Ivan.
Artistic liberty is something that you just can't rip from a modern-day man. We all see ourselves as better beings and it's only natural to bring your wild fantasies to life. Doesn't it make our life sparkle with the unexpected? Isn't it truly beautiful when you spend the whole bus trip trying to figure out if the person sitting next to you is actually a dark elf or a cute little fox?
Now, when that fantasies interfere with our real lives it's called lies and it's one thing that everyone despises on the outside just as much as adores on the inside.
Yet, it can't be that criminal if lies are well justified. After all, I'm making this all up and I don't feel a trace of guilt so far. I believe my friend Ivan feels the same.
Born in a small village, enjoyed reading books on guns and tanks from the early days, fell in love with a simple girl next door, never managed to get in her pants, fled into the big city for a worthless degree and met me - that's the story of Ivan in short. From that point of view it might seem like we're still studying, but that's not true, not me at least. For one reason or another for Ivan it took about 3 years to finish the first semester, so I believe I have the right to make a wild guess he's still crunching on the rock-hard candy of knowledge and the sore and bitter aftertaste will never leave his mouth.
Ivan wasn't exactly what white people love to call "a fun guy to hang out with". His very existence made us all stand strong and proud, filled our hearts with self-respect and gave us the essential key to enjoying lives. During our first conversation he made enough lies to fill the annual quota of an average Orange County blonde. Let's see, spent half of his life in a mental hospital, stole a bike and murdered three people while riding it, had advanced hydraulics and geophysics in high school and the last, but not the least, slept with 12 girls in the past 2 weeks. As time went on, his lies grew less entertaining or perhaps our ears developed some sort of Ivan-immunity. The last time I saw him, Ivan mentioned that he was working on his article on Kama-Sutra. As if it wasn't enough to see that he never had a chance to browse the fine book, Ivan said that that article is going to be on "implementation of Kama-Sutra in modern day sex".
As he finished briefing us on his literary plans, I couldn't help but draw everyones' attention to a exceptionally ugly couple. It's an awful thing to say, but I love ugly couples. Everyone does. Looking at these awkward unattractive failures who found mutual happiness in each other and now can't wait to hold their hands and make awful inside jokes in front of each other is the ultimate bliss. You feel relieved, you cancel all your current plans just to spend some more time with them, enjoy every second of their misery, finally smile and say "you guys are so cute, we should hang out some time more" and walk away into your lonely wretched life laughing hysterically deep inside; well, at least you're not that hopeless!
It was one of these awkward couples enjoying their first hold-hands-in-public moment, both of them our classmates. The girl was short and extremely plain looking and while that might not sound like a bad description, I must add that she was that undistinguishable and homely that the only reason I could recognize her was because she was the only female in the whole class. The gent was even shorter with a wide smile framed by a bloom of greasy black hair that he never bothered removing throughout 20-something years of his existence. He was wearing huge John Lennon glasses that perfectly stressed how comically small his head was. As I rushed into the vivid description of the couple and started picturing to my friends the painful and troublesome routine of their first intimacy I noticed a niggardly line of tears flowing from Ivan's eyes.
As we learned that day, a vulnerable romantic was dwelling all that time inside Ivan. He waited patiently for the stories of lust to end abruptly and seamlessly turn into a glorious manifestation of eternal love and devotion, but that was not to be until the rain of razor-sharp spires fell upon Ivan's demented heart exposing long-concealed sadness and grief.