A Story of Agapit Pechersky by Anastasia Novykh (reading strategies book .txt) 📕

oils and alkaloids, you know. That is quite a valuable collection of substances for medicine. As for its taste...”
Sensei smiled mysteriously. Then he started to stroke the sprig again and whispered something very quietly. Everyone grew silent, and there was a moment of absolute stillness. Even Eugene stopped chewing his cracker, which he had been enthusiastically munching. Though I was sitting close to Sensei and tried to make out what Sensei was uttering, I could not hear a word of his whispering. Then Sensei fell into silence, glanced at Kostya, and offered the sprig to him.
“Here, taste it.”
At first Kostya stretched out his hand instinctively, but then, apparently thinking that it was a joke, jerked it back and declared, laughing: “What, am I crazy, to eat wormwood?”
Nikolai Andreevich stood up with interest and moved around the sitting guys towards Sensei. As he was passing Kostya, Nikolai Andreevich tapped him on the shoulder and remarked along with the laughter of other guys:
“Everybody is crazy, Kostya. No one is healthy. There are only under-examined ones...” The doctor reached for the sprig: “May I?”
“You’re most welcome,” replied Sensei smiling.
Nikolai Andreevich took the sprig from Sensei’s hands, and smelt it at first. Then carefully nipped off a small piece from its top and tasted it. We waited for his reaction with unconcealed curiosity, but our psychotherapist’s face kept its impenetrable look.
“I don’t get it,” merely uttered he and tasted again, nipping a bigger piece from the plant.
His mysterious ‘I don’t get it’ intrigued us even more and the most impatient of us, including myself, jumped up to our feet and crowded around Nikolai Andreevich.
“Well, well,” hastily finishing up another cracker, Eugene stretched his hand for the sprig. “Let’s try... My! It’s as sweet as treacle.”
After such an ‘advertisement’ we started hastily nipping small pieces off the sprig to taste them. I received a bit of the plant too. The taste was really unusual, more like tart-sweet. Kostya still hesitated to taste the ‘regale’ of Sensei. His pride didn’t allow him to do it, although his eyes revealed that he obviously wanted to.
Watching our stir he declared with his usual sarcasm: “You guys are wormwood maniacs, or something. Should I collect some toadstools for you?”
“Toadstools don’t grow nearby,” answered Andrew in comical manner, giving him the last ‘portion’. “Here, taste it. It’s really sweet.”
At first Kostya turned up demonstratively his nose from it. But when Andrew declared: ‘Well, as you wish’ intending to eat the last part of the stem, Kostya changed his mind quickly.
“Hey, hey, you, glutton, give it to me now!”
Kostya confiscated the remains of the plant from Andrew with laughter. After that, he hunched over it and began to examine it thoroughly. Then he sniffed it, and finally made up his mind to taste it.
“How is it?” Sensei asked merrily, looking at Kostya, who was like a duck in a thunderstorm.
Kostya produced a silly smile and made a helpless gesture: “What can I say...? As Goethe used to say in my performance: ‘What I do not understand I do not possess’.“
“But really, Sensei, how did you make it?” Victor asked with interest.
“It’s elementary. Have faith and you will make it. There is nothing to it. Faith and pureness of thoughts – that’s the principal cause. As for the influence on the plant’s liquid structure, this is, so to say, a technical matter.”
“Why exactly liquid?” Nikolai Andreevich caught at the word. “I’ve already heard it several times this evening.”
“That’s because any aqueous medium has peculiar cells in its molecular structure, a kind of mini-computers. Though they are microscale, they are able to store global memory. And they contain almost all the information about matter. If a liquid structure is influenced by mechanical, chemical, electromagnetic means or by...” Sensei stopped trying to pick appropriate words, “or, to put it simple, by the energy of thoughts, it is possible to reshape a water molecule into necessary combination. For water remembers all the substances ever been in contact with it, whether directly or through energy states.., for example, even such simple ones as electromagnetic oscillations. Take into account that water is the most widespread substance in nature, that it contacts in one form or another with every other substance of this material world, keeping the received information in its every molecule, as well as the interaction of water among itself – and you can imagine what memory capacity water has.”
“Do you mean this wormwood can not only be made sweet, but also transformed into sorts of something I want?” concluded Ruslan.
“Of course it can, if you know the molecular structure and energy composition of this ‘something’,” smiled Sensei.
“Even into a bug?!” marveled Ruslan.
“And why not? There is no living organism on the Earth that can move without water. On our planet water is an essential part of every living creature, its ratio varying from 45% to 98%, including human body, where water constitutes 80% of its mass. Water is a widespread component of nature. Its elements are present even in fire as oxygen and hydrogen molecules, owing to which burning occurs. Even stones contain water.”
“Stones?” Slavik was surprised.
“Yes, stones. Under high pressure any stone bleeds water, though in small amounts. Besides, howsoever paradoxical it may sound for you nowadays, even in the center of the Earth, inside the inner core, there is a nucleus of enormous density and mass, which contains water too.
“In fact, the Earth is a living organism also consisting mainly of water. I mean not only the surface where 70% are oceans and 30% are various matter modifications with inclusion of water, but I also mean the inner liquid. And we, humans, are also similar to it.”
“Does the Earth have a mind too?” Kostya couldn’t size up the question for himself.
“Undoubtedly. And a man is linked to it since that mind is located in the memory of liquid structure. This mind accumulates information about everything, including each one of us. As I’ve already mentioned, since the greater part of our body consists of water, all the data about us, including our thoughts, emotions, health, and DNA matrix, is stored in this memory.”
“For how long is it stored?”
“Rather long.”
“So, it turns out it is possible to learn about any person ever lived on this planet. Like, Napoleon, Genghis-khan...”
“Huh, what a choice to learn about,” Andrew teased him. “There definitely are more interesting personalities.”
“I’ve said incidentally,” Kostya hurried to justify himself and looked at Sensei.
“It’s more serious than you think,” answered Sensei. “Only a few people out of the entire humankind can do this.”
“Is there a higher mind than the one the Earth has?” Kostya couldn’t quiet down.
“Of course. There are higher informational structures up to a global one. But all of them are controlled by the One. The One we call God.”
“I wonder, who are those few people who can read information from water?” Eugene asked cunningly.
“Well, for example, verily saint people. How did they work ‘wonders’? With purity of their faith. It seems incredible for other people, but it was quite accessible for them. Pureness of thoughts and faith – that’s what is essential. In fact, there is nothing miraculous in ‘wonders’ as such. It’s the matter of elementary knowledge, including water science, which the current human civilization, fortunately, knows less than a hundredth part about.”
“Why fortunately?” Kostya asked pretentiously.
“Because had people had such knowledge, they would have turned even a water-melon into a nuclear bomb. You cannot possibly imagine the power water holds. A man, possessing knowledge about it, is able to destroy the entire planet with just a drop of water.”
“What do you mean ‘to destroy’?” Eugene didn’t understand. “Closing the circuit of a nuclear bomb button with a drop of water, or something?”
“Why, nuclear energy is really nothing in comparison to the true power of a human thought.”
Eugene took his mug with some tea remaining in it, looked at Sensei and declared ambitiously with a shining Hollywood smile of his: “I can understand everything, but with one drop?!”
He looked at Sensei with challenge, provoking him for a demonstration. Sensei replied to him:
“Alright, doubting Gagger. Go, bring me a cup of sea.”
The guy became alert at first, but soon asked with a humorous air: “A cup of sea? Do you mean the seawater?”
“Exactly,” Sensei smiled.
Eugene looked at the sea lazily.
“I don’t grudge snow in winter... There is plenty of it around... But it requires an exploit too great – to stand up, and walk over, and get into the water, and wet my feet.” He looked inside his mug and proposed: ”Can we manage with tea?”
“Come on, come on,” Sensei hurried him with a smile. “Such walks are good for your brains.”
Eugene stood up reluctantly, groaning like an old man, and directed himself towards the sea.
Nikolai Andreevich followed him with his eyes and uttered: “Courage, Eugene! Such a nice weather, there is no harm in going for a stroll.”
The evening was splendid indeed. The sea was calm, and the sky was studded with stars. The bright moon was shining. Silence and tranquility, true paradise.
Eugene scooped up some water and waddled back, trying not to spill it. But, obviously sensing our fixed looks, he cheered up. And, coming up to Sensei, Eugene offered him the mug with a bow as if he were a regular waiter.
“Here is your order, sir. It’s a present from ‘Neptune’ company. Every hundredth cup, with all bacteria, bacilli, microbes, and excrements of the nearby city, is absolutely free!!!”
“Kindly appreciate it,” answered Sensei in the same facetious tone.
While the guys laughed developing the theme, Sensei put the mug in front of him, covered it with his hands, and concentrated. Nobody actually paid attention to his actions because Eugene completely got used to the role of a comical waiter and started relating funny anecdotes to us, so everybody burst out laughing. I laughed too, but suddenly I felt bad. At first I felt strange discomfort in my body. Then this feeling began to increase wave-like. I couldn’t even understand what was happening. I felt sick and giddy. I felt weakness all over my body, my bones ached. The first thought that came to my mind was that I had indigestion caused by sunny and hot weather. But the symptoms were rather strange and it confused me. It was as if I had not only got indigestion, but also spent too much time riding on a seesaw. What was more, an unnatural fear was coming up from the depth of my consciousness. I was immediately seized by panic that made me want to run following my nose, though there was no any apparent reason for such fear, at least a visible one.
In an instant Sensei gave the mug back to Eugene who was still cheering up the company with his jokes.
“There, splash it back out to the sea.”
Eugene looked inside the mug, apparently expecting to see something unusual there, and asked: “Is that it?! Well, it’s like always! The most interesting thing went right past my only straight convolution.”
Ruslan, who was sitting nearby, craned his neck trying to see what was in the mug.
Eugene reacted immediately: “Why art thy stareth thine eyes, child? Water-plants are not growing in it, and bacteria are not floating paunches-up.” He pulled Ruslan’s cloth-cap over his eyes and added to common laugh of guys: “So, you may switch out the light, there will be no film.”
Our plentiful laugh accompanied all Eugene’s trip to the sea and his successful return with the empty mug. As for me, frankly speaking, I was in no laughing mood. The fear inside me was growing. My entrails were about