The Library

Arthur always knew that life is a book. This simple metaphor became not a consolation for him, but a guide to action. He was not merely a character, but the Author, and he treated his role with the utmost seriousness.

Every day of his was a carefully calibrated page. He didn't just eat breakfast—he created the exposition for the new day. He didn't fall in love—he inscribed into the narrative a chapter about a great passion, avoiding cheap melodrama. His career was not a series of accidents, but a masterfully constructed rising action culminating in his own business. He despised plot holes—senseless quarrels, empty promises, wasted hours. His dialogues were honed, his actions motivated.

He strove to write not just a good life, but a bestseller. A masterpiece that, after death, would take a worthy place on the shelves of the World Library. The thought of this library was his guiding star. He imagined endless shelves where every volume was someone's destiny. And he was confident that his book, in a sturdy leather binding, would stand out. It would be taken from the shelf to be studied as an example of a flawless plot.

But one day, his authorial confidence showed its first crack. The idea for a unique startup, which he had been nurturing for months, was suddenly realized by an unknown company on the other side of the world. And it wasn't even the coincidences that frightened him, but the eerie sensation that his own thoughts had been overheard, stolen, copied right out of his head.

Later, while Arthur was driving along his usual route, he felt an irrational, almost panic-stricken desire to turn onto an unfamiliar side street. As a true author, he suppressed this foolish impulse, which violated the logic of the chapter "An Ordinary Tuesday". The next day, he learned that a terrible accident had occurred at that turnoff.

A cold horror seized him, forcing him to wonder: is he really the author? Or is someone invisible constantly "editing" his life, tossing in their own plot twists?

To prove his power over the text, he decided on an act of absolute authorial arbitrariness. On the day of his fortieth birthday, in the midst of a carefully planned celebration that was supposed to be the chapter "Triumph and Maturity," Arthur silently walked out of the restaurant. He drove to the nearest convenience store, bought a cheap canvas and paints, and in his impeccable living room spent the whole night painting, splashing a chaotic, furious abstraction onto the canvas. This was something alien to his calibrated nature, like a blot on a perfectly written page. 

In the morning, looking at the frozen riot of colors, he felt a heady relief. "I wrote this," he whispered. "Only I".

He lived his life to the end, trying not to notice strange coincidences and inexplicable impulses anymore. He brought his story to a logical finale—a quiet old age surrounded by the fruits of his labors. The final period was placed.

With his last breath, he found himself where he had strived to be all his life. The endless corridors of the library stretched into eternity; the air smelled of dust and wisdom. He walked past shelves titled "The Age of Great Discoveries," "The Century of Disappointments." And then, he found his shelf, his book. A thick volume in a dark blue binding with the laconic gold inscription: "Arthur".

His hands trembled slightly with anticipation. However, before opening the volume, he noticed a small mark made by the Librarian's hand on the spine. It defined the book's place in the catalog and its genre: "Draft".

Icy horror gripped him. Disbelieving his eyes, he jerked the book open, hoping to see his neat, orderly lines: the chapter on first love, on building the house, on triumph... But the pages were virginally blank. His great history, his calibrated dialogues, his meanings—they were not there. The book was empty.

Only on the last page was a single sentence written out, explaining the Librarian's harsh verdict:

"A book written exclusively for oneself cannot be read, and therefore is returned to the author for rewriting". 

The Child and Pain

As long as he could remember, he had suffered from pain. He did not know his father—a drug addict who conceived him high—and so life was something incomplete, flawed, for him from the very beginning. His mother could not bear either her own suffering or her son's, and at the age of five, she admitted him to the hospital. 

That first time the little boy found himself within the state walls, he heard a phrase from a doctor that initially seemed strange to him: "If you wake up and nothing hurts, it means you're dead."

After some time, his mother took him back. But soon he was admitted to the hospital again, and that day was the last time he saw his mother. Since then, he remained there, and the hospital became his world. He matured quickly, ahead of his years. In the hospital corridors, amidst the smell of iodine and quiet moans, he saw his life in a different light. He watched his ward neighbors—those who died with dignity and silence, and those who cursed the heavens, everyone and everything.

The pain the boy felt turned out to be his teacher. Along with it, he grasped wisdom long before adulthood. He saw that some, unable to endure the inhuman pain, committed suicide, preferring non-existence to this terrible truth. The boy began to read—medical books on the nature of pain, existential philosophy. He understood the existential meaning of his suffering, and even though the pain did not lessen because of it, he began to value it, for to him, it became synonymous with life.

Dialogue with the Doctor

Several months later, during his first long stay in the hospital, from which he rarely left, another doctor approached him. Wishing to lighten the mood, he jokingly asked the child:

"What hurts, little one?"

The boy, without looking away, answered with disarming seriousness:

"I would phrase that question differently: what doesn't hurt?"

The doctor froze.

"And what is it?" he quietly asked.

"My soul," the boy replied.

The answer was so adult and profound, so filled with inner calm, that the doctor looked at him differently, realizing: before him was not just a suffering child, but a true philosopher.

Heroes of Suffering

The boy was a patient at a hospice—a refuge for the deprived. The realization of the fact—that those around him were people given up on by medicine, family, and society—made his commitment to life even more fierce and meaningful. He was not pathetic in any sense of the word. Unlike many healthy people, he was alive, and his pain was proof of that. He never whined, although the pain in his body was aching.

The boy grew up among books. While his peers were making friends in the yard, he found his on the pages of myths and fairy tales. His mentors, his true friends, became those who knew about eternal pain and suffering firsthand, yet managed to preserve the greatness of spirit. He wanted to be like them, not like superheroes from comic books.

The boy conducted endless internal dialogues with Sisyphus, who, groaning under a giant boulder, answered him: "Your path is not the summit, boy. Your path is effort. Movement. Death comes when you stop. Keep pushing your pain. That is your greatness."

The little boy looked at Prometheus, who, with fire in his palms, explained the cost of courage: "The eagle always comes. There will always be a price for the gift. But the fire you brought to people burns inside. If you burn, then you exist. Accept the price and do not let go of the flame."

He heard the moans of Tantalus, who, exhausted by eternal hunger and thirst, whispered: "Suffering is not the punishment of the gods; it is your unique destiny. If you realize it, you have the right to despise it. Do not seek peace; seek dignity in your curse."

Fairy-tale heroes also spoke with the boy. The Giant, who drove winter from his garden, instructed him: "Your garden is your soul. And only you decide who enters it and when it should bloom."

And even the Little Prince, the gentlest of all, told him: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." And these words best explained his own wisdom, which was invisible to others.

Once, during another flare-up, he was given a strong painkiller. The world suddenly became soft, weightless, and quiet. Pain, his faithful and loud companion, vanished. And at that moment, he realized he had died. The phrase uttered by the doctor during the morning round many years ago pierced him with a force no physical ailment could achieve. The absence of pain was not peace, but absolute emptiness, non-existence.

The boy made his motto the famous saying of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotsk: "If you have pain, invite it to dance." Since then, he knew that his own life was his examiner. He firmly grasped that "no one promised it would be easy," but he achieved the main thing: he conquered the fear of death. If someone asked him about the meaning of his existence, he would answer with the words of the philosopher: "That which does not kill me makes me stronger." This was his formula for life. For he knew that death would come when complete silence arrived. But as long as his body cried out, he danced.

The Last Dance

The boy refused painkillers, preferring to feel life in all its painful fullness. But on the day the pain intensified, reaching unimaginable limits, he realized this was his last dance.

The light in the ward dimmed. Pain became him, the last and loudest chord of his existence. In that moment, as the boy's breathing became ragged, he saw his beloved characters, his unseen mentors, suddenly come to life.

Sisyphus, Prometheus, Tantalus, and the Giant—four great sufferers—gently, with reverent sorrow, lifted the boy's emaciated body. They became his last solace, his guides into the silence. Carefully laying him on an invisible stretcher, they slowly, silently, carried him away into the distance.

Following them, escorting the little boy on his final journey, were Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotsk, and the Little Prince. And all of them, as one, admired the child's courage and resilience of spirit—the very spirit that pain could not take from him.

A few minutes later, the on-duty doctor entered the ward. The bed was empty.

"Well, did he run away, philosopher?" he said with dry sarcasm.

The doctor knew perfectly well that the boy could not run away, as he was born without legs and arms. The little boy had suffered from phantom pains in his non-existent limbs since birth, as if he had lost them long ago. That is why, seeing the empty cot, the cynic who never slept in the doctor uttered "ran away"—as the bitterest and most sincere wish his soul could ever have. He wished the boy had limbs, so he could leave. To escape this terrible place called life, which was so unnatural for a child. After all, he should have been healthy and happy.

The boy died. And at that moment, his pain finally ceased to be phantom.

Technologies of Miracles

You saw how Ariadne won the tender for Reality. But do you want to know why the old system collapsed in the first place? Here is the secret report on the Synchronization Tower Incident, after which the Auditor realized: it is time to change the protocols.

"Technologies of Miracles: How the War for Reality Began" (Prequel to the story "Contract for Reality")

There were three departments in the Bureau of Metaphysical Stability, and they hated each other. Their headquarters was located not in a building, but in a “node” — a point where several probability lines intersected.

Today, sirens wailed in the node. On the main projection screen, the Synchronization Tower — the spire responsible for weather stability in the sector — flickered like a bad video signal.

— It is fracturing, — stated the Director, looking at the three department heads. — Reports.

Master Hieronymus, head of the Department of Ritualistics, spoke first. He was gaunt, clad in heavy robes embroidered with lead thread. He smelled of ozone and dried herbs.

— It is an “exploit”, — he creaked. — An old vulnerability. The Tower’s Architect used “lunar granite” on a foundation of “solar quartz”. Conflict of materials. The system cannot process the paradox and is devouring itself. But I can fix it.

— How? — asked the Director.

— I will “trick” the system. Witchcraft technology is the use of its own blind spots. I will introduce a third component into the fracture point — mercury mixed with blood. The system will perceive this as a new, binding variable, and temporarily “forget” about the paradox. It is a dirty, but quick patch.

— Accepted. Proceed.

Hieronymus and his team in ritual masks descended to the base of the Tower. They drew symbols, burned herbs, and poured mercury into the cracks. The Tower stopped flickering, but the ground around it darkened and cracked. All grass within a hundred-meter radius withered.

— You transferred the corruption! — roared the Director, looking at the screen. — You didn't fix the vulnerability; you just redirected it into the foundation!

— Such is the price! — snapped Hieronymus. — Witchcraft has its price. To create something, something must be destroyed.

— Unacceptable, — intervened Magister Eleanor, head of the Department of Will.

She was the complete opposite of Hieronymus. No rituals. A short haircut, a strict suit, and a “focusing lens” — a crystal attached to her temple.

— Witchcraft is crutches, — she cut in. — It digs in material garbage. Magic is a technology of direct administration. We do not deceive the Reality Code, we write it.

Eleanor walked out to the square in front of the Tower and raised her hand. — The Tower is not stone. It is an idea, — her voice rang out. — And now I order this idea to be stable.

She did not utter spells. She formed an intent. It was a pure command sent directly to the “console” of reality. [SET: ATTRIBUTE_STABILITY = 100%].

The Tower froze. The cracks stopped growing, the flickering ceased. But Eleanor did not lower her hand. Sweat rolled down her forehead.

— Magister? — asked the Director over the comms.

— I... am holding it, — she gritted out. — But I didn't fix the paradox. I just applied force to it. It is like forcing a stone to levitate by screaming at it. The system is fighting me. As soon as I withdraw my will, the Tower will collapse. My technology is coercion, and it requires constant energy.

— That is not a solution either, — the Director rubbed his temples. He looked at the third chief, who had remained silent until now. — Ariadne?

Ariadne, head of the Department of Harmonics, or, as others contemptuously called it, the “Department of Miracles”, was not even looking at the Tower. She was studying probability graphs on her tablet.

— What is the matter, Ariadne? Are you not going to do anything?

— I already am, — she replied quietly. — Hieronymus is trying to “hack” the system. Eleanor is trying to “force” it. They both consider reality an enemy. But I treat it as a system that is desperately seeking equilibrium.

— And?

— The paradox of “moon” and “sun” is not an error. It is an unbalanced equation. It doesn't need a patch or a hostile takeover. It needs an answer.

— What answer? — the Director asked impatiently.

— The system has already generated it, — Ariadne pointed to the screen. — But the probability of its appearance is. That is almost zero. My technology is not to create something. My technology is to take this almost impossible scenario and make it the only inevitable one.

Ariadne closed her eyes. She did not order and did not deceive. She resonated. Ariadne found the “request” of the Tower itself — its original purpose, “to serve harmony”, — and amplified it. She sent not a command into the system, but a request for self-correction.

Nothing happened.

— Is that it? — Hieronymus sneered.

At that moment, Eleanor, holding the Tower by force of will, cried out and fell to her knees. 

— I can't!

The Tower swayed.

And in that same second, a peregrine falcon dived out of the clouds. This was strange — birds never flew into the “node”. It flew so fast it seemed like a dark lightning bolt. In its claws was a small twig. 

Flying over the very spire, the peregrine falcon released its claws (probability). The twig fell and, caught by a whirlwind (probability), landed exactly in the main crack connecting the “lunar granite” and “solar quartz” (probability).

It was a twig of Star Ash. A symbiote plant that fed on paradoxes. The twig instantly took root. They dug into both stones, and a pure silver light ran along them. The paradox was not suppressed. It was harmonized. The Ash began to absorb the conflict of “moon” and “sun”, turning it into pure stability.

The Tower shone with a steady light. The cracks vanished, merging into a new, living structure.

Ariadne opened her eyes and turned off her tablet.

— What... what was that? — whispered Eleanor, rising from her knees.

— Technologies, — Ariadne shrugged, heading for the exit. — Just different approaches.

She stopped at the door and looked at her stunned colleagues.

— Witchcraft seeks “bugs” in the system. Magic writes “commands” in it on behalf of the administrator. And a miracle... a miracle simply presses the button “Restore system to ideal state”. It doesn't break rules. It finds the most elegant, improbable, but already existing path to harmony and makes it inevitable.

She smiled.

— Magic screams: “Levitate!”. And a miracle finds that single current of air that will catch you anyway, and simply nudges you into it.

Contract for Reality

Investment Forum “Reality 1.0”

The "Nexus" hall was buzzing, but not with the voices of those gathered — it was the hum of competing paradigms clashing against each other like static electricity.

Today is the main pitch session of the year. At stake is the most valuable asset in the universe — the contract for the “Desire Management System” for Sector 7-G, also known as humanity.

There was only one investor. He was known only as the Auditor. He sat in the center of the hall, impassive as a blank sheet of paper.

First to step onto the stage, which was shrouded in mist, was Master Hieronymus. Thin, sharp, smelling of ozone and dried herbs. He represented “Ritual-Tech”.

Hieronymus clapped his hands, and the lights in the hall dimmed.

— Ladies and gentlemen, Auditor. Forget about “harmony.” It is unprofitable. Forget about “will.” It scales poorly. Reality is a bug.

— And we are the exploit.

His slogan — “Reality is a bug. We are the exploit” — flashed on the screen behind him.

— Our business model is P-P-R. Pay-per-Result. We do not ask your users to “believe” or “train”. We ask them to follow instructions. Our API is open: need money? The “Blood Moon” protocol. Need love? The “Double Knot” protocol.

— We are the hackers of the system!

To demonstrate, he took a heavy data crystal from the Auditor’s table. And smashed it against the floor. Shards flew in all directions.

— A problem, — he stated.

Then he pricked his finger, dripped blood onto the largest shard, and whispered three words. With a terrible grinding sound, the shards gathered back together. The crystal became whole.

The Auditor picked it up.

— Data erased, — he stated.

— Everything has a price! — Hieronymus declared proudly. — But you got what you ordered: a whole crystal. Fast. Dirty. Guaranteed. We serve the market of despair, and that, as you know, is the most stable one.

The Auditor nodded. A satisfied Hieronymus sat down.

Magister Eleanor ascended the stage. A strict suit, a “focusing lens” at her temple. She represented “Will Inc.”.

— Thank you, Hieronymus. “Legacy” is always cute, — she began with an icy chuckle. — “Ritual-Tech” are crutches for those who cannot walk. They dig around in backdoors. We offer root-access.

— Our slogan: “Don’t hack reality. Become its Administrator”.

— Our technology is SaaS. Skill-as-a-Service. We do not deceive the system. We write new lines into it. Your consciousness is the “processor.” Our technology is the “interface.” Yes, the entry threshold is high – it requires discipline, education. But the result...

She looked at the Auditor.

— Do you not need your crystal?

She did not touch it. She simply looked. The data crystal smoothly rose into the air and hovered before the Auditor.

— [SET_STATUS: LEVITATION = TRUE], — she whispered.

Then she looked at the erased data. The crystal flared.

— [RUN: DATA_RECOVERY_PROTOCOL_9].

The Auditor checked the crystal.

— Data recovered.

— We don’t just solve problems, — said Eleanor. — We manage them. This is technology for leaders. For those ready to invest in themselves to gain total control.

The Auditor nodded.

— What is your “server load”?

Eleanor smiled, but a bead of sweat glistened at her temple. The “lens” at her temple was glowing red-hot.

— The system works as long as the user has enough will.

— Understood. High margin, high cost of error, — the Auditor concluded.

Eleanor sat down.

Ariadne came out last. She looked out of place at this “pitch.” Barefoot, in a simple linen dress. She represented “Harmonica”.

Hieronymus and Eleanor rolled their eyes in sync. “NGO girl”.

— They are so noisy, — Ariadne said softly, and her voice carried across the hall without any amplifiers. — Some “break” the system. Others “force it to submit.” Both spend a tremendous amount of energy and create incredible “system garbage” — rollbacks, paradoxes, distortions.

— Our slogan: “We don’t do the impossible. We make the improbable inevitable”.

— We have no “API.” We have no “willpower training.” We believe that Reality System 1.0 is self-learning. It desires to be in equilibrium.

— What specifically do you offer? — asked the Auditor. — Sector 7-G is in recession. The “Hope Index” is at its lowest mark in history.

— Hieronymus will offer a ritual that steals “hope” from another sector, — said Ariadne. — Eleanor will offer a transmission of “will” that forces them to hope by strength. That is tyranny.

— And you? What do you offer?

— I offer optimization.

She displayed a probability map of Sector 7-G on the main screen. Billions of shimmering dots.

— In any system, there is a scenario with a probability of $10^{-100}$ that solves the problem perfectly, elegantly, painlessly. Here it is. — She pointed to one dot. — Case 884-B. A woman in a rainy city has just lost the last thing she had. The probability that she will now meet someone who will help her is equal to 0.000000000001%.

— And?

— We won’t interfere. We will simply... raise the priority of this event. We will make it so that the person who can help her, but is currently looking at his phone, accidentally looks up.

She closed her eyes. Nothing happened.

Hieronymus snorted.

The Auditor watched the main screen of the “Hope Index”.

Suddenly, the index swung slightly upward. +0.0001%.

— What is that? — asked Eleanor.

— That is them, — Ariadne said softly, without opening her eyes. — They met.

The index twitched upward again. +0.0003%.

— He shared about her online, — Ariadne continued, as if listening to music audible only to her.

+0.001%.

— Fundraising has begun.

+0.01%.

— Thousands of people see that the system is not hostile.

The “Hope Index” slowly but steadily crawled upward.

Ariadne opened her eyes.

— Our technology is not control. It is resonance. We do not fulfill “orders.” We process “requests” from the system itself for harmony.

The Auditor stood up.

— The decision has been made.

He looked at Hieronymus.

— “Ritual-Tech.” You receive the contract for the “Black Market” and the “Sector of Despair.” Your MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) is hopelessness. Demand will always exist.

He looked at Eleanor.

— “Will Inc.” You receive the “Corporate Sector” and the “Market of Ambition.” A highly competitive environment where everyone wants to be an “Administrator”.

Hieronymus and Eleanor nodded. They got what they wanted — their markets, their “investors”.

— Ariadne, — the Auditor looked at her. — “Harmonica”.

— We can take the “Charity Sector,” — she smiled.

— No, — said the Auditor. — You do not receive a market. You receive the protocol.

Eleanor and Hieronymus turned around.

— What?

— “Harmonica” becomes the base protocol for “Reality 2.0.” You, — he nodded to Hieronymus and Eleanor, — will fight for users in the “sandbox”. And she... she will set the rules of this “sandbox”.

The Auditor vanished. Hieronymus and Eleanor immediately flew at each other's throats, discussing the boundaries of their markets.

Ariadne shrugged and walked toward the exit. The battle for minds was over. The technology that required no faith, but merely gave hope, had just won the entire war without firing a single shot.