laughed, something diabolical was in his laughter. He handed me a glass filled to the brim.
“Well, sorry, darling! Drink wine for our acquaintance!”
I thought that the ruined castle had been an accident or a joke, and Pluto was good, but the wine turned out to be very bitter.
“What’s this?” I asked the Guardian.
“The Cup of Pain.”
“A slow-acting poison,” Pluto clarified. “It’ll slowly kill you throughout the incarnation. Or rather, it’s me to be killing you slowly but surely.”
“You are evil!” I screamed and covered my face with my hands in helplessness.
“You guessed it! I’m the Lord of the Kingdom of the Dead, in severe opposition to your life-giver, the Sun. Taking away your energy, not allowing you to shine, not recognizing your personality, I’ll mock your soul in every possible way, but you are drawn to me, aren’t you?” Pluto chuckled.
Suddenly, a woman in a black dress with sparkling stars appeared next to him. She looked like a vampire and took Pluto by the hand, turning to me with a grin.
“Don’t be deceived, Rukh. There’s a stamp in your passport, I’m in conjunction with Pluto for all your earthly life. People call me the Grape Picker. I’m the star of loss, taking away everything that one grows with love. When any fruit of your love or creativity is ripe, I’ll come and pick it! It’ll never be yours! Never! Remember!”
The woman clung to Pluto, and they disappeared in an instant.
Library of the Universe
“A fixed star of the second magnitude, Vindemiatrix,” the Guardian commented. “Leeches are vampire creatures that parasitize on a person, feeding on vital energy, which leads to a slow loss of strength and depression. People will mock, torture you in every possible way, stab in the back, deprive of something or someone. Vindemiatrix creates a double-faced environment, isolates and takes away happiness. The star of widowhood, infertility, sudden deaths. Pluto, the Lord of the Kingdom of the Dead, serves to Vindemiatrix, and you have them in conjunction. However, Vindemiatrix has the features of Mercury, who is responsible for the Word and the Mind, and gives a penchant for mysticism and Secret Knowledge, patronizes business and architecture. The star of people with strong spirit and of strong-willed ones. It’s not all that bad.”
“Is it really?! Tell me, what and where is good? We’ve already visited the 5th of the 12 Spheres of life!”
“Your 5th Sphere is gigantic. We’ve just started to get through it. Anyway, it’s good in the desert, there is nothing that could be taken away, and no one to hurt you,” the Guardian glanced at the opened page of my book. “Not a children’s story. Having a tendency to calculate options, try to remember the Grape Picker in time.”
I read the story “Stillborn”, in which the main character killed his mistress in order to get their long-awaited newborn daughter.
“My mother told me the truth! How much did you pay your friend, the doctor, to kill her and declare me ‘dead’? Who was killed and buried then instead of me? You didn’t even show up for the funeral, daddy, while her husband, every year on my birthday, orders a prayer for the repose of my soul in Heaven as for the dead!”
Stairs
Ouranoupoli
I got on the ship. Nobody seemed to notice me. I looked at the world with another vision, for example, I saw the glow of people, different in saturation and shades; pillars of Light over the Athos monasteries, each had its own. The people on the ship were photographing the earthly beauty and impatiently awaiting the arrival of the relics… A boat set sail from the foot of the Holy Mountain, and soon the monks of the Dionysiou Monastery boarded the ship. People lined up to venerate the miraculous icon of the “Virgin Mary of the Akathist”. I stood next to the icon in an empty place so as not to disturb anyone, and prayed mentally. Suddenly, a little girl, kissing the icon, whispered to her mother, pointing at me, “Look, what a strange lady!” The woman didn’t notice my presence and was even afraid for her daughter. I moved to the deck a level higher and found myself right in front of the Mountain. The clouds of white-winged angels parted, exposing its top, and I saw a dazzling Stairway going up!
Moscow
As I stepped out of the lift, I bumped into the ghost of my neighbor’s husband. We greeted each other, and I remembered that I had seen him at the Information Desk in the Heavenly Office.
“I’m waiting for my Lena,” he sighed.
“Do you know when I left here?”
“Nine days ago. What’s the point of your coming back?”
“I need to remember something here.”
“Sometimes it’s better not to remember,” the ghost said sadly.
Out of habit, I tried to get the keys out of my bag, but ended slipping inside with my eyes shut.
“Ugh,” I breathed out as I opened my eyes.
“Hi,” Ray greeted me in the hallway. “Make yourself at home, but don’t forget that you are a guest. Pay attention to the unusual.”
I glanced appraising the room and exhaled – there were only icons. Alive icons, the Saints and the Virgin Mary looked at me, obviously trying to awaken my memory, but I went into the kitchen and sat down on the windowsill thoughtfully.
“Well,” Ray said cryptically, “not bad. And…?”
“And what?” I got worried.
“What happened next?” he asked, coming closer to me.
“Ray, no, I couldn’t!” I jumped off the windowsill onto the tiled floor.
“They decided so,” Ray sat down next to me. “The church doesn’t deal with death like that.”
“Are you saying someone threw me out?”
“Since childhood, you’ve had the tendency to the window. When your memory was erased, life became unbearable as the day of groundhog. You wished death, but patiently waited for it, sitting on the windowsill by the open window.”
“The handle! There is no handle on the right window sash!” I noticed.
“It was already half broken at that moment. It was raining that night, a devil came to you and once again tried to inspire you to step down. The Guardian Angel was there, but suddenly…”
“My God, did I slip? And the handle, as the only thing I could hold on to, came off! They must have found it, there, on the ground, torn off … in my … well… hand … or nearby!”
“The handle might have been missing before. Everyone knew about your inclination, it never occurred to anyone that you had slipped.”
“They know everything
