The Irreal World

A person lives two lives: the first is the external one, made up of events and facts; the second is the internal one, woven entirely from his thoughts. And sometimes it’s hard to tell which is more real and which is more important.

When we open our eyes in the morning, we plunge into the surrounding world. We hurry about, rush to work, make phone calls, quarrel with friends, make the necessary purchases. Events and facts, with relentless indifference, follow one another. All day long we stay in the usual rut of ordinary, real life—but at the same time we are constantly thinking, pondering something.

For someone, the main thing would have been the events that happened and the facts that were accomplished—but not for me. For me, life existed only in my thoughts. They became the foundation of my existence; they made me grieve or rejoice, feel or laugh. Of course, thoughts are connected with events, and often events play a primary role in the emergence of certain kinds of thoughts—but still, it’s always thoughts that hurt and make you suffer, not events. Events are temporary, mortal; they come and go, but thoughts about them remain. You can’t throw them into the trash of the past—they burn and keep scraping at the soul.

So I decided to put some of them on paper—those that have been bothering me for many years. This is an unreal world that each person has their own.

In my story there are almost no events, even fewer active characters, but there are many thoughts, reflections, and experiences. The main hero we’ll be talking about lives mostly in an invented world. Probably that happens with everyone at his age—and it’s dangerous.