– Hello. May I sit here at your table?
– Hello dear. Have a seat young lady!
– Thanks! My name is Anfisa! – Anfisa said affably.
– Well, what a weird name! In now days you don’t understand anything. The soup is tasteless, the clothes are terrible. Can’t figure out which are the boys? Which are the girls? And the names are just a nightmare. I’m just Sergey Alexandrovich. Anfisa, from Egypt or what? – muttered the man.
He continued grumbling… while Anfisa silently ate her soup and hardly even listened to him thinking to herself.
– How difficult for such an old one to understand that everything has been changed for a long time. Enough to live with the old concepts! After all, you have to live here and now!
Having finished the soup and leaning on the back of the chair, she realized that she really felt good!
– Girl, what do you say about this? – Sergey Alexandrovich asked Anfisa.
– What?
– About the times! Here you are, for example, dressed as an astronaut. Iron is polished like a mirror, huge boots. You don’t look like a girl! In my days, girls wore dresses, and young people in suits!
– Why am I as an astronaut? I’m in my mother’s fur coat. – Anfisa thought in surprise.
– Are you talking to me right now? – She asked him while looking around.
– Everyone has strange clothes, I saw this only in cheap fantasy TV shows.
– Interesting, but how do I look? – And looking down at her legs, Anfisa saw quite, to put it mildly, strange boots and everything else as he had just said.
– But, I looked cool! I just had to tell him something, but I do not know what! I need to come up with a beautiful story, so I won’t fall face down into the mud, muttering another absurdity!
Chapter 3: Sixth Planet
– You know, we’re at the train station right now, right? – clarified Anfisa on the go, thinking of what would happen next.
– Yes, – Sergey Alexandrovich agreed.
– I’m dressed like this because I’m waiting for my interstellar passenger spacecraft to fly to another planet, Epirus! This is the sixth plan from the solar system.
– I think we are at the train station and some spacecrafts come here!?
– A train will arrive for the passengers for the spaceship to take them to the space shuttle and then to the space port which is in orbit of the earth.
– What size spaceship?
– A huge spaceship, about eight hundred people! – Yes, everything became clear for Anfisa at this moment.
– How much does a ticket cost? How long to fly? – Sergei Alexandrovich did not let up.
Anfisa went into herself again, pondering her answers: – Oops, what should I answer him? Hmm, if the soup now cost as much as eight hundred and fifty, then it means going to the nearest resort for about sixty thousand, and flying to another system probably sixty million, oh! So I’m a millionaire! Probably an important person! What am I doing? Need to think about what I dreamed of as a child. Become an actress or writer? Let be the actress!
And so, after a pause, she was ready to answer with dignity.
– A ticket there costs about sixty million, this is for VIP person, the regular ticket will be cheaper! Fly usually takes a week!
– Seven days!? What to do there for a whole week?
– On the spaceship, all sorts of entertainment for every taste! Just a holographic deck itself! A bunch of restaurants. It will not be boring!
– Wow! And what is a holographic deck?
– It’s a place the size of a tennis court.
– I want to get there too!
– You keep dreaming and don’t hesitate! Everything is possible and you will succeed!
– Always dreamed of flying to another planet on a spaceship! And what is this deck for? Also tell me about yourself, about the planets and where have you been?
The fantasies of Anfisa seemed limitless, in her imagination she saw endless stories about space, about new people, about others from other planets, about herself, what could be her life!
– That was ten years ago. I really wanted to be an actress. I also really liked to come up with all sorts of stories about everything I saw! Do you understand me?
– Of course I understand you! In my childhood I just never stopped dreaming.
– So, dreams come true! – Continued to fantasize Anfisa. – Mom drove me to an interview in one creative studio. There they saw special talents in me and immediately offered to engage in acting. I was happy! Three times per week I went there. Almost immediately, participated in many performances, tried different roles. All that came to me in my fantasies, I was reliving segments of absolutely different lives on stage. At such moments I was so happy that every minute was a great blessing, as the most precious jewel that cannot be measured!
– Five years later, I was noticed by one famous director and offered a role in a film about other worlds, in a science fiction series. There I played the role of an ambassador from the earth. I had a lot of emotional experiences then! And everything turned out perfectly!
For a few minutes Anfisa felt like a star! Such as always wanted!
– So maybe it is? – Anfisa asked herself. – It’s just a strange day, I just forgot everything! I heard that this happens in people when they work a lot and sleep a little!
– You are so happy! – interrupted her thoughts Sergey Alexandrovich. – I’m thinking why didn’t I do anything like that for myself? To live a lifetime and never try for a minute or at least to wish myself a gift for myself!…
The old man sobbed with bitter tears from the realization of an aimlessly lived life.
– My dear Sergey Alexandrovich. I beg you, calm down, you are still alive! So you have the opportunity at least once to do what you dreamed about! Are you ready to listen further?
– Yes, dear! Forgive me! – he cheered up.
– I haven’t been on Epirius yet! I only know that there are creamy shores and a lot of butterflies. I managed to visit the planet Pyatisolnts, it is beautiful and fabulous. It is located on the fifth plan from the solar system and this planet has its own five suns. I call it Sunny Valley! It is inhabited by very cute little creatures that look like people.
Some like flying elves, some like gnomes. They are kind and friendly. On this planet it is very hot and there is only water in the caves, but it is terribly cold in those caves. People there organized a resort for themselves. They built a huge dome right in the middle of the planet. And, imagine, the planet is flat as a pancake. And what is there on the other side, no one knows or they don’t tell.
In the guidebook, of course, legends are described about strange, three-legged creatures that live without light in water or on land. The question is, can they get on the bright side? And why can’t we talk about them? And how are they dangerous? A lot of questions… They say that those creatures can penetrate the bright side through springs in caves only once a year, when five suns go down.
Chapter 4: The Dark Side
– Why are they dangerous,