On a distant Planet A, a discussion was formed between the inhabitants. At a general meeting, they were trying to figure out who would fly on an intergalactic journey to visit Earth. The purpose was very important – simply learning about other lifeforms and offering friendship was not enough. They wanted both planets to share the best they had to offer. 

The main assets of Planet A were the souls of its inhabitants, small and strong individuals. In each heart reigned love for all living, care, and warmth for one’s neighbor. Their minds contained millions of daring and useful ideas, which is how the whole planet achieved harmony between nature, inhabitants and high technology that ensured the comfort and coziness of the witty alien society. Planet A has never known wars and disagreements – the thoughts of the inhabitants were busy with creativity and good intentions. 

As a result of discussions about the best candidate for the extraordinary journey, the majority has agreed on the best candidate. He was a small black-haired silent observer, whose heart had the brightest light. And the boy knew how to fulfill the assigned mission.

Earthlings found out about the successful landing of the alien boy on September 21, 2011, when the baby took his first breath and cried loudly. Mom, Brovchenko Oksana, tenderly hugged her son and, touched by the new life, held him in her arms for the whole night without closing her eyes. The child was named Max Brovchenko. It turned out that his mother, a kindergarten teacher, his older brother Ivan, grandparents, and a great-grandmother were all waiting for him. 

Max grew up as an energetic and smart baby – at 6 months he sat up, at 7 he crawled, and at 11 months he took his first steps. But he was not interested in baby toys at all, rattles and loud toys irritated him. Instead, he had a burning interest in various pebbles, butterflies, and other bugs that lasted until he was 7 years old. “Max could notice a coin lying in the grass, a beetle crawling along a branch, a bird in the bushes, but he did not notice a person or a car passing by. There were cases when he crashed at full speed into a person walking towards him, or into a parked car. According to Maz, it was because he did not notice the obstacle,” says his mom.

Despite social difficulties, Max began to talk early – he started speaking in long phrases with elements of echolalia after his first year. His gaze was directed at a person’s mouth rather than their eyes. In early childhood he did not like fairy tales, pictures in books had to look like photographs – as realistic as possible. So his mother bought him encyclopedias. These books were read cover to cover and very worn, although Max always treated them very carefully and made sure that no one touched them. He did not watch cartoons, preferring documentaries about nature, and later – space. His mother printed photographs of animals, insects, natural phenomena – everything that interested the boy. Max learned to read and count from space phenomena – the letters were like meteorites and various space debris.

Max did not show interest in painting in early childhood. However, with the beginning of quarantine in 2020 when everyone was forced to stay at home, he suddenly started painting. 

First, he painted a planet with pastels. After an art tutorial video on YouTube, Max circled a plate and began to “colour it in”. But he got so carried away that he rubbed his fingers to blood. After that he painted with brushes and paints.

It is noteworthy that Max draws exclusively Space, and the interest in it is associated not only with the boy’s enthusiasm for astronomy and physics but also with a specific vision of the world. He wrote a story about Planet A, whose inhabitants are autistic. Max plans to write a full book.

The story is about the arrival of a spaceship with aliens to Earth and their adventures. In it, Max claims that stims are the normal behavior of people on Planet A, because they are special stabilizing energy waves. The awkwardness of autistic people is associated with a completely different gravity of the home planet. And speech difficulties arise because everyone on Planet A communicates telepathically, so it is very difficult to learn the “human” language. 

Drawing for Max is a way of communicating with the world, and the themes of his drawings are the comprehension of events and the world that surrounds him. According to the boy’s mother, if Max lost the opportunity to study astrophysics, then the need for drawing would disappear by itself. The boy is very dependent on impressions and does not draw at all without inspiration from some natural phenomenon.

Now Max lives in Berdyansk, goes to school, plans to become an astrophysicist, and does everything that other children do – plays, makes friends, sometimes becomes sad and shows tenderness in his space way: ‘Mom, I love you so much, as much as 1 mole.’