Page 98

[Alexandr Korol]

not reveal myself or they’d take me. That’s how it was. And then about half a year later, or maybe a year, but some time after that, I began insisting that she introduce me to Big Alexander. She asked why, and I told her that I didn’t feel comfortable among my peers, people my age, because they had all these shallow values, desires, their attitude toward life and their view of the future had nothing in common with mine, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I understood that I was young, but I felt like I was super smart, as loud as that may sound. And it was like I was surrounded by idiots who only thought about stuffing their stomachs, showing off, deceiving everyone, and being liked. And to me, that all seemed so primitive. And all those guys would point fingers, asking why I didn’t have a car, why I didn’t want a car, why I dressed weirdly, why I listened to weird music and watched weird movies. But in fact, I was avoiding everything that actually, I would say, corrupts ethics, morality, and people’s minds. I simply avoided all that, but the way they saw it — if you weren’t like them, then you were already considered weird. I really didn’t like that, it weighed on me, especially during that transitional period, the end of school and the beginning of university. And I understood that if there was someone who could confirm that I wasn’t just some imaginative kid, that what I was feeling wasn’t just in my head, and everything I was seeing wasn’t imagined, and that maybe I really was some kind of genius, a scientist, that I could actually be a scientist — then why not? If there are people or organizations out there who understand these things and are looking for gifted people around the world, then I was all for it — take me. Naturally, that was my mindset. But no one took me. They gave me freedom and allowed me to write books. Well, that’s wonderful. So here I am, writing books. I don’t bother anyone. I’m still writing to this day. So for some reason, Valentina had this fear that if I told people who I was — although I myself didn’t even know who I was — then they would come and take me. That’s what she was afraid of. And she said, “You don’t need that, it’s better to be free, to live like an ordinary person, you don’t need all that.” But naturally, I had these movie-like associations — that maybe there really is some kind of organization, some secret agency that trains child spies, so to speak, or maybe they research aliens and all things paranormal. And I thought, “Wow, so there are others like me, and they’ll explain to me who I am. And maybe I even have some powers and I’ll save the world and help everyone.” So I didn’t view it as something bad.