Maxim Mazhorin - The struggle between good and evil

Artem, seeing his angry father, took a couple of steps back and, clutching his heel against the bricks, fell to the ground with his back and hit his head. Fortunately, the earth was not very tight and the headache passed in a few minutes. When Artem fell to the ground, he could not imagine that a metal pin was protruded in two centimeters from his head. Our father looked at Artem and on the protruding pin, and said irritably: “Look where you go.” Of course, our father did not even think about his son’s safety, without mentioning love for him. I remember how my father beat Artem in childhood. I cannot say that these beatings were ruthless and necessary for the upbringing with punishments. It was rather like a mad expulsion of one’s anger. Because, when somebody punishes a child, he/she does not beat with all the might on the nape, biting his/her lower lip from mental sadistic pleasure. And as a result, after such attacks on the head, children see sparks in their heads or fly off and strike at anything with their bodies. So, this happened once with Artem, and as a result he had a small scar left on the nape, for which he was pissed off as “a piggy bank” at the school.

Once I was told a similar story: “One man took a five-year-old son to work in the garden. Parents had to plant potatoes. Father was constantly talking about this potato. He used to sit for hours thinking about where to put it, where and how much to plant. This father often suddenly started talking about this potato and mixing psychosis, anger and irritation said: “And what is that you will eat in the winter?! Is it dry pasta?!” When they arrived at the cottage and laid out the potatoes, his little son began to throw potatoes in different directions. The father warned his child and told him: “If you once again throw potatoes somewhere, I will punish you for it!” His son stayed still almost five minutes. But then he took the potato again and threw it into the nearby vegetable garden. His father full of anger ran to his son, took him by the hand, set his teeth, pressed his lower lip and flung him aside. The child fell to the ground and hit his head on a sharp, medium-sized cobblestone, inconspicuous lying in the grass. Because of craniocerebral injury the child remained disabled for the rest of his life. His father has learned to love his son; he has been courting for him about ten years. Now this man tells other people that love is something that people can forget about and forever erase from their lives. He says that people need to remove irritation, hatred and anger from their hearts forever and settle attracting merciful love there. This man was like a former alcoholic who brought his body to a very serious illness because of drinking but now after suffering, having stopped drinking a person tells other people that they should also forget once and for all what drinking is. They should forget once and for all what beer, champagne and other alcoholic beverages are. Now this man was 100% sure that ten years ago he acted very badly. He gave way to insane anger, irritation, psychosis and made an irreparable mistake in his life, which he regrets every day and night. Almost every day this man sitting at night beside his son weeps bitterly. This man once said: “My father also did not understand what is most important in this life. I remember how he ran after me through the garden because we trampled as he said a beautiful berry bushes. I remember how I ran away from my father, stumbled and fell on the path of bricks, I rubbed my face, hands and knees, they were bleeding. Of course, my father did not come to me and did not comfort me. He also did not wash me from the blood on my knees and face. My mom came out into the street, she embraced me and led me home to debride my wound. My father at this time turned around and went to restore the trampled berry bush. After the father revived the bush, constantly speaking in his beard, he went to hug our dog, then he quietly went to the chickens, whispering to them: “Do not be afraid, do not be afraid, everything’s fine.” Then he called his friend and for a few minutes, with a smile on his face, talked with him very pleasantly. My father loved everything and everyone around me, except me. When I went out into the street and caught my father’s eye, my father began to grind his teeth and be angry with me. His eyes irradiated anger to me, like my eyes, until a certain moment in my life, radiating anger and irritation to my own little son. I would gladly swap places with my son. I’d rather be disabled, but not my son. That’s what happens when you do not love your children! Nothing would have happened if I had allowed him to scatter these several potatoes around.” Now this man is not annoyed at all by his son. Now he loves him. I remember that my brother Artem said: “I’m happy to help our father, but my father constantly offends us. He is constantly annoyed and angry with us! He constantly offends me. He always scowls at me. Our father is an evil person!”

Artem always said that his father offended not him, but us, since he did not even want to think that his father offended only him, and not both of us. Speaking of the fact that his father offended “us,” Artem felt less alone.

I remember that once Artem and our father built a fence. While building a wooden fence our father offended and humiliated Artem more than fifty times. My brother heard such phrases as: “Are you brain dead?! You can’t even measure the distance from edge to edge!” Our father also told him: “Watch carefully! Are you are absolutely blind?! You look and you do not see! I think what a slow-witted you are!”

I saw the torment of Artem. I saw this horribly nasty extermination of common sense and love. When Artem did not stand such humiliation and said something to his father in return, his father immediately pointed at him his angry look and began “to beat” Artem with his anger, abuse, humiliation and resentment. Almost always our father answered Artem: “A few more remarks like that and you will qualify for punch on the nose! Snivel!” After each such phenomenon our father’s heart changed and he got angrier each time. He nourished his malice with poisoned bread, and this inner beast began to gain weight gradually.

Once I could not stand it and told our father: “You know, father, you must love your children, and not humiliate and scowled them!”

After my words our father’s look changed and if someone else was in front of him that time, he would have answered that person something stupid, continuing to enjoy with that he constantly enjoys. But this did not happen, because I was in front of him, but not someone else. My father was displeased with this, as well as the husband of my ex-girlfriend, who showed his tattoos to young girls and smoked cigarettes, telling his “delightful stories from life.” After all, how do you do what you like now, when some kind of insignificant barrier appears before you? My father stopped humiliation and resentment for about three days. When my father and Artem went to build the fence again, my father was silent, remembering my words and feeling my gaze on him, and Artem began to feel like a man and a loving son. But anyway, three days later, after thinking about the fact that I had to pull myself up and say something to my father, he again began to look for loopholes for venomous humiliations towards Artem and seeing that no one could stop him, he continued to speak angrily, as he did before.

Why do many fathers, meeting their wives with newborn children right from a maternity home, do not know whether they will love their child or will irritate him, or accidentally will push him away to bricks, iron objects or sharp stones. Or maybe some of them will beat their children and break their hands with a wrench, so the children will lose consciousness and will have to withstand a surgery operation for several hours, because they just scribbled something on the door of dad’s new car. Or maybe someone will slap on the wrist of children for dropping and smashing an expensive vase, brought from abroad, as they do everywhere. At this time blind anger points to children’s hands and says: “Swing him because he touched your expensive things with these hands”. But a vase and a car door together cannot be more expensive than children’s hands, and their health given them from birth cannot cost ten scattered potatoes all the more.