Holding the new issue of newspaper “Life, as it is” in the hand, Oleg trudged slowly on an autumn alley. Sometimes he looked around as if expecting someone, but nobody noticed him. The boy sat down on a bench but suddenly he sprang from it. As though something picked him into a leg. Slowly conducting fingers under a knee, he found a small hole. And only now, Oleg noticed grey-bluish nail on the bench. He breathed hard, sat down on the other side of bench and looked on this hostile chunk of iron.
The nail was content with itself. It proudly stuck out from bench as if saying: “What a fine fellow I am!” the boy was sure that it is that nail, whose great-grandfather was stuck in the innocent body of Christ. Now it harms anybody who tries to cover him from the world.
“Frigging nail,”- Oleg thought angrily and spread the newspaper. Quickly looking through titles and considering pictures he stopped on a horoscope. Found a column which was intended for Capricorns, began to read: “Don’t worry through unpleasant knick-knackeries, in fact stars prepared for you, what you have expected for a long time!”
Oleg’s lips spread in a satisfied smile. From this pleasure he read all horoscopes and decided that stars portended the truth only for him. Suddenly the boy felt that somebody had sat down on his bench. He laid the newspaper on the knees. A beautiful girl sat next to him. Her white, curly hair fell elegantly on fragile shoulders. The tender lines of her face reminded the doll Barbie, with which he played in childhood. Her eye-lashes were as fluffy as feathers and clean blue eyes were…
Suddenly the girl looked at him. Oleg pretended reading the newspaper, at once. He was surprised, why he wasn’t able to smile to this magic fairy. The boy slowly picked up the newspaper higher and glanced on her legs in the transparent stockings. The legs were simply remarkable! The girl as if felt that he stared at her. She rose. The thin stockings stuck to the bench and as if tried to retain her.
- Oh, wait! – the boy rushed to her, - There is a nail!
His hand touched her knee and sprang away at once. He untied her stockings from the bench, but fragile cloth (if it is possible to be called “cloth”, in general) already was torn.
- What a pity! – the boy whispered disappointedly.
- Don’t worry. It’s nothing, - the girl calmed and waved hand indifferently – It’s not first time.
Oleg showed her a hole on pants.
- Do you see? You and me are alike. I was cough also,-he smiled.
- Frigging nail! – the girl said and smile to him in reply.
- But why “frigging”?
Oleg grasped for the nail and pulled it onto himself, but it only began to swing. However the nail leaned after a few such attempts a boy heaved it up as a sing of victory:
- Yahoo!
The girl began to laugh and her laughter filled all his heart at once. He heard before that laughter is compared to sound of bells, but only now he understood that it’s true. Oleg wanted to tell her about everything: about horoscope, about Barbie, and about the fact, that they creating for each other.
- What is your name? – He asked finally.
The girl looked down and answered quietly:
- Olya.
- Oh, you see- it’s fate! – Oleg said, - even ours names… they… they are alike!
The girl began to laugh again. Presumably, it was pleasant for her to heart it. Oleg continues:
- I’ll save this nail to the end of my life, - he put it in pocket on the breasts and breathed barely. Olya smiled silently. Some sly light was sparkling in her eyes.
- We met so… met so… - Oleg walked up nearer and took her hand. Sudenly he felt that there was a wedding ring on the finger of right arm!
The boy released her disappointedly.
- Please, don’t worry, - girl calmed him, - You will find your sweet-heart. I am sure. Because you still have a happy nail, don’t you?
She turned around and went away.
Oleg sat down on the bench and looked as beautiful legs in the torn stockings disappeared forever from his life. He got from the pocket the nail which has already twice spoiled his life and quietly whispered a word “frigging” with might and main threw it in a bush.