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

to Venice!

      God, I wandered all the bridges, in vain! – Pluto was nowhere to be found!

      When I returned to Greece and settled in the monastery of the Archangel Michael, which had become dear to my soul, I was painfully looking for the best way to find the beloved ghost. However, I still had no access to the Universal Data Bank, and no stairs to Heaven were observed anywhere around. I could do nothing but praying.

      On the ninth day, right during the liturgy, out of the altar gate, so suddenly and quietly that at first I didn’t even believe in his reality, appeared… Michael!

      He came up to me, smiling, leaned over and kissed my foggy hand.

      “Where can I find him?” I asked hopefully.

      “You don’t have to look for him, Barbara. Besides, he’s… alive…”

      “Alive?!” I exclaimed loudly to the whole monastery, thank God, nuns usually didn’t hear otherworldly voices. “What a twist! I prayed for both of you as for dead!”

      “God has all alive, don’t worry! Your Pluto was seriously ill then, yes, but survived thanks to your prayers… However, since then, all these years, by the will of Heaven, he’s been in a state to be able only to pray silently by his soul.”

      …Another blow!

      “Are you saying that if I hadn’t prayed for him, he would have died a long time ago? So, it was me who condemned him to suffer, wasn’t it?!”

      “You gave him a chance,” Michael smiled, “to get something better in the Other World than what he deserved. One day, when they consider him fit, he will be taken away. You can help the unfortunate Pluto shorten the time of his painful stay on Earth by continuing to pray for him here. However, you have the right to leave for Heaven with me right now.”

      “So, where can I find him?!”

      “If you don’t have access to the Information Tablets, then that’s necessary for something and exclusively for the good. Well, you have to make your decision here and now, Barbara. Oh, sorry, I almost forgot! Probably, you won’t be able to be together even after…”

      …I staggered … The thought of the impossibility to find happiness with a beloved one, even posthumously, in the Kingdom of the Dead, never crossed my mind, neither during life on Earth, nor after it.

      “My God, how unacceptably easy we used to scatter our beloved ones, to exchange the warmth of the soul for material goods! How stupidly we don’t appreciate the opportunity to love and be loved ‘here and now’! Has my Pluto, stuck on Earth at the entrance to the Kingdom of the Dead, rethought his life? And, if so, how many years would it take me to pray his soul out?”

      “I will stay here…” I decided, as I couldn’t do otherwise. “Just… promise me, Michael, that one day I will meet him again… on the bridge in Venice, right?”

      “You have no chance not to meet him, if you want to meet him,” Michael laughed and added, already dissolving in the sunlight that suddenly streamed through the monastery’s windows, “although, maybe, not on the bridge… and not in Venice…”

April 06, 2020

      8. Kailash

      We took a taxi to Sheremetyevo airport. The driver turned out to be a cheerful and talkative… tour guide. He knew several foreign languages, worked with tourist groups in Moscow and dreamed of starting his own business.

      “I will definitely open a tour agency! I am an Aries, and all Aries always achieve their goals!” the driver exclaimed optimistically, saying goodbye to us at the airport.

      Katya was an Aries, too.

      As we entered the airport building, we came upon a bookstore. Instantly scanning the contents of the shelves, Katya fixed her eyes on some books and pulled my sleeve.

      “Look, here it is, Kailash!!! Let’s buy them all!”

      I saw a multi-volume book about the Tibetan ‘city of Gods’. Everything related to philosophy, Tibet and the Unknown mattered much for Katya. Haunted by unusual dreams, mysterious voices and ghostly visions since childhood, she was in the search of the keys to the great mysteries of the Universe. Of course, one can laugh at the otherworldly ‘things’, but Katya’s dreams came true. And even I, a notorious skeptic, began to believe in signs.

      “To carry these volumes? What’s the point?” I objected. “Let’s buy them on return.”

      I planned for our vacation to read e-book of Katya, her thesis on philosophy “The Sense of Life and Death”, thus, an extra kilo of printed books in my backpack caused me nothing but rejection.

      On the plane, Katya periodically recalled and excitedly shared with me some interesting facts about the mysterious Mount Kailash, located in the distant Himalayas, about which I really knew nothing at that time.

      “I would give a lot to get to this Mountain! Perhaps even my lifetime! They say there is a point of confluence of parallel worlds there, a portal, do you know? If you’re ready, you’ll be let in! Many people went to Kailash, but not all came back! And some of those who returned grew old instantly! I’m sure, Time flows differently there! Mr. Roerich painted both Kailash and the mountains nearby. He was allowed into the caves where the bodies of giants, people of the previous race, are still kept! Can you imagine?!”

      I didn’t understand much of the meanings she put into her words, but the girls’ enthusiastic tirades require encouragement.

      “You’re Aries, so you will definitely get to Kailash! But why should you give your lifetime to see it?”

      ***

      We stayed in a very beautiful hotel, built in the style of a medieval castle, in a place surrounded by mountains, which were growing even out of the sea.

      That day we had lunch at a restaurant on the beach, and Katya remembered me again about her ‘beloved’.

      “I dreamed about Kailash a long time ago, in childhood, and more than once. I was standing at the entrance to a cave and looking into a large stone mirror, as if someone had polished a piece of the mountain very smoothly. My mother was reflected in the mirror behind me. I turned around, but there was no mum there. I turned back to the mirror, and she was still smiling in the mirror…”

      I was about to object to her about the stone mirrors, but at that moment an elderly lady, walking nearby with a bowl of soup, stopped in front of us and passed her hand over Katya’s head.

      “The channel is open!” she said in a loud voice. “And the pillar is up to the sky! Your soul is so old! Is this the last time you live here?”

      Katya and I looked at each other, and the woman had already gone her own way, obviously not eager to enter into discussions.

      ***

      I booked a lot of different excursions. That day we went rafting on the river of the 4^th level of difficulty. Neither me nor Katya had rafted before, and we were promised an unforgettable experience. We had a long drive through the mountains in an old minibus, listening to beautiful but sad songs.

      “If I die, will you be sad?” Katya asked suddenly and clung to my shoulder.

      “What the hell are you talking about!” I muttered.

      Now, recalling these episodes, I wonder why we don’t say kind words to our beloved ones, don’t support them in their moments of sadness. Was it hard for me to answer something like, ‘Honey, of course, I’m going to be not simply sad, damn sad! Please, don’t die!’ No, on the contrary, I grumbled!

      When