The Island of Charon. Playing Another Reality. Antoine de Saint-Exupery Award

“She used to sit for a long time by the Sea at sunset, the Girl in a pink dress. Lost in thoughts about something, she was gazing into the Sky. There was a Mysterious Land in the clouds, where winged people lived. Lilac castles beckoned her to them, in their quaint gardens fabulous flowers were fragrant and magical birds were singing. The wind carried unusual aromas and echoes of enchanting melodies to the Girl. And she also saw familiar faces there, they smiled and called the Girl to their Heavenly Country, to the City of the Sun. She dreamed of getting to them, but did not know how to do it, because she had no wings.

The Sun was setting into the Sea. Warm waves caressed her legs, singing a quiet kind song that she had heard from her mother when she was still a baby. The Girl looked around, but there was no one on the shore, and she felt completely lonely. The gloomy Rocks did not understand her, because they couldn’t feel anything, however, that was the reason they would never die. The Rocks, as usual, were only watching silently the picture at sunset: the Girl and the Sea.

The Sun was approaching the horizon. The waves were whispering louder and louder. The Magic Country floated away, losing its outlines. The Girl was standing by the Sea, and her tears fell onto the waves, and the Sea became salty…

The seagulls that flew to the seashore in the evening did not find anyone there. The Sun sank behind the horizon, and the Night came. Somewhere far away in the Sky, the seagulls noticed the outlines of an unknown City. They wondered, what kind of City it was, being situated not on Earth, but in the Sky. They had never seen such cities before! And the two most curious seagulls decided to make a flight to the mysterious City, but they had not enough strength to reach it.

And the Girl disappeared. The Rocks no longer saw her there, on the seashore, at sunset. Only the book left by the Girl on the coastal stone reminded them of her existence…”

“Hmmm…” I closed the book and put it aside. The miniature was written by me at the age of twelve, but sometimes I was drawn to read it again. Every time after returning to reality it seemed to me that I remained the little Assol[5 - Protagonist of the famous book of Alexander Grin “Scarlett Sails”. Assol lives in a seaside village and believes that one day a ship with scarlett sails would come to their pier, and the captain of the ship, named Gray, would marry her.], who still didn’t lose hope for…

I was waiting for his letter… I constantly visited my Internet page to check if he had looked at my last post to him…

Yes, yes, yes… At first completely unconsciously and then purposefully, I began to post more and more expressive pictures, signing them briefly, but with a hidden meaning…

My hands were trembling, I was closing my eyes at seeing his name in the list of viewers – oh, he didn’t put me even a like! – but I was jumping, I squealed, “You have not forgotten me! You want me! Well, tell me you want me, too!!!”

That day I made a post with a photo of two waves running towards each other, and I signed it, “Meet?!” And…

He commented the photo, answering me in a private chat, “Yes”.

These three letters made me scream at the whole Universe! Yes, I screamed, “I want you, too!”, but after thinking a little, I wrote,

“I want that, too.”

“What do you want?”

“…to see you…”

It was madness! I understood everything, but appealing to reason at such moments was completely useless! Of course, he was not the captain of the ship “Scarlet Sails”, and I mostly felt us the main characters of the movie “Titanic”.

Weren’t you attracted by bad boys/girls?! And did you think at such moments that your “Titanic” was already doomed?! Neither did I, being ready to drown… sometime later… not then…

0.2. The Isle of Black Magicians

Camotes[6 - The Camotes Islands is a group of tiny islands in the Philippine archipelago. If you prefer solitude and are ready to sacrifice the benefits of civilization, you will enjoy Camotes paradise, lost among tropical palm trees and sandy beaches.],

The Pacific Ocean

…Water, water, all around is water, and a panic horror seizes me. I try to float to the surface, but for some reason I can’t, and… I am suffocating!

He woke me up. I opened my eyes and saw before me only the boundless starry Sky.

It instantly got dark on that Island.

“The Ocean comes here silently,” Alex said gloomily and held out his hand to me.

I got up from the white sand, just a little bit more and the hide tide would have swallowed me.

Yes, that wild Island of healers and black magicians was really very strange. Completely unlike Paradise, despite the divine names of the bays and the Internet descriptions, Camotes was scaring, but at the same time attracting. You couldn’t see or hear the locals, and it was suspiciously quiet in general. There were neither crowds of tourists on the shore, nor waves in the Ocean. By evening, a part of the Island used to go under water silently so that from the shore to the rock with a staircase, connecting the Ocean with the strawy hotel, as my companion had christened it, one could get only by swimming.

“Wait!” I shouted to Alex, who was moving away into the distance.

He turned around. I caught up with him, he took my hand, and we slowly wandered along the Ocean to the beach cafe of a local savage.

“Someday I will come back here,” I said dreamily, sitting down at a wooden table by a shabby umbrella.

“Crazy girl! What do you plan to do here? What the hell is this Paradise? No civilization! Aboriginal savages only! There is not even a restaurant, and the only hotel doesn’t accept cards! If I had known where the ferry would take us, I would never have gone! You got me on an adventure! And now we have nothing but wait for the ferry back, which has no schedule at all! If it wants, it sails, but if it doesn’t?”

“However, I really like it here! This Isle is full of magic! There is some hidden secret in it I would be pleased to reveal.”

“The magic theurgy is, at best, a fairy tale for adults, and at worst it’s quackery! And don’t tell me that you believe in the afterlife!”

“And you really don’t?” I chuckled.

“A human being, Alice, is bones and meat! Everything else is from the evil one!”

Chapter 1. The FISHERMAN

1.1. Fishing nets

many years later

…Water, water, all around is water, and a panic horror seizes me. I try to float up to the surface, but for some reason I can’t, and… I am suffocating!

He woke me up. I opened my eyes and saw before me only the boundless starry Sky.

It instantly got dark on that Island.

“The Ocean comes here silently,” said the man grimly and held out his hand to me.

I got up from the white sand, just a little bit more and the hide tide would have swallowed me.

Besides…

“What’s this? Brrr! Whoo! What a nightmare! The Ocean threw a… fishing net on me?!”

I twitched and squeamishly threw it off.

“Hey!” I shouted to the man, who was moving away into the distance.

He turned around. I ran up to him and…

“Sorry! It seemed to me…”

He smiled. It was a strange feeling that I’d seen him somewhere… before. Probably… A familiar face? Or even a look? Otherwise, nothing special: tall, thin, black-eyed… without distinctive features. In a light shirt and blue shorts, with rosaries on his wrists and a pirate bandana on his head…

“Do you speak English?” I asked the stranger, and he nodded.