Alexandr Korol

he was about to punch me too. That’s the kind of people there were. Same thing happened when I was at a clinic with a friend. She went up to the front desk to ask something, and some woman in the waiting area started screaming at her, “Where do you think you’re going? Don’t come near us! We’re all going to die!” — hysterically, like she was ready to stab everyone. And see, when the news of the pandemic first broke but I hadn’t experienced it directly yet, at first I even felt something strangely positive, like “oh, something’s finally happening in the world.” Like any naive youngster might react. But it quickly stopped feeling positive when I saw how people turned savage. And even more so when I saw how people actually started dying. I thought, “Whoa... this is real. This is serious. And there’s nothing amusing about it.” And, you know, like many creative people, I’ve always buried myself in my work, like an ostrich with its head in the sand. Creativity is like an alternative world — you retreat from the world of people into your own. And that’s exactly what I did — I escaped into my world and I’ve stayed there to this day. That’s why I almost never talk about the pandemic. Only when it first started. After that, I almost never bring it up. I never talk about any other world events either. Why? Because when you talk about something, you’re plugging into it. That’s what pulls people into that negative, stressful mindset, and makes them see the world through a more agitated, irritated lens. That’s why I’m just waiting for all these things to pass so that people can recover, stop being so nervous and anxious, and just calm down. I really want that, because I’m very sensitive to people. And since I travel a lot, I’ve often had to observe closely in which country, in which city, I feel less of that negativity, anxiety, and stress from people. Some nations or cities are more affected by propaganda from social media and news. Some places are more stressed, others less. So, am I happy about the pandemic? No. I believe that before the pandemic, each year was clear and conscious for every person, no matter how developed or undeveloped they were. But since the pandemic, it’s as if everyone has gone insane. No one understands whether a year has passed or three, what happened a month ago, or even a week ago. Everyone is in some kind of fog, everyone has dementia, people are losing hair, everyone is getting sick, all the frames, boundaries, and values — everything — seems to have been erased. It’s as if all family values, all moral values, are just crumbling. Society has become very strange. So, is it connected to my “Alternative History”?