Cказки Призраков. Tales of Ghosts. Премия им. Эдгара По / Edgar Poe Award (Билингва: Rus/Eng)

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

6.

 Желание

Мы приехали на речку в субботу утром. Было ужасно душно. Судя по новостям, +34С. Я с трудом переносила жару, хорошо, что в машине существовал кондиционер.

– Жизнь течёт так же быстро, как эта река, – печально сказал Николай, обнимая меня. – Что бы ещё ты хотела успеть в своей жизни, Полина?

Я зажмурилась, размышляя, а он нежно погладил меня сорванной травинкой.

– Оказаться с тобой в Париже! – в итоге решила я.

Нас обоих многое связывало с городом влюблённых, но мы никогда не были в Париже вдвоём – только по-отдельности и в разное время.