“Oh! And where is the air-bag?” wondered the most ‘sharp-sighted head’ of the ‘three-heads-Dragon’. “What’s wrong with them?”

The “head” bearing the name of Slava extravagantly decorated with its ’hat’ lazily turned to that side, hemmed and added, “They must have forgotten something.”

And lastly the third ‘head’, the most wise one (bearing the name of Kostya), which was located between the two others and according to its status was ornamented with the super-turban made by Tatyana from a roll of toilet paper, uttered prudently, “If they had forgotten something they wouldn’t be running with such a speed.”

Indeed, judging by the hurry of the guys one couldn’t say that they were running with a slow speed. Moreover, the absense of Victor and Volodya as well as fishing-tackle obviously showed that something has happened to them. All our attention concentrated on the senior guys.

They reached our camp and started to restore their breathing after the speedy run looking with surprise at our ‘masterpiece’.

“What has happened?” the most ‘wise head’ asked puzzled.

“Well, really!” Eugene smiled on seeing the grandiose sculpture.

“Where is Sensei?” Stas questioned in reply to our question.

“He is over there,” Andrew pointed out to the sea where two heads were seen in the waves from time to time. “They swam far with Nikolai Andreevich.”

Stas and Eugene turned their heads to the sea looking far away. Without thinking twice Eugene put on his fingers to the lips and started to whistle loud towards the sea. The sound was so shrill that Andrew even shrank back from him laughing and rubbed his ears.

“You should have warned us. This is the best way to become deaf.”

“What has happened?” Yura joined our inquiries.

“Have you damaged your air-bag? Or didn’t master the current?” the ‘sharp-sighted head’ uttered with some acidity.

“We hope there were no victims,” the ‘wise head’ finished the phrase of his ‘confrere’.

“Nothing has happened,” Stas answered all the questions at once while Eugene has been artistically whistling. “The air-bag is alright. Everybody is healthy and alive, the same we wish to you…,” Stas looked with a smile at heads of the guys sticking out from the sand with their ‘scattered’ extremities. “We have just found a dolphin on the sea coast.”

“A dolphin?!” I and Tatyana exclaimed almost together.

“Yes, a small one,” the guy showed with his hands the size. “About one meter and a half.”

Our group got excited.

“Wow!”

Meanwhile Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich swimming far from us glanced back and Eugene gave them a signal by waving with his hands. The men started to swim back to the sea coast.

“Was a dolphin alive?” Andrew inquired.

After completing his duty of a ‘radio beacon’, Eugene immediately joined our conversation.

“No… a dead one, with a wound in his side. A fresh wound. It bleeds still.”

“Faugh,” Ruslan said with disgust.

“Well,” Eugene continued to spread hot news, “it’s a distressful sight.”

“Who has done it to him?” Slava asked with sympathy.

“There were some ‘nature-lovers’,” Eugene replied with black humore, “Just look around, there are so many maniacs on the sea coast. They are looking for a victim…” and he added looking at the locked position of the guy dug to the sand, “especially for a helpless one.”

“Well, well,” Kostya grinned together with us. “You will tell us stories! As they say, ‘don’t let you dupe by the professionals’.”

Eugene glanced with expert air at the head of Kostya in the general composition of the sculpture and his eyes sparkled with naughty fire.

“This is a good idea,” the guy uttered and like a real sand master started to add to our comic ‘mutant’ even more funny details. When Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich went out from the water our group was rolling with non-stop laughter, moreover, not only the ‘spectators’ were laughing but also the ‘mutants’. By the way, the last ones roared with laughter more than the others, shaking like awaken volcanoes, that’s why the ‘masterpieces’ started to lose some details. And if to take into account Eugene’s comment about that, you can imagine in which ‘tears-and-dying’ state we were when Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich came up to us. However, they also quickly joined our merry mood and made a few extremely funny jokes concerning that collective creature. Evaluating Eugene’s additions to the sculpture he boasted of, Nikolai Andreevich even ‘diagnosed’ him unambiguously with all typical symptoms of the disease.

When this uninterrupted laughter was over and ‘victims’ extracted from the sand of the sculpture went to swim, Stas told briefly to Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich about their finding. Our psychoterapist who stood near Sensei listened to the guy first a bit strained but later has relaxed and said, “I have already thought that… You whistled from the coast so loud as if all your crew sank.”

“Here is our Nightingale-Robber,” Stas pointed out to Eugene with guilty smile.

“Right,” Andrew backed him while listening to the conversation, “He tested our ears here.”

Eugene smiled self-satisfied and waved his hand towards Andrew.

“You, village boys! You have no notion of our robber accoustic art.”

Everybody laughed again. Sensei just smiled and said, “Well, show us your ‘robber road’.”

Stas, Eugene, Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich went all together. Going out of the sea Ruslan asked Yura, “Have you ever seen a dolphin?”

“No.”

“Me neither. Let’s go and look at him?”

“Let’s go.”

They hurried on to come up with Sensei. All the rest of our group followed them dying from the same curiosity. Nikolai Andreevich turned around to us and stopped on seeing such a mass crowd.

“Hey, guys, and who will stay in the camp?”

“Whom should we protect it from?” Andrew replied for all. “There is nobody here around anyway…”

“But for the lonely maniac,” Eugene added with a thrilling ‘cinema’ voice.

Everybody laughed and Nikolai Andreevich glanced at Sensei with a question in his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter,” the last one answered at his unspoken question.

“But the cars?”

“Well, it’s just pieces of iron. If something happens, we will walk on foot to the city.”

“You are right,” the doctor replied happily switching to the good mood of Sensei. “All the more walking is very good for the health!”

In about twenty minutes of walking we have seen the air-bag dragged out to the coast and Volodya with Victor sitting near the motionless body of the animal watering him with sea water, probably out of pity, although it was obvious that it won’t help him.

The dolphin lay on the sand, his head directed to the sea coast. The coastal sea waves hardly reached the tail part of his body.

Having come closer we silently gathered round this unusual creature. And the first thing which stroke me was his slit-like dark brown eyes. They were frozen with an air of silent terrible pain and suffering as if it were a man who went through a heart-break. His dark almost black spine moistened by human hands was shining under the sun and giving an illusion of the body full of life. The white belly and nice black and white stripes on the sides stood out in contrast on the ideally smooth skin. The light sectors were seen around the nice snout with slightly prognathous jaw. On one side a bit lower than the head there was a stab wound which was already hardly bleeding. ‘Eternal’ kind smile of the dolphin seemed very unreal in contrast with this terrible death. Looking at this harmless friendly creature the heart sank out of pity and impossibility to help him somehow.

“Who’s done it to him?” Andrew asked sadly looking at the dolphin.

“Obviously the fishermen stroke him with a gaff,” Sensei answered inspecting the wound.

“My God, why?” Tatyana exclaimed with compassion.

“Sometimes dolphins steal the catch from fishermen and damage their tackle. But dolphin is just an animal. He goes there where there is a catch. And people…” Sensei sighed heavily and his gaze became a bit severe, “kill them for this.”

Sensei fell silent and at that moment I experienced flows of different feelings. I felt as if there were a lump in the throat, and tears came to my eyes. What a beast (one can’t call this man otherwise) dared to raise a hand to kill such a wonderful creature? This is but a dolphin, the fully-rights earthling, the ocean inhabitant. And his ‘home’ is much bigger than ours. So we, the people, should not kill them but learn from this friendly creatures how to be so nice and kind, how to feel their natural joy of life and harmony of co-existence. Though they are wild animals, they never try to take more from the nature than they need for living, they never try to conquer anyone or anything. They peacefully co-exist with a big variety of species dwelling in the World ocean and taking into consideration their joy of life I have no doubts that they not only exist but also enjoy every moment of their life.

I think that chasing our ‘civilized’ progress which requires more and more of natural victims we lose our humanity, we lose first of all ourselves, our Spiritual nature. With our insatiable endless needs we glorify our Ego, turn to ugly heartless beasts who destroy not only the Earth but all living beings on it, including similar to us. And we consider it normal, don’t we? But is it the reason we came to life? Our life is an instant. And everybody wants to be happy in this instant. Everybody wants but can’t. Why? The nature gives us its silent answers to these questions in harmony of its everyday life. But we do it vice versa: instead of observing we kill, instead of wisely creating we destroy. It’s awful indeed, to live with a beast nature and to possess a mind with the dominating Ego. Eternal sufferings… However, the happiness is so close. We need only to turn to the Good and just to become Human.

The guys stood silently over the body of the dolphin. Even Stas, though he was a reserved person, turned off hardly checking himself.

“If I met now that ‘fisherman’, he would lose for long a desire to take something heavy to his hands…”

“…and bad thoughts to his head,” Victor replied in the same manner.

“Hatred is a bad adviser,” Sensei remarked thoughtfully.

“Who talks about hatred?” Eugen shrugged his shoulders. “We would beat him…’with love’. So that he would forget how to touch not only a dolphin, he would avoid water at all and forget the way to the washbowl.”

“Well, our ‘tolerant’ friend,” Sensei uttered with a light smile and added in a while, “And if to speak seriously, maybe you are right. If you ignore the evil, you won’t notice how you will become indifferent to the good. But when you punish the evil, you should know when to stop. Only this way you will avoid the danger inside of you. The winner doesn’t pride himself, doesn’t rape nor triumphs. He wins… and first of all himself. So punishing the evil you should remember about the good.”

The guys listened to Sensei and hung their heads again over the body of the dolphin.

“Let’s burry him or what?” Eugene proposed after a small pause obviously trying to vindicate himself in front of Sensei.

“Right,” Andrew backed him. “I will bring a shovel…”

“Why do we need a shovel?” Eugene opposed. “There are a lot of us, it will take us less time to dig a tomb in the sand. It’s easy.”

And in order to prove his words Eugene made with his hands a few wide rakes of the sand like a drag-line excavator demonstrating us how quickly it can be done. During this Eugene’s ‘sand work’ Sensei scooped some water with a hand and poured it on the dolphin. Then he started to stroke gently his head saying, “Why do you want to burry him on land? He is a sailor. His home is the sea…”

“Should we leave him like that, in the sea?” Eugene wondered. “Let’s better dig him in the sand, at least he won’t be eaten by fishes. He will sleep peacefully here…” Sensei squatted down, looked at him and smiled, that’s why Eugene felt that he blurted out again something wrong and added with confusion, “Our dear friend.”

His phrase provoked smiles of the guys who tried to hide them as it was quite an inappropriate moment for it. Sensei didn’t reply anything to Eugene. He started to raise a little the head of the dolphin holding him with two hands.

“Nikolai Andreevich, help me…”

Apart from Nikolai Andreevich the other guys, including Eugene, rushed at once to help. But it was quite enough of Sensei, Nikolai Andreevich and Volodya for body transportation. The ‘mournful escort’ moved to the sea. Part of our group was left on the coast, the others, including my person, accompanied them. Hardly the water reached the waist and the body of the dolphin was half-sunk to the water, Sensei said to his assistants, “Let me go further alone. His weight is less in the water …”

When men handed over the body of the dolphin to Sensei, I noticed that Sensei didn’t only embrace it. To my surprise, he put the palm of his left hand right on the wound as if hiding it from curious eyes and embraced the back of the animal from top with his right hand. Having half-sunk the body of the dolphin to the water, Sensei went with him deeper. We stood on the same place.

Sensei was moving slowly and carefully as if it were not the dead dolphin in his hands but a little child whom he gently supported and patiently taught to swim. Little by little they moved away from the shore. Only when the water reached the chest of Sensei, he stood still. I thought that now he would push away the body to the depth and it will sink down. I felt so sorry for this dolphin. Despite these sad circumstances due to which we got a chance to meet this beautiful creature of nature and the short time of our ‘acquaintance’, this dolphin seemed to me so dear and close. I felt something unusual towards this animal and this feeling was hard to be described in words as if his grief, when he was alive, was my grief, his pain was my pain. This strange feeling of some invisible unity started to overfill me from inside. I half-closed my eyes fearing to see the moment of his going down to water and I thought that it would be better if my memory saves the picture of his ‘voyage’ with Sensei. However, having closed my eyes for a moment I suddenly heard the voice of surprised Tatyana, “Is he alive or what?”

I opened my eyes and saw with astonishment that my friends were observing with curiousity Sensei and the dolphin which was still in his hands. The water was rippling in the regions of the dolphin’s tail. First I thought that it only seemed to me. But in a few instants the tail waved again, even much strongly. We couldn’t be wrong. The guys noticed it, too. We exclaimed with joy, “Look, look, he is alive!”

Our noise attracted attention of the guys who were left on the shore and they made an attempt to come closer to us. While we wanted to near Sensei. But Nikolai Andreevich stopped all of us, “Keep quiet, don’t make noise. Stay still. Don’t scare him…”

Our group stood frozen, looking at it with admiration. The movements of the dolphin were weak first as if he recovered after a long slumber. But a bit later they became much more brave and intensive. The most amazing was the fact that this wild wounded dolphin obviously experienced the pain from a man who almost killed him but he didn’t even try to loose from the hands of Sensei though the last one only supported him afloat. On the contrary, judging by vivid movements he looked as if he was filled by life energy. It seemed that the dolphin somehow understood it and didn’t hurry up to slip out from careful and kind hands.

In some time the dolphin threw up from the water his flat tail which was similar to a whale’s one, but in a miniature, and dove after slapping with it funnily on the water. Coming to the surface not far from Sensei, he showed his side and balanced some time on the surface without assistance ‘observing’ Sensei who has been recently holding him in the hands. Sensei also froze looking at the dolphin. In a few instants obviously after this silent ‘dialogue’ finished, the dolphin turned around and slowly swam to the depth of the sea. Contrary to our expectations he didn’t dive anymore but tried to be on the surface. Sensei cast a glance at him, then dipped into the water, sleeked his hair and started to come back to the shore.

When we all crowded on the shore, Victor remarked, “He is still swimming weakly. As far as I know, dolphins are high-speed creatures.”

Eugene responded him in his favorite country dialect, “If you were beaten so by the gaff, I would look at you swimming… It’s good that at least he can tow his body like that.”

“Yes, he is still weak,” Sensei uttered thoughtfully looking how the dark silouhette with a half-moon fin slowly moved away from the shore, disappearing from time to time among waves.”

“I wonder, too, whether he will survive,” Eugene said busily.

“Keep your fingers crossed,” Stas replied.

Eugene immediately followed his advice. He crossed his fingers, put off his hat and touched his head. Stas noticed his movements and smiled, “You should better touch wood, not the head.”

“Blockhead is like wood,” Eugene answered in such a manner as if it were just triffles.

We smiled. And having waved his hand towards Eugene Stas turned to us, “Help us bring the stuff. We have no longer desire to continue fishing.”

We didn’t need to be asked twice. We went all together to take out fishing tackle, rucksacks in order to unload the air-bag. The guys floated the boat to the shallow water and dragged it along the coast like barge haulers.

While we were making our preparations, the strong wind has risen. Leaving this place we threw again a glance at the sea looking for our dolphin. But he was not seen anywhere between the huge waves. We heard a sad cry of a seagull whirling over the water… Well, unfortunately, everything has its beginning and its end in this life.

We hung our heads. It seemed that nobody wanted to believe that our almost alive dolphin sank though the common sense told quite the contrary. For some time we were going not saying a word, looking back with hope at the place where the dolphin had been seen for the last time. But every time we lowered our gazes to the sand underfoot.

“Well, finally,” Eugene was the first who couldn’t stand this mournful general silence. “Dolphins don’t sink. They are fishes!”

“They do,” Sensei replied with even and calm voice, without a slight trace of any emotions. “There are cases when they sink within one minute, especially when they are excited or scared. But if they sink, it happens quickly… As far as that goes, dolphins are not fishes at all, they are warmblooded mammals like human beings. They possess well-developed brain. And by the way, the cerebral cortex of dolphins is bigger than the cortex of humans.”

“Therefore it has more convolutions than some Homo sapiens,” Nikolai Andreevich added in jest looking at Eugene.

Sensei smiled and went on, “Like humans, dolphins react to different situation, including the stressful ones. They also possess fear.”

“I can’t grasp it anyway, how can they sink?” Eugene shrugged his shoulders, either really not understanding or pretending.

“It’s simple,” Sensei answered. “They just swallow the wrong way like people. If a dolphin is under stress, it’s enough that water goes through blowhole to lungs… and that’s all.”

“Through a blowhole?” Ruslan asked again. “It’s something like human nostile, or what?”

“Right, but it is located in the very top of the head. It is directly connected with lungs.”

“That’s great! Just sneeze once and the whole sea…” Ruslan didn’t continue his phrase letting the inertly smiling crowd to finish his “brilliant guess” by itself.

“I wonder how he coughs in the water,” Andrew inquired.

“He doesn’t. Dolphins never cough.”

“Lucky they are … these warm-blooded mammals,” Victor envied because he suffered from coughing from the very morning. “They might never catch a chill.”

“Why am I not a dolphin?” Eugene uttered dreamingly.

“You are wrong,” Sensei replied to Victor. “They got sick the same way like us. We have even identical microorganisms which cause respiratory diseases. But unlike us dolphins endure badly the chill. Very often it turns into pneumonia and almost always it ends with the death of an animal.”

Eugene made a surprised glance, “Really? Then it’s good that I am not a dolphin.”

“But if they swallow water the wrong way, how can they live there?” Kostya inquired.

“They die only when they are seriously stressed, when they panic, actually the same way like people. Apart from that they live quite well! They have such a good system of muscular and respiratory valves which ideally functions in the most severe external conditions.”

“Well,” Nikolai Andreevich sighed. “It means that the fear equals all.” And he asked Sensei in a while, “Then it means that the psychological factor is the same way important for dolphins during apnoea as for people, isn’t it?”

“You are completely right.”

“Apnoea?” Ruslan wondered. “And what is this?”

Eugene hemmed.

“Here you are… Apnoea means breath-holding. Even I know that!”

Ruslan glanced at aqualungs in the air-bag and relied with a crooked smile, “Of course, you should know that.”

“Don’t worry,” Stas invigorated him. “If you dive like us, you will know it, too.”

“Right, with a head to the sand,” Eugene added with a smile and looked at Stas.

They both laughed, obviously having recollected some funny case from their past. Offended Ruslan said, “Am I an ostrich or what?”

“If not, you will become the one,” Eugene declared kindly, exchaning again glances with Stas. The guys felt some dirty trick in his words and insisted on telling what was hidden behind these grins. The fellows told a story about their first unlucky experiments when they had been learning diving. Actually there was nothing special but surely it looked quite comical due to Eugene’s interpretation. At the end Stas uttered, “It would be great if people were able to stay long time under water without additional devices like aqualungs.”

“It’s quite real,” Sensei remarked as if by the way. “The brain of the human has a lot of programs. You just have to know how to use these abilities… What is human breathing in fact? It’s an interchange of air breathes in and out. This process takes place due to diaphragm and ribs muscles contraction which causes the volume change of the thorax. The gas exchange takes place on the level of lungs alveolus and it enriches blood. The blood transports oxygen among cells and extracts carbonic acid. And what does regulate this breathing rhythm? The breathing center which is located in the medulla. There is hidden a golden key to the ‘switch of speed’.”

“Do you mean the programs?” Kostya asked.

“Right.”

Eugene grinned self-satisfied.

“Aha, and the key lies there like in a fairy tale, and nobody knows where it lies. And those who know keep silent as they cant’ reach it through the hole.”

“You are wrong,” Sensei smiled. “Those who want always will find… and will reach. There are plenty of such practices of breath-holding. You just have to look for them and not to be lazy, but don’t tell us stories that there no of them only because you are unaware of that. Let’s take for example a practice of breathing control in yoga. It’s called Pranayama. Though in its original form it was given namely as an instrument for activization of one of the most ancient reflexes of a human, a ‘submergence reflex’, and not into the water but into the depth of the consiousness where a human gradually neared the source of the soul. But ourdays this practice is rather distorted by people and is boosted into the whole teaching where yogis mostly waste their time and energy for learning how to control the breathing, to speed up some processes in the body, for example, to heal wounds or slow down for example the general metabolism or beats… It’s also good, of course, because this way people learn how to control their thoughts. But they knocked to pieces the whole and complicated the simple. Therefore modern people, when practicing it, see the piece and think that it’s the very whole…” and Sensei added addressing himself again directly to Eugene, “So if you want just to hold your breath, you may use this practice as well. The choice is wide. The technique of breath-holding in the alternating consciousness was known to people from the time immemorial. This practice can be found everywhere: in Tropical Africa, in Northern America, in Lapland, on the Bali island. I don’t even mention those techniques which are inherited from one generation to another by people who live on sea fruits, for example pearl hunters.

Eugene pondered for a while and started to debate aloud.

“Well, tell me how long can someone stand under water without air? A maximum of two minutes, and only if it’s a professional diver. I mean, without aqualung,” the guy specified.

“He’s right,” Nikolai Andreevich agreed. “Then it comes to anoxia, simply to say, to the lack of oxygen which leads to irreversible processes in the substance of the brain. A man loses consciousness…”

“And that’s all folks, alles kaput,” Eugene finished the sentence supporting his ‘companion’.

However, Sensei objected, “In alternating consciousness even a not trained person is able to stay much longer than any professional diver.”

“Well, Sensei, don’t tell us stories,” the guy didn’t believe.

“Let’s bet on it?” Sensei proposed immediately with a mysterious smile.

“With you, Sensei? Not at any price,” Eugene waved away at once under the general laughter of the guys. “Am I a self-murderer? I know anyway that I won’t stay under water so long as you.”

“No, I don’t count myself,” Sensei calmed him. “Let’s take anybody from this gang, chose yourself.”

“You say, it’s my choice?” Eugene smiled archly and started to ‘drill’ us with his eyes. This very moment, as bad luck would have it, the grip of my plastic sachet was torn by pure accident.

“Oh,” my person uttered with confusion and started to collect quickly fishing tackle and some other things from the sand.

Andrew and Volodya who were walking close to me, began to help me. Eugene drew his attention to the ‘object’ of his winning choice and declared self-satisfied, “Let’s take her for example.”

“Alright,” Sensei agreed. “Do you mind?” He asked me.

I was so naпve to take it just for a funny joke and decided to back Sensei. I declared in the same self-satisfied manner as Eugene, “Of course, I agree. What’s the problem? I’m a hereditary diver of the seventh generation. Do you know how Siberians dive? Oh! They dive in the mountains of Altai and come to the surface in Kara Sea!

“Do they come to the surface or float on the surface drowned?” – Eugene specified with a malicious smile.

“It depends on your luck,” I answered.

Our dialogue made all the guys laugh.

“Well, well,” Eugene rubbed his hands anticipating his victory. “And what will be the prize of our bet?”

“Choose by your own!” Sensei answered merrily.

“Then.., then,” the guy was confused.

“One day on duty in the camp,” Stas gave him a hint as it was their turn to do it.

“Right you are,” Eugene expressed his consent. “One day on duty in the camp! That is to say all those things like tidying-up-with-a-broom, washing-dishes, making-fire and all other small and boring routine things in the camp.”

“Alright,” Sensei said. “As soon as we arrive to the camp, we’ll start the competition.”

They shook hands with each other and Volodya agreed to be a referee of the bet. We continued our way.

Eugene was so inspired by his obvious advantage that he began to ‘psychologically influence’ his opponent, preparing me to the cleaning procedures and explaining in details what I had to do.

“Maybe I should also clean the dust on rush?” I suggested to him, laughing and keeping up this fun.

“No, well, don’t trouble yourself!” satisfied Eugene started to treat me with kind gloves. “We are gentlemen. Let’s not go beyond the camp chaos.” And he added at once, “However, if madam has a desire, she can not only clean the dust from rush. She can wipe that small puddle.”

Eugene pointed out to the sea and everybody burst out laughing again. This way we were going to the shelters all the time exchanging ‘mutual compliments and concessions’ with him under the roar of other guys.