Our secret happiness lasted several months. I do not recall what season it was. Did other people talk about us? I don’t recall that either. The only thing I do recall is you. My every future plan, my every thought, my every hope was formed by you, and took your form.

Then I was offered the position at that school. I took it as a good sign and was quite happy since I was financially independent and was able to see her every three months. Then another year passed. Her mother died. I had finally saved some money to start my life with her. She used to write to me saying she was very sad. I assumed that her mother’s recent death was the reason. I was mistaken.

When that man appeared and asked Anna’s father for her hand in marriage, her father begged her to accept, lying to her about his financial situation. He kept pleading with her for months, bending her will little by little. Only after Anna’s passing did I learn the whole truth about how her father took advantage of her love and affection for him. Had her mother been alive, she would have sensed the pain in her heart.

Even now Amelia speaks to me about how torn Anna was between making her father unhappy and shattering her own heart forever, knowing how much that would make her suffer. She would cry in her arms for hours and Amelia would urge her to leave home directly, but she could never take that step.

Her mother’s last wish from her deathbed - that Anna obey her father - was pinned in her mind and defined her every move. And so, from a misconception of duty, she was consumed by the idea of sacrifice.

One morning I received a letter from my mother. Anna’s brother had been looking for me. I met with him. He asked for my help. They still hadn/t managed to convince her to marry that man. “Have you ever thought about how you/re going to live, in what conditions? What do you have to offer her?” he asked me. I asked him to leave, cursing him, and then I went home and wept, for I had offended someone she so dearly loved.

I managed to see her a couple of times. She looked happy. “Don’t worry, they can’t force me to marry him against my will,” she said.

For the rest of my life - no matter how long that will be - the memory of her that night, the last time I ever saw her alive, standing in front of me, will always be fresh and vivid in my mind. She wasn’t sad. On the contrary, she was full of optimism. She was laughing. I couldn’t stop gazing at her. We were on “our” hill. I pressed my lips against her hair. Around us, only blossoming windflowers.

“Enough for today... Let’s go back... I have to be home early,” she said. “Next time we’re here I’ll make a wreath of windflowers. Will you place it on my head?”

“Promise me that I will see you again; that they’re not going to bend you.”

“We will come here again,” she promised, “I swear to you that we’ll come back.”

The damned pains never go away... The physicians ordered me to rest. What was I saying? Oh yes! One day my mother asked me to go on a trip. It took me a while to figure out why. It was the period when Anna was supposed to be married. Do not blame her…

Anna died two years after the wedding. She had started losing weight. Her husband said that neither would she listen to anyone nor was she cautious about her health. The physicians had told them that she shouldn’t get with child. She died before she could nurse her infant…

When I came back from the trip, I became a recluse for a year without any contact with anyone. My hair and beard had grown down to my chest. The only company I wanted was that of Amelia. Anna was ill, but still alive then. One afternoon in 1909 I heard a knock at the door.

“Open up! It’s me. Amelia!”
I ran downstairs and hardly gave her a second to catch her breath.
“What happened? Is she dead? Tell me!” I asked as I shook her. Her eyes were red.
“Listen to me! You have to come with me right now. She wants to see you.”

Amelia told me Anna had been asking for me, especially at night-time. And she kept saying she wanted windflowers. But only today did her husband allow Amelia to tell me. Today, because the physicians said the end was very near. He wasn’t at home. He had purposely left so that we would not cross paths.

The first thought that came to my mind was that I hadn’t seen Anna even once since her wedding. I could think of nothing else. We waited till nightfall. Their house was one of the finest mansions in the state. Amelia and I entered and went straight to her room. Anna was sitting up in her bed. Only sweetness had remained in her otherwise withered face. She was dressed in a silk robe and had arranged her long locks in her favourite hairstyle. The first word she uttered was my name. She smiled, expressing as much happiness as her face could still express. She stretched out her hand. I took it in mine and started kissing it.

“You came, Paul! You came! I’m so glad you came! It’s good to see you one last time, now that the end is near… And since my husband allowed it…”

I knelt down beside her bed and asked her to stop. I told her she would recover and everything would be fine. She kept pulling my hand towards her pale face and lips and sighing as if relieved.

“The last time you saw her,” said Amelia, “when she swore she would come back, she really believed she could…” Anna nodded in agreement. “But then, she took a turn for the worse and she couldn’t. That’s been a burden on her soul since then and so she asks you to forgive her…”

I forgave her with all my heart. I kissed her hair just like I used to and suddenly her face lit up with pleasure.

We let her rest for quite a while and then she told me, “When I’m gone, I want you to visit our hill once in a while. The trees and grass might have something to share with you. Do not forget me. If you stay true to our love and don’t forsake me, I’ll never abandon you. I’ll be right by your side, Paul… By your side and my child’s. Whenever you need me, I’ll be there…”

I escorted Amelia to her house and then went back to mine at midnight, overwhelmed by a strange mixture of pain and happiness. “What is this?” I wondered, “Why do I feel so confident that I will see her again?”

On Wednesday night I saw her. On Sunday she was dead.

This morning, at 8:40, was the two-year anniversary of my revival. It was at that time that I opened my eyes and was myself again. I remember it was snowing. My mother was on the floor next to me, crying tears of joy. “What happened?” I asked her. I received my answer from our family physician: “Well, it was about time you woke up! You’ve broken every record!” Apparently it was some kind of lethargy. I had been asleep for a fortnight.

The physician, wearing a fancy tie, was trying to cheer me up. Not only did he not succeed but, instead of a smile, a grotesque grin spread over his face.

As the months went by, I began to feel better. I took heart. In the end, man can get used to anything…
“Now that you are familiar with my case,” I told the physician once, “I don’t need to fear being buried alive…”

It’s the fourth misty, cloudy day in a row. What can one do in this weather? No friends come to visit me anymore. I’m reading a history book. Since primary school, history has always had the power to sweep me away. I remember thinking back then that we were all born in a certain place and era out of mere coincidence. We could have easily been born in a completely different country, culture and even century, with completely different friends, occupations and sweethearts. But we wouldn’t be able to know any of the things that were to happen later, that is, now.

I’m trying to read, but I’m pushing myself. Back then I used to truly engage with what I was reading. Not anymore. Today, my loneliness has reached its deepest depth.

I started seeing the priest again. He never pressured me to talk and that eased my mind. Amelia had explained to him that I needed time. He respected that. That’s why I went. He said he liked talking to me. I did as well. The conversation with him was always very interesting. He had a positive way of thinking and clear judgment, free of prejudice and stereotypes. His mind was robust and bright.

I stared at his library. He had almost everything: from the mystics of the East and the Ionian philosophers to the modern philosophers of Western civilisation.

“I see you staring at these worthless books,” he told me as if he could read my mind. “Do not expect great things from them. I’ve read them all. I know all that’s been said by the brightest minds of all times. But I will never feel the power that true love has to raise you to the highest point of knowledge. I’ll never experience a love like that.”

He turned to me. It was the first time that he, such a discreet and considerate man, had made an allusion to Anna, albeit indirectly. He was looking to me for help, for insight. He was hoping to feel what love is, even vicariously.

“She told me she’d be with me, that I’d feel her close to me from time to time. It’s been ten years since then. Never, not once, have I had a sign from her. You tell me then, Father, how is the concept of the imperishable soul that you preach about reconciled with the absolute lack of any communication with those who loved us so?”

“If you’re looking for shelter from the moments of pain, I have nothing else to offer you other than faith - any faith. But let us focus on you. And I’m talking to you as a brother, not as a priest. If I were you, I would not place my hopes and future in this promise. All these years you’ve been consumed with overthinking at the expense of your mental health. Why? Do you consider this healthy or right? Have you not had enough experience to know that one should not rely on unrealistic expectations? You need a sign? Why should Creation reveal its secrets to you? And why, with the sole excuse of a lack of signs, do you discard them altogether? And how are you sure that they haven’t been revealed to you, but found you too blind to notice or understand them?

I had no counter argument. We sat there for a while opposite each other without speaking and then we left.

That night I prayed after a very long time. I asked the Lord to calm me and show me that my doubts were unjustified. Nothing. But then I cried. I managed to cry! Could that have been the sign I was looking for?

The thought that I could leave this life, leave once and for all, was very attractive in the beginning. So many people disappear every day, people of every age. Nothing can be ruled out. Suicidal thoughts, however, did not cross my mind. I do not know if my mother or my cowardice was to blame, or rather a pure selfishness created by that open wound in my heart.

The possibility alone, however, comforted me. I was vaguely looking forward to breaking the ties. If she’s gone, I’m going with her. As simple as that. That was the thought. And she’d be waiting there for me, unchanged, and everything would go back to the way it was.

“The greatest realities are the ones we’re unaware of. Our eyes cannot see them and our intellect cannot conceive them. There are no words familiar to human reason to describe their divine substance. The awareness of our existence might have been given to us as a gift, but, for as long as we stay simply human beings, its substance and structure will remain transcendent and beyond comprehension to us."
(Professor Lain, 3906 AD)

“...To see your life flow in obscurity among the treasures of the heart and of nature, happy in your anonymity, and to occasionally lose yourself in reading or in the pleasure of being a sensitive admirer of the fine arts; that’s the image of modern life you’re looking for!”
(Stefan, 3906 AD)

“I was wrong father. If only you knew all the great things there are... Even the harshest pain is welcome, both physical and mental. Vindication will come in the end. Never should a sigh come out of a human mouth.” And then came a moment of silence. The priest was now becoming agitated. He looked as if he were trying to make me speak without asking me to. Finally he said, “You see, my son? That is faith!” “No, Father, no,” I replied in a calm and steady voice. “It’s not just faith that has changed me. You cannot even imagine what is actually out there. The human mind is incapable of realizing the greatness of it.”
(Paul Amadeus Dienach, 1922 AD)

"It was meant for this generation to realize the dream of thousands of years and generations ago and for man to climb high up on the top of the Valley and finally 'see'. They said that Alexis Volky was the first 'chosen one' but that hundreds of others followed the year after, and thousands more the year after that. And that’s how now people know."
(Paul Amadeus Dienach, 3906 AD)

"The legend says that these roses can only grow in places where great spirits have lived and where great loves have blossomed... The petals of these roses don’t open anywhere else no matter how favorable the weather conditions and no matter how hard one tries; following all the rules, using the best materials or taking care of them every day are to no avail. Not even the specialists in floriculture have managed to discover the 'secret' in growing these magical roses that reflect the light of day and the color of the sky."
(Paul Amadeus Dienach, 3906 AD)

"Even that frantic colonizing expedition on Mars from the year 2204 and onwards, which lasted about sixty years, is the work of their ancestors at the time of their technological acme. They actually managed to build and maintain entire villages and housing estates on the “interplanetary colonies” of the red planet. In fact, the colony thrived for several years even under very adverse conditions for humans. Now, however, the majority of their settlements is in decay. On that planet, nature was the one that prevailed! Twenty million souls perished within a few months - mostly Anglo-Saxons and Slavs, but also many settlers from the mainland of Europe - due to the harsh and unexpected change of climate and atmospheric conditions that no human technical device was able to restrain. The indiscriminate, natural forces were the cause of the massive holocaust of 2265."
(Paul Amadeus Dienach, 3906 AD)

"Alexis Volky was neither a God nor a prophet and yet he was the chosen one to see things divine and eternal and show them to his equals. He didn’t prophesise the future, but he did see and show the things that always have and always will remain unchanged and untouched since the beginning of time and he proved to people just how much they had overestimated not only the findings of science, but also the spiritual potential of their ‘antennas’. He saw, not with his physical eyes, but with the eyes of his heart, and taught in such a way that nobody ever asked for evidence or doubted him. Because what he showed people, what he taught them, was one of these things that can’t be proven empirically, like God or love… In order for someone to understand it, a whole different path must be taken and a whole different level of faith must be attained…"
(Stefan, 3906 AD)

• Publication Date: March 21, 2016
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• ISBN-13: 9786188221819
• Pages: 394
• Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 inches

• Publication Date: July, 2018
• Sold by: Ideotheatron
• ISBN-13: 9789609389334
• Pages: 464
• Dimensions: 20.5 x 14.0 cm

• Publication Date: July, 2018
• Sold by: Ideotheatron
• ISBN-13: 9789609389334
• Pages: 464
• Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.5 cm
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• Publication Date: May, 2019
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• Publication Date: May, 2019
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