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

snapped his fingers, trying to find the right word. “Well, in general, all this exists only in the context of displaying the inner essence of the person’s perception, who can share his vision with others, since this particular part is nothing more than an element that obeys the general rules and laws of the world.”

      “Alright,” responded Lucky, not really understanding his words, but not really wanting to understand. He put the device aside, took the cup by the heel and, tasting fresh coffee, gestured to the bearded man to join him. “Please help yourself.”

      “Thank you, don’t mind if I do,” the organ-grinder accepted the invitation and took another chair aside. “Well, are we going to sit like this or, maybe, move on little by little?”

      “Well, we can go, if you know how,” Lucky agreed without much debate.

      “In the same way as you force visions to move in your imagination,” his interlocutor explained.

      A pleasant breeze was blowing. Aside from the front door, the mousetrap mechanism suddenly activated, catching the clockwork mouse. On the branch, a flute-beaked bird started to sing; its nest was filled with playing cards, which portrayed dice instead of the usual pictures.

      “Let’s ride then,” Lucky ordered, and the gazebo began to move.

      Behind the forest, detached sky-blue wallpaper with a distant landscape and horizon could be seen in places. Behind the exfoliated wallpaper, the cosmic darkness gaped. And under the railway, creaked the floorboards. Slowly gaining momentum, the gazebo approached the turn and stopped for a moment, gave way to a bench which ran across the road. Turning and leaving the hallway far behind, the gazebo passed a picturesque waterfall with a bathtub, a water mill and a toilet; bed with a chamber pot, standing on the adjacent rails; a spacious kitchen with boiling pans and alembics, where some homunculi dwelt in bottles of wine, and there was something mermaid-like among the dried fish; and, driving up the staircase, after several flights of stairs, they found themselves on the balcony, continuing the way along the clotheslines, stretched out over the boundless courtyard abyss. Left and right, top and bottom – webs of ropes stretched all around, connecting balconies. All sorts of things could be found on the lines, from chivalric chain mail and jesters’ caps to patricians’ togas and fishing nets. Balconies were also impressive in their diversity – medieval and modern, luxurious and impoverished, royal and petty-bourgeois, well-kept and turned into ivy-twisted ruins. Everything one could imagine was exposed on them, ranging from sculptures and hangers to grazing cattle and harpsichords. Having passed a web of clotheslines, in which the laundry spiders crawled, hanged and collected everything they could, the gazebo came to the middle of a spacious hall, which served as the far edge of a vast forest, spread out on many visible and invisible doors and corridors.

      “We’ll stop here for a while.” Lucky’s words sounded more like an order rather than a suggestion.

      “If you say so,” the organ-grinder agreed and looked around with interest. From time to time, some people ran through the thickets. They wore homespun tailcoats, resembling the pelts of primitive people, and were armed with mace-shaped trumpets, spear-shaped flutes, bow-like harps and violins with feathered bows.

      “And who are they?” cautiously inquired Lucky.

      “Savage musicians,” his companion told him, watching the scene with interest. “They are hunting and running the beast. Everyone is waiting for the chief’s command… And here he is!”

      From the depths of the forest thicket, with a heavy rumble, followed by a monstrous cacophony, a furious piano jumped out. It was out of tune, overgrown with moss, and behind it, baying it, ran out a formidable leader, accompanied by tall bassists. He had a conducting baton hung with shamanic rattles in one hand, and in the other – a musical score written on the skin with primitive artwork in the spirit of cave paintings. According to the sign of the conductor’s baton – the shamans hit the tambourines. The circle narrowed; the hunters covered the doors, cutting off the escape routes, and the hunted piano threateningly demonstrated its black-and-white-toothed maw, flapping the lid and wiggled the keys. Having played a major chord, it rushed towards the pursuers, but the chief managed to make a wave – and the warriors attacked the mighty prey on all sides without sparing themselves. Fighting with the despair of the doomed, the fierce beast fretted, fumed, spun, butted and bit, snapping with expressionist motifs, while savage musicians fell one by one, pinned down by the piano, but still struggled to capture it alive with their last strength.

      “Brute force alone may not be enough to pacify and tame a furious piano,” the organ-grinder shared with passion and excitement. “To achieve his recognition and respect – you need to play well on it.”

      Lucky could no longer remain an observer in such a battle and rushed to the attack. He wasn’t afraid of fights, because, for obvious reasons, when he participated in military actions or duels, or in a pub brawl, he invariably walked away unscathed, since neither a bullet, knife or broken bottle, as a rule, could harm him; and when he was occasionally hurt, it was always just a scratch, from which he healed soon.

      Having made his way through the field, which was strewn with bodies and broken weapons, he barely had time to shout “Hold the jaw!” to the warriors before he attacked the beast. He hadn’t played the piano since long ago when he was a child, but there had to be something left in his fingers’ memory. He could only hope that the enemy wouldn’t bite them with the lid. Just like last time…

      The hunters struggled to restrain the monster, which wobbled and shuffled with all its might, trying to shake them off and shut its maw whenever possible, but these people were not the timid sort.

      And the battle began. Fingers ran along the resistant keys like a playing machine and held chord after chord, trying to go everywhere, from edge to edge. At any other time and in other circumstances, the overture Battle with the Piano might have seemed very entertaining to him, but now it wasn’t amusing at all. Putting the barrel organ on the keys with a loud chord, Joe Ker stood shoulder to shoulder with Lucky, preventing the creature from slamming its maw, and soon they were playing the piano together, four-handed…

      …Celebrating the victory, the warriors honoured the heroes, while still being a little wary and keeping an eye on the pacified piano, which was now grazing peacefully, nibbling the note sheets. Bad luck had come to an end, and the tribe of savage musicians was incredibly glad for the unexpected addition to their ranks.

      “He asks how did we do it,” the bearded man laughed, interpreting the speech of the chief, who had recently announced publicly, that he now named Lucky his son and heir, and had hugged the tamer in a fatherly way.

      “I don’t know,” he said with a weary smile and, playing a minor chord on the tamed piano, laughed cheerfully. “Maybe I was lucky…”

      Dragon Ships’ Descendant

      He spent most of his life (which was yet very short), without departing a considerable distance from his native docks. The son of a ship engineer and a Norwegian shipyard, he only set sail to return to the port soon with a fresh fish cargo aboard. There were still transportations of people or freightage sometimes, but they didn’t happen very often. His regular everyday life proceeded aside from any surprises, but this was not what the young fishing vessel would really want.

      Resting after a regular voyage, he quietly swayed at the pier and had vivid dreams about his distant mighty ancestors, warlike dragon ships, whose boards were niftily decorated with dark-red shields. They swiftly cut through the waves, carrying away the distant ancestors of his sailors and captain. The desired image was appealing and beckoning, but the horns of large ships, the cries of seagulls or human chatter destroyed this shaky fantasy over and over again.

      The