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 4th 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
9. A Canary
Svetlana hadn’t been there for ten years, but she went to her old friend’s party with a light heart and absolute peace of mind. It was only out of simple female curiosity that she wanted to have a look at Artyom, what if he still lived there and was at home.
He worked for a commercial company then. At first, everything was great, they had clothes and food exclusively from luxury supermarkets, the most prestigious car, and not a dacha, but a palace. However, soon a bottomless void appeared in Svetlana’s soul, and she felt lonely. She loved her husband, who used to leave early in the morning and return at night, because of meetings, negotiations, friends, partners, clients and business trips, and she missed his attention, care and, probably, love. Repeatedly and in vain, Svetlana asked to devote more time to her.
“You don’t understand anything, money rules the world!” Artyom used to say, and nothing changed.
One day Svetlana left him for nowhere, but quickly enough she got a good job, began to earn decent money and to live no worse than before. She stopped being sad, soon got married again and gave birth to charming twins. However, at some point, she caught herself thinking that she no longer cared what time her second husband came home, whether he devoted free time to her or not. Negotiations? Okay. Business trip? Okay as well.
They had money, that really managed everything.
“Just think about it! I became an ideal woman for Artyom,” Svetlana came to the conclusion, passing by his doorway, and noticed light in the familiar window…
Artyom opened the door.
“Wow! What way?!” he said in surprise. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. Come in!”
Svetlana entered the room and looked around appraising. Everything was the same: luxury brand furniture, paintings by cool artists … Although… in a cage on the table by the window she noticed a small bird.
“I bought the canary not to feel lonely,” Artyom admitted.
“Aren’t you married?”
“Can’t married people feel lonely? My wife with kids enjoy the Canary Islands every summer. And how are you? I hope your new husband spends more time with you than I did.”
“No, imagine. I don’t need that anymore. I don’t ask him to come home early so that we spend our free time together … I became what you wanted me to be ten years ago.”
“What time makes of us! Back then, I thought you were too demanding. I wanted freedom. I suppose I didn’t know to love true yet. My second wife is ready to live without me for her own comfort. Now I wish she asked me, like you, to come home early, to walk with her in the park and go to the theater, but money is the only thing she is interested in… So life made me understand how much I had been mistaken… I would pay much to return to the past and bring you back.”
“One can’t return to the past because one doesn’t have to return.”
“So, you couldn’t fall in love with me again, could you?!”
“I have to go.”
They said goodbye and disappeared from each other’s lives again.
***
Six months later Svetlana found herself in those places once more, already for business.
Having parked the car, she went straight to the office building for a business meeting, not knowing yet that it would end suddenly and simultaneously with the breath of her life, according to the decision of the Judges to transfer Svetlana’s soul in Heaven by thromboembolism. Chances to change destiny in order to remain on Earth are not always given to people in unlimited quantities, sometimes it even seems unfair that, for example, a worthless drunkard lives to a ripe old age, while an admirable business woman is recalled prematurely.
Passing by a liquor store, crowded with not quite sober people, Svetlana noticed the gaze of an unattractive man.
“Hello,” said Artyom, approaching her staggeringly.
“I didn’t expect to see you… here! What’s happened?”
“My canary’s damn dead,” he muttered.
“Who is dead?” Svetlana asked to clarify the unheard.
“My last friend… He used to wait for my returns home from work… He tweeted something in his own language … And … he died, unable to live in our damn family! Now my friend visits me at night. As a ghost … Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Do you mean your canary?” Svetlana asked again, and Artyom nodded.
“Run away from money!” he whispered in her ear. “I’m going to spend all I have not to spoil my children!”
“What are you talking about?!” Svetlana exclaimed, recoiling from him in horror and thinking, “What a blessing our paths diverged!”
“Yes, our paths diverged,” said Artyom as if reading her thoughts. “One can’t return to the past because one doesn’t have to return… However, who knows, if you hadn’t left me then, perhaps it would have been you walking in my shoes now…”
September 21, 1995
10. A Cats’ name
She had a cats’ name that no dog could pronounce, but she never smelt like a cat, so I didn’t mean her any harm. I remember her as pretty: kind dog eyes and dark fur … sorry, I mean, hair! If you count, as people do, she was young, but dogs don’t live that long. I can’t say she looked so beautiful for a dog like me to fall in love with her, but for my master it was a completely different matter! When she was calling, his face suddenly changed, his hands began to fiddle with the telephone cable, and if my master had got a tail, he would have definitely wagged it! It always happens to me involuntarily when I communicate with those I like …
They didn’t talk for long by phone – they made appointments. I don’t know why he took me with him, but I was glad! I found it nice to have a company of good people, and I wagged my tail at her for both of us, me and my master.
I remember every meeting of them. We used to wait for her under the trees in the courtyard. She always smiled approaching us, seemed to be so happy… We walked along the road leading to the park. They talked about things that, in my opinion, were not worth talking about. In fact, dogs are silent, because there is really nothing to talk about. Everything was already said a long time ago. You have to either howl when you are sad, or bark when you are nervous, angry, annoyed, if you want to attract attention or rejoice, it’s your intonation that matters… However, people still talk, they just don’t understand yet a lot of things in life, unlike dogs…
I didn’t know where and when they had got acquainted, however, a long time before my birth. They used to remember the days they had been together. Despite the fact that all conversations of these strange people were limited exclusively to their Past, there was something that connected them in the Present.
At first, I could not understand why they were not together. Imagine my surprise when, during our walk one evening, she took off her gloves, and I noticed a gold ring on her hand! You know what that means, don’t you?! And who on earth would think of such a nonsense as getting married? Dogs never get married, because it’s not serious at all! What does a ring change? A few extra grams on your finger! Rings mean nothing in life, as well as a lot of other things. That’s why dogs don’t wear rings. No kind at all. By the way, not dogs only, mind you…
My master told me the strangest love story I’ve ever heard, that would never happen to a dog, that’s for sure!
He loved her, as you see… secretly! And he never told her about it… Well, they used to call and meet, they wandered here and there, walking around and… walking around! But there are a lot of men among people, and not all of them prefer to love secretly! Someone can call, meet, take a walk and… move on!
One day that someone appeared in her life, met her, went for a walk and offered her an ill-fated ring! Of course, she told my master about it. He was stunned naturally, but he didn’t even lift a finger to stop her! How do you like it? It was obviously not a ‘wow-wow!’ but a ‘woof-woof’! In brief, she never knew he loved her, and I never understood why he didn’t tell her anything. Was he so greedy not to buy her the ring?
The last time I saw her, was late in autumn. We met in the courtyard, as usual, and went to the park. She looked even more beautiful, but quite sad. In the park, suddenly citing tiredness, she sat down on a bench. I watched her carefully. She was about to say something very important. For her and for both of them. There was an excruciating pause. She was silent. And he was silent. I tried my best to make her talk. I was twirling at her feet, wagging my tail, hypnotizing her with my eyes, and then I couldn’t stand it anymore, and, as a result, I even barked! However, she didn’t understand me! She sighed heavily, got up abruptly and said she had to go…
We stood outside her house, saying goodbye. She left us… forever… At first, I thought he would call to say he loved her, because he really loved her! Yes, he did. You should have seen at what speed he jumped up from the sofa every time the phone rang, and how hopefully he said “Hello!”, and how dark he grew immediately, having realized it wasn’t SHE.
Now, tell me, do dogs behave like that? Once I became so brutalized that I walked up to my master and bit him. He didn’t understand why, apparently, and got offended…
I tried to do my best to reconcile them. When my master took me for a walk, I dragged him to her house, and we were wandering under the trees of the courtyard where she had used to come out smiling. I tried to find her by smell, but remember the winds blowing that autumn! Soon the snow started falling, sweeping away the traces of the Past, and winter came. She left us forever. And mind you, without ‘woof-woof’…
I have never understood human nature, and probably I will never do. But why people, who, unlike dogs, have the gift of speech, are not able to understand themselves and each other just to be happy?
August 1996
11. Come on!
I worked at a luxury college as an elementary school teacher. I was twenty-five years old, full of hopes and plans for the future. Life pampered me. I never denied myself anything and got all I wanted. Troubles bypassed me, and I felt happy.
That college was located not far from the city, at the edge of a beautiful small lake in a pine forest. We accepted children whose parents could pay a substantial tuition fee for a year, carried out according to the usual school curriculum, apart from optional courses and extra-activities, and the children lived there for the whole school year, although parents could, of course, take them home for weekends and holidays. We had very tasty food. The dormitories were furnished as well as luxury rooms of the five-stars hotels, just in various fairy tales design. The pupils used to pass their free time playing, going for walks and generally doing whatever they wanted, since almost nothing was forbidden to them.
That year I was recruiting the first class, afraid of being unable to communicate with the kids ‘in the same language’. However, I adapted quickly enough, and everything went perfectly. The class turned out to be friendly, the children were talented.
***
Before Christmas, I announced the PTA meeting, after which the parents could take their children home for the holidays. Returning to the teachers’ building in the evening, I noticed a little girl in a squirrel coat who seemed to be waiting for someone. It was Christina from my class.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Is my dad coming?”
“Of course, he is! Go to your room, it’s getting late!”
“Come on, Alice… Talk to me!” Christina said almost in a whisper, averting her gaze to the side.
I didn’t know how to react to her words. None of the pupils addressed me like that, and I was about to reprimand the girl, but then, looking into her sad eyes, I changed my mind. Besides, the Christmas atmosphere was already in the air: the blizzard had turned the edge of the forest into a fairy tale, it was still snowing, and the lanterns were winking mysteriously…
“Go back to your place, Chris!” I repeated, but the girl didn’t move and remained silent, forcing me to add categorically, “I have to go, see you tomorrow!”
I told a lie, there was no need for me to rush, I just didn’t want to stay alone with her. After walking about ten meters towards the staff building, I heard her voice calling me,
“Alice! You look like…”
However, I didn’t turn around…
***
On the eve of the PTA meeting, I planned to take a walk along the lake with my friend, a seventh grade teacher, but she was suddenly called by our chief, and I had to wander alone. As I sat down on the bench, Christina materialized next to me, as if out of nowhere.
“Why are you alone, Chris?” I asked.
“I like it this way.”
“Don’t you like to play with other children?”
“I don’t.”
“Why?”
“I’m not like them.”
I wanted to ask ‘why’ again, but I said nothing.
“Come on, Alice… let’s talk,” Christina added quietly.
“Well-bred girls don’t talk like that to those who are older!”
“I will talk like that only to you!”
I saw tears in her eyes, however, I’d been sickened by crybabies since childhood.
