The Conductor

The CONDUCTOR

  Copyright 2015 George Kavsekhornak

  On a clear summer day, later noon if you have the opportunity to be in a trolleybus route number thirteen, you have all chances to see the person is talking about.

  Having entered into the trolleybus, you hardly notice him immediately. Though summer day in a transport usually is few people, but you can recognize this man only by hanging orange working overalls on the back of his seat. He is unfazed when entering passengers idly looking out the window, watching the roll out of the urban landscape through the lens of his glasses.

  You prepare a fee, but don't think he hurry to you to get money. Maybe some old lady, who isn't travelling this route for the first time, tells you that you have to go to this conductor by yourself, and in any case, don't worry him. You have to pay to put money into his bag on the belt and pull the ticket from a roll hanging on his chest, attached with a simple metal tool. The inquisitive observer even can notice that behind his myopic glasses which make everything too small, there are his eyes, and they are closed in sleepiness or even in a deep sleep. The conductor sleeps sitting – the habit developed during years in one computer design bureau, but more about this later.

  Get acquainted, his name is Lesha, yes, simply Lesha. (TN: is a short name of Alexei) He was never called neither Alexei nor Alexei Davidovich (TN: is a patronymic name of David), nor even Lyoleek (TN: is a diminutive name of Alexei), in childhood, for example. Although we don't know exactly, but maybe his mother called him Leshenka (TN: is another diminutive name of Alexei). Anyway, for everyone he is simply Lesha, and so we shall call him.

  As you can see, Lesha works as a conductor. Of course, you know what responsibilities a conductor has, but, in this case, forget about it. Your concept about this profession, perhaps, isn't quite correct. Though it's probably Lesha doesn't understand correct his duties.

  So, the young enough man is in front of you. He's no more than forty years old but is pretty overweight, yes, overweight, not fat or chubby. Perhaps in the early childhood, he played sports – karate or athletics, but then has thrown in for it and soon became well-fed and overweight. He is dressed in ordinary jeans and a plaid shirt. Brown sandals on his feet are a contemporary style. On the nose, there are shapeless rimless glasses. But don't think that he is some kind of a hard worker or a crook. Lesha is well-educated.

  As all children, Lesha went to school. During fifth grade, Lesha realized that to get good marks, even 'five' (TN: the highest mark in Russian school), it's possible to not exert himself especially. Other times, he argued with a teacher that accidentally didn't catch and has completed the past or undefined homework assignments. It came even to the point that well-deserved teachers were being lost in his statements "We didn't cover that. That wasn't assigned". Since sixth grade, they have stopped asking him.

  Of course, written work had to be done in class by Lesha, but it was easier. He was satisfied with his 'successes' and graduated from the school without bad marks. So Lesha became the pupil getting good, but not excellent marks, which allowed him to go to a university – Lesha's plans don't include the military service. (TN: in Russia all pupils which do not enter into a university have to go to the army)

  It should be noted that Lesha wasn't stupid, another way how might he enter the university, and even technical so easily? Working with machinery and electronics attracted him. Lesha was sure that it was his future, interesting and quite predictable. Needless to say, that after just two years of study Lesha has understood about which subjects it's necessary to go and which couldn't be visited. He easily found reasons do not hand over course works, sometimes resorting to sophisticated methods – giving a thick folder with a blank sheet of paper in the deanery telling the tutor that a sub-dean was very interested in his work, and he can't take it, for the same reasons his course work isn't required any pass – many tutors believed. As in the situation with the school teachers, university professors soon lost interest and stopped to participate in the ongoing verbal fight with Lesha, and continued to put positive marks. Teachers had one lever to this student – oral examinations. But here we understand that with such conversational talent like Lesha has, disgruntled teachers could only be completed in Lesha's student's record-book 'good'. The result is a graduation diploma and the mark 'excellent' to quickly go to work – so the teachers agreed. But they didn't think that Lesha will continue his studies at the university.

  Lesha liked the first year of postgraduate studies. Everyone cajoled him, talking with him, bringing up to date, acquainting with the team. There he met his future wife. And do you think that he is not married? Far from it, he has a very beautiful wife. Unfortunately, this is the only advantage that we know about her. We can only assume that she is smart enough if studied in postgraduate study, but this is only an assumption.

  In the second year of study, duties have started to hang over Lesha, including writing a PhD thesis. A research advisor of the dissertation has appeared in Lesha's life. Won't go into the details; let's say only that over the next year, the research advisor of his dissertation followed one after another. Lesha was stalling for time and pondered what to do next.

  The young man decided to quit postgraduate studies and go to work. It was a courageous decision, wasn't it? But there were other reasons – lack of funds. Then Lesha could impress with a higher technical education and postgraduate studies with an unfinished PhD dissertation, which, by the way, has not even started, but only a few people knew about it. Good baggage for a person who knows what he wanted! And he wanted money.

  Job search brought to Lesha enormous pleasure. He walked into the interview, grizzled, asked awkward questions and having chose. At the end of each interview he always said: "Thank you, I will contact you", unfolded and left, barely holding back a smile. Finally, he fixed upon one organization dedicated to the development of electronic equipment – a computer design bureau. Still wonder why Lesha has chosen this organization, probably, had liked the interior of a reception.

  Lesha immediately joined the team, immersed in work. To strengthen their position, during the probationary period, threw in technical ideas for new projects with enviable regularity. And he carried his ideas directly to the desk of the director, bypassing his immediate superior, and indeed all other superiors. Very quickly he has found a common language with the head of the company. Lesha got grandiose projects, and he began them with great enthusiasm. Lesha lived in his work. He infected by his ideas of future progress surrounding people, asking someone about something, sorting out, sometimes even demanded. Loss of interest in taking project appeared when the first question of his boss about the results and progress achieved was asked. Then using his talents he began a reasonable explanation usually boiled down to the fact that "It was not necessary to start at all". Lesha lacked materials, tools and other things too. As a result, projects were closed. Colleagues and the management a little took offence at Lesha, but gave him a new project, sometimes with a transfer in another department and with not only did a rotation of the position upwards but also increase the salary.

  At a New Year's celebration in the bureau, where he served (let's call it so) one Lesha's extraordinary talent was discovered. He played a balalaika and played, as it says, brilliantly. Where and how he learned it, we don't know, but ever since he has become an indispensable participant in all activities of the company. He was even invited to play in front of distinguished guests of directors. Lesha stayed with the company almost ten years, having received invaluable experience the first to go out from work exactly at eighteen o'clock and to sleep on a workplace, sitting what it has already been mentioned. His unfinished projects for certain still become dusty somewhere in the dark corners of the archive of the bureau. And he has given up his grateful wor
k because of a wraith or a dream that's more precise.

  In that Lesha's dream, a girl with long blond hair in a white translucent night clothes has come. He felt that she has left him; Lesha didn't want it and pull her, stroking her shoulders, holding her hand. He begged not to leave. But she was adamant and has already opened the door, ready to leave for good. She looked around and said, "Throw me, Lesha!" He only had time to ask: "Who are you, oh beautiful?" "I am your job. Goodbye forever!" The young man awoke with a sticky, sweaty forehead, corrected his glasses (Lesha always slept in glasses), he spat to himself and decided no longer walk to work in the computer design bureau.

  And here now Lesha serves as a conductor. He does nothing. The trolleybus number thirteen carries fewer passengers – the people don't want to enter the transport seeing a familiar conductor's face in the window and they are waiting for the next. But the trolleybus could be anything: a factory, an enterprise, an organization, a company, a bank, finally. How much do such amebic people still 'work' in the country? Let leave this question unanswered, just going to glance around more often to protect yourself from such persons.

  Once again, faced with the arriving trolleybus a drowsy, but meditative face of the conductor, which is more likely just asleep, you surely will issue "Is this trolleybus so unhappy due to its number or because inside such 'Lesha – the conductor' serves?"

  The End.

  About the Author

  George Kavsekhornak was born in Leningrad. Now he lives in Saint-Petersburg (Russia). He writes stories in the style of "urban fantasy" when a number of amazing and necessarily things want to be shared. He writes, on the one hand in the style of openly expressing respect for images created by the classics of Russian literature and the legacy of the plot metamorphosis foreign fiction, on the other hand.

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