The Island of Charon. Playing Another Reality. Antoine de Saint-Exupery Award. Alexandra Kryuchkova

224 pages.

      https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09SLSKYN1

      The booktrailer:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r19bfyosC9o

      Dedication

                                 I dedicate my Island

                                          to every reader!

                                       As well as to:

      my son Andrey and our cat Josephine,

      the prototypes:

      Boris, Grigory and Sergey,

      my Greek friends:

      Dimitra Drosinos and her husband Dimitris,

      Nikos Lageris, the beekeeper, and his wife Nikoletta Firai,

      my beloved:

      Ouranoupolis, a village

      on the border of Mount Athos, Greece,

      the real Paradise on Earth,

      where I wrote this book,

      the Islands:

      Ammouliani, Greece,

      Camotes, the Philippines…

                                         with thanks…

      The ISLAND of CHARON

      “Then the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and each one was judged according to his works…” (Rev. 20:13—14)

      “Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection: over them the second death has no power…” (Rev. 20:6)

      “Do not pity the victims and do not condemn the executioners, because they don’t exist on Earth by themselves, they unmistakably calculate each other, even being in opposite parts of the planet, and go towards each other all their lives to fulfill the destined for them from Above…”

      PROLOGUE. The VICTIM and the EXECUTIONER

      0.1. The Girl and the Sea

      Аmmouliani4,

      Greece

      “She used to sit for a long time by the Sea at sunset, the Girl in a pink dress. Lost in thoughts about something, she was gazing into the Sky. There was a Mysterious Land in the clouds, where winged people lived. Lilac castles beckoned her to them, in their quaint gardens fabulous flowers were fragrant and magical birds were singing. The wind carried unusual aromas and echoes of enchanting melodies to the Girl. And she also saw familiar faces there, they smiled and called the Girl to their Heavenly Country, to the City of the Sun. She dreamed of getting to them, but did not know how to do it, because she had no wings.

      The Sun was setting into the Sea. Warm waves caressed her legs, singing a quiet kind song that she had heard from her mother when she was still a baby. The Girl looked around, but there was no one on the shore, and she felt completely lonely. The gloomy Rocks did not understand her, because they couldn’t feel anything, however, that was the reason they would never die. The Rocks, as usual, were only watching silently the picture at sunset: the Girl and the Sea.

      The Sun was approaching the horizon. The waves were whispering louder and louder. The Magic Country floated away, losing its outlines. The Girl was standing by the Sea, and her tears fell onto the waves, and the Sea became salty…

      The seagulls that flew to the seashore in the evening did not find anyone there. The Sun sank behind the horizon, and the Night came. Somewhere far away in the Sky, the seagulls noticed the outlines of an unknown City. They wondered, what kind of City it was, being situated not on Earth, but in the Sky. They had never seen such cities before! And the two most curious seagulls decided to make a flight to the mysterious City, but they had not enough strength to reach it.

      And the Girl disappeared. The Rocks no longer saw her there, on the seashore, at sunset. Only the book left by the Girl on the coastal stone reminded them of her existence…”

      “Hmmm…” I closed the book and put it aside. The miniature was written by me at the age of twelve, but sometimes I was drawn to read it again. Every time after returning to reality it seemed to me that I remained the little Assol5, who still didn’t lose hope for…

      I was waiting for his letter… I constantly visited my Internet page to check if he had looked at my last post to him…

      Yes, yes, yes… At first completely unconsciously and then purposefully, I began to post more and more expressive pictures, signing them briefly, but with a hidden meaning…

      My hands were trembling, I was closing my eyes at seeing his name in the list of viewers – oh, he hadn’t given me even a like! – but I was jumping, I squealed, “You have not forgotten me! You want me! Well, tell me you want me, too!!!”

      That day I made a post with a photo of two waves running towards each other, and I signed it, “Meet?!” And…

      He commented the photo, answering me in a private chat, “Yes”.

      These three letters made me scream at the whole Universe! Yes, I screamed, “I want you, too!”, but after thinking a little, I wrote,

      “I want that, too.”

      “What do you want?”

      “…to see you…”

      It was madness! I understood everything, but appealing to reason at such moments was completely useless! Of course, he was not the captain of the ship “Scarlet Sails”, and I mostly felt us the main characters of the movie “Titanic”.

      Weren’t you attracted by bad boys/girls?! And did you think at such moments that your “Titanic” was already doomed?! Neither did I, being ready to drown… sometime later… not then…

      0.2. The Isle of Black Magicians

      Camotes6,

      The Pacific Ocean

      …Water, water, all around is water, and a panic horror seizes me. I try to float to the surface, but for some reason I can’t, and… I am suffocating!

      He woke me up. I opened my eyes and saw before me only the boundless starry Sky.

      It instantly got dark on that Island.

      “The Ocean comes here silently,” Alex said gloomily and held out his hand to me.

      I got up from the white sand, just a little bit more and the hide tide would have swallowed me.

      Yes, that wild Island of healers and black magicians was really very strange. Completely unlike Paradise, despite the divine names of the bays and the Internet descriptions, Camotes was scaring,

5

Protagonist of the famous book of Alexander Grin “Scarlet Sails”. Assol lives in a seaside village and believes that one day a ship with scarlet sails will come to their pier, and the captain of the ship, named Gray, will marry her.

6

The Camotes Islands is a group of tiny islands in the Philippine archipelago. If you prefer solitude and are ready to sacrifice the benefits of civilization, you will enjoy Camotes paradise, lost among tropical palm trees and sandy beaches.