Look at the sky. Vasily S. Torpaev

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СКАЧАТЬ a usual laboratory assistant, interest him? What would I say to him? On the way out of the institute, on the stairs, I apologized and called after him. Introducing myself to him, I expressed my admiration of him for the way he carried himself and the content of his speech and let him know that if I had a chance to meet him again during his future visits to the bosses I would like to learn from him. He wondered: learn what? I replied: don’t know, at least, to speak confidently like you and if should You need an assistant (oh gosh, what nonsense I am talking about?! – I was thinking at the same time) I will be ready to learn and help You in your affairs.

      The reply astonished me more than I expected: Alexander (that was his name) replied in the positive and even joyfully. I remember Alexander told me that he had always known that I would turn to him with a request…

      From that moment my head whirled with happiness. “How did this happen? – I thought. – How could a timid laboratory assistant help such an unusual person?”. Can time change its course? The fact is that from the moment I talked to Alexander all around started to seem slow and dull. “Why do all look like being asleep? – I thought – Waste their time and make do with what they have and do not strive for more, do not use their capacity?”.

      Yes, I did meet in my life what I thought of. I got an opportunity to change my life. At least I believed so. Several days after meeting Alexander we were already discussing the future plans including the development of our own business. He had so many ideas, themes, variants to realize that I lost my mind and spent all my free time satisfying my hunger for creative thoughts by listening to him and absorbing even more than my mind could absorb. I asked him questions and got clear answers to them. There was nothing that could remain unclear to me. All the ideas were in plain view. Alexander told me about talented people, scientists who lived and worked in various cities and each of them had their own designs which we could and needed to unite and implement within joint projects. My task which Alexander offered to me was to think about what projects could be developed. In fact, he allowed me to fully participate and help him to bring to life formidable ideas and consult him on how to govern those interesting projects cost effectively. I was so inspired by this opportunity that I never asked myself why such large-scale ideas were entrusted to me, to Vasia. Yes, this is Me name.

      Yet, back home with a new portion of information in my mind, I had doubts. I did not believe in myself and was not absolutely sure of what was happening yet. Then I would ask Alexander:

      – Why? Why did other people not agree among themselves earlier and thus did not do seemingly evident things?

      He laughed and said exactly what I was thinking of:

      – All around are living like in a dream but you, Vasia, has a great chance to “wake up” and do interesting, courageous things, embody the newest scientific, engineering, financial ideas, settle all the family issues, of course, and thus make your life happier… But to get a better life you need to take efforts.

      I understood: in order to completely dedicate myself to my new job I needed to leave the scientific-research institute where I worked. Psychologically, mentally (in fact, by quitting my job I was going nowhere) it was not that easy because though none of your relatives would ever understand you, you needed to do your best to explain to them that from scratch you could build another world, a world which lives by other rules and in other scales. Is it not what I was thinking until very recently?…How was I supposed to tell my wife who was on maternity leave of my intention to leave a “good” job for the sake of ideas of another level? I never forgot of my responsibility to my family and always knew that whatever I planned to do would be for the good of my family and future. Will try to explain to her…

      Skipping some moments from my life I’d like to stop and look back. Several months are already passed since I left the scientific-research institute. I am all engrossed in studying new materials and meeting new people – Alexander’s words are coming true. Right now I am in a big beautiful office. Alexander and I have just come to visit a well-known professor Butanovich who is specialised in studying and searching new oil and gas fields. There is a lot of equipment, printing machines, computers… I am standing in front of the professor’s room. I almost got used to the fact that each new person I met possessed a particular personality, but a real surprise was waiting for me ahead. The professor’s room was almost empty: a huge table, spread out pieces of wove paper, pencils, highlighters of several colours, a snuffed candlestick. On a nude wall there were several icons and bending over the table professor Butanovich was drawing contours and lines on the wove paper. From time to time he whispered to himself something, put aside a pencil, and… Then I noticed something in his hand that impressed me immensely. It was a pendulum, that same pendulum which was there in my books of my childhood. Alexander was pleased with that pleasant surprise he had prepared for me and said that he wanted to meet me with the professor long ago so that I could emulate the secrets of his mastery.

      I decided, by all means, to learn from the professor everything regarding the pendulum: in what way the pendulum helped him, how and whom Butanovich asked for information, if someone else (hoping it could me, of course) but for him could handle the pendulum? It turned our that long before the professor had given birth to an idea to find on the map all the existing but yet unknown fields of oil, gas and fresh water. And all that was possible he claimed without complex geological exploration equipment but simply asking questions to the information filed of the Earth.

      – Look, Vasily – Butanovich said spreading a contour map of Norway on the big table, – right now I am going to ask for information on whether there are any gas deposits in this region.

      The professor started to make preparation for the inquiries: he lit a candle, whispered some sentences, took the pendulum and began to slowly direct it over the map. After a while the pendulum began rotating over one and the same area of the map.

      – You see, the pendulum is rotating on its own and showing us where gas is?

      I saw the pendulum rotating indeed but from the outside it seemed as though Butanovich was merely whirling it with his own hand.

      – How can a pendulum rotate on its own? – I asked.

      – Don’t know precisely – the professor replied – but right now I am feeling like somebody was guiding my hand and by asking questions I am receiving a feedback. I can ask any kind of question regarding the deposit I am looking for: about the seam depth, volumes of the deposit, the contours of an oil pool or fiery seam in depth section, chemical composition, etc.

      I was looking at the professor. The pendulum in his hand seemed to be a universal informative tool. Butanovich continued asking the pendulum for information with regard to another object on the map.

      – Does this seam contain oil?

      The pendulum drew a vertical line in the air which meant “yes”. Putting aside the pendulum the professor wrote down the reply on the paper.

      – Does this oil pool contain sulphuric impurities?

      Once again, the calmly hanging pendulum swayed steadily. And now, he needed to learn the percentage of the sulphuric impurity in the oil pool.

      – Is it more than 1%? – “Yes”.

      – More than 1,5%? – “Yes”.

      – More than 2%? – The pendulum said “no” and swayed horizontally.

      Then СКАЧАТЬ