Kroki

1.

"The world is changing," said the old man who had just entered my office. "The world is changing, and we need to tell everyone about it."

"And yes, the world is changing, Mr..." "

Lodzack. Alan Lodzack," the old man replied.

"Exactly, Mr. Lodzack," I continued. "But it's been changing like that for a long time. You know, computers, the internet, technology..."

He interrupted me mid-sentence.

"I'm not talking about that." "

What?"

He sighed. I finally had a chance to look at him. He was about eighty and looked like a tough man who had eaten bread from many a bakery. Now he was clearly wondering where to begin.

"Okay, Mr. Reporter. I'll tell you the whole story," he began.

"I'm eighty-three years old, but I don't have Alzheimer's." I'm fully aware of what I'm saying. "

In truth, that Alzheimer's thing just popped into my head." The old man continued,

"My wife died seven months ago. I was alone in this world. I really hated the silence of the empty house. I started walking. I walked every day, and to occupy my mind, I started counting my steps. From my house to McNell's Bend, I took about 7,245 steps, to the Dell farm—8,347 steps. I counted every day, but it wasn't until a few weeks later that I realized it. I started writing everything down. And it turned out the world was shrinking..." He paused, as if expecting me to bombard him with questions. But I didn't say anything.

"Well, it's shrinking," he continued. "Every five or six days, I found myself taking fewer and fewer steps. After two months, the bend was 7,180 steps. To the farm—8,280 steps. The world is shrinking." Now I'm taking 7,100 steps to the bend and 8,190 to the farm. That's why I decided to come to you. Your newspaper must write about this. Let people know." "

What could this be?" I interrupted. "This shrinkage. What do you think?"

"What?" he said, surprised. "The end of the world. The end of the world is coming." "

I figured him out. He's just a nutcase. A fanatic who stands there and shouts: the end is near, convert, people...

" "Okay, Mr. Lodzack," I said, rising from my desk. "I'll start gathering materials, and if I find anything, I'll let you know."

I extended my hand to him, indicating that the visit was over. He stood up, but didn't offer me his.

"How will you contact me, Mr. Reporter, if you haven't even written down my address or phone number?"

He was quick-witted for a religious fanatic. However, I had quick reflexes, too.

"Please leave your details at the front desk," I said, smiling my special smile, the kind reserved for the crazy. "We always do this; guests are registered at the front desk."

He didn't believe me. You could tell by the look on his face. Without saying goodbye, he walked to the door and opened it.

"You know, I'll go somewhere else," were his last words.

"Preferably to a psychiatrist," was on my lips, but I held it back. He left.

And then the phone rang...

2.

Watching the door close behind the old man, I picked up the receiver.

"Rick Martinez. I'm listening.

" "Hi, Rick," the voice boomed.

"Hi, Tom." "Tom was my friend from high school.

" "Rick, are you still into that parapsychological nonsense?" he asked.

"Yes. Still, and always will be." I smiled. My interests had long been the butt of his ridicule. After all, he was a physicist—he had his feet firmly planted on the ground.

"What, have you seen a ghost?" I asked.

"No, not a ghost," he said seriously. "But I'd like to tell you something.

" "Well, then—

" "No, this isn't a phone call. Can we meet at our pub?"

"Right. In an hour, where we always do?"

"Okay."

"Maybe just whisper a word about what's going on—"

"No, nothing."

"Maybe it's about the world shrinking?" I said into the receiver.

For a very long moment, there was silence on the other end.

"Hello, Tom, are you there?" I asked.

When he answered, his voice was hollow.

"Was she at your place too?"

"Who?"

"That woman."

"I don't know anything about any woman. She was at mine a moment ago—"

He interrupted me

. "Listen, never mind. We'll meet in an hour and you can tell me."

And he hung up.

I was intrigued. Even more so—I was very intrigued. I'd never heard of Tom keeping any secrets before. And everything pointed to a big secret. But why? I couldn't quite grasp it.

3.

An hour and a half later, I called the Institute.

"I wanted to speak to Tom.

" "I'm sorry. He went out for lunch.

" "How long ago?" "

An hour ago.

" "Thank you."

I was impatient and surprised. I'd been waiting for Tom for half an hour, and he hadn't shown up. This was unlike him. Tom was never late. I left the restaurant and stood there, wondering what to do next. Somewhere nearby, an ambulance was wailing. Without thinking, driven by journalistic curiosity, I headed toward the source of the siren.

It had happened two blocks away...

I recognized Tom's car only by its license plate number...

There was no chance anyone could survive. The black limousine slammed into Tom's Honda with the force of a cannonball. Both cars were a mass of twisted metal. The entire accident site was already cordoned off with yellow tape, and police officers were bustling around the wreckage. I tried to get closer, but an officer stopped me. Even my press ID didn't help.

I looked around, trying to gather my thoughts and recover from the shock. Then I saw the woman. She was standing a little apart from the crowd of onlookers, who couldn't pass up the opportunity to watch someone else's tragedy. She was wearing a black leather jacket, her hair was cropped short, and her eyes were covered with sunglasses. I approached her.

"Did you know Tom?"

When she answered, I was surprised by the bitterness in her voice.

"It's too early for you. You're not ready yet."

With those words, she turned and walked away. She astonished me so much I couldn't move. When I finally started running after her, she disappeared from my sight in the crowd of passersby.

4.

Two days after Tom's death, I learned something new. I happened to walk into the newsroom. There were photos on the table. The man in the photos had clearly been the victim of a brutal murder.

"Not bad, no," said the editor .

I couldn't get the words out. The editor seemed to take it at face value.

"The guy came home and caught the burglars. They treated him pretty well. One hundred and seven stab wounds," the editor continued. "I snatched those photos from our insider at the cops. It was front-page news. And thanks to those photos, the circulation will jump by about a hundred thousand."

He was proud of himself. Indeed, the circulation grew in direct proportion to the amount of blood in the cover photos. We all knew that the more flesh and gore, the more people wanted to read about it. Normal...

Only, I recognized the man in the photos. A few days ago, he told me about the world shrinking. It was that old man...

I start counting my steps...

5.

Is the world changing?

What's more, shrinking?

It's impossible for the entire city to suddenly become miniature?

What's going on with all this?

I was racking my brain when the ringing phone interrupted my rhythm.

I lazily got up from the couch, brushing off the remains of chips, and picked up the receiver.

"Rick Martinez, are you listening?

" "Hi Rick, it's me, Margarett," a hollow female voice sounded.

Margarett was Tom's wife, or rather, his widow...

"Listen, I wanted to inform you that Tom's funeral will take place tomorrow at St. George's Chapel on Carnivale Street. Do you know where it is?

" "Yes. I know," I replied. "I was actually quite good at the city's topography."

"Thanks, Rick," the ceremony begins at 3 p.m., I heard in response.

Her voice sounded as if she hadn't slept for at least the last four nights, or as if all the will to live had vanished from her.

Maybe it was the former. Or maybe both.

"Are you holding up?" I asked as carefully as I could. "I

'm trying, Rick," I heard over the phone after a moment

. "The worst are the nights and the children's disbelieving looks on their faces, as if they'll never see their cool dad again," she added out of the blue.

Her voice broke on the last words.

This was all I was waiting for...

"Listen, if you want, I can stay with you tomorrow after the funeral," I suggested. After all

, she's the wife of a good friend of mine, with whom I was on good terms.

"I appreciate it, Rick, but don't worry about me. I'm taking the kids to Tom's parents tomorrow." "It'll be good for them to stay with their grandparents, and at least I won't be alone."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea – see you tomorrow then," I said.

"And get some sleep," I added in conclusion

. "I can't..." I heard in response, and then only a broken signal

. She must have suffered, that's for sure. But what could I do? I can't replace Tom.

6.

I spent the rest of the day in a bar around the corner, sipping a cold beer and wondering if Tom's death was an accident.

A sad blues song played in the background.

An elderly black man sang about his love for a woman, playing melancholic solos.

The police blamed the driver of the black limousine. But they didn't care, as the driver died instantly.

For reasons unknown, the car simply veered into the opposite lane, smashing into my friend's silver Honda at high speed.

Was it possible that the driver had deliberately veered in an attempt to kill Tom?

On the one hand, so what if I saw Lodzack's body, chopped into pieces, claiming he was taking fewer steps to the intersection each time?

After all, you hear about such murders every now and then. It happened to be the poor, deranged old man I'd met a few days earlier.

On the other hand, I'm still left with the figure of the mysterious woman and Tom's equally mysterious behavior when I mentioned the supposed shrinking of the earth.

What had he gotten himself into? Did he know more than me? And did he have to die?

He certainly knew something about shrinking.

This woman... she told him, if only I could find her.

Who was she? And why did she speak so strangely?

"It's too early for you. You're not ready yet."

What does that even mean? Who isn't ready, and for what?

I know one thing: Tom knew something about shrinking, and that woman told him.

Yes. He died because of her, and Lodzack died because he figured it out himself out of boredom.

Ultimately, without any research or tests, I became convinced that the world could be shrinking.

After all, throughout my entire life, my mind had been inclined to believe sillier stories…

Before I knew it, I'd spent over an hour at the bar sipping a single beer.

The rush of all sorts of thoughts had exhausted my mind.

I downed the last two sips of the golden beverage and headed for the exit.

One less loner, who won't be drinking himself into oblivion today, the bartender thought, probably to his surprise, as he saw me leaving.

However, a few others remained behind the door, who would surely make up for my midnight whiskey drinking.

From the bar to the door of the building where I live, I take exactly 287 steps…

7.

"Lord, receive him into your good and pure hands and allow him to see your light forever and ever, amen." – the priest's role was coming to an end at this funeral.

He spoke his final words, and then Tom's coffin was to be laid to rest two meters underground.

The ceremony was modest.

I mean, I don't even know what unsophisticated funerals are like.

It's just that I expected larger crowds (after all, Tom was a respected physicist), and only his immediate family and a small group of friends gathered at the graveside.

Just a dozen or so people dressed in black, lost in thought and solemnity.

I stood to the side and watched as the coffin was buried.

Occasionally, I glanced at Margarett and her two sons:

15-year-old Matt and 12-year-old Jeremy.

The younger one was crying as bitterly as his mother, while Matt was trying to bear it like a man. With honor.

I secretly hoped that perhaps, by some miracle, I would spot the mysterious woman in the crowd.

Since she had been with Tom, and what's more, at the accident scene, it was highly likely she would also be at the funeral.

But I was wrong.

She wasn't standing anywhere among the gathered crowds, nor was she hiding behind the marble tombstones nearby.

I was disappointed in her.

She was an incredibly mysterious figure to me in this whole mosaic of questions and riddles, and such figures usually appear more often. But not this time.

If only I could find her, I would surely find out what was going on.

I stood by the grave, wondering how to solve the mystery of Tom's death, and only occasionally did I feel the wind trying to ruffle my hair or move my thin black tie.

After the funeral, I exchanged a few words with Margaret and, ignoring the others, headed toward my old, already somewhat dilapidated Mustang parked along the road. While

its engine could still produce as much power as when it first left the factory, I wasn't particularly concerned about its appearance.

The days were getting warmer, although it would be more accurate to say that San Francisco had experienced its first real heatwave.

The stifling heat was making it difficult to concentrate.

The fan in my small office was running constantly, and I sat in an unbuttoned, airy, colorful shirt I'd bought during a vacation in Mexico.

I was calculating how much work lay ahead when I heard something on the small television that piqued my interest.

I moved my feet off the desk in one motion and turned up the volume.

"Nearly three months after the disappearance of Richard Garret, one of the most influential council members of the San Francisco City Council, his body was discovered by chance by two forest rangers," the journalist reported. "The remains were lying in a shallow grave deep in the forest surrounding East San Francisco."

"According to the preliminary examination, the most likely cause of death was a large wound to the victim's abdomen," she continued. "

That's how I remember it.

Richard Garret, we wrote about his mysterious disappearance in early March.

In fact, all the local newspapers were reporting on it."

"…Will the police department reopen the investigation into the murder of Richard Garret, dismissed for lack of evidence? We don't know that yet. However, we do know for sure that the prime suspect would once again be the Reck Company, which had sufficient motive to get rid of the councilman…" the beautiful Latina explained, deftly taking the microphone.

The woman presented some more facts, but I was no longer listening. I remember

the Reck Company

. In recent months, it had caused a lot of noise by trying to obtain approval for the construction of its office building in the city center.

The office building, or rather, a strange structure, which was supposed to be built within a few months – I had previously been interested in it for a while like everyone else, but now it stirred strange emotions in me

. I remember writing about it back in February, because its planned appearance was a bit controversial.

People didn't want this futuristic structure to spoil our beautiful city.

A group of local architects even formed who opposed the construction, but its most ardent opponent was the influential councilman, Richard Garret.

For Reck's company to finally obtain city approval to begin construction, Garrett also needed the support of Garrett.

However, he opposed the construction of this futuristic office building almost in the city center, and later refused to allow any construction site within the San Francisco city limits at all.

Just days later, Richard Garrett disappeared, and a month later, Reck's company received the support of the city mayor, a majority of city councilors expressed their support, and construction of the futuristic office building began.

Many people claim that Reck Company was and is responsible for the disappearance of the unsympathetic councilman.

He stood in their way, so the best course of action was simply to exclude him from the game.

Naturally, a company spokesman expressed regret over the disappearance of the esteemed man and assured that Reck Company had no connection whatsoever to Richard Garret's disappearance.

Nevertheless, it was obvious to most people that his disappearance was the work of a company entering a new market, eager to build its futuristic office building in the city center.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of evidence, Reck remained clean in the eyes of the law.

"A spokesman for Reck Company issued a statement that sounds similar to the one issued less than three months ago when Councilman Garret disappeared," the journalist continued, before the image changed to a small conference room.

A tall man stood at the lectern, his face constantly reflecting the flash of camera flashes.

Every newspaper wanted to have this pale redhead on one of their pages.

"The Reck Company wishes to reiterate," he said, "that it has no connection whatsoever with the death of Councilman Richard Garrett, and that all allegations against it are baseless.

It also expresses its regret over the death of this outstanding individual and the fact that the Reck Company is entering the San Francisco market in such a negative light—what a strange fellow, I thought

. It also wishes to remind everyone that the plans for the Reck Company office building, as well as the construction site itself, were legally supported by the city council and the mayor himself."

After this statement, he folded the papers and, ignoring the reporters asking questions, headed for a side exit with two other men standing nearby.

There was something odd about his demeanor.

He called Richard Garrett an "outstanding individual."

Who the hell calls people individuals these days?

Stalin had long since died.

I don't know if it was just me or if others noticed it too... but there was something off about this man...

That facial expression, that voice...

I don't know how to describe it. It

was asIt

was as if he were hypnotized...

A machine programmed to step up to the podium and read a few sentences colorlessly and monotonously, and then immediately retreat to the exit without waiting for any questions.

Maybe I'm just oversensitive... or maybe I just saw another mysterious person...

9.

My journalistic instincts told me something was off about this guy.

That facial expression... it was somehow inhuman.

I've seen faces like that before... and usually they were the faces of quiet, inconspicuous psychopaths.

I rose briskly from my chair and, a moment later, was rummaging through the drawers containing the newspaper's archives.

I was looking for the February issue.

A few moments later, I had the right issue in my hands.

The cover depicted a strange structure that was supposed to serve as a new office building in San Francisco.

I opened to the appropriate page and was just about to start reading the first lines and sentences when, on the right, I saw this photo…

I was speechless again…

It depicted the top managers and presidents of Reck Company, including the tall, pale, redhead whose strange behavior I'd just witnessed on the news.

I stood frozen, staring at my mystery woman, standing behind me in the photo… The editor's voice snapped me

out

of my mild shock

. "Rick, don't just stand there, get your ass out on the town and start looking for something sensational.

" More blood and murder, I thought,

then I looked at him. His plump face and full lips glistened with sweat.

"If the boss allows, I'll prepare a story on Reck Company," I said casually .

"Don't bother, Rick," I heard in response. "Miguel's already started updating this case."

Oh, that Miguel, I thought.

A model citizen, husband, father, and journalist all in one.

A well-behaved man. He doesn't drink or smoke.

He was too perfect for me; I rarely spoke to him.

Or maybe I was just jealous.

"With all due respect to Miguel, boss, but I don't think he's come up with a rather intriguing lead like I have.

" "Yes?" He raised his eyebrows, and curiosity twisted his thick face

. He became interested. He looked at me.

"What's the matter, Ricky?" "

You know, boss," I began, "for now, these are just my guesses, unsupported by any evidence. However, if I could focus on this matter for a while…

" "Alright, Martinez," he relented, "just don't bring me the same things Miguel and the rest of the city's press do." He tried to change his tone and pretend he was the boss, whose authority everyone should respect.

But I knew what he was really like. There were days when we talked pleasantly and pleasantly, like old friends.

But business is business.

" "You can count on me, boss," I added as I left, and left the newspaper's headquarters.