Ezoosmos. Anastasia Novykh

It would be good to settle him somewhere, so that he won’t break loose again… You see, he is a weak-willed, wavering guy…”

      “Wavering, you say?!” Sensei grinned again and gazed at Volodya strangely.

      The latter got confused.

      “Well, what if he gets under somebody’s influence again or does something inappropriate…”

      “All right, we’ll think something out.”

* * *

      With the company’s bywords and jokes, the evening stealthily approached. Oleg and Stas started exercising. Such habit which had become a daily physiological need for many of the guys present contagiously affected the others. The guys from the special operations group practiced a slightly different training technique than Sensei’s disciples, which generated mutual interest of the two exercising parties. One word led to another, and the guys began to share their accumulated “military” and “civil” experience. Unnoticed, it came down to little sparring bouts.

      Meanwhile Father John, Sensei, Volodya and Nikolai Andreevich were still trying to fish, catching some tiny ones, which could be used “at least for a smell of fish-soup” as they said, and inconsolably waiting for bells jingle on the “track” which could signal of some big bite. Should they had been very old men, they would hardly be interested in anything except the fishing-rod and the fishing process itself. However, they still had young blood running in their veins, therefore they further more often cast glances at the sparring guys. Finally, Vano couldn’t resist such temptation any more, left his rod to Volodya’s charge and walked towards the fighters.

      “Oh!” Sensei grinned. “If this priest got imbued with training, it means an edifying process will start now. Let’s go and see.”

      When they approached, Father John was already in his repertory. Stas had accidentally injured Eugene’s lip during the sparring bout, when they both were just trying to demonstrate an interesting clench to Volodya’s guys. Father John began to bustle about Eugene like a caring hen about her chicken, applying a cold compress made of a wet handkerchief to his lip nearly by force. Eugene was waving away in amazement first, saying there’s no problem at all, but then he surrendered to Father John’s pressure and persuasion. Such scene automatically attracted the attention of the rest of spectators.

      “You see… you see… it’s always like this: if one’s mind is stupid, his body suffers,” the priest was explaining Eugene the sense of his blunder. “The God’s power must be inside you. Without it, your body is a mere dust, the infinity of suffering.”

      “But, in the end, the infinity of suffering upon training leads to ‘the body position steadiness upon fighting’,” Eugene responded jestingly, attempting to stand up from the “penal and injured” beam.

      However, the priest who had evidently not finished his edifying homily yet, put his hand on Eugene’s shoulder and riveted him to his previous spot. It was much more comfortable for Father John to preach from above than to “breathe in the navel” of this nearly two-meter-high giant.

      “Not really, not really… God’s Spirit is the main thing in a human being. It’s exactly it, and not the transient flesh, is the real source of power. You should rely on it…”

      “… but help yourself, too,” Eugene interrupted Father John friskily, making another attempt to stand up.

      But Vano seated him with his “iron” hand again. The priest shook his head and looked at Sensei who had just approached them. Imitating an old-mannish voice, making his favorite accent on “o’s”, Vano quoted the poem, “Look at this modern youth! Their deeds, their words! When we very young, we were not foolish like this! Instead, we asked advice: ‘May I do this, or may I do that?’”

      Sensei and Volodya smiled, looking at the priest.

      “What I’m trying to explain you, little fool, is that you should rely not on your muscles, but on the God’s Spirit which is inside you,” Father John continued to preach to Eugene. “Without it, you are deprived, mere outcast of flesh!”

      “Me, deprived?! Mere outcast of flesh?!” Eugene lost his temper and rose at his entire robust enormous height opposite to the skinny priest.

      The funny side of the situation caused loud laughter of the group watching what was going on. Vano looked at Eugene’s mighty trunk with pumped muscles, eyed him all over contemptuously, waved his hand and said:

      “Weakling! Don’t you think it’s the real power?! It’s only a swollen bag with bones inside it. Should you blow on it, it will fly. I can now show you what the real God’s power is like, accumulated through incessant praying sacrament.”

      With these words Father John raised his forefinger instructively, and then pointedly started to strip his upper trunk part. A pitiful sight appeared before the present – a thin, bony priest looking as if he had recently been released from the Buchenwald torture-chamber. There was not a single shadow of muscles on his body. Only unusually thick veins were peeping out from under the priest’s pale skin, which made him resemble a belly-pinched cow in a careless farmer’s cattle-shed. But this important feature along with uncommonly broad wrists and enlarged elbow and shoulder joints could be noticed only by a true pro. For others, his appearance most likely evoked pity and burning desire to give this underfed miracle of nature some foodstuff as soon as possible. Even Eugene who had first got enflamed of fighting, stopped short and cooled down right after seeing such walking skeleton.

      With unconcealed smiles on their faces, everybody was looking at the strange priest calling opponents to test his destiny. One would think that even a single finger touch could spill this poor fellow. Driven by either sympathy or respect, no one dared to approach Father John who had managed to become a friend for all of them in less than twelve hours.

      “Well?!” the priest pompously put his arms akimbo, standing all alone in wait-and-see position. “Who considers himself strong? Step forward. Even two, three or eight people at once. The power of Spirit is a great power. It is capable of much more than this.”

      Seeing sympathy and compassion on the guys’ faces, Sensei came to Father John’s rescue, “Come on, come on, don’t hesitate, skeptics. If the father discourses he can, it means he really does.”

      After such “blessing”, the people somewhat began to stir. Seeing Vano’s serious sparring mindset, Eugene came up to Sensei and, failing to find appropriate words in his vocabulary to fully express his indignation, he stretched his arm into the priest’s direction couple times.

      “Sensei, how is it possible?!” his compassionate nature finally expressed itself. “I might even kill him accidentally. I wouldn’t take such a sin upon my soul… You know my blow…”

      And, not finding proper words again, Eugene stroke a heavy Yoko kick on a nearest tree which was much bigger in size than Father John’s trunk. The mighty blow made the tree shudder, and dried branches began to fall from the top.

      “But how?!” he repeated his question.

      Remaining absolutely indifferent to Eugene’s demonstration, the priest instructively uttered in response:

      “A man’s power is not in his flesh, but in his soul. Jesus spitted upon a fruitless fig-tree, and it withered, whereas your power has only made the branches fall down.”

      “OK,” Eugene puffed up, being ready to prove his case in action.

      That was exactly what Vano was hoping for. He livened up and started to stir up the audience’s passion like a barker in a marketplace.

      “Who else wants to experience the power of the inner spirit? Only this one?” the priest pointed to Eugene. “One is as good as none against such a tremendous power… Come on! Some other daring should join him... I earnestly and very seriously recommend you to display yourself, for I’ll show it first and last time.”

      The guys smiled understanding his message in their own way and began to nominate candidates for sparring with the skinny priest, rather for fun than a real fight. Meanwhile, Sensei just grinned enigmatically, and then warned them, no one knew whether jokingly or seriously,