Cleopatra Hunting. Анатолий Изотов

for her lord. – Alas!

      He settled, fell asleep, and still is sleeping.

      The queen looks gloomily

      At dreams so dispassionately calm

      And in her breast, a sultry alarm sets in.

      Finally, she calmed down, put her head on Klyuchitsky’s broad, muscular chest and fell asleep…

* * *

      Prison compound, fenced with a barbed wire, was both a gold mine and a honey pot for Klyuchitsky. His talent of addressing the urgent needs of prisoners brought him no less profit than his fairly good salary – along with all bonuses, benefits and dodgy additions. Over the years of working in this compound, Klyuchitsky fit in perfectly, or you could even say, grew into it and learned to easily maneuver between the cons, the security, and the authorities both inside the prison fence and outside of it. With the skill of a fakir, he moved from the ordinary world to the world behind the barbed wire and back, carrying with him the things that filled the voids of both of these worlds and added to the earnings of Klyuchitsky himself. He began his business with the honourable Samaritan aid for the builder’s tea addicts – the chifirists, who, in his opinion, suffered most, were hardworking, humble and undemanding people. All it took to cater to their needs was ordinary black tea, which was freely sold in all the food stores of the city. After downing a brown, thick, tar-like fluid, a chifirist works frantically, without eating and drinking, without scandals, riots, and fights. He would never rat out those who gave him his pack of tea, for betrayal can deprive him of his venerable medicine forever, and he will do everything possible and impossible for the sake of his benefactor.

      But chifirists are not the only ones who need tea in the compound. A tea-pot full of green tea is worth no less than a pack of black one in this exhausting heat. For the patients, green tea is both food and the balm for the soul. For the weak, it is a source of cheerfulness and for strong people it brings confidence. The tea unites people of different beliefs; it pulls together the like-minded, loosening the tongues of taciturn people, softening cruelty, sharpening the hearing, clarifying the thoughts and invigorating the body. Those who have the tea, are confident in their future, believe that their sentence can be commuted, that they will not get killed here and that they will get out soon…