Truly, friendship is a bliss. And I don't mean good relationships with classmates or having a lot of play-pals. I mean real friendship, where you know you can trust the person with your life and they know the same about you. There are seldom more than 5-10 persons in the whole world that one can consider true friends. I myself have five and trust me, that is a lot.
But how do you determine who is your best friend? When we were... younger... we made those questionnaires for our friends to fill in. There were questions about star sign, favourite music, favourite film, pets, availability of siblings and so on. One of the questions kept recurring in every book: "Who is your best friend?". Really, who? Who is the first-among-equals of the few people you can share everything with? How can you choose the one you trust the most, when you already trust them all? Sometimes it is impossible to give a definite answer. Sometimes it is very easy. I belong to the second group. Allow me to introduce:
Yuriy Georgiev
I have the honour of being his friend during the last 16 years. Heck, that's more than three-quarters of my entire life. He may know it or not, but that is the person (well, besides the family, I guess) that had the greatest influence on me and took the biggest part in the shaping of my current self.
We met two days after a heavy rainfall. How can I remember? Well, it's quite self-explanatory. Behind our block there is a huge playground with two sandboxes. One of them is circular, the other one is oval. Immediately after such rainfalls the sandboxes turn into small lakes which then gradually evaporate or are splashed away by our war-games. Heh, those were the days! Anyway, on the mentioned day I was digging canals in the oval sandbox. There was still water left here and there and by using cunningly engineered thresholds and dikes I was able to manipulate the water flow. The result were exciting ship.. er.. I mean branch and splinter races. What can I say, I am cancer, I'm always fascinated by water. Suddenly I felt a presence next to me and a voice said: "Hi, I'm Yuriy. Do you want to be friends with me?"
Sure I did. Soon we were like brothers. Every single day we were together. Playing, reading, drawing, exploring our neighbourhood, marking the fruit trees... Apples, pears, grapes, mulberries, plums, medlars, quinces, cherries... you name it. We were able to remain outside for weeks, were it not for our parents who for some strange reason opposed to this. There blew my chance to become a tramp.
We shared a lot of common interests. Sometimes one of us took interest in something new... that quickly became another common interest. Rock music, indians and cowboys (we both preferred indians, take that, Buffalo Bill), ninja and samurai, the honour code, fantasy and science fiction... there are certainly more but this was supposed to be a brief blog... (yeah, right). He was the one who showed me how to befriend a dog, how to hold a cat, how to feed a canary... how to avoid being spit upon by a hunting fish. Yes, Yuriy had a lot of pets. He even gave me one kitten as a present.
We never argued. Sure, there were times one wanted to to something and the other - something else, but we still didn't argue about it. We just sat in the same room and did whatever it was we wanted, and later it was again time for shared activities.
He is the only person I have ever stabbed in the back. Literally. With a real knife. It was an accident but I am still deeply embarrassed.. even though he has told me many times to forget the whole story. On the other side, he is the only one that has ever succeeded in stealing a girl from me. But this is another story, as Rudyard Kipling likes to say.
And now, even though we are separated by a whole continent and see each other two or three times a year, he is still my best friend. Yuriy, my brother, thank you for being there for me!
Friday, September 08, 2006
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2 comments:
Yay! I thank you kindly, good sir, for the brief biography. And I also thank you kindly for the reminding o'those funny moments! Hell, puddles are as fun as... hell. Hell's fun... I guess...
Puddles are as fun as ice-cream! And puddles in a sandbox! Woohohoo! Now that's a chocolate-wi'cookies-an'nuts-flavoured-ice-cream! An'tha's a good thing!
In brief, what I am trying to communicate to you is that I am also thankful for all the things we've shared. Thank you!
And briiing me huuuman boooones!
Also... I don't know what else. Something. Random. Like... a chair.
Damn, I love those dots... There's three o'them!
Short story long- we both like stuff. And stuff unites us! And makes us strooong!
Thanks again!
Be having fun now!
Curses! I forgot to write my name. Well, it's me! Janet! I mean Gartokk the Destroyer! I mean Yuriy.
Ah! And I also forgot to threaten you with impending doom for revealing me to the public! Be threatend now!
Adios!
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