Simple Truths of Life - стр. 10

Two girls played with an Ouija board at about 9pm. They began to receive strange answers, and the next thing they knew it suddenly was 7 o’clock in the morning. It was as if they blinked and the sun was already up. They just sat, as before, not understanding what had happened.

I have no suppositions as to why such a “loss”, or someone can say a “leap”, in time happens. This is one of the new mysteries of the Universe for me.

Such events were rare for me, but they left a very big impression in my life.

Mostly I spent summer time in the village outdoors, walking with friends from morning to evening. I really enjoyed cycling, and I often rode my bicycle around the countryside immediately after breakfast. My friends and I often went cycling to neighboring villages, and in the evenings, we sat by the bonfire. Sometimes I helped my mother with village housework. My father visited us for the weekends, and every time I was very glad to see him. Sometimes I deliberately returned home to see him. As I said, we lived separately in Moscow, and I did not often see my father. As for my speech problems, I remembered deep down that he was the cause of their occurrence, but as a friendly and cheerful child, I almost forgot about that long-standing incident…

The same is true with friends who laughed at my inability to pronounce words. Despite all the difficulties that I experienced during the school seasons of the year, I almost did not hold back the anger at them. In the end, when we matured, they were able to change for the better.

However, the old memory of numerous acts of ridicule did not leave me.

But there were also cases when, after returning from the village to Moscow, I not only spoke and answered during school lessons without any problems, I also myself raised my hand for an answer – I would become so confident in myself. In one period of my life, I was full of enthusiasm to wake up in the morning and go to school, because I liked the learning process and the fact that I could speak perfectly, like all other people.

Moreover, during such periods of my life, I was by no means taciturn. So, I remember my mother's story how she rode in the same tram with me and Anton, my childhood friend, and she said that I was constantly chatting then. We did not know that my mother was in the car and just decided not to interfere with our conversation.

But sooner or later, confidence always went away. The reasons could be very different. For example, I remember how one day on New Year's Eve, when I was still in high school, a man rang the doorbell of our apartment. He rang other people in our corridor too, as he was just looking for a company to celebrate the New Year. I think that our neighbor, an elderly woman, recognized him as a resident from the adjacent block of our apartment building, and mom agreed to let him into our tiny one-room apartment. He behaved completely normal and adequate, but this could not console my appearing concern for my mother. I simply could not know what could happen next, and I was worried about this unexpected situation and the unknown. After he left, he rang the doorbell again after a couple of moments to ask if I would like to walk with him sometime. At that moment I felt very embarrassed for my father, and I felt like I was betraying him, just by being in this situation. My mother and I politely refused. After this moment, I had to go out with my Moscow friends to celebrate the New Year, as we did in previous years. But when my best friend came after me, I spent several minutes refusing to go out, because I was afraid for my mother, afraid that that man might come back again. At that time, I could not tell the whole truth to my friend, as I was ashamed. I simply kept refusing to go outside for celebrations, until he was finally tired, and he went to celebrate with the rest of the friends without me. This was the first moment when my touch with friends began to break. Having returned to school after the holidays, I again began to have problems with speech and again became insecure – which I constantly remembered about. As for that man, I never saw him again.