Adelaide Award Anthology 2018: SHORT STORIES, Vol. Two

SHORT STORIES
“And now,” Agnes said to Gregory, “all these years later, in
what was supposed to be a safe haven, I see Mary James’s life extin-
guished, like a match in a gale. My most fervent prayers that she be
spared, or at least that she die peacefully, went unanswered.”
Gregory nodded, shifted her hips on the bench away from the
younger nun, and turned to look at her.
“I cannot believe in a merciful God that allows the death
of kind, loving people,” Agnes said, her voice rising, and almost
shouted, “I have nightmares.” Gregory looked around to see if
anyone was nearby. “I dream that I’m on a carousel, and Rachel,
Judy and Mary James are ghouls spinning around me.” She covered
her face with her hands.
When Agnes looked, Gregory’s face was turned down, eyes on
the soft brown cloth of the habit. “We accept God’s will, make the
best of it,” the old nun said.
The best of it. Agnes had to stop herself from screaming. She
had already tried to weave the pretty threads of those lives into a
cocoon of solace, and had failed. She rubbed her left ear, annoyed
at its insistent prickling, and brought her fist down hard on the
stone bench.
“Sister Agnes, Sister Agnes,” Gregory said, and put her arms
around the younger nun.
In subsequent meetings under the catalpa tree Gregory focused
on the religious dictum that the acceptance of human suffering was
essential to accepting God’s goodness. “It’s God’s way of testing
our faith, Sister Agnes, don’t you see? Without faith, there can be
no true belief.”
“So where is mine?” Agnes asked, looking up at the foliage of
the catalpa overhead. “Where the hell is mine?”
The older sister grimaced, shook her head and said, “Sister
Agnes, please.”
She continued to work in the convent’s garden and went to
chapel, hoping to find comfort in prayer. She went to feed the poor
in the shelter by herself, missing Mary James every minute of it.
She tried to connect with the other nuns, but found no friendship.
In bed after lights out, she tried to believe this was all a test of her

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faith, but the next day she would see Mary James in every tile in
the chapel, every stone of the walkways, and her anger welled up.
As she walked past the chapel, she kicked its brick façade if no one
was there to see it.

“Today is our final meeting,” Gregory said in October, sitting
on the stone bench under the catalpa tree. “We have come as far as
we can.”

Sister Agnes, in these final moments with Sister Gregory, felt
gratitude and even affection for her. This old woman had devoted
much time and energy to her. Agnes reached into her pocket and
brought out the mezuzah, a remaining connection to Rachel and
Judy.

“This is a symbol of a religion,” she said, “that’s based on a
common history, and genetics, and traditions. And belief in a God
that’s fair and benevolent is not a requisite for them. I need to find a
similar bridge to my own God, so I can accept these deaths. I don’t
believe for a minute that God loved them or me.”

Gregory took the mezuzah and rolled it around in her palm.
“Our religion is not based on those worldly elements you mentioned.
It is based on faith only.” She gave the mezuzah back to Agnes.

Sister Gregory looked pained, corners of her mouth pulled
down, close to weeping. Agnes felt culpable for the old nun’s dis-
tress, and she took one of Gregory’s hands in hers.

“These myths that furnish our world,” Gregory said, “which we
call religions, are all valid, but they are embellishments, the frosting
on the cake.” She turned on the bench to face Agnes. “But the batter
of the cake is that you live honorably, with religion or without it.
And if you don’t have faith, living a religious life is not honorable.”

There was an edge to Sister Gregory’s voice, and Agnes let go
of her hand. The setting sun illuminated the useless walls of the
convent across the road as the leaves of the catalpa, turning the rust
and ochre of fall, fell around them. A large leaf, still bright green,
settled on the bench in the space between them. Sister Agnes had
always wondered why a still-green leaf would not stay attached to
the tree, continuing photosynthesis. A premature death for the leaf,
essentially. It made no biological sense. She had thought about re-

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searching the reason, but for weeks now she had been looking into
graduate programs in psychology, and would be leaving botany. And
yet she had no doubt that other botanists would eventually under-
stand the reason for the demise of young, green leaves.

“Don’t you have moments of uncertainty, Sister Gregory?”
“All the time.” Gregory’s voice had gone soft again. “Old as
I am, there are times I think I should leave. But then something
happens during prayer and I find it again. My faith.” She stood up.
“Let’s go back.”
But Claire stayed behind. She held the leaf and watched as the
old nun, arms crossed, walked back to the convent alone.
José Sotolongo is a physician, born in Cuba. He practiced med-
icine until 2011, then devoted himself to fiction and poetry full
time, although he’s been writing since childhood. He got his first
rejection from the Reader’s Digest at age eleven for his initial effort
in English, an account of the day he left his country by flying from
Havana to Miami, age ten, without his parents. His fiction and
poetry have appeared in several publications, including Bloody Key
Society, Opossum, Leafland, and New Reader Magazine, as well as
in The Peacock Journal, Atticus Review, and Love Like Salt anthol-
ogies. He and his spouse make their home on an old goat farm in
the Catskills of New York. In between battling the woodchucks and
rabbits that ransack his vegetable garden, he works on completing a
short story collection.

401



Affliction

By Carl Scharwath

Art should have been her savior, but in the end her delicate life was
consumed by creativity. When Aria’s father died her world began to
emerge into a new realm. She had felt this new presentment: all one
had to do is witness the transformation of her home. Once clean and
ordered, Aria began to hoard. Unopened mail, catalogs, empty boxes,
clothes and a compulsive shoppers treasures soon littered the floor
and furniture. The vista began to close in like storm clouds filling in
the blue of a morning sky. Then the storms and lightening came, a
constant pain in her feet that was only relieved with pain killers. This
was not a gentle medicine, but a prescribed poison that filled her with
toxins and turned her blood into pharmaceutical rivers.

Aria’s only sin was her innocence and her past life was filled
with hope and challenges. She had a boyfriend of 13 years who she
adored and loved. His support was one of trust and loyalty. Many
times he challenged her to break from the shell of shyness and inse-
curities to share her passions with others. Unfortunately there was
always an excuse of either not being quite ready or her need to create
more art and needing the time to sort through each piece. Her lover,
a dedicated runner even took the time to teach Aria his passion.
They started slow together, just like their tender relationship until 1
year latter Aria proudly completed her first half-marathon. He knew
about the pain pills and wanted her to be free from this devil in a
plastic bottle and thought exercise was the real prescription.

The trusted boyfriend knew the skeleton in his lovers closet, every
single bone an intricate part of her psyche held in a non-judgmental si-

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lence. Aria reminded me of that time in life when you patiently waited
for other people to tell you whether or not you were OK, and trusted
them, as if there could be no other way to find out. The boyfriend
unfortunately had his own skeleton in the closet, he was married. Their
relationship weathered this awkward situation with simply perfected
love between two souls searching for an answer together.

All seemed to have changed suddenly and without warning.
The only empty space in her home was the bed. The sheets seemed
to encase and protect her until noon, however each new day only
welcomed Aria to prolonged boredom and hopelessness. With so
much free time, the former artist discovered a long-lost passion. Art
was her obsession and the art that answered her passion was collage
art. Countless magazines and catalogs supplied the images while
her fingers painstakingly applied them to a one inch square canvas.
Over time at least seventy images filled tiny easels and were spread
throughout the rooms. Hundred of eyes stared at her, perfected
models seemed to mock and surrealistic backgrounds would not
welcome her into this tiny world that she created.

Suddenly and slowly a new change happened like the start of
a snow fall, with flakes dancing schizophrenically seeking an empty
spot on the ground to cover. Night terrors and sleepwalking, a side
effect from the medicine would hamper her only chance for peace.
This adverse and unintended consequence interrupted her delta sleep
with confusion and arousal. Aria heard voices from the other rooms,
the eyes of the collages followed her knowingly, the mouths moved
slightly as she navigated each step timidly. Upon awakening some of
the collages appeared to change places throughout the rooms. Her
memory of sleep walking was clouded, the flashbacks and voices
could have only been a dream? The movement of the art a physio-
logical trick of the mind? Tired and distressed her only focus was to
create more collages.

The apartment was now totally closing in on Aria. The floors
were completely covered with un-opened mail and slick, slippery,
glossy magazines. She could no longer venture out unless it was to
fill a prescription that invoked a fictitious euphoria and an invisible
crutch to save her from anxiety.

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Most nights her sleep-walking and frequent bathroom trips
were blessed by some invisible hand or memory motor skills. She
navigated the littered landscape and delicately avoided brushing
against any collages that seemed perched like tiny, lonely headstones
awaiting a visit. The visit would come again after a heavy dose of
pharmaceuticals and a toxic mix of depression and fear. The dream
turned realistic and her dark eyes kept staring as she explored the
darkness. She felt her soul tearing away from each bone of her skel-
eton as if giving up on a blemished life. Her pupils had grownbigger
and bigger until they transformed into huge black lakes of fear. Each
step felt different this time, each step methodical in a growing feeling
of vertigo. Her balance like the exit from a carnival ride caused a fall
against the art table . Aria barely awake felt sleep and blood rushing
from her head. The blood flowed over an unfinished collage mixing
pigment with humanity and the final creation.
Carl Scharwath, has appeared globally with 150+ journals selecting
his poetry, short stories, interviews, essays or art photography.Two
poetry books ‘Journey To Become Forgotten’ (Kind of a Hurricane
Press).and ‘Abandoned’ (ScarsTv) have been published. Carl is the
art editor for Minute Magazine, a dedicated runner and 2nd degree
black- belt in Taekwondo.

405



Defiled

By Kaleigh Longe

“For Athena!”
The ululation echoes off the pristine marble pillars of the

temple, filling the cavernous space with the ghostly chorus of a
hundred men. The woman on the throne does not stir, but glances
wearily up at the intruder, long since exhausted of this cyclical game.

The young warrior is framed perfectly in the entryway, a long-
sword brandished in his hands. A heated sibilation winds out from
beneath the woman’s turban, and she places a soothing hand on its
side.

“Be gone,” she orders. “I have no patience for your ignorant
chivalry, warrior.”

Rather than heed the command, he marches closer. As he ap-
proaches the foot of the stairs leading to the throne, the woman
peers up, her eyes immediately drawn downward. For the first time
in over a century, she laughs, the sound rusty and cold from disuse.

“Do I find you so unprepared, insolent one? To come unarmed
with a mirrored shield is foolish enough, but to not even don your
boots for battle?”

A wry smile crosses the warriors face, stoking the woman’s
ever kindled rage. “I cannot fight with them on,” he explains. “They
hinder me.”

“Hinder you?” she snarls, her midnight eyebrows knitting close
together.

“Indeed. I have been blessed by the gods.”
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“The gods.” The very mention suffices to bring that demon’s
face to the forefront of her mind. However many centuries pass, how-
ever many days turn to night and stars to dust, his face will remain,
ever present, ever haunting, in the darkest corners of her memory.
Before the woman can form a response, the man in the golden
armor speaks once more. “Poseidon, the powerful and mighty god
of the seas, has blessed me with all that I need to vanquish you in
his honor, and avenge the goddess Athena.”
The last of his words go unheard by the woman, the careless
drip of that name—that wretched name—from his lips unleashing
something within her. In a single motion, she tears the cloth from
her head, the violet fabric still fluttering to the ground as she ad-
vances on her prey, stalking down the stairs of her granite throne.
“Do—not—speak—his—name,” she whispers through gritted
teeth, each lethal word punctuating her descent. Fissures open under
her heels, the marble cracking, quaking in well-minded fear. The
serpents atop her head writhe in ire, coiling and uncoiling, anxious
and ready to strike.
She waits for the flinch as she draws near, the inevitable cow-
ering under her gaze, but it does not come.
They are face to face now, and that is when she sees them, the
clouds in his eyes, plucked down from the blue sky above.
“Ah,” she breathes, circling him. “What are you, boy?”
“I am but a mortal,” he says, but she does not hear him, too
preoccupied is she with the way his feet shift almost imperceptibly
to track her path around him. “I have been given gifts, yes, but I
am just a man.”
“Tell me, then, has sight always eluded you? Or was it stolen
from you by that thief masquerading as a divine being?”
“I would sacrifice anything to bring honor and prosperity to
our gods. And sight does not elude me, she-demon. I see in tremors,
in vibrations, in the waft of the air as you move. Even the slithering
of your vile serpents is clear to me. And I will punish you for your
heinous act: defiling the goddess Athena’s temple.”
“Defiling the temple?” she repeats, their breaths intermingling
as she slides ever closer.

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His wrist twitches, too eager to seize the opportunity to strike.
Her hand shoots down, grasping it with metered force, just short of
crushing the bones within. The sword trembles as the two fight for
dominance, but the woman does not cower.
“You ignorant, pathetic creature,” she spits, her words accom-
panied by a choir of flicking serpent tongues. “You, like all those
before you, speak of that which you do not know. You have been
fooled and used. The only defilement was at the hands of your be-
loved Poseidon. How I wish I could forget the way he tarnished me,
the filthy sensation of his rough palms holding me prisoner, and I too
weak to escape. Could you fathom it, warrior? You call me monster,
and monster I may be with my soul long since shattered, but the
worst? Not I.”
With the last of her words dripping from her lips like poison,
she thrusts him backwards, relishing his helpless stumble, the way
his naked, fleshy feet slap the floor as he attempts to regain his bal-
ance.
Finally on sure footing once more, the warrior tilts his head
and adjusts his stance, the wicked tip of his glowing sword pointing
to the woman’s heart as a compass points true north.
“And why would I believe that? A self-proclaimed monster
would surely have no qualms engaging in deceit.”
“It is proof that you want?”
“Almost as much as your head on a pike.”
“The witnesses are rotting in the ground, their bones too cold
to whisper truths. And I will not bare my body to you, nor to any
other man to show my scars. If the burden of proof lies with me,
then so too it dies with me.”
“Answer me one question then,” he requests, his cloudy eyes
too shrouded to make out the thoughts behind them. “If you have
not committed any sins, then why would the wise goddess Athena
curse you to this life?”
The woman peers back at him, hesitating just a moment too
long. “I will answer your inquiry, but I am weary of this dance.
When your answer is in hand, you will either leave this place or smite
me. Whichever you choose, be quick.”

409

He lowers his sword, just a hairsbreadth, but how telling such
a motion can be. Could he sense the truth in her words, and hidden
deeply amongst the broken fragments of her heart, the burning need
for peace?

“If he were to look upon your face, demon, would he too turn
to stone beneath your gaze?”

“Yes.”
It was not an answer, but a plea, a permission granted.
“Then I shall kill you. And take your head to Mount Olympus.”

410

What About Your Soul:
Does She Speak To You?

By Maryna Manzhola

The brain was created for life
(to analyse, to make decisions)
The heart was created for people
(to love them, to understand them)
The soul was created for God
(to speak to Him, to feel Him)
Only these thoughts were inside of her head. Only her brain was
still alive, because the heart was trampled by people; the soul was
completely destroyed by life’s changes and trials. These words swum
up and surfaced in her head and she didn’t know where they were
from, nobody told them to her, but she always knew them...
Now her whole mind went out of her control and just these
three lines were blinking inside of her head as red letters winked
in emergency, but at the same moment it seemed as a hope which
showed the way to salvation.
The feeling was like a wind was whispering them in her ear,
while blowing her face with the ocean breeze; the wind gently
stroked her red hair with each new tender touch, trying to calm her
down somehow.
The touch of the ocean breeze... these were the only gentle
touches she had ever known before... The ocean’s beach was always

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home for her and she didn’t know why. Maybe because she had blue-
green eyes, which have a strange connection with ocean water like a
mirror to a mirror: the ocean could see its own depth in her eyes and
she could see her own nature and essence in it as well...

They both had this inexplicable connection, like a mother with
her child can always feel each other.

She wanted to hear some human voice, which could call her
with the happy sound of her name: “Eva! What are you doing? Come
here!”

But no sounds...
No one around…
Quiet emptiness about and only the ocean and wind watched
her...
The name was not an accident for her like the day of her birth,
because from the beginning God knew what destiny He had pre-
pared for her, that’s why He had to mark her. Through the parents
God blessed her with the Biblical name Eva.
She was a gift… a gift from Him, a gift from Heaven to Earth...
like all of us... because we all have earthly flesh, but heavenly essence.
For His plans to become true He bestowed her (and punished
her at the same time) with a very curious mind filled with too many
unusual questions, not like all kids and people have. All this gifted
her unique way of thinking which always brought her to very un-
common life situations, but with defiant chances to survive.
To survive...
To survive, yet the feeling was like “to survive, but not this time...”
She tiredly made an attempt to get up. She was sitting for a
while and finally wanted to stand up, but couldn’t... The pressure
of hard memories, hard feelings and hard thoughts just held her in
place without giving any possibility to move.
Now she didn’t even feel lonely anymore...
Or maybe she just deceived herself...
Or maybe she just wanted to protect herself from people...

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Why did she feel so leaden?
No one knows, but she did...
She held the weight of people’s lives on her shoulders, because
no one knew what to do, but she always did. From where she brought
her knowledge, she didn’t know, but it always worked.
At first it was an inner feeling, then it became inner rules...
She saw so many damaged human lives and couldn’t under-
stand why people were doing this to themselves: for experience, for
pleasure, for following someone, but whom?
She didn’t know the reasons for people’s behaviour, but she
always knew what would be the result of those actions, she could
see it in advance, predict, sometimes could even feel it like her own
life experience.
Why destroy themselves so, that then with such huge efforts
and courage make attempts to survive?
She needed to get answers to all her questions, because only in
this way she could know how to help them, or even better, how to
heal them forever to activate His plan.
But to cure, one must understand not from what others suffer
most, but what the cause of their suffering is.
The main problem is how to make them be honest.
When and where are they not afraid to open their hearts and
truly ask themselves the main questions? And more importantly – to
respond to them.
The answer was obvious...
Near death...
Because when people are close to death they don’t want to lie
anymore, because there are no more reasons for doing this... any-
more...
Why carry this millstone with them if the Soul wanted to be
free and light, because only in this way She can fly away in peace.
But how to hear what your Soul wants if She is always silent?
No... not at all...

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She is relentlessly and continuously talking to us, but the voice
of people’s Ego is so much stronger and ruder that Soul’s subtle
trembling voice becomes an elusive whisper somewhere on the abyss
of our subconscious.
Only at the sight of the gates of Hell the EGO loses all his
arrogance, courage and past power, and standing on the verge of
horror, like a bewildered, shabby child, he spreads his hands guiltily
and shamefacedly weeps, becoming silent at last.
This Ego stands and looks desperately with pleading in his eyes
and thinks “please... anybody... please... come to the rescue, come
help me... please... plea...se...”
And this ego begins to hear for the first time someone other
than himself.
Through the frightening impenetrable darkness this heart-
breaking scream of the Soul cuts through the void and fills it with
itself.
But the most incredible thing is that there is no despair or fear
in this cry...
There is no pain or sadness...
There is no reproach or blame...
Where there are no ambitions, there is no place for these feel-
ings and emotions. Only pure love, selflessness, a genuine desire to
care, help, save.
She has long been running after him and did not keep up with
the unaccountable rhythm of his life dictated by his ambitions.
And finally, before perhaps the last step in life, at least here in
the pitch darkness they are in, where there are not those for whom
one needs to keep the mask. Their eyes can meet probably for the
first time and feel this invisible thread establishing the connection
of unity, from which a thick woven rope had been turned into a
thin strand.
As the Mother embraces the lost child, so the Soul embraces
the self-deceived part of human existence. She embraces the Ego
with understanding, and there is the only compassion in her eyes...
compassion... pure, eternal, all-forgiving...

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In the seconds they are standing in each others healing embrace
very different changes happen in one’s personality... It breaks com-
pletely and rebuilds again, like in our contemporary world, the code
of a computer program that downloads new updates...
With new values​.​.. the right values…
More precisely, the values w​​ ere always the same (from the be-
ginning of all time to the end), but people became lost in their path,
replaced them with others, with fakes.
All this is inside… something that is invisible to the eye…
And in the visible world at these moments people are experi-
encing the turning points in their lives: someone standing on the
edge breaking off, someone repenting that they betrayed or sold
out a friend, someone over a terrible diagnosis, someone over some-
thing that has not saved or helped someone, someone... someone...
someone... all over the planet someone...
The pain, heaviness and pressure from this strange struggle that
occurs in almost every person at least once in a life, she saw every
day... she experienced it day in and day out...
In the hospital... standing next to the threshold of two worlds,
negotiating with Death for each of the Souls for which she was re-
sponsible before God.
Only in this kind of work, where the conditions are sometimes
as close as possible to extreme and sometimes there are only sec-
onds to solve everything, she could get answers to all her questions...
truthful words... sometimes the last words...
These exact last ones are most honest in the world...
Only here it was possible to see the true face of even lying
people... This was the domain of Truth. Here was doubtless to feel
Her exposing and healing touch in everything.
To find out what is truly valuable to these people. Everything
finds its real, most true price only under the threat of future loss.
It is here where it’s possible to see the essence of human Souls, the
meaning of their being, the meaning of human existence...
That to see, to endure what others can’t, one must also be
unique. What was Eva’s secret?

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Giving the promise to be a doctor, she (like absolutely every
person on their path) stood at the crossroads: do work for a salary or
do it from the heart. The choice of “investing the Heart and Soul” in
every decision and action at work gave her that unique power that
other doctors didn’t have.
But her main secret was that she fought not only on the phys-
ical, visible battlefield, but also on the moral and mental, appealing
to the Souls of the sick, knowing that only Their voices and partici-
pation are able to return people from the abyss to life and sometimes
even do wonders.
You can’t save the body, if you do not save the Soul. Sooner
or later the body will wither again, without the key part, because
our Soul is the Key. She is a spark from God, the Evidence of His
existence in each of us.
The brain was created for life
(to analyse, to make decisions)
The heart was created for people
(to love them, to understand them)
The soul was created for God
(to speak to Him, to feel Him)
Pure repentance and reassessment of values ​c​ an not only renew
the entire mental system of humans, but also radically change Fate!
Eva knew this not by hearsay, but certainly… because she saw
the turning points in the lives of her patients and lived with them,
and walked with them shoulder to shoulder when others didn’t, when
their friends and relatives didn’t want to or couldn’t, or didn’t have
the strength to be around. She did not cry with them, but for them...
She communicated with them in the moments that seemed the
last, and sometimes they really were the last...
She saw how the Souls were purified, but if not, they left...
She asked them the most important questions in the hope of
helping others in the future and they answered...
Why did they answer?

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Why honestly?
Why now?
Because as she knew before, close to the end of life people are
more honest with others and with themselves.
Because so often people keep silent about things which are
really important to talk about.
For example…
Why people in the end or in time of disaster can become more
honest than their whole previous life, so honest that they even sur-
prise themselves?
Or…
Why do people wholly destroy their lives and start to make ef-
forts to fix them only when the end is close or an amount of troubles
are above their head?
And so on and on...
There were so many questions which always bothered her and
she received answers to almost all of them. But the most important
question was “Why?”
Why do they do this?
For what reason?
While taking care of people she figured out one obvious un-
breakable truth.
Each patient had a clear diagnosis of a physical or mental illness,
but… all these diseases had one source and one conclusion for all.
They were sick only morally, everyone in their own personal way.
All... All diseases, physical or psychological, were just a result
of complete moral disconnection. Disconnection from our source,
disconnection from the Creator, from Who made us.
Because of the disconnection from our Creator, we don’t have
peace. When we are in moral trouble without peace, we destroy ev-
erything around us including ourselves. We should learn not how to
do more, but how to do right. It’s possible only in case of speaking
with our Souls, through them we can find the true path.

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Eva’s life experience and knowledge of saving people was based
on real human lives which were in such pain and suffered so hard,
yet not from life (as they all like to think), but from themselves...
But now these fights were far away...
All this world and these human battles...
In which she participated...
And about which she could tell...
Maybe... one day she will...
But not now...
Everything is far from here...
For the first time all was not in her and
For the first time she didn’t share people’s fate with them...
She was at home...
With the Ocean...
With herself...
The wind fondly caressed her face…
The breeze was washing away the pain, fatigue, and most im-
portantly the past...
All of the past...
So that she could live on…
She should live on...
The Ocean took almost everything, giving her a chance to start
a new life.
He left only one memory, a memory of the question that was
always asked of her.
So many times people asked her: “How can you be so vulner-
able and so strong at the same time?”
She never answered.
But She always kept this answer inside of herself:
“If God is for us, who can be against us?”
Romans 8:31

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Maryna Manzhola was born, raised and earned her MA in com-
puter science in Kherson, Ukraine (Kherson National Technical
University).

While studying for her PhD in mechanical engineering in Kiev,
Ukraine (Kiev Polytechnic Institute of National Technical University
of Ukraine), she co-authored 12 scientific works with the comments
that in the process of writing, some had artistic language for how
the science worked. So, she wrote and published an artistic article
about her impressions of internship and lifestyle in a foreign country
(during of her scientific internship in the Otto-von-Guericke Uni-
versity in Magdeburg, Germany).

She always had an interest in emotional descriptions of life
events and achievements. As the result, recently she started to take
her first steps in the essay and short story fields on the topic of her
dreams – the human soul, feeling and life values...

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