Oxygénia

spinned. Peter worked on this station for a while, too, and when he
went up, again a plastic arm appeared. Peter held his oxygen bin to
it right away. This time, only one tab came out of the machine.
It was obvious: on this planet, oxygen served as "money", as
value indicator as it had been usual on Earth in ancient times. The
wage was paid in oxygen. Presumably, he had done some useful
work, and for this, his salary were four units oxygen.
Suddenly he felt that he was terribly hungry. If only he knew
where the dining hall from yesterday was. He decided to look for it,
eat something and then resume his search for a higher location, for
a spot that allowed radio signals, or some information bureau to
somehow establish a connection with the life forms of this strange
planet... Again, he went out to the square and had to realise that he
wasn't able to find yesterday's restaurant. Now the weather was a
bit clearer than yesterday. One could see a bit better, but
everywhere there were only the same gray concrete cubes with
seamless walls.
He decided to simply enter one building after another until he
found someplace to eat.
The next one was some sort of hospital. On stretchers, humans
were brought in. He noticed that none of the sick was injured, no
one moaned or cried, they weren't even conscious. As if they were
sound asleep, they laid on the stretchers, and the emergency staff
with masks on their faces slowly walked the way with them. After
the hospital, he found another warehouse, and finally a building
like that where he had spend the previous night. Here, there were
bathrooms, sleeping halls and a huge spacious dining hall. Finally!
Already familiar, he took a seat. According to the menu, he
ordered algae pudding with mushroom sauce. Expertedly, he put
the spoon under the gauze and began to suck the mash. He was so
hungry that once again, he forgot to analyse the food. Around him,
men and women with masks sucked their mash. They ate, went up,
and others took their seats. But he decided to stay for a while after
he finished to have a look in the school book. It was then when he
realised that on the third table, a young man didn't eat but instead
smeared the mash from his plate onto a linen cloth. The young man
worked focused, he didn't pay attention to anyone, the same way no
one seemed to care for him.
Only Peter watched curiously. The young man applied the mash
with the handle of the spoon, made some dashes, waited patiently
for the mash to dry on the cloth, folded the cloth over, applied a
new layer and again drew some signs. Yes, it looked as if he would
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