Sometimes it seems to me that all this cannot exist - endless electronic music pouring into our heads in megatons. After all, there used to be shops, and they sold records... Yes, yes... There are shops even now, and there are records in them... But before, very, very recently, they only had records. Well, more reels. Reels. As you wish. As you wish... I remember I had one strange column about three years ago - let me write a completely truthful continuation...
- Oh my God! Have you made a jukebox?! And as soon as they thought of it... And where did they get it?.. So what, he’s playing? And there are even tokens for it?!
And again a flock of tropical fish - kids in multi-colored walking overalls from all over the interplanetary station, there is nowhere for the intergalactic apple to fall in the huge wardroom. Their faces are cunning, they have something else in reserve. For the old man who always tells tall tales “from Earth.”
The automatic is good. They have surrounded it from all sides and are simply reveling in their superior technical thought. More than anything else, this incredibly sized machine (three times larger than those that once stood in bars and pubs on old Earth) resembles a child’s happy dream: it shimmers with all the colors of the rainbow, bubbles run back and forth through the transparent tubes, sparkles with chrome -nickel (or whatever they made it from), capacity - as much as a thousand forty-five-unit singles, speakers with a "Seagull" radiator grille, and most of all they resemble it - four pieces. It's scary to think about their full power...
They close their eyes with pleasure. They hand me a token, also with bubbles inside, and it says “Fizzy Coin for Happiness.” They demand that you throw it into the machine. I throw it. I choose. I press the button. You should see this miracle of technology - it will take your breath away! If only you could see...
A candy-colored clown they call the sandman
Tiptoes to my room every night
Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper
"Go to sleep. Everything is all right."
Well, it’s not me... It was my great-grandfather who threw these - completely different - tokens into the slot of the jukebox. Or it was me, and everything in the world is endless and eternally looped, and we listen to all the same great hits that they listened to, because music comes from the heavenly spheres. If she's real...
I close my eyes, then I drift away
Into the magic night. I say softly
A silent prayer like dreamers do
Then I fell asleep to dream my dreams of you...
“We know, we know! - they scream joyfully. - This is the one you were talking about! Tall guy with black glasses! And then they put exactly the same ones on their noses. Exactly the same as old Orbison had. There’s just one catch: I’ve never seen Orbison myself. It was all he, the great-grandfather, when they had not yet learned how to prolong life and everything somehow quickly and absurdly ended mid-sentence... Or was it me? And right in front of me the bartender places a steamy glass of Rootberger, a mountain of onion rings and a burger the size of a motorcycle helmet?..
They hand me a bottle, ice-cold, with a crazy label that has never existed in the world: “Rutberger”! Pulled straight from the memory database! Absolutely that taste!!!” What is that taste like? After all, it wasn’t me at all... Or was it me? And everything in our world really seems to fit into the palm of a child, into a small handful, into a single teaspoon?
And this is the whole world?
And there is no end to it?
“Bet the King!” King!!! There’s a whole heap of it there!!!” Why do they feel so good?
Is it from the awareness of their own power - they took and sublimated from nothing, from human memory, multiplied by many distortions, as if in a thousand mirrors - a jukebox, forty-fives, fizzy drink, a token... Or because they feel much more acutely than before -a connection of times, the opportunity at any moment to touch that very handful of the universe from which you scoop - you can’t scoop?
And I place the King.
What else do I have left?
They tried so hard, and they succeeded - to connect the past with the eternal present. They did it...
This proud wild land where the wind blows free
Has always been a part of me
It's in my blood, I just can't get it out
For a hundred miles a man can see
And be about as wild as he wants to be
If he feels like shouting all he's got to do is shout!
We are all walking the same road.
We all go to the house.
Life token...
A fizzy coin for happiness.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editors.