A Woman Without Advice, or Nobody Women. Psychological thriller

© Maxim Sofin, 2026

ISBN 978-5-0069-5350-5

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

“A Woman Without Advice, or Nobody Women”

Autor:

Maxim Sofin – a writer, practicing psychologist since 2001 (family, sports, clinical). He has lived and travelled around the world for over 9 years.

A TV and radio psychology expert. A speaker at educational forums and congresses for psychologists and game practitioners.

Holder of a Master’s degree in Education, NLP Master.

Author of the courses: “Game Practitioner”, “Quantum-Matrix Constellations”.

Author of transformative psychological games: “The Quantum Matrix of Fate”, “The Matrix of Actions”.

Genre:

Literary drama with elements of a psychological thriller and spiritual awakening.

The book combines depth, realism, and warm empathy – it does not provide ready-made solutions, but helps the reader to see.

Main Idea:

After we met Nobody Men, a man who knows how to listen to the soul rather than give advice, followers appeared all over the world – and he himself became a mysterious yet awaited conversational partner. While travelling the world, Alex met his female counterpart – Nobody Women, named Dorothy.

General Impression:

Nobody Women is a pleasant woman, about 45—55 years old: lively, quick to make decisions, quick to grasp things, active, wise, and open. She is a professor at Columbia University, speaks several languages, and spent her entire childhood travelling the world with her parents, who were anthropologists.

Appearance:

Fit – neither lean nor overweight. About 168 cm tall, with medium-length dark brown hair and kind, open, deep blue eyes. European features.

Clothing:

Everything she wears fits her perfectly. At the university, she wears a beautiful business suit or an elegant dress; while travelling, she wears khaki trousers and a jacket, military boots, and an арафатка (keffiyeh) around her neck. Her pendant is not a heart, but two hands holding each other.

Contents

Chapter I: The Beginning

Part 1: Cape Town. “Ukufa kwezinyo” (A saying meaning “The death of teeth” – how resentment gnaws from within)

– District Six, sunset

– Alex observes

Part 2: Reykjavík. “Saman” (“Together”)

– Park by Tjörnin Lake, midnight spring

– A note in the notebook (in English, under the shimmer of the northern lights)

Part 3: Buenos Aires. “Aprender a escuchar” (“To Learn to Listen”)

– La Boca, the street of colourful houses

– Alexander’s note (he observed from afar, without interfering)

Part 4: Sydney. “Nobody Women”

– Royal Botanic Garden, dawn

– Alexander sees from afar

– A note in his notebook

Part 5: Sydney. “Where the Paths Cross”

– Morning in the Botanic Garden

– Dorothy’s story

– What is Alex experiencing now?

– An exchange

Part 6: Istanbul. “Affetmek” (“To Forgive”)

– Gülhane Park, by the Bosphorus

– The shadow of the past

– The echo of forgiveness

– The crossroads of destinies

Chapter II: The Shadow Behind

Part 1: New York. Columbia University. Night

Part 2: A Past That Won’t Die

Part 3: Who Is Following Her?

Part 4: A Meeting with Alex – Under the Gun

Part 5: A Note in the Pocket

Part 6: What Next?

Chapter III: And People Keep Walking

Part 1: Mexico City. “Bondad sin debilidad” (“Kindness Without Weakness”)

– A park, sunset

– Reflections in flight (on a plane to Cairo)

Part 2: Johannesburg. “‘No’ Is a Full Sentence”

– Soweto, Community Yard, noon

– Dorothy observes from the shade of a tree

Chapter IV: The Meeting with “K.”

Part 1: Geneva. 23:17. Printing House “L’Écho du Temps”

Part 2: The Man at the Tea Table

Part 3: The Deal

Part 4: The Shadow Behind the Wall

Part 5: The Departure

Part 6: On the Street

Chapter V: Luca’s Disappearance

Part 1: Morning on the Hudson River Bank

Part 2: The Silence That Screams

Part 3: The Phone Call

Part 4: Alex Was Already Waiting

Part 5: Inside “Green Pines”

Part 6: Luca

Part 7: The Departure

Part 8: A Note in Alex’s Notebook (at night)

Chapter VI: Dorothy, Who Is Nearby

Part 1: Copenhagen. The Echo of Tivoli

– Tivoli Gardens. 23:47

– The woman without a shadow

– The mother

– The shadow

– A note in Dorothy’s notebook

Chapter VII: The Debate

Part 1: United Kingdom. 19:00

– The Oxford Union

– “K.”‘s speech

– Dorothy’s speech

Chapter VIII: Therapist for Emil

Part 1: Denmark

– Copenhagen. Morning

– Dorothy’s phone call

– The cancellation

– A note in Dorothy’s notebook

Part 2: Oslo. “Kan man lytte når man er knust?” (“Can You Listen When You Are Broken?”)

– Frogner Park, autumn rain

– The next day

– Dorothy’s note (in a hotel room, rain tapping on the window)

Chapter IX: Three Initials

Part 1: The Conspiracy

– A meeting in Zurich. The bank basement

– Who are they?

– The decision

– Dorothy and Alex. Berlin. Night

– “Nobody Houses”

– The end of the system

– A note in the shared notebook (Alex and Dorothy)

Chapter X: The Bench Lives Its Own Life

Part 1: Vienna. “Die Stimme, die ich nicht hörte” (“The Voice I Did Not Hear”)

– Volksgarten, the golden hour

– Dorothy’s note (on the back of a postcard with roses from Volksgarten)

Part 2: The Bench in Zurich

– Morning. Riverspark

– Him

– On the bench

– A note in the pocket

– The final line

Part 3: Hanoi. “Xin lỗi, con trai” (“Forgive Me, Son”)

– Long Bien Park, dawn

– The meeting

– A note in the notebook (on the deck of a boat sailing down the Red River)

Chapter XI: Nobody House. Nobody People.

– Cradle of ashes: Berlin

– The code of the unseen: A manifesto of silence

– An echo across the planet

– Who are the Nobody People?

– The world’s reaction

– A note in the common journal

– The final bench

Chapter XII: Nobody People and the Benches

Part 1: Lisbon. A Lesson in Silence

– Alfama. The golden dust of sunset

– The lesson

– The handover

– A note in a Nobody Person’s notebook

Part 2: Granada. A House Without a Door

– Albayzín. The breath of eternal morning

– The code of invisible comfort

– The sacrament of healing silence

– The sisterhood of the unseen

– Ripples on the water: An echo of compassion

– Maria’s letter: The covenant of silence

– A note in the house’s common notebook

Part 3: Almería. The Sanctuary of the Salty Wind

– The road to oblivion

– The white refuge on the hill

– The sacrament of cold soup

– The art of being grandchildren

– Morning

– A note in the common notebook

Part 4: Epilogue

– Juana from Almería

– Juana’s tale: “The Stone That Was Afraid to Lie Still”

– From the Author

Chapter I: The Beginning

Alex is no longer alone.

He is the start of a chain: from Cairo to New York, from Marseille to Tokyo.

And anyone who sits on the bench after him is no longer “help” – they are “continuation”.

As long as there is a bench. As long as there is a question. As long as there is a heart ready to listen.

Part 1: Cape Town. “Ukufa kwezinyo” (“The Death of Teeth” – a saying about how resentment gnaws from within)

1. District Six, sunset

The sun was sinking towards the ocean, painting the ruins of District Six in the hues of cooling copper. Once, houses had stood here – cramped, noisy, full of life. Now only a wasteland remained, with fragments of walls like teeth knocked out by time and the cruelty of history.

On a slope, beside a brick block overgrown with lichen, sat Nkosi. Seventy-two years old – not just a number, but a map of endured pain and hard-won wisdom. His face was etched with wrinkles, each one a trace of what he had lived through, each one an untold story.

Beside him sat Lihle, his sixteen-year-old grandson. Earphones in his ears, from which a dull rhythm pulsed; his fists clenched so tightly that the knuckles turned white. He stared into the distance, but what he saw was probably not the sunset – it was a scene that made his heart clench into a tight ball.

“He hit Mom, Grandpa,” Lihle’s voice sounded muffled, as if struggling through thick water. “And then he just left. Like nothing ever happened.”

Nkosi did not rush to reply. His gaze wandered over the ruins, as if searching for answers he could not find in words. Finally, he nodded.

“Do you want to find him?”

“Yes. So he knows – I won’t forgive him.”

Silence. Only the wind whispered something among the broken walls, like the echo of forgotten voices.

Slowly, Nkosi took an old tin box from his pocket. It was battered, dented, as if it had lived through as much as its owner. He opened it – and inside lay not money, not a weapon, but just a tooth. Yellowed, with a crack, like a shard of the past, carefully preserved.

“This is your great-grandfather’s tooth,” Nkosi said, holding it in his palm like a treasure. “The white soldiers knocked it out in 1960. He carried it all his life – as a reminder.”

“Of what?” Lihle frowned, not understanding.

“That hatred is like a tooth in your pocket. At first, you think you’re holding it. Controlling it. But then you realize: it gnaws at you from within. Like tooth decay. Slowly, imperceptibly, but relentlessly.”

Lihle took off his earphones. The sounds of the world around him momentarily overwhelmed him – the rustle of the wind, the distant cries of seagulls, the thud of his own heart. He looked at the tooth, then at his grandfather.

“But how do you forgive?” His voice carried not a request, but despair. “How can you just take it and forget?”

“Forgiveness isn’t for him,” Nkosi spoke quietly, but each word rang like a bell toll. “It’s for you. You’re not saying, ‘What you did is okay.’ You’re saying, ‘I won’t let you live in my soul for free.’”

The grandson looked at the sunset. The sun, like molten gold, sank into the ocean, leaving long streaks of light on the water. Then he turned to his grandfather.

“But what if I can’t?” Tears glimmered in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall.

“Then sit here. Every day. And breathe. Forgiveness doesn’t come like thunder. It comes like morning – quietly, but inevitably. Like light that drives away the darkness, even if you don’t notice how it happens.”

2. Alex Observes

Alex stood in the shade of an acacia tree. He did not intervene, did not utter a single word. He simply observed – how wisdom is passed not through loud speeches, but through the silence between words, through glances, through breath. He saw the old man and the young boy sitting amid the ruins of the past, while the sunset enveloped them like a cloak woven from light and shadow.

Later, when the sun had finally dipped below the horizon, Alex approached that very brick wall. He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and carefully placed it on a fragment of rubble, as if leaving a message for time.

The sheet contained the following words:

In Cape Town, forgiveness is not a gift to the enemy.

It is freedom for the one who carries the wound.

And sometimes…

the wisest teacher is the one who still has a tooth in his pocket.

The wind caught the sheet, lifted it slightly as if testing its strength, and then gently set it back down. The words remained – like an echo, like a promise, like a mark in the sand that even the strongest tide would not wash away.

Part 2: Reykjavík. “Saman” (“Together”)

1. Park by Tjörnin Lake, Midnight Spring

The northern lights pulsed above the city – like the very breath of the earth breaking through the icy crust of reality. Green and purple ribbons shimmered in the sky, as if alive: sometimes coalescing into dense whorls, sometimes dispersing to leave behind a мерцающая haze.

On a bench wrapped in the soft glow of sparse streetlights sat Elin, 38 years old. Her gaze was not fixed on the aurora, but turned inward – she wasn’t waiting for a man, a phone call, or a sign. She was waiting for “herself” – the self she had lost somewhere between endless attempts to “fix” another person.

Beside her sat Alex, wearing a woollen sweater and carrying a thermos of herbal tea, which he occasionally offered to her. He spoke Icelandic haltingly, choosing his words like stones on a rocky shore, but Elin replied in English – softly, with a tremor in her voice, as if afraid her words would crumble if spoken too loudly.

“I kept trying to ‘save’ him,” she began, without looking at Alex. “From depression. From hopelessness. From emptiness. I read books, called therapists, arranged ‘perfect evenings’… But he only retreated further inward. It was as if he were drowning in his own silence.”

“And what changed?” Alex asked slowly, as if fearing to scare away her candour.

“Nothing. Until one day I said: ‘I don’t need to save you. I just need to be here. Even if you don’t speak. Even if you can’t see me. I’m here.’”

She fell silent, watching the northern lights. They flared brighter, as if responding to her words.

“That evening, for the first time in a year… he took my hand. He didn’t say ‘thank you.’ But he looked at me – as if he saw me again. As if I stopped being a shadow he was used to ignoring.”

Alex nodded. His gaze drifted over the shifting lights in the sky, then returned to Elin.

“Love isn’t a rescue mission,” he said quietly. “It’s… presence in the dark. Without a flashlight. Without a plan. Just – a hand in a hand. Even when you can’t see a thing around you.”

Elin smiled. For the first time in a long while, it was genuine. Her face, previously tense, seemed to shed an invisible mask.

“Now I understand: I’m not his saviour. I’m his witness. I’m here to see him – the real him. Even if he can’t see himself.”

2. A Note in the Notebook (in English, Under the Flicker of the Northern Lights)

Alex took out his notebook. The pencil trembled in his hand, but the words landed on the page evenly, as if guided by the night itself.

“In Reykjavík, a woman stopped trying to fix the man she loved.

And in that surrender… love returned.

Not as a rescue.

But as a quiet “I’m here” – spoken not with words,

but with stillness”.

He closed the notebook. The northern lights still danced above the city, but now they seemed not just a natural phenomenon, but something more – as if the very sky were whispering: “You are here too. You are part of this”.

Elin rose from the bench. Alex remained seated, his silhouette dissolving into the half-light, as if he had become part of this place – the park, the lake, the aurora. She took a few steps, then turned around.

“Thank you,” she said simply.

He didn’t reply. Perhaps he hadn’t heard. Or perhaps he knew: words weren’t needed here.

She walked away, leaving footprints on the damp gravel. Elin suddenly realized: she was no longer the same person she had been before. Back then, she had been trying to fix someone else; now, she was observing herself. Back then, she had been searching for answers; now, she had found the silence in which those answers could emerge.

The city lived its own life around her: the occasional car whispered across the wet asphalt, people laughed in the distance, and above it all – the northern lights, an endless dance of light. Elin walked, and with every step she felt something shifting inside her. It was as if she, too, had stopped “saving” others – and herself – from the past, from questions, from the fear of not finding meaning.

She simply was.

Here.

Now.

And in that – lay all the magic.

Part 3: Buenos Aires. “Aprender a escuchar” (“To Learn to Listen”)

1. La Boca, the Street of Colourful Houses

Evening wrapped La Boca in a velvety haze, painted with neon glimmers and the lights of street-side cafés. The houses, as if snatched from a children’s fairy tale, stood in a motley dance: pink, azure, canary-yellow – as if the very walls were singing a tango. Music poured from open windows – passionate, raw, with the hoarse notes of the bandoneon, as if the citys heart were beating in unison with someone’s unspoken grief.

On a park bench, in the shade of a sprawling plane tree, sat two men. Rodrigo, 58 years old, in a worn-out jacket he wore like armour. And Mateo, 24 years old – his son, whose clothes were as bright as the houses around them, yet held not a trace of bravado, only the quiet confidence of someone accustomed to listening.

Between them – not anger. Not resentment. Emptiness. The kind that is worse than any shouting: a silent abyss that had grown over ten years of silence.

Rodrigo stared at the dancing lights, but seemed to see not them, but shadows of the past. Mateo fiddled with a keychain – a nervous, mechanical gesture, as if trying to grope for words he had long hesitated to utter.

“Did you come because Mom told you to?” Mateo asked, not looking at his father. His voice sounded steady, but carried a weariness – like someone who had waited too long for an answer.

“No. I came… because I can’t anymore.”

“Can’t what?” Mateo finally met his gaze. His eyes held no challenge – only a question long brewing, like a crack in glass.

“To be the way I’ve been.”

Silence. Only the creak of the bench in a gust of wind, as if the earth itself sighed, watching them. The tango music in the background no longer sounded like a celebration, but like a confession – slow, drawn-out, raw.

“You always resented me for not crying at your brothers funeral,” Rodrigo said finally, staring into the distance. His voice was quiet, yet carried the weight he had borne for years.

“Yes. Because I was screaming – and you stood there like a wall,” Mateo clenched his fists. “You never spoke. Never asked. You just… were. As if feelings were weakness.”

“I thought… that was how it should be. A man doesn’t cry,” Rodrigo lowered his head. His fingers gripped the edge of his jacket, as if he had suddenly realized how much this garment had become a symbol – not of strength, but of fear. “I thought silence was responsibility. That words are for poets. Action – for men.”

“You don’t cry – and I stopped speaking,” Mateo exhaled, and in that breath was so much pain that Rodrigo flinched. “I tried to scream – you didn’t hear. I tried to stay silent – you didn’t notice. Somewhere between that, we lost each other.”

Rodrigo remained silent. The wind played with his greying hair, and at last, something alive flickered in his eyes – not anger, not pride, but fear. Fear of what he might have lost forever.

And then, softly, trembling, in Spanish, he said:

“Enseñame… a escuchar. No como padre. Como hombre”.

(“Teach me… to listen. Not as a father. As a man”. )

Mateo froze. In that moment, he ceased to be a son – hurt and lonely. He became a teacher – not because he knew more, but because he was ready to give a chance.

“First, take off your jacket,” he said, looking his father in the eyes.

“What?” Rodrigo frowned, as if not understanding.

“You’re always in it, even at home. Like armour. Take it off.”

Slowly, Rodrigo raised his hands, as if each movement cost him effort. He unbuttoned the jacket, took it off, and laid it beside him – not carelessly, but carefully, as if shedding not clothing, but a burden he had carried for years.

“Now – breathe. Not to speak. To feel,” Mateos voice was gentle yet firm. “Feel what?” Rodrigo looked at him with a bewilderment, almost childlike.

“That you are here. That I am, too. And that between us… there can be not emptiness. But space for words.”

They sat. The tango played on, its rhythm speeding up and slowing down like a heartbeat. The wind rustled the leaves, and somewhere in the distance people laughed – but for them, only this moment existed now: fragile as a spider’s web, yet so important.

Rodrigo closed his eyes. He breathed – deeply, slowly, as if for the first time in years, allowing himself simply to “be”. And in that breath, in the silence between the tango notes, in the warmth of his sons hand, which Mateo gently placed on his shoulder, he finally heard what he had long ignored: his own voice. Not loud, not commanding, but quiet, human.

I am here. I am listening.

2. Alexander’s Note (He Observed from Afar, Without Interfering)

Alex stood in the shadow of an arch, watching them through the lace-like foliage. He did not intervene – he knew that sometimes the most important things happen not in words, but in the pauses between them. He took out his notebook and, in the glow of a streetlamp, wrote:

“En Buenos Aires, un padre le pidió a su hijo lo más difícil:

no perdón, no consejo… sino el coraje de escuchar con el corazón roto.

Y el hijo, en vez de juzgar… le tendió la mano.

Así nace la reconciliación:

no en grandes gestos, sino en un “enséñame” susurrado en la oscuridad”.

(“In Buenos Aires, a father asked his son for the hardest thing:

not forgiveness, not advice… but the courage to listen with a broken heart.

And the son, instead of judging… reached out his hand.

This is how reconciliation is born:

not in grand gestures, but in a whispered “teach me” in the dark”. )

He closed the notebook. The tango music still played, but now it seemed more than just a melody – it was the voice of the city, whispering: “Sometimes, to hear another, you must first hear yourself”.

The map of stories now spans five continents.

But the essence remains the same: “People don’t need heroes”.

They need those who dare to simply be there – without a mask, without a plan, without the fear of being imperfect.

Part 4: Sydney. “Nobody Women”

1. Royal Botanic Garden, Dawn

Mist drifted over the harbour like a ghostly veil, hiding the ocean’s secrets. In the half-light of dawn, the silhouettes of cassowaries seemed like ancient guardians, gliding silently between giant ferns. The air was saturated with moisture and the scent of eucalyptus – pungent, almost medicinal, as if nature itself were trying to heal everything that needed it.

On a bench beside a winding path sat Dorothy. She could have been 45 or 55 – age dissolved in her gaze, deep and calm like a lake on a windless day. Medium-length brown hair, blue eyes that held not weariness but quiet wisdom. A woollen cardigan, glasses on a chain – these were not a mask, but a shell concealing a story she was not in a hurry to tell.

In her hands she held a battered notebook – not a diary, but rather a map marking the paths of those who had lost their way.

She had been sitting there for three days now. She wasn’t waiting for men. She wasn’t seeking encounters. She was waiting for women – those who, like her once, had become lost in the labyrinth of love, where the walls were built of silence and the floor strewn with shards of hope.