Quiet revenge (2011)
by Viktor Pinchuk, translated from Russian by Wikisource

Literary miniature from the newspaper "Respublica Krim" (Republic of Crimea), published on January 20, 2011.The source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Тихая_месть_(Виктор_Пинчук).jpg

Viktor Pinchuk4122697Quiet revenge2011Wikisource


They were inseparable: jacket and skirt of the same suit.

When the weather was warm, the hostess usually wore only a skirt, on such occasions, the jacket miss her, languishing in the hours of separation. But sometimes it was the other way round: for instance if lady would accidentally get the top part of the suit dirty and take it to the dry-cleaner. Then his girlfriend was stay in boredom and ennui. But when the fashionista would go out into the village street "in full dress," there was no limit to the couple's happiness. It seemed that their attachment would last forever. But, as the shopkeeper said, in a world where even Japanese appliances are guaranteed for no more than 99 years, nothing lasts forever.

... Once, through a narrow gap of a barely open wardrobe, the skirt saw a terrible picture. But first things first. In the afternoon, a neighbor came to the woman. They chatted on various female topics, in particular, that contrasting colors are now in vogue. Soon the guest left, and the hostess, leaving the house, put on a skirt of a different color and style. The jacket looked rejuvenated: he glowed with happiness, fragrant with the aroma of perfumes recently bought in the regional center. But the main thing that especially painfully hurt the involuntary witness of the events: the rival was noticeably younger in age and much shorter in length.

When the landlady returned, the suit jacket hung again by the side of his one-colored girlfriend, without saying a word about what had happened. She, tormented by a torment of jealousy, didn't betray her feelings, but, holding a grudge, decided to take revenge: "Let it be a secret revenge, he will never know."

... On a sunny summer morning, a woman washed clothes, hanging them in the yard, not far from the barn where the pigs lived. The skirt hung between two colorful duvet covers, while the jacket was left in the closet, among clean clothes. The July breeze, inflating the duvet covers like sails, made them pot-bellied and important, which looked funny from side. They, not realizing the comical nature of their situation, tried to talk with a new neighbor, flirting with her, letting go of compliments that seemed original to them. She answered something out of politeness, trying not to look at her interlocutors, so as not to burst out laughing. The greatest happiness is not to understand how stupid you are. Her thoughts moved in a completely different direction: the time had come to carry out the plan.

Together with another breath of wind, the skirt, to the surprise of the fat-bellied neighbors, fell off the clothesline and, flying a couple of meters, ended up in a pigsty. A fat boar, hitherto devouring something from the trough with appetite, noticed the guest and, having swallowed a couple more pieces, slowly approached her, sniffing with a dirty snout. The skirt was in seventh heaven: the main part of her plan come to fruition. The continuation of the story followed immediately. The boar lay down on the skirt, grunting with pleasure. Of course, the jubilant "hero of the occasion" experienced, to put it mildly, not very pleasant sensations from such an unusual "cavalier", but, as Louis XVI said: "Women's revenge is more sophisticated than men's, and women's logic is generally inexplicable."

It was at this romantic moment that the hostess went out into the yard to feed the chickens. Noticing the loss, she was surprised, instinctively looking around the territory: there have never been thieves in the village. However, going up to the pigsty, she immediately understood everything and, driving the boar away, took the little thing.

Modern chemistry is capable of miracles: after washing in one of the laundry detergents advertised on TV, the skirt looked even more elegant than it was, and the fragrance emanating from it attracted admirers and suitors. The jacket did not guess anything: gently clinging to his girlfriend in the wardrobe, he whispered something poetic. Life went on, everything went on as usual. It seemed as if nothing had happened at all, and the whole story was a stupid fiction. Only the culprit kept a vivid imprint of recent events in her memory.

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This work is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, which allows free use, distribution, and creation of derivatives, so long as the license is unchanged and clearly noted, and the original author is attributed—and if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same license as this one.

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