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[Alexandr Korol]

You know, every time I was in that cycle, in that state of activation, when this version of me—this version of the world, of time, this “Alternative History” — was switched on, people around me would often react in strange ways. Back then, when I was still young and writing books, I didn’t have readers. I only had classmates, university friends, camp friends, neighborhood friends, and new acquaintances from the internet. And even then, they only discovered me through my other creative work — I was involved in many things, not just writing. And often, people would ask, “What’s going on? What are you doing? What is this?” I remember one person once asked me, “Is this hypnosis?” I said, “I don’t know what hypnosis is.” Honestly, to this day, I still don’t know. No one has ever demonstrated it to me, and I’ve never studied it. Though I’ve always been curious to watch a series about Wolf Messing, I don’t actually understand what hypnosis is — life never led me to it. But this person said, “This is hypnosis.” I asked, “What’s happening?” And he said, “I feel weird. It’s like I was under some influence just now. I don’t understand where I am or how much time has passed. How do you do this?” I answered, “I don’t do anything. I don’t know. But what you’re describing — I feel the same way. But I always feel this way.” Then, another person, as we were leaving a café, said, “Oh... everything feels strange.” I asked, “What?” He said, “The city looks unrecognizable. I don’t understand. No, I mean, sure, the same buildings, the same street. But everything feels completely different. The light is different. Everything is different. The people seem strange.” I asked, “How are they strange?” He replied, “It’s like they can feel something. Everything looks the same, but I don’t understand.” Later, this person messaged me, “Listen, I decided to walk home, and I’m in shock.” I asked, “What happened?” He said, “I don’t recognize the city at all. I see everything completely differently. What is this?” I joked with them, laughing, “Well, it’s magic. I’m not exactly ordinary, you know.” And this happened often. There were cases — most often, people noticed this over time — when I would talk to someone in this state that I am in now, and when we finished our conversation, they would feel like we had been talking for 30 minutes, but in reality, five hours had passed. Or I could talk to them outside like this, but it might get dark, it might become very cold, it might get very noisy, crowds of people might pass by — but they would feel as if they were in a vacuum, in a capsule with me, talking, completely detached from everything.