So, it's time to start a new journey.

Fate has brought us to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, four hours away from Durham. It looks like a small village that just happened to have an ocean nearby. The local parties are similar to the ones in our village near Sobinka, where the entrance to the disco costs ten rubles and you can dance to a tape recorder, and the youth dress in colors as if they've adopted fashion from road workers.

In Myrtle Beach, there are always tourists and work. In Durham, we couldn't find a second job in two months, all because everyone wants to work, but there are usually fewer customers in the restaurant than staff. Sometimes you can see the predatory gazes of waiters directed toward the open door, forced to pretend they are working out of boredom. During one shift from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., we would get a maximum of four tables, and on weekdays during the evening shift, there might be none at all. Americans generally don't like leaving the house, especially on Sundays. But in Myrtle Beach, there are always people.

This is a city of idle entertainment. Here you will find a haunted house, nightclubs, bars and restaurants, surf clubs, game and shopping centers, an aquarium, and a couple of rides. Everything as it should be for a village by the ocean. In general, there is another side to the coin. For me, Myrtle Beach is remembered as a city with a stunningly spacious ocean.

The first thing that comes to mind when getting out of a taxi is the smell of iodine and people in swimsuits with inflatable rings, striped towels, and beach bags. They walk right along the road to the beach. You can't see the ocean yet, but you can tell where it is by the cry of the seagulls and the direction people in swimsuits are trying to cross. Carefreeness. This word seems to hover in the air.

First thing, we buy ourselves the same striped towels at a surf shop. Actually, everything related to swimming here is called a surf shop.

What struck me most on the beach was that there wasn't a single ugly fence between hotel territories. In America, no one has privileges - private beaches don't exist. How beautiful it turns out to be when there are no privileges! When people divide something among themselves, they usually just ruin it.

It's not easy to cope with the raging ocean: a strong current throws you onto the shore. No one swims, everyone just splashes in the water. And no one tries to overcome the waves to swim out of the shallows. I never get tired in the water, I don't mind at all if it covers my head, and I always swim out far enough that the lifeguards on the beach watch me closely. I don't like it when my feet touch the bottom, and I don't have a mask to see what's underneath me. It's much more comfortable to swim when you feel only the velvet touch of the water from all sides. So the lifeguard whistles. He has a high royal chair made of wood with flakes of remaining white paint and a whistle around his neck. Even from afar, you can see the word "worry" written in large letters on his face. The lifeguards here are all the same Work and Travel students, and it seems to me that they would be very scared to save people because they have never done it before.

A walk to the center of spontaneity and revelry, near the Myrtle Beach boardwalk, shocked me. There are crowds of people here. After Durham, it's so strange to see people. We've gone wild. In Durham, you examine every person because they are a curiosity, and if you see someone after dark, you shy away from them in fear. Here, you barely have time to join the stream of people walking. Everyone is rushing toward disposable entertainment.

Inside, everything tightens from lack of habit; you feel like a savage from Cocos Island who accidentally ended up in the center of civilization. Lots of young people, all in colorful, tasteless t-shirts and shorts with silly inscriptions. No one shuffles their feet, and everyone is in a hurry. I jump away from a clown in disguise. He was swinging a shovel at people while wearing a scary severed pig's head mask. It immediately brings to mind Golding's "Lord of the Flies".

People stop and stare at those who jump on rides to the very sky and scream. It's a kind of adrenaline for those who are afraid of such thrills themselves.

This is a city where you can see the word "party" on almost every pole. As for "parties" themselves, I never saw any, except for the imitation that the youth in highlighter-colored t-shirts were trying to portray. This is a place for die-hard fun lovers. It's a pity there is nothing picturesque except the ocean.

The Ferris wheel is a small attraction. In the reading rooms of hotels, all the shelves with coupons are packed with special offers and discounts, and in guidebooks, the wheel is on the first pages. It really does look tempting.

I remember our wheel in Vladimir; it is infinitely dear to me, but my heart shudders every time some metal screeching is heard. Here, the cabin closes tightly, there is air conditioning on top and a call button in case of danger; nothing creaks or buzzes. But what a disappointment! Just gray sand, gray sky, gray city, and gray ocean.

There were so few people on the beach because it started raining that day. It began gradually, first with a rustle, hesitating, then with a cautious tapping that grew into noise, then it dared to drum and knock, and in the end, it was pounding so hard that the drops bounced off the asphalt like balls. People didn't like it; they rolled up their striped towels, crawled on the sand in a hurry, grabbing beach accessories, folding chairs bought at the surf shop, and trying to put their wet feet into flip-flops. Everyone had very unhappy faces, and I think they were swearing at each other, as if the weather had made them angry instantly, even though a minute ago they were all lying on their striped towels with peaceful faces. From a height, it was very easy to see. The wheel was turned probably five times. I was afraid that we would be turned only once, and in one turn, you wouldn't even have time to see the ocean.

And I felt somehow sad that in a city where there is such a beautiful ocean, they didn't build anything worthy of it... On the last lap, I thought deeply about this. The workers stopped the wheel, opened the glass door, and released us into the power of the rain. My feet carried me along the shore. I stood there almost alone because everyone was afraid of getting wet.

They are all already sitting in cozy cafes and villas, pouring boiling water into coffee mugs, looking out the window, and thinking how wonderful it is that they are drinking hot coffee while it's raining outside. It's like drinking tea and watching someone cry, and not even crying with them for company. In the rain, I always have a bad mood; I can't do anything about it.

I reached a wooden canopy that looked like a hut. When the weather was good, I wanted to climb onto this canopy. Actually, there is a restaurant above it, and it even has steps, and it is specially made so that it feels like you are looking at the ocean from above, and people pay more money for that. I forgot my flip-flops below and ran along the wooden path. And nails are driven into the path; they got so hot from the sun that I jumped alternately on one leg, like in hopscotch. And then I sat on the wood and dangled my legs.

Somewhere deep in the canopy, a family of Indians hid; they spread out towels and were talking animatedly in their language. Near the water, a little girl was playing with a wave, and her parents were watching her anxiously. Seagulls touched the ocean every now and then, as if competing for the softest landing. From the rain, many small dots were imprinted on the sand, as if from bullets.

And then I saw a window into the ocean. This is one of the things you think "wow!" about. A real window made of wooden twigs, and waves splashing underneath it, appearing square like steps due to the close proximity of the pillars. I really wanted to go down into the ocean along such steps, but the waves were hitting the pillars so hard that it was a bit scary.

I leaned my back against the wood and stood like that for about thirty minutes, and the drumbeat of the rain did not subside for a second. Then I detached myself from the canopy and wandered toward the hotel. I didn't care anymore whether I was wet or not, as if I had just come out of the shower.

Someone called out to me and waved. It was some surfer; I remember he had a yellow board and shorts of the same color. He said "You are beautiful in the rain", and I barely heard his words because of the noise of the rain. He smiled and walked past, standing out as a yellow spot against the grayness.

And I didn't have time to smile back because I was deeply immersed in my thoughts, but I think he noticed and wasn't offended, and then he even turned around. For a second, I felt like I was in an American Hollywood movie.

Then, for the first time in my life, I was in a real aquarium.

I didn't expect anything special from it, I was even ready for disappointment, just in case.

The most unusual guest in the ocean waters of the aquarium turned out to be jellyfish. They are more than half a billion years old, older than any other creature in the ocean. Other animals simply died out. Jellyfish have no bones, no brain, no heart, no circulatory, respiratory, or excretory systems. But something allows them to be the most common invertebrates on the planet, and their populations are growing rapidly, gradually conquering the world's oceans. The sting of a box jellyfish can kill a person in just a few minutes. Schools of these sea monsters can displace many forms of life. Jellyfish are extremely voracious and digest fish alive. Their tentacles are filled with deadly poison. So deadly that it cannot be compared to any poison on earth. Scorpion venom acts on the nervous system, rattlesnake venom destroys blood vessels, spider venom can cause damage to small tissues, and when exposed to jellyfish venom, all effects manifest at once. And antidotes for encounters with crystal monsters have not yet been invented. Jellyfish tentacles are harpoons that eat into the victim's tissue, and blood cells burst immediately.

But not all jellyfish on earth are so dangerous. For example, the "sea nettle" that we saw in the aquarium poses no threat to humans.

They swam by like fading fiery meteors. Their mesmerizing transparent sphere contracted and straightened, sometimes hiding in a deep blue porthole, then appearing again...

A phoenix bird soars to the blue skies.

A giant nuclear explosion of enormous power in slow motion. A whole universe is born before your eyes, as if something alien, inanimate, subject to nothing.

It seemed to be the most attractive place in the whole aquarium – people lined up, small children pressed their noses to the glass, and moms tried to pull them away with sighs.

Everyone felt something special in the jellyfish for themselves... From all sides, one could only hear exclamations of undisguised delight "jelly fish.. jelly fish.." Everyone feared and respected them because they behaved so majestically in the small aquarium, as if they were used to the public, as if they didn't care, as if they were performing some kind of ritual...

The ocean will always remain an unexplored mystery. It is too big to embrace, to cover it all. Sometimes it seems to us that we are conquering it, but in reality, it is the one that allows us to visit its domains, to stay for a while. If we linger, it does not keep us waiting and unleashes its oceanic power on entire villages, settlements, cities, and coasts.

The world appears before us in the form of a huge ocean. Everyone sails on their own little boat.

Someone's withstands violent winds and storms, someone's flies into splinters from any bad weather. Some resist the ocean and swim against the current.

Children have not yet learned to swim with or against the current. They dive into the depths. Adults don't dive because they don't like it when their hair is white with salt, when cold water makes their feet cramp, and when water stings their eyes. They don't like it because they are AFRAID. No matter how strong their ship is, they are afraid to even look at the underwater world. Adults look forward or look back. What is there, overboard, does not interest them at all. They consider the ocean of life to be explored, although in reality, they know nothing about it. Children guess that they are still far from knowing the world and try in every way to learn more about it. True, having become adults, they think they have reached their goal and stop searching... They put their diving masks in a far corner, feed colorful fish to cats, and stop listening to the sound of the sea in large seashells.