Писатель Илья Розенфельд

📖 CHAPTER 1. THE RETURN He returned at night. It was cold on the plane, but not because of the air conditioners—the air felt distant, indifferent, almost devoid of oxygen. He sat by the window and stared into the darkness, seeing only his own reflection. Sometimes it seemed to him that it wasn't his face, but a mask—exhausted, with sunken cheeks and eyes that had sunk deeper than before. At passport control , he didn't say an unnecessary word. The stamp struck the passport, soullessly marking the moment when the line between the one who entered and the one who had left was erased forever. It all started two days later. First—a slight burning in his eyes. Then—a fever, night sweats, a dry cough. He knew this scenario well: hundreds of viruses had played it out across the world. He thought he was prepared for such a situation and didn't even go to the clinic. He just lay down at home, documenting each symptom like a scientist, not a patient. On the third day, he reali...

( a fragment from a paradoxical chronotext ) He was born an old man. His skin was like the papyrus of time, inscribed with words no one had yet spoken. He did not cry—he sighed, as if weary from a life he had only just begun. With each year, his body grew younger. His arteries cleared, his vision sharpened, his gait quickened. In the mirror, he watched a face drawing ever closer to youth, but behind the eyes lived the gaze of an old warrior, tired of battles yet to come. When he became a man, he met a woman. She was as strong as a stone. And as tender as a memory. He fell in love because he recognized something deeply his own in her—and only years later did he understand: she was him. From this love, a child was born. The infant he held in his arms did not cry—he smiled. He knew: he would be sent back again, to the beginning. To that orphanage where a cradle stood in the corner, ready to receive the one who had already been. And then he understood who he was: — I am the mothe...