They say that I am cowardly. So I've checked the meaning of this word in the Ozhegov Dictionary — I am a person who is easily manipulated by fear. I often open the Ozhegov dictionary because words seem to be just a set of sounds and I’m not sure if I understand their meaning correctly. I would better say that I don't know how to relax and am in a constant tension and anticipation of something bad to happen. I always waver about everything like a broken scale.

I carry a lighter in my shoulder bag, but I don’t smoke. This is a disguised stun gun.

I don't walk through empty streets under streetlights, I do remain in the shadows at the curb which may seem illogical, but not for me. I step as quietly as a mouse. A pebble will hardly make a sound under my sneakers. I never turn around to check noises, but I watch every movement with my peripheral vision. I breathe steadily with the lighter stun gun on alert. I wish ... I had a calm reaction to a sudden dog or a passerby, but every time I see them unexpectedly, it gives me the shivers and I disappear in shame.

The Ozhegov Dictionary keeps saying that I am a person easily manipulated by impressions, hesitations, and emotions.

I remember once how I cut the way to get to the bus stop by walking through the backstreets of the panel buildings in the Yugo-Zapad district. I do not take a taxi, even though I have already saved enough money to afford my own Volkswagen Polo. I walk in the darkness before I finally reach the arch built inside a panel block connecting the courtyard with the busy avenue.

As I walk along the path through the apple orchard, I notice an ugly silhouette with two heads in front of me. One is wearing a zhigan cap and smoking a cigarette while the other one is waving its clumsy curly-haired head as if rocking on a beat. I don’t blink, I stare at the silhouette: yes, two heads split. My feet take me along the path without any backup plan. Should I say something? Ask for a smoke?

If such a Siamese twin lived here, I would surely have known of his existence and he would probably be a local celebrity. But he is standing before me, smoking and tapping his foot... I go closer and exhale.

Decorations from the housing and communal services. They nailed a plush animal to a tree and put a leather coat and a construction helmet on it. I mistook a pile of leaves for the curly-haired one and the toy for the smoker. The toy’s plastic eyes pointed in different directions. The right eye was staring directly at me when I was passing him by.

I often see things. Once, in the middle of a romantic night I was in bed with a girl. In the darkness, I could barely see my lover, only the outlines of her figure. And by my sensitive nature, I began to peer until I saw a wide-open black mouth, cloudy eyes, and a narrow face like the faces of the Japanese horror movie apparitions from the beyond.

I see pixels that make up pictures in the darkness of a room. The images appear on the closet, but even with my eyes closed, I see them on my inner eyelid. The only thing that saves me from pixel pictures appearing in my head is light, hence I do not save money while sleeping. I keep a lighter and church wax candles inside a nightstand in case of a burnt fuse. I don’t believe in the church candles’ miraculousness, but I buy them because they smell like bees. I also heard that fumes from paraffin candles cause cancer.

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I am wearing a hippie T-shirt at home, but I don’t smoke stuff. And it’s not because of money. Not at all. Actually, I’m afraid to spend my savings. Doubts abound.

My parents say: ‘You’re a fool, stop saving, invest.’ That’s the thing, I’m probably a fool, that’s why I’m saving.

The only thing, I think, I can afford to spend money on is clothes. I don’t have a wardrobe or a clothes rack, but a costume room. I like dressing up and trying on roles. There is a dissonance in feeling melancholy and desire to be unnoticed while putting on a lettuce-green jacket. But I am not a clown. This lettuce-green jacket is my special vampire masquerade aesthetic.

I iron and crease my dress pants, brush the velvet on my sneakers, remove lint from my grandfather’s sports sweatshirts from the seventies. These activities give me a temporary peace of mind allowing me to stop thinking that I will be so unlucky as to trip over something badly, choke on my lunch or get bowled over on the sidewalk by an out of control car... I don’t need much happiness. I just want to be a little sad all the time, but without the feeling that the world is about to fall apart or run through my fingers. I do not want to feel that I am getting to the very bottom of the world, where all the bad will smash me.

I wanted to live and breathe freely, so I decided to get into religion. It certainly feels safer with money and God. I was attracted to Buddhism, not Christianity. I'm a baptized person, and I like the smell of incense in church, but that’s my grandmother who discouraged me from Christianity, because I associated it with her old cries and the smell of rags. Moreover, my reputation was already stained with prayers for a fool and a slug that my granny asked to have mercy on and protect. Strong meditating men full of unsubstantial freedom encouraged me. I thought about the value of the moment and wondered about asanas in the internet.

I was just about to finally accept my fears when the Bardo Thödol, or the Tibetan Book of the Dead, unexpectedly came into my hands. The book in which I had hoped to find tranquility terrified me instead. I could not believe that the book could be a collection of ideas that could not be erased from my memory.

I read it in a day, pausing, shutting it with a pounding heart, and opening it again. The book itself described three Bardos. Chikhai Bardo is the state at the moment of death. Chönyi Bardo — the continuation of life after death. Sidpa Bardo — the search for a new Birth.

I was afraid of Chönyi Bardo. After death, we are left in a state of dreaming in our heads and wandering through our own memories, desires, and fears. If someone acted bravely in life, then in Bardo, they would also valiantly fight with temptations, sins, and monsters in their head to be reborn as an honorable being, or, as the book said, come out of the circle of rebirth. But what about someone who is afraid to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night because of pixel pictures or a silhouette standing over the bed?

Sadly, I was certain that I could not cope with my consciousness.

I was surrounded by all kinds of people, but most of all I got anxious after meeting optimistic fools saying that thoughts materialize. I knew that thoughts materialize because we live in a world made of slippery shiny slime, in a world full of inexplicable things. These naive people convinced themselves that the Universe, like a New Year’s Eve miracle, grants all your wishes. But if you want them for real, they say.

On top of all my weaknesses, there was also envy. They would win lotteries and find love, while I would be sick with incurable diseases and perish in poverty. Only because I am smarter and because I cannot conquer my deadly thoughts.

I didn't understand how to live and what for, so I began to avoid people, because they, unlike me, were eager to live and knew why. Their mundane sorrows and joys seemed meaningless to me. I was estranged from friends, girls no longer interested me, and music, which I used to archaeologically search, stopped thrilling me. I was fascinated by the Book of the Dead, clothes, and hoarding.

Every day I lived with more and more fears. The world seemed like a big cartoon. By some miracle I survived every day and the world did not collapse, but this miracle was uncontrollable. I even started going to special buildings and taking out papers with codes F40.8, F41.0, F41.2, F41.9, F42.1, F48.1, F55.0, F55.4, F55.6.

My salvation came in an advertising post. 10-DAY PREPARATION COURSE FOR THE TRIALS OF THE AFTERLIFE. I was reading the terms of the training, confident that the training was created only because I had made it up for myself with my strong imagination, not because artificial intelligence performed the search and determined I would be interested in this.

‍One thousand American dollars. The training program is designed based on the results of the consultation. The consultation is paid in installments of 50 BYN, cash only. In case the coach does not like the client, the coach has the right to stop providing a training session, and, in that event, the cost of the consultation is not refundable. What dishonest conditions. Agreed.

Consultation confirmed. Tomorrow. 6:00 p.m., Sendai Square, near the willow trees and rocks. He must be a Buddhist then. That works for me. I don’t see any reviews for his training. Will I be able to find the courage to say, «I’m not falling for this scam,» demand my money back, and walk away?

Of course, it would be better to look for a catch first, and pay later.