Once

I

Grumpy Barb 

I can't stand the holidays. Humanity cannot think of anything more hypocritical. With politics or love shouldn't even be involved in it. Holidays. The idea of creating an artificial pretext for manipulating entire civilizations is undeniably ingenious. Hypocrisy is like electricity - a great invention given to us in the name of progress. The faster we move to hell, the better. Now you will think that I am one of those who distribute propaganda brochures in front of your favorite supermarket and warn about the imminent end of the world (at best). 

Hell is holiday sales, family dinners, pesky guilt, and fake goodwill. Even if you lock yourself in a bunker, this does not guarantee your salvation. Capitalism and a suddenly cute neighbor for one day a year will get to you through tons of concrete and everything else these bunkers are made of. None of them will rest until they hit every inhabitant of the planet on the spot. Will poke "holiday mood" for breakfast, lunch and dinner until you find yourself bound by a garland and social obligations. On Christmas Day, it is customary to forgive and make good intentions a reality. Yes? Shit. You will never be as judged as on Christmas Day. Didn't you donate? Here are the bastards. You didn't remember your granny and didn't send her a postcard with a Christmas tree? Abomination. Did you go for a slide ride with the younger siblings? Heartless. Didn't you decorate the house? Oppositionists. Do you walk around with a disgruntled face in public? Lost person. 

 I won the right to walk the streets with a displeased expression on Christmas Eve by looking like this all the time. They stopped asking me questions, giving me moralizing stories, and poking gingerbread cookies under my nose last winter. I was almost freed. But humanity has remained in the slavery of the illusion that television and the calendar will tell them what they should do, feel what their mood should be. And I was not going to rush to the embrasure in the name of the enlightenment of millions of lost souls. I just wanted to decide for myself what to do, without bumping into instructions every now and then. Light vanilla-scented candles with Colin Firth movies, make snow angels in cinnamon, sing holiday carols all night long and read your tedious Christmas stories as long as you like. I had something to do.

 Only I didn't have a bunker.

Curly Aaron 

Have you ever felt such despair that if something does not happen today, no, right now, then you are doomed, your existence is over, there will be no more doors in the long corridor of life? Even locked. Immured. Painted. This is how I have felt for the past few months.Incessant despair. My train of hopelessness accelerated to such a breakneck speed that it was no longer possible to jump from it. I used to be a coward, but now doing it was akin to suicide. The first semester of my senior year at school came to an end, and I was still a virgin. 

Don't laugh at me. Okay. In fact, I really don't mind if I can make someone smile. I think this is a good ability to make people happy. If only I would like to be able to tell good jokes, and not to amuse others with my virginity. 

 Do not misunderstand me. I was not obsessed with sex. Until a certain moment. Kidding. Seriously, I'm fine. School, skateboard, comics, hanging out with friends. And if the grades in the report card were far from excellent, then my homies were excellent. So much so that each of them had a girlfriend. Sometimes two. 

Something prompted - the girls liked the guys for not at all the same reasons for which I liked them. But for what reasons I did not attract anyone, it was a mystery to me. Perhaps despair emanated from me. Well, you know, I had a nervous aura. Ladies don't like that. They need confidence. Muscles. Romantic height difference. Your captain's armband. The car is on the move. 

The guys often gave me advice on where I should work on the situation. They are so worried about me. Would they, out of nothing to do, discuss my virginity almost every day? As a free minute - in the locker room after physical training, in the dining room, at a party, they immediately deal with my problems. And with humor. In order not to escalate the situation. Great guys, really.