us and mentally say goodbye to our homeland. Vienna airport is familiar. I already had to be here and therefore there were no complications. Very meticulous control of the security service to passengers flying to Tel Aviv – The threat of a terrorist attack.

      – Give your documents.

      – Give your first and last name.

      – Why are you without luggage?

      – Take off your watch and put everything out of your pockets in this box.

      – Go through this passage.

      – Immediately СКАЧАТЬ