My work in the museum is what I would call my hobby, as my work in B.O.S.O.M. is my real source of income. It’s a very nice, financially advantageous environment… if you can adopt the thought that you are merely a tool – a means to an end. Filth, innuendos and deviant urges are all commonplace, routine parts of the job here. Nobody will be polite towards a kettle or a floor mat. It’s normal. The wishes of our clients are supreme law here. Because (sorry for my banality!) they pay. OK, let’s do without naming the number I dance to!

Generally, we all do everything, and we can’t reject orders. But everyone has their own private preferences. Betty, for example, likes to be a piano or a harp. She likes music and musicians. (By the way, she has a really rad voice! She might make a great career out of it.) Damn! I looked away again! My bad!

What about me? If you’re reading this part of my scribble, you should know that my passion is literature. I like to be a book. I like writers and readers. I like to be written and to be read. I’ve been educational supplies and novels, vignettes and literary magazines. They’ve yearned for sweethearts and derided malevolent persons with me. They…

– Hey, baby! A client is waiting for you!

I put aside the anthology of The Silver Age of Russian Poetry.

– Come in, Schulz!

He’s a really great guy. He always tries to select clients for us whose proclivities match our personal bents.

– What is it today, Schulz?
– A reader. Pushkin. The Bronze Horseman.
– Not bad!
– Yes… I know you like books and Pushkin, baby… but there is a slight change. Today won’t be ink.

Suddenly, I notice the heavy awl and a packet of little metallic beads in his hands.

– What the hell?
– Sorry, baby… It’ll be Braille. Your client is blind.

“And turned to him with his back, proudest,
On height that never might be tossed,
Over Neva’s unending wildness,
Stands, with his arm, stretched to skies, lightless,
The idol on his brazen stallion.”

Oh, my poor over-extended spine… Fuck! Pushkin! Son of a bitch! Why did you write such lengthy poems?! I hate you and your excessively descriptive style! Now I’ll only read Matsuo Basho! (to be continued)

by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2014

My special thanks to Cyan Ryan
for the grammar corrections and improvement this essay!