Frankly speaking, I didn’t expect to hear it from Kostya and uttered with a smile, “You took over the Ariman’s philosophy so quickly.”
“Philosophy?” Kostya looked sulky. “That’s life, if you didn’t understand it yet! That’s the reality! And you have to use it when you are still alive. And all the rest is philosophy!”
I looked into Kostya’s eyes still hoping that he was just joking. But I met such a cold and sharp gaze that I decided not to reply. Though it was obvious that he waited for my reply probably to splash out fully his protest. But I felt that if I say a word it would lead to an empty conflict and anger. Why should I provoke him? Kostya isn’t a bad fellow. Just he didn’t grasp in full measure which trap Ariman put yesterday, and Kostya managed to be entrapped in it like a silly sparrow. Finally everybody makes his choice in this life and bears responsibility for it.
I lowered my gaze to the plate and continued my meal. After he haven’t received an answer Kostya repeated again insistently, “Yes, it’s just a philosophy!”
No objection followed his phrase. Tatiana said with a dreaming sigh, “What a cool yacht he has! And the furniture inside!”
“One gets used to the good things very quickly,” noticed Andrew.
“Don’t mention it,” nodded Tatiana. “After that luxury I can’t see this slum…”
“It’s a slum indeed,” smugly hemmed Kostya, looking contemptuously around and stopping his gaze at the table. “Let’s go swimming or what. Otherwise I will feel sick looking at this food.”
The guys nodded together agreeing with him. And they began to stand up from our improvised table.
“Are you going?” Tatiana invited me.
“No, thanks, I’d rather stay,” I uttered with a smile. “Unlike Kostya I have strong Siberian health.”
Though we had parted in a peaceful way, I had an unpleasant after-feeling. However I didn’t let me get upset because of such trifles. Having sending my bad thoughts far away, I rubbed my hands anticipating to try biscuits and sweets. And filling my plate with different sweeties in order not to stretch myself for them, I sat closer to the group of the seniour guys headed by Sensei.
Nikolai Andreevich glanced at many sweeties I brought with myself and held me up as an example, “Look how you should eat! And I hear from you just “don’t want”, “merci”, “pardon”!
“Right,” Stas agreed to him merrily. “She needs it! Otherwise she will be blown by the wind! Especially after the dolphins shook her last kilocalories.”
The guys laughed again. However Nikolai Andreevich like a careful parent went on insisting that the guys would eat something “serious”. In reply Victor responded for all of them in jest, “No, no, doctor, don’t insist, I mean, force us. We don’t want at all! Yesterday we arimaned so much that today food evokes the same response like Eugene felt in the story with crawfish.”
“What?!” Eugene roused himself and touched his back probably as he hasn’t heard well the words. That made all of us roll with laughter.
“I’m telling about the story with crawfish”, Victor repeated distinctly with a smile while explaining the guy what had just happened.
“Ah,” Eugene calmed down a bit. “And I thought you are talking about my Achilles’ heel! What a cruel fiend, I thought! It ached the whole night and now he is jeering at it with his emanations.”
While the guys were exchanging phrases, Stas told Sensei with sympathy, “Well, after yesterday sparrings… Ariman stroke him so well, now he’s got such a big bruise!..”
“You should put an ointment to it,” Nikolai Andreevich gave an advice immediately.
Eugene have seen how Stas bent towards Sensei and called him in a comic and pretension way, “Hey, you, why are you betraying all military secrets?! You are a spy!”
“Me? A spy?! You see, I try to help him, appeal to all the medic and rescue service of our good team! And he calls me a spy…”
Victor who sat near Stas, pushed him to the side with an elbow and asked with a humour, “And how come, you know about the size of his “military secret”?”
“How? I’m his friend!” Stas said. And looking at him grinning he added with a smile, shaking his finger, “Just a friend, nothing more.”
When everybody laughed enough, Volodya said in a bass voice, “Well, it were cool arimanic Olympic games in the cross-country yesterday for our brains.”
“Aha,” Eugene hurried up to share his impressions. “My tunnels are still suffering from labyrinth complex.”
“That’s true! A real cool championship,” Stas agreed with Volodya.
“Don’t say it,” Victor smirked and nodded. “As they say, illusions of pleasures scheduled by the couch Ariman leave just a reality of total defeats…”
“Yes… and a lot of diseases, not to mention bruises,” in a plaintive voice uttered Eugene. And counting on fingers he started to enlist industriously, “First of all, indigestion, second, thoughts attack. And in general… total lowering of spirit under the ground! Third!”
Eugene interrupted himself with a loud laughter. In reply Sensei remarked with a grin, “These are typical symptoms for a person with hesitating nature who like a pendulum rushes between his Animal and Spiritual nature.”
Volodya nodded.
“Like in a joke «What makes the tattler and the pendulum similar to each other? Both are needed to be stopped from time to time”.”
“Need to be stopped?!” repeated Victor. “Hem, in our case you will get tired to push the brake and emergency brake.”
“Right!” confirmed Stas.
Sensei glanced at the guys and uttered, “Alright, stop criticize yourselves. That’s the human nature to make mistakes.”
“Yes,” agreed Eugene, “but it’s ill luck of my homo sapiens even-toed nature: I do it often and with pleasure!” On saying that the guy was surprised by his words himself. “Ah! That’s the place where my mean little gall-and-kidney stone is located and rubs outgoing tracts of my purest Conscience!”
These Eugene’s reasonings made our company sincerely laugh. Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich laughed louder than the others.
“Eugene! Gall-and-kidney stone doesn’t exist,” uttered Nikolai Andreevich wiping tears caused by laugh. “Gall-bladder and kidney are two different organs, therefore stones may be both in the gall-bladder and in kidneys, but separately.”
“Really?” Eugene was surprised but immediately found an “explanation” to his words. “But it’s with normal people so… which don’t possess conscience. However I’m fed up with this arimanic syndrome with its symptoms.”
Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich exchanges surprised gazes. And Eugene went on arguing. “Eh, life is life! Yesterday I have felt myself on my own back that sometimes it’s better to bit my tongue than later to bit other parts of my body escaping flies… in the head.”
Stas pretended to get surprised, “Have you seen that! Sensei, look, it’s a miracle! Eugene saw the light!”
The guys began to joke about that. Having laughed enough the company turned in the further conversation to discuss impressions received yesterday.
“We believed the fairy-tales of Ariman like little kids,” uttered Volodya.
In reply Nikolai Andreevich reacted with humour, “Well, but fairy-tales bring also a certain experience. What are fairy-tales in fact? They are scary stories which carefully prepare kids to read the modern press.”
“That’s true!” grinned Sensei.
“And