Short sketches from the lives of a variety of people through the eyes of an ironic lady.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/52497217https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3370230/1/Riana-s-AdventuresStory-3. Can a genius clean?
When her ex-lover from university days entered Riana's store, she whistled.
"Why did you become a drug addict?" Riana said instead of a greeting.
The man twitched indignantly, but more fearfully. He was sure that he looked great: a fresh and fashionable suit, a good haircut. And said:
"You became a salesperson in an antique shop? This is an improvement over the fast food stall where all the philosophers find haven."
Riana made herself more comfortable on a high bar stool, which allowed her to sit rather than stand behind the showcase counter, and said:
"You missed, dear. I am the owner of this store. So why did one of the best, if not the best, physicists of our time become a junkie?"
"Why did you..."
Riana interrupted with a grin:
"Steve, I buy not only antiques but also vintage. Two out of ten of those who bring goods for appraisal are drug addicts. These are long-time stoners offering things stolen from old women, and newcomers selling off inheritances. I don't want to go to jail for an illegal transaction, and I quickly learned to recognise a drug addict at first glance. By the look of you, I'd say you're raising money for an anonymous clinic. I approve of the decision to undergo treatment, but I cannot understand how you, a scientist and a genius, got hooked on the needle."
"It's not a needle," Steve said quickly. "I wanted to stop being a genius but not turn into an animal. This is cough syrup. A full liqueur glass was washed down with the same amount of brandy. And you get a state of slight lethargy for the whole day. Your brain no longer solves the problem of studying quantum mechanics, but it still doesn't confuse a door with a window."
"Cough syrup?" Riana didn't believe it.
"It contains psychotropic substances. They lull the cough centre in the brain if the cough is dry. In half of the cases of illness, the person doesn't have mucus in the lungs that needs to be removed, and the cough only injures the throat. Then it must be turned off through the brain. The dose of the psychotropic is so small that it is harmless even to an infant, and cough syrup is sold without a prescription. But it's not for nothing that a small measuring spoon and a note are placed in a box with medicine, demanding that you strictly adhere to the dosage. Moreover, such drugs are prohibited from being combined with ethanol."
"Well, why do you need this?"
"I wanted to be happy," Steve said. "Nobody needs geniuses, and everyone likes a fool."
"Not true!" Riana was indignant. "I fell in love with you only through your mind."
"And you ran away a month later."
"I ran away from your life plans, not from your superintelligence or your obsession with science. The prospect of becoming a housewife with a dozen children is not for me."
"And I found a girl who wants to be a housewife!" Steve exclaimed. "And he wants a lot of children. At the same time, she is not a religious fanatic, but a normal person, she has free, modern views on life, and a calm attitude towards those who want to live differently. She wants a big family for herself and doesn't seek to force everyone else to do so. She's okay with sex, too. There is no nonsense about saving yourself until marriage. She says that if you want a lot of children, you need to find someone with whom it is pleasant to make them and should go to the altar only after amazing orgasms."
"And you, out of joy that you met the woman of your dreams, began shooting up yourself at all sorts of lousy?" Riana asked sarcastically.
Steve collapsed into a visitor's chair and buried his face in his hands.
"She is incredibly stupid. It's like a frying pan talking to you. But my god, she is so cheerful and happy! She always sparkles with the life that I never had. This is a new, fabulous, heavenly world. However, to enter there and be with her, I must become like her. Brainless. I took the syrup, quit my job at the research centre, and now work as a gas station operator. And everything immediately improved in my personal life."
"Why so many unnecessary difficulties?" Riana was surprised.
"Because I can’t be silent with her all the time! I have to listen to what she says and answer her. I need to watch all these degenerate TV shows with her. Laugh at the jokes of her stupid friends. Oh my God... They are unbearable. But when I'm on syrup, it all becomes wonderful. I'm having fun, I have a lot of wonderful and kind-hearted buddies, I love the best girl in the world, and she agrees to be my wife. I will have a family. I am not a loner, rejected by everyone. And don't tell me to find a smart wife! No smart woman would want more than one, maximum two children! And generally, half of smart women are childfree. And I want a house full of children!"
"As for the connection between stupidity and having many children, the thesis is dubious," said Riana. "If you look at women with many children, among them there will be professors, top-level business people, and successful politicians. But I’m wondering, why do you think your bride is a fool? I see only wise judgements and actions."
"She's practical," Steve said, sitting up straighter in his chair. "But it is not intellect."
"And this comes from a drug addict who has cluttered up his life so much that he doesn't see a door in it."
"Door?" Steve didn't understand.
"Our life is a house in which there are many rooms. And if you want to live happily, you need to arrange everything that life consists of in different rooms and not dump everything into one so that there is no room left even for yourself."
"Is it possible without metaphors?" Steve got angry. "Are philosophers able to speak clearly?"
"Carrying work home is extremely impolite towards both home and work. And all psychologists say that for the best functioning of the mind it is necessary to work no more than eight hours a day, and the rest of the time need to be devoted for sleep, visits to the gym and relaxation with the most stupid, turning off the brain shows and conversations."
"Psychology is a fraud, not a science!" Steve seethed.
"Yes, this is fraud. But when a fraudster says chamomile tea and raspberry jam will cure your cold, he or she isn't lying."
Steve wanted to say something, but Riana interrupted:
"Have you been tested for genetics? Your lover of hyperprolific wants healthy children. But who will you make for her?"
Steve recoiled. And Riana said:
"Something went wrong with the syrup. Does your liver hurt? Or is there blood in the urine?"
"Lack of dose. The syrup has stopped working. I tried to increase the portion, but it all ended with vomiting. I told Ginny that I was leaving for two days and decided to do without the syrup in order to wean myself off and start all over again... But withdrawal symptoms began. And I bought meth from a pusher on the street... I didn't accept it. More precisely, I took very little, just to stop everything. And I found a clinic. But Ginny... If the treatment lasts longer than two weeks, she will find out, and she will guess... And will leave me. She hates drunks and junkies!"
"Do you love her?" asked Riana. "Or is she a convenient household appliance for you with the additional option of an incubator?
"You loved me. But you quit instantly."
"The number of loves in life is infinitely huge. And therefore, you can replace one love with another easily, quickly, and free of charge. But there is only one life. And if it is damaged, then restoration will be long, difficult, and expensive."
"There are always a lot of fish in the sea, aren't there?" Steve said it angrily.
"So do you love Ginny, or should you catch another love?"
"I don’t know," he sighed. "I'm happy with her for the first time. But I cannot stand even a moment with her without syrup."
"How do you like the syrup without her?"
"No!"
Riana nodded.
"Then ask her to help with distributing things into rooms. No doubt, she's doing a perfect job with it. And Ginny will take great care of the profitability of your patents. In order to make money from your brilliant discoveries, she doesn't need to understand science; it's enough to be a good hostess. And children, if you haven't forgotten, are a very expensive pleasure."
"What?!" Steve twitched. "I can’t tell her the truth!"
"I understand that tech people have an extremely limited vocabulary, but you are taught to understand the difference between truth and true from the first days of your first year."
"What are you talking about?"
"The true: You were depressed and afraid to go to the doctor, and when you met Ginny, out of fear of losing her, you became even more nervous and began taking legal over-the-counter sedatives yourself; you constantly increased the dose of the medicine until problems began. The true: You want to be treated, you want to be with her, and you want to put your confused life in order. The true: There is a risk that you are now prohibited from conceiving children, but you are not against adopting them."
Steve twitched again, but Riana beat him to it:
"If you real want a big family and don't strive to kill your wife with unnecessary births, then you can't do without foster children. Well, do you want a big family?"
Steve thought and said:
"I don't want her to suffer. I don't want her to feel pain. Even if all the children are adopted."
"O.K." Riana nodded. "Then let's continue. The next true: Your children and grandchildren, whether your own or adopted ones, may turn out to be geniuses, and only another genius can teach them how to live happily with this. The true: First you need to learn to live life yourself and not flush it down the toilet bowl." Riana looked at Steve with irony: "And how does all this contradict the truth that you jumped into shit yourself and wanted to get out of it on someone else's back without making any effort of your own?"
"I hate you," Steve muttered.
"I don't care. Do you sell your junk or treat drug addiction through a free government programme?"
"I don't know."
"The trouble with your Ginny," said Riana, "is that she is kind and unselfish. Avid bitches, having the educational and intellectual level of an amoeba, use geniuses as a source of money and a pass to social parties, leaving them with a bare bottom in a divorce, but the geniuses are happy with them."
"What kind of money is there in science?" Steve was indignant. "We are financed on a residual basis."
"If you can't profit from scientific discoveries, this does not mean that others cannot. Management is a different type of activity. If you haven't forgotten, I entered the Faculty of Philosophy only because there was no money for economics and especially for business school. And philosophy cost me a handful of copper coins. However, I studied the philosophy of the market. I wasn't the only one who was so cunning, but the teachers who loved to wander into the philosophical empyrean wanted to sit on a relatively decent salary. And they were deathly afraid of the closure of the Faculty of Philosophy due to the lack of students, and therefore they pretended that everything was planned that way. But you can be a good dealer even without having an A-level school."
Steve muttered something that sounded like a curse. Riana laughed.
"It's time for cleaning. Come back when you're done. I will help you choose a wedding gift for the bride."
Steve shot her an angry look and ran out into the street. Riana snorted and opened the series on her laptop.
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