December 13

Both the night and the day were quite quiet. Had a dream of

dwarf Santas in red coats lined-up in close rows to form alive maze in a tremendous hall with mirror walls where a plushy pop-singer with his sugary hit was sticking out from among the narrow lanes in their dwarfish labyrinth until the gaudy number got swept away by a black-leathered angel of hell riding like hell for leather and finally coasting at 2 or 3 meters above the ground as if arisen by the teeth of wind

At the work place, I rendered one article and gave the final cut to my duplicate key before returning the original back to Wagrum.

After the midday break, they summoned me to a general meeting in the Boss' office. It was a solemn thank-you-and-good-bye affair to fling the gates wide open before a resigning veteran journalist.

Boss, Arcadic and one more member of the editorial upper circles took the floor, respectively, with their tribute speeches varying only in the thickness of orators' glasses. They squeezed themselves out dry to put across one and the same idea of impossibility to list the grand qualities of the departing vet who all his life kept moving in the wrong direction deceived by them those commies—not his fault, see?—yet our paper's door shall all the same be kept open for him forever and a day... In the end Ms. Stella presented him with a bunch of creamy rich carnations.

At home, I wallowed in our happy family life till 10 pm, and then saw everybody to the Underground. When I was back and scribbling these notes, two powerful but mute flashes ripped up the darkness outside our communicational window. I had the usual fit of heat fizzling up my chest. The heart went pit-a-pat. Beastly female shrieks sounded in the street and I went out.

Some forty meters up the street, there was a house on fire. Clinking of splintering glass and squeals of squaws in the crowd of by-standers mixed up with angry demands from non-interfering men to equip them with fire extinguishers, all that being out-noised by the businesslike crunch of the fire devouring the house in high, about 2 or 3 meter tall, tongues of flame. I recollected the red-clad Santa Clauses from my dream.

Then there arrived a team of firefighters (undreamed of) and in a couple minutes put the fire out. My mother-in-law was in the throng partaking in subsiding lamentations. (Her house is only ten meters away from the damaged one). Among the onlookers I also made out Sahtik, took her aside and expressly asked to go back to the children.

In absence of further entertainment, the crowd started to disperse. I spotted Nerses walking away and took him over to arrange a visit to his place tomorrow at 3.30 pm. (The fortnight about St. Yuri's Day when serfs are free to seek another master is not over yet.)

It's a quarter past eleven. Desultory shooting of no account in the thick fog outside.