Returning to the eleventh grade, perhaps this was the time when I overcame my fears and, using ICQ, managed to tell the village friend I was in love with about my feelings for her. To which she replied that she was very pleased, but she already had a boyfriend. He was my old friend from the village. If only I could have told her what I wanted, a couple of months ago, when she was still without a boyfriend…

I was disappointed. I also felt terrible because my fantasies about her were broken. This moment, along with several others, made me again start inventing fictional girls in my fantasies, so that I would not feel again the terrible pain in the depths of my soul that I felt when it turned out that the real girl I liked and was dreaming of had a boyfriend.

It was time for the last school exams. Despite the fact that I almost did not attend classes in the eleventh grade, I still managed not to be expelled. As I said, studying was not a big problem for me, and I was able to finish school, albeit with a bunch of 3s.

Speaking of 3s – there was a moment when after school I came to take a test in physics which I had never written at all since I was not at school. With me were those who wrote it, but got 2s. Of all my answers only one was incorrect, and the physics teacher, whom I consider one of the best teachers, gave me 3 even though I wrote that test for the first time. Yes, I skipped classes, but grades should measure knowledge, not attendance.

It is worth noting that my “ex-girlfriend” invited me to go for festivities with others, but I refused. At that time, I wanted almost nothing in my life.

So, the school period, which was often like a nightmare for me for nine years (I skipped fourth grade, and in the first grade everything was almost excellent from my point of view), was over.

But next it was time for the University. I passed the exams, enrolling in a paid faculty of mathematics at MGUPI. Do not ask why. I can only say that if at school instead of German, which I studied due to the fact that my mother did not enroll me in the English class when there was a chance to do this, I was studying English, as I wanted from early childhood, when my mother and I began to learn simple English words, and if my life had turned out differently in terms of speech, then perhaps I would have gone to college to study foreign languages. That would make more sense to me, given my vast interests in many areas of life and nature. Due to different interests, I never knew what I wanted more and could not choose a profession.

The exams ended at the end of July, and I went for a month to the village.

Of the significant events, I can only recall that, contrary to my promises, I first drank vodka mixed with orange juice. A friend mixed two drinks in a huge beer glass, and I completely drank the mixture, as part of me wanted to get drunk. I remember someone saying that I was so drunk then because of a girl – who knows, maybe this was not that far from the truth. Then we went to the fire after drinking in the “domushka” – as we called a friend’s little summer house in his backyard, where we often spent time watching movies and playing games on his laptop.

I was not feeling well. For the first time I vomited because of alcohol. I lay on the ground under a tree, some distance from the bonfire, and I threw up. Then I choked and began to suffocate. I was so drunk that I could neither get up nor give a sign to my friends. I just lay breathless on the ground, and everything was getting dim before me. I realized at that moment that I was going to die. I do not know how, from my point of view there simply wasn’t any reason for this, but Dmitry, our recent friend from the other end of the village, at that very moment asked someone if I was alright… They managed to knock me on the back to free my airways. I owe him that I am writing these lines now…