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

him for?’ You’ll be still a young, successful, prosperous lady, and I…”

      Ivan walked her to the car. The road became a skating rink. After a sharp warming in the morning, it got cold again in the evening.

      Inessa was leaving, and he felt that they would never see each other, but at the same time he wanted to see her again and again.

      That night Ivan was overcome by insomnia. Reflecting on whether he had been right allowing her to leave, he realized that, on the one hand, he certainly liked Inessa a lot, and he would like such a woman to be next to him. On the other hand… if some years before Ivan had looked at her from the top down, that day – from down up, just as at her billboard at the embankment…

      “There is something wrong, unnatural about it. Although, perhaps, I simply wasn’t prepared for her crashing down on me as a sudden snowfall… I’ll call her. Tomorrow…” he decided.

      Ivan didn’t want to give Inessa to anyone else. At the same time, he couldn’t overcome his fear and call. So ‘tomorrow’ was postponed for another three days. That night Inessa came to him in a dream, waved her hand with a bitter grin and silently disappeared into the mist.

      In the morning, after listening to ‘The subscriber is temporarily blocked,’ Ivan dialed her office number, thinking about the best way to introduce himself to the secretary so that she would connect them instead of answering something like, ‘She is busy, call back later!’

      However, the secretary’s answer was unexpected.

      “She left us.”

      “What do you mean? Did she change job?”

      “A dead car crash three days ago.”

      …She was gone, but for a long time, every morning and evening, when Ivan left for work and returned home, on that very poster on the billboard at the embankment, Inessa met Ivan and saw him off, smiling and repeating, “I LOVE YOU!”

      He saw the same snow and a grey, hopeless sky outside the window. It was very cold, however, on TV they no longer promised any warming.

December 2003

      3. God, Barsik and Borsch

      Three women were talking in a hospital room. One of them, Lyudmila, a young and beautiful girl, had just been brought in by ambulance for an urgent surgery under general anesthesia. Lyudmila settled down on the bed by the door and didn’t even bother to put out the things, hastily gathered at home, leaving the packages at the bedside table.

      “Don’t worry, Lyudmila,” Galina, already operated on, encouraged the girl. “Everything happens to us once for the first time! My first anesthesia was like a dream without dreams! Nothing interesting! And the second one… I relaxed, I thought, ‘I won’t see God, and thank God!’ An-no! Imagine, I found myself flying at a high speed in a dark corridor, like in a pipe. As soon as I noticed the Light at the end of the corridor – at the most interesting moment! – they woke me up!”

      “I don’t remember how many times I’ve been under anesthesia,” said Valentina, whose bed was located right by the window. “Each time it was some kind of a new experience. Yesterday I felt as if in reality. There was a light, but such a muffled one, and some voices were heard. Were they calling me? Maybe. The grass in the field was fresh and bright, of emerald color, there were a lot of flowers and beautiful butterflies there. I felt so good, so easy, walking across the field into the distance. As if in my childhood, with parents nearby. I raised my head and saw them waving to me and saying, ‘We love you. We watch you from here, and we know everything about you, and we’ll always help you!’”

      “Why on earth didn’t you stay in that Paradise?” sighed Galina. “Anyway, it’s easier there than here!”

      “It seemed to be a border there,” Valentina replied. “Right in the fields. An invisible one. As I reached it, I just couldn’t go further, that’s all.”

      “I believe neither in God nor in Light,” Lyudmila said smiling. “Even if a million people swear on the Bible. I will never believe it, until I see it myself!”

      After the surgery, which was a success and didn’t portend any complications, anesthesiologist began to wake Lyudmila up, but she remained unconscious. Her heart slowed down and… stopped. The girl’s face expressed neither sadness, nor pain, nor joy. It was mysteriously beautiful in its unearthly calmness. The anesthesiologist ran out of the room for the resuscitators. Lyudmila’s roommates remained speechless.

      An Angel appeared in the room. Lyudmila, sitting by her body on the edge of the bed, involuntarily smiled.

      “Wow! So, do angels exist?! Have you come to take me away?”

      “Hello, my soul! In fact, everything exists, both real and once imagined by humans. Now you will be taken to the intensive care unit and returned to your body.”

      “Oh, no!” exclaimed Lyudmila. “I feel great here! I see no reason to return! No one needs me on Earth, and I’m completely un-adapted to life! Everything fell out of hand! I was always approaching some goal, step by step, and bang! – at the last moment! – the world used to collapse!”

      “Every soul has its own mission on Earth. If you don’t complete it, you won’t be able to continue your journey in Heaven.”

      “And which one is mine?”

      “Just to serve God and people.”

      “To serve? What do you mean?” Lyudmila asked, having understood nothing.

      “One day you will be a famous nun. Right because you are un-adapted to live as common people.”

      “Me? A nun?!” Lyudmila cringed at the mere thought of it. “Are you saying that I am not destined to find earthly love? If you promised me now that I would become the happiest woman in the world, I would probably return! But to become a nun?!”

      A Demon showed up in the room.

      “Let’s go!” he smiled, holding out his furry paw to Lyudmila.

      “Where?” the girl involuntarily moved closer to the Angel.

      “Where? On Earth, of course!”

      “Have you both agreed beforehand?! I’ve already told that I’m not going back to my body to become a nun!”

      “No, no! Come on! Not to your body! And I’m not about the nun!” the Demon chuckled. “Let’s move into a bum!”

      “A homeless bum?!” Lyudmila cried out, mentally picturing herself freezing in the slushy mud on the street outside the grocery shop.

      “But you don’t want to be a nun!” the Demon laughed.

      The resuscitators rushed into the room and took away Lyudmila’s body, while her soul with the Angel and the Demon followed the body to the intensive care unit to continue the conversation there.

      “Listen, Valentina,” Galina turned to her neighbor, “our unbeliever must have seen the Light! She liked it there, in Paradise, so much that she decided not to come back! Oh, thank God, I didn’t get to Paradise yet! I might have been a fool to stay there, since I have four grandchildren, they will be lost without me here! Who will cook my borsch for them?”

      Valentina sighed, silently nodded in response and looked out at the street through the dusty hospital window.

      She had heard the conversation of Lyudmila’s soul with the Angel and the Demon, though she hadn’t seen them in the room.

      Valentina had no one left on Earth long ago, except for… the red puss Barsik