Archimedes
I have always been impressed and inspired by people like Archimedes. After all, only thanks to their minds, Homo sapiens still somehow survives on our fabulous and dangerous planet.
The old man Archimedes was sitting in his courtyard and could be counting the surface area of his body, or the mass of the moon without Amstrong. Is it little? As suddenly to him in the courtyard broke to crazy frightened people and interrupting each other, began to exclaimingly explain that a large enemy fleet is approaching. In an hour or so, he will be on the shore. We have nothing to protect the city, so all hope is on you, Archimedes. You are the smartest person in the world, if you don’t lie to us. Invente something. Save us!
How will I save you? They are on ships, there are many, and I am alone and I am under seventy.
Well please please please please! If you do not save us, we will all die. All hope is for you, Archimedes. Less than an hour left, put on your sandals and start doing something.
How do you imagine it? What should I do? Stop screaming, I don’t like that. Now we have something sensible. Well, here, at least take all the mirrors you have out of the house, and there we will see. All, let us go out, or my cow is frightened, because of you her milk may go missing. Yes, you didn’t hear the ordinary mirrors. Run if you want to live. We meet on the shore.
It is not known whether Archimedes burned enemy ships or not. History is silent. But, in any case, from thousands of mirrors, the enemies on the ships caught such "rabbits" that did not see even the most stupid assistant of the welder.
So the enemy fleet had to urgently deploy the hole from Syracuse.
Of the people living today, like Archimedes, I know one personally – this is of course my old friend, the former KGB-eshnik, Yuri Tarasovich. Every time he struck me with his systematic approach, speed and the power of thought. He has never been in a deadlock in his life, simply because he did not know that the situation was deadlocked. For Yuri Tarasych, there is no highlight and no subwoofer in the problem of the wolf, goat and cabbage. Ordinary logistics, nothing more.
Several years ago, Yuri Tarasovich went to rest somewhere to friends in the Caucasus, and at the same time took his grandson Yuri and his young wife Ole with him. And Tarasych was more fun and for young people it was something like a wedding trip.
Nature is stunning, but from the house to the bank of the river to melt kilometers three by the serpentine, and the water in the river to touch about minus thirty degrees, especially not float, especially in the heat. But somewhere to go, Yura and his wife went down to the river twice a day: in the morning and after lunch. And the grandfather did not go to the river at all, he burned up, not far from the house. Why go there and waste the energy? He is no longer a boy, he is eighty. The river is well seen from above.
And, we must say that Yura's wife is a very sporty lady, she has been engaged in mountain climbing since childhood and even conquered something like that there. One day, when the newlyweds were to go for lunch, Olya decided to play her husband. She told Yura to go ahead, and she would go down again and very soon catch him.
Yura sneezed, without thinking back, gathered a blanket, towels, phones, bottles of water in the backpack and went up the serpentine.
And at this time, Olya began to conquer a wall of almost twenty meters high. Olli calculated that in eight minutes she should have already been upstairs. On top, where, without suspecting anything, he read the book Yuri Tarasovich and where only in half an hour the tired and surprised Yurk should approach.
In principle, a great plan for nineteen years.
Tarasovich, sitting on a climbing chair, was really reading the book, but suddenly, through the noise of the wind and the riot of the river below, he heard some strange whirling. I listened. It seemed. No, it didn’t seem right now. I laid off the book, stretched well, put on the clothes, quickly approached the edge of the breakout, looked down with interest and saw. Olya, with all the twenty fingers of her hands and legs, fell into a rocky rock and could not move, but breathed hard and trembled from fear and fatigue. Of the clothes on her only a swimsuit and the whole body scratched to blood. Apparently it has long passed the point of return and now, almost at the top, it has stopped. There was some meter to the end, maybe even seventy centimeters, but they can no longer be overcome, absolutely nothing to cling to, and it is even more impossible to descend.
It was only to wait for the forces to leave the stupid climbing woman, her hands to shake up and she will die in terrible, but short-lived torments. I probably didn’t have to wait more than a minute. Yuri Tarasovich assessed the situation, sat on the edge of the abyss, smiled, blinked at Ole and calmly said:
All right, I’ll take you out now, don’t worry.
By the way, I, many times scrolling this story in my head, thought for a long time - and what can be done in such a pathetic situation?
I have not invented anything explicit. You won’t run behind the rope, you won’t call the rescuers either. Yes, even for a sweaty hand you will not catch it, you will simply not reach out, and if you reach out, you will not hold it anyway. It only remains to say goodbye to a man, or to jump after him. Just an impasse situation, or at best a scene from a nightmare.
But what did our wise grandfather Yuri Tarasych do? He took off his shirt without a pause and said:
“Ola, I’ll give you a shirt now, but you don’t hold it with your hands, don’t hold it, just hold onto the wall as you hold onto it. Bite the shirt stronger, try the root teeth. Don’t be afraid, your teeth will withstand three of your weights. As you eat and you are ready, wash and I will pull you out, and you just help me with your hands and feet.
Olya bitten the T-shirt, shut up and already in ten seconds was up. Grandfather pulled not very hard, fifteen kilograms not more, but this was enough, the rest Olya did herself.
Yuri Tarasovich took her away from the edge of the abyss, and then, with all his strength, he answered Ole a good pencil, sat down on the ground and fell on the side.
He had a heart attack. A week in the Baksanian hospital failed, all the rest of the young man ruined.