“Huh!” - it was heard either from inside or from outside. Natalya Andreevna knew this crunch well. With this sound, after 40 years, without regret, she broke off, one after another, friendships that had become objectionable to her for some very important reason. Well, according to what? Like, I’ll tell you in detail! Sofka, for example, has become completely insolent. One day we agreed to meet her in a cafe. Per month! And she took it and forgot! Did not come. Can a friend forget about another friend? I sat and waited for her. So what if we “get old”! You need to write it down! Khrya! And Ninka? No matter how you call, she has children or grandchildren. Natalya Andreevna herself had a son and his family move to Nizhny immediately after graduate school. The children did not visit her: it was difficult with two transfers, and it was not possible to accommodate five of them in her one-room apartment. So, this Ninka every spring for many years invited Natalya with her to the dacha, for barbecues. But she dragged her family along with her! Does Natalia need it? The hubbub, the bustle... Khrya! And in her youth she had a friend - Lyubasha. They were warm friends, but she got married and moved to the capital. What kind of friendship is there? She, however, wrote to her, Natalya, for a long time, and was surprised that her friend did not answer. One day in late autumn I even got through on the phone - Natalya answered the call blindly, thinking she was from work. Lyuba was delighted, let's talk. It was full of news and memories. What could she say in response? Did Natalya really need Lyuba there, in the distant metropolis? She just muttered: “Gone?!” Good riddance. Happiness to you!". Hryas! In the evenings, Natalya Andreevna devoted herself to cutlets and television stories about other people's friendship and love. There, the heroes suddenly fell into relationships filled with joy and happiness. And every day she herself turned into a toxic and stuffy person. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but the moment came when there was no one to call, not only to visit, but even to call. When did it start and why? Why did it suddenly seem that the people around her were boring and did not carry any meaning in her, Natalya’s, life? A crisis? Climax? Quarantine? Oh yeah!!! Coronavirus brought an unexpected wave into her life! The right to legally refuse all relationships (the cat does not count). “I’ll take a break from everyone,” Natalya muttered. Restrictions were lifted by the summer. And when other pensioners were already throwing their caps into the fresh country air with joy, Natalya only intensified her hermit measures. To the store - once a week, 2 masks: don’t touch anything, don’t talk to anyone. And who the hell knows where she caught this crown?! But Natalya Andreevna fell down overnight and seemed dead. It’s not like going for water, but I didn’t have the strength to dial the ambulance phone number. All she could do was blink occasionally and moan deep inside: “help me...”. Her chest burst with a crunch from coughing, and along with this crunch, the last strings connecting Natalya with life were torn. For some reason I remembered the program. Anecdotal evidence has shown that older people who spend more time with people during flu season are less likely to get sick than those who spend most of their time alone. Loneliness leads to clinical depression and even early dementia. And that you need to communicate with people of different generations, especially with children! That the brain is updated and trained through such communication. And the likelihood of death in old age is supposedly 45% higher for lonely people than for socially active people. At 45!!!! Well, aren’t they lying???No. Natalya Andreevna had no intention of dying. But where to find them, these people? The presenters in the program said that family, friends, colleagues, neighbors: all these people are capable of cooperation and mutual understanding. You just have to start showing interest and care for them. “As soon as I get out of bed, I’ll bake lemon muffins and go and treat the neighbors! Wearing a mask, of course.” Questions slowly arose in Natalya’s head in the background. When did she lose spontaneous communication with good friends, touching closeness and tenderness towards them? After all, it happened, everything happened! And student trips, and parties at birthdays, and meetings of classmates.