'Who's that?' I asked from behind the door. 
'The wolf' - was the answer. 
The feeling of nausea I had was like neither fear nor disdain heightened from horror. I did not open the door. I ran to the bedroom and hid behind the closet. I was five or six. My mother had gone to buy bread and had left me alone at home.

'Who's that?' still sleepy at seven in the morning, I asked from behind the door.

'Open the door. Police...', showing open license from the peep-hole.

'Wait. I'm getting dressed,' I said.

While I was putting on my clothes, the one behind the door kept constantly ringing the bell.

'Coming...' I screamed from inside.

Two rank police officers, one of them armed with the gun, entered.

They uttered some last name, giving psychological tinge to their voices.

'It's not me', I explained.

They started scrupulously examining picture in my personal ID card and found out that there was some hypothesis. 'So what that's not you. We couldn't make a mistake, could we? This could not be you too'.

They walked away without apologies of disturbing the sleep and causing trouble as if I had to be thankful to them trying to catch a criminal who could kill me, rob me, or in other words, do some harm to me.

As soon as they were gone, I lit a cigarette and, deeply absorbing the smoke, even though the day before I had sworn not to smoke the first cigarette earlier than at twelve in the afternoon, I thought of who they were looking for.

Little later, I heard a noise from outside. It was a roar full of cursing and incoherent exclamations of someone resisting. It was clear. The two neighboring buildings have the same structure and look almost the same. They have found the suspect on the same floor in the next building. I went to the window. It seemed like a picturesque drawn on this seven o'clock bright morning tranquillity.

Two high-rank police officers with imperative demeanor were standing in front of the building, while other sergeants were carrying the suspect to the "Black Raven" police car.

'Let me go. I have nothing to do with that. That's not me. Let me go. You.....', the suspect was shrieking and resisting. Leaning and getting force from his ankles, he tore himself off from the sergeants' paws and started running away. Cracking of the machine gun proceeded the command-warning: 'Freeze or we'll shoot', and the seven o'clock bright morning peace absolutely collapsed blocking the suspect's way.

Some curious heads emerged on the windows of two fourteen -stored buildings while the suspect was being placed in a grating police car in from of those unwashed, half asleep, half awake looks. Later, some of them exchanged opinions from building to building and window to window and shut themselves in their apartments again.

Police officers and the suspect had seized my morning sleep which, according to the doctors, is more useful than the whole night. But in turn, they had given me one thing that I love - while everybody is still asleep, be an early morning bird, make coffee and yet unwashed and undressed, enjoy it strolling in the kitchen, close my ears from fresh news and national songs of the song-and-dance group oozing from the national radio, go through old magazines and newspapers scattered here and there, feel and take pleasure from the momentum of my brain with all its cells shut against all sorts of information, repellent to that stream of events and inwardly capable of self-undoing.

To be frank, this is my cherished moment which I rarely enjoy because of going to bed late and waking up late. God bless those police officers who, carrying out their responsibilities, woke me up and did me that favor.

However, my kitchen traffic does not completely appeal to me. There is some pretense. My head, like shapeless substance, is full of extraneous ideas. And the radio news releases seem to penetrate freely instead of caressing my ears.

It would be worth making discreet insight on perfection of the structure of the human body, had not the seeping news on the radio force to make a contradictory discernment.

According to RIA, terrorists have exploded the Armavir station. Casualties are reported. Circumstances are being investigated.

What is sympathy? - one thinks in the morning when it is not at all the time to think about. Is it s a feeling or an action? If it's a feeling, it should coincide with that of those present at the moment of explosion at the station. If it's an action, it should be similar to that of police officers doing their duty or terrorist actions. (In fact, I wonder what my suspect neighbor's fault was. Maybe he is not guilty at all. Maybe it is misunderstanding). If it's neither feeling nor action, it is like my morning peaceful, insensible, indifferent coffee making, unhurried walking to work or the simple, unproductive and cynical discussions with coworkers.

'It might be the Chechens. No. It's the Russians in order public opinion to be....., etc.'

If your rebellious neighbor were to shot at seven o'clock beaming morning serenity, you would have run down to the street and had fallen into the hands of those intrusive who from year 33 AD up to date explore and are convinced, examine and are assured, are confident and go for washing their hands cemented with blood. In fact, should I not have ID card at that time, I could have been the one lifelessly sprawled under the debrises of that brilliant morning harmony and that suspect could have stranded his fingers into my wounds in order to be assured about reality of my inglorious death.

In 1985, when I was in the Soviet Army, I had a similar accident. A soldier from the neighboring military quarter, hearing the news on his sweetheart's marriage, had committed suicide, blowing up his throat with a deadly bullet of a Vetrovoje Rudjio gun. The time the suicide news had spread, we were put into order and taken marching to see the dead body. As a lesson explaining that extraordinary excursion, we were advised with soldier-like logic: 'To love, indeed, is wonderful. However, it is not worth taking your life away because of some bitch'. Marching back to military quarters after witnessing the scene I recalled how once, being a college student, my teacher took me to the Museum of Antiquity to see the fossil of a mammoth.

Striving not to leg behind in the order, I was recalling memory of my adolescence and laughing on the idea that the mammoth could have also committed suicide because of some bitch, about which, naturally, the teacher could have not discussed with underage students.

Times have faded away like a wink from that miserable mammoth to that heart-broken soldier, and yesterday's suspect. Times have passed assigning Jesus Christ, the greatest and the wisest victim, its guardian.

There is nothing exceptional. I will wash myself to avoid of being unclean as to be unwashed, not having the mouth refreshed with TIC-TAC and not deodorized underarms with REXONA contravene with the contemporary standards of coexistence.

I will wash my face leaving all my morning feelings, sagacity, recollections and anything that will hamper me from being a punctual and ordinary worker to wane with the water rolling down my face and then, will go to earn my daily bread.

We are the victims of a more appalling and overwhelming epidemic reigning in this world rather than pestilence and AIDS. Coexistence is the epidemic, and ego is its cause. The one who does not adjure his ego is destined to a slow, lasting loss, and vice versa, the one who adjures his ego, is honored with admission to a bright and blazing room.... of a psychiatric hospital.

The feeling of nausea I had was like neither fear nor disdain arisen from horror. I had not opened the door in front of the wolf. I had run to the bedroom and hidden myself behind the closet. I was about five or six years old. My mother had left me alone at home and had gone to buy bread. When she returned, she found me shivering with my face white like a wall plaster.

'They were knocking at the door right now; Who's that? I asked; 'It's the wolf', they replied; I was telling my mother, breathlessly crying.

My mother hugged me and snuggled my face simultaneously drying out my tears. She was explaining to me with her calm voice that the wolf was not a bad animal, and that God had also created him.

'So, I was supposed to open the door?, being encouraged with my mother's words I asked her with a gasp of relief.

'No', my mother smiled. 'Of course, you have done the right thing keeping the door closed'.

I do not recall what other questions I asked her and what answers I got, but I remember very well that was the day I first stepped into this world.

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan