Писатель Илья Розенфельд

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. This is the science of how to turn a thousand unique, bleeding tragedies into one boring, convenient number. Statistics is the meat grinder of reality, producing a uniform mince of "indicators" at the output. Gods of Chaos create individuality. Gods of Order create statistics. And the latter are far more terrifying. The Average Human In the Chamber of Weights and Measures, inside a vacuum flask, lives the creepiest creature in the Universe. His name is the Average Man . He has one breast. One testicle. One and a half legs. In his stomach, there is always 200 grams of alcohol splashing, and 0.3 packs of cigarettes settle in his lungs. He has 1.7 children, whom he loves 54%. He is neither man nor woman. He is the Norm. Gods fear him. Because he is invulnerable. You cannot kill him — if you kill a thousand people, the Average Man will just slightly frown and change the mortality rate by 0.001%. He is the anchor of our world....

Kay was not a wicked boy. He was a brilliant mathematician whose consciousness was ahead of its time. Gerda was his wife—a simple, "warm," down-to-earth woman for whom happiness was measured by Sunday dinners and ensuring "everything was just like other people have it." The Snow Queen in this story is not a woman. She is a metaphor for Absolute Reason . It is a state of pure logic, devoid of emotional noise. ACT I. THE SHARD (EPIPHANY) That day, it wasn't a shard of a troll's mirror that hit Kay in the eye. It was a micro-stroke or a sudden chemical glitch that caused a rare anomaly of perception—a complete loss of emotional empathy . For Kay, the world instantly ceased to be colorful and noisy. It became crystal clear. He looked at the roses Gerda loved so much, and instead of their beauty, he saw decaying organics, the process of rot, and a senseless waste of resources on reproduction. Kay looked at Gerda and instead of love, he saw bioch...

The rain always began the same way — first a gentle breeze, filling the air with something ancient, then the first drops falling like tentative strokes of an invisible brush. People hurried to find shelter, but he stood in the middle of the street, arms outstretched, as if trying to catch something unseen. “What are you doing out there?” she asked, watching him from beneath the café’s awning. He turned slowly, with the unhurried confidence of someone who knows something others don’t. “I’m listening to the rain,” he replied. She smirked. “Oh? Is it telling you fairy tales ?” “In a way, yes.” He looked up. The raindrops fell on his face, sliding down his cheeks, but he didn’t blink. “Rain isn’t just water,” he continued. “It’s memory. The memory of everything that’s ever lived.” She raised an eyebrow. “Right. Scientists have proven you can find DNA in rain drops…” “Not just DNA. Memories.” Now she was intrigued. “You’re saying that in this rain, there could be…” ...