(Reading time: 6 minutes)
The morning began like all the others – with Buryana’s CCCC coffee (coffee, cocoa, coconut oil, cinnamon) and the usual noise from the neighbors’ television, which was pouring in through the windows.
She did not watch the news in the morning; rather, the news chased her through the wall, through the phone, through everyone else’s mouth. Lately she missed the quiet mornings when she could concentrate and hear her own thoughts.
Her son Konstantin, fifteen years old, with a hoodie and headphones, was sitting in the kitchen over a bowl of oatmeal and his phone. His brain was obviously in three places at once.
– Did you hear about those people? – he said instead of “good morning,” without lifting his eyes. – The ATV mystery? The internet has gone mad.
– No, tell me – Buryana replied, sipping her coffee with pleasure. – I need a shock before I have even seen the cases for the day.
Kin looked up, pleased that he had an audience.
– So: three people – two men and one woman – rent ATVs from some little hotel or hut, somewhere almost by the border. They say they are going for a ride, they disappear, and that’s it. Then helicopters, drones, police, dogs, everything – no sign, no trace.
Bu raised her shoulders, which he interpreted as interest.
– They find the ATVs under a shelter – he continued, his eyes already shining. – On one of them – documents and a bag with quite a lot of money and some valuables. No bodies, no footprints or any other traces of where they went. Nearby they found a torn jacket. Do you understand? NOTHING, as if they evaporated or aliens abducted them! A huge mystery.
The inner guard slightly pulled at her stomach.
– And what are they saying on the internet? – Buryana asked, already knowing that the answer was not going to help her finish her coffee calmly.
– Everything – Konstantin spread his arms. – From “organs for the black market” to “abducted by drones” and “escape across the border with a false trail.” One guy made a map of how they could have passed through a secret path toward military warehouses nearby. Another claims they were taken into a secret witness program.
– And is anyone offering the theory “they slipped, fell, or went back by balloon to their grandma’s village”? – she raised an eyebrow.
– Mom, please – Kin protested. – That does not get likes. And, of course, everyone is on the topic “the state is hiding it again.” How can there be no answers, we have to know, right!
Buryana had always found it interesting how that “we have to know” almost never went together with “we have to sleep,” “we have to eat,” and “we have to live our own life.” No state had ever signed a contract saying, “We promise personal peace to every citizen,” but out of habit everyone behaved as if the Constitution said: “We will protect you both from uncertainty and from your own thoughts.”
The inner guard made a note: “The first dose of adrenaline for the day has been accepted.”
At the office the atmosphere was even thicker than the news, as if there were a conference on criminalistics. The secretary was watching a live stream, clients in the waiting room were arguing with the television, and her colleague Mihail rushed toward her with a theory worthy of five seasons of a series.
– Did you watch about those people in the mountain? – he greeted her right at the door. – You cannot not be up to date, you know everything.
– Good morning to you too – Buryana smiled. – Allow me at least to cross the threshold before you greet me with the topic of the day.
– Three people cannot disappear like that, without any trace. It is clear there was a deal – he continued, already heated. – Money in the bag, documents in the ATV, in my opinion a clear diversionary maneuver. It could be military experiments, or the mafia had the final word. Either they were grabbed, or they ran off with other people. One hundred percent there is involvement of the services. There is no way there is not something from above. You should know, the state is involved up to its fontanelle here. The state is not protecting us, Bube.
“The state is not protecting us” passed through her body like an old sentence she had heard before – only back then it was “your mother cannot always protect you,” then “there is no one to protect you,” then “protect yourself.”
Many people carried within themselves combinations of beliefs: “The world is dangerous,” “I alone am not enough,” “Someone big has to be responsible.”
When that “someone big,” in the face of mom, dad, teachers, and bosses, fell apart, only the state remained – the last abstract adult. And it was easier to throw all the chaos of life onto it than to admit that part of the responsibility always remains with you – in your choices, in your boundaries, in what you expose your nervous system to.
Buryana put the folders on the desk, took a deep breath, and allowed herself three seconds to feel how the body felt, as she put it – to “scan” it quickly. The stomach – slightly contracted, the jaw – ready to tighten, and the inner guard was already on duty, scanning the horizon and coughing: “I will allow you this once a day,” she thought, “then I will ban you from this sentence by official order.”
– I agree that the state does not come with an ATV to give us personal rides. But right now I am more interested in whether we are protecting our nervous system. Did you manage to finish the report on the Ikonomovi case?
– I was… I had almost done it, but when they announced the news, after that I watched clips until two – he sighed. – Since it is not protecting us, a person has to know and manage on his own. That is why I watch, Bu.
“Wonderful,” she thought. “The state is not protecting me, so I will not protect my sleep – excellent logic, straight from the textbook on IBS.”
– I see – she smiled. – I will be in the family law laboratory, if anyone is looking for me. And yes – if the state is not protecting us, it would be a mistake to entrust it with your nervous system.
Work swallowed her up – claims, deadlines, clients who wanted the universe to return justice to them and preferably by the end of next week. She wanted to finish quickly and dance at the studio, to unwind before going to work at Marmalade and Jazz.
On Saturday morning Buryana woke up around nine to a special news bulletin and voices shouting over each other.
In the kitchen the television was on, it smelled of coffee, and her mother was standing by the stove with the remote in her hand.
– You woke up! – she exclaimed. – And just in time. They released a new recording from the shelter!
– Good morning – Buryana said. – I am glad we have a new recording instead of pancakes. I would have been shocked otherwise.
– Mom, new hypotheses – Konstantin was already sitting at the table with a laptop and a phone. – Some say someone transferred them across the border with a military helicopter. Others – that they escaped themselves with some abandoned truck in one of the villages.
– Has anyone suggested the theory “let us not prophesy, but wait for the terrain experts to finish their work”? – Buryana asked.
– Momich, enough with this skepticism of yours – Kin sighed. – If I did not know you, I would say you lack any imagination.
– I am telling you – his grandmother intervened while pouring coffee. – It is convenient for everyone not to tell the truth, and that is why we will never understand it. The state… – she stopped when she saw her daughter’s look.
– Mom, it is Saturday; let the state take a break in our kitchen today – Buryana was calmly breathing in the aroma. – Tell me how you are.
– Me, how am I supposed to be? – her mother was surprised. – You and your sister seem to have agreed between yourselves – you act like complete people who do not care, and I cannot even sleep – ATVs are flying everywhere.
– So for you it is no longer news, but a series – Buryana concluded. – And how does your body feel in this series?
– A tightness here, my head is tightening, a little pressure in the eyes… But my grandson is also playing detective all night.
Buryana leaned against the counter and took a sip of coffee.
– All right, let us do this. Those three people in the mountain have a search team, right – helicopters, dogs, drones, mountain rescue, volunteers, everything? That is their team. Let us see, here in this kitchen, what team do we have? One heart of sixty plus, one of thirty-five plus, and one of fifteen – Buryana listed. – And all of them are on twenty-four-hour duty in front of the screen. Will any of you take leave?
Konstantin laughed:
– Mom, do you want to organize a strike of the nervous system?
– Yes – she smiled. – It announces that for the next three hours it will not accept new reports from “mysterious sources near the border.” We will only cook, drink tea, and take a walk in the park.
Her mother sighed one of those sighs that begin as protest and end as relief, and went out to buy bread.
The inner guard relaxed slightly. For the first time in two days there was a feeling of a small but her own territory of control: kitchen, bar, park. Enough for one body.
She turned off the TV, but her phone vibrated. Group chat: “The Girls from the University.” Messages poured out like an avalanche: “Watch this, they have revealed the truth,” “This clip makes the most sense,” “Here he says something very important about the authorities and about us.”
The inner guard snapped its fingers: “If you open it, the walk goes to the movies, and you will not be able to fall asleep until two.”
She left the phone on the table, and while washing the cup, she felt her breathing even out. There was no heroism in not watching the clips. There was pure benefit: tomorrow she would be a little less irritable with the first client, the first taxi driver, the first friend.
She sat a little longer in silence. Then another thought occurred to her: conspiracy theories are like a home version of the “official scenario.” When institutions cannot tell you the story to the end, the mind directs its own version that can withstand the tension. It may be scarier and more unreal, but at least it is finished, and not scattered across studios and live streams. And all those versions: “the services are hiding it,” “someone from above is pulling the strings,” also had one bonus function – they spared the personal question. While you point a finger at a large anonymous structure, there is no time to ask yourself: “How am I living my own day? Where am I pouring my attention? What boundaries am I setting?”
The truth was that the hunger for information did not come only from the world, but also from her inner guards. One whispered: “If you do not know what is happening, something terrible will surprise you,” a second insisted: “The informed person is responsible, the other is foolish and irresponsible,” a third wanted not to fall out of the tribe: “Everyone is talking about this, and you are going to stay silent like the last person who does not care?” There was also another one – the one that liked to look at the dark through glass. Through it she looked at other people’s death, cruelty, and mysteries. Buryana realized how her own Shadow was drawn to being able, quite “legally,” to touch the darkness outside instead of seeing it in herself.
On top of all that, the phone worked like a mini-lottery: every refresh promised a new fear, a new scandal, a new “revelation,” and a small dose of dopamine and adrenaline. Information supposedly brought security, belonging, and a feeling that you are “up to date,” but the bill was paid by the nervous system – with insomnia, tightness in the stomach, and a chronic feeling that you are on watch in a fog that is not yours.
“All right,” Buryana said to herself. “The state may not protect me. But I have an inner guard who makes sure my fuse does not burn out, and I will not sacrifice him in the name of ratings. In my little state I am closing the news border checkpoint.”
It was not a great revolution and it would not make the news, but for her nervous system it was a change of regime: from “eternal duty” to “for today, you are safe.” She felt good in her own body, in which she was chief guard, legislator, and judge at the same time.
And here the constitution was brief: “Information is fuel, but I choose the direction and the speed.”
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“Quest to Self” – Q2S is an original method for inner transformation. It is not about an “artistic path,” but a system with a clear structure, verifiable steps, and practical actions that lead to lasting change, not temporary inspiration. Through Q2S, a person releases blocked energy and accumulated inner reactions in the subconscious, restores their nervous system, and begins to create their reality consciously. If this touches you, you can explore how the process works in the “Quest to Self – Q2S” section.