Confession of a Ghost. 31. 10. Woman with a broom

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


10 BEFORE/31 AFTER. HOUSE No. 11


*****KEYS to HEAVEN*****

***
Somewhere in the Universe


The ceiling of the 6th floor of the Ziggurat was the map of the starry sky, and bunches of herbs hung along the walls. From the depths of the hall, a mysterious centaur came out to meet us. I looked at the Guardian with concern.

“Don’t be afraid, my soul,” he smiled. “This is the Master of Keys. Do you see the chain with keys around his neck? Heaven’s keys!”

The centaur greeted us and offered to move to the balcony overlooking the Universe to admire the Constellations.

“I’m Chiron,” he said. “The previous inhabitants of the Ziggurat can be attributed to the retinue of the Sun, I’m Jupiter’s.”

“Chiron is a connector, a mediator, he likes to transform chaos into a system, like his father Saturn, but from an unusual point of view, and build relationships.”

“Father Saturn?” I was surprised.

“Yes, I’m the son of Saturn and originally possessed immortality,” Chiron smiled. “Unlike other centaurs, I was kinder and strove to receive the Secret Knowledge to apply it in practice for the benefit of others. I lived in a cave as a hermit, studied under Apollo-Sun, the patron of the Muses, predictor of the Future, doctor, and his twin sister Artemis-Moon. As a result, I compiled a Heavenly map and became the first stargazer, as well as the main non-traditional doctor. I was called a wise Teacher, who owns the Keys of Heaven, a guide from the Lower Self to the Higher, the Spirit. One day, being wounded by a poisoned arrow, I decided to pass my immortality to Prometheus and didn’t heal myself.”

“Did you sacrifice yourself? So, you are a teacher, a stargazer, a healer who owns the Keys of Heaven. You practice Secret Knowledge, sacrificing yourself for others, right?”

“Yes, that’s why I gained true immortality. You have already passed the Constellation of Sagittarius-Centauri in the House No. 6. I open the door to the Spirit for the soul, so that having overcome earthly transient things, a person can gain true immortality in Heaven, or at least hear the Higher Self.”

“It’s interesting, Rukh, that Chiron on Earth will be discovered only a year after your incarnation,” the Guardian smiled. “Imagine, they knew him in ancient Greece.”

“How could they?” I was astonished.

“Any planet reveals itself to people in the same way as Knowledge does, when they are ready to accept it,” Chiron grinned. “As soon as they open me, the time of alternative medicine, astrology and other Secret Knowledge will come on Earth.”

“Chiron is one of the most mysterious Celestial beings,” the Guardian continued. “He is visible to earthlings for only a few thousand years, then he disappears again. His orbit has a non-standard location, between Saturn and Uranus, and his dual nature will be debated for many years, since Chiron is too small for a planet, too large for a comet nucleus, and his movement is atypical for an asteroid. Will you draw your own conclusion?”

“Duality? Does Chiron like non-standard?”

“That’s right,” Chiron nodded. “Saturn and Uranus, between whom I walk, are very different in characters. I’m their intermediary, connector. I tend to balance the Scales, female and male energy, intuition and mind, to harmonize the soul and Spirit, eliminate the conflict between the Lower and Higher Selves, to look for something that connects in everything, but I’m for justice and objectivity. I have both Saturn and Uranus principles. Apart from my conscious sacrifices, I’m a joker and humorist, the king of paradoxes and riddles. Given the dual nature, I throw unconventional and even funny situations to a person that destroy the standard system of Saturn. People often call my jokes ‘irony of fate’ and don’t see the hidden meaning in them, which is always present, and its realization raises a person to the next step of the Heavenly Stairway. I prefer to talk in riddles, to make the illusion of a choice between two alternatives. Whichever way you go, the path will lead you to the same place. Sometimes the choice is illusory, because one can go only this way and not the others.”

“So are you the one who gives a choice without a choice?!” I exclaimed.

“Yes,” Chiron chuckled, “but I also bring a person out of dead-end situations. Saturn has a heavy hand, and its dead ends are like an unbreakable wall. My obstacles are funny enough and defy earthly logic. They are easy to overcome by taking a non-standard action. I teach people to look at a situation from an unusual point of view and identify the cause-and-effect relationship between events, since my task is to expand Consciousness, to take a person to the next step. As soon as you understand the connection, you’ll immediately make a move as a chess horse. I’m a horse man!”

“Do you manage any of the Spheres of life?”

“I’m beyond the Signs, I have only one House, it’s Heaven, which is higher than others. Perhaps that’s why they call me a symbol of justice and impartial objectivity.”

“Chiron endows people with magical abilities,” the Guardian added.

“My Secret Knowledge is not so much magic. I reveal the hidden resources of a person. I love their reasoning, including scientific. By the way, astrology is the highest mathematics, it used to be rightfully considered a science. The influence of the Moon and the Sun has long been proven scientifically. The bio-field can be registered with earthly devices, and herbal medicine and acupuncture are considered traditional medicine in China. Neptune, visionary and dreamer, gives a person Revelation through a trance and mostly religious. Uranus is a thunderous illumination of an idea from the distant Future, which will be appreciated in the distant Future. My Knowledge refers to the Sphere of the nearest Future, for which mankind is ready. The ideas are already in the air, manifesting through those who receive them from me, and they certainly become practice, changing their category from non-standard to standard. I prefer materialization to empty dreams and I like exact things. Unfortunately, Knowledge is often used for selfish purposes,” Chiron sighed. “I hope that you, as a true magician, born under Selene and Sirius, will use my keys for the benefit of mankind. People with such passports have exceptional abilities for magic. By the way, you’ll obviously attract black magicians. If they ask you for help, don’t refuse, even if you have to sacrifice yourself. Ordinary people will have no idea about your unique abilities, although just your appearance among them will automatically affect …”

“Wait, Chiron, what will I be able to do?”

“Aries, Fire and Warrior, enhances my energy potential. I’m in the abode of Mars and Pluto, nearby your exalting Sun, in conjunction with the warlike Amazon Pallas and Jupiter. All together is interpreted as the path of the Warrior of Light. You’ll stand on it, cleanse with the Divine Fire all the impure both in yourself and in those around you, burn negative and outdated programs and attitudes. The energy flows are your physically perceptible tool, and the astral wars are your reality. However, I’m a planet of sacrifice, the successful passage of the Path costs great sacrifices.”

“And what about your stay in my Ziggurat?”

“You’ll see the Future clearly, through the stars and Other Vision. Pictures of the Future will be shown to you. Among your acquaintances are famous Teachers, clerics, clairvoyants, healers, astrologers. My connection with Jupiter gives not only the patronage of the Higher Forces, such as Saints in Heaven and spiritual status persons on Earth, but also the opportunity to become a Teacher and a strong patron. Your Consciousness will be expanded globally, in the spirit of Jupiter, not Chiron. I guarantee access to the Higher Spheres and amazing abilities, tricks and practices that will allow you to work miracles, intricately connecting something that people think incompatible. You’ll follow the path of the Higher Self and succeed, otherwise you’ll find yourself in a dead end and turn into a clown.”

“Stop! I’m not allowed to practice magic!”

“Practicing love magic, entering into agreements with the Evil Ones, and healing souls with Universal Love gushing through you, are not the same things. I’m friends with your Venus. She is responsible for your creativity and Universal Love. So, you can heal with the Word and Love. Your creativity will awaken people from their sleep and lead them up the Stairway to Heaven. Feeling the pain of others on the physical level, you’ll always come to their rescue. You can do lithotherapy, since your Venus (beauty) is friends with Saturn (stone), and I’m healer. Your Saturn is the ruler of the Sphere of Magic and Death, has the qualities of Pluto, such as the hypnosis of the audience with word and gaze. You are an excellent psychoanalyst, since your Sun is friends with Neptune. Neptune gives you the ability to communicate directly with the Saints, to leave the body and come here.”

“Yes, to the Library of the Universe,” I agreed.

“And much higher,” Chiron said calmly. “You are a hypersensitive being, Rukh. You’ll feel the energy of objects – good or not, alive or dead – scanning information. And then, owning my Keys, you’ll make experiments on yourself in terms of hidden resources and working with and inside the Other Reality, tracing chains of events in the Space of Options for many years ahead, to change the Future by pulling people out of dead ends, primarily out of the potential Death of their physical bodies, since you are Saturn, responsible for Magic and Death.”

“Will I pull people out of the clutches of Death?!”

“Yes,” Chiron nodded calmly. “I give a person the Keys of Heaven and demand the application of Knowledge in practice. You’ll work not at one level, but at several at once. You won’t only pierce them with your gaze changing with your presence nearby, but also at a distance, although you won’t realize your strength immediately. The main thing is not to hack the Matrix.”

“How can the Matrix be hacked?” I was surprised. “Isn’t it that ‘Death’ I’ll be tempted with?”

“The line between allowed and not is thin,” the Guardian sighed. “If they show you a certain option of the Future, you go there and take some actions to save the situation, this is allowed.”

“If you see one’s Death, you’ll order prayers for one’s health,” Chiron smiled. “You’ll find three options in the Labyrinth of Destiny and identify chains of events, that initiate each of the options, then you’ll take a step away from the worst chain to make the best option come true. Acting within one’s own Labyrinth of Destiny, the Matrix is not hacked, and no one will accuse you of hacking. However, whoever knows program codes and algorithms can re-write any of the fragments so that a person is automatically transferred from the own Labyrinth into someone else’s. Black magicians sometimes move people to be killed. Changing the Labyrinths is strictly prohibited, since it breaks the threads of the fabric of destiny, the cause-and-effect relationships of events that affect the formation of the Future as a whole, and not just one fragment. It’s no longer possible to restore the original chain under any circumstances, it lacks a connecting link.”

“Let’s suppose,” the Guardian sighed, “an evil planet appears in some segment of your Labyrinth, as a direct threat of Death to the one you love. In the same segment, you receive real estate as a gift, the rental of which should support your life in the Future until your return to Heaven. The evil planet can play out in different ways, since each of the Spheres-Houses has several meanings, but you don’t want to risk the life of your beloved, so you hack the Matrix in the given area, moving to the neighboring, someone else’s Labyrinth. Many of the events that were supposed to happen in that segment of your own Labyrinth will no longer happen, and won’t lead you to their consequences in the next segment. When you return from someone else’s Labyrinth to your own in the next segment, an important and useful event, which you didn’t even think to change, will no longer happen. All further passage of your Labyrinth of Destiny will start to give out bugs, to fail in full. In the end, you make your beloved survived, but he betrayed you, and you were left without a job and a livelihood.”

“That is, I’ll never get the real estate, because I could get it only in the very segment with the Death of my beloved, right?”

“That’s right, Rukh. Thus all Heavenly plans about you will go to Hell,” Chiron nodded. “The more Secret Knowledge, the more temptations.”

“It’s a choice without a choice! I can’t act otherwise!”

“Yes, Chiron gives you a choice without a choice. He is a sacrificing planet. Your Venus, Universal Love, being Doryphory of the Sun, is sacrificing too,” the Guardian agreed.

“Learn to make a horse move,” Chiron sighed, “or take a step to the side. Guide people in deadly corridors through their own labyrinths without breaking and recoding yours. However, saving others, you won’t save yourself. It’ll seem abnormal to many people. They will even blame you. Don’t argue with them, Rukh, but remember me.”


***
Library of the Universe


“Does Chiron have any harm from other planets?” I asked the Guardian gloomier than gloomy on the way to the Library.

“He is not friendly with Saturn. Saturn is heavy, gloomy, like you are now, and slow. He has a bad sense of humor. Chiron, on the contrary, is cheerful, wants everything to come easy. It’ll be hard for you to get what others get easily and simply. You’ll get plenty of aggression and poisonous arrows in your address. Chiron was wounded by a poisoned arrow. A hopelessness complex is possible. It will seem to be no way out, one gives up. The Saturn-Chiron square is similar to their conjunction. Already since childhood, there’s something heavy that fetters with an iron hoop and crushes, almost suffocates you, leads to depression due to the inability to change the situation and to…”

“Unwillingness to live? What to do in no way out?”

“To hope, not to lose heart, to follow the voice of the Higher Self. At the last moment, Chiron will lead you out of any hopeless situation, albeit at the cost of great sacrifices. Not everyone can stand it, Saturn is slow, that is … either the dead end lasts for a long, long time, or the same plot in the script painfully repeats several times in a row. Such aspect was in the passport of Vladimir Vysotsky. Your grandmother knows his father well enough. Sometimes you’ll catch yourself thinking you feel the same as Vysotsky, and this is Saturn-Chiron.”

“It’s terrible, Angel! Lilith with the Sun and Pluto with Vindemiatrix …”

“Lilith provokes Evil, tries to throw a person down the Stairs, is interested in his spiritual Death. Chiron creates situations to rise a person as high as possible, invites people to share true immortality with him. Lilith is the symbol of immersion in the abyss of the earthly, Lower Self. Chiron symbolizes the Path to Light.”

“Through sacrifice and pain,” I added in grim reflection.

“Is the game not worth the candle in your opinion?”

“In what Sphere is the sacrifice?” I asked helplessly as I opened the door to the Library of the Universe.

“House No. 11 opposes House No. 5, so it’s in the Sphere of Love, Children, Creativity. The Burnt Road is there. For the sake of something in Sphere No. 11, such as the Future, your dreams, the keys to Heaven.”

“Do pain and sacrifice mean the loss of those I love in the Present, for the sake of some kind of Future?” I stopped at the threshold of the Library.

“You’re thinking more and more like a human being! Let’s go, you shouldn’t stand in the passage,” the Guardian took my hand and led me towards the Reading Hall. “Your Chiron is in a heavy degree, but accentuated in the passports of detective writers, scientists, inventors and researchers. Quick success at the beginning of life, then huge losses and the collapse of everything, or vice versa – a hard life from the beginning and at the very last moment, or even in that very Future, compensation for … The Silver Age stargazer considered it a degree of Saturn, “Here is a huge hourglass, designed for only one hour, and the sand is already running out.”

“I see,” I said doomed, collapsing into a chair in the Reading Hall. “One hour is one incarnation, and I’ll spend it dreaming about the Future, to which I’ll sacrifice my Present. Will I have any choice in anything? All I’ve been told is a choice without a choice, Angel. I don’t know about others, but my Matrix is programmed with no options.”

“There will be options, but we are talking about Chiron in square with Saturn. It’s a harsh dictate, locking a person in a dark corner. Square always drives a person into a corner by force. There is no one’s fault in the events taking place, but the action directed at you cannot be stopped or paused, you cannot influence someone so that he stops doing what is locking you in the corner. Look for a non-standard way out.”

“How to get out of the corner, being locked in the physical body?”

“Step aside, Rukh, step aside. Look at yourself from the side more often. Chiron is friends with your Venus, creativity is loophole No. 1. You have Chiron in conjunction with Jupiter, spirituality is loophole No. 2.”

The book opened at the miniature “Briefly about the main thing”. An artist and a poetess, each time incarnated on Earth, didn’t recognize each other, then she couldn’t remember him, then he couldn’t remember her. The heroes didn’t lose hope for reciprocity in the next life, but “they didn’t know that one of them was no longer destined to return to Earth.”


*****WOMAN with a BROOM*****

***
Moscow


The doorbell rang. I trembled with fear, and Ray told me,

“Go to see who’s there.”

“Me?!”

“It’s your flat, not mine!”

“Even being alive, I was afraid to look through the peephole in the door!”

“Well, just open it right away,” Ray laughed.

“How can I open the door without hands?” I waved my astral ones, imitating wings.

The doorbell rang again, but before I had time to react, a familiar male voice was heard on the threshold,

“Hey, Alice, are you there?”

I ran out into the hallway and found Vadim. Svetlana followed him through the front door.

“Wow! Hello, friends!” I screamed with joy.

Vadim, as in life, defiantly took off his shoes. Svetlana did the same, unzipping her astral boots.

“Don’t take off your boots!” I laughed, inviting the guests to the kitchen, but something inside me skipped a beat, and I stopped in confusion. Without finding out the reason for the strange feeling, I asked, “Why ring the doorbell?”

“You’re a newly-deceased,” Vadim laughed, “they are all so strange, with earthly habits, and afraid of everything! Not to scare you.”

“This is Ray, the great and terrible wizard. This is Svetlana, we worked together, and then became friends on the grounds of the Other Reality. I’ve written about her in ‘The Book of Knowledge’ and ‘Guardian Angel’. And this is Vadim, my friend, he helped me with poems, and I shared my experiments with him, he was also interested in the Other Reality.”

“We’ve heard much about you! Well-read!” Vadim said, shaking Ray’s hand.

“Oh, Ray!” Svetlana smiled. “I imagined you differently!”

“Hell is not a beauty salon,” Ray said with a smirk and turned to me, sitting down at the table, “Well, hostess, tea-coffee for the guests?”

“Well, let’s enjoy it at full! Americano!” Vadim exclaimed, accompanying the words with theatrical gestures. “With 6 pieces of sugar!”

“Green tea for me! Without sugar!” Svetlana asked.

I automatically flew over to the kettle, turned it on and returned to the table.

“Alice,” Vadim sighed disappointedly, but kindly. “Why turn the kettle on?”

“Oh! Well, yes!” I sighed and laughed, visualizing cups, drinks and a bowl of candy and cookies to boot.

“I haven’t enjoyed coffee for a long time,” Vadim admitted. “But here, in your flat, it immediately reminds me of the times when we sat down to read and edit your work and…”

Suddenly I smelled coffee and asked Vadim,

“Does astral coffee smell?”

“Why not! I’m kidding! This is your neighbor, apparently, she decided to make coffee. You see, our vibes have affected her!”

“Listen, but… how did they let you in to see me?” I was surprised.

“We came to you in the Court,” Vadim continued in his manner of an eternal clown, “you were all here, out there, with a glassy look, unconscious. Judges told us, ‘Your Alice is stuck!’ We said, ‘So let’s get her out!’ And they replied, ‘Nope! She has to get out on her own! But you can help her!’”

“You won’t believe it, for some reason, they told me to come to you in boots!” Svetlana said absolutely seriously, and something inside me skipped a beat again.

“Ray”, I caught him with my gaze. “Do you know about boots?”

“Me?!” as if nothing had happened, he replied. “I think you’re supposed to know something about boots.”

The sound of a boiling kettle was heard in the deathly silence.

“Have you really turn the kettle on?” Svetlana exclaimed.

“Wow!” Vadim applauded. “It was not an astral gesture, but a physical pushing on the kettle’s button!”

“Well, somehow automatically,” I exhaled at the same time as the kettle got boiled and turned off.

“You worked miracles even during your lifetime,” Svetlana smiled. “Now why should we be surprised? Ray, was it you to teach Alice magic?”

“She just had to be awakened to remember.”

“Boots… Boots… Keep your boots on,” I muttered thoughtfully. “Yes, friends, I don’t remember everything. Does the two-faced Woman the Love tell you something?”

“Did you love women? With two faces?” Vadim theatrically parodied the split face with his astral head.

“Okay,” I said lost in thoughts. “Look in the next room, there is a plastic necklace in one of the packages. Do you see it?”

“Yes,” Vadim nodded, “a rope with some stuff.”

“You used to wear natural stones!” Svetlana was surprised.

“Yeah,” I muttered disappointedly. “Boots… Boots… Don’t take off your boots… Vadim, didn’t the judges tell you anything?”

“You mean about boots?” Vadim feigned seriousness. “You see, I used to walk in men’s shoes, not women’s boots!”

“Come on, Alice, let’s start!” Ray yawned defiantly.

“So, the boots are women’s,” I concluded, sinking into the Past. “Someone said to me, ‘Don’t take off your boots! Keep them on!’ I don’t remember his face. I remember the blizzard. It was too dark. Winter… Svetlana was sitting across from me in the office. Someone called me, saying, he was waiting for me by the metro… Vernadsky Avenue… and why was I not there? The person calling me was as a guide to walk me to that place. But we had agreed for the next day, so I wasn’t ready, I was in office at the Botanical Garden. The guide said I needed to leave everything and come urgently, because the Man had called all the higher society for me, so I must be there. The guide would return for me exactly in one hour, at 7:30 p.m.”

I opened my eyes and… laughed.

“God, that was the funniest story in my experiments!”

“It’s funny you say it’s funny,” Ray chuckled.

“I witnessed that magical story from the side of the Botanical Garden,” Svetlana smiled meaningfully, “and the guide was the witness from the side of Vernadsky Avenue.”

“Ray taught me that,” I smiled. “After the phone call, I was in shock. Firstly, I was required to recite poems there for 15–30 minutes, but I hadn’t even selected them and I didn’t remember them by heart, reciting only from printouts! Secondly, I was neither wearing makeup nor dressed for the higher society, and when I looked at my boots, I remembered…”

“Alice, we are all your friends here!” Vadim laughed.

“The problem was with tights. I would have to take off my boots at the entrance to the flat. So, at that point, there was less than an hour left. I told the story to Svetlana and frantically began to jump through my 2000 poems on the Internet, selecting those suitable for the single scenario. To copy them, paste into MS Word, print. Then I ran along the two floors of the office, asking the girls, if they had lipstick, mascara, and I just wasted my time. I went to ask my boss for a permission to leave, but he said that first I had to measure with a ruler the room in the neighboring mansion, where he planned to move us the next day, and tell him the results. I asked my colleague to take measurements instead of me, handing her the ruler, but I had to bring her to the mansion, go up to the third floor and explain how to measure so that the boss was glad. Then I returned to my office to Svetlana, took the printouts of the poems and headed to the metro. Walking uphill took about 15 minutes. I wanted to catch a taxi, but because of the snowstorm, traffic was paralyzed. On the way to the metro, I didn’t manage to call the Teacher (he didn’t answer my calls) so that he would help me stop Time. I ended up calling Svetlana and asked her to call the Teacher for the sake of me.”

Svetlana nodded in agreement with the fact that I was telling the truth.

“How much time does it take from the Botanical Garden to Vernadsky by metro?” Vadim asked.

“According to the Yandex map, it was from 42 to 46 minutes with one change of lines at Turgenevskaya, but … First, calculate in mind how much time I had already spent before entering the metro! Secondly, the task was complicated by the fact that there were no shops nearby the Botanical Garden. The shop I needed existed right after the Tretyakovskaya metro station exit, inside the underpass.”

“So did you have to take a longer route?”

“Yes. I got out of the metro Tretyakovskaya, bought new tights, went to McDonald’s across the street, changed clothes, returned to the metro and took a curved route to Vernadsky through the ring, with more two changes of lines. Arriving at the meeting point with the guide, I looked at my watch, first, at my wrist, then at those in the metro near the 1st car to double-check the time.”

“And what time it was?”

“19:25! I arrived 5 minutes earlier than my guide!”

“Wow!” Vadim exclaimed, as if he had heard that story for the first time.

“Unreal reality! 55 minutes for everything. However, did I call the Teacher for nothing?” Svetlana smiled.

“Oh yes! I entered the flat, took off my fur coat and started to unzip my boots, but the Owner of the flat said, ‘Don’t take off your boots! Keep them on!’ He repeated the phrase like a zombie until I agreed to stay in boots!”

“Who was he?” Ray asked, and I froze in thoughts.

“Damn it! I can’t restore his face in my memory, it keeps slipping in every way and for some reason splitting in two faces!”


***
Ouranoupoli


“A busy day!” I happily flopped into the chair next to Dimitra. “I visited St. Demetrius in Thessaloniki, then the tiny cave monastery of David and one more monastery.”

“My husband and I were named after St. Demetrius,” Dimitra smiled. “Nicolette and her husband were named in honor of St. Nicholas. You don’t have similar female names! Well, how do you like my Saint?”

“Alive,” I smiled. “The space near the relics is electrified and breathtaking! However, the icon in Nea Roda is stronger.”

“They tried to steal the relics of St. Demetrius some years ago, but the alarm went off. What do black magicians do with relics? What’s about the book you’re editing? Do you believe in ghosts yourself or just write about them?”

“A wise person, when I was a kid, but already writing a lot, including detective stories, said to me, ‘Never write about what you haven’t gone through yourself.’ I was offended then, but over the years I realized that he had been right. As soon as I finish editing the book about ghosts, I’ll write a novel about the Heavenly Stairs and Athos, because that Staircase is put directly on the top of the Holy Mountain.”

“Will you write about me?” Dimitra smiled dreamily.

“Of course, and about you too!”

“Great! When you write it, send me to read! I had a strange client,” Dimitra said enigmatically. “He asked the icon like ‘Christ in the Egg’. I didn't understand what’s it.”

“Perhaps I’ve seen this icon. Christ is depicted in full growth, holding the globe in his hand. There are blooming flowers pulsating with energy at his feet, the Light in the form of an oval, turning into a rainbow along the body, and the night Sky with angels instead of stars behind the oval. I see the following meaning. The seven colors separate the Earthly from the Heavenly, while the Heavenly has levels according to the colors of the rainbow. The one who has reached the highest level goes beyond the Circle of incarnations, or the Egg’s oval, and doesn’t return to Earth. Or, let’s say, a human being has 7 chakras and 7 bodies. Working through each level – a stage of the Stairs – dropping each of the bodies one by one, reaching the last, the purple level, a person breaks the Circle.”

“Do you mean that a human being becomes an angel?”

“I don’t know angel or not, but how else to portray the idea?”

“Do the pulsating blooming flowers mean our incarnations on Earth? Do you believe in reincarnation?”

“Not in that sense.”

“And in what sense do you believe?”

“There are mysterious words in the Holy Texts, saying that many people who lived during the incarnation of Christ would live till the Apocalypse to see it. How to understand them, if each soul lives once? However, the soul really lives once, Dimitra. The soul is an astral body, an aggregation of atoms, unique in each specific case. Unique pattern! After physical death, sooner or later, the astral body disintegrates. In the Astral Tablets, you and your life will remain imprinted forever. Every thought and step of yours. Our phantoms will continue to exist in the Space of Options. They will play every day, every hour in each of the scenarios, both realized and potential. The soul will be able to connect to any moment of any scenario. But we ourselves will start to discard the atoms, breaking the links between them, one by one, at the same time losing the memory of this particular earthly incarnation. Only worthy of Eternity will remain from the personality, merging with the Spirit. The Spirit is always one, and it cannot be divided into elements. The Saints have their personalities, or souls, entirely worthy of Eternity, thus they merge with their Spirits without losing their individuality and go beyond the Circle. The others, perhaps, return, rotating inside it to master new levels, gradually ascending in a spiral till the level of… However, each time it’s a completely different composition of the soul, a different personality, the Spirit is the same. The Spirit absorbs the Light of each incarnation and becomes Brighter and Stronger. It’s a pity that not everyone will have time to get out before the Apocalypse. John the Theologian announced 144,000 only.”

“Oval, Circle, Ring… By the way, how many rings with Saints do you have?”

“Seven.”

“A sacred number! They’ll lead you to the highest Heaven, and you’ll become an angel!”

“Just one is missing,” I sighed.

“A ring?”

“No,” I laughed. “Peter with the keys!”

“Oh, how impatient you are!” Dimitra laughed. “I’ve already promised to order Peter in November, and next summer you’ll get both Peter and the keys!”

“Well, while we are waiting… You have a book in Greek about Athos monasteries and their shrines. Will you read it to me in your English translation?”

Dimitra went into the shop, took out a heavy book, opened it to a random page and said,

“So, ‘The Elder’, or ‘Gerontissa’, helps the soul to go to Heaven!”


***
Tower of Ouranoupoli


I told Joice my latest news.

“Svetlana came to you with the boots, and Vadim? With empty hands?”

“I suppose so. Vadim was scolded in the Court for his stupid stories, written under the order of the editors of the magazine ‘Magic and Life’, or some other kind of magic. As fake ‘letters to the editor’ from readers who practice magic. He read ‘letters’ to me during his lifetime. Of course, all stories are fake. Vadim had a fertile imagination, he wrote nonsense, for example, from Aunt Mary about love-spells for pigs, they turned into men and married her.”

“Was that all?” Joice was surprised.

“Well, yes … Just, saying goodbye, Vadim asked if my children’s library was preserved. I collected books of fairy tales with beautiful illustrations. Sometimes I read them to myself at night, trying to compensate the absence of childhood. I wanted my grandchildren to…”

“So did the children’s library survive or not?”

“Yes, why? Do you think Vadim was sent to me for books? Childhood… Children… Stop, Joice! In the Court, my son whispered to me, ‘Children,’ and then ‘Seeking for the Perished’! Everything is clear for me about the icon, I read Akathist to it. But ‘Children’? Now I got even the children’s library added! All riddles! And why do I need Svetlana’s boots?”


***
Library of the Universe


“Moony, tell me, do you happen to know Puss in Boots?” I asked, taking out my diary. “I could use his advice on boots. Perhaps he knows more about them than I do.”

“Not with Puss in Boots, but with Puss in the Bag, yes,” the Cat purred and curled up into a ball.

“I told Vadim about the magical lessons of the Force and the reactions of the Space, how the Force tried to play with me, hiding everyday things we got so used to, so they seemed to be always at hand. The deadline for completing each task is 24 hours. The tasks are simple, but you have to be smart. The Space is distorted, causing stupor and laughter, it’s really funny! For example, you need to feed a certain number of dogs. You go out into the street and meet cats only! I vainly walked around the city in search of a little thing I had obviously met before. I looked for it on the Internet, but there was no information where it could be found in Moscow. No problem to find in other cities and in the region. Just not a word about Moscow! In the end, when I had already come to terms with the idea that I would have to go in the Moscow Region, the link to the other places disappeared! I had to invent an analogy that would lead to the same result, i.e. the goal must be achieved.

Only the last task was surprisingly quick to complete, as if the Force had finally given up and hidden nothing from me. Imagine, early in the morning you need to go into a deep forest and find there several trees of certain species, growing in a certain sequence. The trees without leaves (already fallen) unable you to understand their species, and all night and morning it was pouring rain and stunning wind. You came there under pouring rain and a blowing wind, walking into the heart of the forest, where there was neither a soul, nor a road. Suddenly you saw in front of you those trees in the required sequence and geometry. You started squealing with joy, and didn’t think where a woman appeared nearby from. At 6 in the morning in the pouring rain in the heart of a deep forest, where there was no road at all, she was sweeping leaves with a broom and humming something, I remember. Absorbed in the joy of finding and completing the last task, I just thought for a moment, “Thank God, I’m not alone here, it’s not so scary!”

Vadim was stunned by my stories, saying I was a real magician. He was delighted that I had been so disconnected from reality that the woman with a broom made no impression on me. We are used to take for granted what surrounds us, but the Higher Forces at any moment can deprive us of everything.”

“Everything was repeated, as in Erickson’s triple helix. Suddenly disappeared characters rise from the Non-existence, as unfinished chains of events. If you’ve made a wrong move, fallen out of the chain, it hangs around your neck or wags its tail, life brings you back to the same situation, with the same people. It’s a chance given by the Higher Forces to correct the wrong step, ‘Step to the right, since you stepped to the left last time, and it was the wrong decision.’ No! One stubbornly steps to the left again. So the fear of the unknown, which can be painful, doesn’t allow to step otherwise.”

“If you can’t specify your wish, preferring to deal with an abstraction, it means something in the Subconscious is categorically against it (fears). If you asked to change your life for the better, and the next day the world collapsed, it means your request was instantly answered, jump for joy and thank whoever you asked. At the very least, your karma was thoroughly cleansed / your sins were forgiven… You think with your earthly mind, that it cannot be, but they know better There how to get from point A to point Z, even if it seems impossible for your mind… The cards in Heaven are constantly shuffled, changing inclined planes, along which I smoothly slide into a certain version of the Future, but which one even the Higher Forces, apparently, have not finally decided yet. It’s interesting, probably, in Heaven. They run to each other in neighboring rooms, consulting, look what will happen next if I turn in this direction, rewrite the script along the way, slow down, then send some people to me. They pursue their goals, unknown to you and me… and they pull the threads. A theater of puppets… My son asked, ‘Do you, by any chance, summon spirits here at night?’ Of course, I’ve never summoned any spirits and don’t plan to, but my son senses a change of spaces in our flat.”

“A clairvoyant from Inessa wanted to meet me. So, she called me “Assunta”, a verbal participle in Spanish and Italian (“ascended”). She cast a glance at the London’s Time Turner around my neck.

“You have the key to Knowledge around your neck. Everything is open to you. You can take any information! Don’t stop, and you’ll achieve everything you want There. Green light! Your mission is to transfer the maximum information from There to people, and you want borscht! You and I are not locals! Are you tired of the Divine Love? Or of vampirism? You have an access code to the inexhaustible spring of energy and force! You can move any mountain, and no vampires can harm you! What are you writing?”

I said I should write about incarnation of a soul, aggregation of atoms, planetary spirits the shapers or formers.

“That’s great! Write! And remember, you are the Queen, not Cinderella! Here come the words Saturn, Venus, Mercury. I don’t know what it means. You’ll understand!”

Events are slowly but surely creeping along my Solar year. I’m trying my best to break the chain. The only thing I succeeded was the dog removed from it. VIP is an unmovable mountain. Once I saw “Rukh’s Diary” There, my flat in the first and last fragments, the small room locked with all stuff piled in it, and there was nothing but icons everywhere. Now all things are piled up in the small room, the icons are everywhere. I mixed up the fragments, climbed into the Tablets, took a more distant in Time and put it in the Present, but the fragment itself didn’t move, its events relate to the Future. I regret a lot, I would change a lot and wouldn’t change a lot.”