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[Alexandr Korol]

That’s it. It’s exactly the one. And it says “King Tut.” At that moment, I didn’t even know that “King Tut” referred to Tutankhamun. I had been seeing all these billboards saying “king here,” “king here,” and now here it was again – “king here.” So, I buy the ring without trying it on, they put it in a little box and wrap it up. We leave the shop, and it’s already quite dark, dusk setting in. I say:

– Let’s go to the nearest café and sit down.

We sit down on the terrace of a café, on the veranda. And then my friend notices that everyone is looking at us strangely. All the people, from the cars, from the restaurant, they’re all watching us, as if there’s intense attention on us. He pointed it out and said:

– Why is everyone looking at us?

I replied:

– Well, this is it, everything I described in the books.

I take the ring out, open the box, and there’s this buzzing sound in my ears, the radiation coming from it is so strong. I put it on and feel like there’s something moving in my head, like snakes crawling around, something wiggling. I feel something shifting in my head, like snakes. And immediately I want to sit up straight, straighten my shoulders, my back, like I’m super confident, a sense of power and authority. And imagine, everyone I let wear this ring, without saying anything, and who hasn’t read my books, all say they feel the same way, like they want to lean back, sit like that, feeling like authority. They all say the same thing. I give the ring to my friend, and he’s afraid to wear it, thinking it might bring an Egyptian curse, even though it’s obviously not an ancient Egyptian ring. He puts it on, and starts feeling the same thing. He’s in shock, wondering how he’s feeling everything I felt. How can that be? What I felt, he feels too. But that’s not the point. He thought – as people often do when they try to protect themselves with their minds, those who are fearful – that maybe it’s all in his head, that he made it up. Self-suggestion – since Alexander Korol described it,