The Reflection. A Collection of Novels

Kirill Leonidov

Someone or something is toying with me. This character is absolutely ruthless, it keeps testing me, constantly changing the mise-en-scГЁne. At first I do not recognize it, I just observe and interact with the reality around me. But after a while I see my companion and sometimes even understand what it wants. This thing is myself, the reality itself and everything above it, my reflection in the shards of all the mirrors across the Universe. This is both exciting and terrifying.

The Reflection

A Collection of Novels

Kirill Leonidov

Translator Artyom Belyy

Cover designer Platon Saradaev

Editor Larisa Mitrokhina

© Kirill Leonidov, 2018

© Artyom Belyy, translation, 2018

© Platon Saradaev, cover design, 2018

ISBNВ 978-5-4493-2344-6

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

The Reflection

My name is George. And I have something to tell you. I didn’t do it earlier because I deemed it to be too personal. But with time I understood that this could potentially be important for the others to understand the world we live in. It is as if nobody asks for help, but many need it, stuck in an eternal maze with no way out.

I wasn’t so old back then… when I set out to do something quite peculiar. My days were an obstacle race, my every though occupied by the need to stay on my feet, to not fall down. You “run” so fast that you stop feeling anything, you lose all empathy. Your thoughts and emotion dull under the stress of pursuing some imagined finishing line called “Success”. Win the race and a great deal of fame and recognition is sure to come, sometimes even with some big numbers on your bank account. But if you can’t pull it off… Then the finishing line becomes your personal apocalypse, where the sun goes down, never to be seen again.

But when the race is over and the dust settles down, you find yourself emotionally broken and empty. Having aВ significant other often does not change aВ thing, does not fill the void. Your beloved one had his or her own race toВ run and is still recovering.

Tired and sleepy, you hear the sounds of music fade; see TV actors’ shapes dim and the scars of political battles heal. Finally, the TV just becomes an ambient light, the computer is on standby, the weary hands can no longer hold the phone – your consciousness starts fading and the body prepares for the brave new day of the same old race.

But I am naturally curious, you see. This curiousness, must be imprinted on the cortex, burned and soldered in. I always want to learn something new, some mysterious thing that is beyond the grasp of our chaotic reality. Is there anything as tempting, as an attempt to widen your mind’s horizons? A “salesperson” in daily life (I sell electronics, which is harder than it sounds. Selling something in our demanding, irritable, greedy and paranoid society is quite a feat), at evenings I turn into an inquisitive primeval creature with a lust for knowledge and information. That is it. At day, I am a specialized robot, and at night – a cute little animal in perpetual search of an unheard of fruit of wisdom.

I learned about EVP [Electronic Voice Phenomenon] from the Internet, like many others. And decided to do a couple of experiments. Why? Out of the curiosity, of course. I didn’t have any ulterior motive, I swear. My friends called it nonsense. They still do. And you probably will. But you’re mistaken. Its way, way more complicated than that. Way too damn complicated. But, let’s start at the beginning.

You got to have the right equipment to experiment with the EVP. Not unlike a fisherman, you pick the right “hooks and nets” to catch the elusive voices. I picked up the most reasonable gear I could get. All you need is a computer, a soundboard with a special function, a sound editor program, a microphone and an amp.

Days, and sometimes even nights passed by. All my hard work was for naught. The “fishing” was unsuccessful – even the