ISSUE #1 — FRIENDS

They lived, as they say, soul to soul.

Now, let me tell you a story that happened in a cottage community where decent, well‑off people live, and generally don’t allow themselves anything out of the ordinary – except, perhaps, breeding pedigree rabbits.

Two friends, Natasha and Olga, lived next door to each other. And mind you, not just neighbours, but, as they say, inseparable: no secrets, no grudges, joy shared and sorrow shared, and for every family celebration – a common table, as if they had not two houses but one with two verandas.

Their husbands had arranged a calm, uneventful life for them – morning coffee, no rush, peace and quiet. The only trouble in this bliss were the rabbits.

Once, Natasha was given a pair of Flemish Giants – Belgian decorative rabbits, grey‑smoky – and Natasha, being an active soul, didn’t waste any time: she took up breeding. Her husband built her an aviary in the yard – warm, bright, like a Finnish sauna, only with shelves and feeders instead of birch twigs.

And so, on that fateful morning, after having coffee and a croissant on the veranda, Olga went for a walk with her dog – through the woods, in the cool air, enjoying nature, so to speak. Her dog, I must tell you, is a curious and omnipresent creature, happy about every twig. Olga walks along, the sun filtering through the leaves, the silence so profound it’s almost a blessing – and, believe it or not, nothing whatsoever foretold trouble.

And then, if you please, the story happened.

Somewhere, you know, in the orchestra pit of fate, anxious music must have already started playing – only Olga hadn’t heard it yet. But a minute later, she sees: her dog runs up to her, extremely pleased with itself, and carries something heavy and terribly dirty in its teeth. Olga wiped her glasses – and froze.

Such a sight, I tell you, you wouldn’t even see in the most horrific nightmare: dangling from the dog’s mouth was a rabbit, covered in dirt – and not just any rabbit, but the most precious one, from Natasha’s aviary.

At that moment, naturally, her whole life flashed before her eyes – or rather, the whole friendship. Her heart pounded so hard that her vision went dark: because if the neighbours saw this and decided that the dog had strangled her friend’s trophy – well, sorry, that would be the end of the friendship. And the clock, as they say in the movies, was ticking.

Well, I thought, things are bad – let’s save the situation.

Olga snatched the prize from the dog’s jaws and ran home. And here, I tell you, Agatha Christie herself would have envied the plan that formed in her mind over those few steps to the porch.

First thing – wash the rabbit. She used expensive shampoo with conditioner, the very same that her husband had brought from Paris for his beloved wife – she washed that rabbit like an expensive blouse, rinsed, lathered again, and the dirt, imagine, just wouldn’t come off.

Washed – but how to dry it? In the oven? God forbid! A hairdryer! In Olga’s bathroom, by heaven, a whole beauty salon for rabbits opened: she dried it, brushed it – I doubt the owner herself ever brushed it so thoroughly in its lifetime. She styled it – you could send it straight to the Champs‑Élysées.

One problem remained: how to return this treasure to the aviary. But her quick wits provided an answer – wait until dusk. At dusk, Olga crept into the neighbour’s aviary and placed the rabbit on the shelf, among the others, gently, like setting a porcelain doll on a display case. And then – to act as if nothing had happened, not a word, not a glance betraying the secret.

It can’t be!

The next 24 hours, I tell you, were more stressful for Olga than a university exam and, by God, more stressful than childbirth. For years, she and Natasha had called each other at exactly nine in the morning without fail – but now no call came. Olga didn’t dare call herself. The old cuckoo clock ticked like a heart monitor in intensive care – and suddenly she saw through the window: Natasha was walking along the path to the gate, and her face was such that the matter clearly smelled of kerosene.

Olga gathered her courage, put on a friendly neighbour smile – but the performance, imagine, turned out to be unnecessary, because Natasha herself started acting, even before she had taken off her slippers at the doorstep:

— Olga, you won’t believe it, — she said, — this morning, before I could finish my coffee, I went to the aviary to give the rabbits water – and I nearly fainted on the spot.

— What happened? — Olga asked.

— You know, I had six of them. The day before yesterday, one died – we don’t know why – my husband and I found him and buried him, beyond the village, in the little forest. And today I go into the aviary – and he’s there. On the shelf. As if alive!

And here, you know, it’s the perfect time to say what any normal person would say in such circumstances: It can’t be! Natasha couldn’t even finish her sentence – she just shook her head, not believing herself.

Olga listened with a deeply compassionate face – and at that very second she realised the main thing: her dog was innocent, the rabbit had died its own death long before the incident, and she and her husband had simply dug it up. So the time had come – to tell the whole truth, shampoo and hairdryer included.

And that was that.

The laughter in Olga’s house that day was beyond words. They retold each other the story from both ends at once, swapping roles in that amateur performance – and what had threatened the friendship with complete collapse just hours earlier turned into a legend for the whole community, and far beyond. Now you know it too.

Since then, the friends made a pact: to tell each other everything as it is, no matter what happens – because silence, as it turns out, leads to a heart attack much faster than any truth.