- 27/02/2013
- Posted by: essay
- Category: Free essays
Imagine, when I was a conscript I had a chance to envisage a real hermit. This was barely accidental. We were celebrating the day of my conscription when an old friend of mine put forward an idea to visit his amusing and somewhat weird acquaintance, who used to serve in the army and had a special lifestyle. Obviously I had lots of questions, but my rather tipsy friend said it had to be a surprise for me and that incited my interest very much.
When we got to the place the strange man lived in I noticed nothing special, just an ordinary house, nevertheless I remained very excited and was looking forward to meeting the “hermit” as my friend called him. We knocked at the ordinary door which was opened by an ordinary at (first sight) man. He was mature, fat, long-haired with large fiercely looking eyes. He seemed quite ignorant and haughty to us. However beer and hamburgers can make magic to people, so in 15 minutes we were laughing at funny jokes about the army the amiable “hermit” made.
I was just on the point of asking why people called him a “hermit” when suddenly he closed his eyes and simply fell on the table. He seemed to be sleeping. My friend gave me a sign to be quiet and went out of the room. In a minute or so he was back with an alarm clock in his hand. Extremely loud sound of an alarm clock made the “hermit” stand up, widely open his eyes and start changing his cloths with unbelievable speed. We hadn’t even noticed where our clumsy and uncouth fellow could get his dapper army uniform and how he managed to put his fat body into it. At first I thought I had a hallucination, but then I saw a satisfied smile on the face of my friend and realized that that was the surprise prepared for me. “That’s the reason why everybody calls him a “hermit”: all his situation was based on nothing else, but an unconditioned reflex, gained in the army, where a maniac-lieutenant successfully made a scapegoat of this guy” – my friend explained to me. The “hermit” had few friends and the shock every of his few girlfriends experienced prevented him from getting married. After accumulating a sufficient experience of parting, he at last decided to lead a lonely life.
All my way long to the barren lands of Colorado – the location of my future military unit, I tried not to think of a man able to put on his uniform in a few seconds on hearing a sound of alarm-clock… Anyhow now I had not only theoretical backgrounds for serving in the army, but also a kind of practical examples.
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