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

“That’s how it’s going to be, next time.”

      We both were not free and owed something to everyone. It was scary to think how many people fussed around us, constantly demanding one thing or another, but offering nothing in return, not feeling even an elementary gratitude, not to mention respect.

      Denis and I felt like completely alone beings in the Universe. Perhaps, apart from children, whom we saw too rarely for various reasons, nothing kept us on Earth.

      Until I got that dream…

      We went into a cafe to have a talk finally!

      “Believe it or not, Yana, the world became completely grey, I lost any interest in life. I neither watched TV nor read newspapers or books, I didn’t care what car I drove, what clothes I wore, what I ate. I came home from work late at night and went to bed, and then I had breakfast in the morning and returned to work again. I didn’t want to see or hear anyone, to talk to anyone…”

      While Denis recounted his life to me, starting from birth, I listened to him realizing that our destinies were so similar that I could tell him nothing about myself. It seemed strange that for so many years we had been nearby without noticing each other.

      “Yes, I liked you, and yes, you were always around, but you looked absolutely happy and never gave me even the slightest hint…”

      Until I got that dream…

      We climbed to the observation deck and stood in silence for a long time, enjoying the view of the City of Rains, in which the Sun was shining.

      I felt at the dead end, too. The real life was whizzing by somewhere outside the windows and at breakneck speed. I could barely keep up with the calendar pages in my business diary.

      Until I got that dream…

      Sailing in a boat under the lowest bridges of the City of Rains, we were more silent than talking. A stronger and more experienced soul was next to me, and I felt calm, but…

      “Are you thinking about what will happen to us after we get back? Yes, Yana? You don’t have to think about anything,” Denis answered, reading my thoughts, and hugged me gently and affectionately, stroking my hair and kissing my neck…

      In the evening we wandered along the main street, and I showed him not so much the famous sights as miniature sculptures and other inconspicuous little things that only the locals knew about: there was a bronze cat and his girlfriend-cat at the balcony level, looking at each other from neighboring houses, and a little farther, in a modest courtyard, there was a wish-fulfilling dog…

      I was afraid that Denis would disappear, that we were still dreaming, and I was about to wake up, because it all had started exactly in my dream, or rather, three days before, when I had dreamt about us, ended up together in the City of Rains. Waking up that morning, I suddenly felt the taste of life again, and … I found the strength to retell my dream to Denis.

      My dream seemed to awaken both of us for changes in our destinies, for a real, full-colored and vibrant life. It would have been the starting point of the next stage, which could let two kindred souls finally find their happiness…

      As night returned to the City of Rains, we found a free suite in the most expensive hotel, since we could afford it in the end!

      It seemed that we loved each other as people did for the last time in their lives, on the edge of eternal separation, and nothing and no one existed in the whole Universe, except for the two of us, as if we were still alive …

      Returning to the station for the express train to the City of the Sun, we recalled our last day on Earth, on the eve of which I had got that dream. The explosion in the high-rise office tower, where we worked, came so suddenly that we didn’t even realize to be woken up already as ghosts…

      Our personal files were stuck in the Heaven Office of the City of the Sun. According to the Creator’s plan, we should have been married a long time ago and moved to the City of Rains, where I was born. In that scenario, we would have never ended up in the tower on the date of the explosion.

      However, we hadn’t changed our lives in time! We had heard neither ourselves nor our Guardians sending all sorts of signs! Only on the eve of the explosion, when the decision on our return to Heaven had been signed in all instances, since we had stopped going the path destined for us by the Creator, I managed to penetrate that dream … Too late!

      Anyhow, the kind-hearted Judges in the City of the Sun, in response to our last request, taking into consideration my dream as the extenuating circumstance, allowed us to return to Earth in the City of Rains already as ghosts, to be together just for a while before the next incarnation, the details of which we’re still not aware of…

August 2006

      6. A Wish

      We arrived at the river on Saturday morning. It was terribly stuffy, +34C, judging by the news. I could hardly stand the heat, thank God, we had air conditioning in the car.

      “Life flows as fast as this river,” Nikolas said sadly, hugging me. “What else would you like to do in your life, Pauline?”

      I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking, and he gently stroked me with a plucked blade of grass.

      “To get to Paris with you!” I finally decided.

      “It’s a must! But not today…”

      “Okay, tomorrow!” I laughed.

      We both had a lot to do with the ‘city of lovers’, but we had never been to Paris together, only separately and at different times.

      “Maybe… Do you know what grandiose plans we have for today? Now we’ll swim, have lunch, then we’ll go for a walk in Kuskovo. ‘Giselle’ is waiting for us in the theater tonight, and then…”

      I understood that the cultural program was caused by our Monday’s quarrel. Nikolas wanted to make amends. I had already told him about Kuskovo not once, and he took his employees for ‘Giselle’ to celebrate their company anniversary.

      “So what then?” I wondered.

      “And what do you want then?”

      …Having visited the Kuskovo palace and the exhibition in the Orangerie, we listened to some fragment of a charity concert, and on the way to the Grotto, we stopped at the Italian house-museum.

      “Drop in, you won’t regret it!” the hospitable hostess called us. “The house is small but very cozy! I’ll tell you the riddle of the Count Sheremetev. If you guess it…”

      We had to find three caterpillars hiding in the leaves on a small metal tree. I saw two of them at once, but the search for the third was hard. Finally, I found it too.

      “Now make a wish! I assure you, whatever it is, it will definitely come true!” the woman promised, smiling.

      “Then… we’ll be in Paris tomorrow,” I said in a serious voice and… laughed.

      We reached the theater and found our seats, the 13^th and 14^th in the 6^th row. Such a dangerous combination of ‘6’ and ‘13’ didn’t bother me at all. That day seemed to be one of the happiest in my life!

      Finally, we came to the old and long-empty flat where Nikolas’ parents had once lived. We were greeted by an unbearable stuffiness, but Nikolas said it was better not to open the windows for ‘conspiracy’. What if the neighbors got frightened, imagining that someone had entered inside through the window, and would call the police…

      “I’m so sleepy!” I said, yawning sweetly at the thought that it was the first time Nikolas let me stay with him until the morning, instead of sending me home at midnight, and we would finally