“TALES OF GHOSTS”
about Love and Death from the Land of Mists
a collection of short stories
in the “Playing Another Reality” series
"LOVE ME NOW!"
5. THE CITY OF RAINS
It was the other way round: in the City of Rains we were greeted by the Sun!
We stepped out of the express train onto a platform filled with sunlight.
“No one will notice us, there’s no need to rush anywhere, and we can do whatever we want,” Denis said thoughtfully. “It’s so great to be absolutely free! Even if for 24 hours only.”
“Yes, Denis! I feel the happiest in the world!” I said enthusiastically in response.
We walked through the City of Rains in the morning, hand in hand, both of us with small backpacks, wearing blue jeans, dark blue T-shirts and brown boots, just like the day I had got the most important dream. Sometimes we stopped and passionately kissed each other, not ashamed of passers-by.
“Think about it, Yana, this wouldn’t have happened without your dream,” Denis smiled.
“It was Angel the Guardian! He took me by the scruff of the neck like a kitten and poked with my nose in you,” I smiled back.
We walked along my favorite embankment, checked out the temple, and then came to the place where girls used to arrive in white dresses with little bunches of flowers.
“I wish I were here like that, too…” I thought.
“Of course!” Denis immediately read my thoughts. “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