PART I
Very pleased to meet you. Im Yuri Kuznetsov, - thats how a tired man, who leans on a cane heavily, looking straight into your eyes, introduces himself. Naturally, you would ask for a patronymic, but he will respond with the smile hidden in his dark brown eyes and say that the first and last names are good enough. Then you would walk on, and he, grinding off his shoes against the pavement would walk his own way. Or you might walk together for a while, but his burden is so heavy and unfamiliar for you, that you would also walk away following people who have already left.
The humanity is trying to learn how to love everything it used to exterminate for a long time. And if you havent died, then you practically have no chance to be at least noticed. Its fashionable to sob grieving for something which has almost disappeared, which almost doesnt exist, instead of trying to lend a hand to those who need it now. People do not care about anybody, and dont care about the inner world of the past philosophies, either. To make the world kinder, purer, wiser and more tolerantEverybody, who woke up one morning, suddenly thought those aspirations were so stupid, that they dashed forward to grab the best place under the Sun, elbowing their neighbors aside. That morning Yuri, as usual, left his apartment building, and started to walk in the direction opposite to that of those searching for a place. All sunny niches had been already occupied by and distributed among and booked by the very important citizens for many years ahead. The remaining people were running around searching for at least a warm or nourishing place. Seeing a person who is peacefully walking by, who doesnt prowl or sniff out, the seekers would get surprised, they would run towards him and grab his hands with undue familiarity, being totally certain that this strange man was already standing on that extremely precious patch of happiness. But after pushing him aside, they wouldnt discover anything useful for them, and being angry because of the wasted time, they would continue rushing, pushing their neighbors aside, too. And the man with a heavy business case and a cane would continue on his way trying to tell the people who stop next to him about kindness, compassion, mercy and love.
Parents
Yuri Kuznetsovs childhood started at an orphanage for babies. His mother and father, after they discovered that their child wasnt healthy, refused from searching for a place under the Sun for him, and chucked him out into the deep waters. Many years later, being already a grownup man, Yuri would answer any questions about his parents very mildly: Probably, that how the situation was, and they didnt have any way out other than separate with me. He doesnt blame them for anything, but his eyes turn grey when thinking about what could have been avoided in his life if they had been by his side.
Childhood
A state-run institution a shelter for the abandoned and orphans is a survival school. If Yuri were drafted for the military service when he became adult any demobee would break himself trying to break that school, which the boy (Yuri) had gone through in his tender age. Thirty kids for two teachers. Who are you? What have you brought to this world? What are you dreaming of? What are you afraid of? Nobody was asking these questions, and, therefore, nobody was looking for answers. An orphanage is a conveyer belt of abandoned souls, there is no place there for neither philosophy, nor pity, nor love. The most important thing is to report statistics, and whats underneath it oh, well, you are on your own figure it yourself, while walking your way, if you get enough time to understand something. The first and foremost task for Yuri was to survive, to save his mind, although, of course, at that time he didnt even know those words. To be withdrawn into yourself remaining quite communicable, to be in hiding being noisy whatever it takes, but for the sake of preserving your inner world. There was no chance to find solitude, to be just with your own self. There are always many fellow sufferers in the group, and their problems are not less significant, somebody has even more problems compared to you. Although, not one of them has understood yet what terrible ordeals were at the beginning of their lives: disability and loneliness. However, intuitively, all of them felt that they were in the bind and that would be for a long time.
Yuri remembers the orphanage for one cool thing a gramophone. All the time older children would make the younger ones sharpen needles for it. It was a very sophisticated task, and it took quite a long time. One had to slowly work on the needle so it became sharp. Young kids would perfect the needles for the gramophone, and the time would perfect them, teaching them patience.
Time
Time flies by. When we feel miserable, we lash it with all our strength: Faster! Hey, go faster, I tell you! We dont want to watch boring films, we are ready to sacrifice the most invaluable years for the sake of escaping from the reality, which is heavy on us. It seems to us that as soon as we use our strength to the utmost, as soon as we jump over a fence, we will immediately find ourselves in the Garden of Eden. Maybe. But it also happens that the fate, grimacing, would inform us: Hey, no. The nightmare is just starting.
Yuri wasnt rushing the time, he just couldnt close his eyes tightly, like many could, and become older after opening them. He tried to study all of the underwater rocks of the undercurrent, which was carrying him through the life. He relied on his intuition, finding his way by touch, tasting everything, trusting only his own eyes, ears and nose. But as soon as his first attempts to flounder started to turn into more meaningful movements, he suddenly started to experience serious difficulties in breathing, and the cold transfixed his entire body. When he glanced back, Yuri realized that he was being drawn into a whirlpool. The Sun was remaining somewhere very high above his head, and it was becoming more and more distant, less and less bright.
Pain
Surgery table lamps had been switched off long time ago, but Yuri could still see them with his closed eyes. He was lying as quiet as a mouse, thinking about what had happened: What did I do wrong? Why there is so much pain going through my body? What?.. Oh, yes
A professor from a famous clinic came to the orphanage. Two kids fitted the specialization of the renowned institute, Yuri and one more boy from his group. Thats how a new stage of the desperate fight for the right to live began. No one considered an issue of to what extent the doctors intervention was necessary. No one cared about a public kid who didnt belong to anybody. A little boy could only rely on a surgeon, into whose kind and skilled hands the State had entrusted him without even a tiniest degree of pity. Orthopedics is a method of forced treatment, it is very, very painful. Yuri was born bended: his legs were like springs in the knees, his body was constantly slightly bent, as if greeting somebody with a noble bow. Doctors had done everything possible to straighten him up: they made him walk without a cane, hold the proper bearing, not bend his legs. Naturally, they were trying to reshape him with the best intentions, but to their great disappointment, nothing has worked out. The experiment has failed, the nature has taken its toll, making the boy to learn an unforgettable lesson by heart and the lesson was the pain.
He would have never survived that torture if not for people who showed their compassion in the environment full of that cold surgical metal, smell of medicines and stench of chlorine. A hospital is not an orphanage; there were the same kids on beds in the ward, the only difference was that they had a sweet candy in the mouth left by their moms who had just left to go back home. They were separated by the life, they became relatives through the pain, and tears made them friends. People who were bringing various delicious things to their kids would share with him. After the orphanage where nobody really cares about you, such flow of attention was truly marvelous. Children played with him. Adults talked to him as to a person equal to them. Other parents loved him, and he started to take in the warmth, looking at these tired but the dearest faces for him in the entire world. And the pain would stop scaring him, he got used to it, he was prepared for it. But the separation scared him. Fortunately, doctors couldnt prepare everybody for the discharge from the hospital at once, and that is why there was always somebody next to you in that large world.
Chance
Has there been a reward for the years spent on a hospital bed? Yes, it has. There was no future foreseen in the orphanage, especially for a disabled child, whom his parents did not need and who was practically of no use for the huge state machinery. There is only one road paved for such person an institution for the disabled. And there There, there was no need to know how to read or write.
But one of the doctors from that famous clinic grabbed the fate of the growing boy and turned it around.
- He is a smart and good little man, he must study.
Thats how Yuri, almost struck out from the list, has gotten his chance.
School
Yuri Kuznetsov came to the first grade of a boarding school when he turned eleven. First-graders were half his size. The question about who would be a target for mockery, biting words, scoffing, pokes, was immediately resolved. Thats what it would seem at first. But in reality, the things turned an unexpected way. His classmates were as quiet as water, cautiously looking up to their grown-up peer. The boy would make their teachers be at a loss for words facing the soberness of his argumentation and his stubbornness. Very few of them would guess that the boy had a very responsive and kind heart.
Yuri never refused to help, but he also never let the offense to come through. He started to understand that with each year he was approaching that like, where the power of powerful adults governs. All injustice directed towards him was accumulating in him, and he was taking it for the truth. And when he was getting in trouble, his belief that he was on the right way was a consolation for him, because there were already his classmates compared to who he was stronger.
- Why do you behave like this?
- They have somebody to protect them they have parents.
- You also have somebody to protect you
His brows above his dark brown eyes would go up in an ostentatious surprise, he would sneer with a still childish, but very stubborn grin like adults have. He would look at his teacher who was telling him something completely incomprehensible and impossible, because it had never been that way, and he didnt know even a single reason for why he might expect any changes
But the changes arrived by themselves, putting a clear dot above everything which had used to seem right and proper before. One day, being in the third grade, Yuri was seriously late for a class. Hearing the noise coming from the classroom, he realized that the teacher wasnt there, and it immediately changed his image. Kicking the door open and entering the classroom as a king, he saw a crying Stammerer. Misha Stammerov was trying to reach for his schoolbag which somebody had put on a hook high above the window. Stammerer was really short, and all his jumps were more than senseless. The class was dying from laughter. Without shedding a word, Yuri climbed on the windowsill, nearly breaking the glass with his head. He reached for the schoolbag and returned it to blubbered Misha. Nobody was laughing in the classroom anymore, all attempts of toady hooting were interrupted by the thunder of the things thrown down by Yuri from the teachers desk: Nobody! Nobody can ever dare to do anything like that anymore! How?! How could you?..
After that event many things, and with the time all the things, started to get resolved with the word and patience. The strength became meaningful. The soul started to strive towards the knowledge, and the grades which previously used to be rather poor started to improve gradually, although slowly. Somehow even the teachers stopped to look like enemies. He was slowly learning to listen to them and started to find something interesting for himself in their words. The teacher of Math demanded from young guys to come to her classes dressed in a fresh shirt and wearing a tie, not necessarily a young pioneers scarf, but a tie. The PT teacher was providing them with many wisdoms of life, and frequently added: The school is rich and kind it will give you a lunch. But what are you going to do later in your life? Indeed, what? That year when Yuri asked himself that question, he found himself locked in the very bottom of the world, which was the last place he ever wanted to find himself in.
Institution (Alms-house)
All state-employed mother and fathers, who have been getting paid for 18 years for raising the abandoned boy, wanted to sleep peacefully. And that is why his fate was decided without considering any other possible options. He resisted that as much as possible, but couldnt do anything.
Yuri was placed in an institution for the disabled, simply to an alms-house, and spent almost 5 years there. That was a serious tragedy in his life. Nobody believed there in his capability, nobody wanted to accept him as a personality.
Blood crazily pulsated in his head, there were more and more questions for which there were no answers: Why? What for? Waves of desperation and anger would shatter all the dams of logic into pieces, those dams which Yura was trying to build for himself with his last ounce of strength in order to find explanations and excuses for that nightmare.
And when he, entering the alms-house, saw the guys from his orphanage, Yuri completely lost his heart. The most they were capable of doing was to spell a TV program and sign their names. Later, recollecting that meeting, Yuri said: We were walking different ways, but finally reached the same point. I was taught and treated, they were trained in how to go to bed on time, to eat without making mess, to walk without violating the regime When I realized that, my heart came to a stop, my mind submerged into the darkness. For the first time I stopped struggling even inside myself.
The entire year his eyes were lifeless, he walked under oaks and chestnut trees, which grew around the state institution. Nobody needed him, and he needed nobody. Everything lost its meaning. The time stopped. It wasnt just the reality of life, but more like the imprisonment of his soul.
One day a woman in the park called for him. She had a very unpleasant look and was dressed in dirty clothes. Her entire body was making moves without her control, saliva was coming from her mouth when she spoke, her eyes were burning with undisguised hostility. She must be from the ward for raving lunatics, Yuri thought.
- Hey! Dont grimace. You are here for good!
A Click
For good!
These were the words that have awakened the consciousness of a small person lost in the immense world. Yuri Kuznetsov swore at that moment that he would get out of there and never come back. Something clicked inside him, awakening his spirit and thirst for learning much more than he was doomed to. For almost four years he has been fighting for the right for independent living every day, every hour, every minute, and even while sleeping in his dreams. His struggle one on one against the monsters provisions, laws, regulations inspired other people, including the medical staff, to help him. And one early morning the Head Doctor called on him and offered him to go to a place located at the address written on a piece of paper in front of him, and take a look at his future apartment.
Epilogue
Today, this tired man with a business case is that young guy of yesterday, who has managed to stand up for his life in front of the faceless and indifferent state machinery. The time and circumstances have turned him into a philosopher, who walks from person to person, trying to help people, striving to bring long-forgotten values to everyones heart. He believes that one day everybody will understand that the Sun is one for everybody. And if everyone stops pushing others aside, then therell be enough warmth for all. Indifference will be replaced with Love, cruelty with kindness, and the human life will gain a considerably higher value and will become more significant.