By: Gleb Belousov

No Matter How Much You Feed the Wolf, He Will Keep Look Into the
Forest

“Looking at these people makes me a little sad.” I said this to my friend

Alex while we were looking at our classmates dancing on the deck of the
ship, the one near the bow. Their clothes were beautiful and expensive.
My smoking was expensive too, I rented it for the prom that our school
had organized for us. However, my friend Alex wore a blue T-shirt and
jeans. He didn’t even comb his hair. All of that made him stand out from
the crowd of teenagers clothed in black suits and elegant dresses. At
least, he looked natural, unlike others who were similar to monkeys from
the circus forced to wear a coloured costume.

Surrounded by the scent of marihuana and alcohol, students danced to

the loud music that made any conversation almost impossible. You had
to scream in the ear of your companion to let him hear you. For the
dancers, it wasn’t a big deal, but for those who observed them from
aside, it was. For all these reasons, my throat and ears were hurting and
I just silently stood near my friend waiting for the ship to moor. At least, I
had an opportunity to admire the Saint-Laurent at night. Its black water
reflecting the light from the windows of houses had a hypnotizing effect
on me.

The boredom, the water and the inability to have a long dialogue with
Alex made me think a lot about my life. I thought that if I tried to say
something to my friend using the Russian language, I would probably
need to repeat it one or two times, but if I tried to say something using
French, I would need to repeat my phrase again and again. I decided to
verify it, so I approached one of my teachers and asked: “Are you
enjoying this party?”
“Sorry, what?” he replied.
I repeated, “Are you enjoying this party?”
Honestly trying to understand what I was telling him; he turned his ear
towards me and bent a little.
I repeated again, using all of my knowledge to pronounce every word
correctly “I said, are you enjoying this party?”
The teacher pointed toward his ear, showing that he didn’t understand
what I was telling him. I decided that it was enough and returned to my
friend.

He asked me:” What did you ask this bald man?”

“Nothing, I just wanted to socialize a little bit” I answered.
“Maybe that’s why you feel sad when you look at other people having a
party? You want to be surrounded by humans, but you aren't fit for it.”
"What do you mean?" I replied. " Back in Russia, I was always the most
extroverted guy in the class"

A week later, we had a ceremony where the school was giving us the
diplomas. It wasn’t actual diplomas; it was just a symbol to congratulate
us for finishing high school. I guess it was right to underline such an
important event because we had to put in a lot of effort to receive our
diplomas. My French lessons can be a good example of this. I remember
all these pages filled with my writing that even I have a hard time
understanding. Those pages were covered in red colour which
underlined and circled multiple errors.

Before receiving our well-earned diplomas, we had to wait behind the

scenes to be called on by one on a scene. We were supposed to take
the diploma, say to which college we will go and give a handshake to the
director. There were a lot of students, so I had to wait a long time before
going on the scene. To fight against my boredom, I looked around,
searching for someone who speaks the same language that I speak. It
was much easier for me to make connections with those people. Finally,
I saw someone who I knew spoke Russian. I spoke a little with him, but
soon he was called to receive his diploma and left. Then, I found another
one. It was a girl with red hair from Saint Petersburg. I enjoyed chatting
with her, but after ten minutes she had to go on the scene too. I had time
to find another one before being called to the scene. I took my diploma,
said that I will go to Dawson College and shook the hand of the director.
Then, I went down from the stage. People to whom I spoke behind the
stage were all here. I felt a big relief when I saw all of them. It was like I
was again in my class in Moscow chatting with my friends without any
need to always rip through the language barrier.