A Woman Without Advice, or Nobody Women
Psychological thriller
Maxim Sofin

© 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.

And then one of them arrived.

Kate, 35 years old. Her eyes were red from sleeplessness, her shoulders slumped under the weight of an invisible burden. She stopped a few steps away, as if afraid to come too close – yet unable to leave.

“Are you… the one?” Her voice trembled, as if she already knew the answer but still hoped for a miracle.

“Which one?” Dorothy raised her gaze, calm as the surface of a lake.

“The one people come to… when they don’t know how to keep living with a man who won’t speak.”

Dorothy smiled – not mockingly, not condescendingly, but like someone smiling at a person who has finally found a door but hasn’t yet dared to enter.

“I’m not ‘the one’. But I’m here.”

Her words sounded like a spell – simple yet powerful. Kate slowly sank onto the bench, as if her legs could no longer support her.

“I’m not a ‘Nobody Men’, ” Dorothy continued, and a steely resolve rang beneath her gentleness. “I’m a ‘Nobody Women’. Because women also get lost. Not in how to love… but in how not to lose themselves while loving.”

Kate covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders trembled, but she made no sound – only silent tears traced paths down her cheeks.

“I give everything. I work, I care, I nurture… And he looks right through me. Like I’m furniture. Like I don’t exist.”

“And you think: if I give more, he’ll see you?” Dorothy asked, not with judgement but as a doctor stating a diagnosis.

“Yes…” Kate whispered. “I believe that if I’m good enough, he’ll finally notice me.”

“Have you asked yourself: ‘What do I feel?’”

Silence. Kate froze, as if those words had struck her heart.

“No,” she finally exhaled. “I’m afraid to ask. What if the answer is ‘I don’t care’?”

“Then you’ll know the truth,” Dorothy placed her hand on Kate’s arm, and the touch felt like an electric jolt. “And the truth – even if it hurts – is better than illusion.”

She opened the notebook. The first page was filled with neat yet firm handwriting:

“Nobody Women doesn’t teach you to be strong.

She reminds you: being vulnerable is also strength.

You don’t have to save anyone.

You have the right to live – even if he isn’t ready to walk with you”.

Kate read these lines, and something shifted within her. Not suddenly, not dramatically – but like a crack in a wall through which the first ray of light had broken through.

2. Alexander Sees from Afar

Alexander stood by the fountain, hidden behind dense foliage. He didn’t approach – he knew that sometimes the most important things happen not in words, but in the pauses between them. He watched as Dorothy placed a new pendant on the bench – not a heart, but two hands holding each other.

Next to the pendant lay a small plaque with the words:

“Here sits Nobody Women. Come. Speak. Cry. You are not alone”.

Alex smiled. Not because his work was done, but because it had become someone else’s. Because the flame he had once lit now burned in another heart – and that flame was not weaker, but perhaps even brighter.

3. A Note in His Notebook

He took out his notebook and, in the light of the rising sun, wrote the lines that seemed to beg to be put on paper:

“Sydney. Dawn. A woman sat where I once sat.

And the world didn’t end.

It expanded. Nobody Men was never meant to be a title.

It was an invitation.

And today… someone answered – not with the same name, but with the same heart”.

He closed the notebook. The mist over the harbour began to dissipate, revealing the Sydney Opera House, whose sails were already gilded in the rays of the rising sun. The world kept living, but now it had room for one more story – the story of how one woman helped another find a voice where there had once been only silence.

Now empathy is not a masculine virtue.

It is a human practice.

And it is passed not through instruction, but through example.

Part 5: Sydney. “Where the Paths Cross”

1. Morning in the Botanic Garden

The mist still clung to the eucalyptus branches, as if reluctant to let go of the night. The cassowaries had vanished – as if dissolved into the grey haze, leaving behind only faint traces on the damp earth. In this half-light, the garden seemed a place where time slowed down and reality lost its sharp edges.

Dorothy sat on a bench. She adjusted her glasses and flipped through the pages of her battered notebook – not a diary, but a map of human destinies, marked with tears, doubts, and timid glimmers of hope. Beside her lay a pendant – two hands intertwined in a silent dialogue. Below it, on a small plaque, the words: “Nobody Women”.

Alex emerged from behind the trees. In his hands he carried a thermos; a worn bag hung over his shoulder. He no longer wore his leather jacket, as if he had shed his old armour. His linen blazer softened his appearance, as if he himself had become a little lighter – not from the weight he carried, but from the realisation that the burden could be shared.

He stopped a few steps away.

“You left the pendant,” he said quietly, almost in a whisper, as if afraid to break the fragile silence of the morning.

“And did you come to take it back?” Dorothy smiled without looking up. Her smile was like a ray of sun breaking through the clouds – not bright, but warm.

“No. I came to see how it lives.”

She nodded, gesturing to the empty space beside her:

“Sit down, Nobody Men.”

He sat. Not as a mentor, not as a saviour, but simply as a human being – weary, yet not broken, searching, yet no longer desperate.

2. Dorothy’s Story

“I was a schoolteacher, 40 years old,” she began, looking somewhere beyond the garden, beyond this moment. “I taught children to read, write, count… but not to feel. I earned my PhD. Now I teach online at the University of California.”

Alex remained silent, but his silence was attentive – a form of listening, not merely a pause.

“What changed?” he asked, not demanding an answer but offering space for it.

“My daughter,” Dorothy’s voice trembled, but she didn’t retreat. “At 28, she left her husband – not because of infidelity, not because of money. But because he ‘didn’t see’ her. He looked at her, but didn’t see her soul, her pain, her dreams. And I… I told her: ‘Endure it. That’s how everyone lives.’”

She took off her glasses and wiped them – not because they were dirty, but because the motion gave her a moment’s respite.

“She left me too. For two years. She came back with a child. And with eyes full of a question: ‘Mom, why did you let me disappear?’”

Dorothy fell silent. There were no tears in her eyes – only quiet, hard-won wisdom.

“I realised: I spent my whole life teaching others – but forgot to ask myself, ‘What do I feel?’ That’s how I became Nobody Women. Not because I know the answers. But because I’m no longer afraid of the questions.”

Her words hung in the air like droplets of morning mist, slowly settling on Alex’s heart.

3. What Alex Has Now

“And you?” Dorothy asked, turning to him. “Are you still walking the path?”

“Yes. But not as a missionary. As… an echo,” he smiled, but there was no self-satisfaction or pride in his smile. “When I help, I don’t give myself. I reflect what already exists in a person: courage, pain, hope. I simply remind them: ‘You are not alone.’”

He paused, as if weighing every word.

“Now I don’t search for benches. I search for those who will become benches themselves. Like you.”

“So you’re leaving?” There was no reproach in her voice, only curiosity.

“Not leaving. Just… passing the baton.”

“Where to next?”

“Istanbul. Then Mexico City. Then – somewhere where someone will say for the first time: ‘I’m afraid to be kind.’”

Dorothy looked at him – not as a wanderer, not as a hero, but as a person who had found his way in the endless labyrinth of human souls.

“You’re not a hero, Alex.”

“No,” he nodded, not arguing.

“You’re a bridge.”

“And bridges don’t live for themselves. They exist so others can walk across them.”

His words sounded like a mantra, like a truth he hadn’t invented but discovered within himself.

4. The Exchange

Alex placed his old pendant on the bench – a heart, broken and mended. Each chip on it was a story: someone’s pain, someone’s insight, someone’s rebirth.

Dorothy placed hers beside it – two hands.

“Let them stay together,” she said. “Until the next one comes.”

“Or the next one,” Alex added, and there was a hope in his voice that he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for a long time.

They sat in silence. Above them, the sun filtered through the leaves, painting the ground with intricate patterns of light and shadow. In this silence, there was no hierarchy, no “teacher” and “student,” no “helper” and “seeker.” There were only two hearts that understood:

“Empathy is not a role. It is breath.

It is like air – we don’t notice it while it’s there, but we die without it.

It is like light – it doesn’t shine for itself, but illuminates the path for others.

And in this lies the whole mystery. The whole pain. The whole beauty. The whole life”.

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

1. Gülhane Park, by the Bosphorus

Spring in Istanbul is like a whisper of change: chestnut trees are in bloom, their white blossoms trembling in the wind as if trying to hold the fragile balance between past and future. The air is infused with the salt of the Bosphorus and the scent of flowering trees – a blend of bitterness and hope.

On a bench by the water sits Fatima, 39 years old. A black headscarf envelops her head but does not hide the depth of her gaze – her eyes are dry, yet a sea of untold stories ripples within them. Beside her is Emin, her son, 10 years old, with eyes not yet accustomed to the weight of the world.

“You keep asking why we don’t hate them,” Fatima’s voice sounds steady, like the tide that knows: waves come and go, but the sea remains.

“Yes,” Emin clenches his fists. “They killed Grandma and Grandpa. Why forgive?”

Fatima turns to him. Her gaze holds not a lecture, but a quiet strength forged over years.

“Forgiveness is not for them, Emin. It’s for us. So that pain doesn’t become your home. So that you can breathe, not suffocate under its weight.”

Dorothy walks by. She stops, as if an invisible thread has drawn her to this bench.

“You speak of forgiveness as strength,” she says in Turkish, with a slight accent but with clarity that says: “I am not a random passerby here.”

“Because that’s what it is,” Fatima replies, not taking her eyes off her son. “Hatred is a chain. Forgiveness is the key. Even if you haven’t opened the door – you still carry the key in your pocket. And that gives hope.”

Emin looks at Dorothy, his eyes like two question marks.

“And you… are you the one who helps?”

“Sometimes. But today – I am learning from your mother,” Dorothy smiles, and in that smile there is not the arrogance of a teacher, but the humility of a student.

Fatima turns her head to her son; her voice grows softer, yet more weighty:

“Son, remember this: to forgive does not mean to forget. It means: ‘I will not let you steal my tomorrow.’ It means you choose to live, not to die in the past.”

Dorothy sits down beside them. She does not speak. She simply listens – as she was once taught in California. She listens not with her ears, but with her heart, letting silence become a bridge between two worlds: the world of pain and the world of hope.

2. The Shadow of the Past

The wind plays with the edge of Fatima’s headscarf, revealing a strand of grey hair. Dorothy notices it – not as a detail of appearance, but as a trace of what has been endured.

“How did you find this key?” she asks quietly, almost in a whisper.

Fatima remains silent for several seconds, as if weighing every word.

“I lost everything. My home, my family, my faith in justice. But one day I realised: if I let hatred become my essence, then they won’t just kill my loved ones – they’ll kill me too. I became a shadow that walks the earth but doesn’t live.”

She pauses, her gaze drifting towards the Bosphorus, where waves crash against the rocks as if trying to erase the marks of time.

“And then I asked myself: ‘What will remain when hatred is gone?’ The answer didn’t come right away. But when it did, I understood: what will remain is me. The real me. The one who can love, laugh, dream. The one who doesn’t have to be a victim.”

Dorothy nods. In her eyes there is not sympathy, but recognition. She has seen this before – in the eyes of other women who stood at the edge of the abyss and had to choose: to fall or to step forward.

3. The Echo of Forgiveness

Emin remains silent. His fingers grip the edge of the bench as if he’s trying to hold onto something elusive – perhaps hope.

“Mom, what if I can’t forgive?” His voice trembles, but there’s no weakness in it – only honesty.

“Then you’ll carry that pain like a stone in your heart,” Fatima places her hand on his arm. “But know this: you can always put that stone down. Not because they deserve forgiveness. But because you deserve freedom.”

Dorothy closes her eyes. She recalls her own story – how she sat on a bench in Sydney, how her heart was broken, how she searched for answers in other people’s eyes. Now she is here – not to give advice, but to be a witness. A witness to how forgiveness becomes not an act of weakness, but an act of courage.

“Forgiving is like breathing,” she says, opening her eyes. “You don’t think about it, but you can’t live without it. You just do it, because otherwise – it’s death.”

Fatima smiles – for the first time in a long while, her smile doesn’t look like a mask. It’s the smile of someone who has found light in the darkness.

“Exactly. Forgiveness is the breath of life.”

4. The Crossroads of Destinies

The sun rises higher, dispersing the morning mist. The Bosphorus gleams like a mirror reflecting not only buildings, but also the souls of those standing on its shores.

Dorothy stands up.

“Thank you,” she says. “You didn’t give me advice. You gave me an example.”

“We all give each other examples,” Fatima replies. “Sometimes – how not to do it. Sometimes – how to do it. The main thing is to see.”

Emin looks up at Dorothy.

“Are you leaving?”

“No. I’m staying. To one day become someone who helps another find the key.”

She walks away, but her steps sound like a promise – a promise to continue the journey where forgiveness is not an end, but a beginning.

Fatima and Emin remain. They sit in silence, but in this silence there are more words than in any conversation. In it lies the strength that emerges when a person stops being a hostage of the past and begins to live in the present.

And this is the essence of “Affetmek”:

“Forgiving is not weakness. It is a choice. A choice to be alive”.

Chapter II: The Shadow Behind

Part 1. New York. Columbia University. Night

The silence of the office was broken only by the occasional hum of an old air conditioner and the distant rumble of Manhattan – like the pulse of a giant organism throbbing beyond the window. Dorothy slowly closed her laptop. The screen froze for a moment, illuminating the last line of her new book like the final chord of a symphony:

“Women’s emotional invisibility in systems of power is not a flaw – it is a tool of control”.

She stretched, loosening her stiff shoulders. Her gaze involuntarily drifted to the window – the night city shimmered with lights, like the nervous system of a colossal being, where each glow was an impulse carrying its own secrets.

Her office didn’t shine with luxury. The simplicity here was not poverty, but a deliberate choice. The walls covered with books resembled a traveller’s library, gathering wisdom from around the world. Maps of continents shared space with photographs from field research: misty valleys of Papua New Guinea, dusty streets of Mali, mountain paths of Bolivia. Each photo was a page of an untold story.

In her memory resurfaced the words of her parents – anthropologists whose lives were a series of expeditions and discoveries: “Don’t look at what is said – look at who is made silent”. These words became her compass, her method, her creed.

For years she followed it, penetrating hidden corners of human behaviour, untangling threads of invisible connections. But now… now someone was watching her.

On the desk, like an alien object in this world of knowledge, lay an envelope. No stamp. No name. Only a single fingerprint on the flap – a silent message that sent a chill down her spine.

With trembling fingers she opened the envelope. Inside lay a photograph. Herself and her grandson, Luca, at the entrance to the park. The date and time in the corner of the photo burned her eyes: yesterday, 16:03.

On the back – writing in black marker, clear and ruthless:

“Stop digging. Or he will be the next”.

Her heart clenched, but panic didn’t come. Instead – cold clarity. She didn’t call the police. She “remembered”.

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