‘Seems it’s not a antritis...’ (‘Fine’, I replied.) ‘... but better let’s take an X-ray’. The doctor — my good acquaintance — continued. ‘No objections?’ — ‘Sure’.
       He wrote — not a standard application to X-ray laboratory (their office hours had finished quite a while ago) — but a personal note with polite request.
       A burly middle-aged woman — an assistant in X-ray lab:
       ‘They do know our office hours are over — but nevertheless send here their buddies... No remorse, at all... ’Cause they know I won’t reject — God forbid something will happen with my kinfolk — I’ll have to apply to them doctors, of course...’ She grumbled — but rather pretending it.
       ‘OK, put this on, sonny’.
       She tied around my waist something like a skirt — two aprons, actually — one at front, the other on the rear — with heavy lead plates in them.
       ‘You are a young lad... Take a seat’.
       Puts the same construction on my chest and back, ties a knot at my shoulder...
       ‘Why should you youth have this excessive irradiation...’
       ... so nice and kind an ‘auntie’ — X-ray-assistant...
       But I — I hardly-hardly control myself.
       Not to burst into laughter.
       It’s so ODD.
       Odd — for ME.

Instead of Epilogue

Merits previous don’t exist What do exist is: you — and life You have with you just What you have in you — hold tight!

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