“Work&Travel”

Entry – authorized.

Input – voice.

Category – thoughts of a novice traveler.

Title – “The world around. You cannot run from the world.”

Please, speak...

Yesterday I visited the IEC office. Well, everything went well. It seems I am going! I need to tell everyone – family, friends, acquaintances, and people I barely know. Right now, as soon as I finish dictating, I will send them messages – all at once, to every number – let them rejoice and be jealous. The data I provided fits, and there is already a spot open for me. I filled out the form the other day, answered the questions – all on the go, between home and the sports complex – the bracelet-office is such a wonderful thing! How did we live without them before – phone, TV, computer, watch – and a hell of a lot of other devices – and all separate, and with wires too... horror.

And now, I am walking home after a personal interview – what an archaism, couldn't they have interviewed via video! Around me – green grass, houses – sparkling with windows, people passing by laughing – cleanliness and freshness. Everything was different before, I saw it in movies. And I even managed to catch that time – when the world was hanging by a thin thread, dirty, unkempt, soaked in fear. But we, hanging over the abyss, found a way out, removed the military and politicians from power, pushed labor and education to the forefront – and at the Beijing conference, we did not allow the Last War to happen! And don't talk to me about communism – that has nothing to do with it – Grandpa Marx would probably give everyone a real dressing down now, but it's for the best, fanatics aren't liked these days.

Now I am nervous, like a child. No, I have been many places before, but this is a different matter – not just a trip, but a trip under the “Work&Travel” program! I am going to work! And labor ennobles a person, especially if that labor is interesting. IEC is everywhere now – in every corner of the world, in every country – the changes that happened to the world only benefited these guys, which means they took the right course. By the way, I still need to make a choice – where to go and what to do. I haven't answered that question yet – it's not scary, they gave me time to think – a whole month.

So, where, oh where? Maybe to Europe – there are many opportunities there now – working in a hotel – two in one, you help tourists and admire the sights yourself! And there is plenty to see – in Italy – huge Catholic cathedrals and ancient Roman ruins, in Germany – delightful brand-new mosques – patterned, slender, as if flying minarets reaching up to the sky, the moon, and the stars, lines from the Quran can be heard, making one laugh and cry. And in France – works of art – both old and new – like holographic paintings and psycho-images. Huge museums that you don't even want to leave.

Or, say, get on a stratospheric ship and head across the ocean – there is also a lot of interesting stuff in the Confederation of the Two Americas. It would be best to show up right at the engineering complex on the Nazca plateau – where they assemble blocks for the first interplanetary ship. It will take a scientific group to Mars and leave it there – for a long time, by the way. But getting to this “construction of the century” is an impossible dream – no one will let me in there without a Master's degree, and this degree still needs to be earned – such things are given through hard labor, and not to everyone... and not even to every tenth person, unfortunately.

Don't be sad, I told myself! After all, there are also fish farms in Australia, where you can take care of fish and tell people about it, and all around – the “Wild World” park, where you don't know what beast you will encounter the next minute; there is the City of Doctors in Africa, where doctors work on curing diseases, where there are nano-workshops, cloning complexes, and Grissom emitters, and also – the Museum of Medical Art (why am I so drawn to museums, should I become a tour guide?); there is the floating artificial island of New Tokyo in Tokyo Bay, created by human hands from beginning to end, managed by the most perfect computer in the world named “Muramasa A-15”... yeah, only the Japanese could come up with that.

A message arrived. From Innochka. What does she want now? She also signed up and is going... where? To Canada, to a resort, why all of a sudden – oh, that's it, the Midelson observatory is nearby and the time is just right – the climate, too. Romantic... decided, I will go there, at least a close person will be nearby.

Right now I will send a reply. Long live “Work&Travel”.

Such non-artistic nonsense.