I Confess

I could say that this is a collection of novellas, stories, that there are only seven of them and all are written in the first person, but I see the book differently. For me, these are not just stories and,... most importantly, not just characters; for me, they are people. Living people. Of flesh and blood. Lyudmila, Paul, Jean, and others, nameless, tell about themselves. Almost all of them speak in the dark, at night, or at a moment in life when they can’t quite tell day from night. Trying to understand themselves, they expose themselves, take off their armor, open their souls. Not everyone succeeds, but even the attempts make me empathize. To say that I empathize with my own characters is probably too pompous, but I repeat: for me, they are not characters, but people, real people, my new acquaintances, whom I present to you today.