The Old Lantern Dreams. 9. Magical City

"TALES OF GHOSTS"

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

"The OLD LANTERN's DREAMS"

9. The MAGICAL CITY

It was not an ordinary City, it was a magical one. Absolutely everything in it was not the same as in other earthly cities. Miniature gingerbread houses peacefully coexisted with transparent crystal castles where real fairies lived, with the Astrological Tower built of rare purple stone on a high hill somewhere on the outskirts, and with the main attraction, located in the very center, the small snow-white Temple of the Heart, with a barely visible airy Stairway from its dome to Heaven and angels, almost continuously moving back and forth along it. The Magical City loved flowers, and flowers loved the City, so they bloomed everywhere to the delight of their friends, elves and butterflies. At night, when magic lanterns, in which cheerful fireflies lived, used to be lit in the City, one could easily meet a ghost and chat with him about this and that on a bench.

The citizens spoke in verse and drew wonderful pictures, and among them, there were also mathematicians, financiers, programmers, philosophers, metaphysicians, psychologists, hermit monks, astrologers, healers and simply magicians, so different were people that it seemed strange how they could all get along together. Anyway, they were united by selfless Kindness, Divine Love and Light, that pervaded everything in the City. Indeed, approaching it, the wanderers could see from afar the dazzling and not blinding Light and felt its emanating Warmth.

The doors in the City were never locked, its inhabitants were very hospitable and welcomed any traveler. The City always gave a helping hand to those who needed it. Besides, the citizens were sure to be under the Forces of Light protection and no dark person could enter their City to do evil.

The most ordinary miracles constantly happened in the City, so that the citizens had already ceased to pay them any attention…

Gradually, the rumor about the Magical City spread throughout the world. Many emperors came to the City to admire it with their own eyes, and offered the City to become part of their empire, since it originally emerged as an independent creature. But the fact that the City remained outside the framework of any empire didn’t cause the rejected emperors to feel any resentment or desire to subjugate the City by force. On the contrary, guided by Providence, they tried to do their best to make people learn about the Magical City all over the world. Thus, the City was discussed on various TV programs, articles about it were published in various newspapers, the citizens were awarded with status diplomas for creativity, and the City itself received all kinds of awards for its uniqueness in the field of urban development. The fame of the Magical City sailed to distant lands and seas, until one day it was awarded the highest rating being recognized as the King of Cities and declared as the “Heritage”.

Oddly enough, the City was not spoiled by glory. Probably, it was indeed a True Magical City. It remained exceptionally kind and bright, continued to help everyone who came to it with various requests, quietly worked small miracles for the benefit of the world.

Only one Emperor knew its secret. He had often come to admire the magic even before others knew about the City, promising to make it the most important in the world, but he always disappeared without doing anything. However, when the fame of the miracles had spread far and wide, the Emperor decided to finally and irrevocably take the Magical City to his Empire, which, by the way, urgently needed miracles. So, throughout the year, he kindly asked the City to join his Empire, promising to contribute in every possible way to its further prosperity under his protection and patronage, and not only… And as soon as the City agreed, the Emperor placed it on the outskirts of the Empire so that the Light of the Magical City would not catch anyone’s eye, would not highlight the dark corners and would not compete with either the capital or other gray towns.

The Emperor ordered to isolate the City by building a high stone wall up to the clouds, digging a deep ditch and filling it with dead water so that not a single wanderer could get inside, since the City belonged only to the Emperor.

However, the consent of the City to become part of his Empire after categorical refusals to the other emperors, who made the City famous, led to the expected result, the name of the Magical City turned into an unspoken taboo, they stopped talking and writing about it, television was switched to other stories. The Emperor decided that the glory of the City could cause war with neighboring empires, while the City itself, and its miracles, were exclusively his Imperial property, thus he advertised and displayed in every way his other towns, gray, amorphous, faceless, and never invited the inhabitants of the Magical City to the balls, making wide-known the names with no Light in them at all…

So, simultaneously with independence, the Magical City lost its former friends and patrons and was consigned to oblivion, but… the City continued to perform miracles, and its inhabitants worked day and night on the abandoned fields of the once Great Empire to obtain a rich harvest for the Emperor.

The Light of the City, located on the outskirts, was so penetrating that it reached the farthest corners of the Empire and involuntarily attracted everyone's attention. Those few, whose hearts were dominated by Good, dared to sneak secretly into the Magical City and became true friends with its citizens. However, most of the inhabitants of the Empire, being representatives of the Forces of Darkness, opposed the Light. Accustomed to manipulating the Emperor in the sprawling chaos and simultaneously emptying the treasury, they used to surround him from time to time, slandering the Magical City.

Dark people began to prepare a rebellion against the Magical City for the fear that the Emperor would gain insight into the true nature of the gray towns, and destroy them or deprive them of their usual contentment and idle way of life. The Emperor got furious, because he had always trusted gray towns and dark people. Besides, there were many of them, while the Magical City was only one.

At night, the Emperor used to bring down on the City all his fury and anger. The energy of the Emperor’s words was so destructive and strong that it shattered glass in the windows of gingerbread houses, cut off the turrets of crystal castles, uprooted flowers, poisoned fireflies in lanterns, knocked down the dome of the Temple of the Heart, thus the City plunged into Darkness, and the citizens remained speechless.

At first, returning to the palace in the morning, the Emperor looked into the Mirror of the Soul, the only true mirror in the Universe, and he could see the world clearly. However, by evening, dark people succeeded in throwing dust in his eyes and placed on the Emperor’s nose his favorite rose-colored glasses in a precious frame, which distorted the images of the Mirror of the Soul beyond recognition. And everything repeated again and again, because the dark people didn’t let up, since the Magical City continued to perform miracles even after those devastating energy blows. Indeed, each time it was reborn like the Phoenix Bird, because the original Power of its Soul was so great that its Light could resist Darkness for a long time.

The Emperor began to ridicule the City and its former awards at his palace meetings; officially proclaimed that the Magical City was too old and comical to have the right to vote. He turned a blind eye to gray towns desecrating its sanctuaries, and dark people writing libels and insulting its inhabitants in every way. He defiantly didn’t congratulate the Magical City with the City Day, in contrast to the luxurious ceremonies in honor of other towns.

At the same time, the Emperor tried to secretly sell the Magical City to the neighbors, who, not having the required amount of money in stock, refused, but behind the scenes they discussed the crazy Emperor, since the Magical City really worked miracles, and it was obvious to everyone.

After another unsuccessful negotiation, the Emperor used to return to the Magical City, destroying its Temple of the Heart to the ground, shouting from the bell tower to the Universe that the City was the most insignificant in the world, and its inhabitants were just pitiful puppets, that everything and everyone in the City belonged to the Emperor, and therefore he, the Emperor, could act as he pleased, contrary to all earthly and heavenly laws. At such moments, the energy of the Emperor turned into a real tornado, and it seemed that real blood was flowing from the helpless ruins of the Temple of the Heart.

It became cloudy in the City, and it began to rain more often. The flowers didn’t want to bloom. The gingerbread houses with broken windows were mostly abandoned, the citizens barely had time to rise from the ashes, being immediately burnt again. The fairies of decapitated crystal castles lost their magic wands and forgot wonderful spells, tired of washing their once snow-white wings from the soot of night fires. And what was it for, if everything happened again the next day? In the Temple of the Heart, restored daily for evening liturgy, the bells rang less and less frequently. Only the Stairway to Heaven was swaying in space, but the angels were afraid of going down and silently watched what was happening from the clouds. The Emperor, still demanding miracles, but completely unwilling to realize the cause-and-effect relationship between his attitude and their number, began to hate the Magical City.

That night the Emperor climbed the Stairway to Heaven.

“Hey God!” he shouted. “I want to erase the Magical City from Earth so that nothing else would remind me of its existence! You see, I’ve brought a fat Cross with me! However, I need the City’s miracles, and here is a huge bag for you to fill it with them, since I’m offering you a great deal: in exchange for the destroyed City and the possession of its miracles…”

The Emperor had no time to complete his commercial offer to God, being frozen in half a word, because right before his eyes, suddenly, as if by magic, the City … disappeared.

I am the Soul of that Magical City. Once upon a time built in honor of that Emperor. The main street of which was named after him. Which Temple of the Heart daily prayed for his health, and these prayers were carried directly to God by those angels who were constantly moving back and forth along the Stairway to Heaven.

May 9, 2016 (?)