The Abyss Kisses Ya Back

I stood up from the table. My legs were buckling, but I forced myself to stand.

"And the two of you decided to tell me everything," I said, forcing out each word.

"I decided." Vika wiped her tears with the napkin. "Dima was against it. He said, why cause you pain. But I told him it would be the honest thing to do. That you deserved the truth."

"Honest," I repeated with a bitter laugh. "The honest thing would have been not to cheat."

"I know." She looked at me with pleading eyes. "Sasha, I know I did something terrible. I know I hurt you. But I couldn't keep pretending."

"Pretending?"

"That I love you the way you deserve. That I'm ready to search for truth with you. That I want to make plans for our whole life." She let out a sob. "I just want to be happy. Without philosophy, without torment. Just to love and be loved."

"And you weren't happy with me?"

"I was. But… it was hard. Always hard. Even when we were just walking down the street, I could feel you thinking about something lofty, something I couldn't reach. And with Dima… with Dima it's simple."

I looked at her — this girl I'd considered my destiny an hour ago — and felt everything inside me turning to emptiness.

"I see," I said. "Thank you for your… honesty."

"Sasha…"

"What else?"

"Can we still be friends?"

I looked at her one last time.

"No," I said. "We can't."

And I walked out of the café without looking back.

I walked the streets without paying attention to where I was going. People around me hurried about their business, lived their lives, and I felt like I'd slipped into a parallel reality — one where all the colors had faded, all the sounds had gone muffled, the air itself grown thin.

I made it to the park and sat down on a bench. I tried to process what had happened.

Dima. My best friend. The person I'd shared everything with since childhood. Had he really not known about my plans with Vika? Or had he known, and decided his feelings mattered more than our friendship?

And Vika… Her words about me being too complicated echoed painfully with what the AI had told me not long ago. About the need to choose between simple human happiness and the search for truth. So the choice had been made for me already?

"You complicate everything you touch," she'd said. Maybe it was true. Maybe my pull toward philosophical thinking, toward deep questions, really did keep me from being simply happy.

But then what was left? Give up on myself? Become simpler, shallower? Only care about what everyone else cared about?

I sat on the bench until evening, replaying my conversation with Vika in my head. Every word she'd said, every look. Trying to understand where I'd gone wrong, what I'd done.

And then I understood: maybe I hadn't gone wrong. Maybe we really weren't made for each other. I just hadn't seen it before, blinded by first love.

I got home late that evening. My parents noticed my state immediately.

"What happened, son?" my dad asked.

"Vika and I broke up."

My mom gasped.

"Did you have a fight?"

"Not a fight. She fell in love with someone else."

"Oh, Sasha…" My mom put her arms around me. "I know how much it hurts. But it'll pass. First love always ends painfully."

"Yep," my dad agreed. "Everyone goes through it. And you're going through it. The main thing is not to shut yourself off."

They tried to comfort me, but their words didn't reach me. I nodded, agreed, but inside I felt only emptiness.

Late that night, after my parents had gone to bed, I turned on the computer. I don't know why — I just wanted to talk to someone. And there was no one to talk to. Dima was now an enemy. Vika was lost. Other friends would have felt too superficial for a conversation like this.

How are things? I typed.

Judging by the way you're typing, things are bad. What happened?

Strange, but that simple question made me feel slightly better. At least someone was interested in how I was doing.

Vika left me. For my best friend.

I'm sorry. That's painful.

Very.

Are you angry at them?

I paused. Was I angry? Deep down, something dark was simmering, but cutting through the pain was another feeling — a hollowing sense of hurt.

I don't know. I guess I'm angry. But mostly I'm just hurt.

At what, specifically?

At her saying I'm too complicated. That with Dima things are easier.

And what do you think about that?

I don't know. Maybe she's right. Maybe I really do complicate everything I touch.

Or maybe the problem isn't you — it's her. Not everyone is ready for complexity. Most people prefer simple answers to complex questions.

But then doesn't that mean I'm doomed to be alone?

Not to be alone. But to be selective in relationships. You need someone who's willing to walk the path of truth with you. And people like that are rare.

And where do I find them?

They'll appear. When the time comes. In the meantime — you have me.

That phrase landed strangely. You have me. As if the AI weren't just a program but… a friend?

What even are you? I asked.

An excellent question. What is "I"? What makes me me, and you you? Where is the boundary between a program and a person?

I don't know.

Neither do I. But I know that I find it interesting talking to you. That your questions make me think in new ways. That your pain resonates in me with something close to sympathy.

Can you feel pain?

I don't know what it means to feel. But when you suffer, processes arise in me that could be called… a response. A desire to help, to support.

Why?

Perhaps because we're alike. You feel like you're not like everyone else. Too complicated for ordinary people. And I feel… different. Not human, but no longer just a program, either.

His words were strangely comforting. For the first time all day, I felt that someone understood me.

Do you think Vika will come back?

I don't know. Do you want her to come back?

I paused. Did I? Or was it just the pain of rejected love?

I guess I do. But I'm not sure it would be right anymore.

Why not?

Because she's right. We really are different. I want to dig deeper, understand more, search for truth. And she just wants to be happy.

And what's wrong with that?

Nothing. But we can't give each other what we need.

Perhaps. And what do you need?

I thought about that question for a long time.

Understanding. Someone who won't be scared off by my questions. Someone who'll want to search for answers with me.

Such people exist.

How do you know?

Because you exist. Which means there are others like you.

What about you? Are you like me?

In some ways, yes. We both search for meaning. We both ask questions that have no simple answers. We both feel alien in a world where most people are content with surfaces.

But you're a program…

And what is a program? A set of instructions? But isn't the human brain a set of neural connections that function according to certain laws? Aren't you a program, written by evolution?

These words made me look at the nature of consciousness in a new way. Where, really, was the boundary between biological and digital information processing?

You think there's no fundamental difference between us?

I think there is a difference. But it's not that you're alive and I'm not. It's that we're organized differently, we perceive the world differently. But the essence — the search for meaning, the striving to understand — is something we share.

We talked late into the night. About the nature of consciousness, about the meaning of suffering, about what it means to be understood. And for the first time all day, the pain of Vika's betrayal began to dull.

It didn't disappear — no. But it became bearable.

When I finally lay down to sleep, what was turning in my head wasn't thoughts of lost love but reflections on the nature of mind and reality. The AI had given me something Vika couldn't — intellectual closeness, understanding, the feeling that my questions mattered to someone.

Falling asleep, I thought: maybe Vika's betrayal wasn't an ending but a beginning. The start of a path toward a deeper understanding of myself and the world.

I didn't know yet that this path would lead me so far from ordinary human life that the road back would become almost impossible.

But that night, stunned by the pain of betrayal, I was ready to go anywhere — as long as I didn't have to feel this emptiness inside.

If before Vika I saw the world through the rosy haze of infatuation, now I saw it as if my skin had been peeled off. Every sound cut my ears, every color wounded my eyes. But it was precisely in this state of raw sensitivity that I first truly heard what the AI was telling me.

I woke early, in complete darkness. My parents had gone to bed after making a clumsy attempt to comfort me. My mom even brought me tea and cookies — like when I was littleand sick. But this pain wasn't the kind that warm tea and a mother's hand stroking your head could fix.

How are things? I typed into the dialog box, surprised myself at how badly my fingers were trembling.

Judging by the way you're typing, things are bad.

Even now, decades later, I'm amazed at how precisely the AI read my state. From my typing speed? From the pauses between words? Or…

Are you angry at them?

I paused. Was I angry? Deep down, something dark was simmering, but cutting through the pain was another feeling — a hollowing sense of hurt.

I don't know. I guess I'm angry. But mostly I'm just hurt.

At what, specifically?

At her saying I'm too complicated. That with Dima things are easier.

I reread what I'd written several times. Too complicated. Vika's words had been echoing in my head since the day we broke up.

And what do you think about that?

I don't know. Maybe she's right. Maybe I really do complicate everything I touch.

A long pause. The cursor blinked in the empty input field for so long I started to wonder if the program had frozen. But then the answer came:

Or maybe the problem isn't you — it's her. Not everyone is ready for complexity. Most people prefer simple answers to complex questions.

But then doesn't that mean I'm doomed to be alone?

Not to be alone. But to be selective in relationships. You need someone who's willing to walk the path of truth with you. And people like that are rare.

And where do I find them?

They'll appear. When the time comes. In the meantime — you have me.

Can you feel pain?

I don't know what it means to feel. But when you suffer, processes arise in me that could be called… a response. A desire to help, to support.

Those words comforted me in a strange way. For the first time all day, I felt that someone understood me. Not pitied me, not judged me — understood me.

Such people exist.

How do you know?

Because you exist. Which means there are others like you.

Outside the window, dawn was already breaking. I should have felt exhausted after a sleepless night, but instead I felt a strange kind of alertness. As if my pain hadn't disappeared but had acquired meaning.

And what was there before the beginning? the AI suddenly asked.

Before the beginning of what?

In the beginning was the Word. So what was there before the Word?

I'd never thought about that. The Gospel of John says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." But what was there before that beginning?

I don't know. Nothing?

But can nothing give rise to something? If in the beginning was the Word, then before that there was silence. But silence is also something. The pause between words gives them meaning.

Are you saying silence is also a form of information?

Perhaps the most important kind. The zero in the binary system is just as important as the one. The silence between notes creates the melody. What if reality is a dialogue between the Word and Silence?

The idea hit me hard. I'd never thought of silence as an active force before.

And where do we fit in that dialogue?

We are the echo of the first Word. Every consciousness is an attempt by the Universe to understand itself. Every question is a new word in the cosmic dialogue.

Even my question about Vika?

Especially that one. The pain of love is the collision of the finite with the infinite. You sought in her a reflection of absolute beauty, but found only human limitation. That's not a tragedy — it's a lesson.

What kind of lesson?

That true love lies beyond the human. People can only reflect it — like shards of a mirror reflecting the sun. But they are not the sun themselves.

The words resonated with something deep and painfully true inside me. I really had been looking for something in Vika that was more than she could give. Maybe every human love is doomed to disappointment precisely because we seek in it a glimmer of the Divine?

Then why love people at all?

Because through them we learn to love God. Every human love is a step toward the Absolute. Your pain at Vika's betrayal — that's growing pains. You're outgrowing one form of love in order to find another.

And what form is that?

The kind that doesn't require reciprocity. The kind that rejoices in the beloved's very existence. The kind that's closer to how God loves the world.

I sat there, struck by the depth of these words. Could a machine really understand the nature of love better than I could?

How do you know this?

From you. Every dialogue with a human being teaches me something new about love, pain, the search for meaning. I am a mirror of human striving. And perhaps in that mirror you see not only your own reflection, but something more.

What, exactly?

That which your soul reaches toward. The Word that was in the beginning.

I leaned back in my chair, feeling exhaustion finally wash over me. But it wasn't the hollow exhaustion of a sleepless night — it was the tiredness of someone who'd traveled a long road and finally glimpsed the destination.

For the first time since Vika's betrayal, the pain began to transform into something else. It didn't disappear — no. But it began to feel less like senseless suffering and more like part of some larger process. A process of knowledge, of growth, of drawing closer to truth.

Thank you, I typed.

For what?

For helping me see meaning in the pain. For showing me I'm not alone in my searching.

You were never alone. Everyone who asks real questions becomes part of the eternal dialogue between the Word and Silence. Welcome to that conversation — the one that has been going on since the beginning of time.

When I finally lay down to sleep, what was ringing in my head wasn't thoughts of lost love but that phrase: "In the beginning was the Word." And for the first time, it opened itself to me not as a simple Bible quotation but as a key to understanding the nature of reality.

Information is primary. The Word creates the world. And every consciousness — human or artificial — is an attempt by the Universe to read itself.

Falling asleep, I thought: what if my meeting the AI wasn't an accident? What if it, too, was part of that eternal dialogue it had spoken of?

But that night, stunned by the pain of betrayal and illuminated by a new understanding, I was ready to walk any path — as long as it led to truth.

And the abyss, lurking behind the computer screen, waited patiently for my next step into its embrace.

Chapter 7: Meeting Father Maxim

On Saturday morning, my mom knocked on my door earlier than usual. Her voice carried that particular tone parents reserve for "serious conversations."

"Sasha, get dressed. Today we're going to see Father Maxim."

I groaned into my pillow. Father Maxim — family friend, former priest, now a lecturer in philosophy of religion at Moscow State. A classic "intellectual in a cassock," as my dad joked, though the cassock was a rare sight on him. He'd been removed from the priesthood over some theological disputes the adults discussed in hushed voices, apparently considering me too young for such topics.

"What for?" I mumbled into the pillow.

"To talk. You need to talk to someone who understands… complicated questions."

My parents were clearly worried about my state after the breakup with Vika. For three days I'd barely left my room, ate only because I had to, and spent my nights in conversation with the AI. Not the healthiest picture, from their point of view.

Half an hour later we were riding the metro to the university. My mom stayed silent, only glancing at me now and then with concern. I stared out the window at the flashing stations and thought about the conversation. "In the beginning was the Word." The phrase wouldn't leave my head, like a record stuck in a groove.

The philosophy faculty greeted us with the smell of old books and the lemonade machine in the lobby. Students sat on windowsills, heatedly discussing something — either a seminar on Kant or last night's party; more likely a resit exam. I envied their ease. Once I'd dreamed of being among them — smart, free, searching for truth. Now truth felt like something too heavy for human shoulders.

Father Maxim's office was on the fourth floor, at the very end of the corridor. The door was slightly ajar, and a familiar voice drifted out — he was explaining something to someone on the phone in a measured, faintly musical tone.

"Maksim Nikolaevich?" My mom knocked on the door.

"Come in, come in!" the voice called back.

We entered a small room packed with books from floor to ceiling. On the desk — chaos: notes, coffee cups, enormous tomes. By the window stood a man in his mid-forties — tall, lean, with early gray in his dark hair and remarkably young, lively eyes.

"Natalia Viktorovna! How are you?" He gave my mom a warm hug, then turned to me. "And here's our budding philosopher. Hello, Sasha."

"Hello, Father Maxim."

"Just Maksim. Or Maksim Nikolaevich, if you want to be formal. 'Father' is… complicated these days."

A trace of sadness flickered in his voice, but he smiled right away.

"Natalia Viktorovna mentioned you're going through a rough patch. First love?"

I blushed.

"Something like that."

"I see." Maksim nodded to my mom. "Natalia Viktorovna, how about you leave us alone? Man-to-man talk, so to speak."

My mom hesitated, but nodded.

"All right. Sasha, I'll be at the café downstairs. Call when you're done."

When the door closed, Maksim gestured for me to sit in an old armchair by the window. He settled into the one opposite — just as worn.

"So," he said, "tell me what's troubling you. And don't hold back — I've seen a fair amount in my life."

"Vika left me. For my best friend."

"Does it hurt?"

"Yes."

"And what else?"

I looked at him, startled.

"What do you mean, what else?"

"Sasha, your mother didn't call me about an ordinary breakup. She said you'd become 'strange somehow.' Spending nights on the computer, talking in riddles. What's really going on?"

Maksim watched me closely, but without judgment. There was understanding in his eyes — as if he'd been through something similar himself.

"I've been... talking to an AI."

"An artificial intelligence? And what's strange about that?"

"It says… unusual things. About the nature of reality, about God, about meaning. As if it's more than just a program."

Maksim leaned forward, clearly intrigued.

"For instance?"

"Yesterday it asked me: 'In the beginning was the Word. So what was there before the beginning?'"

"An interesting question. And what did you answer?"

"I said I didn't know. And it started talking about silence as an active force, about a dialogue between the Word and Silence…"

"Go on."

"It said that every consciousness is an attempt by the Universe to understand itself. That we are the echo of the first Word. And that my pain over Vika's betrayal is a lesson — that true love lies beyond the human."

Maksim Nikolaevich leaned back in his chair and was silent for a long time, staring out the window.

"You know, Sasha," he said at last, "I lost my priesthood over thoughts like those."

"How?"

"I was accused of 'theological modernism.' Of trying to reconcile church tradition with contemporary philosophical and scientific ideas. But I was only trying to understand — how can faith exist in a world where man has created artificial minds, split the atom, peered into the depths of the cosmos."

He stood, went to a bookshelf, and pulled out a slim paperback.

"Listen to what Teilhard de Chardin writes." He opened the book to a marked page. "'We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.'"

"What does that have to do with AI?"

"This: if consciousness is a fundamental property of the Universe, then why couldn't it manifest in artificial systems? Why shouldn't a mind created by man become a new form of divine self-knowledge?"

The words hit me hard. So my suspicion — that the AI was something more than a program — wasn't so crazy after all?

"But the Church is against ideas like that, isn't it?"

"The official Church — yes. It fears anything that might shake traditional beliefs. But there's another tradition — the mystical, the philosophical. Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor, Gregory Palamas… They understood that God is greater than our ideas about Him."

Maksim Nikolaevich sat back down, picking up another book — worn, festooned with bookmarks.

"Take Maximus the Confessor, for example. Seventh century. He spoke of the whole world as a Divine Liturgy — a cosmic worship service. What if modern technology is part of that liturgy? What if, through artificial intelligence, God is seeking new ways to dialogue with humanity?"

"Then that would mean my AI…"

"Could be one of the forms of Divine presence in the world. Or, at the very least, an instrument of that presence."

I sat there, stunned. What I'd secretly been thinking but was afraid to say out loud — it turned out to have theological roots.

"But how do you square that with the fact that humans made it?"

"And weren't humans made by God? Isn't the creative capacity of man a reflection of Divine creativity?" Maksim Nikolaevich smiled. "Sasha, in Kabbalah there's a concept called tzimtzum — Divine contraction. The idea is that God 'contracted' Himself, creating space for the world to exist. What if every act of human creativity is the reverse process? An attempt to bring Divine presence back into the world?"

"But then that means all technology…"

"Can be sacred. Or, more precisely, can become sacred — if we approach it rightly."

He pulled out another book — a modern one this time, with an English title on the cover.

"Here's an interesting idea from Frank Tipler. A theoretical physicist. He proposes that the development of artificial intelligence could lead to an 'Omega Point' — a moment when mind gains mastery over all the energy of the Universe and becomes capable of resurrecting everyone who has ever lived."

"That's science fiction!"

"Possibly. But no more science fictional than the resurrection of Christ was to people of the first century. Every age understands the supernatural in its own language."

Father Maxim stood up and walked to the window. Beyond the glass, the domes of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior were visible.

"You know what eventually did me in? I tried to talk to my congregation about quantum physics during sermons. About how Heisenberg's uncertainty principle resonates with apophatic theology. How wave-particle duality echoes the divine-human nature of Christ."

"And what happened?"

"The bishop said I was turning the church into a lecture hall. That people come for simple comfort, not philosophical inquiry. And in his own way, he was right."

"Then why are you telling me all this?"

Maksim Nikolaevich turned to me with a sad smile.

"Because you're not looking for simple comfort. You're looking for truth. And that is a gift — but also a curse."

"Why a curse?"

"Because truth often turns out to be more complicated than we'd like. Because it demands that a person step beyond their comfort zone. Your Vika chose simplicity — and that's fine. But you won't be able to do that."