Аннотация: MMMDCCXI. Lena and the Egyptian Sphinx. A story. - October 20, 2025.
Lena and the Egyptian Sphinx. A story.
Lena stands on the platform of the new city bus station. She is waiting to board the bus.
The bus will take her to her native settlement - the Sunny Sloboda.
Two months ago, Lena arrived by a bus at this platform. She came into a rented apartment where girls from the Sunny Sloboda lived. She enrolled in a paid educational institution (her parents had taken out an educational loan, for her). She got a job as a sales consultant in a fashion boutique located on the first floor of a huge supermarket.
Lena stands on the bus station platform, looking at photos on her smartphone. She is on a plane, she is on a beach (her figure is just perfect), she is in diving gear, ready to enjoy the sights of the underwater world...
There are no memories left after her studying or after her working in the boutique, but there is a lingering feeling of a wonderful holiday, feast that lasted for two months... A feeling of a feast - feast that will never end!
Next to the fashion boutique (where Lena was working) there was the "Fiesta" dance club. It was a place where a delightful music was always playing, and where beautiful, stylishly dressed and well-groomed boys and girls were always smiling.
It was an absolutely different world - not the world in which Lena was forced to live in the Sunny Sloboda.
Michael was the young man she had dreamed of when she was a girl, resident of the Sunny Sloboda. Any girl from the dance club was melting when Michael paid attention to her. But Michael distinguished her, Lena, among all others girls.
When she and Michael were driving up in the red convertible electric car to the new skyscraper on the bank of the Don River, where Michael lived on the top floor, everyone looked at Lena and Michael.
And how he talked about a diving! About corals, beautiful fishes, excellent hotels, and antique shops!..
He visits a great resort almost every month. He doesn't travel alone, but with his friends. They are all modern guys who go to the dance club; all of them have great figures, beautiful cars, attractive girls (from the supermarket), thick stacks of dollars and euros, and of 5000-ruble banknotes. Interestingly, all those stacks are of the approximately similar size.
Lena immediately felt that she had a chance to enter this amazing world - world of extraordinary people.
A trip to Egypt was coming up. Michael spoke about this trip as if it was something obvious.
Lena was imagining herself on the plane, in the hotel, on the beach, in diving gear (into a depth of the Red Sea). And that's exactly how it had happened in reality.
Michael knows people everywhere, he has friends everywhere. Everything - credit, passport for trips abroad, everything, everything, everything - is solved quickly, instantly. He doesn't even carry car (belonging) documents with him. At some car firm, a clerk for some reason asked Michael for the car documents. Michael laughed: why would he need to carry car documents with him?
Before leaving for Egypt, there was a small hitch. One of Michael's friends bought a collectible car at an extraordinarily low price. Such a car is worth several tens millions of dollars, but Michael's friend bought it for only three million dollars. Such a unique opportunity could not be missed! Friends, including Michael, had to help the car enthusiast with money. For a few days, Michael faced some financial difficulties.
In the supermarket building there is a bank office, which issues loans at a preferential rate and in a simplified procedure - to those who work in the supermarket building. Michael could have taken out a regular loan at any bank, but there was no time left to complete all the bank loan procedures before the trip to Egypt.
So, Lena took out a loan according simplified procedure. Just a several million rubles. For wealthy people with thick stacks of cash, who are driving fancy cars and who are living in ultra-modern skyscrapers, this is nothing. Lena had no doubts at all.
The trip was delightful. Lena was especially impressed by the goldfishes swimming in the depths of the Red Sea.
Both the hotel rooms and the service were top-notch. Lena had never even imagined anything like this when she lived in the Sunny Sloboda.
They went to see the ancient pyramids. Lena took a photo - self-portrait - in front of the Sphinx. Here it is - this photo!
A girl (friend from the boutique) told Lena that before the dance club classes began, Michael was approached by his friends who proposed him to participate in their pre-planned trip to Thailand. Everything was absolutely urgent. Absolutely! Not a single second to think. Yes or not?! Therefore, Michael had no choice but to leave without telling anything to Lena, and now his phone isn't answering.
When he returns from Thailand, all problems will be solved.
For now, Lena has financial problems, which have led to problems at workplace (in the boutique), in her studies, in rented apartment, and even in the "Fiesta" dance club.
A bus is pulling up to the platform. This bus will deliver Lena to the Sunny Sloboda.
On the smartphone screen, here is this photo: Lena in Egypt, against the backdrop of the Sphinx.
Lena puts her smartphone in her backpack, gets on the bus (she borrowed the fare money from her acquaintance girls). She'll have to wait a week or two for the Michael's return. When Michael (tall, cheerful, smiling..., tanned under the tropical Sun..., athletic, muscular, carefree..., dressed in a foreign-style ...) will arrive in his red electric convertible at the Sunny Sloboda, both Lena's parents and all the girls, and everyone-absolutely everyone- everybody simply will fall away.
And Lena will be on the top of happiness!
October 18, 2025, 18:11
Translation from Russian into English: October 20, 2025, 04:05
Владимир Владимирович Залесский ' Лена и египетский Сфинкс. Рассказ. '
{3740. Лена и египетский Сфинкс. Рассказ. - 20 октября 2025 г.
MMMDCCXI. Lena and the Egyptian Sphinx. A story. - October 20, 2025.
Vladimir Zalessky Internet-bibliotheca. Интернет-библиотека Владимира Залесского}