An old threadbare photograph: here is our ridiculous old house on the edge of the city. On the left on the third floor is my balcony, behind it is a fire escape, through which, trembling from my own courage, I went down secretly many times at night to the courtyard of the house… I love night, its shadows and smells… This is probably inherited from my father…

      But we will return on that sad day when my mother was dying, and I was in despair and did not know what to do. Dad was also there, finally, he decided! He again took on a human appearance and went to my mother. Mom was so bad that she was not even surprised:

      “Ah, Rashka?” – She said only, and closed her eyes again.

      “May I help you?” – Dad asked.

      “Do what you want,” Mom answered.

      And we began to do what we want, namely, dad asked me to sit next to him and mom and hold hands. Then he said:

      “I will do something, but you, son, do nothing, but just support me, give me strength.”

      So we connected – and suddenly I felt how a new creature appeared during this connection: not dad and son, but dad-and-son. This new creature was four times stronger than each of us individually.

      “That’s right,” said Papa mentally, “but this creature, unfortunately, was generated by the magic of number two – after all, there are two of us, and therefore nothing good can be expected.” Now I understand how he was right… But then I did not believe him, I was euphoric from my own power.

      So, we suddenly became tiny and mentally scurried into my mother’s brain.

      “Well,” said Papa, “everything is clear, the familiar black loop.”

      “Can I take it off?”

      “No, wait,” Dad stopped my attempt to unravel the black noose on Mom’s head. – Look, a black thread stretches down. If we try to remove this loop, then we will not live long, for the thread stretches to the center of aggression, mom will kill us right away. First you have to firmly tie her to the bed.

      We tied mom to the bed by the arms and legs, and then connected again. So dad began to unravel the black thread, and my mother cluttered. The rope burst, and mom tried to get her dad with her foot. If she had not been so weak, then she would have succeeded, and so dad managed to dodge. Here the second rope burst, but then dad finally took off the loop, mom calmed down relaxed and, it seems, fell asleep right away.

      “Well, son, we have done the main work, but the loop is not the whole cause of my mother’s illness. Look – here’s mom’s brain edema, from which the main pain comes. And her edema is because this part of the brain is as if fenced off from the rest. And here’s the scar on her head – now it’s clear how this ‘fence’ was made… We’ll have to break the fence, but oh, how difficult it is!”

      “And from where did our mother get all this?”

      “Once, apparently, she got to the sorcerer, and she was enchanted in such a way.”

      “And the fence… what’s it for?”

      “To let mom remember something, and forget the other things, and maybe so she remembers sometimes, and sometimes, on the orders of the sorcerer, she forgets. And the loops are meant to make her obey the sorcerer and even love him.

      We had been breaking the fence almost all night – it was a long, long fence. At the end I fell asleep, and dad did not sleep and treated his mother until morning.

      We woke up late. Mom got up by herself and went to work. In the afternoon the doctor called, I told him that my mother recovered and went to work. From his thoughts, I saw that he was very upset, because he still could not make her the correct diagnosis. If he knew what mother’s recovery would threaten him in the near future, then he would be upset much more…