“You are a perfectionist,” said mine, now ex-girlfriend slamming the door goodbye.
“Why take out your anger like this? You also need to be able to leave gracefully,” I thought, without feeling much regret. Marina is a wonderful example of female beauty, but she lacked a lot of things.

“Perfectionism is the belief that improvement, both one’s own and that of others, is the goal to which one should strive.” We can say that perfectionism is an excessive desire for perfection, a tendency to place very high demands on oneself and the people around us.

I didn’t want to admit that my ex was right, but it is true. Only my perfectionism is selective. Appears only in perfect image girls.
I decided for myself a long time ago what it should be like.
Outwardly, I imagined her to look like a mannequin in a fashionable clothing boutique. Every time I passed by a shop window, I looked at the beauty displayed there. Sometimes he stopped and whispered with only his lips:
- I love you.

This confession burst out of me, perfection, thoughtlessly. She's a mannequin!
But why did her stern, questioning gaze have such an effect on me?

One day, returning from work, I saw two men carrying my beauty out of the store, and the crowd, in anticipation of entertainment, silently looked at them.

Where are you taking her? – I asked anxiously.
“These are the Safronov brothers - magicians,” explained the onlookers.
- Don't worry, guy. We are not thieves. “It’s better to go watch how we’ll animate the mannequin,” the bearded loader said condescendingly.
- Only external similarity will be limited to clothes. And instead of a beauty they will slip in some girl. After all, it is known that the closet has two doors,” someone shouted from the crowd.

Angry, one of the movers jerked sharply, and the mannequin was hit with his hand against the door.
“She's not in pain. She’s not alive,” he tried to calm down.
It hurt me.
I couldn’t leave her helpless in the hands of magicians. Therefore, I followed them into a small cafe, where in place of the pushed chairs and tables, there was a massive wardrobe.
The Safronov brothers brought the mannequin into the closet, first demonstrating that it was completely empty.

Then they closed it and began to make passes, diverting attention to themselves.
I didn’t look at them, I stood at attention like a setter. I didn’t believe in hocus pocus, remembering the whistleblower’s words about the second door. I was waiting for the show to end so that my ideal of perfection could be returned to the boutique window.

When the door opened, I didn’t gasp along with everyone else, only because my breath caught at the sight of the girl of my dreams.

To be more precise, there were two of them in the closet.
One, due to the waxy pallor on her face, was mistaken for a mannequin, rather nondescript and vulgar. And only when she squeaked something, pointing her finger at her neighbor in horror, did he become convinced of his own mistake.
I couldn’t look enough at the second girl – an exact likeness of a mannequin.
She fixed her gaze on me - questioning and embarrassed-happy. Ignoring the stunned illusionists, she approached. She extended her hand and I took it in mine.

We walked around the city for a long time until the drizzling rain gave us the courage to invite the girl to visit.
“If this is what you want, then I agree,” she answered seriously and smiled shyly.
Her smile made my heart beat joyfully.

I was proud of my apartment. There were few things in it - nothing superfluous, everything was only necessary and of excellent quality.

Surprise flashed in the eyes of the stranger (I didn’t ask her name, she didn’t show curiosity about mine), then approval at the sight of the perfect cleanliness of the home.

He helped take off his jacket and silk scarf when he noticed a purple bruise on his wrist. And also barely noticeable traces. Thin lines on the neck and arms, where the mannequins have attachment points.

LINA/HDW-1 – she introduced herself. - Are you upset?

No,” with these words he pulled off his turtleneck, exposing his torso. There were exactly the same marks on my body, only weaker. Over time, they will disappear completely, just like hers.

Andrey – 01,” I said, catching Lina’s admiring glance. – We will create a new, perfect race.

"What a day it is
It's raining on the boulevards
Light illuminates people
Thousands of showcases
Just now I know I'll meet you
My boy my friend hello, Mannequin-Andrey”...

Dummy(fr. mannequin, from the Netherlands mannekijn- man) - a figure made of wood, papier-mâché, plastic or other materials, shaped like a human body. Of course, we won’t talk about the dummies that honestly serve to train students, who compete in crash tests, and even about the Ministry of Emergency Situations officers Yashka and Gosha. Let’s leave aside for now window display mannequins, an interesting and huge topic. And even the remaining tailor's mannequins will be considered only as a piece of home interior, an art object, loved by designers and decorators. Comrades, advertisers and dressmakers, don’t run away! Learn about history and learn how to make mannequin independently - useful and interesting for everyone.

First The mannequin was mentioned in ancient Egyptian written sources, and the world saw it with its own eyes thanks to archaeologists who excavated the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, the last pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, which ruled Egypt until 1314 BC. e. It was a wooden torso found in the clothing chest of a handsome young pharaoh. In those distant times, the master makers of clothing for the ruling dynasty did not have the right to touch the sacred body of the ruler and had to provide him with ready-made clothes. Of course, those clothes were not distinguished by the complexity of their cut, and the pharaohs did not need numerous fittings, but it was necessary to see how the outfit looked as a whole, whether something needed to be changed or added. So the ancient Egyptian tailors came up with such a thing as imitation of the human body.

Dressmakers of Ancient Rome Figurines—small painted figures made of baked clay—were used as samples of clothing models.
Shaolin monks went further, they built an Alley of wooden mannequins. There were no clothes on the dolls yet, about them appearance no one thought to care. On the contrary, Chinese images and likenesses of man were subjected to constant beatings.

Mannequins were used constantly in those days, but over time, after the decline of ancient civilization, this invention was forgotten, like many other things; they were “reinvented” already in the Middle Ages.

Most of the inventions of that time were made in monasteries, in whose libraries all the knowledge of mankind was concentrated. So the mannequin was reinvented in 1573 by a monk of the monastery of San Marco named Bachio. Bachio was an artist who painted the walls of the monastery, and one day he needed to paint a saint whose name history has not preserved. There were, of course, no women in the monastery and there could not be; inviting a model to the monastery was generally something beyond acceptable, so the monk had to invent other options. And he invented it! He constructed a female figurine from wood and clay and dressed her in a dress made from a piece of linen. And so the mannequin was born again.

However, the mannequin did not come out into the world soon, about two hundred years later. We find the first mention of mannequins used by tailors to make clothes in France in the 18th century. In 1770, the first sewing company was founded in Paris.
In those days, a mannequin was made from a piece of wood or using the papier-mâché technique, it was made strictly according to the individual standards of the customer or customer and was quite expensive; not every lady could afford to have a personal mannequin. This, of course, did not apply to persons of royal blood. There is information that Louis XIV, a famous fashionista, had several mannequins, which were a torso on a stand and made of precious wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and decorated with gilding. The Sun King, however! Why several? Several dozen tailors worked on sewing his outfits; Louis’ wardrobe included several hundred items of clothing, which is why almost every tailor needed a personal “Loudovik”.
The word “mannequin” arose at the same time as the object and, translated from French, means “image, little man” (mannequin). In the Flemish dialect, mannequin (manekin, mannekijn) also meant “man.”

In those days when there was no mass tailoring, mannequins were used exclusively for making clothes and subsequently demonstrating them to customers. Elite tailors also used small mannequins as... fashion magazines. Draw sketches of clothing for advertising purposes early XVIII century, for some reason it never occurred to anyone, and fashion designers made smaller copies fashionable outfits and sent them to clients. Subsequently, this method was abandoned due to the high time and material costs.
With the advent of mass tailoring and the advent of ready-made clothing stores, mannequins began to be used to demonstrate new designs. For such demonstrations, "working" tailor's mannequins were used, which were still made of wood or papier-mâché. However, over time, designers came up with the idea of ​​making human-sized dolls with heads and arms instead of such torsos on a stand. These dolls were carved out of wood, their faces were painted, they even had hair on their heads. Such dolls were made in a very naturalistic way; in those days they had not yet thought of any stylization or abstraction.

But here’s the problem: the wooden figures were motionless. Therefore, many saleswomen, trying to revive the model, threw various fabrics over themselves. A young ambitious Englishman saw one of these saleswomen Сharles Frederick Worth / Charles Frederick Worth(1825-1895), who learned the basics of sewing at a Parisian fashion house "Maison Gagelin". An animated mannequin! Charles married a saleswoman and became the founder of a French high fashion. He is considered the inventor of fashion shows, and his wife is considered the first fashion model. It was Worth who came up with the familiar shape of the mannequin. Before anyone else, he began to replicate fashion - he sold models so that they could be copied. He deliberately introduced into fashion those fabrics whose production he considered necessary. In other words, he truly began to use the mechanism of the origin and spread of fashion. And he succeeded a lot in this: existing to this day Haute couture, laid the foundations for the fashion industry that continues today.
Read more about Charles Frederick Worth:

Thus, it became clear to everyone how necessary mannequins are for high tailoring.

In the mid-19th century, mannequins began to be displayed in store windows. The idea was liked, and even the smallest shops tried to open their own fashionable novelty. In the provinces, however, this idea for a long time could not make a path for itself - the inert, established views of the owners of small shops prevented the widespread implementation of the idea in life.
In 1894, the first wax mannequins appeared in Paris. At first, the idea caused general rejoicing: now it was possible to make mannequins - exact copies of a person, like in a wax museum. However, these figures were not exhibited somewhere in a dark, cool room, but in a showcase, flooded with sun or lamplight. And the mannequins began to melt, makeup ran off their faces and ruined their clothes. In winter, on frosty days, when the shops were not heated at night, the wax became covered with cracks, which also did not make the mannequins any more beautiful. In addition, they were very heavy and inconvenient to move, which means that the “trauma” of the figures from awkward movements of store workers increased. The price of a wax mannequin was quite high by those standards, so only expensive metropolitan stores could often afford to buy new mannequins to replace damaged ones.

Despite all these difficulties, wax mannequins survived the First World War. However, the general shortage of materials in those years could not help but affect the quality of the mannequins: to save money, their legs were shortened by half. Nowadays long legs are an indisputable trump card for mannequins. According to designers and fashion designers, clothes look more flattering and attractive on figures with long legs, a thin waist and a high, small bust. There was such a shift in the concepts of the canons of beauty in mannequins due to changes in the proportions of the human body: after the 40-50s of the twentieth century curvaceous became a thing of the past, and their display became irrelevant. So the figures of the mannequins became more refined. In the modern fashion industry, the mannequin shape is the least similar to a normal human.

Mannequins from the First World War had not only short legs, but also short arms; often they did without the latter altogether. It was from those years that armless mannequins appeared and continue to exist. And we thought it was a designer find. Nothing like that - an echo of difficult times.

Nowadays, wax mannequins are no longer used and remain only as exhibits in a few mannequin museums. Simple tailor's mannequins, made of wood, cardboard and covered with fabric, are still “alive”.

For tailoring work, you can take any mannequin - the main thing is that it meets modern standards of the female figure, which have changed somewhat compared to the end of the last century. Therefore, the only antique model that deserves attention is made of flexible wire mesh.

Grandmother's mannequins, accidentally discovered on mezzanines, found at flea markets or bought at auctions; as well as their mini-sisters, have a place in the vintage interiors of apartments and small shops. Let's move on to admiration

First, let's just take a look at what's inside.

Black had a nightmare. Black woke up and remembered that today was exactly a year since he saw her for the first time.
White-white hair flowed down onto her shoulders... White-white shoulders with the most delicate pink tint. He ate this ice cream. My teeth ached so nicely. But the eyes were more attractive. A little bit of the universe, a little bit of ice, broken glass, artificial crystal from the chandelier in the kitchen. And mascara. Black. She loved contrasts: white - black.
For three months she did not know about him. Those three months that he already knew about her. Then he made up his mind. I sent the letter myself. Born at night. In the night. And when the leaves fell from the birches and the cold began, he came again.
Shop. Counter. You can still run away. Closer. Back! She stares intently. I was wrong. I did not recognize. I didn't guess. Hello. Hello! Late. Smile. Mutually. Hm... I... You... Thanks for the letter.
Thank you... Letter... I shouldn’t have written it. She was met in a car. The bar has already opened. He loved the bar too. His apartment had a magnificent bar. Small bar on the wall. Deserted. Completely empty. That same evening he threw himself out of the window. I called my ex-wife, but a male voice answered the phone. The voice demandedly repeated: “Hello, hello, you there..., hello, disgrace, hello, as much as possible, whoever is speaking, hello, get it out of your head, you...” Black hung up. But the voice obsessively continued: “It’s a disgrace, we’re having a child, it’s a disgrace, why are you silent? Who speaks, why remain silent? Our marriage..." Marriage...
Marriage is marriage.
Black ran home. He climbed into his hole. It seems he was crying his eyes out. Or did he laugh?.. I felt so sorry for myself. The store is locked... She was taken to the bar... It's all over, that's it. He lost her! But why? Why didn't she get hit by a car? Why didn't she die? He would love her. He would bring a bouquet of artificial roses to the cemetery. Or not. Not roses. Carnations - they are cheaper. Money is so expensive... She said: “Thank you for the letter.” And also, yes, he remembered when she got into the car, she whispered very quietly: “Come on Wednesday.”

The week stretched into eternity. An eternity between “Come Wednesday” and “Hi, how do you like my new dress?” Since then, they began to meet in her store. Black came and admired her. She talked about bars. (She loved beer). Black was silent and smiled. He tried to catch the synthetic smell emanating from her body. Sometimes, especially when the store was very stuffy, it worked quickly. And then he began to fantasize. The store was empty. Buyers went out into the street. There were two people left in the darkened room. He and she. Soft like plasticine. Hot, pliable plasticine. Two figures were crushed into one. Her hands are tied behind her back with a black stocking. The whip whistled shrilly in the air and, having described a semicircle, gently hugged the naked back. Blood appeared on the purple scar. Darling, you are in so much pain! Lips touch the salty surface. A transparent drop moves slowly in the hollow between the shoulder blades. Again the screech of the whip. A groan leaks through clenched teeth. The body is shaking slightly. The mascara smeared slightly in the corner of my eye. Wet hair fell to one side. A thin strand stuck to his forehead. Oh, how hot it is today! How hot!
One day Black invited her to his place. He knelt under the crucifix all evening. All night long. Lips whispered a prayer. Let her come! Let her come!.. Devil, let her come! She... let... the body... let her body stay overnight. She did not come. Black fell asleep on his knees. The tourniquet pulled the arm above the elbow. The tip of the needle poked blindly into the warm surface, searching for a vein. When the syringe was empty, Black smiled sweetly and sleepily. She was with another man. She dissolved into... A spasm gripped her body. She was with someone else and... Sulfuric acid flowed along the blue threads. She... Her... With others...
In the afternoon he was taken to the hospital...

Exhausted, transparent, weak, Black visited the store three weeks later. She was wearing black dress made of the finest, transparent silk.
“Hello,” instead of words, a clot of consumptive cough spilled out of the patient’s larynx.
- Why did not you come?
- Oh, what are you talking about? Oh, yes... I remember... it seems... No, no, that's it. That's funny. Well, think for yourself. To a stranger...
- I've known you for a long time and then...
- I ask you, Arthur... That is, Jack... Hm. Sorry I forgot...
- My name is Black. Black. I repeated the name a thousand times. Is it really that hard to remember?! Black - black, night, death, space!.. - his voice broke into a scream. - Is it really so difficult! I asked you to come just for one night! For a short interval between sunset and sunrise! You gave me hope. Why did you say “Yes!”?! Why did I write this damn letter?!
Black nervously and quickly headed towards the exit. Shapeless fragments of words flew after him. A milky fog fell over the City. Someone pushed me on the shoulder. Trembling fingers took out cigarettes. The pack fell out of my hands. Someone's foot stepped on it. For the better. For the better. Hate you!
Returning home, he closed the doors with an English lock and drew the curtains. The room was filled with loud heavy music. An image of someone else's face appeared on the mirror screen. A week's worth of stubble grew through the bluish stains. Black circles under the eyes. Black - black. A heavy ashtray touched the surface of a huge mirror. Shards littered the floor. Black was lying on the bed. Shoulders shook violently from crying...
After sunset the room was plunged into darkness. Silence. Someone was breathing pleasantly down the back of my head. Clothes flew into the far corner. All that was left were the black shoes on his feet. On sharp heels.
- Did you call me? I couldn’t visit you right away,” dry lips covered your body with kisses. (Sometimes she came to him ex-wife). - Now it will become easier. I missed you. Why was he the one who picked up the phone? What did he tell you? I'm so tired of all this. If only I could take it all back. If this were a dream, I would find the strength to wake up. I'm sorry. Sorry. It's all my fault. I'm tired of him. We had “nothing” for four months. He disgusts me. Do you know how it is...
Black didn't let her finish. He pressed the familiar hot body to himself and jerked him over onto his back. She took a deep breath. She closed her eyes. Light from a street lamp filtered through the curtains. It glistened damply on his bitten lips. His fingers gathered the sheet into a ball. Her varnished nails dug into the hard mattress. She screamed weakly. A black shoe fell like a blot on the bed, glass on the floor...

He forbade himself from going to the store. He worked on his brain. Somewhere there must be a nerve responsible for... controlling... responsible for... for this love... for this passion. At every mention of her there is a painful shock. Incurable. The blizzard laughs outside the window. Incurable. The kettle on the stove has been boiling for ages. The ashtray is full of crumpled, speckled filters. Doorbell...
She came herself.
To his house.
Late in the evening.
She left a fur coat and the scent of French perfume in the hallway.
They were together for ten minutes. Doorbell. Another one. How many friends he has! Turns out. Appeared. Another call. The evening is poisoned. There's laughter in the kitchen. So many people! He treated them to coffee. They need coffee. They contain coffee. The earrings in her ears sparkled with fake diamonds. She laughed at a bad joke. Black spilled some coffee on his trousers. He sat silently. The TV was on behind the wall. The actor showered the enemies with lead hail. Muscular hands confidently squeezed the machine gun. It's a pity that there is no automatic machine. It's a pity. It's a pity. All it takes is one horn to turn your kitchen into a slaughterhouse. In her dying moment, her gaze will beg for mercy. She will be ready for anything. A few short bursts can stop this stupid laughter. Get rid of friends.
And then everyone went to see her off. Black was left alone. The laughter faded away. He knew that she would choose one of the mourners. He knew who exactly. He knew this because the one she chose had no idea that he might know. I had no idea. What can. What has she already chosen... What can she know... Black grabbed the table top. Cups of unfinished coffee fell to the floor...

I need to know for sure - yes or no,” Black leaned heavily on the counter. - You see what happened to me. - He touched his face and pressed it lightly. The skin wrinkled. It burst. The flap came away, revealing rotten meat.
A sweet, corpse-like odor crawled toward her nostrils.
- I'm decomposing. I’m slowly dying,” a large tear of coagulated blood rolled down Black’s cheek. - Do you see this? - He took off his glove, revealing the bone. - There is still some fabric left on it. There will be nothing tomorrow. I need your body or your refusal.
She didn't listen to him. She was talking about the bar. (She loved beer). She talked about a new foreign car that appeared in the city.
- Speed. Just imagine, she develops a breakneck speed. One day a friend of mine invited me to go for a ride. Oh, that was great! He took...
- I love you, fool!! - the scream flew past her and crashed into pieces against the wall. - Say yes and I'll buy you the damn car! Two cars... and a bar... I'll buy you everything... the whole... universe! Just give me your love or body! Give me your body for one night. Or not". Say never. This is such a trifle. I... - Black choked on a suffocating cough.
- You have a friend? - she asked when Black fell silent.
- You know.
- And are you ready to die for him? Well... if, let's say, a situation arises when...
- Why do you need this?
- Romantic! - She laughed loudly. - You're a pathetic romantic. Medieval knight. Don Quixote. - She burst into sinister laughter. - Give me your body... - She started to get hysterical. - For the night... The Universe... Yes or no... Yes or... never. Get away, idiot!
A heavy bottle of deodorant, grabbed from the shelf, hit Black painfully in the temple. She grabbed the second one. - I'm sleeping with your friend, you hear, you pathetic worthless scum! Get out, I don't want to know you anymore! We're sleeping with your friend! Satisfied? You forced me! You ruined everything! A little more and there would be nothing left of you. You would rot. You would decompose before my eyes, but you wouldn’t know anything. You ruined everything. I hate you!

Mania. Dummy. It froze into a magnificent ingot of plastic. A man in a loader's uniform came to change her dress. She was exposed. Alien hands rummaged around the body. She languidly closed her eyelids, flashing her glass eye. But Black was already free.
Black remembered that today is exactly one year since he saw her for the first time. The railway ticket office was open. Ticket to everything. Going nowhere. Everything remains in the past. The cashier smiled confusedly. The conductor looked at the ticket for a long time. Strange...
The mannequin worked in the same store. During the day. (In the evening she liked beer). A friend got a job as a loader. He was dying slowly. His body was decomposing. A new foreign car has appeared in town. But Black didn't care about that. He was already far away.
1999
From collections

Reviews

Hello, Vasily! I read your story with interest. Written easily, read in one sitting. I also have a story based on the idea of ​​body swapping:
The heroine’s reasoning that an appearance that corresponds to a certain standard “cannot help but please” seemed curious (albeit controversial). After all, in real life, a particular guy might not like a new appearance. Moreover, since he was already in love with Katya (and after all, people fall in love, whatever one may say, not only with personal qualities, but also with the physical shell, even if it is far from some mainstream ideas about the ideal). In any case, Katya was already a close person to him, to whom he had become attached. But a new body is foreign, unfamiliar, you have to get used to it. So, approaching this place, I expected that the guy just wouldn’t like the girl’s new body. Or, at a minimum, he will be shocked and it will take him time to get used to this new body, i.e. they will have to start building a relationship almost from scratch.
However, when the reader’s guesses do not coincide with the author’s idea, this is good. It would be uninteresting if the development of the plot, the reactions and actions of the characters could be predicted in advance.
By the way, I had a question about Alla: it turns out that she deceived the main character? She didn’t get the body of a black woman, but Katya? Why did the Agency allow such deception on her part?

What to say? First of all, for a newbie author, you are very professional. I don't know what's going on here. Either innate talent and a sense of language, or age and experience, or work and education are somehow indirectly connected. But the fact remains: it is rare that the first work is so mature and made at such a level.

If the former, then as for advice - do as your instinct tells you. Personally, nothing prevents me from perceiving the meaning. And it doesn’t seem unsaid. If someone has questions, they have the opportunity to ask them to you at live. How much to chew or not is up to you to decide. Balance comes with experience. Moreover, this balance is different for each author.

The only thing that I personally found inconvenient (but this is subjective, of course) is the strong pull of the plot into the individual, personal experiences of the author. (We are talking about another work to which you gave me a link). A work “catches” when the reader can identify one of the characters with himself. At least in some ways. Therefore, when feelings, events, life circumstances and characteristics of the characters are too unique (so much so that most readers will not be able to find anything in common with them), then in order to arouse interest in them, there must be either a detailed explanation of the situation, or through these characters it is necessary to show some These are general things that everyone understands. That is, then there should be a minimum of peculiarities, and a maximum of universal things. Otherwise, you can become like science fiction writers who overload a work with made-up words, the meaning of which is incomprehensible - an abundance of all sorts of “boobers” and “krakozyabromobili” without deciphering what they are. The reader should have an associative picture in his brain. But incomprehensible words do not evoke such a picture. The same thing applies to incomprehensible feelings, incomprehensible personality traits, and incomprehensible behavior of the characters. Authors who describe their professional activities or social work sometimes sin in the same way - those things that are clear to the author and his colleagues without explanation are completely incomprehensible to a reader who is far from this profession. And they evoke the feeling not of fiction, but of highly specialized literature. This means that some things must either be deciphered “for the average person,” or they must be sacrificed for the sake of the overall goal of the work. It often happens that the author introduces some details that are close, understandable and seem important to him. But if this is not a personal diary, then this needs to be filtered. Or the readership will be too select - such a work will be interesting only to those whose life experience is similar to that of the author. Do you know what I mean? When a lot is written about alien, incomprehensible realities, it is boring. The work begins to seem drawn out.

There may be exceptions, but this requires the highest aerobatics from the author. This requires the talent of not only a writer, but also a “translator” - for a different mentality. This is usually done with the help of allegories, and such a work already acquires some signs of a parable. Of course, it is possible to tell the Papuans about the structure of a nuclear reactor. But it is very difficult to do it in such a way that they understand and are interested :).

Lately, more and more often I have begun to listen to various stories and stories of relatives and friends, at least a little related to mysticism or inexplicable phenomena. Here is one of them.
Family of three, outskirts of Moscow, nine-story panel building with a loggia. Our heroes live on the 7th floor in a two-room apartment. Mom Galina is a seamstress, dad Igor is a museum worker, daughter Marisha, five years old, goes to kindergarten and often walks in the evenings with her mother on the playground in the courtyard of the house.
Nothing unusual happened in the family, except that the sister of the father of the family, after moving, asked to shelter their necklace parrot for a while until renovations were completed in the new apartment. Yasha, as the new pet was called, was old and very smart. He walked around the house on his own, climbed into a huge cage to sleep, ate modestly and knew about 40 words and phrases like “if you want to eat, fry cutlets”, “the truth is somewhere nearby!”, “Yasha is good”, “I want to go to Crimea”, “ strangers are on the doorstep!”, “a bird in the house means death for a cat!”, “don’t touch it with your hands, I’ll bite off your ears” and many other funny words. The bird developed a very warm, one might even say, reverent relationship with a five-year-old child: Yasha gently cooed something to the girl in the evenings, allowed himself to be stroked, touched by the tail, and with the radio turned on at full volume, danced like a professional dancer right on the back of the crib. In general, the family accepted Yasha as their own, and at a referendum at dinner they recognized him as an honorary member of their modest unit of society.
The idyll ended after the father brought a huge plastic mannequin from work, explaining that the museum was holding an exhibition at which costumes of various peoples of the world were presented, and at the end of it, this particular exhibit turned out to be not entirely working, and they decided to dispose of it. Remembering that his wife often complained about the lack of a model for sewing, the caring husband asked to give the mannequin to him. So in their two-room apartment a huge doll appeared with a face painted in the style of a Japanese samurai, but naked, since the costume, of course, was not given to the museum. “The Jap,” as the girl called the doll, lived on the glassed-in loggia adjacent to the nursery. Yasha received the samurai coldly, only casting a skeptical glance in his direction.
As I mentioned earlier, the girl’s mother was engaged in cutting and sewing, and then the day came when she finally needed a model. Entering the nursery in the evening, Galina froze for a moment, gripped by superstitious horror. From the window, a stern, pale face, distorted with hatred, looked straight at her; it seemed to be peering into a cozy room where her daughter was peacefully playing. Galina was brought out of her stupor by Marisha’s voice: “Mommy, don’t be afraid! Good Jap!
A few days later, the story repeated itself, but now it looked truly strange, since Galya clearly remembered that she had left the mannequin in the corner of the loggia with its head towards the street window. How the doll's face was again turned to the nursery window remained a mystery, because for this the doll would have to independently rotate its body 180°. The Jap was again turned towards the street and covered his head with a terrible face with a washbasin.
At night, Igor was awakened by a roar coming from the nursery and accompanied by his daughter’s crying and Yasha’s scream. Rushing towards the noise, he saw the following picture: Marina was sitting on the bed, covering her face with her hands, and crying, the basin with which the mannequin was covered was lying on the floor of the loggia, and the doll’s head was again peering out the nursery window. But most of all the parents were frightened by the parrot, who crawled out of the cage and shouted in a bad voice: “Strangers! Strangers! Strangers are on the doorstep!
The next day they collected family council. The girl refused to explain anything, saying that she woke up from a terrible roar. The parrot, on the contrary, spent the whole day without a break repeating and repeating the same phrase as if it were a habit: “Aliens! Strangers!”, refused to eat or leave the cage. In the end, the parents decided that the daughter most likely went out onto the loggia and dropped the basin, and the parrot got scared in her old age and is now experiencing stress. Marina was lectured and strictly forbidden to go out onto the loggia alone and touch the mannequin.
A couple of days later, the girl asked her dad to take the scary doll out of the house, since Yasha and she are afraid of the mannequin, he walks around the loggia at night and knocks on the nursery window with his plastic fingers, and she also has to keep the curtains drawn so as not to see her pale, distorted face. Seeing how excited the girl is, the father decides to take the doll back to the museum in the morning. Marina is put to bed, but after a few hours the parents again run to the nursery to hear the noise and screams of the child.
This time the picture looked completely wild: the balcony door was open, Marisha was standing on the bed, clasping the pillow with her hands like a shield, and on the floor lay a mannequin, on whose head a parrot was fiercely beating the painted face with its beak.
No one was able to explain what exactly happened in the room, the child was calmed down and taken to bed with his parents, the parrot was barely pulled away from the doll and put in a cage, from where he screamed for a long time and tried to get out using his beak. Igor took the mannequin to the trash the same night, since the doll’s face and head were mutilated by the bird beyond recognition.
Peace returned to the family only a month later, fear was forgotten, Marina again moved to sleep in the nursery, and Yasha was released from the cage. The relationship between the girl and the parrot became even warmer; now the bird slept exclusively on the back of the crib, as if on guard, not leaving her post until the morning. And when Igor’s sister returned after finishing the repairs to get the pet, Marina created a real scandal, barricaded herself in the nursery with a parrot and said that she would not give Yasha up or she would follow him to live with her aunt. As a result, the bird was left to the girl, and Igor promised his sister to compensate for the loss by paying for a summer vacation.