Hired Self-killer or The Winner’s Trial. Gennadiy Loginov

backstreets. You are lucky that no one stabbed you,” the bird master unexpectedly declared, continuing to rotate the crank slowly.

      “It depends on how you look at it,” Lucky remarked with a sad smile and a shade of irony.

      Coming closer, Lucky stopped in front of the organ-grinder, listening to the tune, and gave the bird a side glance. The raven squawked. Lucky threw a coin into the slot for donations on the barrel organ and briefly glanced at the fountain. People usually threw coins at working fountains for good luck, which in his case would be an evil mockery. Perhaps, everything should be exactly the opposite with the extinct fountain? In any case, Lucky had never heard of such a belief. But even so, it was unlikely that anyone else in this world had a reason and a desire to verify the validity of this guess.

      However, Lucky had nothing to lose. At least, there would be something to remember later, looking back on a passing day. He casually tossed the coin into the dry fountain and sighed with a flow of white steam. That’s just empty superstitions. Good luck and bad luck are relative concepts anyway.

      “Places like that have their own charm,” the organ-grinder said in a deep velvety voice. “Fountains, where water no longer spurts; stations where trains no longer arrive; clay beds of dried rivers, where old boats remain and objects once sunk are exposed; the ruins of old houses, overgrown with moss and ivy, where different things like pianos have been left behind and now have birds nesting in them, and so on in the same vein.”

      “Perhaps. Probably,” the suicidal failure agreed. He could broadly envisage the bizarre aesthetics of decline and desolation (about which, in Lucky’s opinion, the organ-grinder spoke). “I’ve been in this city for quite some time. But I’ve never met you before. And I don’t remember this fountain either.”

      “No wonder,” the stranger nodded with understanding. “This place is found only by those who are not looking for it on purpose. I don’t know what happened to you, but apparently, you didn’t care where you were going. You have neither purpose nor motive.”

      “So it turns out,” Lucky agreed once again. Nothing could surprise him anymore.

      “All this is very strange of course. But since you are here, I believe, you have your own story, just as unusual as everything around. I have a trained eye – I’ve seen many people alike in my lifetime,” the bearded man stopped his barrel organ and petted the raven. “Come on, come on, say ‘Nevermore!’ Please, entertain our guest! Don’t you want to? Oh well…”

      Lucky looked at the organ-grinder with new eyes. For some reason, this man caused associations with the main character of a literary work, who found himself in the wrong story by some ridiculous accident.

      “So you think that I can find some answers to my questions here?” Lucky asked. He took some snow from the edge of the fountain and rubbed it in his hands, feeling the moderately pleasant bite of cold.

      “I can’t guarantee anything. It’s entirely up to you. They don’t come here for answers. They simply come when there is nowhere else to go, and there is no need to go. And everyone leaves, having received something. Or not. Taking some thoughts. Or not taking, but killing time well, after having acquired some aesthetic experience. You just find a reflection of yourself in things and in understanding things, and this can help in your trouble, whatever it is. Well, maybe not. It’s one out of two outcomes. Or maybe more than two,” the raven’s master assured indifferently. “Sometimes, the lessons we learn are fundamentally different from those that somebody is trying to teach us. Perhaps you’ll decide something important for yourself. Or maybe you won’t. Perhaps your inspiration will awaken, and you’ll find a new incentive to live. Or maybe there will be no inspiration, no incentive. At times, even the information which seems senseless or useless by its nature gives us interesting ideas. You can’t deny random knowledge.”

      “It all sounds good,” Lucky replied with the same calmness. Having the experience of his non-standard life, with ill-fated fortune and the rich experience as those of a serial self-killer, he wasn’t surprised by the existence of unusual places, objects and people. “Frankly speaking, I’m interested. I didn’t have special plans for this evening anyway, neither for the near future. But who are you?”

      “The organ-grinder,” the bearded man answered as if it was obvious. “And my name is Joe Ker.”

      “And what have you found here for yourself, Joe Ker?” continued the wanderer, hoping to get more out of his interlocutor. “Has someone appointed you to stand in this place and speak with lost travellers?”

      “No, nobody forced or obliged me to do anything. Once, I accidentally wandered here just like you, I liked it here, and I decided to stay. But don’t think that you’ll be able to escape your problems and remain here, waiting for solutions from me or someone else. No, you can only try to sort yourself out. Of course, if you want to. You can even turn around and leave, but bear in mind that someone can wander into this place twice in extremely rare cases: they get here for the first time without such a goal and intention, but they can’t return here at a wish. I had my questions too, and I think, I found the answers. Now I’m doing something that interests me, and I’m where I want to be. I just like it here.” The bearded man slapped the raven, and it rushed up, squawking: “Nevermore! Nevermore! Nevermore!”

      “But who created this place and for what purpose? Why do the wanderers end up here?” interrogated Lucky.

      “‘Who…’ ‘For what purpose…’ ‘Why…’ By God, what a bore you are. Well, alright, not a bore, a curious person. Yes, of course, the right questions are not only possible but even necessary to ask. Another thing is that it’s sometimes tiring to answer all the same questions for the tenth time. Well, let’s go, if you wish,” the bearded organ-grinder suggested. He turned around and headed to the nondescript door of one of the houses, inviting Lucky to follow.

      The door swung open with a creak and flooded the night winter square with a stream of bright rays of the hot summer sun. Behind it, surrounded by a blossoming forest alley, there were tram rails leading somewhere far off, and upon them stood a giant cabinet-tree, with large and small road signs blooming on the branches; there was also a cozy gazebo on wheels. Inside it, there were a couple of hungry armchairs inviting in their open, fanged maws, a wicker five-legged table, on which, in a large bowl, there was a small pond with water lilies; next, stood porcelain cups full of heels and a telescope, which seemed a bit strange and inappropriate to Lucky.

      “You have a nice place here. Some others’ are so disgusting, you don’t even want to cross the threshold. And here is not bad at all,” the organ-grinder nodded respectfully. “Well, what next?”

      “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Lucky said as he crossed the threshold. He turned his face to the sun and, closing his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath filling his lungs with fresh air. A gentle breeze blew. What a grace.

      “Well, actually, this is your inner world. And you will show the way. We can take a walk in mine someday if you want to and have the time,” the bearded man said in a deep voice, following Lucky.

      “I wonder, who prepared all this and arranged it specially for our arrival?” inquired Lucky, climbing into the gazebo with confidence and landing in one of the maws. Picking up the telescope, he looked at the sky. Here is the sun in the frame of the lampshade. If it interferes with stargazing, then perhaps it’s better to turn off the light. But so far, everything seems visible, although it’s difficult to find a particular star in such a cluster. Lucky put away the telescope for a short time, rubbed the lens and looked again. It worked – now among all the stars in the sky, was the one he needed. Having adjusted the focus of the lens, he suddenly saw himself with