Boy

He was a boy, a teenager, who had gone to school with the other boys. While everyone in the village went to school, he was interested in getting a good education. Throughout school, he had loved the arts and the sciences. He was a romantic boy who appreciated the emotions that paintings, music, and literature evoked from him. He was very sensitive and would cry at certain passages in novels, even when no one else would. He was always moved by classical music, which most of the other teenagers never appreciated too much. He loved the sciences because they were complicated and interesting; they attempted to explain all the things in life, and put an order to them; and yet, many things remained mysteries; the mysteries of life intrigued him. He had always wanted to find out more, perhaps one day to be a scientist himself in some faraway research laboratory making new discoveries. He had almost made up his mind that after finishing school, he would go to one of the famous cities, St. Petersburg perhaps, and apply to study biology at a university and later do research on his own. He also wanted to start taking piano lessons, so that he could not only be moved by recordings, but also to move others by his own piano playing. It all seemed within reach, though a few years down the road.

It flashed by him now. Inside, it made him want to cry out.

He was a very bright, talented student. As a top performer, he always shared his knowledge and understanding of the subject with others. He had passion for learning and could easily explain very difficult topics. Those who realized his intellectual gifts simply utilized his assistance; he was happy to help and never had issue with sharing his talent with others. His eyes inspired and he was always involved in class. He rarely took notes, because he always listened and tried to penetrate the subject in depth.

He went to a military school where, in addition to following orders and respecting their officers, the boys supposed to be strong, athletic, bossy, and harsh. The officers were mean, harsh, brutish, and disrespectful. It was expected that the cadets follow orders without question. This dismayed the young man, because he felt the boys would not be able to think on their own. If the officers had told them to shoot each other in the stomach, he would not be surprised if all of them had picked up their guns and done exactly as told.

The other boys never liked him. He was seen as a kind of cowardly and timid boy, who could never be in the army, or anywhere else outside his parents’ home. The boys stuck his worst incidents to his image permanently. Once, he cried in literature class, when the teacher was reading an excerpt in which a harsh master was unfairly treating his dumb serf. He was so impressed by the reality and sadness of the novel that he started sobbing and attracted everyone’s attention. His classmates refused to take him to any parties, or sit with him during lunch. Most of them did not even talk to him and regarded him as a weird kid that had problems of his own; they were always thinking about how odd he was. What was he doing here? This was a military school, and weaklings were not supposed to be here. This was a preliminary filter of society; those who did not survive did not deserve to be a part of it. Neither the administration nor his classmates knew that he had "renal insufficiency" (Gazeta.ru). One of his kidneys was dysfunctional, and it had tempers of its own. Often, it gave him severe abdominal pains, and urination was no pleasure.

If only this race...

He was only sixteen, and a family seemed like a distant dream, which had no clear connections to the present day. Or maybe it did, because there was a girl in his village that was very pretty. Her name was Sasha, and she had the most beautiful face and smile. Whenever he would go into town, he would always look out for her in the markets, the shops, and the streets and would try to make eye contact. If he was upset and she came up to him, he would have to smile immediately because her face was enough to make him happy. She had blond hair and he liked that. To him, it represented sunshine and light, inspiration, the thought that tomorrow things would be better and today there was no need to be worried. Her figure was slender; he had tried measuring up to her at a distance to see if he was taller than she was. Most likely she was, but to him it did not really matter; it was more out of curiosity and less out of need that he wanted to know this information. He was thinking about the other couples that he knew, in which the guy would frequently tower over his girl, and she would cower under his gaze. What had always defied his comprehension was that the girl seemed to like it.

He was getting teary-eyed for some reason. This 10-kilometer race, he thought, what was the point, the point?

The weather outside made him happy. It was the beginning of fall and very nice – sunny, bright, breezy, and warm. The trees had started to lose their green colors and began to put on their colorful fall foliage displays. He found the trees to be very beautiful and pretty this time of year. The wind arrived quickly and the leaves were constantly spiraling to the ground. He imagined privately riding into the sunset with the girl of his dreams, with no one ridiculing him. Then he wanted to make a family somewhere in the South where it was not as cold as in Siberia. He loved summer and warm weather. He liked to be comforted, and Mother Nature seemed to cover him in a cozy blanket during the summer.

...This is unbearable...

He had oatmeal for breakfast, which was a specialty of his mom. She knew a unique method of cooking that it was smooth, sweet, and very good tasting. On his way to school, he was in high spirits, and Sasha was walking in the other direction on the street. He meekly waved to her, but she did not notice and kept walking. Next time, he thought, he would be brave enough to just walk up to her and tell her his true intentions and feelings.

It was the fifth day of school, the end of the first week, and he was looking forward to enjoying the weekend with his parents hiking through the countryside. He was a little late, and his officer scolded him lightly for it. He took out his books and listened attentively to his teacher. They were discussing a book they had recently received.

The day progressed slowly. Around noon, they had their in-school breakfast, and around seventeen they had dinner. The boys were then informed that they would have to run a "10-kilometer cross-country run" (Gazeta.ru). Worst of all, the last two kilometers would have to be run wearing a gas mask. The spontaneous announcement annoyed him because he had no time to prepare for the run. For one, he would have worn lighter clothing throughout the day so that he would not be as tired. In addition, he would have eaten much less at dinner, because it is easier to run without a full stomach. He was not ready for this run at all.

Why did he not speak up earlier? He was not in the position to be doing this at all...

After finishing dinner, the boys headed out. The sun was beginning to set, but the temperature was very high for this time of year; it was probably the highest temperature for that day.

He started off slowly; after all, he had a long way to go. The regular distance runners went ahead. Eight kilometers was a long way, but their path went through very colorful woods and he admired the fall foliage and the scenery. He was beginning to feel sick, however, towards the end. What was even worse was that he would have to put on a grimy gas mask in a couple of hundred meters and then have to run two more kilometers in it. He was not sure that he would be able to do it.

He put on his mask at the appropriate time and immediately felt sick. He held back his growling stomach and kept running, but he knew that it was coming. Apart from the mask itself being wet, greasy, sweaty, and smelly, he was short of breath. With each step that he took, each meter that he ran, he increasingly felt like he was running out of breath and suffocating in the mask. He could not bear it much longer. He waved to the officers standing nearby and requested permission to take off the mask. He could feel the vomit coming up now.

He never should have had to start this race...never. But then they would make fun of him forever for not doing it...

They did not let him take off the mask. Even though I am sick, he thought to himself, I cannot take it off. No one, however, was physically forcing him to wear the mask. I should take it off, he thought to himself, take it off, and keep running. The vomit, I can feel it coming up my stomach. He began to lose himself. He felt like he was going to faint, and at the same time he could feel the vomit going up his throat. It was the dinner he had eaten a few minutes ago. He had to take off this mask! But the officers said no. He thought of his classmates...he would be ridiculed for the rest of his life for this cowardly act. He imagined himself going to Moscow, and someone stopping him in the street and saying, “Hey, it's you! The boy who could not finish a 10-kilometer run with a gas mask!” He saw the headlines in the national newspapers, shouting out his weakness. He saw Sasha laughing in his face and telling him that she did not want to deal with a wimp who was weak, both in will and in physical strength. He felt the vomit going into his mouth. He was very lightheaded; he felt like he was floating in the air, outside his gas mask. He was, in truth, losing consciousness. He felt his feet begin to buckle and give way. He could not think or concentrate on the movements he was making. O God, he thought to himself, as the vomit came out of his mouth and piled up in front of his face. I am so sick and tired, he thought, though at this point concise thoughts could no longer be formed by his mind. More vomit came up, more and more. He was afraid to see his mother's delicious breakfast come up too – after all, it was good, and it would be such a waste for him to throw it up. He felt like his feet were powerless, with no will of their own. He thought of his life, his parents, his dreams. It was all so…

He fell on the ground facedown, and the day’s food went up his nose.