A wrinkled hand with dark spots ran a brush over the orange surface, making it shiny. It was late, dew was appearing on the summer green grass, and the air was cold, which made me shiver. The moon had disappeared behind clouds, but the lamp hanging on the low roof of the hut illuminated the workplace with a warm, cozy light.
An old man sitting on a wooden chair dipped a brush into a jar of varnish and applied a couple more strokes until the varnish on the pile was gone again. He shuddered from the cold, and his thin plaid wool shirt didn't warm him much, as did his equally thin black wool trousers with a belt. He put his hands on his knees and looked sideways. Next to him was a small orange airplane surrounded by a green plastic mesh on wooden legs. There is still an unpainted spot of plywood and bolts on the far wing. This speck was annoying, being the only ugly part of the structure. It needs to be painted over, but the paint can is absolutely empty: even the lid was shiny thanks to the brush. I'll have to go to the city tomorrow. The old man exhaled, closed his eyes, stood up and varnished the exposed wood. You can still rip it off and make it human, but you don't want to wait.
He left the brush on the jar in the grass, and he pushed aside part of the transparent dome with a bunch of partitions made of steel strips on bolts and got into the cabin. Inside, the legs straightened, the galoshes touched the pedals, and the left hand grabbed the oval steering wheel, while the right moved the huge latch, closing the cabin. There were similar instruments on the panel with the same black background, white letters and numbers on them, and the same white arrows. A black blade was proudly looking ahead, slightly distorted due to the protective film on the dome. I imagined how fast it was spinning against the background of the blue sky, and the engine and exhaust pipe were rattling loudly. The old man grinned from ear to ear, biting his teeth.
But that's later, that's all for today. His face took on a serious look again, he got out of the cabin and hobbled to a wooden shed, where he checked one small room. In it, ten hens and one rooster were sitting on beams specially placed for them. They were asleep, and their master disturbed their sleep. The old man counted them all, collected the eggs in a plastic bucket from some kind of mayonnaise and went home, which was a small hut made of a gray and uncovered log cabin. As soon as the old man entered the plank door, covered with a thick layer of blue paint, the glowing yellow light bulb on the wire hanging on a hook tied to the slate went out, and everything inside was illuminated with the same warm light. Immediately after the entrance, there was an anteroom filled with firewood and a variety of tools: from garden tools, such as shovels, to a welding machine. The old man locked the house with a padlock, because there was not even a moving handle, and, taking an armful of firewood, pushed open another door upholstered in shiny foil foam.
He was greeted by one small room, in the center of which stood a whitewashed stove without a chimney, blackened pot-bellied ceiling boards, and pot-bellied orange floor boards, which were not quite comfortable to walk on. But my leg got used to it. The inside of the logs, which were the only divider between the house and the street, were the same gray as the outside.
He threw the firewood into a special recess in the stove, from where it was convenient to heat it, which he did. The old man climbed down the ladder into the trapdoor next to the small kitchen in the corner. He found himself in a cellar filled with various jars and vegetables in jars and pens. While he was hobbling to one of these pens for potatoes, he accidentally bumped his head against the ceiling of bare foam, and a pair of white balls fell to the ground. It was worth covering it with boards to make it look less ugly, but who sees it? Pickles are unlikely to complain.
On a small wooden lacquered table, the old man cut peeled potatoes into oblong large cubes and fried them in a frying pan blackened by thick scales, pouring plenty of sunflower oil in an oiled bottle, from which a few drops always flow where they are not needed.
The stove caught fire and smoke billowed from the top, rising to the ceiling. In response, the old man took out a pair of dice with handles, sitting on green prickly cotton near the ceiling, from the beams, and smoke went through them to the street. He put a hot frying pan with steaming potatoes on a stand carved from a log with a black coating. Under a glass of water and mayonnaise from the once white, but now yellow refrigerator, the food quickly ran out.
It's black outside the jagged view-distorting window, and you can't see anything. The dial of a plastic clock, pretending to be wooden, with elegant patterns showed the first hour of the night — it's time to go to bed. The old man filled a pot in a tin sink with water and rinsed his mouth and washed his face. He only took off his socks. One sock. His left leg was missing below the knee. It was replaced by a simple prosthesis, which could only be relied on. He lay down, forgetting to turn off the light, but he was in no hurry to get up and go to the light switch, but looked at framed photographs on the wall, at an old-fashioned wooden lacquered table and a similar cabinet on beautifully curved cast-iron legs.
The first photo showed a woman in a headscarf and shirt with pants, a man in shorts with a bare torso and a boy in a simple T-shirt and shorts. This boy looks a bit like an old man, watching, lying in bed. Their clothes were tattered, they were smiling somewhere in a plowed field, and behind them was a small tractor driven by some guy.
The second showed two men in military uniforms at the planes on the runway. The one on the left was a young replica of the old man.
The corners of her lips turned down, her eyes watered, and a lump rose in her throat. The old man quickly turned off the light and lay down facing the wall, so he couldn't see the photo. He remembered the plane in the courtyard and smiled broadly again. He fell asleep in a good mood.
***
The sun shone on the house, and a cockcrow came from the street, waking the old man. He got up pretty quickly for his age and dressed in warm clothes and went outside, locking the house with a padlock and taking old military aviator glasses with leather. The orange plane, which occupied a significant part of the courtyard, stood in yellow light and with drops all over the body. It was necessary to feed the chickens and let them out here, but the old man took a can of gasoline from the dressing room, poured it into the tank and opened the gate separating the yard from the large vegetable garden and this garden from the field where the cows were already grazing. He tied a rope to the plane and dragged it through tall potato bushes, trampling some of them with his feet and landing gear. He didn't even close the gate when the plane was on the field.
An orange plane among the tall green grass, and cows are walking nearby. Behind the old man was his house and the houses of his neighbors, who looked better, and in front of him was a large field, followed by a forest.
The old man somehow, one might say, on one and a half legs, dragged the plane far away from the people, hurriedly examined it and noticed that he had forgotten the battery. He rushed back with all his might and carried the forgotten item to the plane as fast as he could, but an old neighbor called out to him.
"Are you really going to fly?"
The old man with the battery silently gave him a serious look and continued to hobble away.
— Good luck! I'll close it.
The old man inspected the plane again and got into the cockpit. One pressed button turned on the instruments, and the arrows moved, indicating different values. The other one that was pressed didn't do anything at first glance. The old man jumped out of the cockpit, walked over to the blades and started turning them. On the fifth attempt, he was able to get the engine to work and turn the blades on his own. Quickly sitting back down and closing the window, he crunched the lever to the left of the seat and the plane rolled forward. Wide eyes, a huge smile and a bitten lip. The old man looked around, increasing the power, slowly lifting the lever on the right, accelerating the movement.
The plane shook violently on bumps and bumps. The old man put on his glasses and lifted the steering wheel. The shaking is over. Everything was moving back pretty quickly, and the forest was getting closer. The plane took off noticeably high, one of the instruments chirped and showed that a rapid climb was taking place. Others are the high flight speed and fuel level.
His body twitched, even though it wasn't cold, and the smile never left his face. Now the plane flew quickly through the trees. The cabin became the most comfortable place on earth, even though it was uncomfortable to sit and the wind was roaring. Green specks flashed by from below, the height became higher, and the old man went for a quick U-turn. He was slightly pressed into the seat, it became difficult to hold his head, and his eyes went a little dark, but he just grinned and continued as if nothing had happened. A view of the village opened up in front of him, which went under the plane. The bright rising sun warmed at such a height, where the cold air began to torment, the hearing stopped perceiving the noise of the engine and wind. He only paid attention to his limbs and the beautiful views. Houses with colorful roofs, sitting in sloping rectangles of the fence, fields of different shades of yellow and green, trampled by the wheels of the road. The three main paths of the village converged at one point, forming a triangle of sections, and went into the forest, somewhere far away. A pond at the exit. And here is the house, which stands out from the rest because of its size and simplicity.
All this is surrounded by a pleasant green forest. The sun is ahead, blurred in the sky.
He flew.