Battery by Teodora Mihailova

From the steel-cold bite of pain
I cannot save you.
From the marsh of doubt
I cannot save you.
From yourself
I cannot save you.
I can be stronger
for the power to save you,
Yet there is nothing
for me to save you from.

For Good by Teodora Mihailova

For good, he sees not
the way I look at him,
for loneliness is necessary.
For good, he feels not
the coldness in my heart,
for darkness, it is necessary.
For good, he knows not
of my doubts of sin,
for righteousness is necessary.
For good, he still believes
my eyes are full of light,
for emptiness is necessary.
For good, he sees not
the evil in the right,
for punishment is necessary.

by Teodora Mihailova

Every day is the same,

nothing ever changes.
Every face i know,
everybody tires me.

Every day is the same,
but everybody's different.
No day ever comes again,
the before is far away.

Every day's the same,
all i have today
is the belief that one day
i will wake up in a better day.

by Teodora Mihailova

Sixteen bloody battles,

Seventeen tears like waves,

Fourty miles through mist,

A hundred frozen days

Seven ghostly voices,

Many fears like snowflakes,

An evening and a chance,

A flower and a dance

I'm living for the kiss

Fighting against time,

Striving for that second

When you're always mine

Afternoon Coffee by Mihaela Zaharieva

Every day was the same. Get up. Tie my hair up. Coffee. Go to work. Afternoon coffee. Back to work. Go home. Eat. Go to bed.
A repetitive schedule which repeats itself five times a week with the other two days being just a second. A brief stop to a cycle… or just a part of it. Before I realized it that cycle had become my life. Never ending repetitive actions. Nothing ever set apart one day from the other and it seemed that it would go on forever. But one day it changed.
That afternoon I was going to the usual coffee shop ordering the same sandwich and espresso as every day. The sky was covered with clouds as usual and the whole scenery was as gray as it could be. I sat down on the table, where I always sat and looked out. The scenery never changed. Tall buildings, people and cars rushing by and the big clock in the middle of the square.
Suddenly the sun shone through the clouds just as the bell on the door rang as a new customer entered. It was a man about my age with long hair wearing a bright red jacket. As he walked in the whole shop seemed to brighten up as if color spread around covering the gray of the afternoon. He was smiling as if it was the happiest day of his life and there wasn’t a place he’d want to be in more that this little coffee shop. I didn’t understand that. Why would this make anyone happy? It was just another day. The same as the previous one and probably no different than the next one. Thinking that way I didn’t even notice the time until my phone rang reminding me that my work was waiting. I quickly finished my meal and rushed out of the shop not even noticing the eyes glancing at me.
The next afternoon it repeated. The same man walked in this time in a green t-shirt smiling as the day before. The same thing happened again the next time I was in the shop.
The fourth time it was crowded. There weren’t many seats and I was lucky to get my usual table next to the window. When the door bell rang I wasn’t surprised to see him again. It had become usual but his smile still puzzled me. Looking at my clock there was still an hour and a half left from my break. The weather was strangely warm and the usual grayness of the city seemed to intensify it.
“My I sit next to you?” the sudden questioned startled me. I quickly turned to the source of the voice and saw the same man. He was with his red jacket and had that same unusual smile. Without realizing it I nodded.
That afternoon became unusual. I drank my coffee as I talked with this man that I didn’t know at all and it seemed unreal.
On the next day he sat with me again even though there were many empty seats this time. When I noticed it was about time for me to go back to work I decided to ask.
“Why do you always smile like that? Its not like the day is special but you still seem to be unusually happy with it.,” I had barely finished my sentence when he laughed. It wasn’t in a rude way or anything like that but it still seemed like a very strange reaction.
“Every day is special in its own way.”
“But… the city is the same shade of gray. And the people are the same rushing by. I am the same.”
“That is not true,” he looked at me a bit amused. “You see there are all those small details which change every time. For example a few days ago was the first time we saw each other. Yesterday was the first time I saw you smile. And today is the first time this week that you have had your hair down. And tomorrow will be special too. It will be Saturday and I hope you would go to dinner with me.”

Spring by Siyana Ivanova

Speck by speck by speck
The wind carries away the ashes
(That had once been my world)
While Spring is dancing her first steps
That slowly turn into a cavalcade
Of countless little wings
Which make the air tremble.
Why does not the lack tear me apart,
And why do I feel the sun on my face?
I should have melted away, I should have
Been broken into little pieces
And collapsed from the roofs like snow.
After every breath that seems to be last,
Why is there a next one, next one, I inhale,
I breathe, and I take in Spring
Into my veins, and why are they not bloodless?
Spring. Spring. Spring.
I want to live.

3 a.m. by Siyana Ivanova

it's 3 a.m. already, and
snowflakes fall through the streetlight
like cold fireflies
dancing with the wind
in some strange rhythm of their own
that makes me rock in my chair
as i watch, embraced by the dark,
and slowly, quietly, sink.
i run my hand through my hair and wish
it was someone else's -
the hair or the hand, it doesn't matter -
because the last living thing that touched me
was a snowflake.
and when it did, it died.
and i remembered how once,
at 3 a.m., you were telling me a story
about snowflakes falling through the streetlight
like cold fireflies.
and then, at 3 a.m.,
we were finally able to sleep.

(only it's 3.32 now.)

Whatever by Siyana Ivanova

For a moment in the dark, I existed only as the twisted reflection of a shadow, until the rain washed it from the window. The next minute or eon all that was left was the memory of my touch on the glass, as I stood still and waited. Nothing happened.

I breathed again.

The morning came slowly, as does anything you’re waiting for, and anything worth waiting for. Night moved on quickly into nowhere, and as it was spinning away, I felt all the dark-dwelling beings and unbeings attach their claws to it and disappear. I didn’t see the sun, hidden somewhere behind the rainclouds, but I saw its light, grayish and dull, gradually breaking through to the wet glass of my window. The clouds were running away from the crime-scene of last night’s iniquitous storm. It would take, though, at least one more hour of a gray, wet morning until they made their way. I lay still for another half an hour, waiting for my own storm to disappear on the horizon. Then I fell asleep.

Two hours later the sunlight on my eyelids woke me up. Almost eight o’clock. Monday. School. I slowly got up.

Eight fifteen. Classes started. Almost not late.

Random images, random sounds.

Eleven thirty. Lunch break. Random people, faces, hugs, smiles, the bell rings.

Classes.

Random images, random sounds.

Three thirty. On my way home. Random randomness.

Eleven fifty-one. To bed.

I thought it would be another night of waiting, but it wasn’t. I fell asleep almost immediately, but it was not because of the heaviness I felt in all parts of my body. “I fell asleep” is not the right choice of words. “Sleep fell on me” would be closer: as if something pressed hard upon me and pushed me under.

I remember all my dreams. Especially nightmares, because they are always so palpable and somehow immediate, like there is nothing between me and the dream, not even the soothing voice in the back of your head that tells you that you are sleeping and are going to wake.

So I heard it so clear as if it were in my own mind, and still not its creation. A sound so impossible that it could hardly be called a voice.

Hey.

Come here. I’ll tell you a secret.

I felt like I was moving though the blackness.

Don’t be afraid, I couldn’t do anything to you. Just look at me – am I someone who could hurt anybody, even if I wanted to?

It was not trying to make me less afraid. It was mocking me.

I’m so alone… But I guess that’s okay, ‘cause I don’t feel lonely. I don’t feel anything at all.

Then I suddenly realized that I don’t really feel anything anymore either.

So why do I want you to sit beside me and listen to this? I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t know what to do with all this time… I have time till the end of everything. It’s running fast, so fast that I can barely see it, but it’s so much, so long, that it seems I’ll never free myself.

I didn’t want to believe that this conversation, which was indeed a conversation despite my not saying anything aloud, was really happening. But there is a difference between believing and knowing, and I knew.

No, I am not alive. I guess I once was. But now I am not alive. I am not here, I am nowhere. Nowhere is everywhere. The difference between those two things is slight, still huge. Nobody can be everywhere, but some can be nowhere…

Nowhere. Nowhere.

Don’t try to touch me. You won’t like it. I’m too cold.

I wouldn’t. It was mocking me. It knew something I did not know.

I know you want to say something to me, but you don’t know what… Or you just think I’m insane… Well, maybe I am. But don’t say anything – I hate hearing human voices. They are too alive. I like listening to the wind’s voice.

I was the insane one. And the schizophrenic voice in my head was making fun of me.

Hmm, I’ve said too much already… I talk too much, don’t you think so?

Stop it.

I promised to tell you a secret. I’ll do it, and I’ll let you go. You shouldn’t stay with me for too long.

Stop it now. I want to go.

So, my secret is this: Death does not exist…

My eyes opened wide in a fraction of a second and I stared into the ceiling. Morning. It was cold, extremely cold.

Tuesday. School. I slowly got up.

Eight fifteen. Classes started. Almost not late.

Random images, random sounds.

Eleven thirty. Lunch break. Random people, faces, hugs, smiles, the bell rings.

Classes.

Random images, random sounds.

Three thirty. On my way home. Random randomness.

Eleven fifty-one. To bed.

That night I fell asleep again. Only this time I didn’t know which one of the two realities was a dream. I didn’t know if I was going to sleep or waking up.

I couldn’t know anymore.

MEG: I by Elena Angelova

Frankly, my life would have made a pretty boring book, even if I fancied thinking of myself as a somewhat decent book character.

I took a Creative Writing class in middle school. My teacher, Mrs. Noel, always encouraged her students to put a lot of action into their stories. A girl who buys an ice cream, Mrs. Noel would say, wasn’t likely to make a good story if the hardest decision she had to make throughout the course of the writing was to pick an ice cream flavour. Now, she would insist, the story could become much more exciting if the ice cream vendor turned out to be a zombie. Or, say, if the girl was eaten by a zombie on her way back. Or, for instance, the chocolate ice cream turned the girl into – surprise, surprise – a zombie. She was pretty obsessed with zombies, that teacher of mine. I got her point nonetheless and the example about the ice cream stuck forever in my mind. I could easily identify myself with the girl whose most complicated dilemma of the day was whether to have a chocolate or vanilla ice cream. In fact, I saw myself in that hypothetical girl to such an extent that I practically became her. I would wake up every morning and think to myself two flavours of ice cream and by the end of the day I would have decided what the day’s flavour was. It became an automatic habit, almost like having breakfast or brushing my teeth. The alarm clock would ring and my first conscious thought would be, it’s blueberry or pineapple today. Then, what I’d do, I’d bet the choice on a certain highlight of my day. Like, if I was about to know my Math test grade, I would make it pineapple for an A and blueberry for anything less. Nobody understood what was with those imaginary ice cream flavours of mine. It was weird to most people, and that settled it for them – “weird” was a nice simple label they could comprehend. To me, the flavour game was simply a way of adding just a spoonful more meaning to my average days.

Mrs. Noel ensured the class that if our plot was creative and eventful, it would compensate if by chance our characters weren’t vivid enough. As far as she was concerned, the answer to “Why do we care about this character?” would be something rather resembling “Because the character was attacked by a zombie.” The self-absorbed sixth-grader I was thought about reading a book about herself, and could almost hear in her mind English teachers asking their students, “Now, why do we care about Martha Gallagher?” Provided that they were like Mrs. Noel, they wouldn’t quite like me as a character, because the story of my life wasn’t particularly full of zombies. I tended to dream big, made grand plans about the future, had an imaginative mind and enjoyed various kinds of art, but my reality was just plain boring. I lived in a tranquil district of a small town, was an only child, attended school in the vicinity, and knew my best friend since I was three.  And despite that most of the time I was fooling myself successfully enough, there were times when I was completely aware of the fact that it wasn’t really of great importance whether the day’s flavour would be pistachio or cherry sorbet. 

Every now and then I would wish for anything to happen – in my desperate moments, I supposed I would gladly welcome even an unfortunate change, just as long as it was any change at all.  I never believed in the saying “Be careful what you wish for,” because my wishes were more than reluctant to come true, even the most trivial ones – like, every single school morning when I wished my hair would stay intact after I’ve brushed it, but it never did. As I had an ice cream flavour explanation for almost every aspect or situation in my life, that’s how I saw it: I wished I could wake up with the options of red orange and mint, and be able to pick Bavarian cream.

The day the most desired change began to stir was a watermelon flavoured day, which could have been peanut butter had I not turned in my lab report on time. It was also the day when “Be careful what you wish for” started making a bit more sense.   

The Diamond Necklace by Teodora Mitova

There was a girl called Joan. Her hair was dark blond and her eyes were as blue as the sky. She didn’t have friends and although she could speak with animals, she was scared to do so. The town she lived in was in the peaceful part of California. Her house was in the farthest part of the city. Behind it was a forest which was as alive as the animals that lived there. The neighbors were always kind, helpful and sympathetic people. On the streets that went between the houses was no traffic.
One day she went to the wood. The weak March sun was down in the clear blue sky when Joan stepped into the dark, mysterious forest. She wasn’t there for the first time, but the adventurous feeling was still there. When she felt lonelier than ever, or when she just wanted to think, she would go and be on her own. With every step she made, the trees were becoming bigger and taller. They surrounded her and covered the sun. The light had to fight with their branches to reach her. Joan was quiet and walked slowly. Her feet in red worn-out trainers were stepping on wet leaves and soil. There was a dense smell of pine in the air. Suddenly the girl saw something sparkling near a tree in front of her. It was a beautiful diamond necklace lying on the ground. Joan was tempted to have it and took it. She put it on her neck and felt very self-assured. On that day she didn’t see any animals on her way and went straight home.
The following day Joan went to school, and after that she didn’t go to the forest as she used to. She was bad-tempered and rude to her classmates. Her teachers were worried. In the evening Joan didn’t study for the first time in her life, and the next day she got an F. When she got home, her parents tried to talk to her and were very upset, but the girl refused to listen to them. She had never behaved like that before, and they were shocked. Joan was feeling sleepy and tired and didn’t have power to do anything. Her parents decided to give her a break from school.
One day, while Joan was relaxing in the backyard, she saw someone coming from the forest. It was a creepy old woman in black with black crow’s feather hair. She came straight to the girl.
“Hello there, pretty girl,” said the woman.
“Oh, hello,” hesitated Joan.
“You have a nice little necklace, don’t you? Where have you found it?” asked the stranger sweetly.
“Well, in the forest…But how do you know that I have found it?” the girl was surprised.
“Oh, I know many things, sweetheart. This magnificent jewel was mine and I cursed it. It is taking your youth and powers, you know?”giggled the woman, who was actually a witch. “But you can’t take it off, no!” she continued laughing as Joan was struggling with the tight necklace. “Don’t worry, you’ll be sacrificed for a good purpose. Thanks to you, I’ll be really powerful and live longer! I’ll be younger and beautiful! Nothing would stop me then!” she was talking with passion; her eyes were with evil flames in them. “Now, come here, girl, and I’ll take the necklace!” the witch demanded.
“No!” cried Joan and jumped on her feet. “Never!”
Although she was very frightened, she refused and ran to the forest. The girl was running, and running, and running…She often tripped, and soon started gasping. The witch was laughing and trying to hit her with magic.
Suddenly a huge grayish wolf appeared in front of the witch from the woods. She startled. It was growling and showing its white, big, sharp fangs. At first Joan thought that the wolf was her enemy too, but it told the girl to run and hide.
“Quickly, go!”
But she didn’t listen to her helper. Joan wanted to stay and fight. She was a brave young girl. There was no time to argue. The witch attacked. She managed to hurt Joan and the girl fell on the ground. The wolf beat off the hag, and from its big fur fell out a shiny sword. The dazzled girl took it, but it was too heavy for her; she had never before held a weapon. At least she had something to defend herself with. They started to fight with the woman, but she was much more powerful. They were going in a circle, and the wolf was jumping and trying to bite her, while the witch was trying to knock it down by magic. Joan was trying to master the sword and use it against the witch. The woman wasn’t scared; she was still smiling madly. The girl was weak because of the necklace she was wearing, but at last she managed to hurt the woman, who was distracted by the wolf. After a while the witch was bleeding; she was badly hurt, but so was the wolf, and its injuries were worse. It was feeling very tired.
 At last, the other wild animals came to help them, because they didn’t want the vicious woman to win. There were deer, squirrels, birds, rabbits and a fox. They united their powers against the evil witch. The animals had a plan. They had decided that the squirrels would be first to attack by throwing nuts. Then the rabbits would help them using their carrots sharpened as real knives. The deer would fight with their horns, and the birds would use their beaks and distract the witch by flying around her while the fox was attacking. The plan was fulfilled, and when the wolf made the crucial attack, the witch fell on the ground. Then she was gone forever; with a loud BANG! she disappeared. It was a long intense battle, and at the end everyone was cheerful and celebrated the victory.
Suddenly the gray wolf turned into a human. He was a little older than Joan, tall and handsome. His hair wasn’t dark blond like Joan’s, but golden like the sun. His eyes were not in simple brown, but greenish. He found Joan, who had fallen on the ground and had hit her head hard. He destroyed the necklace and took her home. They sat in the backyard. Joan was staring at him and didn’t know what to say. He smiled and began telling his story.
“Hi. Don’t be afraid. My name is Mike. Many, many years ago I was cursed by the witch, and I turned into a wolf. I had been waiting so long for a chance to destroy her and be human again, and finally I had it, thanks to you.”
“But why was she so evil?” asked Joan.
He sighed. “I know a bit of her story. When Sarah, that was her name, was a child, her parents died and left her without any relatives. She grew up poor and unloved. That’s why she became evil. She hated people and wanted a revenge. Sarah wanted her lost childhood and beauty. It could have been different if someone had taken care of her…”
Suddenly Joan thought of something. She was still holding the sword. “Where did it come from?” she wondered.
The boy looked embarrassed. “I was kind of prince,” he confessed. “The sword was my family’s.”
Joan wasn’t so shocked. “I knew it! In the stories there is always a prince. But what are you going to do now? Where are you going to stay?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“You can stay here if you want to,” suggested Joan.
“Yeah, that would be great, thanks,” Mike beamed at her.  
Everything was back to normal. The next day the girl went to the backyard and saw all the forest animals waiting to greet her and make sure she was in good health. Joan found new friends and understood that they were one of the most important values in the world.

This I Believe by Teodora Mitova

When we are fourteen, we are not kids anymore. We know what is good for us (most of the time), we know what we want to do, and we can make our own decision about our life. Therefore, I believe that we should be allowed to choose what to study from eighth grade and above. At least, with the agreement of our parents. Moreover, we will be more ambitious if we study only what we want and need.
For example, I’d like to study only Bulgarian, Literature, English and five other foreign languages instead of Math, Geography, Chemistry and Physics, et cetera. If I study mostly languages, they will be of great help and use for me when I travel around the world or look for a job. I don’t want my profession to be connected with Math, History, Geography, Chemistry and Physics, so I don’t see why I should study them. You can call me lazy, but I’m just practical.
When I finish school, I’ll forget many of the learnt information because I won’t need and use it, so why do I have to waste time to learn it? Why do they want to torment us with difficult material that is useless in our life? Why should I study for hours something I won’t need instead of reading a book or going to the cinema?
I don’t say we should not study all subjects. We should study them for general knowledge but only until we are fourteen. Now I’m in eighth grade and in Math I study square root and vectors and I don’t think I’ll use them in my whole life. We go to school to get prepared for “real life”, right? If someone wants to become a professional mathematician, he can learn this but I don’t want to waste my time and nerves memorizing information I won’t need. My father has always helped me with Mathematics but he can’t help me anymore. He doesn’t remember the material I am studying now, because he hasn’t used it since he left school. That’s why my perfect college will be where you can choose what subjects to have, with the agreement of the parents, of course.

I Am From by Teodora Mitova

I am from big books, small books, and more/many other books,
Movies watched in the cinema, or at home,
Singing in the shower, listening to music, dreams dreamt everywhere-
in my small pink cosy room, at the park, in the bus or the subway.
I am from all mistakes I’ve made in my life, so many blushes and memories, some good, some not so…
I am just as coloured as the rainbow…

I am from all over my country or the world,
Happy hilarious holidays with my family, long or short vacations, when there is no school;
My Christmas with the Christmas tree, my Easter with the paint on my hands and my New Year with the champagne and my cat, you know;
“Happy Birthday!” and “A gift for you!,
“So very much thank you!”

I am from everything I like to eat (so almost every food);
I am from yoghurt and biscuits, cookies and milk,
banitsa, greaves, my grandmothers’ home-made food, delicious!
Also cheeseburgers and hamburgers in McDonalds with friends or my mother;
KFC, corn, and food many other.
Milkshake, juice-orange or apple, if you’re thirsty, here you are!

I am from barking dogs and purring cats,
squealing guinea pigs and biting hamsters,
fish, silent and calm, and excited parrots;
wild wolves and horses from my dreams,
big cats, so fast and graceful, sometimes lazy,
free eagles, falcons, hawks, so on…

I am from “Be yourself”-the most valuable advice,
and “Follow your ambitions;”
“Treat people the way you want to be treated” with “Be polite”, of course,
also “Never give up”, but “Never say never” too!

I am from, first of all, why I think you know, Daniela and George;
Then Astrid Lindgren for the children,
Stephanie Mayer for the teenagers in age and soul,
and J. K. Rowling for them all.
Famous writers, great novels…that’s what I want!

How to turn off a light that is already off by Nadezhda Grigorova

The sky is muddy with clouds

The wind strips me of my snowy breath

It bangs against the dangling shop sign

Dangling just because of the wind

Never because of steps or the door opening or closing

Golden letters dimmed by Time:

Antiques

In the window

A broken doll

Fine porcelain with even finer fissures

Seems painless

Bloodless lips parted, gaping…

Can I see the inside of the shop there, inside?

I can’t.

Just a void of greedy black

Her eyes are veiled by unseen dust

Static orbs of glass and numbness 

To the left of her…

The sky is muddy with clouds

The Car speeds

Through

Then Over

Then Past

You

Trailing the roads of the world with scarlet, then crimson, then black with a  crust

Sketching a map with your entrails

That will peel away,  fading.

Carving the roads in me until “in me” is soaked with scarlet, then crimson, then black with a crust

Engraving a map of your interrupted Self

That will stay, throbbing…

In the shop window

The doll

To the left of her…

You

Lying with Your open Eyes

Veiled by unseen dust

Static orbs of glass and numbness 

The sky is muddy with clouds

The street is muddy with mud

The Car should have splashed your Eyes

Should have extinguished completely

The flame that loomed there, hungry to lick the universe

Should have.

But it didn’t.

I come often

When the sky is muddy with clouds

When the wind strips me of my snowy breath

When it bangs against the dangling shop sign

Dangling just because of the wind

Never because of steps or the door opening or closing

Golden letters dimmed by Time:

Antiques

In the window

The broken doll is not

But you are

Again and again

Lying with Your open Eyes

Veiled by unseen dust

Static orbs of glass and numbness 

With no flames

Yet a Little Light keeps faltering

Dwindling it is

But it is Light

Why is it here?

Again and again

I want the void of greedy black

That erases, conceals and suppresses 

That cleanses, forsakes and forgives

Yet

Again and again

Your Light keeps haunting

Again and again

Even when the sky is not muddy with clouds

But glazed over with sun

Even when the wind does not strip me of my snowy breath

But gifts me with a breath of green – a wake-up  kiss

Even when it does not bang against the shop sign

Even when there is no shop sign

And no Antiques

And no shop

And no window

You are there

Again and again

You and your Light

Again and again

Your Light

Again and again

I try

Again and again

But

Again and again

How can I turn off a light that is already off?

Untitled by Elizabeth Savova

He returned just for a short time in her rose and pink room. It was a late afternoon and he had called to ask whether it would be all right to come back today. She allowed him to, but only if he brought orange juice and some vodka. The only thing she was absolutely positive about was the fact that she would always let him come back. There was just no other way.

Except for the vodka, she asked him for an hour and a half. For this hour and a half she managed to smoke a cigarette, to take a shower, to smoke another one, then to dry the rain out of her hair, to make herself a coffee with which to have a smoke, to iron her cotton dress and then finally to crease it again when sitting to smoke one more.

After the last cigarette, he came. She couldn’t look him in the eye when he came in. All she wanted was to hold him tight like she did before, but they both felt too uneasy for that.

In a minute, however, everything returned to normal again. She was trying to open the bottle with a knife, and he hugged her, smiling. She asked him if he were afraid of her after everything she had done to him. Especially that she was holding a cold weapon in her hand made her even more dangerous, she said. No, he wasn’t afraid. He laughed.

The known disappeared. Before, she was the shy one. Now he was anxious. Maybe it was due her reaction, which was probably a defensive one. He spoke somewhat cynically. Laughing over rules he had made up, himself. To her these rules did not seem absurd at all, but she thought that there was no way for her to say it. She lied on the couch with her head on his knees, and although she did not want to sound cold, she did, and she did it extremely well. That makes me think that she was awfully white-livered.

He loved to watch her, but now he was a little surprised. She had become so much free and open-minded. And maybe, just maybe someone else had taught her that. That made him sad.

A few minutes later he was sitting on the arm-rest of the couch and drinking vodka, and she was holding him tight, contemplating that it all was meant to happen the way it had. When he left the empty glass, he hugged her again, and she thought that they would seem a little comical: such a strong and big man with such a skinny and small woman. Laurel and Hardy in an embrace. And she felt close to the pain again.

“You know what I would never forgive you?” she whispered.

“What?”

“Remember when it all started, you told me to not fear at all and to stop protecting myself.”

“Well, be sure that everything that went around came back around…double.”

Then she remembered how many awful things she wished him after everything was over and how miserable she wanted to see him once. And she felt guilty.

“And do you remember when I was crying for I was afraid, and you asked me what the big deal was, and whether the world was going to end?”

“Did the world end?”

“Not for me, no. It will not end for you, either. But if I asked right now whether the world ended, what would you say?”

“I don’t know, but it hurts. A lot.”

“Do you remember also when you said I had brought back the meaning in your existence?”

“Back then, you really had.”

“You took mine away later. I thought it was awfully unfair.”

“It must have been.”

“No, it must not. Because it is impossible to give or take away the meaning of life. This is nonsense. A game of words.”

He became really sad now. And yet, she wanted to comfort him, but that stupid defensive reaction made her words sound mean and scornful. And the strange thing was that in this very moment, she loved him just as much as her words were cruel and malicious.

A Sappy Way to Fall Asleep by Elizabeth Savova

Tonight I want to fall asleep, with thoughts of peaches. Funny…when I imagine peaches I don’t see a blooming tree or a laden with ripe fruits epergne. In front of my eyes there is a picture from a catalog with cheap cosmetics. A beautiful picture, however. A cut peach. Only one little peace is missing, allowing the dark brown and passionate stone in the middle to show. Around that stone flow fire-red and burgundy nuances. Then they shade gradually to sappy, shiny and fresh yellow. And then comes the down, so beautifully reminding of velvet, inviting one to have a bite. Delicate drops of sweetness appear on the surface; tiny drops, almost transparent.

This is what I call an awaiting fruit. For it is waiting for the whiff of pleasantly warm breath. It is waiting for the next bite, so that it can meet these lips again.

Only the ones known true passion do eat peaches before they fall asleep. It is an instinct. One just feels the need to first taste only the drops on the outside. Scarcely after that, does he want to press his lips to the fruit itself and dry it up, with half-closed eyes and a sharpened focus on the senses.

The olfaction is drenched with the scent of this fascinating fruit.

The taste gives in to the intoxicating like ambrosia sugary syrup.

The sense of touch glides upon the downy outside admiring its softness.

The sight observes cautiously the adroit game of the colors of the caressed by sun peach: bright; promising; tempting. Red is in all of its nuances onto and underneath the sheer surface. Orange is inexorable, but just a little gently tempting. Sunny like joy, it is vivid, burning and irresistible.

A peach in my fingers, fully woven by lure. It feels almost moving between my fingertips. That I call an awaiting fruit, and I shall taste it before I fall asleep.

Over the Rainbow: Chapter 2 by Elena Angelova

By the way, in case I forgot to mention, my name is Paige Sanders. It might as well have been Nobody Extraordinaire - I  couldn't have cared less. I probably would have forgotten it by now anyway, if I didn't have to write it on the top right  corner of my school papers every week. People hardly ever called me by my name. In school I was usually "the girl in the left  corner" for teachers and "hey, you" for classmates. Lilly referred to me as "sis", and it irritated me much, because it  reminded me of how distant relatives knew me as "Lilly's sister", not even bothering to ask if I had a name or something.  With my mother, I was used to responding whenever she started yelling.
I could think of only two people thanks to who I still heard my name said aloud once in a while. Our neighbour from the third  floor, old Mrs. Emigh, when greeting me always used "Ms. Sanders" and I rather liked it. And there was my father, who called  me just Paige.
I also hadn't really mentioned my father, had I? That's mostly because I didn't hear much of him, and I saw him very rarely  too. He sent cards and presents for my birthdays, for Christmas and other important holidays; he also telephoned once or  twice a month, and maybe appeared in town once in a couple of months, and that was that. But I always enjoyed the few days I  got to spend with him. Now that I come to think about it, probably what I liked the most was that I was his only daughter.  Yes, that makes me and Lilly half-sisters, but it's not like this matters much. It also makes my mother a very unlucky woman.  She divorced my father when I was five, so I barely remembered them living together. Then, with Lilly's father it was even  worse - he left her when she was pregnant with Lilly and she hadn't heard of him ever since. So, for the longest of times,  it's been just her, Lilly and me, and I hardly remember it ever being different. And I thought I was fine with it, too.
Well, now I wasn't. And I especially wasn't fine with sitting on the floor in the empty apartment at five AM, staring at the  ceiling, and evaluating my meaningless life. No, it didn't have anything to do with the fact that I had to handle a couple of  days on my own. Of course, I was perfectly capable of doing that. No doubt at all.
Well, okay, maybe I wasn't. But, still, nothing to do with this, I wanted a change anyway, and I wanted it immediately.
I could have waited for a more reasonable hour to call my father, but I didn't. Even being so inconspicuous, I was never much  of a reasonable person. I stood still, waiting for the signal and wondering what the hell I was planning to say.
Oh, voice mail. Well, what did I expect anyway? Apparently my father was not the type of person that would risk leaving his mobile phone switched on during nighttime, in case someone, say, his extremely sensible daughter, suddenly decided to give him a wake up buzz. And even if he'd picked up, how did I imagine it would go? That we were going to have a lovely early morning conversation? Yeah, right. Most probably something resembling: "Paige, darling, this is like the best possible time for phone calls. And thanks for interrupting my sleep, much appreciated!" Nevertheless, I couldn't help feeling disappointed. I really wished I could do something spontaneous that could at least give me the feeling of breaking the routine I was so used to. But hey, come to think of it as it was, I was almost certain that my sister and mother off to a hospital and my being wide awake at five AM kind of counted for breaking the routine.
Now, it would be nice if I could say that, regarding the circumstances, I didn't even think of sleep as an option - because I was worried, because I was overwhelmed with apprehension, and because I had suddenly made those great revelations about myself and I just had to think them over. After all, who on earth would calmly go to bed on a night like this? Okay, in my defence, I was hardly calm. But I did want to get some more sleep - because I was tired, because hour and a half amount of sleep was still better than none at all, and because there wasn't anything particularly helpful I could do at the moment. As the arguments sounded soothing enough for my guilty coscience, I headed for my room - then, instantly changing my mind, entered Lilly's.
In spite of my resentfulness towards Lilly, I always thought her room was charming – in the same way everyone said Lilly was. I only admitted it to myself, though, since I was so determined to prove that I’m better or at least worth it as much as she was, that I couldn’t afford throwing her compliments. It was an astonishingly colourful place, that room of hers, and this was by far the first impression one got when entering. It was chaotic too, but not messy – it was as if everything belonged where it was, and it would not look right if it were tidy. It suited Lilly, it really did.
That night there was something different about her room, and after switching on the lights I spent some time looking around, wondering what it was. Then, when I sat on her bed and shifted my gaze towards the reading lamp on her nightstand, I realized. The reading lamp was always on at night, ever since Lilly got it for her sixth birthday – she believed it chased her nightmares away. But now it wasn’t, and it  hadn’t been when I found her crying in her sleep again, too. Funny, I thought there was no way she could forget it, like one does not forget to eat when hungry. Or maybe she didn’t bother with it on purpose, thinking that she’s over her past fears. Then, was she right to believe that as long as the lamp was on, the nightmares didn’t bother her? I used to tease her about this so much, I even threatened to throw the lamp away only to watch her face freeze in horror. Okay, I realize it sounds cruel and I shouldn’t have, but I comforted myself with the explanation that Lilly was so interesting to people because she had meaningless weird habits and whatnot, which she exaggerated and pretended were for real. It was a relief, it gave me just the perfect excuse to treat her as I did – well, a partial excuse anyway. I knew I acted mean, but I always felt better if I could say I had a reason. I sighed. It wasn’t easy, estimating my motives like this, it made me feel bad for myself and for the person who I was. That night, there was something different about me, and I had yet to discover what it was.
I switched off the lights, slipped under the warm blanket and wrapped myself in it. It crossed my mind whether I should leave the reading lamp on, but then I had to blame myself for being so pathetic. It wasn’t me having the nightmares issues, plus the light would only irritate me.
“Leave it on, please, it’s so dark in here!”
I frantically jumped to my feet. Lilly’s voice was so clear, and so, so scared. I shook my head. This wasn’t happening. I was tired and the situation was weird, it was normal that I freak out a little.
“Do leave it on, sis!” insisted Lilly’s voice in my head again.
“Then why didn’t you?” I snapped, completely aware that I was talking to the empty room. “Why should I, if you didn’t bother to?”
But it worked. The voice didn’t reappear. I lay down again, holding on to the blanket as if it was my only salvation. Was I going crazy, too?  No… no, that couldn’t be. In fact, I was probably already dreaming. On the contrary, that meant that I was apparently wrong about the nightmare issues. But it was the better explanation, wasn’t it? The only sane one.
***
I woke up to the annoying ringtone of my alarm, coming from another room. It took me a couple of seconds to figure out that it was actually from my room, since I had slept in Lilly's. Then it took some more time before I gathered the strength to get up - or was it the fact that I'd had enough of the stupid polyphonic melody? It was still dark outside - a typical winter morning. I feebly tried to fight the exhaustion, as I was heading for my cell phone, lying on the mahogony desk next to my Chemistry notebook. I determinedly picked it up and stopped the alaram, then sat on my bed and gave myself a brief time to think over the events of that night, which, in the dim morning light, seemed distant and surreal.
So, the plan was, I was going to act as if it were a normal school day. Only, when I finished classes - or even in the lunch break, maybe - I was going to call mum and ask her how was Lilly. Right. Oh, and coffee probably would be useful for keeping me awake. Otherwise, I didn't think I could manage school, I felt like I could fall asleep any minute, and my eyelids desperately longed to closed. I was used to getting a good night sleep, so this was killing me. Not that I was going to let it, of course. Come on, I could deal with some lack of sleep, I would totally get by.
The apartment seemed insanely quiet and empty. Usually my mornings were filled with Lilly's screeching voice, asking if I had seen this or that of hers, because things in her room quite often seemed to disappear, mum urging us to hurry, and the odor of fine breakfast coming from the kitchen. And I resented it, well, except for the breakfast, but I usually wasn't hungry that early anyway. All the time, it felt pretty obvious that these frenetic mornings weren't really bringing out the best in me, and I wished I could, for once, have a peaceful and quiet one. Except that now the last words I would've used to describe  the atmosphere were "peaceful" and "quiet". Try "spooky" and "deserted" - now that's more like it.
The stillness was just tensing me up, and I hated how the sounds of my footsteps echoed loudly as I walked toward the kitchen. It was almost unbearable, so I turned on the old radio beside the microwave to a random station. A soft song with catchy melody was playing and a moment later I found myself tapping with my feet to it. There, it was no longer freakishly quiet.
I cut a thin slice of bread, buttered it up and coated it with strawberry jam. Then I poured myself some orange juice. I somehow didn't feel like bringing my poor breakfast attempt to the table, so I sat on the floor cross-legged and ate it there, listening to the radio. It succeeded in helping me restore some energy - I even felt like washing the plate and the glass, but there was no time, since I had to go to school.
I was out and headed for the bus stop in no time. The morning was cold and foggy, but I somehow couldn't percieve it. I felt  like the world around me and the ground on which I was stepping were just a background to my thoughts. My mind was floating  and my thoughts were running through my head so fast I couldn't follow them all at one time. The misty air, strangers'  unsynchronized steps on the pavement, the occasional cars passing by, yet unextinguished street lamps feebly glowing in the  morning gloom - it was all a blur in my mind. My own unsynchronized steps on the pavement as I was pacing at the bus stop,  I've never heard so clearly before. It was like my senses were automatically ignoring everything and everyone else but me and  my own sense of space.
While I was still waiting for the bus, it started raining, and I didn't have an umbrella. I watched as the raindrops fell on  me, but I didn't feel them. I knew I was all wet, but I couldn't feel that, too. Then the bus came and when I got in, I  couldn't distinguish standing there among the crowd of nervous sleep-deprived people and standing outside in the rain. To my  mind it made no difference. I felt detached from my body, I felt light as a feather, I felt dizzy as coke. And then I  suddenly started noticing the world, but there was something insanely wrong with it.
No people on the bus - no bus either, no floor under my feet, no force of gravity. All around me there was only thick  greenish mist which razed everything else off my sight. And then I heard the voices.
"See, another one of those."
"Silly ignorant girl."
"So plain. So ordinary."
"If she were to die now, she'd end up like us. Wouldn't that be lovely!"
"We'll show her then. Oh do we hate souls like her."
"Oh do we hate souls like us."
"Silly ignorant girl."
"She couldn't possibly take much more of us. It'll freak her to death."
"Let's then. Silly ignorant girl."
"Plain. Ignorant. Can you hear us, soul?"
I tried to scream, but my voice was gone. I tried to escape, but I couldn't move. The voices were getting louder now, I  couldn't stand them. The mist was getting thicker, suffocating me.
"Now, how does it feel to watch your life slipping away?"
"Was there ever anything else to it, but yourself?"
I tried to inhale and I failed to breath. And the mist was getting thicker. And the voices were getting louder.
"Silly."
"Ignorant."
And I blacked out.

Over the Rainbow: Chapter 1 by Elena Angelova

"Tell me now, what do you see?" My little sister pulled my sleeve and stared at me expectantly. What the hell was I supposed  to say?
Then I saw it. The rainbow. Good, I thought, but not good enough to compensate for the stupid rain that made us miserably  wet, since I forgot to bring an umbrella. And not good at all, in case Lilly got sick and mom killed me.
"Yeah, Lilly. It's beautiful. Now, let's go home, I'm freezing. I bet you are, too. God, mom is so going to kill me."
"No!" Lilly squeaked, and had me look at the rainbow again. "It is beautiful, but tell me what you see over it."
You should know that my sister was kind of strange (mom said it was rude if I called her "weird"). She was nine years old and  still kept "seeing" things. A couple of years ago it was okay, even adorable - and people were saying things like "What a  lovely imagination has this child!" But she was supposed to grow out of it, wasn't she? What I found particularly disturbing  about her so-called visions was that she was always completely serious and consumed when talking about them, stubbornly  convinced that they were real. I was guessing when you were nine it was still okay to be a little crazy, but I secretly  feared being known as the girl whose sister was nuts.
"I don't see anything, Lilly. And so do you. Come on, let's go, please, mom is so going to kill me!" I said, as I was trying  to drag her towards home. We were only a street or two away.
"It's Pinky!" exclaimed my sister, grinning widely. "She is smiling."
Pinky was her cat. It died last month.
"Lilly, please, let's just go," I urged her, but she wouldn't listen.
"She looks older, you know. A little skinier than I remember her, too. But she is alright."
We were late. Mom was most probably going to ground me for the rest of the week. Well, damn.
"I hope they feed them Whiskas over the rainbow," Lilly added.
I hope you shut it for a while, I thought, but I didn't say it out loud in case she ratted me out to mom. Instead, I  continued my efforts to get her going.
"Don't you see her?" she insisted.
"The hell I don't," I muttered, and, feeling she was finally giving up, led her down the street.
She said nothing more, and I was glad. The day was bad enough without more of her annoying blabbering.
As I supposed, mom was angry with me. How dare I take Lilly out without bringing an umbrella - didn't I watch the weather  forecast, for goodness sake? I should just look at her, oh her poor baby, her hands are ice cubes, and her clothes completely  wet, and it's all my fault. I had yet again proved to be the sensless and irresponsible daughter who never cares for anyone  but herself. If poor Lilly gets ill I'm grounded until Christmas and I am not celabrating my birthday. Now, it's high time I  went straight to my room and out of her sight. Yeah, that was so typically my mother.
I entered the room, slammed the door, and kicked the first thing standing in my way, specifically my Biology students' book.  It went across the room and it's pages twisted horribly. I didn't care. I was angry with myself for forgetting the umbrella,  with my mother for shouting at me and treating me like I was to blame for the hole in the ozone layer, but most of all with  my stupid sister. Mom just adored her, she was her favourite. You know, if I wasn't so afraid what my acquaintances would  say, I'd actually wish Lilly would be labeled mentally disabled - it was the only way I would ever stand out for mom. My  sister was always getting me in trouble. She made me take her out that day, too, and then she was trying to start a lame  conversation about shooting stars, but I cut her off. Then it started to rain really heavily, and I wanted us to run, but she  tripped and fell near a puddle. By the time I got her on her feet again, we were both wet. Lovely.
The rest of the day went as smoothly as it could, and that was probably because I only stayed in my room. I even skipped  dinner, because I didn't feel like facing my family, when I was so mad at them. I almost finished the outline of the Phyisics  presentation, which was next week, but I prefered getting school stuff over with as soon as possible. After writing my Math  homework too, I took a long shower and went to bed. I was so exhausted, I fell asleep almost immediately.
With a day like this, you'd think, it would be just fair to at least get a good night sleep, especially regarding the fact  that you have to go to school the next morning. Of course, life is seldom fair, and the total sleep I got for the night was  about three-four hours. And, guess what, it was again because of my sister. I was sure I'd dreamt of something pleasant, but  when Lilly's crying woke me up, I could barely remember it. Lilly used to weep in her sleep sometimes, when she was very  little, and back then I was the one who would get up in the middle of the night to wipe away her tears and assure her that,  whatever it was she was dreaming of was not real. Ocassionally, I would stay with her for the rest of the night, in case she  ended up crying in her sleep again. It now seemed unbelievable, that I was once well-fitting the role of the loving and  caring older sister. I left it behind just about the time all my relatives started ignoring me in favour of Lilly, and I  usually ended up feeling like a piece of furniture. No one ever noticed me anymore, it was all about Lilly and how cute and  adorable she was, plus, an extremely bright child. Sure, a little strange, but it wasn't like that was a big deal, was it?  Strange is better than dull and boring - and they all thought I was like that.
So when my sister started behaving like a weeping somnabulist for the first time in years, all I did was wish a pair earplugs  would drop from, say, the ceiling. I tried holding the pillow over my head, but eventually I started struggling with  breathing. So I just lay down and waited for my mother to go to my sister and calm her down, so I could get my sleep. I  waited long enough to assume that my mother didn't hear anything from her room, which was on the opposite end of the  apartament, while mine was just next to Lilly's. Lucky me. Finally, when I decided that the quickest way to make her stop was  actually calm her myself, I got up and somehow made my way to her room without switching on any lights.
I sat on the edge of her bed and tried shaking her a little. She was still asleep and still crying, but showed some signs of  consciousness, so I continued, only a little more urgent.
"Lilly, you have to wake up. Come on, it's just a dream. Like, not really happening to you. I said, wake up!"
And just like that, she did, but she didn't stop crying, and her expression was one of terror. It used to have a heart- breaking effect on me once, but no it longer worked that way.
"Oh, please. Just calm down," I told her, slightly irritated by her unfocused look. "You know it wasn't real. You're just  pretending to be that scared to get my attention. Well, guess not, you're not getting it anyway, so you might as well quit  trying."
"I'm cold," whispered Lilly, shivering, and one more tear rolled down her cheek.
At that point, I had to admit she didn't look okay at all and maybe, just maybe, a part of me started worrying not for the  amount of sleep I would get that night, but for my sister's health. As I put my hand over her forehead, I realized she  definitely had a high temperature. "Well," I thought to myself miserably, "there I go. I took her out and she got sick, and,  knowing my mother, to say that I'm in trouble would be like the understatement of the year."
But I did have to go wake up my mother right now and tell her that Lilly was sick, because she would definitely know what to  do about it, and, honestly, I had no clue.
"Okay, listen," I started talking to my sister a little more gently. "I'm going to fetch mom and she'll take care of you,  alright? You just wait a minute."
"I am going to die, ain't I?" asked Lilly, her voice trembling. And I could see she really believed it, and at that moment,  this sentence, and the desperate look on her face scared the hell out of me, and I myself felt like crying and shivering.
"Of course you're not going to die." I said quickly. "You're just a bit sick, and chances are, you won't go to school the  whole week. If I were you, I'd be glad about it."
I didn't wait for her response, because I figured the quicker I told my mother about this, the better. She was going to take  care of my sister, and I was going to finally get some more sleep. Or so I thought then.
Actually, telling my mother wasn't that hard. She didn't shout at me, nor did she give me an insulting lecture on my  behaviour, but I was far from relieved that there would not be one at the morning.
"May I go back to sleep now?" I asked.
"Do whatever you want," was her kind answer. She couldn't care less for me, I realized. Especially when her better daughter's  health was concerned. I didn't believe I had ever seen her that worried when it was me who was sick.
So I went back to my room, and tried to fall asleep again, but it was pointless. I wasn't tired anymore, and my thoughts  wouldn't leave me be. Okay, so I took Lilly out, but I wouldn't have if she hadn't begged me to. It wasn't like I enjoyed  spending time with her anyway. However, I thought, mom wanted us to get along well, as siblings should (according to her -  but I hadn't actually heard of anyone who doesn't constantly fight with their siblings). My perfect school record wasn't even  nearly enough to impress her, so I figured that acting like a loving sister for a change probably would. I wasn't sure if it  would have actually worked, had it not been for the stupid rain. Then I remember how scared Lilly looked, like she really  thought she was going to die, and felt a bit guilty. I decided at the moment I was only mad at my mother.
I had only started counting sheep a few minutes ago, when my mother knocked on my door and, almost hysterically, told me to  get out of bed immediately. I did without hesitating, already feeling that panic was flooding me too. Was there a chance that  she seemed so worried because Lilly was suffering from something more serious than a common influenza?
"What's wrong with Lilly?" I demanded.
"I don't know," my mother replied, "but I already called for an ambulance."
"You're taking her to a hospital?" I couldn't believe it. A bit of rain and cold weather weren't such a big deal for the  immune system, were they? Now my conscience was reminding me of its existence. If only I hadn't forgotten the damn  umbrella...
"Is it my fault? Is she going to be okay?" I asked, and my voice cracked at the last sentence. I felt like I could burst into  tears any minute.
"I don't know," was all my mother said.
No one said anything for a while. The grave silence was hurting my ears.
"You can handle a couple of days on your own, right?" said my mother at last.
"You're going with her?" I asked, although I completely realized it was the lamest thing to say. Of course she was going at  the hospital with Lilly. But a couple of days? "I mean, yeah, I'll be fine."
"Good."
Not good, I thought. Not good at all. I still couldn't quite believe this was really happening. I mean, except the usual  conflicts with my family, my life was perfectly normal. Nothing too nice or too unpleasant ever happened, and all the days  were alike. I didn't, however, define it as boring. I didn't define it anyhow. I was just going with the flow most of the  time, from day to day, but I didn't mind. And the things they talked about on the news, all the great misfortunes in the  world, seemed so distant. But at that very moment, they had never seemed closer, and I was scared.
I went to see Lilly again. She was sitting on her bed, with the blanket wrapped around her tight. I sat next to her.
"I don't want to go." She looked at me beseechingly, like I could prevent it somehow.
"It's only for a couple of days, " I reminded her, trying my best to sound cheerfully, but failed. "They'll heal you there,  and then you'll come back home."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
She hugged me and I burst into tears.
"Why are you crying?" she asked.
"I don't know," I sobbed. "I'm sorry."
Truth is, I was perfectly aware of the reasons why I was suddenly so vulnerable. I just didn't believe I could explain them  to my nine-year-old sister, especially in her present condition. Actually, I doubted I could explain them to anyone, myself  included, but I tried - at least for my own comfort. The mediocrity of my life never bothered me before. Getting out of bed  in the morning and going to sleep at night were usually the most significant parts of my daily routine. And I found myself  wondering if I ever noticed anything at all, and if anyone ever noticed me - then, being sincere with myself, I couldn't help  admitting that the answer was no. So, what if I died? Just like that, no warning, no hints, one day I'm here, the next I'm  gone. No one was really going to miss me. If I were a book character, I'd be of the secondary ones, the ones who appear for a  page or two at the most, performing no definite role, and by the end of the chapter you have already well forgotten about  their existence, so they might as well have not been there at all. Lilly, on the other hand, was something else. She was  different, and that's what made her interesting. I realized that, compared to her, I was indeed dull and boring. I didn't  have the ability to make people remember me. Two weeks ago, I met my first to fourth grade teacher, and she didn't recognise  me, and then couldn't even remember who I was when I told her my name. I could picture myself some years from now, returning  to my high school, and everyone going like "Does anyone have any idea who that girl is?" I was no one. And the worst part is,  until now, I didn't mind being no one. The only person to whom I ever tried to prove something was my mother, and I did it  only because there was already someone (Lilly) proving to be a lot better than me in the art of living. Yes, my sister had a  talant to value everything life could offer her, but it was never enough for her, so she invented her own worlds and  universes, which she never got tired of exploring. She was only nine, while I, being in my mid-teens, was a walking  background. Now I could see the contrast between us like I could distinguish black from white. That was the first time in my  life when I felt completely aware of myself and my whole life until that moment, and thank god, it was far from the last.
When I was eventually alone in the apartment, it was five o'clock in the morning, and my life had just begun.

Death Story by Nadezhda Grigorova

Riing. Smash the clock. Get up. Coffee. Running late. Mismatched socks. Sprint to the bus stop. Work. Papers. Calculations: pages long. Snappy colleagues. Blonds – distracting. In more than one way. Grumbling bosses. Deadlines – gallows loops. Ticking clocks. Sweating. Yelling. Lunch. Sandwich: rubber. More work.  Piles. Night. Last one to leave. Last bus to catch. Home. Beat. TV. Sleep. Riing…
Llud never attempted to break  the cycle, even though he was fed up to the brim with it. When he had a free moment to stop still, his mind, despite his zealous  protests, lunged into “grading mode”, only to grade his life with an “F”: “far too meaningless”. This, of course,  meant an Existential crisis. But what was worse, it meant a headache. That’s why Llud tried his best not to stop to avoid giving his mind opportunities for self-destructive reminiscences. He kept on  running like a hamster on its wheel, not spinning, but being spun, until the mechanic thing was not the wheel anymore but the very hamster.
Sometimes he felt as if he was being spied on; he would squint at the inside of his wardrobe, expecting to see a hole and a giant eye peeking through it. He could see it happening: everything around him  falling down to the sound of applause or  of those ominous scientific utensils in laboratories. Cardboard, ha-ha. When the conductor hunting for ticketless victims catches precisely you out of the entire crowd in the bus, when she walks in precisely at the moment your face is smeared with lunch, when the TV breaks precisely when  That news item is on; then all this “precision” amounts to a  feeling of an evil conspiracy. During  his paranoia fits, Llud felt like a puppet being thrashed about by something BIG, something incomprehensible, something…
“Nonsense,” he would snort, banishing those perilous notions as he comfortably snuggled  in the cushiony ignorance inside his hard shell. He liked it in there, unbothered by any painful mental exertions. Whenever there were calls from outside that required him to remind of his existence with some reaction, he would spit out miniscule slimy balls of gray matter that would congeal in the perfect matrix of the outside world’s conventions. Every new theory, every ground-breaking discovery, every original idea, terrified him to the point where he withdrew his blind tentacle even further into the shell. Or it angered him. He would then produce a mouth of sharp teeth, ready to defend himself by biting off every irritating stimuli: everything on two legs, insolent enough to afford liberties in the way it shaped its gray matter.
Like that empty-headed blond newbie whom he had the displeasure of sharing working space with. Every day, she would babble on and on about God and the Devil, about Kabala, about Wicca, about ghosts, about…blah. He could barely stand her yapping. He would rather go on a caffeine-free diet than accept any other opinion than his own. “Own” in this case  meant “the copy of the mass conviction”: the notion that nothing existed outside the corporeal, the palpable, the perceptible by the naked eye. No giant eyes beyond the cupboard, no costumed gentlemen with horns, hoofs and  a greasy smile; no  benign withered oldie with a halo and white beard; no green antennas and self-consuming galaxies; no blindfolded grannies spinning wool. Humans were just organs and tissues accidentally(but rather conveniently)  thrown together under a layer of flesh; eventually to  get busted and decay. End of story.
……………………….
The sky gaped hungrily: a black abyss luring you right into its depths. The evening was unusually  cold for June.
Llud saw the last bus stopping on the other side of the road. If he missed it he would have to walk. The horror.
So he decided to run across the road, swiftly avoiding the cars.
You know that moment in the movies when the character just has to cross the road for an Important and Undelayable reason(to stop his love from leaving; something he manages to do even though the airport is on the other side of town and there are five minutes until her flight.)?
The hero steps on the road, the wind blows in his hair, giving him an air of Resolution, and, magically, the vehement chaos of the traffic suddenly freezes to let him pass like the sea opens before Moses.
Llud took a couple of steps in the racket of the buzzing vehicles…
And blacked out.
This wasn’t a movie.
…………………..
He opened his eyes and realized he was already sitting in the bus. He took a breath of relief and mentally patted himself on the back. Was he fast or what! He didn’t remember actually getting on the bus…which was weird. But then again his temples were pulsing and overheated by the pressure of the day’s work. It wasn’t unlikely for him to have blank spots throughout the day.
B__l_____k
Sp__o___s….
He waited
And waited.
He began to fidget.
What was taking the bus so long?
It was then he started becoming aware of the surroundings little by little. The bus  was moving absolutely soundlessly. In silence. Creepy, Steven-King-ish, it-will-jump-out-out-of-from-behind-the-corner silence. Silence that was worse than those thin, nerve wracking tunes that titillate the edges of your sanity at the turning points in crime movies.
Outside Llud could see… nothing . They were obviously in a tunnel. There were no passengers.
Llud tried to stand up, propping himself against a wall.
He squeaked and drew his hand back, as if dropping a  hot potato.
His fingers were sticky.
And red.
The floor and walls were dripping with….
And red.
 It smelled of it.
…………
A brief epiphany.
In his mind, a small pebble was slowly falling…
..to unleash the Avalanche.
In his mind, stones, falling, one, the next, bigger, no, monstrous,  faster, no,  so fast they smeared out of sight.
Llud  sprang to his feet and ran to the driver’s seat.
“Excuse me, sir, can you – “
A shocked scream escaped his dry lips and he stumbled back, holding his heart, which threatened to tear his chest apart and bounce off to join the Easter rabbit.
It had turned around and was currently  regarding him in a bored, lazy manner, its eyes unblinking.
“Pathetic” , they were saying.
“Tsk, Tsk. The usual reaction. And I thought you would be different.”
It yawned to emphasize its disappointment.
Then it got up and stretched,  leaving the wheel to be controlled by some invisible force that kept stirring it.
“Who…What are you?” Llud managed to utter once he had recovered from what had nearly become a heart attack…and a rabbit march.
It was leaning against the wall, watching him with the unimpressed stare of one watching an ant thrash about in a dew drop: observing its pitiful struggling, but showing neither malicious amusement, nor compassion.
Once Llud was sure it wasn’t going to pounce on him, he let his eyes wander.
It rather resembled a tall, lanky human…Except for its ashen skin, its  teeth, worthy of Dracula’s envy, hair that gleamed like metal,  and eyes that lacked irises.
Oh, and the pair of huge raven wings lazily flapping on its back. It wore a robe which seemed to be sewn out of night itself.
“My name is Azrael,” it offered a cold smile.
“I know you…You are the Bringer of Death!”
(A flash of blond:  for once Llud  was thankful that her “nonsense” had mysteriously saturated the usually non-absorbing sponge that was his brain.)
“ I prefer to be referred to as Death itself,” it straightened its shoulders with an air of offended dignity.
“But then I am…”
“Yes, you are.”
“But…how…?”
“You decided to be an idiot and run across the road in front of speeding cars.”
Llud was dumbfounded. He fell silent for a few moments and evaluated the situation. He was dead. It was over. The maddening, appalling routine was over…
The cozy, safe routine that he was so used to….
No!
Rejoice: no more alarms, work, neighbors, taxes, blabbering blonds, moody bosses…
…no more coffee, comfy slippers, pretty eyes, patting on the back, dreams of promotion, Sunday shows, a hamburger with extra cheese….
His life wasn’t that appalling. Hadn’t been.
It wasn’t that maddening either. Hadn’t been.
It was actually quite wonderful. Had been.
All it took Llud to realize this was… to lose life entirely.
Suddenly, his rock-solid confidence that afterlife didn’t exist wasn’t so solid any more. In fact it came crumbling down. Hard.
Azrael was standing there, the wolf who  had managed with one breath to raze the house of skepticism Little pig Llud had been building his whole adulthood.
It was no use trying to reverse the course of things. That much he knew.
Second chances were cliché.
Endings of eternal damnation and doom were in.
(Who set the contemporary paradigm anyway, an underground organization of masochists or something?)
Still, he could make the most out of the situation…
What? Why? How?
Questions, ideas, visions sprouted in his mind. Death had been a nutritious rainfall; the fertilized soil of his mind was giving birth to …thought. Intrepid, bold, colorful, original, experimental thought.
What if?
Why NOT?
Why negate?
Everything seemed possible. His vision expanded in all directions, unobstructed by the rims of his cynic glasses that used to distort the variety and multi-layered complexity of the rainbow world into a flat, monotonous picture of black and white. A sudden curiosity and thirst for knowledge took possession of his…being(he checked himself before thinking of “body”; he wasn’t sure that term still applied). The URGE to know, no, not simply to know, to UNDERSTAND, to see through, was intense. It was breaking free, making up for all those years he had spend trying to suffocate it. Payback time.
But how should he go about it?
This was Death, the Harvester of Souls, the Bearer of the Scythe….
Good luck trying to sound casual.
“So…what is it like…when we reach the light in the end of the tunnel?”
…He did not just use that line…
“  I mean…I’ve read…People say …you know, there’s  Heaven, all divinity, beauty and hymns…and angels… and the souls of good-doers and stuff…”
Curse that stuttering. He sounded like a numbskull. He discovered souls could still blush in embarrassment.
“Yes…”
This sounded… hopeful…
“…And then there is Hell, which is ruled by Satan and the wrong doers are tortured in the boiling cauldrons…”
That went more smoothly…
“Yes…”
Oh, boy, the enthusiasm.
“..And there is a sort of test, or Judgment that I must go through in order to be sent to one of those places…”
“Yes…”
Sweat – souls could do that.
“So what kind of test is it?” Llud burst out, waving his hands about in helpless anxiety.
Azrael shrugged
“’Dunno.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? If Paradise and Hell exist you must surely know about them!”
More frantic hand waving.
“First, I’m only the delivery-guy, I don’t mess with the Boss…or Bosses. Second, I never said they existed.”
Llud was fuming. Was that guy mocking him?
“But you just kept saying yes!”
“I said yes, people do say so. I didn’t say yes, that is the truth.”
Llud dropped on a saddle miserably.
He wanted to cry. Why? Had he expected anything else?
His mind was eating itself.
Having witnessed Llud’s exasperating state of confusion, Azrael sighed and took pity of the mortal.
“Look…My job is to bring the dead to the Portal. From then on, whether there is the  Eden of Jesus or the Infernal  of Lucifer, or Olymp of Zeus, or the  Tartars of Hades, or a galaxy of aliens, or a collective consciousness of minds, or ghosts roaming the earth for unfinished deeds, or reincarnations in  different bodies, or something else entirely – I don’t care. It is your problem not mine. I’m immortal, dude.”
And he flashed a smile. Celebrities had so much to learn about pose.
Llud stood there, his pupils dilated as if he was a cat at night. He was trying to imagine the scenarios. It was difficult: after all those years of treating such notions with disdain he was now experiencing a backlash of elevated reverence that allowed him only to marvel at them in a piousness, not dissect them for the sake of his curiosity. He was trying to grasp at least one of the abstract images Azrael had just showered him with, to make it work, to translate it into a perception…
It was  time-consuming, challenging and strenuous, what he was beginning to undertake. For him, it was life…after-life-changing.
He felt glorious doing it.
He triumphed.
He was rising.
 A whole new universe of possibilities was trembling on the tip of his conscience’s tongue, he could foretaste the endless plethora of tastes: secrets, hypothesis, discoveries…It was fascinating to reflect and wonder which one was it , to search for it again and again.
…Fascinating but over.
Llud felt a jolt: regret, the poison of the unaccomplished. He had missed out on all of this. He had not embraced the multifaceted surface of the Universal diamond. And now it was going to be no fun – he was going to find it out without having any expectations. He would not have the chance to be excited, to hope, to fear, to dig out, to delve into; he would not have the chance to live again. He would not have the chance to build his own eclectic model  so he could then compare it with what was; he would not have the chance to be disappointed or pleasantly surprised.
Death was right. He really was an idiot.
Azrael grinned, as if having read his thoughts.
“You know, you humans are so ridiculous. It doesn’t matter what lies beyond. Something does, anyway. How you call it doesn’t change the fact of its existence. When no human knows for certain what  afterlife is, the truth remains in shadow. It’s the only way all of the existing theories can be considered as equally true or equally false. All have a chance. But nooo, you guys  don’t realize this…”
Azrael sniggered and continued:
“ You carry on creating religions that proclaim new “absolute truths” and you argue with each other and start wars and destroy each other because you can’t accept the different names of the same thing.”
Azrael’s tone had lost the tint of bemusement, it was scanting, vicious, iron.
Llud felt little.
The angel felt his discomfort and waved it off with a smirk, his acrimony evaporating.
“Don’t mind my rant; I forget you guys are supposed to be lambs by design…”
The new Llud did not like being called a lamb.
Self defense?
“It is not always the same thing that we humans are squabbling over….sometimes there really  are many things, distinct and even contrasting…Sometimes the theories are too different ….or completely opposite.”
Llud noted feeling smart. That was a new feeling.
Azrael was not stirred.
“Even so…Opposites don’t exclude each other…There is white and there is black too right…? “
“And also there are all the intermediate colors and shades…,” Llud murmured philosophically.
“Exactly. Yet they are one thing: color. They belong to the same unifying category.”
Touché.
Llud sighed. He had lost the verbal duel; humans were indeed to blame. It had taken him a lifetime(literally) to cure his color blindness. Thousands of groups remained, each accepting to see only one color.
No wonder  humanity could not witness a real rainbow.
Azrael slid on a pair of sunglasses
 “Show off …,” Llud muttered.
He didn’t feel like he was talking to Death at all; even if he was, what did it matter?
The lack of prospects made him bold.
Azrael chuckled and flipped his hair.
Something in that motion mesmerized Llud. Flip. Away. Discard. Completely.
The light bulb flickered on and his eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
“You know…someone does turn out wrong at the end. Not all options are viable after all…”
Llud felt smug, watching the effect his words produced on Azrael. Despite the sunglasses he could see the brow rising and the angel leaning closer(Llud noticed the creature was emanating a chilly graveyard whiff).
It was time to strike.
“The atheists! Because they state that there is no afterlife. I can see there is, I’m not that idiotic  to ignore Death incarnate towering over me. An atheist would tell me that I was dreaming and all of this was an illusion. So, not all opinions can be considered as true,” Llud concluded haughtily.
Azrael’s glasses glistened.
“Who says atheists are wrong?”
 “B-b-but you said it earlier: something does exist beyond in any case!”
“ I did ….But you can only believe me if I exist objectively…if this(Azrael motioned at the surroundings) exists objectively in the first place. If it’s a dream though…”
“The atheists would turn out right and everything you said will turn out to be a figment from the start….” Llud muttered in a trance.
He shook his head vigorously, stomping his foot like a mulish kid.
“It does exist ! It’s happening to me, it feels real”
Eyebrow rising.
“ ‘Feels real’? Is that an eligible criterion?”
Llud’s self-importance shattered to pieces and his jaw dropped.
His mind spun forcefully.
“But how can they be right?”
“Well…”
And in a sudden explosion of noise, Llud felt something heavy fall on his head.
Piano keys.
Do-re-mi.
………………………………………………
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
“Grrrr stupid clock! Can’t even stand upright!!”
Llud quickly realized he had condemned the clock too soon, since he himself tumbled down to the floor, head first and feet in the air.
It hurt.
He was alive.
It had been a dream.
(Yay for the  atheists!)
Or maybe…?
Somehow, he couldn’t force Azrael’s omniscient grin out of his mind. It  was as if he was watching him right now, as if he had transported him back and had then woken him up to have a few laughs….
He felt ridiculous, as if he was juggling under the spotlight of the circus stage…walking along a very thin rope, very high up…
Don’t look down…
Llud got up and drew the curtains back. It had rained last night. The air smelled of freshness and novelty.
So second chances were not completely outdated yet.
He wasn’t going to let this chance slide! He was given an opportunity to wake up and he was going to wake up! Heck, he was never going to fall asleep again! Life was too short and too full of miracles to pretend not to notice them.
Llud’s optimistic mood lasted exactly 3 seconds. Then he noticed the time. He was late.
……………………………
Her name was Efil. Not only wasn’t her head empty, he sometimes wondered how was that she bore  the heaviness of all its contents on her neck. Her blond hair and pretty eyes were hardly the most impressive thing in her(although they remained just as distracting for him as in the beginning, if not more). Llud couldn’t imagine a more enlightening  girlfriend. This was a  paradox, since it was the darkness and fog of universal enigmas that were her favorite pass-time. His too. They would conduct researches in the library archives(it wasn’t the only thing they conducted in the secluded compartments; who knew dust and paper could be that arousing). They went on strolls under the stars between the graves and talked. They snuck into haunted mentions where  lips would meet lips to exchange adrenaline.     Llud and Efil had a rule: they never judged any mystery on the plausibility scale, they never dismissed anything as unfeasible: they gave every religion and every hypothesis an equal chance of being…or not being. “What If”. It was a game, as playful as fingertips touching under the working desk, and as somber as death crawling in the creases of the mummies’ parched skin, clattering in the symphony of forgotten bones, or clanking in unison with the shackles of Marley’s ghost.
Llud was happy. Even if what he had experienced had been a dream, even if atheists were right and there was nothing but worms and hummus beyond, he still enjoyed life a great deal more now,  when he was open to new perceptions. He often joked with Efil that by opening up to death he had accepted life. And he would kiss her passionately in the dead of night to prove it.
He felt prepared for the existence of something on the other side. Even if there turned out to be nothing in the end, Llud would not be sorry for the efforts. Because while on this quest outside the shell, he had began enhancing his “here and now”. Even if there was nothing beyond Life  to find, by simply searching he had found something in Life. Someone….

Just  in case, however, he never got on a bus again.