Calling for rain

- So, yes, - the boy rattled in the chair, sitting more comfortably. My father has another family. There is my sister, she is four years old, as I understand. My mother pretends she doesn’t know about it. But the woman is still waiting for her father to go to her, because he apparently promised. Sometimes he asks a question. Then he runs out of the house and goes to talk to her. Sometimes even at night. In our family, this is called "CP on the object". But at all, he won’t leave, I think, he’ll just keep shaking her head. My younger brother DCP, they once came to you with your mother, but you probably don't remember. His brother's head is fine, he is in second grade and he is already playing great on computers. But with the legs, not very much. And my mom all thinks there is somewhere such a medicine or something else to cure it completely. She rides him on horses, because it is among the decapeshniks considered to be the worst, and spends money to go to Crimea to the dolphins. The horse is scared and falls from them. And about the dolphins, he said to me right away: here is my end, I will drown. And they also went to the witch in the Pskov region, she took the spoil from Lenka. And my grandmother has cancer, and she is always treated from it - sometimes in the hospital, and sometimes with folk remedies.

And you? I asked.

“And I’m itching all the time, and in school two,” said the boy with readiness. (Neurodermatitis between the fingers and the neck I have looked at before.) What would you advise me? How can I fix everything? In general, is it possible?

I don’t know, I honestly admitted. Probably not can. How can you cure your brother's DCP completely?

So what, did I go? He stood in a chair.

- Ah, I'll tell you the story of the "Call of the Rain."

and well. I love stories, he scratched his neck with his nails and prepared to listen.

It happened a long time ago, when there was the USSR. One of my Chinese acquaintances was on a business trip with colleagues in China; they studied local customs. And one day a Chinese colleague calls them: "In one province there has been no rain for four months. The crop is dying and people are starving. Three villages collected the last money and decided to bring from another province the "challenger" of rain. You will be interested to look at him. Just keep in mind: I told you nothing, because the Communist Party of China strongly disapproves of witchcraft.”

The scientists, of course, were inspired, urgently came up with some ethnographic occasion and went to the specified address. They came to the village, and on the same day they brought the "challenger" of the rain - a small dry old Chinese. He asked for a cottage on the outskirts of the village and a cup of rice a day. He refused to talk to our scientists. The village chief said: Now the wizard needs to concentrate, wait until he does his job. You can stay at my house.

On the third day it rained. The old man took his (huge by local standards) money and settled on the back (very unnecessary) path. The chief again sent him the request of the scientists. This time the magician agreed to give them some time.

- Tell me how you caused the rain, - immediately, in order not to waste time in vain, asked the old man my acquaintance. Is there a special ritual? Is it inherited?

Have you gone crazy? The old man was amazed. Did I cause the rain? What am I, Mag? Could you think that I, in my littleness, could control powerful elements?! to

But what did you then do? The Chinese disappointed. The rain is coming...

“Nobody can change anyone,” the old man said, raising his finger. Everyone can control themselves. I, without false modesty, have reached some peaks in this art. And here I came here, in the right, harmonious state, and saw that everything was wrong here. The order of things is broken, the harvest is lost, people are in despair. I cannot change that. The only thing I can do is change myself, that is, become wrong, join what is happening here. That is exactly what I did.

Well, and then what? Where is the rain?

Then, naturally, I worked with myself, bringing myself back to the right state. But since I was already one with everything else here, it was with me, gradually, with some inertia, but returned to the right path. And right for this land now is its irrigation. That’s why it rained. Not because I “called” him.

If it’s so simple, why did you take so much money for it? One of the scientists asked. The peasants had to sell their last shirt to pay you.

“Because I’m already an old and weak person, and when I join the disharmony, I get as bad as everything around me. Voluntary transition from the right state to the wrong - it is very expensive - the rain caller sign showed that the audience is over.

On the same day, he went back to his village, and the scientists went to Beijing.

The boy was silent for a long time. Then he asked:

You didn’t just tell me that, right? Do you think I...

and exactly. And you don’t even need, like the old Chinese, to join and drive yourself into general disharmony. You and your brothers and sisters are already there. At the same time, this is not all yours personally, because you are smart - so telling about the family at your age may not everyone - and, judging by the medical card you brought me, in general, absolutely healthy.

How do I get back to my “right” state?

It is stubborn and even fanatical to do all that you think is right within yourself, but you haven’t done so far.

The boy thought again.

- That is, to teach before the blue lessons, - indecisively he started. - In the morning - gymnastics for yourself and Lenke, then shed cold water and Lenka shed, do not eat chips, keep the diet that a dermatologist advised, after school with Lenka in the park on a bicycle (he rides better than he walks), do not count all in the class fools and find in them merits, as my mom advises... And you think it will help?

“There is such a simple thing as an experiment,” I shrugged my shoulders. Try it in practice and it will be clear. If you do not catch it, you will warm up.

How much should I try?

- Well, if you consider that the Chinese trained for 50-60 years, and he took three days, and you are just starting... I think that first you need to take three months, and then evaluate the intermediate results and either already score on all this, or continue... So it turns out that you will come to me with a report immediately after the summer, in early September. well is?

“Oh,” he said and left.

I remembered him and was deeply concerned about his success. At this age, it is very difficult to do something consistently for several consecutive months without any control from the side. Will he be able?

He signed up on September 2.

and Lenka! He told me from the threshold. My mom thinks the horses helped and the medicine from Germany. But we know him and I told him about the Chinese. He knew he was smart.

It is great! I cried out, thinking that hardening, training on a bicycle and the attention of my older brother were simply obliged to noticeably improve the condition of my little brother. And yet another?

The doctor said that she has a good remission, and he will leave her for at least a year.

And you?

“I just finished the year with two-three, and Dad recently said he didn’t notice how I grew up, and maybe he has something to learn from me. For example, on a diet to sit (hands were clean, I noticed it right from the threshold, but in the summer is always an improvement)... So what, it turns out, this Chinese thing really works?! to

Of course it works, I said firmly. Did you not prove it yourself?

Katherine Murashova