Church of The Sacred Snickers

The school that was mentioned in the book was located on the outskirts of the city, in the same area where most of the buildings had long been abandoned and collapsed. As soon as robotess approached this building, she felt her sensors start to give alarm signals. Everything around looked so deserted and abandoned that the air was almost tangible with silence.

The school building was huge, its metal doors, nailed shut with long-forgotten nails, looked as if no one had tried to enter or leave it for many years. However, Delia Asia Vieira could not afford to stand still - her mission was clear. She carefully examined the perimeter of the building, looking for any trace that could lead her to the diary. Through the cracks in the walls, she could discern several old windows that probably led to the school's corridors. Grasping one of the door handles, she realized that she was right: the door creaked, and she entered with ease.

Once inside, robotess found that the place had not seen students or teachers for a long time. Silence reigned everywhere, only the creaking of the floorboards under her feet broke her silent presence. She moved along the walls, looking at old, dusty classrooms that were once full of life. Now there were only forgotten objects and vanished traces of human activity.

In one of the offices, she opened the door and saw dozens of empty desks, covered with a thick layer of dust, and on them were piles of old magazines and newspapers. Delia Asia Vieira came closer and, looking around, noticed that among these discarded pages were hidden photographs of famous people of the last century. Gray images that captured them against the backdrop of various events. Each magazine was like an artifact that could tell its own story.

Turning the pages, robotess froze. In one of the photographs she recognized Stanislaw Lem, a famous writer whose works told of the future and philosophy of technology. The next was a black-and-white photograph of Bogomil Raynov, the author of the so-called "Bulgarian Gene Bond", whose adventures abroad, in addition to the typical "Bondiana", also touched upon the most important questions of human nature and culture. She could not help but notice Sergei Pavlov, another writer who left his mark on the history of science fiction literature about the conquest of Outer Space.

In the next magazine, Delia Asia Vieira found an article entitled "How to Become a Writer." The author's pseudonym was familiar to her: Andrei Tarkovsky. This was strange: robotess knew that Tarkovsky was a famous director and not a writer in the traditional sense of the word. But judging by the article, he called himself "a follower of Stendhal's ideas." After reading the first lines, she realized that she was reading something more mysterious than just a set of written recommendations. This text, written in the manner of profound philosophers, was a kind of treatise in which Tarkovsky shared his thoughts on how to become a writer, raising questions about what it means to be a creator and how to find your voice in the art world.

"A real writer is not someone who writes words, but someone who creates a new world," she read aloud what was said in the first part of the article.

Delia Asia Vieira paused at this point, reading the lines several times. She began to wonder how this article had ended up here, in this empty school, among so many other materials that had seemingly been collected at random. The sheets, printed on old paper, were clearly from an earlier time, and judging by their condition, they had been lying here for decades.

She turned the page and came across another interesting passage. Tarkovsky continued to talk about how the ideals of art and literature can be lost if they are not supported by ideology. He spoke of the need to break with traditional canons and find one's own path. This text was very different from what she usually encountered in literary works. It was full of reflections on the meaning of life and the purpose of art, as if Tarkovsky were trying to awaken in the reader a sense of the very essence of existence.

"Literature is not just words. It is action. Your task is to create a new world in which all living things will have meaning," she read another line.

Delia Asia Vieira sighed, trying to process what she had read. She felt that this article was not a random piece of writing, but something more important and intimate. The article not only talked about how to become a writer, but also suggested much deeper philosophical reflections. Robotess could not help but feel that she had stumbled upon something important that she needed to understand in order to unravel the whole picture of what was happening around her.

Putting the magazine down, she turned and walked towards the window, where the muted light filtered into the dark corners of the school yard. And then, as she passed the abandoned gymnasium, she noticed something that stood out in all the emptiness. Through the doorway, she could see a chapel, and beyond it, a tall stone structure. With each step, her gaze became more focused. It wasn't just any tower - it was a clock tower, located right in the center of the school yard. It seemed as if she had been standing there forever, oblivious to everything going on around her.

Delia Asia Vieira approached the building, and her sensors picked up unusual details: on the outer wall of the tower hung paintings, not by famous masters, but by artists whose names were completely unfamiliar to her. The frames of the paintings seemed ancient, and the images themselves were so strange and mystical that it was difficult to understand how they could have entered this world.

Some of the paintings depicted mysterious landscapes: fog that drowned in the ocean, and mountains on which there were no traces of human life or animals. Other paintings depicted scenes that could be called ineffable - human figures that in one moment became part of nature, and in another - part of the universe itself. Blurred images of people surrounded by something elusive absorbed the gaze.