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

“Have you forgotten how many debts I had back then? You said it yourself, ‘it’s easier to die’. No one would have been surprised. Yes, I just had to die))) By my own! Would you prefer to have your love been killed for real?”

I raised the blinds and the Sun dazzled me. Pluto people, being under the patronage of the Lord of the Kingdom of the Dead, used to survive where everyone else met death…

“I dreamt about you… today…” sinking to the floor, I whispered, remembering how many times in life we had tried to be together, but something happened beyond our control, that left no chance, driving us apart, until one day he…

“Great! You never see dreams without sense… Something happened yesterday. I don’t know how to explain it. So, there’s no need to explain. I just want you to be nearby now!”

“You’re a ghost, and I need a real man!” I said, still refusing to believe in a miracle.

“Surely. I’ll be in Monte Carlo this weekend. I have to sort out some things. And next weekend you will fly to me in Venice!”

“We’ll never meet,” I exhaled, remembering that next weekend the Sun would stop caressing Pluto, and he would step into his own Kingdom.

“There are no options not to meet, Barbara! I’ll be waiting for you on your favorite bridge!”

However, the Sun disappeared into the clouds. The evil stars contributed to the launch of a mass lethal virus epidemic, and the air traffic between countries was suspended.

The world stepped through the wide-open Gates to the Kingdom of Death.

My airline tickets were eaten by the fireplace. Italy was in a fever. The ‘ghost’ of my Pluto wrote to me several times something like ‘it’ll be over soon, be patient … wait a little more … just about …’, and then he disappeared …

As the pandemic was over, I left for Greece and lived on a tiny island opposite to Mount Athos, not far from the women’s monastery of the Archangel Michael, not missing a single liturgy, at which I asked prayers for the souls of Pluto and Michael every time, until that Sunday when I woke up… being foggy myself… and the first thing I did was a trip to Venice!

God, I wandered all the bridges, but 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 into 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 there 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 thanks to your prayers he survived… 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, but 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. But 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 loved ones, to exchange the warmth of the soul for material goods! How stupidly we don’t appreciate the opportunity given to us 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…” 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, “but, maybe, not on the bridge… and not in Venice…”

    April 06, 2020

8. Kailash

We took a taxi to Sheremetyevo. 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 Aries always achieve their goal!” 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!”

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

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

During vacation, I planned to read in electronic form the work of Katya, her thesis on philosophy “The Sense of Life and Death”, and 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.

“And 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, 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! 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 life 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 of 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 mother there. I turned back to the mirror, and my mother 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.