Now the representatives of Germany, France and India were promoting the initiative to transfer the functions of a dictator with absolute powers to the UN Secretary General, but other members of the Security Council, in particular Russia and the United States, have already promised to veto ... The correspondent, clearly tired of all this stupid bureaucratic fuss, in in extremely harsh terms, he broadcast to the audience that the UN Security Council has once again demonstrated its absolute helplessness in conditions when important and urgent decisions are required ...

I turned off the TV, threw the remote control away in frustration, and only then noticed how quiet the apartment had become. The girls, it turns out, also watched the news, and now they were silent, pale and shocked.

I didn't even think it was that bad! Lisa was the first to speak.

– And what are we to do? - Masha-Second was interested.

“I can’t imagine yet…” I admitted, getting up and going to the window. “Now we just need to rest and preferably something to eat. How bad that the window overlooks the avenue. Let's turn off the light in this room and not turn it on, since our shadows are visible on the curtain, it's too dangerous.

The girls agreed, one of them flipped the switch, turning off the light in the room. I cautiously looked out into the street. The avenue was not lit, but in the houses opposite, lights were burning in many windows. And for some reason, the light made its way from the grocery kiosk downstairs. Does the kiosk work? By the way, you can buy groceries there!

- Girls, I'll go outside, I'll try to bring food. You do not go anywhere and do not let anyone into the apartment. I have keys.

Before my resolve faltered, I took out all the cash stored there from a drawer, rushed out of the apartment and ran down the stairs. I went out into the yard, looked around and in short dashes I got to the stall that was really working that night. I looked into the window, sitting inside the shop, a lonely saleswoman even screamed in fright.

Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Can I buy something for food? I asked the older woman.

She nodded, then confessed that I was the only customer for this entire nightmarish day. I looked around again. Broken cars, dead people lying everywhere. It is even strange that this aunt survived in the midst of all this chaos and death.

- Was it scary?

- How scary! When everything here rumbled, I lay down on the floor, covered my head with my hands and tried not to move. I thought I would die too. She prayed, although she had never been a believer. And now it's just scary to go out when this is happening on the street. What are you going to take?

I examined the poor assortment of the counter. Cigarettes, beer, gin and tonic, bus passes... None of that interested me at all. But then I saw chocolate bars, crackers, nuts, seeds, chips, dried fish and squid rings...

“I need everything you have edible. As many as I can carry!

The saleswoman was not even surprised by such a strange order, starting to punch chips and chocolates. I collected four full large packages of products. The available money was not enough. But when I suggested to the saleswoman to wait a bit while I collect the missing amount in the pockets of the dead people lying around, she just waved her hand - they say, no, let's have as much as we can.

- Walk me to my house and consider that we are even. Otherwise, I’m afraid to go alone,” the woman admitted.

She lived very close, literally two houses from here, so I easily agreed. True, I had to wait until the saleswoman sealed the cash register, wrote down the balance in the accounting journal, closed the kiosk and lowered the metal blinds on the windows of the stall. I was amazed and surprised by such scrupulousness of a woman - the devil knows what was going on around, and she tried to write carefully so as not to make blots in the inventory log!

- I used to be a local doctor, - this middle-aged, but not yet old woman explained. - She retired from the clinic last year. In the stall and pay more, and less responsibility.

- Tell me, could you apply plaster? - I asked the former doctor, told about the situation with Liza Svyatova and promised to pay the woman for her work.

Help your friend, of course. I'll find a bandage and a plaster. Not now, but when it's light. And then I got nervous today and I fall down.

I gladly agreed and even wrote down the address on a piece of paper so that the new acquaintance would not forget. Having escorted the woman to her entrance, I hurried to my house, because I myself was already simply falling from fatigue.