The tale of what won't happen

And in the spring something strange began. Anya's grandmother, who had lived in the village all her life, told her that something had changed. Anya brushed aside all these conversations that, say, the birds no longer sing in that grove near the pond, which as a child inspired her incomprehensible longing. She didn't often hear birds singing in the city either, so should she worry about that now? It was only five years after these words from her grandmother, when there was no longer any grandmother, no birds, no understanding of how to live on, that Anya understood everything.

But what could she change? What could she do? She wandered around the house in a daze, her eyes picking out some objects that served as keys to memories. Here is an old samovar that was brewed only on bath days, here is her children's robe, here is a towel embroidered by her grandmother and icons on it. Everything about this ramshackle and run-down house was a reminder of the past, of those "good old days" that were forever gone. But the house now seemed like a small cabin on a sinking ship, creating an appearance of peace and well-being.

Why did she come back here? Well, she'd been trying to get out of the City for two years, where everything reminded her of the disaster. The City wasn't in ruins, no. It gradually cracked like a plate with fruit trees and birds painted on it. Here is a small crack near the swallow's beak, and now it passes through the entire swallow and rests on an Apple branch. A few more years and one careless movement – and the plate will turn into cutting fragments. The same thing was happening to the City now. Cracks passed through the usual way of life and no one could mask them anymore. Apathy gripped society, chained and suppressed all aspirations and noble impulses. No one wanted to fight with Nature, which finally gave vent to its rage and attacked humanity with all its might. Everyone felt like a criminal sentenced to death, whose deeds are so terrible that he could not even think about himself, because sooner or later all thoughts would come down to the gravity of the offense. And he could only hope for the executioner, who, with his characteristic skill, would carry out the sentence. Old acquaintances, having encountered on an empty street, diligently looked away, because they were afraid of what they could see in the eyes of another. And this sense of universal guilt paralyzed and clouded the mind more than any drugs, the demand for which, by the way, increased significantly, because everything that happened in the City was subordinated to a single goal – to forget as soon as possible. It wasn't just the birds that fell silent. The parks, where children's laughter sounded in the evenings, where groups of students, having bought the cheapest alcohol, sang lines from songs of their conditional childhood imprinted on the subcortex of the brain, were empty and quiet. No one could afford to break the world's mourning.

So Anya was happy for the first time in a long time when she was fired. Work was the last bridge that connected her to civilization. Anya received a message from her boss in the evening and felt incredibly relieved. What the others feared brought her joy. She turned off the alarm clocks and fell into an even sleep. In her dream, she saw the grove near the pond, could almost smell her grandmother's pies with onions and eggs, and heard her grandmother's good laugh. And in the morning, she made a decision. She knew that the house was empty, that her grandmother had passed away a year after the world disaster, and she was almost happy for her.  She didn't have to deal with either the economic downturn or increase in deaths and crime, nor with the final defeat of humanity.

Anya took out a suitcase that had been lying idle for many years, threw everything she needed into it, and called a taxi. There were problems with the latter, because in the first time after the incident, the governments of the countries tried to do something and banned cars with gasoline fuel, and the factories did not have time to make the necessary number of "environmentally friendly" cars. Now, of course, no one was monitoring the implementation of decrees and decrees, but companies were still afraid of sanctions. Finally, one taxi driver agreed to take the girl to the village, requesting a huge amount. But Anya was willing to do anything in this escape from the City.

The village has changed a lot. Anya did not expect that everything would remain as it was in her childhood memories, but a strange hope still warmed her soul. She painfully viewed the collapsed fence that she helped paint, the rusty swing, from which Lesha once threw her (where he is now?), the carved shutters that her grandmother was very proud of. Bright memories suddenly turned into daggers and knives. And Anya seemed to wake up from a long-term dream.

Of course, the girl has long realized the scale of the threat hanging over humanity. This was repeated by announcers, it was written about in newspapers, and special hashtags were created on Twitter. Scientists from all countries have come together to jointly resist Nature. Companies that previously ignored environmental issues donated huge amounts of money to research and laboratory equipment. Everyone living on Earth seemed to be trying to atone for their sins before Nature. But it was too late. Humanity has gradually passed through all five stages of acceptance, but acceptance itself has taken the form of apathy and indifference.

Anya went the same way. But for some reason, just now, the realization hit her like a heavy weight. Why now? She knew about overcrowded hospitals and poverty, and she had been through loss and despair herself. The girl buried her grandmother, parents, and several good friends a few years ago because their bodies were too weak to fight for their lives. But just now, as she opened the dilapidated door of the old house where she had once been happy, she realized how deep the gap between what was and what she has now was.

Pictures of a carefree life flashed before her eyes. Still a young grandmother braids her braids, and she cries and complains that she is tired of sitting. Her mother comes and brings a whole package of sweets. She and her friends arrange bike races. They all build a hut together and run after birds. They jump from a bungee into the river. And…

Anya froze in the center of the room, captured by memories. She didn't hear the creak of the door opening, or the heavy breathing of the two young men who had long used the house to store illegal substances. She didn't see the raised hand with the iron bar.

She didn't even feel the blow.

And when she was already on the periphery of consciousness, it seemed to her that she hears the quiet singing of birds.