8 Seconds

By Blagomira Halacheva

8 Seconds defies easy categorization – it’s a compelling blend of mystery, fantasy, historical exploration, and philosophical inquiry. At its core is the character Harry Avramov, a modern-day Lucifer who emerged from a fractured childhood and damaged dignity. Driven by revenge, Harry becomes a spellbinding anti-hero who bends the rules of morality, flitting between this world and the otherworld while questioning the very nature of choice and destiny.

Unfettered by genre conventions, the novel avoids expected resolutions, opting instead for a trio of unexpected, yet inevitable, endings. Steering clear of cliché, the story delves into the complex fabric of family and the consequences of its collapse. It draws inspiration from literary giants like Dante and Byron, as well as timeless Biblical themes, shaping the narrative into a contemporary parable rich with age-old wisdom.

As Harry navigates the trials of existence and ambition, he ultimately finds himself journeying through time, from a cycle initiated 50,000 years ago to the present. It takes him a mere 8 seconds to confront the ultimate Truth – the essence of what truly matters in life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035810031

Blagomira Halacheva

Blagomira Halacheva – Boggie – was born in Bulgaria. She graduated from medical college in Plovdiv and now she practices in Austria. Her son Rosen lives with his family in Wales, UK. The novel 8 Seconds was ranked second in the competition for a Bulgarian novel of the Bukvite Foundation. A film script was written based on the novel. The Silent World Publishing House published the first book titled Children of Sin, the second book Traps for Love and Power, and the third book of the trilogy, Redemption, of the Maria-Magdalene Trilogy. In 2014 at the Screen-Craft Family-Friendly Script Contest, the script Double Dimension by Blagomira Halacheva qualified of the Quarter-Finalists.

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About the Author

Blagomira Halacheva – Boggie – was born in Bulgaria. She graduated from medical college in Plovdiv and now she practices in Austria. Her son Rosen lives with his family in Wales, UK. The novel 8 Seconds was ranked second in the competition for a Bulgarian novel of the Bukvite Foundation.

A film script was written based on the novel. The Silent World Publishing House published the first book titled Children of Sin, the second book Traps for Love and Power, and the third book of the trilogy, Redemption, of the Maria-Magdalene Trilogy.

In 2014 at the Screen-Craft Family-Friendly Script Contest, the script Double Dimension by Blagomira Halacheva qualified of the Quarter-Finalists.

Dedication

To my father, who opened the way for me to the stars!

Copyright Information ©

Blagomira Halacheva 2024

The right of Blagomira Halacheva to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035810024 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035810031 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I thank the Lord for showering me with the Light of the Spirit of Truth! Thanks to my mom and dad who gave me life. I thank my son Rosen – a gift from God to me and my greatest like-minded person and friend. Thank you to everyone who believed in my path in the spiritual dimensions and got involved in the process of publishing my novels. I will be very happy if the new edition of the novel 8 Seconds becomes popular enough through Austin Macauley Publishers to attract the attention of film producers to invest in making the film.

Introduction

Blagomira Halacheva’s novel 8 Seconds is a pleasant surprise.

This is her third fictional appearance, which appears after a long silence we needed to realise ‘Children of Sin’ and ‘Inner Fire’, but I think it is among the most ambitious and interesting initiative launched on our book market. In a purely professional sense, such as mastering the technique, revealing the plot, the image system, the natural pictures, the atmosphere, the book is impressive. The schooling of time, the accumulated experience, the maturity is obvious.

The dialogue is strict, functional and ready for a film. Although she is able to write it, the author is not tempted to create a crime or a romantic novel.

She writes a book, at the same time fantasy, historical dissection and philosophical—deep reflection with a strong subtext, for which the reader shall have readiness and capacity. A book about the choice, the path, the dream, the desire through suffering to be yourself, realising the predestination of destiny and life. A book about accepting the fact that in order to be adequate and useful for our mission, we have to know the world we live in and shall not forget that we are part of an interconnected Whole, of a gigantic accumulation of knowledge and energy, of a Cycle that began fifty thousand years ago and continuing to this day.

For such an important social cell as the family, in the collapse of which the phenomenon of Harry Avramov appears, with his repressed childhood and dignity, seeking revenge all his life for his lost youth, the wizard—a villain who seems to be allowed everything, a true homo ludens, one hundred percent joker, a symbol of the weakest card in the deck, which can equally lose and win… About an extraordinary person who also has the right to choose.

8 Seconds tells a fascinating story about the pivotal 1997, transformed into a macabre carnival, just as we know it from Deyan Enev’s famous story ‘Crazy Max’ and from the moving documentary ‘I have an idea’ by Ilian Simeonov, also since 1997, when we all broke down the old system to find ourselves surrounded by new walls and subject to the same puppeteers and masters of our lives. The pages dedicated to Videnov’s winter are created with impressive sophisticated accuracy, and the observations and summaries of the two worlds in Bulgaria—the oligarchs and the poor, possess Dickens power. In this aspect, the list of the main characters: Harry, Ognyana, Milena, Clara, Margot de Boa is significant and symptomatic. Harry is the playful man, the split pet of fate, swaying between the Devil and God and Good and Evil. He is a modern Lucifer, creating Good through Evil, tossing between This and the Other World, and always looking for a way out to move forward. Ognyana is his girlfriend, the beloved, the good girl from Sofia highlife, ready for anything—to forgive and to experience the separation in the name of her strong feeling. Milena is the woman of the common people, the necessary social worker, who will be another experiment for Avramov’s ambivalent impulses. Clara is the Mother, the pillar of the family, the observer of events, tormented by the fate of her child, Margot de Boa—the caricature of the native tycoon, who came from the poisonous—perfumed environment of our communist past.

And since 8 Seconds is not a typical crime or melodramatic novel, none of what we expect for a finale happens. Thus, the triple ending is as unusual as it is inevitable, because any other outcome with the main character Harry—death, getting out of his revenge crime, unmotivated happy ending—will sound like a cliché. And now the way out is motivated and well-mastered, and after the vicissitudes, the Enlightenment comes. Halacheva relies on authors such as Dante, Byron, as well as quotations from the Bible, which are the pillar of both the plot and its philosophical implication, as the novel is realised as a moving and fresh parable, with all the wisdom of the world in condensed and measured form, as a philosophical tale. The writer has given most of herself in the image of Harry, not coincidentally, and he is as influential and effective as presence and message. She herself shares: ’Then, in 1997, I thought in such a gloomy and negative way. I walked the streets of Sofia, watching the people, the sellers, the streets, imagining everything on tape. ’And she created a book about Redemption, Hope and the Necessary Exodus. After reading it, you feel sublime and pure. You overcame the traps of Being, passed through the verification of your ambitions and through the time portals, and reached the Truth about the most important thing in life.

Which takes eight seconds.

Borislav Gardev

Impossible love is the strongest one.

Or the doomed?

The one that dissolves the sky in a

drop of water on the earth and fire drinks it.

Is joy in the illusion?

Is truth a pain?

Heaven and earth in a kiss

at every beginning.

And every end.

1.

One in the crowd. The crowd in One among the vanity of stellar glory. His magnetic radiance aroused unimaginable expectations. Fame made him look flashy, but he was just defending his freedom. He had set it up as Faust for the spectacle from which he takes energy. Everyone did it. And not just now. Ever since the world had existed, and not just the way Harry knew it.

Every day a man filmed the tape of his life that others were watching. For Harry, it was a way to look at them and clear up what he did not like. Thus he went on his way to recognition, building his bizarre destiny as Hitchcock, who invented non-existent memories of his childhood to attract the attention of the audience. It was important for Harry to rise in his own eyes. To believe in the development of his abilities so that others would believe in him.

A copy of virtue itself. And sincerity.

Harry was walking slowly along the illuminated streets of Sofia to The Ivan Vazov National Theatre. The Joker Film Awards were to be handed out tonight, and he knew that once the show business machine was up and running, except rise and fall there was no third way. The machine was not interested in the spiritual experiences of the talents that satisfied its hunger for money and sensations. It was dangerous to play people who put a lot of money into a project or a cause. History knew many stars and politicians who went down without time because they could not always keep up with their benefactors. Neither a victim nor a puppet, Harry had decided to take revenge obeying them his rules, which had long been destined.

Haralampi Avramov, called Harry by everyone, was thirty-three, with a confident gait and eyes that devour the world. With shoulder-length hair, his appearance drove women of all ages crazy at a glance, and he often wore dark glasses and a cloth cap. Ognyana’s presence in his life had not reduced the pressure of the admirers. Both of them used to escape to her apartment, where their love nest was.

Harry missed passing on the red carpet, not only to avoid the shouts of the teenage girls who were imagining the idol of their dreams behind his cold smile. He loved the silence and the lonely walks of the night streets. He had read that the human spirit consists of the energy of time and is a stone in its crystalline form. A minute of love in him was equal to a century of loneliness and it filled loneliness with meaning. Energy of time was the most powerful energy in the world. Exiled in his subconscious, it could blow him up, so Harry put a deep furrow in his heart and a half of it froze.

He felt cold and raised his collar over the large scarf. He quickened his pace and noticed a dark figure on the ground near the shiny cars. It was a stranger in a long robe and a hood over his head. Harry reached into his pocket and tossed him small coins. The poor wretch muttered something, but Harry turned to the office entrance to the theatre, where a man and a woman were pasting posters next to a group of girls. When he appeared, the girls screamed hysterically, and the man shouted:

‘Hey, Harry!’

Harry strode past them and entered the theatre, where the doorman was arguing with a young family and an old woman in a wheelchair. The porter sighed with relief when he saw him.

‘Harry, these people say that…’

Harry heard the host Niki Sotirov announcing the winners over the loudspeaker and hurried to the big stage.

‘And now, the irresistible Anya Pencheva will announce who gets the ’Joker’ award for best male role!’

Anya opened the envelope in the spotlight.

‘Applause for Harry Avramov, who was awarded ’Joker’ for best male role in the movie ‘Never Back’!’

Harry picked up the statuette of a joker frozen in a smile and turned to the cameras and the audience. The hall was overflowing with benevolent smiles and exquisite outfits. The mayor of Sofia and his wife, deputies, businessmen, colleagues from the cinema and the theatre, the entire pompous elite of the capital city were sitting in an honourable place.

The hall fell silent, and Harry went on.

‘He who achieves the truth will conquer the treasures of the whole world’ …How can I find the truth when my eyes see the same things differently? …The impulse of each beginning lasts a moment. The universes are created in an instant. They die in an instant. At this moment I believe. At this moment is the truth! This moment can transform everything. It can make us winners. Or slaves. History is written in an instant. I had written mine in front of you.

Harry met Ognyana’s eyes. She was sitting next to her mother Clara in the front row. And while the Ognyana was glowing with joy, Clara was as cold as ice. She was not happy about her daughter’s relationship with Harry, and she did not try to hide it up. Harry bowed to the audience and picked up the statuette

’Thank you for believing in this actor with this award! I will get better every single year because I learn from myself who in fact is you! Thank you!

The TV cameras followed him going to Ognyana who fell on his neck. After the ceremony, they both went out embraced in the lobby of the theatre and the journalists surrounded them:

‘Congratulations on the Joker, Harry! Had you expected it?’

‘Yes.’

‘The critics promise great future. What do you think?’

‘It changes with the change of wind, but it can always be better!’

‘Do you believe that art can make the world a better place to live in?’

‘Yes, if a person chooses a better image and wants to stay in it.’

‘Has this image changed you?’

‘Words are a great magician. They can rise and destroy. Men of wisdom who live in silence are billionaires who keep wealth to themselves only!’

‘What do you keep only for yourself?’

‘The lesson after the conflict in the plots I play.’

‘They claim you are a sex symbol and a standard for male beauty. How do you keep fit?’

‘Beauty is just a breath between two clichés.’

‘Wow! What a great thought!’

‘It’s not mine, though, it’s Ezra Pound’s.’

‘Well, you read a lot of authors.’

‘Even though, I ruin everything I touch.’

‘Really?’

Harry laughed heartily.

„It’s not my saying, it’s his.’

‘What does Ognyana mean to you?’

Harry embraced Ognyana closer to him.

‘I am what I am because of us.’

Harry answered without thinking. At one point he raised his hand and stopped answering. The questions were endless and he said nothing about his future plans. Ognyana knew he did not like talking about them before they actually happen, then he took him to her mother, who was talking to friends from high society.

Ognyana played a significant part in the hustle and bustle surrounding Harry’s nominations. To him, she was a PR and a springboard to the stars. To her he was her favourite person, and she hoped he means mean more than seven-digit number in her bank account from her father, a diplomat at the Bulgarian embassy in Vienna. What he and Harry had in common was Lucifer, like the all-seeing eye, the radiant angel expelled from Paradise by the Lord because he tried to be equal to Him. And if Jesus had said, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself,’ Lucifer’s followers advised, ‘Love yourself.’ The goal was to depersonalise Jesus as the son of God, because if mankind did not believe in Christ, it would not know the nature of God, and Lucifer would be accepted as God. Lucifer sought to create a soulless humanity based on reasonable beginning. He used the set desire in man to create in light and love, giving him an impulse to the lower levels of consciousness. He encouraged revolutions, liberation from tyranny and coups on the false idea of ​​man as a hero and liberator. Thus, Lucifer was a thief of the Creator’s work in order to draw on human energy and control its mind.

Harry did not admit to being anyone’s slave. He was an actor, a very good one though. They have taken in him for fun, but in fact was he was the one having fun, benefiting the fruit of snobbish self-love in the most cunning way. This fruit was Ognyana. The calls for the Temple in itself, the Temple of justice, freedom, spirituality, the Temple of virtue, humanity and high morals were nurtured in her from childhood. Harry managed to fool her, and she thought he was like her. However, he failed to deceive her mother, who was stalking him, like Solomon’s demons, before sealing them in a bronze vessel with magical symbols to work for him.

The Joker Awards have provided prestige in recent years, and event participants have amassed points in front of street entertainment, where pickpockets stumble upon beggars before picking up someone’s wallet. Harry appreciated the tragicomic element in society. His ambition to become a famous actor was not dictated by his good spiritual half, but by the victory over ridicule and hunger a ten-year-old child in orphanages was forced to endure. Ognyana had never suffered famine. She had graduated from MT&M College in Sofia, and although she did not know how much a loaf of bread cost, cosmetics for hundreds of euros from the achievements of luxury perfumery piled up in front of her mirror. She owned a large apartment on Aksakov Street, changed her S-Class car every year and did not enjoy the money, but the material coverage. Harry won her trust and was selling what he owed at a price, too high. Through it, he wanted revenge on those who