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Vadim was also good at telling stories when he and his friends went to the forest to burn sticks and fry sausages, which they hid in the pockets of shorts or pants to carry past adults. The boy told stories about pirates and their adventures.
In the summer, when the forest bloomed with its greenery, when the river finally froze and the ice melted, the boys went fishing and swimming. The stream there was not so strong and there were a lot of fish, Vadim caught them more than once with his bare hands or accidentally stepped on the fry while he was getting out of the water.
The boy didn’t need anything and he grew up like an ordinary child, but some emptiness and resentment towards his mother still remained. Vadim did not try to find her or escape from the orphanage, no one adopted him. He saw his future without his mother and sister, but he still loved and missed them, they sometimes dream of him in a dream, in them he imagines a house, father, mother and sister with smiles from ear to ear, and a vegetable garden and fragrant trees with grass and flowers bloom around.
The orphanage was also surrounded by greenery, but not as lush as at home, it was sparse and yellowish, and the trees grew far away in the forest a kilometer away. Firs, oaks, and birches grew there. The boys made swords out of their sticks and played knights or pirates.
Such was Vadim’s childhood and youth. But soon his life will change unexpectedly and irrevocably…
Chapter two. Teacher
At the age of twenty-two, Vadim was well built and had some popularity. But nevertheless, he did not allow himself to look at anyone. It was like a mantra that he repeated every time. And it wasn’t that he didn’t like the girls, on the contrary, he noticed their beauty and strength, but he was afraid of something more and didn’t really like children.
It is a strange irony that he eventually joined the Russian language teacher after graduation. Vadim had a rented house and moved to Tver, where he taught his subject. The apartment was small and rather dusty. The air here was musty, so as soon as Vadim arrived here, he opened the windows on the balcony. No one lived in this apartment and therefore the man was left to himself and only. He came here with a heavy, black briefcase, which he still had since his studies. In this briefcase he kept a mug, a brush, toothpaste, a diary, a pen and clothes.
Life played a cruel joke with the young teacher, already at twenty-eight, when Vadim had experience in teaching and settled in the city, he was diagnosed with a hereditary disease, because of which his vision was lost faster. Therefore, he wore glasses and began to look older, and when he began to grow a beard, he looked like a forty-year-old.
At school, he showed good abilities in communicating with children, he taught in high school, and students always thanked him for his patience and calm character. In the circle of teachers, he was remembered as a gloomy and thoughtful man who, when he was on duty in the corridor of the school, wrote something in his diary.
The school itself was old, built since the war. Its walls were with peeling wallpaper, but gradually they were replaced with newer ones. The ceiling was crumbling, but this was also fixed. The floor was stone, the doors were wooden. The school was not very big, but it could accommodate more than three hundred children, which is the limit for this school personally.
Vadim gradually settled into a new place, as already mentioned, old things began to appear in his musty apartment. There wasn’t much that could be bought for a teacher’s salary, but over time Vadim learned to be content with little. He had a small kitchen combined with a dining room, there was a samovar on the table. Vadim was sleeping on the sofa, which he bought at a discount, because the spring in it was broken. What the man was proud of was an old radio, it was covered with duct tape and peeling paint, but for him this purchase was very successful.
He did not go outside, just looked through the balcony at how children were playing on the playground or how people were coming from work. Cars were passing by, they were making loud noises with their motors under the windows of houses. Vadim had no friends among his neighbors, they came to him only on business, buy potatoes or borrow honey and sugar. The neighbors were good, although some were often noisy. Then, slowly, televisions appeared in every family, but the man did not have the money to buy it, because when he bought a couple of books on sale, he again became infected with the idea of swimming.
He won’t be able to be a sailor or a pirate anymore, but he still wants to feel this breeze and salt on his lips. The Volga River was just passing through the city. And it’s not so difficult to buy a ticket for a liner, it’s left to save exactly a thousand rubles and you can go on the road.
Despite such successes in life, but there were also hardships. The death of his father never left Vadim’s soul. The father, like a ghost, came after his son and haunts him in dreams. In nightmares, he sees his mother and sister, he woke up in a cold sweat on his couch in the middle of the night. Then he started smoking. He read that it helps to relieve stress, but the effect was small, the maximum removed the tremor of the hands during work.
I had to forget about the idea with the liner. Vadim could not live with this mental pain. The ghosts of his father, mother and sister, whom he barely remembers, followed him everywhere, it seemed to him that they were whispering in his ear in a particularly strong current of wind, in every rustle of leaves and the creak of snow under his shoe. Vadim became withdrawn at this point in his life, dressed even warmer, because during work he shuddered in chills. From such stress, he seemed to have aged another ten days, but he was well immune. His brown eyes had darkened and seemed just black.
As a result, when he was sitting on the couch, hunched over and thinking about a jar of change and banknotes that were on the table next to a smoking cigarette butt, Vadim decided to spend the accumulated money on a psychologist to whom he could tell about his problem. Personally, the man assumed that he was developing schizophrenia and so far he did not know how to get rid of it. He noticed the cigarette butt and angrily threw it out the window. Then I took a whole pack out of my coat and threw it in the same place so that he definitely couldn’t smoke again.
After that, he went to a psychologist and made an appointment on Friday evening, when Vadim would return after work. Of course, he will come with a loaded briefcase, but the documents and notebooks of the children will wait until night.
The psychologist had a spacious office, his own chair, coffee table and sofa. On the nightstand there was a phone and an aquarium in which a fish was splashing, there was food in an orange package next to it. The walls were covered with gray wallpaper.
The psychologist was extremely flexible in communicating with Vadim. The man was lying on the sofa, having previously taken off his shoes. The psychologist, Nikolai Mikhailovich, listened attentively to his client. Vadim spoke in a crumpled and torn manner and sometimes got up from his seat or took a sitting position, before grabbing his hair and as if tearing it out. Nevertheless, Nikolai Mikhailovich showed full tolerance for Vadim and at the end of the session expressed all his suspicions, which he sorted out by points while writing in a notebook.
– You are troubled by nightmares, you are seeing relatives, and you also have a tremor, – Nikolai Mikhailovich began. – You do have symptoms of schizophrenia, but you should not worry, only to improve your condition you need to be in public and on the street more often. You also have depression from a mental trauma, you have lost your father, nightmares are caused because of it and, perhaps, you feel guilty about what happened, try to get a pet or friends to somehow forget yourself, but I will prescribe antidepressants if folk methods do not help. – all this time, Vadim listened to the speech of the psychologist, he felt the emptiness of this conversation, as if he had expressed everything that had boiled over, but he still did not tell something in more detail.
– Thank you, Doctor, – Vadim thanked hoarsely, he managed to raise his tone while he was talking.
He got up and took a torn piece of paper from the psychologist’s notebook. Vadim said thank you again and left.
To be honest, Vadim really followed the instructions of a psychologist, as he listened to his father as a child. He didn’t get a pet, but he started going out more often and talking to people. For the sake of interest, he even went to a local bar, but apart from a black eye and a spoiled mood, he got nothing.
To some extent, Vadim began to like living like this, the tremor passed, but the nightmares still did not go away, but the man swallowed like food for lunch or dinner, they were a tasteless mass that he hid somewhere inside and it seemed that they festered and turned black. Vadim again returned to the diary, which he abandoned when he had been working at school for three years.
He took the diary outside and, sitting on a bench, wrote down thoughts, fauna around. That’s when he started writing short stories. And to be honest, I smiled at this case. He took the work for granted, did it right and did not show his anxiety, but Vadim was already used to it while he worked for six years in these walls. People here began to merge with the walls, the same white and faded. Every day he met gray and gloomy. He did not shave his beard at all, it reached the end of his neck and already fell a little on his chest.
Vadim took care of her, tied her with a blue silk ribbon, combed her with a wooden comb that he carried in his jacket pocket. The first wrinkles and barely noticeable gray hair appeared on the face. At home he continued to read, but the lines of the books turned into ordinary black, ink spots, without meaning, color and taste. Vadim could imagine anything with the help of lines from the book, the great battle, the azure and transparent seas of the Caribbean islands that are inhabited by pirates with and without honor, but gradually he could only see clumps of blots in his head.
He was saving up for a dream, gradually moving towards the goal, but without that enthusiasm in his youth. He is already thirty-four, the USSR has collapsed and a new era has begun in the Russian state, but Vadim continued to live in the past. He remembered his family, but these ghosts stopped hurting him, rather because of them he lost the meaning of his existence. He had no friends, had no family of his own, and hoped with all his heart that the descendants of his dear sister Anya were already walking on this sinful earth. He did not cry when he said goodbye to his mother and sister, it seemed that all the tears had been dried for a long time in that pillow with a blue pillowcase, in that bed of the orphanage where little Vadim slept and quietly choked with tears, but at the age of thirty-four, when he thought that nothing could surprise or impress him except for the ships on the water, as he abruptly began to cry.
It happened unexpectedly at another dry lunch, dry, because Vadim did not feel the taste of food, or rather did not revel in it as before, and now tears flowed from his cheeks. The food immediately acquired a taste, a salty taste, like the sea on which pirate ships rafted in search of merchants who had whole pockets with doubloons. He rejoiced and wept, laughed with his mouth full and wiped his tears with a handkerchief made of a cotton rag sewn with a linen piece of shirt.
It wasn’t very cultured for him, he didn’t act according to manners, but there was nothing holding him back anymore, or he rotted inside, like any other person. Only here he did not vomit clean rust or rotten giblets, no, he just kept everything, as if his stomach was burning from heartburn, perhaps it bubbled inside him like lava, because he began to add different spices to food more often, because there was no taste on his tongue.
Nevertheless, despite such mental problems, he was able to escape from this barbed wire, from which he cut and scratched harder, not without scars, of course, but alive and much stronger.
Vadim Alexandrovich worked hard every day and continued his service as a teacher, and it was already 1999. The school year will end soon, and very soon this amazing XX century. On one of these days, Vadim Alexandrovich was heading to school. Today he has 5 lessons in the morning and 6 more lessons in the afternoon and only one «window», as the teacher’s free time was called. Monday was a pretty busy day for the teacher.
After spending the first three lessons, Vadim Alexandrovich sighed, as the big break began and the children ran to the lower floor at full speed. And Vadim Alexandrovich himself was now sitting on the third floor in the 37th office. He needs to prepare for the next topic. The next class is 10 «B» and the topic is «Paronyms». Suddenly, the door opened and a middle-aged man entered the office before the bell rang. He was obviously older than Vadim, he had a bald spot on his head, and he was a little chubby. He was wearing a uniform and looked like a university teacher.
Vadim Alexandrovich sat up and decided to greet the guest by extending his hand to him. In response, the stranger also greeted and sat down next to the teacher’s desk. Vadim also sat down.
– I am Vasily Nikolaevich Ulyanov, Doctor of Philology and Professor at Tver State University.
– Vadim Alexandrovich Vavilov, teacher of Russian language and literature. Glad to meet you – they shook hands, then the professor continued:
– I know you, Vadim Alexandrovich, my grandson is studying here at your school in the 5th grade, but I’m not on this issue. The fact is that it is necessary to tell the students of your school who will be entering this year about our university, and I would like to stop at the Faculty of Philology. And don’t worry, I’ve already talked to the director and the deputy director. They advised me to contact you, and it’s worth saying that your fame as an excellent teacher of the Russian language goes far beyond this school, and I involuntarily heard about you a couple of times, so I was pleased with such a recommendation from the administration.
– I am very flattered, and thank you, Professor, but what kind of help is there on my part?
– I propose to arrange a scientific meeting for students, at which some of them, as well as teachers, could make full-fledged scientific reports. So we could demonstrate the very feeling that a scientist feels when he defends his idea. I could invite my colleagues to do this, besides, I am the head of the department myself, so I think it will not be so difficult for me to do this. But for success, I need you to organize the rest of the details of the event and it is desirable that you also prepare your own scientific report, in which I believe you will not have any special difficulties.
– Thank you, Professor, I will be very glad of such an honor. And I would like to give you my own opinion and some comments about this event. The fact is that I think it will be a little difficult for students to make scientific reports themselves, for this reason it would not be bad to organize a small circle before the date of the event itself, at which you, together with me, of course, conducted some lessons at which we could explain to children and help them prepare their scientific works. And do not forget about such an important aspect as a supervisor. In the case of students, it may be teachers, but in the case of the teachers themselves?
– In the case of the teachers themselves, a scientific supervisor is not required, or I can personally be a scientific supervisor.
– In that case, on what day do you plan to hold this event?
– If today is Thursday, then on Tuesday I think it would be best, since I have already informed the director, and after talking with you at the meeting I will inform my colleagues.
– But don’t you think it’s too fast?
– Dear Vadim Alexandrovich, I hope it won’t be difficult for you and don’t forget about the fact that studies end in May and exams begin.
«You’re right. In that case, I will be expecting you this afternoon, as we need to conduct the first lesson today.
– In that case, I will try to drive up after one couple and a meeting – the professor solemnly finished – And thank you again.
– Thank you for that – the teacher got up and saw the professor off, at that moment the bell rang and you could hear the noise of students on the stairs…
These six days flew by unnoticed, even on Sunday they diligently continued to prepare for this event. Finally, Tuesday came. Vadim Alexandrovich did not sleep all night and printed out all the reports and slides. Vasily Nikolaevich also did not sleep. The next morning, when everyone was already at school, Professor Vasily Nikolaevich and his comrades were supposed to arrive in time. Anatoly Valentinovich, the director of the school, who was the tallest person in their school, was also at this event and supervised many preparations, as members from the department of city and even regional public education were invited.
After the opening ceremony, speakers came out, among them were teachers of Russian language and literature, English teachers, and German teachers from other schools. But it was especially nice to see the students in this role. Vadim Alexandrovich stood together with Vasily Nikolaevich and watched as Vadim’s student Nikita Naumov reads his report on the role of using homonymic phrases in works and their influence on a person.
«You have prepared them well,» the professor remarked.
– Thank you Professor, but your lessons helped a lot.
– My lessons were not something special, but you have become a full-fledged supervisor and a colleague can be proud of yourself. And excuse me, but when is your report?
– Right after Nikita, I put my report last.
– Quite noble of you, – said the Doctor of Sciences.
When Vadim Alexandrovich’s turn finally came, the announcer in the role of Elina Komarova, a student of Vadim Alexandrovich, who told about lexicology, loudly announced:
– And now ladies and gentlemen, our dear teacher Vadim Alexandrovich Vavilov will make his report!
The audience enthusiastically met the teacher, everyone knew this person, though self-contained, but loving his work. The teacher enthusiastically began his report:
– Ladies and gentlemen! Dear Scientific Commission, dear guests, colleagues and our dear participants! Let me bring to your attention my report on the role of science fiction literature in the popularization and development of our society as the most reading in the world. My research is based on…
The teacher talked about various aspects and roles of popular science storytelling, how it develops thinking, what are the statistics of this genre, all the data on the effect on the human body. And although he often used various terms, even students who might not have been familiar with these terms listened attentively to their teacher. Many of them have decided which university they will go to, and many of them have decided right now to become like their favorite teacher – teachers, those who will love their vocation with all their heart.
– …Thus, in conclusion, we can say that the development of science fiction literature precisely in the above direction, and adoption as a strategy, will help in the development not only of literature itself, but also of our dear youth and the education in them of the great future of our state and all mankind!
The hall burst into applause, loud applause could be heard everywhere. Vasily Nikolaevich, who was sitting in the center, got up first, followed by all the others and continued to applaud Vadim Alexandrovich standing up. Members of the regional and city departments of public education warmly thanked Anatoly Valentinovich, who enthusiastically applauded the teacher, whom he always considered a friend and comrade.
After this story, Vasily Nikolaevich and Vadim Alexandrovich became strong comrades. They often met and discussed new problems of modern philology, came up with new concepts and even planned to publish a book…
Chapter three. Professor Vavilov
June 1999.
Vadim Alexandrovich was interested in literature and the Russian language from a very young age, and now that he was a teacher, he decided to give himself up to science. Of course, the work of a teacher is fascinating, but when you have to explain topics every day, if you really love science, there is an involuntary desire to create and learn amazing bins of science, whatever it may be.
The teacher himself was interested in the subject of science fiction, and lexicography in this area. The fact is that when creating fantastic works, authors usually use both scientific terminology and colloquial speech, in a sense popularizing the development of technology. But at the same time, the way the characters address each other plays a big role. When speaking, it is possible to use an official style, or a simple one, and their mixture creates a certain psychological discomfort. Vadim Vavilov decided to investigate this lexicology and wrote a master’s thesis for a master’s degree.
His work described the analysis that he had done on the science fiction works «The Mysterious Island», «The Air Seller», «The Lord of the World», «I am a Robot» and many others, thanks to which he managed to compile some systematics to determine the type of work. It was something like a system of tables that allowed you to determine the type of work. As it seemed to the teacher then, his work promised to be quite large-scale and was quite enough for him to write a PhD and even doctoral dissertations on this topic.
Just his recent acquaintance with the Doctor of Philology, Professor Ulyanov Vasily Nikolaevich, which took place last week, was very useful. And so, when he completed his first master’s thesis, he decided to talk to the professor and ask to be his supervisor.
Vasily Nikolaevich was preparing for the upcoming lecture. The door of the auditorium opened and Vadim Alexandrovich entered.
– Vadim Alexandrovich! – the professor was happy to meet you.
– Hello, Vasily Nikolaevich.
Both colleagues greeted each other joyfully, and then Vasily Nikolaevich led the teacher to the table and joyfully began the conversation:
– How glad I am that you came. I really didn’t expect it – the professor was smiling, he managed to grow a beard in a month, it wasn’t as big as Vadim’s, but you could tell that it suits him.
– I didn’t want to bother you too much.
– What is the concern, my dear friend? You can’t bother me in any way, but as I see, have you brought something for me?
– You guessed right, Professor. I decided to defend my scientific work. This is my master’s thesis and I would like you to become my supervisor – Vadim Alexandrovich handed over the work a little timidly.
– I am very glad, Vadim Alexandrovich, you should have done this much earlier, because your talent should definitely find its place, and it is definitely above the level of a secondary education teacher. And of course I agree to become a scientific supervisor – the professor accepts the job smiling.
– Thank you, Professor.
– But that’s not all. It’s almost lunchtime, so I’ll be at lunch after this lecture, and then I’ll get to your work, I’ll just have time. Kindly come to my office closer to two o’clock.
– Of course, I will come – at that time the bell rang, symbolizing the beginning of the couple, so Vadim Alexandrovich without stopping said goodbye to the professor and left to return at the specified time.
When Vadim Alexandrovich arrived at the specified time, Vasily Nikolaevich had already read the work. They talked for a long time and corrected inaccuracies, sometimes adding new research. And for more confirmation, the professor provided opportunities for conducting his own sociological experiment, which Vadim Alexandrovich was able to conduct next week. While the work on the work continued, Vadim Alexandrovich was already able to enter the master’s program. So about two years have passed. And at the end of the master’s degree, Vadim Alexandrovich had to present a ready-made master’s thesis.
Vasily Nikolaevich also prepared a review, and they also managed to get a positive review from Academician of the Academy of Sciences Gavriil Artemovich Venyaminov. After such a joyful review from the professor, Vadim applied with great joy. And all this happened at the Tomsk State University, which was established back in 1870.
And finally, that very solemn day came. On that day, a scientific commission gathered in a spacious hall, on that day with Vadim Alexandrovich, his comrade and colleague Gleb Valentinovich had to defend him. Both undergraduates were sitting in the corridor and preparing for their hour. They were waiting for their turn, one lady came in front of them, who also defended her work, but both undergraduates did not have the honor to talk to this person. Their supervisors were already in the hall, as were the employees of this department, so they were completely alone in the corridor. Both were solemnly dressed, and in their hands they held a stack of papers, these were copies of their dissertations, the necessary diagrams, pointers and plans.
– What did you say about your work, Vadim Alexandrovich? – to calm down, Gleb Valentinovich decided to start a conversation.
– Have you really forgotten the title that you read a minute ago? – the teacher was surprised and again looking at the cover of his work quoted – «The role of the official narrative style, as well as the characteristic parameters of determining the type of work, when creating literary works of the science fiction genre.»
One could not be surprised at such a long title of scientific papers, here almost everyone had them not small. Someone wrote their meaning there and sincerely worked, and someone just defended himself with such terminology, trying to seem better.
– Excuse my forgetfulness, colleague, – Gleb Valentinovich apologized.
When about two hours of long waiting had passed, the lady with a joyful look fluttered out of the hall. And finally the moment came when Vadim Alexandrovich was supposed to speak. The secretary of the Scientific Council read out his data and the documents presented. Vasily Nikolaevich was already sitting in the ranks of those present, among them one could see the same Gabriel Artemovich, who decided to watch the performance of the young man.
– Hello ladies and gentlemen! Initially, let me thank you all for your time. I would like to present to your attention my scientific work «The role of the official narrative style, as well as the characteristic parameters of determining the type of work, when creating literary works of the science fiction genre.» My work is based on the theory that the verbal relationship in the official style in the works increases the likelihood of their success among the public. The relevance of this work is visible on the face, and it is also worth saying that I managed to conduct several experiments on this topic, for which I bring special thanks to Mr. Vasily Nikolaevich Ulyanov and for scientific advice to Gavriil Artemovich Veniaminov. The subject of my scientific work is…
The performance of the young man lasted about three hours. Vadim actively talked about new research, cited numerous facts, confirmed his scientific conclusions not only with sociological parameters, but, strange as it may sound, with medical data that he conducted to analyze the effect of the official narrative style on the human body and additionally cited a number of mathematical formulas by introducing the entire system into a full-fledged framework. So, based only on the style of the narrative, Vadim Alexandrovich managed to create a whole system of classification of works and their effects.
– So, gentlemen, we can create the most necessary classification system, using which our authors can create the best works without any mistakes. It is worth saying that more experienced authors subconsciously know such a system, but for the younger generation, as well as for the experienced creators themselves, this systematics is necessary. It is by this method that it will be possible to develop the literary field of research and the creations of our vast Homeland. And in conclusion, I would like to say that my research is actively continuing and it is still necessary to go much deeper into this and other issues of literary criticism, and to learn the latest secrets. And I can say with great joy – «To be a scientist is proud of the Lord!»
That’s how grandiosely I was able to finish my speech, which was very highly appreciated, even by Gavriil Artemovich’s colleagues. So Vadim Alexandrovich finally received the well-deserved title of master. Now he worked at the university and taught philology. But Vadim’s words about new research were not long in coming. And two months later, he applied for a PhD thesis. How lucky Vadim Alexandrovich was, because during those two years in the magistracy he managed to prepare both a candidate’s dissertation for the scientific title of Doctor of Philosophy in philological sciences and a doctoral dissertation for the scientific title of Doctor of Philology.
Vadim Alexandrovich presented his PhD thesis two months later, with an appendix of about 30 scientific articles that he managed to publish in a variety of scientific journals. Vasily Nikolaevich actively helped in this, not only as a scientific supervisor, but also helped financially, even considering that Vadim Alexandrovich spent almost all of his salary for these months on publishing and preparing scientific papers. At the same time, he prepared one monograph and two textbooks. Vadim Alexandrovich was able to complete his first textbook after a meeting with Vasily Nikolaevich, but they decided to wait for the right time for publication.
Soon Vadim Alexandrovich was standing in that hall again, but he was already presenting his documents for the degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences. And although a lot of time passed after submitting the documents, they answered Vadim Alexandrovich quite quickly. It is not necessary to say that everything was too easy, there were not small difficulties and if there were fewer discussions during the defense of the master’s thesis, then there were difficulties during scientific discussions during the defense of the candidate’s thesis, in addition to the difficulties that Vadim overcame only by preparing this work.
– …I decided to present to your attention my scientific dissertation «The impact on the psychological perception of literary work when using scientific and technical reliability and mathematical proof in the creation of fantastic works and constructions» for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philological sciences. In this work of mine, I wanted to show the problem of the lack of scientific reliability in many fantastic works of our time and how this affects the perception of such works … – when the speech was completed, the questions were much stronger than last time.
– Mr. Vavilov, do you really think that it has the role of using science as such? Were you not familiar with such concepts as philosophy, which should prevail in such a work? – one of the listeners asked.
– I’m sorry, but I think it’s worth considering the philosophy of scientific development, which is very important especially for fantastic works.
– In that case, what are the goals of creating textbooks? Science should be located only for popularization and no more. And even then it should not be increased unnecessarily. And you propose to increase the volume – another listener was already asking, but it was clear from the intonation that everyone perfectly understood the idea of Vadim Alexandrovich, but they asked questions specifically to refute the idea at all costs for the young researcher.
– Gentlemen, to protect the work, I can bring to your attention a more detailed presentation of the work «Philosophy of Science in Works», which has been published and has detailed instructions and answers to your questions.
