Christmas on K. bridge. 7. Stuck Pluto

“TALES OF GHOSTS”

about Love and Death from the Land of Mists
a collection of short stories
in the “Playing Another Reality” series

"CHRISTMAS on KUZNETSKY BRIDGE"

7. STUCK PLUTO

Pluto, Lord of the Kingdom of the Dead, circling around in the Heavenly Dial of the Zodiacal Clock, froze at the Gate to his own Kingdom at 8 pm.

All the men I had fallen in love with in my life were under Pluto management, and one of them had at his birth as many as 5 planets between 8 and 9 pm on the Zodiacal Clock, or in the Kingdom of the Dead. Such an accent gives away serial killers and maniacs, mafia and financial tycoons, and also great black magicians… and possibly ghosts…

The next day the Sun was going to bathe Pluto in its rays, to illuminate him and turn him on. A strange premonition of something global, ready to crash down on me like an avalanche (or tsunami?), neither bad nor good, but shocking, didn’t allow me to fall asleep. In the morning, when my consciousness finally gave up, two people appeared, as if my guardians, one of them was a ghost, and the other…

The sound of a vibrating phone brought me back to reality.

“Michael is dead,” said the text message.

“We’re all going to die,” I calmly typed in reply to an unknown person.

The Sun greeted me through the blinds.

“Who made you so cynical, Barbara? MICHAEL DIED.”

“Which Michael?” continuing to understand little, I decided to clarify just in case, suddenly realizing that one of the two men I had just dreamed about was named Michael.

“Yesterday I ran by chance into the guy who had assembled furniture for you. He said that Michael, who had been in love with you, died.”

A terrible thought and, forgive me God, not at all about Michael, who had appeared to me in my dream – so sweet, kind, harmless, writing music and really loving me from afar, silently, realizing that there could be nothing but a working relationship between us, flashed through my mind, and I finally woke up, jumping out of bed.

I dreamt about both of them… Michael and…

“YOU?!?!?! Pluto!!!” I shouted at the whole Universe to an undefined number. “HOW??!!! YOU ARE DEAD!!! YOU DIED MANY YEARS AGO!!!”

“I emailed you last year, you wondered the way a stranger had got your address. You didn’t recognize me. Maybe you weren’t ready.”

“But… how???”

“Have you forgotten how many debts I had back then? You said it yourself, ‘it’s easier to die’. No one would have been surprised. Yes, I just had to die))) By my own! Would you prefer to find your love killed for real?”

I raised the blinds and the Sun dazzled me. Pluto people, being under the patronage of the Lord of the Kingdom of the Dead, used to survive where everyone else met death…

“I dreamt about you… today…” sinking to the floor, I whispered, remembering how many times in life we had tried to be together, but something happened beyond our control, that left no chance, driving us apart, until one day he…

“Great! You never have dreams without sense… Something happened yesterday. I don’t know how to explain it. So, there’s no need to explain. I just want you to be nearby now!”

“You’re a ghost, and I need a real man!” I said, still refusing to believe in a miracle.

“Surely. I’ll be in Monte Carlo this weekend. I have to sort out some affairs. And next weekend you will fly to me in Venice!”

“We’ll never meet,” I exhaled, remembering that next weekend the Sun would stop caressing Pluto, and he would step into his own Kingdom.

“There are no options not to meet, Barbara! I’ll be waiting for you on your favorite bridge!”

However, the Sun disappeared into the clouds. Some evil stars contributed to the launch of a mass lethal virus epidemic, and the air traffic between countries was suspended.

The world stepped into the Kingdom of Death through the wide-open Gates.

My airline tickets were eaten by the fireplace. Italy was in a fever. The ‘ghost’ of my Pluto wrote to me several times something like ‘it’ll be over soon, be patient … wait a little more … just about …’, and then he disappeared …

As the pandemic was over, I left for Greece and lived on a tiny island opposite to Mount Athos, not far from the women’s monastery of the Archangel Michael, not missing a single liturgy, at which I asked prayers for the souls of Pluto and Michael every time, until that Sunday when I woke up… being foggy myself… and the first step I did was a trip to Venice!

God, I wandered all the bridges, in vain! – Pluto was nowhere to be found!

When I returned to Greece and settled in the monastery of the Archangel Michael, which had become dear to my soul, I was painfully looking for the best way to find the beloved ghost. However, I still had no access to the Universal Data Bank, and no stairs to Heaven were observed anywhere around. I could do nothing but praying.

On the ninth day, right during the liturgy, out of the altar gate, so suddenly and quietly that at first I didn’t even believe in his reality, appeared… Michael!

He came up to me, smiling, leaned over and kissed my foggy hand.

“Where can I find him?” I asked hopefully.

“You don’t have to look for him, Barbara. Besides, he’s… alive…”

“Alive?!” I exclaimed loudly to the whole monastery, thank God, nuns usually didn’t hear otherworldly voices. “What a twist! I prayed for both of you as for dead!”

“God has all alive, don’t worry! Your Pluto was seriously ill then, yes, but survived thanks to your prayers… However, since then, all these years, by the will of Heaven, he’s been in a state to be able only to pray silently by his soul.”

...Another blow!

“Are you saying that if I hadn’t prayed for him, he would have died a long time ago? So, it was me who condemned him to suffer, wasn’t it?!”

“You gave him a chance,” Michael smiled, “to get something better in the Other World than what he deserved. One day, when they consider him fit, he will be taken away. You can help the unfortunate Pluto shorten the time of his painful stay on Earth by continuing to pray for him here. However, you have the right to leave for Heaven with me right now.”

“So, where can I find him?!”

“If you don’t have access to the Information Tablets, then that’s necessary for something and exclusively for the good. Well, you have to make your decision here and now, Barbara. Oh, sorry, I almost forgot! Probably, you won’t be able to be together even after…”

…I staggered … The thought of the impossibility to find happiness with a beloved one, even posthumously, in the Kingdom of the Dead, never crossed my mind, neither during life on Earth, nor after it.

“My God, how unacceptably easy we used to scatter our beloved ones, to exchange the warmth of the soul for material goods! How stupidly we don’t appreciate the opportunity to love and be loved ‘here and now’! Has my Pluto, stuck on Earth at the entrance to the Kingdom of the Dead, rethought his life? And, if so, how many years would it take me to pray his soul out?”

“I will stay here…” I decided, as I couldn’t do otherwise. “Just… promise me, Michael, that one day I will meet him again… on the bridge in Venice, right?”

“You have no chance not to meet him, if you want to meet him,” Michael laughed and added, already dissolving in the sunlight that suddenly streamed through the monastery’s windows, “although, maybe, not on the bridge… and not in Venice…”

April 06, 2020