FROM RUSSIAN SOCIAL MEDIA:
(Not my words)
In the eighth grade, I fell in love with a girl from the tenth grade. Back then, I was so full of energy I’d take the stairs two steps at a time. She was a Komsomol member and served on the student council.
As a Komsomol member, she oversaw our class—and me in particular, since I was an honor student with a bright future. Our relationship was strictly business. I used to sob on the shoulders of my friends—the neighborhood troublemakers—complaining that she didn’t love me, she only loved my straight-A grades!
One day, she stopped by my place to drop off a book, but finding no one home, she left it with the grandmothers sitting on the bench by the entrance. In those days, the grandmothers on the benches were the structural backbone of the courtyard. People trusted them to look after everything: bags of groceries, children, and secrets.
When I arrived, the grandmothers handed me the book.
"A fine girl!" said one.
"Just like I was in my youth!" added the second.
"We told her all about you!" declared the third.
I was just about to leave when my legs suddenly went weak.
"What... what... what did you tell her about me?"
"That you’re a real troublemaker and the whole neighborhood is afraid of you!" said one.
"That every girl in the courtyard is in love with you!" – the second one added.
– And that you’ve got a secret motorcycle! – the third one declared.
I was on the verge of tears.
– What have you done? None of that is true! I’m an honor student, a young man with a bright future! Now she won’t even look my way!
– An honor student! – one said.
– A young man with a bright future! – the second added.
– A monument! – the third declared, and they all burst into laughter together, looking half their age.
The next day, the Komsomol girl I liked cornered me in the school hallway.
– You know... I think you asked me out to the ice cream parlor... I thought, why not? We need to take a break sometimes, after all.
Whenever I hear stories about mean, narrow-minded old ladies sitting on park benches, I just shrug: I have never met grandmothers kinder or wiser than the ones in my own neighborhood...
Author: Oleg Batluk
