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

Until I had 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, too, felt at a dead end. 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 had that dream…

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

“Are you thinking about what will happen to us after… 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 in a dream, and I was about to wake up, because it all had started exactly in a dream, or rather, three days before, when I had dreamt of 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 to a change in our destinies, to a real, full-colored and vibrant life. It would be the starting point of the next stage in which two kindred souls would 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 understand to be awakened up already being 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 the extenuating circumstance in the form of my dream, 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 are still not aware of…

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 programme 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 to ‘Giselle’ in honor of 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 a 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 cosy! I’ll tell you the riddle of the Count Sheremetev. If you’ll 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 thand 14 thin the 6 throw. 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 that someone had entered in through the window and would call the police…

“I’m so sleepy!” I said, yawning sweetly at the thought that tonight would be the first time Nikolas let me stay with him until the morning, instead of sending me home at midnight, and we would finally wake up in the same bed as husband and wife.

“Let’s at least have some tea, honey! I’ve bought your favourite cakes not for nothing! There’s no electric kettle, though, so we’ll have to wait a while…”

I nodded tired, closing my eyes. Nikolas went into the kitchen, and I followed him half-asleep. He stopped by the stove.

“Shit, it’s gas here, and I forgot where the matches are…”

“And I have an electric stove at home,” I mumbled, falling asleep on the go.

“Where are the matches, where are the matches…” Nikolas wondered, humming softly.

“To hell with tea! Let’s go to bed,” I whispered and hugged him, hanging on his neck helplessly.

…I woke up, looked at the clock on the bedside table, and got horrified! No way I could have slept that long! I quickly moved to the kitchen and found Nikolas standing at the window.

“Look, I’m sorry!” I exclaimed. “Why didn’t you wake me up? You said you had an early morning pick-up at…”

“And how did you sleep?” Nikolas suddenly interrupted me halfway through.

“At a new place, you mean?” I wondered, remembering the stupid saying about grooms dreaming only in places where girls fall asleep for the first time.

“Yeah,” he looked away, sighing. “Did you dream anything?”

“Something heavy… I was suffocating, flying in the void through a black tunnel… Why?”

“And there was a roar and rattle in your ears,” Nikolas added sadly.