was raining cats and dogs outside. A girl in a dark cloak with a huge hood was standing at the door to my neighbor’s flat. Her long black curls hid her profile from me.
“He won’t open the door for you,” I said.
The girl shuddered and turned around. She was beautiful. In particular, I remembered the black-night eyes that stood out against her snow-white skin.
“My neighbor died yesterday,” I continued. “Poor old man… You must be his granddaughter! He said he had been waiting for his granddaughter. What a pity you’re late! He loved you very much, he was proud of and constantly talking about you. You know, it’s important for old people to feel that someone needs them…”
The girl sighed, but said nothing in response.
“Come to my place, you’ve got wet,” I suggested, and she followed me into the kitchen.
“No, thank you,” the girl refused my tea, “I’ll just warm up a bit and then I’ll go…”
“What’s your name? Do you have someone else here, besides grandfather?”
“No, I don’t have anyone,” she sighed sadly, “even friends.”
“You are so young and beautiful! You still have a lot ahead of you! The main thing is not to make enemies!”
“Enemies…” my interlocutor said thoughtfully. “I’m not as young as you think. You can’t imagine how tired I am of my life! I work seven days a week, not a minute to rest. Here, for once, I allowed myself to come to you, but then… People make up stories about me, they try in every possible way to avoid me, bypassing, while I’m not at all what they think of me…”
“What do you do?”
“I help people. However, Good in this world is often mistaken for Evil, so I am doomed to human hatred. If they only knew how much I envy them!”
“Why?”
“At least because their life is varied and interesting, it’s tasty, you know! They can feel it with every fiber of their souls and enjoy earthly pleasures to the fullest! I can’t do that. I’m not fit… There’s no person on Earth who is so lonely! I’m tired of life. I feel like a restless ghost who can’t die.”
“Listen to me, my dear! We often curse life and wish we were dead. But when Death suddenly appears on our doorstep, we realize that life is short, and it must be appreciated, because sooner or later Death will surely come for you too…”
“For me?” the girl asked thoughtfully.
The dog began howling in the flat of the deceased neighbor.
“Poor dog!” I sighed. “His devoted friend!”
“I have to go!” my guest exclaimed and got up. “I’m already late!”
“Where are you going now?” I wondered, following her to the corridor.
The girl looked at the door of the neighbor’s flat.
“I was there yesterday,” she whispered, “but I forgot to take with me his devoted friend…”
Part II.The MASTER of FATES
0. Exceptions
Suddenly I felt someone’s gaze on me. I turned around and saw an Angel.
“Hello,” I whispered. “Have you come for me?”
“Yes,” he nodded.
“The bonfire stories are still going on,” I tried to protest, as I felt cozy in the fog that hid the faces of the storytellers, and I was about to share my own.
“Don’t be upset!” the Angel smiled as he read my mind. “The bonfire won’t go out for a long time, and stories will follow each other until the last soul leaves the Earth. Now you have to go.”
I looked at the Man. For some reason, I didn’t want to say goodbye to him.
“Well, go,” he patted my shoulder. “I’ll find you later…”
“In the City of the Sun or in the Land of Dreams?”
“Wherever it is written in the Tablets,” the Man sighed.
The Angel held out his hand to me, and we walked away from the bonfire.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To the Chancellery.”
“What about the queue? Or…”
“No… however, there are exceptions to every rule.”
We stepped abruptly out of the fog and found ourselves on the outskirts of the City, flooded with the Sun, at the entrance to a skyscraper. I noticed several angels bypassing the queue to lead inside the souls guarded by them. We followed them in. The Angel asked me to wait for him on a bench at the ajar door to the Courtroom, next to others like me waiting something out of turn.
“What a pity,” sighed the Boy sitting to my right.
“Pity? For what?” I decided to clarify.
“We are here and not there,” he answered sadly.
“Why?” I asked, not understanding what he meant. “And where is ‘there’?”
“I want to be an angel,” the Boy sighed again. “‘There’ means in the general queue. And we are here… There is almost no chance to become angels from here.”
“Why not?” I wondered, still understanding nothing.
“My grandma used to say that all children leaving the Earth become angels. Outside the queue, only exceptions are served.”
A devil’s head popped out of the Courtroom.
“Shit! What the Hell are you talking about?! Shut up you both, exceptions! In this Hall, the most interesting begins! And I can’t hear a damn thing because of your chatter!”
“I’m awfully sorry,” I whispered apologetically and involuntarily walked over to the ajar door.
The Moonlight Sonata was playing there, the lights were dimmed. Frozen in anticipation, the judges were ready to listen. The left bowl of Libra tilted almost to the limit, although it contained only one scroll of jubilant demons. Images from the earthly life of yet another soul started projecting on the screen …
1. The Master of Fates
