The story of the clubber-programmer, kinesiologist-cyberneticist, and writer-investment banker

— I need to self-determine myself! — our interlocutor started with a banality. Ilya and I experienced a toothache. From the depths of memory rose the shadows of businessmen who had lost their lives in attempts to determine themselves, or rather to put a label on themselves. In the meantime, our vis-a-vis was throwing the names of the great ones on the table:

— Nassim Taleb — this is the second writer after Nikolai Mokhov (Nikolai Mokhov's ego is growing like the bitcoin exchange rate during a hype), John (well, of course, Grinder, co-founder of NLP), Castaneda (no wonder our interlocutor practiced tensegrity)...

And then he told his story. And his story refuted the theories of many respected authors, including those mentioned. I would write this story down with a pen, roll up the paper, and put it in a bottle, go out to sea on a yacht, and throw it into deep waters. But I don't have a yacht, and I don't have a pen, so read the letters electronically.

— And the girl has become an adult! — Zemfira yelled from the speakers of old foreign cars. Our hero, Danila, was listening to music from other spheres on a lumpy couch. His wife was playing Johann Sebastian Bach's Requiem on his strained nerves.

— Why are you lying like this? You have to get a job! Masha, my friend, has a husband who works as a programmer. He goes to the office like a white man. Do you know how much he gets?

Danila was silent. By the age of twenty-five, he had reached everything. He owned a nightclub. When he asked a girl out, he invited her to his own club. And he'd make fantastic $300 a week — a little more and he'd be rich as Rockefeller. He stumbled over a crisis, stupidity, and marriage. He stumbled, he got married. When he got married, he fell on the couch. No club. No sex with models. No $300 a week.

— I'll make a programmer out of you! Hillary made Clinton President...

— And Monica Lewinsky made a joke out of him...

— It doesn't matter. Hillary made Bill president, and I'm gonna make a programmer out of you!

Her wife's seriousness and the severity of her gaze made Danya leaf through the newspaper with vacancies. As he flipped through the pages, he thought: whether he is a trembling creature, or whether he has the sacred right to flog his wife properly with a soldier's belt?

— Look, I've found it all! Read it! — the wife showed up in the kitchen. The storm broke, the dark kingdom came without a ray of hope.

— A system administrator is required... — was sluggishly reading Danya.

— Well, what did I say? Is required. Well, then it is. Why are you sitting there? Call before they cut our phone off.

With his fingers tangled in the buttons, Danya dialed. Confusing words due to racing thoughts, he made an appointment. He sighed and fell.

— Somebody's waited by a railway station, somebody's waited at home... — was coming from the open window. Zemfira was a year younger than Danya, and already a star. And he's unemployed. The achievements of one-year-olds at times like this is particularly offensive.

— Did you do any programming? — strictly asked the sexy HR manager.

They used to call them "personnel officer" and they looked in keeping with the title. Women in their 40s with complicated destinies. Now they're called fancy English words and Danya saw a girl in a narrow skirt, a transparent blouse... Stand down! In the man's head, his wife's voice rang out. The ghost of libido was gone.

— Yes, I was programming. I even wrote a few programs — Danya didn't lie. He was exaggerating a bit. One day he ordered the techies who were hanging out at his club to write an accounting program. He also played Doom. That was the end of his introduction to computer science.

— Maybe you speak English? — the interlocutor continued to torment with questions.

— Nice, — Danya picked up the answer from his thesaurus, three English words in length.

Sign up to read.