Tales of Ghosts. Playing Another Reality. Edgar Allan Poe award

6. A Wish

We arrived at the river on Saturday morning. It was terribly stuffy, +34C, judging by the news. I could hardly stand the heat, thank God, we had air conditioning in the car.

“Life flows as fast as this river,” Nikolas said sadly, hugging me. “What else would you like to do in your life, Pauline?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking, and he gently stroked me with a plucked blade of grass.

“To get to Paris with you!” I finally decided.

“It’s a must! But not today…”

“Okay, tomorrow!” I laughed.

We both had a lot to do with the ‘city of lovers’, but we had never been to Paris together, only separately and at different times.

“Maybe… Do you know what grandiose plans we have for today? Now we’ll swim, have lunch, then we’ll go for a walk in Kuskovo. ‘Giselle’ is waiting for us in the theater tonight, and then…”

I understood that the cultural program was caused by our Monday’s quarrel. Nikolas wanted to make amends. I had already told him about Kuskovo not once, and he took his employees for ‘Giselle’ to celebrate their company anniversary.

“So what then?” I wondered.

“And what do you want then?”

…Having visited the Kuskovo palace and the exhibition in the Orangerie, we listened to some fragment of a charity concert, and on the way to the Grotto, we stopped at the Italian house-museum.

“Drop in, you won’t regret it!” the hospitable hostess called us. “The house is small but very cozy! I’ll tell you the riddle of the Count Sheremetev. If you guess it…”

We had to find three caterpillars hiding in the leaves on a small metal tree. I saw two of them at once, but the search for the third was hard. Finally, I found it too.

“Now make a wish! I assure you, whatever it is, it will definitely come true!” the woman promised, smiling.

“Then… we’ll be in Paris tomorrow,” I said in a serious voice and… laughed.

We reached the theater and found our seats, the 13^th and 14^th in the 6^th row. Such a dangerous combination of ‘6’ and ‘13’ didn’t bother me at all. That day seemed to be one of the happiest in my life!

Finally, we came to the old and long-empty flat where Nikolas’ parents had once lived. We were greeted by an unbearable stuffiness, but Nikolas said it was better not to open the windows for ‘conspiracy’. What if the neighbors got frightened, imagining that someone had entered inside through the window, and would call the police…

“I’m so sleepy!” I said, yawning sweetly at the thought that it was the first time Nikolas let me stay with him until the morning, instead of sending me home at midnight, and we would finally wake up in the same bed as husband and wife.

“Let’s at least have some tea, honey! I’ve bought your favorite cakes not for nothing! There’s no electric kettle, though, so we’ll have to wait a while…”

I nodded wearily, closing my eyes. Nikolas went into the kitchen, and I followed him half-asleep. He stopped by the stove.

“Shit, it’s gas here, and I forgot where the matches are…”

“I have an electric stove at home, too,” I mumbled, falling asleep on the go.

“Where are the matches, where are the matches…” Nikolas wondered, humming softly.

“To hell with tea! Let’s go to bed,” I whispered and hugged him, hanging on his neck helplessly.

…I woke up, looked at the clock on the bedside table, and got horrified! No way I could have slept that long! I quickly moved to the kitchen and found Nikolas standing at the window.

“Look, I’m sorry!” I exclaimed. “Why didn’t you wake me up? You said you had an early morning pick-up at…”

“How did you sleep?” Nikolas suddenly interrupted me halfway through.

“At a new place, you mean?” I wondered, remembering the stupid saying about dreaming grooms in places where girls fall asleep for the first time.

“Yeah,” he looked away, sighing. “Did you dream about anything?”

“Something heavy… I was suffocating, flying in the void through a black tunnel… Why?”

“And there was a roar and rattle in your ears,” Nikolas added sadly.

“Yes, it seems so. How do you know? Did I scream in my sleep?”

“What do you feel now?” he asked, still standing by the window.

“I’m okay! No, not even that! I’m the happiest woman in the world! To hell with Paris!” I smiled, came up to Nikolas and pressed my cheek to his cheek.

“Forgive me, Pauline,” he whispered in my ear.

“What for?!” I was surprised.

“I’ve never said I love you. I love you.”

“Something must have really happened if he said that to me!” it flashed through my head.

“No one will believe it but you,” Nikolas sighed somehow doomed, “although it doesn’t matter much now…”

“What’s happened?”

“I was always afraid of your dramatically leaving the Earth beforehand. And yesterday…”

“I love you too,” I tried to reassure Nikolas, thinking hard about what he was getting at. “I’ll put the kettle on!”

Nikolas tried to stop me with a gesture, I stopped only for a moment, asking myself ‘where are the matches?’, and then I came up to the stove when suddenly noticed that the burner was ALREADY on, but there was NO fire…

“Oh no!” I screamed at the thought that pierced me. “NO! NO! Not now, when everything is so good! Tell me it’s not true!!!”

“Yes, baby, yes,” he whispered, heartbroken. “Please forgive me, you know I didn’t do it on purpose…”

I instantly found myself at the door to the bedroom, but Nikolas blocked my way.

“No, Pauline, don’t go in there! It’s horrible…”

I slowly sank to the floor, Nikolas put his arms around me.

“It’s all over now,” he said trying to console me somehow. “Everything will be fine. You’ll calm down now, and we’ll go to Paris. We’ve never been there together before…”

July 2002

7. Stuck Pluto

Pluto, Lord of the Kingdom of the Dead, circling around in the Heavenly Dial of the Zodiacal Clock, froze at the Gate to his own Kingdom at 8 pm.

All the men I had fallen in love with in my life were under Pluto management, and one of them had at his birth as many as 5 planets between 8 and 9 pm on the Zodiacal Clock, or in the Kingdom of the Dead. Such an accent gives away serial killers and maniacs, mafia and financial tycoons, and also great black magicians… and possibly ghosts…

The next day the Sun was going to bathe Pluto in its rays, to illuminate him and turn him on. A strange premonition of something global, ready to crash down on me like an avalanche (or tsunami?), neither bad nor good, but shocking, didn’t allow me to fall asleep. In the morning, when my consciousness finally gave up, two people appeared, as if my guardians, one of them was a ghost, and the other…

The sound of a vibrating phone brought me back to reality.

“Michael is dead,” said the text message.

“We’re all going to die,” I calmly typed in reply to an unknown person.

The Sun greeted me through the blinds.

“Who made you so cynical, Barbara? MICHAEL DIED.”

“Which Michael?” continuing to understand little, I decided to clarify just in case, suddenly realizing that one of the two men I had just dreamed about was named Michael.

“Yesterday I ran by chance into the guy who had assembled furniture for you. He said that Michael, who had been in love with you, died.”

A terrible thought and, forgive me God, not at all about Michael, who had appeared to me in my dream – so sweet, kind, harmless, writing music and really loving me from afar, silently, realizing that there could be nothing but a working relationship between us, flashed through my mind, and I finally woke up, jumping out of bed.

I dreamt about both of them… Michael and…

“YOU?!?!?! Pluto!!!” I shouted at the whole Universe to an undefined number. “HOW??!!! YOU ARE DEAD!!! YOU DIED MANY YEARS AGO!!!”

“I emailed you last year, you wondered the way a stranger had got your address. You didn’t recognize me. Maybe you weren’t ready.”

“But… how???”

“Have you forgotten how many debts I had back then? You said it yourself, ‘it’s easier to die’. No one would have been surprised. Yes, I just had to die))) By my own! Would you prefer to find your love killed for real?”

I raised the blinds and the Sun dazzled me. Pluto people, being under the patronage of the Lord of the Kingdom of the Dead, used to survive where everyone else met death…

“I dreamt about you… today…” sinking to the floor, I whispered, remembering how many times in life we had tried to be together, but something happened beyond our control, that left no chance, driving us apart, until one day he…

“Great! You never have dreams without sense… Something happened yesterday. I don’t know how to explain it. So, there’s no need to explain. I just want you to be nearby now!”

“You’re a ghost, and I need a real man!” I said, still refusing to believe in a miracle.

“Surely. I’ll be in Monte Carlo this weekend. I have to sort out some affairs. And next weekend you will fly to me in Venice!”

“We’ll never meet,” I exhaled, remembering that next weekend the Sun would stop caressing Pluto, and he would step into his own Kingdom.

“There are no options not to meet, Barbara! I’ll be waiting for you on your favorite bridge!”

However, the Sun disappeared into the clouds. Some evil stars contributed to the launch of a mass lethal virus epidemic, and the air traffic between countries was suspended.

The world stepped into the Kingdom of Death through the wide-open Gates.

My airline tickets were eaten by the fireplace. Italy was in a fever. The ‘ghost’ of my Pluto wrote to me several times something like ‘it’ll be over soon, be patient … wait a little more … just about …’, and then he disappeared …

As the pandemic was over, I left for Greece and lived on a tiny island opposite to Mount Athos, not far from the women’s monastery of the Archangel Michael, not missing a single liturgy, at which I asked prayers for the souls of Pluto and Michael every time, until that Sunday when I woke up… being foggy myself… and the first step I did was a trip to Venice!

God, I wandered all the bridges, in vain! – Pluto was nowhere to be found!

When I returned to Greece and settled in the monastery of the Archangel Michael, which had become dear to my soul, I was painfully looking for the best way to find the beloved ghost. However, I still had no access to the Universal Data Bank, and no stairs to Heaven were observed anywhere around. I could do nothing but praying.

On the ninth day, right during the liturgy, out of the altar gate, so suddenly and quietly that at first I didn’t even believe in his reality, appeared… Michael!

He came up to me, smiling, leaned over and kissed my foggy hand.

“Where can I find him?” I asked hopefully.

“You don’t have to look for him, Barbara. Besides, he’s… alive…”

“Alive?!” I exclaimed loudly to the whole monastery, thank God, nuns usually didn’t hear otherworldly voices. “What a twist! I prayed for both of you as for dead!”

“God has all alive, don’t worry! Your Pluto was seriously ill then, yes, but survived thanks to your prayers… However, since then, all these years, by the will of Heaven, he’s been in a state to be able only to pray silently by his soul.”

…Another blow!

“Are you saying that if I hadn’t prayed for him, he would have died a long time ago? So, it was me who condemned him to suffer, wasn’t it?!”

“You gave him a chance,” Michael smiled, “to get something better in the Other World than what he deserved. One day, when they consider him fit, he will be taken away. You can help the unfortunate Pluto shorten the time of his painful stay on Earth by continuing to pray for him here. However, you have the right to leave for Heaven with me right now.”

“So, where can I find him?!”

“If you don’t have access to the Information Tablets, then that’s necessary for something and exclusively for the good. Well, you have to make your decision here and now, Barbara. Oh, sorry, I almost forgot! Probably, you won’t be able to be together even after…”

…I staggered … The thought of the impossibility to find happiness with a beloved one, even posthumously, in the Kingdom of the Dead, never crossed my mind, neither during life on Earth, nor after it.

“My God, how unacceptably easy we used to scatter our beloved ones, to exchange the warmth of the soul for material goods! How stupidly we don’t appreciate the opportunity to love and be loved ‘here and now’! Has my Pluto, stuck on Earth at the entrance to the Kingdom of the Dead, rethought his life? And, if so, how many years would it take me to pray his soul out?”

“I will stay here…” I decided, as I couldn’t do otherwise. “Just… promise me, Michael, that one day I will meet him again… on the bridge in Venice, right?”

“You have no chance not to meet him, if you want to meet him,” Michael laughed and added, already dissolving in the sunlight that suddenly streamed through the monastery’s windows, “although, maybe, not on the bridge… and not in Venice…”

April 06, 2020

8. Kailash

We took a taxi to Sheremetyevo airport. The driver turned out to be a cheerful and talkative… tour guide. He knew several foreign languages, worked with tourist groups in Moscow and dreamed of starting his own business.

“I will definitely open a tour agency! I am an Aries, and all Aries always achieve their goals!” the driver exclaimed optimistically, saying goodbye to us at the airport.

Katya was an Aries, too.

As we entered the airport building, we came upon a bookstore. Instantly scanning the contents of the shelves, Katya fixed her eyes on some books and pulled my sleeve.

“Look, here it is, Kailash!!! Let’s buy them all!”

I saw a multi-volume book about the Tibetan ‘city of Gods’. Everything related to philosophy, Tibet and the Unknown mattered much for Katya. Haunted by unusual dreams, mysterious voices and ghostly visions since childhood, she was in the search of the keys to the great mysteries of the Universe. Of course, one can laugh at the otherworldly ‘things’, but Katya’s dreams came true. And even I, a notorious skeptic, began to believe in signs.

“To carry these volumes? What’s the point?” I objected. “Let’s buy them on return.”

I planned for our vacation to read e-book of Katya, her thesis on philosophy “The Sense of Life and Death”, thus, an extra kilo of printed books in my backpack caused me nothing but rejection.

On the plane, Katya periodically recalled and excitedly shared with me some interesting facts about the mysterious Mount Kailash, located in the distant Himalayas, about which I really knew nothing at that time.

“I would give a lot to get to this Mountain! Perhaps even my lifetime! They say there is a point of confluence of parallel worlds there, a portal, do you know? If you’re ready, you’ll be let in! Many people went to Kailash, but not all came back! And some of those who returned grew old instantly! I’m sure, Time flows differently there! Mr. Roerich painted both Kailash and the mountains nearby. He was allowed into the caves where the bodies of giants, people of the previous race, are still kept! Can you imagine?!”

I didn’t understand much of the meanings she put into her words, but the girls’ enthusiastic tirades require encouragement.

“You’re Aries, so you will definitely get to Kailash! But why should you give your lifetime to see it?”

***

We stayed in a very beautiful hotel, built in the style of a medieval castle, in a place surrounded by mountains, which were growing even out of the sea.

That day we had lunch at a restaurant on the beach, and Katya remembered me again about her ‘beloved’.

“I dreamed about Kailash a long time ago, in childhood, and more than once. I was standing at the entrance to a cave and looking into a large stone mirror, as if someone had polished a piece of the mountain very smoothly. My mother was reflected in the mirror behind me. I turned around, but there was no mum there. I turned back to the mirror, and she was still smiling in the mirror…”

I was about to object to her about the stone mirrors, but at that moment an elderly lady, walking nearby with a bowl of soup, stopped in front of us and passed her hand over Katya’s head.

“The channel is open!” she said in a loud voice. “And the pillar is up to the sky! Your soul is so old! Is this the last time you live here?”

Katya and I looked at each other, and the woman had already gone her own way, obviously not eager to enter into discussions.

***

I booked a lot of different excursions. That day we went rafting on the river of the 4^th level of difficulty. Neither me nor Katya had rafted before, and we were promised an unforgettable experience. We had a long drive through the mountains in an old minibus, listening to beautiful but sad songs.

“If I die, will you be sad?” Katya asked suddenly and clung to my shoulder.

“What the hell are you talking about!” I muttered.

Now, recalling these episodes, I wonder why we don’t say kind words to our beloved ones, don’t support them in their moments of sadness. Was it hard for me to answer something like, ‘Honey, of course, I’m going to be not simply sad, damn sad! Please, don’t die!’ No, on the contrary, I grumbled!

When Katya put on a helmet and a vest before rafting, she looked like a twelve-year-old girl, although she always looked younger than her years. I would like Katya to give birth to my daughter, but all the time – how many years? – I put off the important decision ‘for a while’.

I took a picture of Katya against the backdrop of a stormy river and a boat. We signed an agreement that the organizers didn’t bear any responsibility for our lives and the like. After the briefing, we bravely rushed into ‘the battle’, not yet knowing that in one of the rapids, we were going to face, a tourist like us had recently died.

The instructor’s name was Sam. Originally from Nepal, he spoke English and knew a few words in Russian. I saw Katya’s eyes light up.

“Sam,” she exclaimed, “have you seen Kailash?!”

“Oh, Kailash! This is a great mountain near my country!” Sam said proudly and looked up at the sky.

At that moment we were surrounded by delightful landscapes of towering mountains. And, to be honest, I didn’t understand, what could be so extraordinary in some Kailash! There were a lot of mountains on Earth! I seemed to be the only one who hadn’t sung praises to Kailash yet.

Our boat didn’t capsize in the end, although two men did fall out of it.

***

We spent the next two days among the ruins of ancient towns.

“I seem to be able to fly over to that column!” confessed Katya, standing on top of a nameless hill with the remains of a temple.

“No, no, don’t try!” I stopped her.

“And people of previous civilizations could fly! Just imagine, with the power of their own thoughts, they moved heavy stones and even mountains!”

“Are you talking about Kailash again?! Change mountain! There are a lot of them in the world!”

Katya pursed her lips in resentment and fell silent, but soon a local resident approached us, offering a parasailing, and I sent her to fly first over the sea, and then over the mountains.

Katya was an outgoing girl. Yes, a girl…

It would seem that her tragic life experience, many times greater than my own, should instantly turn any creature into an old one, however, Katya looked young and remained a child in her soul.

She managed to combine the incongruous, was drawn to everything out of standard, loved extreme sports and sometimes, as it seemed to me, flirted with death. Katya was not afraid of it, she was afraid of… spiders! Can you imagine? Afraid of insects, but not of dying! Strong-willed and kind, smart and beautiful, that was already a rarity, and at the same time completely defenseless, she clearly needed a strong male shoulder nearby.

Probably, I loved her, but I was afraid to admit it to myself … I was afraid of responsibility and of losing my own independence … I neither expressed my love openly nor pampered Katya.

For example, when we went for a walk in the local evening bazaar, she saw a tiny multi-colored onyx pyramid.

“Look, how beautiful it is!” Katya exclaimed. “Pyramids normalize, strengthen and focus energy, turning it in the right direction! They also translate the earthly into the heavenly! Every pyramid is real magic! They say the whole complex of mountains around Kailash is a city of various pyramids!”

That pyramid cost a penny, but I defiantly ignored such a transparent hint. Why didn’t I buy Katya a piece of her coveted magic? I was already jealous of Katya to Kailash with all the fibers of my soul and absolutely indifferent to the pyramids, since I understood nothing in them. Highly likely, that not bought pyramid, as I think now, was my subconscious protest as a refusal to admit that Katya knew something I didn’t, that during our shared life she had become more well-read and advanced in the Otherworld, she had grown a lot, overtaken me in many ways…

***

Returning to the hotel after a walk along the sea, we heard a sudden shout behind us and looked back. A man in a white T-shirt with the logo of a large travel company for some reason desperately waved his hands, looking at us point-blank. We froze, and the man ran up to us.

“Have you forgotten about our night excursion?” he asked Katya.

“What do you mean?” she wondered.

“You bought it from me half an hour ago at the Sun Hotel!” the travel agent exclaimed and took out his notebook. “Here you are… Svetlana!”

“No, you are confusing something. I’m not Svetlana, I’m Katya!”

“Besides, my friend,” I felt like showing my importance, “we are from another hotel, and we are leaving tomorrow morning. So, we have no time for night excursions!”

“Blimey! Sorry! It means the girl, settled in the Sun Hotel, is your exact copy!”

The man apologized again and left.

“A bad sign,” Katya said and became gloomy. “Copies are met shortly before the death of their original. Or beloved ones see the look-alikes of those who are about to die.”

“Come on! You haven’t seen Svetlana!”

However, it’s no use arguing with women. So, I decided…

…yes, it was my decision! – that’s the trouble! – that’s why I’m still replaying our trip in my head day by day… I decided to cheer her up! Instead of proceeding to the room to get our luggage ready for the trip, I suggested extending the last night of our vacation by attending an outdoor entertainment show.

That night, local dance groups made some performance on the territory of the hotel. Between dances, fakirs and other magicians demonstrated tricks, involving the tourists. Katya was clearly bored.

“Are you dreaming of Kailash?” I asked, barely restraining myself so as not to be sarcastic.

“Anyway, I need to get to it. They say whoever walks Kailash around 108 times will never come back on Earth! And I don’t want to incarnate anymore!”

I got angry… and… – yes, it was me again! – when the fakir started inviting those who wanted to get a portion of adrenaline before going to bed, I pushed Katya to the stage.

“Kailash will wait!” I said.

Two guys in national costumes put Katya on the floor and covered her belly with a wooden board, and the third one, blindfolded, standing with his back to her, began to throw knives at Katya, over his shoulder, one by one, without a break. And they hit the board until another knife, flying by, crashed into the floor, and the one thrown next…

Periodically replaying on my internal screen, like a video, both that evening and our years together, I blame myself more and more… Not for having sent Katya to the stage, because I didn’t wish her death at all! However, I got used so much to the constant presence of Katya somewhere nearby, that I stopped appreciating such a miracle in my life, so they took her away from me…

Perhaps it was Kailash itself…

September 2003