Alyosha was skiing early in the_busy forest park one morning when he suddenly heard:
“Help! People, help!”
He stopped, listened, and hurried toward the pleading voice, straight through the snowdrifts. He hadn’t gone far. Nearby there was a pedestrian path, and on it lay an elderly woman. She was trying to get up, leaning on her Nordic walking poles, but she couldn’t.
“What’s wrong?” Alyosha asked, running up to her. “What happened? Did you twist your ankle?”
“Oh, I don’t know, young man,” she said. “Maybe I twisted it. Or maybe I broke it. I can’t stand up—my right leg hurts.”
“Don’t try to get up for now,” Alyosha stopped her. “I’ll call an ambulance. They’ll come and help you up. You shouldn’t stand up on your own—your bones could shift, and then it’ll be even worse. Please, just hang on a little.”
With that, Alyosha pulled his smartphone from his pocket and called for an ambulance.
The ambulance arrived quickly—about fifteen minutes later. They loaded the old woman into the vehicle and took her to the hospital. But before they left, she managed to hand Alyosha a USB flash drive. As she passed it to him, the old woman said:
“Take this little thing, young man. I don’t know what it is. I found it this morning at the entrance to the park, across from the university. I don’t need it. I wanted to take it to the lost-and-found there, but now I can’t. Maybe you’ll take it? I can see you’re a decent person.”
Alyosha took the flash drive, turned it over in his hands, and slipped it into the pocket of his track pants.
“Alright,” he told the woman, “I’ll take it where it needs to go. Don’t worry—and get well soon.”
The ambulance drove off, and Alyosha hurried home. He needed to shower, eat breakfast, and make it to work. He still had a whole hour before his shift started.
At the office, Alyosha remembered the flash drive. He pulled it out of his pocket, took off the cap, and was about to plug it into his work PC—then changed his mind. Who knew what was on it? What if it had a virus? The security system would trigger, the whole office would get an угрозa warning, and then there would be an internal investigation. They’d identify the culprit behind the incident and fire him—Alyosha. And then he’d have to look for another job.
No. Not worth the risk.
He put the cap back on and returned the flash drive to his bag. He decided he’d check what was on it at home after work.
That evening, back in his modest apartment and after a quick dinner of a slice of pizza he’d bought on the way, Alyosha opened his laptop. While the system was booting up, he studied the flash drive carefully. It didn’t look new. There were small scratches on it. But the cap was still there—meaning it had been used often, yet handled with care. A keychain was attached to the cap: a small heart made of red plastic.
“Maybe I really should just take it to the university,” Alyosha thought. “Looks like an ordinary student flash drive. The old woman said she found it near the uni. Probably nothing valuable on it—some assignments or something.”
By then the laptop had finished loading and was ready.
“Well then, flash drive—let’s see what you’re hiding. If it’s some nonsense, I’ll post on the city’s free classifieds site; maybe the owner will turn up,” Alyosha muttered, and decisively plugged it into the laptop.
There was no password. It opened quickly and easily, and Alyosha saw the contents: just two folders. One was titled “Melodies for the Soul,” the other “Documents.”
He opened the first folder and skimmed the track names. Nothing interesting—pop music.
Next came the second folder. Alyosha hesitated again—did he really need someone else’s secrets? But his index finger had already clicked.
The folder titled “Documents” opened. Inside there was only one Word file. When Alyosha opened it, he found himself staring at a diary.
The first entry was dated 01.09.2019. The diary belonged to a girl who wrote daily. As it turned out, she was a first-year student at one of the faculties of the local university. Alyosha himself had only graduated two years earlier—he’d finished the economics faculty in 2017.
As he read, it was as if he was plunged back into student life. So much felt familiar.
The girl who kept the diary lived in the same dormitory where Alyosha himself had recently lived. Everything she mentioned was painfully familiar to him—like the Saturday-night discos on the ninth floor after eleven p.m. that the freshman wrote about. Which former dorm resident didn’t remember them?
On Saturdays dancing was allowed, but only until eleven at night. After that, the official disco ended—either the dorm supervisor came, or, on her orders, the security guard. The lights in the hall would switch on, and the evening’s fun would be cut short to the annoyed howling of the students. But it only ended on the first floor—so it could unofficially continue in the ninth-floor passageway.
It had always been like that, and probably would be as long as there were restless, carefree students and student dormitories.
Reading on, Alyosha learned more about the freshman’s private life. He found out her name: Natasha. Natasha had been born and raised in one of the regional villages. She finished school there with a gold medal, and then entered the university.
He also learned that Natasha’s parents were very strict—they didn’t even let her go dancing until she graduated.
Of course, once she became a student, she gained a freedom she’d never known. And, naturally, she fell in love.
Alyosha didn’t want to dive into her love story at all. He’d never been interested in romantic lyricism. So he didn’t read the girl’s emotional переживания. Skipping a large chunk of the diary, he stopped at the last entries.
Natalya wrote that she was pregnant. The news shocked her. It shocked her beloved too. When he found out about the pregnancy, he stopped seeing her—disappeared. He even changed his phone number.
The last entry was dated 19.02.2020.
“Today I called Vlad again. But his phone doesn’t answer. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to live. Soon the pregnancy will show. The fourth month has started. I can’t go home. Dad will kill me. Mom won’t save me—she’s afraid of Dad herself. It’s shameful. I’m not needed by anyone. No one will hire me. You can’t live in a dorm with a baby. That means tomorrow, 20.02.2020, at exactly 20:20, I won’t be here. On that date, made of twos and zeros, I’ll be gone. I’m a failure. I have no reason to live. I’ll jump from the roof of our dormitory. I failed the exam called ‘adult independent life.’ Life gave me nothing but zeros and twos. I’ll do it where he first kissed me. Where he destroyed me. I think it won’t hurt. Maybe my heart will tear apart even while I’m falling, before I hit the ground.”
The last entry—written yesterday—stunned Alyosha, and he almost shouted, outraged, protesting this turn of events:
“What?! Why hit the ground?! Have you lost your mind?! Idiot!”
Alyosha looked at the clock. It was 19:40.
“Alright, there’s still time. I’ll get to the dorm in about twenty minutes. Then the front desk,” Alyosha calculated feverishly. “They might not let me in. But I hope the guards still remember me. Then the elevator and the stairs to the roof. I should make it.”
He got dressed fast, slammed the door behind him, and rushed downstairs.
Luckily, the dorm desk was staffed by Glafira Ivanovna. She knew Alyosha and treated him well. He greeted her and asked her to let him in:
“Auntie Glasha, I’ll be quick. Literally ten minutes. I really need to. It’s a matter of life and death. Can I go in?”
“Alright, Alyoshka, go on,” Auntie Glasha smiled indulgently. “But next time I won’t let you through without a chocolate bar.”
Alyosha dashed toward the elevator, promising:
“I’ll bring one for sure, Glafira Ivanovna! Thank you!”
Thirty seconds later he was on the ninth floor. Sure enough—the hatch to the roof was open. Alyosha automatically glanced at his watch: 20:17. He grabbed the iron handrails of the ladder and, in one sharp rush, climbed up onto the dorm roof.
She was standing by the parapet. All she had to do was climb over—or tip herself over—and leave this world forever…
“Natasha,” Alyosha called out to the girl. “Here—take this! I have to return it to you. An old woman from the park asked me to. She’s in the hospital now. I promised her. Take it…”
Alyosha held out his hand and moved slowly toward the girl.
“Take it…”
She turned her head at the unfamiliar voice. For a couple of seconds she stared at Alyosha in confusion, then asked:
“Who are you? What old woman? What do you even want from me?”
While she was confused and firing questions at him, Alyosha came within arm’s reach. Now she couldn’t jump. Alyosha would never allow it.
It seemed that in that moment the girl herself forgot why she had come up to the top of this cursed building. Now she was focused on one thing—who was this guy?
“I’m Alexey,” Alyosha answered. “And the old woman… I don’t even know her name. She’s in the hospital—or maybe not anymore, maybe they already sent her home.”
“I don’t understand anything,” the girl began to snap. “And how do you know my name? We don’t know each other. What do you want? Say it—I don’t have time…”
“I’ll explain everything,” Alyosha soothed her. “But let’s get off the roof first. Let’s go to a café. It’s warm there, and there’s music. I’ll tell you everything at a table.”
For about ten seconds she stayed silent, completely lost—should she go to the café, or carry out what she’d planned?
Finally she agreed:
“Fine. Let’s go. I’ll still make it. I’ll still have time…”
In a small café near the university dorm, after seating the girl at a table and ordering coffee, Alyosha handed her the flash drive.
“This is probably your flash drive. Here.”
She looked at it and said:
“Yeah… it’s probably mine. At least the keychain is definitely mine. Where did you get it?”
“An old woman gave it to me,” Alyosha admitted. “She found it at the entrance to the park, across from the university building. I guess you lost it.”
“Yes. Exactly. I’ve been looking for it all day,” Natasha said, relieved.
But then her expression changed sharply and she added:
“Now I understand how you know my name! You read my diary. It’s disgusting to read someone else’s private things without permission.”
“I honestly didn’t want to read anything,” Alyosha tried to justify himself. “I’m not nosy. I just needed to find out who the owner was so I could return it.”
“So—did you find out?”
“Yes. I did. And I want to tell you, Natasha—I’m glad I did.”
Alyosha and Natasha sat in the café until closing time. Alyosha talked a lot that night. Natasha listened to his arguments, believed again… She didn’t go back to the dorm that night. Alyosha simply wouldn’t let her—he was afraid to leave her alone.
Two years passed. Natasha had been staying with her parents for the second week. Alyosha missed his wife and their little daughter Alyonushka. He talked to them on the phone every free minute, but he wanted to see them for real, in person. Tomorrow was Friday. After work he would go to them and, at last, hug the two girls he loved most in the world.
Today he happened to find Natasha’s flash drive on the computer desk—the very same one. He smiled and, like back then, decided to read the secrets stored on it again. The diary ended with an entry Natasha wrote before leaving for her parents’ home:
“How happy I am! How I love my daughter Alyonushka! How I love my Alyosha! Fate, thank you for everything! In my life now there are nothing but straight A’s again…
