A collection of Prose Reflections

A collection of short works, without a main plot, but filled with my thoughts and feelings

The Metal Pulse

Music pounds with fierce metal into the soul, and the silence is torn apart by dark forces. I've opened my consciousness to the stream of sounds; the subwoofer roars, and with fluid gestures, mysterious symbols form in the air – I fill the space with energy.

I stand in a stream of shining light, and blow after blow cuts through the air – a force within me rages and yearns to break free, but my mind is as clear as a crystal. A blow… another blow… My consciousness is unwavering. I feel HIM waking up inside, unsheathing his claws, stretching, and with a graceful movement, straightening his back.

There is no music. There is only an impenetrable armor of silence. A true, living silence that you rarely hear. Light leaps echo faintly in the emptiness of the space. It's as if I'm drowning in this unique, indescribable feeling of freedom that fills my soul. How I wish I could be born in this body. Alas, I am but a guest in a world alien to man, in a world where life is lived by entirely different laws, where you must fight for the freedoms that are given at birth. Where the ultimate freedom is the freedom to fight!

04.03.04 (translated from Russian 08.2025)

The Sail

Night. A lighthouse blinks in the distance, cutting the black sky with a white beam. Breaking through the clouds, the moon watches from the sky with a yellow, unblinking gaze. The wind furiously drives the waves, forcing them to lash the shore with whips of white foam. Losing their strength, the water reluctantly recedes, dragging with it sand and small pebbles, only for another wave to crash down right after. This way, with insistent blow after blow, the water and wind paint intricate patterns on the canvas of the beach, lay out colorful mosaics with pebbles, destroy their unfinished creations, and begin again — time after time.
Suddenly in the distance, a solitary sail flashes with a piercing white light. Like a shark's fin, it rises above the waves, defiantly tearing the darkness of the night sea. A siren wails frantically, chokes, desperately moans, and then falls silent. Then, as if gathering its strength, it once again breaks through the roar of the raging waves. Echoing it, gray plumes of signal flares shoot into the sky, exploding in the air as glowing red spheres, and slowly falling into the sea.
There is no answer. The shore, swallowed by darkness, is silent and deserted, and only the trees wave their gnarled branches as if beckoning, luring one closer. The storm had already toppled the tallest among them, leaving gaping black wounds in the green carpet. In the forest near the shore, panic gripped all the forest dwellers. Birds, torn from their branches, flew with loud cries on the gusts of wind. Exhausted in the end, they surrendered to the mercy of the elements, and the merciless wind carried their ravaged bodies away from the shore and threw them into the sea. The animals couldn't hide from the bad weather either — their burrows and hollows were flooded. Deprived of shelter, they wandered among the trees, falling into the traps set by the downpour: the soil had soured and turned into a slippery, liquid mush. The earth, which had previously given a firm foothold to hooves and paws, now in a fraction of a second would capture and suck in any living creature that found itself in its power. The streams of the downpour washed away the earth more and more, and in the end, the trees that had withstood the first onslaughts of the wind fell, their support gone.
The elements tortured the shore until dawn. When the sun peeked out from behind the horizon, the storm had already calmed, or perhaps it had simply gone farther out to sea to find new victims. After some time, the unhurried waves of the now-calm sea cast a gray rag onto the shore: covered in green slime, dirty bird feathers, and holes, which just recently had been the proud white sail of a proud vessel.

03.06.08 (translated from Russian 08.2025)

The Attic Window

I sit and gaze through the small window in the attic — that mellow little square set against the dark wall. Right now, only the cloudless blue sky is visible through it, but in time, when the night settles outside, it will be scattered with a myriad of stars. The attic of this old, abandoned cabin is a place where the belongings once left by those who made this their home lie forgotten, and spiderwebs stretch across the corners… And here I am, sprawled in an old armchair, looking at the blue sky in that little frame and waiting for twilight to fall.
Silence… Only the trees creak in the wind, and, from the neighboring village, the occasional barking of yard dogs drifts over. And still — silence. It seems you can even make out the sound of restless specks of dust as they settle to the floor.
And then, in the midst of this stillness, a plaintive “meow” sounded from somewhere in the corner. I turned around. I listened carefully. Yes, that was right: clumsy footsteps, and from behind an old dresser emerged a surprised little cat’s face.
“What are you doing here?” I asked my unexpected guest. “Have you come, like me, to watch the stars?” The kitten didn't answer; it simply came up to me and began to rub against my leg.
“Pur-r-r,” I say to it.“Pur-r-r,” the kitten replies, and unexpectedly leaps onto my lap.
After kneading a little, it lay down in my arms, rested its head on its paws, and, burying its nose into my belly, began to purr.
Darkness falls. In the small window of this little attic of the old cabin, one by one, specks of starlight appear. The air fills with the freshness of evening and the ceaseless chirping of tireless cicadas. The small, warm ball of fur in my arms joins in their song, purring with all its might. The day’s lingering restlessness melts away, washed clean by the hush of the country night and the sincere warmth of this tiny creature, peacefully dozing in my lap — a creature that seemed like a gift from above, like a guardian angel, who has lifted me from loneliness and made this night all the more vivid and beautiful.

30.05.05 (translated from Russian 08.2025)

A Strange Place

It’s a strange place: darkness surrounds you and the sounds of your footsteps echo hollowly, as if you're walking in a stone bunker. You take a couple of steps and they fall silent. And again you walk — silently, as if on a soft carpet.
"Tick-tock-tick-tock..." — an invisible clock beats out the rhythm. Is it a clock? ...or is it my heart?
You look around — and multicolored lights shimmer and vague shadows dance. Ethereal, colorful patterns on invisible, weightless walls. You have the feeling that you're in a cave, but in reality it's just an illusion — before you, stretching to the horizon, lies an immeasurable expanse, wrapped in viscous yet weightless fog. You walk and feel how it resists your every movement but... you only have to stop, and you can no longer feel it.
A moment of delight — and suddenly everything disappears. The world folds in on itself, swallowing everything… except for you… Then comes the light — bright, blinding — and the silence.
You wake up.

06.06.05 (translated from Russian 08.2025)

The Rapturous City

Coming to this rapturous city of sun and song, where there is no place for grayness, I feel a certain melancholy. A faint sadness for something elusive, something that gets lost on its festive streets. It lacks something that could awaken my feelings and make me believe in the authenticity of what is happening. In search of this, I walk unhurriedly through the city and talk to people: to elegant women; to gallant gentlemen; to restless children; to wise elders. And with each conversation, I believe more and more in the sincerity of its residents. A feeling of joy is born inside me, and I desperately want to be drawn into their eternal celebration, to blend into the colorful crowd and feel its rapture with every cell of my body…
…But sadness seeps in, replacing rapture. I stop, and as if reborn within, I begin to look at the world with different eyes: I understand — I don't want their eternal celebration. My only wish is to remain myself. A resident of a world where any celebration is finite. And yet, I know that I will return here in my dreams every night and ask myself again and again: why am I so drawn to this rapturous city?.. And I will not find an answer…
So what is it that I am searching for in the eternal celebration of the Rapturous City: a trial for myself, or perhaps hope? Or maybe a way to support my own faith in something bright? Probably all of it at once… and for as long as I live, I will come here and feel sadness. One small sadness, alien to this world. One for the whole Rapturous City.

19.04.05 (translated from Russian 08.2025)

The Zeroth World

Each of us carries a Zeroth World within. It is an inseparable part of who we are — we may take pride in it, nurture it, or hate it with all our heart, but we cannot destroy it. For in doing so, we would kill, however small, a piece of ourselves.

The sky’s darkness above me is streaked with bright flares, and everything around me gleams and glitters like the Rio Carnival. A thick syrup of light pours over me in colored beams from every side. I walk across ground that radiates a bright glow and feel the edge of death drawing closer and closer. Light begets its own undoing — darkness. The eternal struggle goes on. Who will prevail in this battle?
Stars, the spirals of galaxies, and darkness — that is what lies before my eyes. Darkness gains the upper hand — the light grows less and less. Stars go out, galaxies die, and the universe shudders under the onslaught of darkness — my world is born: the Zeroth World. In this world I am Sovereign; I am God.
I fall into nowhere. My realm has fallen, and I am crushed by a majestic force. I am insignificant beside the radiance of light. Light has defeated darkness — its time has come to rule in the Zeroth World. I fall to the earth, I die, and I am reborn in light — now I am Light. My power is boundless — my world is born: the Zeroth World.
The sky above me darkens. Stars shine again from the darkness of the heavens, slicing through me with their rays. I live. I have lived like this before — once, long ago, so long ago that memory kept no trace of it — and now I have returned. And this too is my world — the Zeroth World, where Zero has died.

24.04.04 (translated from Russian 08.2025)

On the Roof

Evening. I sit on the roof, my back against the sun-warmed wall, trying not to move, not even to breathe. Just ten centimeters away lies the ledge — and beyond it, a twenty-story fall. There is no fear, but a quiet unease remains, for I have never truly trusted heights. Still, I remember flying in dreams as a child. Even now, I sometimes dream of spreading my arms and rising into the air with the effortless lightness only children know. Higher and higher, to the very sky, to the Sun itself. In dreams, falling never hurts, and that is why I await them so eagerly — to feel again that unforgettable weightlessness those childhood visions once gave me.
I tremble. Not from fear, but from cold. By day, in the still air, it was hot as an oven. Yet with evening comes a sharp wind, cutting to the bone. Somewhere below, in warm and cozy apartments, life goes on: people have dinner, watch television, and someone, perhaps just home from work, is pouring the day’s fatigue onto their family. How distant all of this feels now, as I sit alone on the roof, staring at the jagged line of the horizon stretched before me.
Below me stand the dark silhouettes of buildings, their windows glowing like scattered squares of light — a vast megalopolis spread at my feet. Soon the blinding orb of the sun, lingering at the horizon, will dim, catch for an instant on its edge, and then nothing will be able to hold it in the sky.
My thoughts slowly recede. The restless anticipation fades as well, and in its place awakens a strange, airy lightness. Perhaps something like what astronauts feel when the pressure ends and the ship enters orbit. A sudden weightlessness seizes me, and forgetting caution, I nearly slip from the ledge.
“The edge is so close,” I think, trying to steady myself on the narrow strip beneath me. “So simple to step across — and fly. Down. For the last time.”
The sun sinks beyond the horizon. For a brief moment its rays break desperately through the haze, and then vanish into the coming night. The vanished sun takes the last of the warmth with it, and soon the air grows cold. I press myself harder against the wall that still holds the day’s heat.
“I sit here, all alone,” I whisper, as if trying to convince myself. “Below, people are hurrying, fussing, while I sit on the roof and wait for the stars to scatter like beads across the sky, and for the Moon to rise above the somber shadows of the city. I sit and watch the sky. Is it foolish? Yes, perhaps. But it is a dream that brought me here. Strange to others, perhaps — but mine, and mine alone. I came here to see the Moon.”
One cautious glance downward, and I press myself again against the wall. I watch as the distant horizon slowly brightens with the city’s evening lights, and I wait for the Moon’s disc to rise above it. Silence. The city feels suddenly empty. Is this silence real, or only inside my head? For a moment I wonder — and realize I do not want to know.
“There is only me. And the Moon,” I murmur. “The rest no longer matters. Only me. And the Moon. Me — and flight.”
“Down?” asks my mind.
“No. Up!” answers my soul. “Upward, toward the Moon. Toward the dream made real.”

12.02.14 (translated from Russian 08.2025)

I walk

I walk.

The space—tightened, twisted into a hard knot—presses down. Concrete, metal: all cold, lifeless. A narrow strip of gloomy sky above is torn apart by ragged gray clouds.

I walk.

The cold pierces through: through the leather jacket, through the shirt… all the way to the bones.

I walk.

I’m surrounded by a heavy, viscous hum. The roar of machines comes from everywhere: above, below, and—it seems—even from within me. It penetrates everything, tearing at my ears, my nerves. I want to run, to hide somewhere, just to never hear it again. Never again.

I walk.

I wander slowly, passing through deaf, echoing alleys. Windows gape like hollow gaps in the gray concrete walls. They press down.

I walk.

Why? Where am I being carried on this gray day? Why did I leave my small but lived-in, cozy apartment—my little closed-off world where I grew up and still live, trying to grasp the meaning of my existence?

I walk.

I look up. Why does this sky, so piercingly gray, stare down at me? Is it God? …Or paranoia? …No thoughts!!! Walk!

I walk.

30.06.05 (translated from Russian 08.2025)

The Breathing Silence

The weather has truly broken loose — the wind whips the trees and the rain lashes down. I sit beneath the canopy and gaze into the distance — as if my eyes could reach beyond, though in this weather they cannot even make out the tent standing nearby. My gaze turns inward, reaching deep into my own soul. What am I trying to see there? That question is a mystery even to me. For what can even the sharpest eye discern in a soul in turmoil, and what can even the keenest mind hope to understand within it?
Silence… the one within — it drowns out the fury of the elements. It grants me moments of calm I can find nowhere else; in the coziest city apartment I would feel far worse than I do now, sitting beneath a canopy that thrashes in the wind. This silence sharpens my senses, lends me strength, and lays bare the true nature of things. It alone — the Breathing Silence of the forest, the silence of wind and rain — is why I came here. It was what I chased when I fled civilization.
Evening falls. The rain has ceased, and from the branches above the tent, water drips in a steady, rhythmic patter. I rise, gather the carefully arranged firewood beneath the canopy, and walk to the long-dead fire. Rekindling it would be no trouble, yet I hesitate. I stand by the firepit and watch the darkening sky. Were it not for the thick clouds, the first stars would already be visible. Then, as if in answer to my unspoken wish, a gap opens in the clouds and, widening with incredible speed, reveals the glittering crystals of the evening stars before me. There it is — the Breathing Silence of the sky.
Darkness descends upon the camp like a velvet curtain. The sky, almost free of clouds, gazes down at me with billions of stars, and still I feel the Breathing Silence: I hear the trees creak as they sway in the wind, and the fire, revived, softly crackles, scattering sparks. Such silence exists nowhere else. People have long forgotten that once, long ago, it walked with them through life, whispering and guiding them. There was a time when humans knew how to listen, back when they had not yet learned to speak.
Morning comes — bright and vivid, like a child’s dream. The sun peeks out playfully above the treetops, dazzling eyes unaccustomed to such light. I sit by the fire and watch as the crowns of the trees are gilded by the glow of the rising sun. I listen to the birds waking, to hundreds and thousands of insects stirring to life — I watch the forest awaken, as the sun, its rays touching every inch of the woods around me, calls forth a new Breathing Silence.
Unhurried, I douse the fire, cover the firepit with earth, and take down the tent. I pack my few simple belongings into my backpack and cast a parting glance at the clearing that sheltered me; for a last time I savor its beauty, listen to its true silence, and, shouldering my pack, set off toward the road. I have taken nothing from the forest — no berries, no mushrooms. I return home with exactly what I brought — or rather, with less, for I left a piece of my soul there. I left it, so that I will come back again and again.
So what can even the sharpest eye see in a soul in turmoil, what can even the keenest mind hope to understand within it? That I do not know… but I do know this: only a storm-tossed living soul can perceive the True Breathing Silence.

28.03.09 (translated from Russian 08.2025)

City Lights

Cool autumn dusk settled over the city. One by one, bright lights began to flicker to life across the night. People, happy to be done with work, hurried home, while others rushed straight to their favorite haunts — clubs, bars, and casinos. The streets filled with noisy crowds in colorful clothes; cars, chrome gleaming in the headlights, sped down the pavement, blending into the usual weekday evening bustle. Shop windows lit up with garish ribbons of neon, while thousands of street lamps drowned out the stars and flooded the avenues with light.
In a small, dim alley, away from the noisy avenue, stood a half-basement tavern. It too tried to lure in visitors with a sign shimmering in hundreds of flickering lights. Its glow could not compete with the dazzling brilliance of the nearby streets, yet here in the shadows it seemed almost unbearably bright. Reflected in neon glimmers, the gray walls of the neighboring buildings looked like an abstract painting splashed by a mad artist on a concrete canvas.
Not far from the entrance, on the grate of a manhole breathing underground warmth, lay a large ginger cat. She rested on the bars, tucking her paws beneath her against the chill, eyes half-closed, her little heart beating fast. She didn’t quite look like a stray, nor did she resemble a house pet. Perhaps she once had a home, but now she belonged to the streets. She was old — most likely her owner, realizing she could no longer play as in her youth, had simply thrown her out. The cat had lived a long life, full of feline joys and sorrows, and was now quietly dying of pneumonia caught on a cold autumn night. Had she still had a home, had she had a caring friend, a vet would have been called in time, and the illness would never have reached this stage. But she was alone — passersby ignored the suffering animal, hurrying past, and no one noticed when, moaning in pain, she rolled onto her side, legs sprawled across the cold asphalt, gasping for air. Each breath grew harder than the last.
Time passed. The streets slowly emptied, and even the neon signs seemed a little dimmer. The tavern owner let out his last guests and shut down for the night. After closing the security shutters, he glanced briefly at the cat lying on the manhole cover, pulled a bread crust from his pocket, tossed it in front of her nose, and walked away. The cat opened her eyes, looked after the retreating man, gave a convulsive shudder, and went still — a thin trickle of blood slipped from her mouth. The cat was dead. At that very moment, with a loud pop, a glass tube of neon shattered, scattering in a brief firework — a ghost of vanished life — that lit up the cat’s wide-open eyes with a thousand fleeting reflections.

13.11.03 (translated from Russian 08.2025)