On the shore of one of the lovely sunny beaches stands a shop, and in it stands a salesman.
Business is excellent, he has merchandise for every taste and color.
He is friendly, young, prosperous and generally happy, but he is pulled by a strange feeling deep inside, as if something is wrong, as if something is eluding him. This sometimes makes him very sad and lonely.
One day a strikingly beautiful girl entered the shop and began to examine the merchandise.
- What can I do for you, beautiful flower? - the seller asked kindly.
The girl shifted her gaze from the merchandise and looked intently at the salesman.
She stepped closer to him, looked into his eyes. Deep, so deep it shook his whole being, two emerald oceans.
- You have a beautiful shop full of wonderful goods," said the girl, "but you are sad. Come with me and I will help you open your heart and take away your sadness.
Something in the seller's soul vaguely responded to the girl's words, as if looking at a flower that had been neglected for a long time. He suddenly felt naked and defenseless. He was embarrassed and looked away.
- But what about my shop, this is my home here," he said.
- Are you sure? - The girl smiled. - How can you know where your home is if you don't even know who you are?
- 'I know who I am,' said the salesman, 'every man knows who he is.
- And what do you know about yourself? - The girl continued, "except for scraps of memories, read beliefs and other people's knowledge? Do you not hear the voice of doubt within you - this is not everything, this cannot be everything. And here I am telling you - it really isn't everything. Reality is so much more than you realize. Listen to your voice, who do you think is speaking?
- How can I know that? - said the salesman," it echoes inside me and then disappears, leaving only a vague sense of dissatisfaction and longing.
- It's your voice, listen to it. It calls you to a reality where you are you and no one else.
- Reality? This is the reality," the salesman circled the surrounding space, "I don't see or know any other.
- You're not sure of that, I know," she said, "you see what you can see, what you can fit into your mind, but it doesn't make reality any simpler or poorer. A beautiful melody does not flow for one who cannot hear. Come with me, I will teach you to see and feel more.
- No," the salesman shook his head, "my reality is my life, my shop, my friends. This is what I have gained, I can't leave it for some vague echo inside me. I'm sorry, I'm staying here.
The young man smiled despite the pain lingering deep inside.
The girl smiled back.
- 'Of course,' she said, 'I'll take this handkerchief here.
- Take it, I won't charge you, beautiful flower," said the seller kindly.
- Thank you, I wouldn't be able to pay for it as I'm going light. Goodbye, good man.
- Have a good journey, strange flower," said the vendor.
And the girl left. And the salesman kept looking after the distant, chiseled figure floating farther and farther away along the seashore.
An inexplicable longing filled the young man's chest, an unknown force was pulling him after the girl's figure disappearing in the distance: now she was barely recognizable and was about to disappear altogether.
He looked around his shop with a blank stare, and the voice inside him grew louder and louder, and it was no longer an echo. The next moment he saw clearly that his shop was nothing more than a crudely built structure filled with junk that meant nothing to him, and that his heart was empty. And the next instant...
- Oh Lord, help me," he said quietly, and ran out of the shop. He ran out into the unknown after the stranger, leaving behind the doubts, the uncertainties, the life he knew.
The last house of the city was behind him. The young man followed the shimmering, beckoning figure along the shore, but it kept moving away, slipping away until it disappeared into the clear sky.
The young man stumbled and fell. He lay exhausted on the sand with his eyes closed. What next? He couldn't go back to his daily life, he couldn't go back to the way it was, his longing would have eaten him up, and he didn't know where to go next.
He felt someone touching his shoulder. He opened his eyes and saw a sturdily built, middle-aged man squatting beside him. A rumpled light-colored jacket, worn light blue jeans, and heavily worn gray sneakers. And a full-face smile.
- Hey, are you alive? - The squatting man asked.
- I don't know," the salesman replied and sat down, scrutinizing the stranger, "I don't know anything else.
- Alive," the man laughed. - Come, I'll teach you the way.
- But who are you?" the young man asked.
A man in a light-colored crumpled jacket and heavily worn sneakers stood to his full height and, smiling all over his face, introduced himself:
- Fakofsky Peter Afonasyevich, reality traveler, at your service.
The young man also stood up and timidly introduced himself:
- Arkady, Arkady Ivanovich, hello.
- And peace to you, good man, where are you going? - Fakofsky continued to smile.
- I'm looking for the girl who stole my heart," the young man replied.
- Ha-ha," laughed Pyotr Afonasyevich, "you can't steal a heart, but you can make a head of it. I'll take you to the place where the beautiful stranger lives.
This is how Arkady Ivanovich Yukhopsky met Peter Afonasievich Fakovsky.
Or not.
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