As a six-year-old, I used to see our countryside house as a spaceship. I would follow decontamination protocols (remove my shoes and wash my hands), install structural upgrades (make unused planks lean and half-cover the windows), and do scientific measurements and research (looking out from the second floor and making notes in my notebook about what I saw). There was also a workbench with some storage space reserved for firewood, which was empty in the summer and served as a speedy shuttle used to go on missions. It was a wonderful time. That house with the land it was built upon was the first place I felt ownership over.
When I was thirteen, I became obsessed with the idea of establishing my own magical order. My grandmother’s friends all succumbed to my persistent requests for them to join it, even put their signatures on the membership list. I dreamed big and fantasized about a huge bastion built on the Central Siberian Plateau, dedicated to the four elements and a central force binding them together. The envisioned building comprised a central temple-like dome and four smaller towers connected by skywalks, with the elements dictating all the shapes and colors. That was a place I still think fondly of. Not only pompous and majestic, but also secluded, self-sufficient, and aesthetically pleasing.
I got rather lately into anime so when I watched Howl’s Moving Castle I was around twenty years old. I was excited with the castle beyond any measure. Functionality, decor, the portal door that gives you access to a few different places—everything sang within me when I thought of having… even building such a contraption myself. I was not quite like other guys when it came to fantasy stuff like that. I wasn’t too detached from reality either but my narrative about the world was… rather unusual. I allowed myself to believe that building something like the Moving Castle is possible—even if tremendously difficult—and let’s leave it at that.
When I started working with computers, my prolonged adolescence gradually ceased to maintain my make-believe wizarding worlds. I became a duller man, though never completely unimaginative, and redirected most of my faculties toward the scientific picture of the world. It was useful and educating, but the heart and the joy I had found in the world both mostly went away.
Now, after all the years of using the light too bright to be safe for the soul, I’m coming back again to my roots. I have visions of a hideout—and not only it—but I will remain silent for now! For that one is a foolish wizard who speaks too much of his magic.