Friday, April 12, 2013

"People" trailer



After three months in China Nikolay comes back to Bulgaria to clash painfully with the reality here.
Stefan is rich and handsome, but he is trying desperately to keep the love of the only women who has ever loved him.
Elena has silicon in her breasts and lips, her own company, a few lovers and… a husband. She looks happy. But for some time the doctors can not heal a psychological problem she has, her hands tremble.
Irina has been dreaming her whole life to be a kinder garden teacher. She doesn’t like children separated to rich and poor, refuses to work in a private kinder garden and comes back to her own small city to work in the public kinder garden there.
Tanya is a psychology student, who supports herself by working at a supermarket. She is always sleepy and tired, dresses ugly on purpose, so the clients in the supermarket would not try to flirt with her, but some still do...
Zhang is a Chinese man, who has lived for a long time in Europe and with pleasure takes the opportunity to work for a Bulgarian company in Beijing.
Stoyan is a retired man, who like all the retired people in Bulgaria has very few money, but yet, he dreams about traveling all around the world.
Bojo is a strange boy, who wishes “Have a nice day! ” to everyone, despite of his crooked after being beaten up many times face.
What will happen when the lives of this people clash together? The novel “People” will tell you.

"People" Chapter 3

Part two
told by the author



The human society is like the human body. It  contains of many cells - the family, the school, the kinder garden, the companies, the institutions. And every one of the cells contains of many atoms-the people.
In the society, just like in the human body every cell and every atom has its own function, which is not supposed to be changed, so “the whole one” can continue existing. The society, just like the body is a reality very different from the realities of its components and although they are the material it is made from, it has its own behavior and development.
The society, just like the body sometimes needs vitamins and a lot of vegetables and fruits, on order to be vital and healthy.
The society, just like the body sometimes gets ill and needs medicine.
The society, just like the human could make a mistake and take the wrong pill, which can easily turn into poison.
Sometimes, the poison could be not so strong and the society could not notice it is taking poison instead of medicine and continue taking it for a long time.
Sometimes, just like the people, the society notices the bleeding wounds, which appear on its skin and try to cure them without thinking about what is causing them, where they come from, without realizing that instead of curing the wounds, it can just look for their cause and stop their future appearance…
A long time ago, when people were still not able to read and write, they were singing and telling stories. That is how they taught the future generations, the new atoms that appeared to replace the old and tired ones in their functions, everything they were supposed to know , so the cells could work properly and the society could live happily and joyfully.
And the society was growing, running on the grass, laughing and playing. When it became so big, that its atoms could hardly remember everything they were supposed to know, they started writing, every single society cell wrote its own DNA, so all the knowledge could go to the future generations and anything could be forgotten.
The society body was growing and developing more and more. The medias and Internet appeared and this way every single cell could get in connection with all the other cells.

But then suddenly something  went wrong. The society was taking a lot of vitamins, but bleeding wounds started appearing on its skin. They were becoming more and more - the children and the young people became aggressive, oftener and oftener someone was getting hurt, they beaten up each other to death or poke each other with knifes…
And the society got scared, started to try curing the wounds-the young people were organizing processions and protests, wanted to take down governments, the scientists were thinking about getting more psychologists for the kids, they were organizing campaigns, but wounds still appeared and appeared and nobody realized that instead of curing them, they could just stop doing what is actually causing them…
The society didn`t understand what is happening to its body, it didn`t realize, that the ways that only knowledge was supposed to use to transmit to the new generations, suddenly got used by a  poison and the cells are getting confused and they are not doing what they are supposed to or they are just not doing anything. The ways that only knowledge was supposed to use, suddenly got used by the sterile amusement…

The old people on  trains and stations, in front of the schools, while waiting for their grandchildren, on the bus stops were saying only one:” The people became like wolves, the kids started killing each other, because they don`t see anything that could teach them something good” But their voice was hidden and nobody listened to them. There is an old story about a kingdom, where the king commands to kill all the old people, because they are just eating and can`t work. Only one son, because really loved his father hid him and didn`t let him get killed. After that, the kingdom had a big problem, because of the bad weather they lost all the things they could eat and everyone was going to die from hunger. Then the old man told his son, they could use the food ants have put under the soil. That is how the kingdom survived. And the stories are not like the movies, they contain lessons, if just there was someone to remember them…







Chapter three

Pleased, Elena clicked with her long, artificial nails on the luxurious lady`s desk. She didn`t   have a lot of new e-mails and the boy who spoke Chinese was supposed to come any minute. She moved the computer, so it is not disturbing her, pulled up the shades, she wanted more light in the room, so she can take a better look of him. Outside, the cars on the left were speeding like always, cars on the right were jammed.

The new secretary called and said he arrived. A few seconds later, after a knock on the door, Nikolay entered and shook her hand. The secretary brought coffee for her and tea for him.
He was tall, strong, but not too muscular, with the typical straight shoulders,  that always make you feel safe around him.
He was not too handsome, but looked nice. He didn`t use hair gel. His child-like pure, chocolate eyes were looking calmly and steady. His lips moved with a special softness, showing two rows of  straight, white teeth in  a sunny smile.
He had something very warm in him, something prepossessing,  not aggressive, friendly. He wore jeans and a sweater, a coat, not a jacket and that made very good impression to her.
He was listening and answering her questions without hurrying up, sometimes he even contemplated for a while, but it did not seem like his brain worked slowly, on the contrary, it looked like it is very fast. He was not nervous at all and that surprised her a little bit. All job applicants are a little bit nervous.
She liked the thought of having such man around her during the business trips. He looked at her without any trace of passion in his eyes, she could see, he was kind, but didn`t undress her with his eyes, didn`t want her. That surprised her too. She hired him immediately.
She followed him with eyes through the window until he hid behind the other people on the bus station. She thought he is an interesting young man. Only the time could show how he will turn out to be.
She called the secretary and ordered more coffee. She had to start drinking less coffee and she knew that, but at this moment she was not in the right mood for that.
She didn`t have anything to do, she checked her e-mails again, asked all the employees if they need her for something and left the office.
The orange Maserati was waiting for her in front of the building. She was happy she had to go the left way, not the jammed right way.
She started the car and enjoying the way people reacted when they saw her car, drove to the city center.
She had her finger nails and toe nails fixed, she went to the hairdresser, spoiled herself with a massage and waxed her arms and legs, although she still didn`t need to.
With Stefan, they met straight in the restaurant, where they had dinner. He was tired, he has been very busy the whole day.
She thought that the waitress is too slow and started screaming at her. He just looked at the girl, trying to say he is sorry with his eyes and without letting Elena see it, left a huge tip when they were leaving.
When they got home, their child was already asleep and Stefan couldn`t hide that he is very disappointed. He always wanted to have dinner at home, but never managed to convince her. She was not impressed she couldn`t see the kid, hurried to get ready for bed and met him in the bedroom lustfully lying stretched on the bed.
She was an unusual woman. Some time ago, she had really loved Stefan. After that, using the power she had over him, she officially informed him, that she has a lover too and that is normal, because all her girlfriends have one.
She was 20 when she met him for the first time. He already had his own company and was making really good money, and she couldn`t not notice  the God-like handsome young man, who got off the expensive car.
He was so shy and cooped up, that she couldn`t get him as easily as she hoped. But after a while, her persistence and sincerity, she was really in love with him at that time, took over and he fell in love like a fool.
She became his wife, got pregnant and started impatiently waiting for the future heir to come to this world. At that time, it is not known how she met her new friends, they were all rich men`s wives and with a great pleasure they started leading her into their own world. Somewhere on the way there she became cold both to her husband and her child.
Stefan was used to being lonely. In the small town,  where he was born, grew up and spent not a few years, the kids didn`t like the rich children. Until 1989 he had a normal life, but after that for a really short time his father made a lot of money. The other kids started mocking him, beating him up, nobody wanted   to play with him or even talk to him. He was always alone on the last desk at school, and at home he read a lot of books from his grandmother`s library and was having fun on the new computer his father bought him.
He didn`t like  going out and meeting people. At the beginning it was really very hard for him, but day by day he got used to being lonely and accepted the loneliness.
His mother really enjoyed playing the part of a rich man`s wife and considered not worthy to talk to her son and listen to his problems. For her it was much more important how to arrange the new and expensive furniture, what she will wear when she gets out, will her neighbours and friends like all the new things she bought. To say the truth, she was exactly the same before 1989 too, she just didn`t have so much money at that time and couldn`t buy all the things she wanted.
His father preferred sleeping with his many lovers instead of sleeping  with his own wife and during the short time he spent with his son, he was telling  him all about the lovers, with even the smallest details, trying to make him more masculine.
The boy, on the opposite, was blushing and like he wanted to get his father angry , was becoming more and more closed.
He was 16 when his father`s company grew so much, that they needed to move to Sofia.
At school he sit alone on the last desk again. Here, the kids were not mocking him and beating him up, nobody knew him and they just didn`t notice the awkward , skinny teenager with long arms and legs and sad blue eyes.
But one day, Lora noticed how expensive is the car they drove him to school with and in the break, gracefully walking between the other kids and the desks, she came to him, sit on desk table in front of him, put her sculptured legs on the seat and started talking to him.
He blushed, was looking and couldn`t see this amazingly beautiful girl, was feeling and yet couldn`t actually smell the expensive fragrance she used, was listening and couldn`t actually hear what she is talking about. He couldn`t see, couldn`t hear, nothing around existed for him, he felt like dreaming. His lower lip went slack and he was just sitting, looking at the girl, beautiful like a vision, not able to understand what she says, not to react, just looking like an idiot and hoping to wake up if he is dreaming.
During the class, they asked him and he got a two, still couldn`t realize what is happening.
The girl started coming oftener and oftener.
The dream-like feeling disappeared and he was falling in love deeper and deeper. He was falling in love the way only an young man, who has never loved and never been loved before could fall in love when a creature like that girl starts paying so much attention to him .
She was listening to him, talking to him, sometimes she was bending over him so close to his face with her big neck opening, that he could almost see her breasts and got so embarrassed, that his eyes were running away, wherever it is , they just couldn`t look at her.
She visited him at home, dressed, well, better to say undressed, trying to seduce him, but he was so embarrassed and never tried to touch her. She was getting angry because he is so awkward and stupid.
On a school trip she got him drunk and started kissing him. He didn`t  push back.
On the next day he woke up next to her, his head felt extremely heavy and a he had a strange, inexplicable feeling that something was missing in his chest.
He immediately knew something really bad happened. He couldn`t realize what exactly at first, but it was a heavy, intrusive feeling. He took a look around and knew what it was. The most beautiful girl from school was lying next to him, shamelessly naked and he suddenly felt really very sad, because this is what love was supposed to be – a drunk night and a naked girl next to you. They officially became boyfriend and girlfriend. Love is supposed to be wonderful, it must be wonderful, and he couldn`t get away of the intrusive feeling that it is something low-down, dirty, indecent.
She introduced him to her friends and for the first time since so long, he had friends and was going out with them and in order to keep them was ready to say things he didn`t mean, and to make compromise after compromise, so he wouldn`t be alone anymore and he would have a girlfriend and friends.
After a while, the dream-like world he was living in, started looking real. He realized that talking to Lora is as much meaningless as talking to his mother. But he just couldn`t stop loving her, he hoped, being the one with much more wisdom of the two, he will manage to help her develop, to open her eyes, to make her a decent human.
He was cutting away sleeping with her, couldn`t get rid of the feeling it is something wrong, he was getting angry with his self and could never admit it, but he didn`t actually like sleeping with her. It made him feel used and smashed.
He graduated from high school and wanted to continue his education, but his parents didn`t allow him, studying was a waste of time, he had to work.
His father gave him money to start and at 18  he already had his own company.
Again his father bought him a flat in the city center and he started living there with Lora, she insisted a lot on that. At the beginning he was making enough money just to live luxuriously and to satisfy her whims. With the time, he made more and more money. He was 20 when one day he  came home earlier from work and caught her mocking  him on the phone with a friend, explaining she hardly stands him but she is with him because he has money. He made her go away of the flat and didn`t want to see her anymore. Their friends tried to convince him to accept her again and he said he didn`t want to see them anymore too. Suddenly he felt alone. Completely alone  and lonely.
For some time he stayed at home read a lot, the books, especially  Jean-Christophe”by Romain Rolland helped him a lot. It felt like psychotherapy, like talking to the kind of a good friend he has never had. When he finished the book, suddenly he felt very lonely again, like someone he loved left and everything around looks empty. He felt reborn, new, cleaner too, like for a long time he has been crying on a god friend`s shoulder and because he cried everything he had inside, he feels better .
He  started working again and he was working as much as he could, so he doesn`t have time to be alone with his thoughts. He bought a small apartment next to the office and moved there.
Elena brought him back to life, made him feel loved and needed and he really needed to be needed. He was very scared she could leave him some day,  he knew love doesn`t last forever.
He adored his son. Sometimes he was sneaking out of the office and played with him with hours. He would love to leave everything and dedicate all his time to the child, but that way he couldn`t buy Maseratis fo Elena and she wouldn`t be happy, so most of the time he was working really hard.

"People" chapter 2



I fall asleep at dawn. I have a nice dream. I am walking in an airport, it looks a little bit like the Moscow airport and suddenly watching a group of other passengers, I recognize my friends from Beijing. I am so happy, that I see them again, I feel so nice. Everything looks so simple and easy, it is like there are no thousand  miles between us, it is like they are so close, like if I strengthen my hand, I can touch them…
I wake 5 minutes before the clock starts ringing at 7.30 am. So clearly, so surely I know that if I open the door, I will see them, that they are there, just behind the door… The alarm. Leaving this so calming and so joyful feeling is painful. Something inside of me is shrinking and I feel like I have to walk with a lump in my chest, with some kind of completely tangible and heavy emptiness, compressed, condensed and turned into a lump.
We have breakfast, we laugh, me make fun. It feels nice. The lump is inside me, but I don`t think about it, it stays somewhere very far from my consciousness
We are going down, call a taxi… The goodbyes are short, we will meet again soon.

Central railway station. I buy my ticket. I still haven`t removed the airplane stickers from my suitcase. Absolutely childishly, I want everyone to see that I have been traveling, that until yesterday morning I was in a completely different reality, I was in Beijing and left there so much.
I travel with an old lady and a girl. I few stations later the old lady gets off the train and me and the girl start talking, it fells nice, the conversation is interesting for me.
She  says she has never been abroad and I answer that until now, I hadn`t been abroad too, that I was only dreaming some day to go to China and didn`t know if I will ever have that chance and … well, I went and it was much better than I have ever imagined. I wish her to travel too and she laughs happily . They meet me at the station. I am really very happy, I can not have enough of looking at them and hugging them.
Home is home. And I have Internet here which completes the pleasure. I enjoy sleeping in my bed, but I catch myself missing the one from Beijing too, with the Beijing blankets in the Beijing room. For such a short time it started feeling like my own too and I really didn`t want to leave it.
Bulgarian food… they are spoiling me with different meals to welcome me.
I find a job by accident. At the end of the first week, a friend from Chinese studies surprises me with a preposition and since finding a job would be one of the biggest problems, in jobs.bg there are no many offers with Chinese, I immediately accept.
I start living in a hotel in Student city until I find a permanent place to live. The first week I try searching the newspapers, but almost all the ads are from agencies and they don`t allow me to go and take a look at the places until I pay half of the rent . The bad thing is that their working time is almost the same as mine. In  one of the lunch breaks I take a taxi and manage to go there and pay them. I start looking at  different places in the evening after work.
Very often I think about the people I have to meet, the people that have been waiting for me to come back, but I can not do it like that, I know I don`t have a place to live now and even if I meet somebody, all I will be able to do is complain. I have always been like that, when I have problems, I just want to become invisible, to hide for a little bit, to escape the necessity to communicate with other people.
I have post-China depression. Everything looks grey here. Deserted and empty. There are so many different people around me, but I am alone, completely alone, completely different.
I develop my Chinese habit to listen to music on the mpsan. Sometimes I even fall asleep with the earphones in my ears. Before going to China, I never actually could fall asleep listening to music. But now, the music sounds like China, smells like China, makes me feel in China… I catch myself walking on the street, dreaming that one day, when I am walking as usual, I will suddenly meet a friend from China who decided to surprise me. Didn`t call, didn`t tell me anything and suddenly I just see him or her on the street.
When I fall asleep I have strange dreams. I am in a place I don`t recognize. I see nearby some girls from our course in Beijing. The kind of girls that are not used to get vulgar looks on their bodies. Some man I don`t know are undressing them with eyes. It is repulsive, nauseous. I hurry to go there. This must stop! Must stop! Must stop! I must help the girls.

I get  there and spreading my arms wide open like I could protect them, to keep them safe that way, I start yelling: “Stop!”. The man get afraid of my yell and step  back. I feel somebody touching my shoulder:
-It is so good you came, Nikolay, it was so scary before you came!
China is always in my head. It is really hard not to talk about it. People, who don`t really know me, probably think I am a fanatic or something.
Every night I fall asleep and my brain takes me back there, I wake up in the morning and can`t realize where I am. Outside, it is nightmarishly cold, -17, -20 C, there is snow. I walk on the street and all I can think about is how warm my African friends feel now and how funny it would be for them to come here for a day or two, to take a look at the snow and the cold weather… If only they could come!
They have warned me, that when I come back I will be wondering where all the Chinese went, but I didn`t suppose that the people will look  so terribly whitish to me.
It feels so great when I meet an Asian or an African on the street. I am always ready to argue if someone starts judging their habits.
The feeling, that I had before going to China comes back, it is like I am not in a normal place. It feels like a nightmare and I really want to wake up! I want so much to wake up and go back to China! It feels normal there, it is not like a nightmare there… Here… it is just clenching teeth and surviving…
I will be OK. The most important thing now is to find a place to live. I apologize in Chinese if I accidently touch someone on the street. When I have to speak, my brain starts constructing sentences in English, Chinese, Russian, but never Bulgarian. I want so much, I need to talk to someone in Chinese… If I try, even in English, it will look like pretence, like affectation. People will think I am trying to look more interesting than I actually am and it feels so painfully boring to speak only Bulgarian. If I hear someone speak Chinese around me, it sounds like music…
The streets on my way to work are muddy when it is not too cold, it makes you forget it is Sofia. People in buses 280 and 94 look normal, the life still haven`t killed their youth freshness  and belief in life, but in all the other buses, it feels really strange. I try to be to the limit imperceptible, not to bring anyone`s attention, it would be best if I could be invisible. The people are so tired of problems, so tormented, they complain to each other, yell at each other if they accidently touch each other…
A co-worker of mine startles if you move fast around her. An other co-worker says she has been beaten up. Watching her good natured naivety, I can`t realize what kind of a  degenerate could hit her. It turns out it is true. Sometimes she speaks about her ex-husband…
Where am I? I don`t like it here! I want to get away!
I catch myself missing the sensation of a woman, not intrusive sexuality, but a woman. A woman that makes me feel a man, makes me want to be a man, makes me like being a man…
I am gentleman with all the women around. I open the doors for them and so on just because I have to, it is a habit, but it doesn`t give me the kind of satisfaction that being a gentleman with a woman like that could give me.
With one of my Chinese friends we often debate about which one is better, he enjoys being here more, I enjoy being there more, but he is there and I am here.
I guess it is because unconsciously people try to show the best to the foreigner. When he comes here, we show him the landmarks, we try to save him from the not pleasant things.
When I was in China, I saw the best of it too, the non pleasant things were unconsciously hidden from me…
Besides that, how they said in a movie, you have to get out of your country to realize you really belong to it, to be proud to be its citizen.
Being Bulgarian when there are only Bulgarians around or Chinese when there are only Chinese around  is not so interesting like being Bulgarian when there are Chinese people around, or being Chinese when there are Bulgarian people around.
I guess if I had enough money, didn`t need to work and could afford to continue my education, to travel a lot and if my friends were here, I would like Bulgaria very much too.
I rent a room in an old man`s apartment and move there. I will need some time to kill this little kicking creature in me, refusing to be alone, fighting with loneliness without realizing that it only hurts itself.
A week later I am already calm. I don`t feel pain. I am lifeless, I hide behind the glass wall and continue watching how the other people live. Me… I am alive only in front of the computer. It is my connection to everyone. But, although I look completely like before going to China, something very important in me is already changed- I believe that the good is still to come  and I hurry with all my strength to get there as soon as possible.