Confession of a Ghost. 15. 26. City of Rains

“CONFESSION of a GHOST”
a novel by Alexandra Kryuchkova
in the “PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY” series

26 BEFORE/15 AFTER. HOUSE No.6

*****GREAT ILLUSIONIST*****

***
Somewhere in the Universe


“Where are we?” I was surprised, looking around the space, where centaurs rushed shooting arrows at the sky.

“Your House No. 6 begins in the 30th degree of Scorpio and ends in Capricorn. We are in the included territory of Sagittarius, the element of Fire. Centaurs are mythical creatures with a violent temper, a symbol of duality, personify the Lower and Higher Self, the earthly and the Heavenly. They are torn apart by the Forces of Good and Evil. In ancient Greece, they were considered the embodiment of the stormy streams of mountain rivers, born from a cloud. Part of the centaurs is under the patronage of Neptune. The most famous is Chiron, who gave his immortality to Prometheus and then took his place in the starry firmament in the Constellation of Sagittarius, or the Centaur. Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter. He’s not here, but…”

Suddenly, a misty cloud appeared on the battlefield, from which a man in blue robes with a wreath of seaweed and a trident in his hands came out to meet us.

“Hello, Rukh,” he smiled. “I’m Neptune, son of Saturn and Rhea, brother of Pluto and Jupiter.”

“Pluto?” I jumped, and Neptune gestured for us to follow into the misty cloud, but, as we stepped inside, we found ourselves in a palace filled to the ceiling with sea water, where colorful fish were swimming past us and hiding in coral reefs.

“It’s hard for me without water,” Neptune commented, sticking his trident into the sandy bottom. “I’m a planet of a higher level, like Pluto with Uranus, a slow planet, thus I’m in the Sign of Sagittarius for a whole generation. I am in my abode visiting Jupiter, in the exaltation Sign of Chiron. Spiritual values and philosophical thoughts are important to you. You are their guide. Thanks to hypersensitivity and inspiration, you can change the earthly world. Those to whom I’m evil give in succumb to false teachings and carry false information to the world, but it’s not your option. I’m more kind than evil to you.”

“Among famous personalities,” the Guardian added, “the same was observed in the passports of the writer Nikolai Gogol, St. Sergius of Radonezh, as well as Herzen, Marx and Engels, who left entire volumes of works.”

“I give strong intuition, a thirst for travel, musical and poetic talent, interest in culture and religion, in mental phenomena and metaphysics, magical fantasy, the keys to the door to our Reality. You physically feel what others don’t feel even in their souls. Either you use my gifts to serve the world, or you go as a stone to the bottom – self-isolation, false illusions, escape from reality by satisfying the needs of the Lower Self in alcohol and drugs. Your passport has a drug addiction formula. I’m the king of illusions. I give a tendency to escape into the Subtle World. I love to meditate, plunging my consciousness into the Mist. I’m in your Sphere of Service and Health / Diseases, in opposition to the Moon in the Sign of Gemini. This threatens you with a split personality, mediumship, schizophrenia with the settlement of the entities of the Lower Astral.”

“Are there many more similar discoveries waiting for me on the Stairs? Am I incarnating to become a crazy drug addict?”

“Splash out the streams of Neptunian visions through creativity, and madness doesn’t threaten you!” the Guardian consoled me. “Don’t practice magic, and no devils will settle in you. Be closer to the church, or, as St. Paisios the Athonite said, hold on to the skirt of the Virgin.”

“I’m in the degree of the Sun, with whom we are friends,” continued Neptune, “and Venus, that means poets and writers, translators and artists. A degree of eloquence and clairvoyance, philosophical mindset. Symbol of Knowledge, increased efficiency. Such people are responsible, altruistic, caring, reliable. My friendship with Pluto gives freedom of speech and realization of my creative potential in his Sphere of Transcendence, such as Magic, Death, posthumous experiences of the soul. However, your hypersensitivity instantly causes diseases of the physical body, especially under increased stress. Take care of your nerves and get more rest. Your Saturn personality works beyond measure. You shouldn’t overwork, the psyche is already loaded, since you won’t turn off the sixth sense and the third eye, automatically scanning other people’s thoughts, feeling the energy of things and places without own desire. Your dreams are pure prophetic. Some more words about your health – a tendency to lethargy, problems with blood and fluids, poisoning, including medicines, except herbs and herbal tinctures. Drink Holy Water, Rukh! Any health problems of an obscure nature and with difficult diagnosis are connected to me. However, Death from the above doesn’t threaten you.”

“What about work?”

“Work interferes with the realization of your destiny due to my opposition to the Moon, but it will bring joy if you work with inspiration, embodying ideas into matter. It’s better to work alone or in solitude. Preferably in the Sphere of art and culture, music and literature, painting – you’ll achieve recognition and status. Neptune’s people are psychotherapists. You are a magician-hypnotist, plunging the masses into a trance with the creative Word. I’m a soft dreamer. Pluto is a powerful magician. Aspect of the release of magical knowledge, rapid spiritual progress. Given the Constellation of Chiron, you can become a doctor of alternative medicine, do chemistry and alchemy. The job will require sacrifice. There are two options. Either your bosses will turn out to be evil Pluto’s people with Neptunian cockroaches in their heads, which is tantamount to excruciating torture, due to the oppositions of Pluto to the Sun (Consciousness) and of Neptune to the Moon (Subconscious), or you’ll become an evil Pluto with my cockroaches.”

“What are the evil Plutos with Neptunian cockroaches?”

“Spiders with a clouded mind, vampires, tricksters, backstage players. They are talented, but suffer from complexes, thus get balance by hurting their closed ones. They are attracted by famous personalities, refined manners, tastes, unusual pleasures, spicy smells. They are original, but incapable of true love, hence vampirism and parasitism. They lead a disorderly life, prone to extravagance, chaotic, promiscuous in contacts and people, in their own thoughts and relationships. They run away from reality into an illusory world and sects, constantly change their minds without having their own position – everything is subject to momentary emotions or statements of those who come to hand. They give out promises left and right and deceive everyone in a row, as a result, they are deceived by their ‘friends’. Their environment is a rotten swamp. They rush about, jumping from bump to bump, being afraid to take off their rose-colored glasses and get to land. Their actions are illogical, unclear, inexplicable, imprudent. Financial collapse awaits them due to frivolity. If Neptune is afflicted and/or in charge of Death with a strong Pluto, one turns into a psychological monster. Plutonic power rides as a tank over one’s own foggy mind, and then such Spider-Man rides as a tank over his surroundings, spilling out Neptunian confusion on his dear ones, who eventually get off crazy.”

“But you have a Saturn Self, Rukh,” the Guardian reassured, “a strict system, structure, logic.”

I watched the colorful fish flashing around us and didn’t want to know anything more about my future life. My psyche was overloaded. Neptune took the trident, put it on the sandy floor, and everything disappeared in an instant – water and fish, stone chairs, floor and walls, and he himself. The centaurs were rushing past me again and shooting arrows at the sky with their bows.

“What’s? He destroyed his own palace!”

“It has never been here!” the Guardian laughed. “Neptune is a great illusionist!”


***
Library of the Universe


“A choice without any choice,” I said doomfully. “Either I’ll become a chaotic creature with a clouded mind, or I’ll be sent creatures with clouded minds who will drive over me as a tank like Pluto and drive me crazy like Neptune.”

“What a life full of events awaits you! What’s in the book? Oh, ‘Canary’! Help those I’ll send you!”

I read about a rich man who realized that true love was much more important than a villa on a Canary Island, but, having lost his only friend, a canary, found himself at the bottom of society.

“My canary’s damn dead… My last friend… He used to wait for my returns home from work, tweeted something in his own language. And he died, unable to live in our damn family! Now my friend visits me at night as a ghost… Do you believe in ghosts?”

*****CITY of RAINS*****

***
Moscow


“What a mysterious and gloomy painting with weeping colors,” Ray sighed, scanning the contents of my secret room.

“It’s Venice. It’s weeping.”

“For whom, do you remember?” he smirked. “What is this ‘the City of Rains’ and others?”

“CDs with my songs, studio records in Moscow. It’s a pity the poems were still raw then. I’m glad I didn’t post them online,” I glanced around at the not scanned yet space in the room. “Ray, is the window handle around here somewhere?”

“The handle is from your window, not mine! I taught you to search, however, you didn’t really succeed, you usually lost hope and faith in yourself a step away from what you were looking for, although you found it in the end.”

“I don’t feel it here. Where is it?”

“I have no idea, but I’m sure you’ll find it in the most unexpected place and at the very last moment. The devil who stole the handle wasn’t so stupid to leave it in front of passers-by.”

“So he could throw it to anyone!”

“Devils, of course, are primitive creatures, but they tend to gloat, they didn’t throw it into a rubbish bin. Besides magic, I taught you to think logically and play forward up to ten scenarios, including merging with the consciousness of other players on your chessboard. Try walking in the shoes of those who don’t want you to find it in 40 days. Where would you hide that damn handle?”


***
Ouranoupoli


Once again, I looked around the wall with hand-painted icons.

“Are you materializing Peter with the keys?” Dimitra joked. “Come here, I’ll give you something. Today it’s St. Panteleimon’s day on Athos. It’s the only one of such model I’ve got from the Russian monastery. You see, the inscription is engraved on the cross, ‘The 1,000 anniversary of Russian monasticism on the Holy Mountain’. The face of St. Panteleimon is on the one hand, the Athos Virgin Mary with a prayer is on the back.”

Dimitra handed me a silk rosary of light green color. I thanked her and immediately put it on, and we moved outside to drink coffee with a bit of stories.

“Saints and the Virgin help in everything, but ‘healing’ images exist too. For example, our ‘Pantanassa’, ” said Dimitra, not without pride, “the most famous of the Athos icons, they pray to her in case of oncology. There are rumors that the original icon was taken out of Vatopedi to the Metochion in Porto Lagos, on the other side of the peninsula, because of the attempts to steal the icon, and now there’s a copy in Vatopedi. Anyhow, what icons are the healing ones?”

“You have ‘The Healer’ icon. The Virgin is standing at the bedside of a dying man whom you mistook for a sleeper. The Athos icon ‘Quick to Hear’ helps against drug addicts as well. Pilgrims bring her packs of cigarettes to get rid of smoking. Against drug addiction and alcoholism there’s ‘The Inexhaustible Chalice’. I lived at the monastery in the Makarievskaya Pustyn, where her miraculous copy is kept surrounded by other icons with ‘Cups’.”

“Is St. Barbara there too?”

“Yes, both, Barbara with the Cup of Communion, and St. John of Kronstadt. He was canonized in 1990, 82 years after his death. His relics are in the monastery he founded in St. Petersburg. John was a priest, constantly handing out his money. There are many references to his prophecies and healing. St. Petka Paraskeva helps with eyesight; on Greek icons she is depicted handing a bowl with eyes. St. Basil of Ostrog and St. John the Baptist help against headache, in Greece St. John is depicted holding his own head in his hand.”

“Oh, I remembered, Alice, the Athos ‘Three-Handed’, although I don’t remember why she has the third hand on the icon.”

“It’s not Her hand! St. John of Damascus from the Great Lavra of St. Savvas the Sanctified, who first served in Jerusalem in the monastery of the same name, wrote divine hymns, but the Byzantine Emperor ordered to cut his right hand off because of the slander of evil people. John put his severed hand to the place of cutting and prayed. The Virgin appeared in his dream and promised to help. In the morning, he woke up with his hand fused as it had been. He made a silver hand and attached it to the icon, as a symbol that his hand belonged to God. John was buried in the Great Lavra on Athos, next to the shrine of St. Savvas, but they say his relics are located also in Cyprus, on the island of Patmos, and in Venice. The Holy Martyr St. Zinaida of Tarsia, the Apostle Paul’s cousin, was one of the unmercenaries. A similar story about healing legs happened to the Holy Brothers Cosmas and Damian. There were three pairs of Saints with these names. They lived at different times, in different countries. The first pair died their natural deaths, the next were martyrs. All were healers who didn’t charge a fee. They are commemorated on different dates according to the time of their departure from Earth. One pair of brothers was especially famous for appearing in a dream to a man whose leg had been amputated, and, having chopped off the leg of a dead Ethiopian …”

“Fused?!”

“Yes, Dimitra. St. Thekla the Protomartyr helps with skin diseases. The church equated her with the rank of the Apostles, the apocrypha of the 2nd century ‘Acts of the Apostle Paul and Thekla’ has been preserved. Born into a wealthy family, she met the Apostle Paul and decided to devote herself to serving God. The Apostle was expelled from the city, and Thekla was sentenced to be burned at the stake, but the fire didn’t touch her. Thekla left the city and went with Paul to preach in Antioch. The governor of Syria sentenced her to death and threw her to a wild lioness, but the animal obediently lay down at the feet of the future Saint. The same thing happened with bears, and then with bulls. All her life she healed people, living in a cave. In old age, the pagan sorcerers sent mercenaries to Thekla, but she ran to Mount Kalamon, and it parted, giving her way, and a narrow gorge formed, and a convent was founded in the cave at the top of the mountain, where they recited to me a prayer in Aramaic. Actually, in the Syrian village of Maaloula near that mountain, many people still know Aramaic.”

“Is this the language that Christ spoke?”

“Yes. I visited that convent on the eve of the war and brought a stamped icon of Thekla. Her name on the icon is written in Arabic script by hand. The monastery was destroyed and looted by militants in 2014. The icons were burned, the chapel was blown up, but they say that the relics of the Saint, immured in the rock, weren’t found. Part of her relics is located in Cyprus in a village church near Larnaca, where there is a spring that heals people with skin diseases. One of the asteroids is named after St. Thekla. Her memorial day is on September 24.”

“We also venerate herbal healers, for example, St. Nectarios. And who is like him in Russia?”

“St. Agapit of the Kiev Monastery of the Caves. I went into the dungeon there, there were many relics of Saints, and then I got a small hand-painted icon, on which St. Agapit was depicted with herbs in his hands. St. Luke of Crimea helps in surgery; on his icon there is a table with surgical instruments. Well, St. Panteleimon, of course, is a healer. All the Wonderworkers are considered healers. You can always turn to them for help in healing.”

“As for me, Alice, I like our St. Anastasia Pharmakolytria, she helps pharmacists. She has a jug of medicine in her hand. Her relics are in Souroti, not far from here, in a male monastery. I would go to her if I were you!”


***
Tower of Ouranoupoli


“What news, Alice?” Joice’s familiar voice was heard.

“It looks like I’ll change you at guard in the Tower! Ray said the handle was hidden in a place where I wouldn’t even think of looking for it.”

“Don’t worry, you have time! By the way, poets and writers love not only books, but also … diaries. Did you keep a diary?”

“As a child, yes. Then I destroyed it, after re-reading it. It was too painful. I tormented Heaven with requests to take me away as soon as possible. Perhaps I wrote something later, not on paper. Besides, one can’t write the whole truth.”

“I agree, but try to find these records in the Library of the Universe! And don’t be afraid, usually vulnerable people write around the bush, with half hints, so it’s unlikely that anything can hurt you.”


***
Courtroom in the Universe


To the sounds of the incessant Moonlight Sonata, a man with a guitar approached the Scales, smiling like a child and humming something. Frames on the screen were flickering too fast to comprehend them. The man put his “thank you” into the right bowl, turned around and, noticing me, came up and said with a smile, “Venice doesn’t weep anymore! The City of the Sun is waiting for you!” and walked away into the Mist to the sounds of the same Moonlight Sonata.

***
Library of the Universe


The Reading Hall was overcrowded. I could hardly find a small free table between the endless rows of high bookcases. I looked around at my neighbors and noticed most of them turning over the pages “with their hands” out of habit. Having received a copy of my diary, I ran my eyes diagonally in an attempt to scroll through the entire diary at night, but realized it was unrealistic.

“…

We met in a cafe in the city center in the evening, and my intuition didn’t fail me – “forever young, forever drunk”, he said that his friend was waiting for us in a nice place, and brought me to Vysotsky club. We were stopped at the entrance. The guard’s eyes wondered what such girl from the picture had in common with a drunken man in rubber flip-flops and dirty hair, but he gave the name of his friend and they let us in.

“Have you drunk your last shoes?” I asked.

“Never mind, it’s in fashion now!”

His “Friend” turned out to be a tough businessman. Each of the three of us at that table lived in own reality. He said that he hadn’t eaten anything since morning and looked inquiringly at his Friend. The Friend asked me what to order. I said I had already had dinner, a lie, I didn’t want to eat at someone else’s expense. He ordered himself a beer and vodka. His Friend appreciated my gaze and moved his plate of meat to him.

He drank beer with vodka, his Friend – whiskey with ice. I drank coffee. His Friend told about his son and a secret basement with drugged and stoned youth. And my friend spoke in pieces of phrases about the old times. They were trying to force him to work not in the creative field, but he proudly resisted not working, being recognized everywhere, and someone collected money for him, which he still would have to work out with his creativity, but he had already drunk them. He laughed, and I thought that no one collected money for me, I couldn’t earn money with my creativity, I was just spending on creativity what I had to earn by hard work in completely different areas, while living and feeding not only myself …

Some Miss constantly called him, asking for some keys …

I periodically said, “Eat a piece of meat, or it will be offended. Come on, this piece for the sake of your dad.”

“She writes poetry,” he said to his Friend.

“Either push everyone away with your elbows, or find an oligarch. The latter is from the realm of fairy tales,” said his Friend, nodding his head towards the stage where jazz was played.

I felt very sad. Like Cinderella, whose carriage was about to turn into a pumpkin, I looked at my watch and said I had to go, without understanding, what should I do to complete the chain.”

“A long nightmare… it was at night, everything was foggy, we agreed that I would come for some files. I arrived and saw the same life – empty bottles, glasses and no lights for some reason. He was slowly sinking to the floor whispering, ‘I love you.’ I wanted to say something about the Divine, but it was useless. There should have been more people there, but he kicked everyone out and laughed. I tried to find files on PC – in vain. He repeated he loved me and wouldn’t let me go anywhere, but the doorbell started ringing as well as all the phones, both home and mobile, at the same time. He told that there was no one else but us there. I asked him to answer the phone at least. He opened the door, there was no one behind it. I slipped outside, he looked so plaintively, said that he had painted Venice for me, and ‘it’s weeping’, he asked me to find another house for him, because he could no longer be there, where for some reason there were no lights, and everything was foggy… I silently went out into the street, swallowing the frosty air, and woke up.”

“Which day was it raining? Rain was pouring non-stop. It was slowly driving you crazy, and it seemed never to end, it would be forever. Sasha called me in the evening. We agreed to meet in the subway. He appeared from the crowd – black, thin … almost a ghost.

“Everything will be fine, Sash,” I said and tried to cheer him up, with a brain tumor a millimeter from some artery, holding out my “Playing Another Reality” book as a gift.

“Thank you,” he said quietly and added thoughtfully, “You were right to say, one has to live for others, or one is taken away from here.”

I came to work, boiled water in the kettle, drank coffee, turned on my mobile phone. I wanted silence, but the phone beeped with incoming messages and numerous missed calls, all the same number. In the late afternoon, he bombarded me with “I want to see you!” along the steady sound of the rain that would never end. I sighed keeping silent. After my working day I went out into the rain and already at the metro heard the phone. He was in the shopping center, a couple of stations away from me, “Let’s go to a restaurant.” To live for others? I entered a huge mall. In the distance, in one of the stores, I saw a familiar silhouette. He waved at me. I went towards. He hugged me, shouted to the whole hall, “I’m so glad you have come!”, grabbed my hand and led me away. We wandered aimlessly through the shopping center.

“Are you a bum?” I calmly asked.

“Well, yes. I’m a bum,” he smiled like a child. “Many great people were also homeless in some way! I haven’t eaten all day today! Let’s go to eat!”

There should be cafes upstairs. We were looking for an escalator for a long time, then we went up to the top floor, but he crooked – not there, in the city! We walked down the street. He held my hand, constantly stopped, smiling and saying, “I am so glad you have come!”

“So where do you live now?”

“At an acquaintance’s. As returned from my tour… A hundred concerts per summer! On a ship, there … God, I could walk with you for a long, long time along this street! Endlessly! I’m so glad to see you!”

We entered the Chocolate caf;, but he turned up his nose, and I understood why. We reached an oriental restaurant, went into the twilight, sat down on the sofa at a table. He hugged me, almost strangling me, and didn’t want to look at the menu at all.

“What are we going to drink?”

“Orange juice. Order food for yourself,” I said calmly.

He ordered wine. My stupid questions made no sense.

“Why did you both break up?” I asked.

He pointed to the width of the table with his hand.

“So many minuses,” and he drank after every phrase, and I put a fork in his hand.

“There are no perfect people, eat.”

We walked outside. It was already dark and raining.

“Where we are going?” he asked.

“To the metro.”

“No, we’ll take a taxi and go …”

“No.”

He shook his head offended, stopped, pulling me by the hand, almost with tears in his eyes,

“No, please. Don’t go away! No! No!”

We approached the subway. He kept looking at me like I was a goddess. He didn’t let go of my hand. I frantically went through the options in my head until a possible one was found.

“I need to record a CD. I can do it only this weekend. On Sunday. The disc is urgently needed. I have a big presentation. Soon.”

“Well… let’s do it on Sunday.”

“There is a lot to record, just book me all day since morning.”

“Okay. Come by 10.”

Both Saturday and Sunday were scheduled minute by minute. No presentation was foreseen in the near future. I had no idea what to record, because everything had been done long before. Anyhow, I had two days to come up with something.

Saturday. Evening. Rain. Returning from the Open Literary Club, I understood that the only possible recording was “The Book of Secret Knowledge”, but it had about 900 pages. I called him and got no answer. Closer to midnight I got a message “At 4 pm”. It was no use dictating the book at 4, since we wouldn’t have enough time. Songs? I looked through the poems I wanted to re-read “here and now” and printed them out, they hadn’t come to me with music, like the previous ones, already recorded on two discs. How to sing and play them? Shouldn’t I write him, “I can’t tomorrow.” But… to live for others.

I woke up at lunchtime. I arrived around 4 pm, got out of the subway. It was raining. I called and got no answer. Perhaps I would have to walk around there and return home. He arrived 15 minutes later. There were bottles in the back seat.

“Well, I had to be there, I’ve played today!”

“You’re already swelling,” I stated, and he remained silent, but we drove into a yard, got out of the car, he took the bottles, and we climbed up the stairs to his friend’s flat.

“If you only knew how much I hate this place!”

We entered under the high gloomy vaults of a huge flat that seemed uninhabited. Bare walls without wallpaper, partly black, with cracks and stucco falling off the ceiling. A pile of sacks with things on both sides. Somewhere to the right, a male voice was talking on the phone.

He led me to the cell-like room where he had settled, and closed the door behind us. Tiny bed. Black closet. Table. Recording equipment, small window. He sat down at the table and put his head in his hands.

“I’ve come to you to record me. I need a CD. With songs.”

“CD?” he asked thoughtfully.

“Yes, we have to record 16 songs today.”

“16 songs?!”

“Not just record it down. This CD has to be the best,” I said calmly. “Moreover, I want you to compose an arrangement for each song.”

“You’re crazy.”

“No. And I need it urgently.”

“In such state, I can’t play anything.”

“You have to. I’m your customer. Time is money. I haven’t much time,” I took out my texts and sat on the bed, and he looked out the window at the rain. “Microphone.”

He turned around.

“I need a microphone,” I repeated calmly.

He walked to the closet, took out a stand, a microphone, but he couldn’t attach some grid, then he looked for another microphone, a new one, but he couldn’t connect it.

“Relax, we’ll record it down on the old one. Don’t waste time!” I looked at my watch, half an hour had passed. “Microphone for the guitar?”

“No, it’ll take time…”

“Okay, let’s record with one only.”

He sat down across from me and said grudgingly,

“That’s not the way to do it.”

“Give me ears.”

He didn’t move.

“Get me the headphones!” I shouted.

He obediently went to search and found them. He took out a guitar. Tuned it.

“Great. Now move the stand for texts. And turn on my ears.”

He did it all very slowly, periodically took the next bottle. An hour later, everything was ready for recording. He sat on a chair opposite. I looked at my texts choosing which to start with. As a result, I randomly pulled out one of them, in fact, it didn’t matter, I had to sing and play them all impromptu. Having sighed, I started to play humming.

“Ready? Are we recording?” he asked wearily. “What is the title?”

I said, and he wrote down on a piece of paper.

“Don’t forget you have to compose an arrangement for each song. Well, or play the second guitar.”

He shook his head. “Reverence”, “No one like you”, “The City of Rains”, “In this city” were recorded. I passed the guitar to him. He looked inquiringly.

“The next song is going to be played by you.”

“No, I can’t.”

“You can. Pull yourself together. There’re a lot of ‘F’, I’m not good with it.”

I was making up chords on the go. He marked them on a piece of paper with the text. We recorded. The microphone was one for two, but it turned out great.

“What’s the name of this song?”

“To Woland”, I caught myself thinking that the person I called so (and it was the name of Devil in the famous novel by M. Bulgakov), and to whom, in fact, that verse had been written, used to appear in my life after each recording of my another CD. God, I would like to see him right then so much!

“Woland? Do you know what ship I played on? ‘Bulgakov’!”

We recorded “Your Name”, “Sad Gardener”, “Autumn as an occasion”, “Twilight of the station”. He asked for a break. We went to the kitchen. We drank coffee. I noticed that all the burners of the gas stove were ON with fire, but there were no dishes on them!

“Why are they on?” I asked in bewilderment.

“I turn them on. Always.”

“What for?”

“They’re like a kitchen hood for… ghosts. Do you believe in ghosts? This flat, it’s cursed. Everyone died here. And he wants me to die too. Hush!”

“Who?”

He pointed to the next room, where the flat mate’s voice was heard. I looked around the kitchen space and asked,

“Has this person just moved in here?”

“Since birth. He’s lived for about 50 years. Here…”

“Don’t turn the gas on! Do you hear? Turn it off!”

He obediently turned the gas off. We returned to hids cell and recorded “Paris-Moscow”, “It’s Time to live”, “Kiss me on the lips with silent snowfall”. We had “Take me away” left, actually dedicated to the same man, but we were making it out for about an hour. He heard it differently. Not like me. We argued. I said that the modulation should go from “E” to “F”. And he insisted on “E” to “A”. When we were about to record perhaps the darkest of the songs, there was a knock on the door.

“I need this… to hammer a nail … into the wall,” a voice behind the door said gloomily.

“We have only one song left!”

“And I have a nail. I’ll knock it twice. Then record your song. Okay?”

The phrase hurt my ears… A nail… to hammer… into the wall… in that completely bare black flat… Only a nail was missing there.

We recorded “Take me away”. I sang it as he heard, everything seemed to be great, but on the last verse, he took his chord, I sang mine. We recorded by inertia to the end. However, it was clear that it was down the drain.

“Okay. God bless it,” I breathed out.

He shook his head. Released the guitar. He pulled me by the hand. The bottles were out. He buried his head on my shoulder. His body was trembling. He asked for money. I calmly replied,

“As soon as you pass me the final files.”

He sighed, keeping silence for a long time, and then asked,

“What are you going to name this disc?”

“The City of Rains.”

He was silent again. Then he slammed his fist on the table saying,

“I can’t do it myself, you know? I need a narcologist. I need to go to the hospital. They’ll put me a dropper there. He’ll kill me. Everyone died here. Do you believe in ghosts? I can’t stay here. Yesterday I didn’t want to live. Please, call me tomorrow, check if I’m still alive. Will you?”

I nodded. He walked me to the door.

“Everything will be fine, right?” he asked.

“Surely.”

“You have never sung like today. Amazing, really!”

I waved my hand to him. He smiled. I went out into the rain, which was constantly pouring down, slowly driving you crazy, and it seemed never to end. I walked to the subway and I didn’t know if I could ever hear those songs that we recorded impromptu that day. But I knew for sure that I would never be able to sing them like that again.”