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Oleksiy Zhupansky is a publisher and writer, author of the novels Children Will Come to Me First (2008), The Ragamuffin (2012), God Bless You! The Black Secretary General (2017) and the collection of short stories "Household Satanism" (2010).

Created at the intersection of the genres of magical realism and bizarre prose, the story "Autumn Numbness (Meeting the Dead)" opens the cycle "Wheel of the Year" and is a kind of pilgrimage behind the scenes of the usual scenery of everyday life. The seemingly invisible harbingers of disaster on the streets covered with evening fog, the dark and intricate affairs of those who know what really lies behind the frayed fabric of reality, which is becoming more and more sophisticated every year, the powerful and corrupt officials and the strange urban madmen, as well as the rituals of black bureaucratic witchcraft and, of course, children - stubborn sprouts of the future that are trying their best to break through the darkness of the present, children who somehow keep the wheel of this life turning on its perverted axis. All of this forms the basis of the author's creation of the modern urban myth "Wheel of the Year".

This story began on a soggy autumn day in early November 2017, or much earlier, or maybe even later - it's hard to say for sure, because it continues to this day and repeats itself every autumn on the night of the seventh of November, when the fabric of reality becomes so decrepit that its velvety black underside becomes visible through it, and then guests from the other side come to us.

As soon as you step out into the fog-shrouded streets in the autumn twilight and take a closer look, you will see them - a pale boy, a girl with a split lip and a limping boy - who, on behalf of the Curator, go on their pilgrimage for the holy fire again and again, the only guarantee of a timely start to the heating season. This begins a confusing chain of strange and eerie events on the Day of the Meeting of the Dead, a holiday when those who are no longer with us ride the Devil's Wheel into the damp autumn sky to see how the living are doing and to feel the warmth of life once again for a brief moment.