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[Alexandr Korol]

even if you wanted to, you can’t focus on it when someone tries to pull you into that kind of conversation. And so, since you’re in the world of heaven, you just say to your friend: “Listen, yeah, there was a fence — doesn’t matter.” It’s like you literally can’t even think about it. Before, if a person was living in the underworld, it would have been enough just to see some backyard with a fence on social media or on TV, and instantly a negative reaction would be triggered inside. You’d tense up, tighten within, because you’d immediately recall that stressful situation when your fence was broken a year ago. Even if you didn’t want to think about it or feel it, those emotions would swallow you instantly — just from remembering the fence. That’s what the underworld is. But when you’re in the world of heaven — even if you talk about it — it simply can’t switch you back there. And really, you can’t even talk about it, because in your head it all just gets erased. Still, of course, someone else can remind you. There can still be people in your life who bring up certain situations from your past life — not with bad intentions, but just as a reminder. And it’s true: if you really sink into it and start discussing it deeply, you immediately feel yourself falling from heaven, descending down. The conclusion is simple: even a conversation about the everyday pulls you straight into the everyday, and a conversation about the underworld pulls you straight into the underworld. And you can literally feel it, exactly as I described before — the heaviness, the weight, the sense that this elevated, expanded state of yours starts to deflate. Everything around you shrinks, turns gray, as if walls are pressing in on you. And imagine — many people live in this state constantly. For them, it’s the normal, the default. They don’t even know anything else exists, and they believe that’s just how life is for everyone. But when you’ve been in the world of heaven, the contrast lets you truly feel the difference. That’s a very curious observation.

Another observation from my week of adventures: the fact that I’m physically traveling right now actually has no real connection and no real importance for Volume Nine of “Alternative History”. It’s not the point. My journey — the one that begins this ninth volume — is a different kind of journey, not physical but sacred. Of course, I’m traveling physically too, but that’s just coincidence.