A comet of fate (‘Connected’)
Mikhail could see the sea in the horizon. Darkness surrounded it. Street and appartment lights broke it. The air was cold, his bare feet could feel the humidity of the stone floor of the terrace. His curly undulating, light brown hair waving in the breeze. His hands gripped the black metal of the fence. His eyes looking far, farer than the horizon, towards one single point he only could see, he only could feel. Mikhail gripped tighter the fence with both hands. He pulled himself up over the fence to the edge of the terrace. He looked again at that single point far, far away. His eyes brigthen. He loosed his hands, smiled and jumped…
Mikhail Bolgevich died of an unnatural cause, suicide. This could have been another person jumping and killing himself if it wouldn’t be for what it was found on the floor of the living room, next to the sofa. It was a small plain black Moleskine notebook written in blue, red and black from the first page to the last. On the first page written: “In case of loss, please return to Mikhail Bolgevich, miguelbolgevich@gmail.com. As a reward of $: 5000″. On the second, “This is the story of a comet of fate”. In this notebook, Mikhail have written the story of the comet that came into his life. She opened to him a shining darkness of the meaning of life. It was because of this comet that he jumped from a 7th floor, giving to himself a new life.
Time is relative. We all have felt those moments when clock hours seem like minutes, and those other when clock minutes seem like days. But fewer of us have felt those exceptional moments when time is eternal and brief simultaneously. It is in those paradoxical times when magical things happen. Thirty something years passed in Mikhail Bolgevich life, but to him they went by without much to tell. He said once that all those years he had been a hedgehog rolled into himself, just showing his soft but spiky spines to the world. The last six months of his life were longer and shorter than all those years. All started when he opened himself to the world and let it rain on him for anything to happen. And something happened.
He saw her for the first time in Moscow. It was in one of many talks he had given all around the world about his book “Connected”. In the clearing of the shadows of his hedgehog life he had written it inspired by the gradual awakening around the world. Prove of this awakening was the quick success it had everywhere. The premise of the book was that the Internet was facilitating the emergence of the part of our human nature that craves sharing and emotional connection over accumulation and materialism. Connected people were already sharing emotions and making a difference in theirs and other people’s lives. Mikhail’s book showed how it was happening, but it also warned of its dangers. It sold by the hundreds of thousands. It was downloaded in its free format by millions.
