Early in the summer morning, when sunbeams do not yet burn but gracefully cherish your skin, a tall old gentleman wearing a long length flimsy topcoat, and a hat with wide flaps walked into the city public gardens from the direction of high apartment buildings, probably leaving their outer court, flopping along and limping slightly. Against summer practice his drapery occurred in dark hue, almost dark-gray verging on black, regardless of the fact that they were fabricated obviously from delicate fabrics. He started his way with habitually measured steps to the center of the square where the line of benches arched round the gorgeous fountain. Reaching one of them he stroke down taking a convenient pose, and obtained a newspaper from the inside pocket of his clothes. Somewhere, just a short distance away, a dog started howling.
Unexpectedly for him, it has become dark to read. Lifting his eyes and looking back and aside, the old man found out that he was kind of wheeling in space at the same pose, as he was sitting a moment ago, but below him there were no more bench, no fountain, no square, no sun, and in fact nothing at all. Something transparent and fluorescent from its inside fluctuated over there right in front of his eyes, like a cloud with bright illumination lamp hidden deep in the middle of it.
- What are you? – The Oldman was curious, being lost to fear, which seemed to him the most astonishing thing.
- I am – just an Essence.
- Where are we? – The interchange with apprehensions took place wordless, and everything seemed to be amazing and wonderful to that Oldman.
- We are in my universe.
- Please tell me what's going on? - trying to be polite, the Oldman still insisted on explanation.
- It’s simple, I just loved you so much, - the Essence soughed, - that I managed to stay next to you instead of enjoying the Doldrums together with similar and like creatures. I always was within a call through all your life.
- Why didn’t I see you? – The Oldman was surprised without an evident reason, - why?
- My universe and your lower world are isolated from each other, and come into contact only during the state of transition.
- Why do I see you now? – The indifference suddenly crowded upon him.
- Because your time has come. We’ll be together very soon. Well, now so far forever.
- You say that all the time you have been at my hand, which means you have been watching all my life. Can you judge if I behaved correctly, or if I made plenty of mistakes? What will become along with my Soul now? – The Oldman didn’t know, if it was important or not, but these words emerged of their own accord in his consciousness, slowly fading away.
- There are no such things of apprehension in my universe as you’ve just recited, - the Essence exhaled. – Something that you name as a soul in the lower world, as a matter of fact, is nothing but a bundle of energy and it is missing whatever feeling or sensation. We can experience emotions only by means of connection to a living medium. I know, how much you were concerned when after the school leaving party your classmate perished while defending a girl from an ugly drunk band. You were able to help him, but turned coward, and later said that you ran to for help. Together with you I was conscience-stricken when you got married to the very same girl, but then you told everybody that you did it in remembrance of the deceased friend. I know that your grief was genuine and sincere, when your wife died under the wheels of a huge truck dashed against the bus stop. You managed to leap aside, but she remained standing still, looking at the opposite side. But in fact, you could save your wife if only you had pulled her after yourself. Not always you did right choice, and that’s all about what I can tell you.
- Why didn’t you stop me, nor forced to change a decision, to behave differently? – A nasty freezing chillness passed running the Oldman’s dorsum several times there and back.
- You had a chance, but you missed it, - the answer occurred twisty.
- I never believed in omens, but those signs, which I noticed over and over again – was it you, who gave them to me?
- I just loved you so much, that is why... I wanted to feel and sense all those things once more; - the Essence was riding off over and over on a side issue.
- May I start everything from the very beginning to correct mistakes? – It seemed that the Oldman tried to grasp at a straw.
- You had a chance, but you missed it. If only you were more attentive to my signs, then you could even have spent your life from a new angle, or let’s say, to redeem previous mistakes at least, but not now, you can’t buy a stairway to Heaven, - finally the Essence accomplished its conception.
- You have just told me that you don’t feel anything, but you itself have repeated several times already that you loved me. How about you to understand? – It sounded as if the Oldman decided to catch it at least with something.
- This is an atavism. Can you imagine that I occurred to be such an Essence since some time ago, not always? I loved you at that time, when I was used to be a living creature. We are hindered from remembering, who we were in the previous nature, or in the previous life, as you people have a custom to denominate that condition. But my love given to you was so much strong, that its resonance survived in my energetic substance.
- Mama, I can’t believe it, is that you?! – The last energy became leaking from the material body of the Oldman, his thoughts commenced melting and messing about. It seemed to him that all his life glimpsed through his mind, starting with the five-year old age, when suddenly the boy became an orphan in a few moments.
- It could be so, nobody will tell you this indeed now, even supreme beings. For them we are all «as like as two peas», notwithstanding that such a determination doesn’t fit the description of the character of an energetic substance. We even don’t have any names over here.
- Does the Kingdom of Heaven exist, and what the Hades is? Where shall I find myself? – Spontaneously, these matters became vital for a dying Oldman.
- People, mildly speaking, reflect not exactly and not in a correct manner those apprehensions, which you have rehearsed. The place, which you name as the Kingdom of Heaven, - here it is, we belong to it. This world is separated from the planet of people with some thin ephemeral diaphragm, having nevertheless, perfect reliability and elasticity. Nobody can accidentally or intentionally break through it before his prescribed hours, in order to get in here or at least to peep. People anyway do not see us, which means that we are permitted to travel between the worlds easily. We are not allowed just to interfere into human affairs and behavior. That is why I could only give you some signs and hints. But I can assure you that such devoted creatures as me are very few on the Earth. Through your whole life I did not meet any substance in that territory, where you lived. All of us prefer to travel freely along any fine sphere. Alternatively to terrestrial lower world my universe goes without any frames of hours or space. You will expressly walk here; otherwise our two selves would not have possibility to commune each other.
- What about my sins? People say «the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak», - more likely, that was the last-ditch effort of typical human consciousness to turn the colloquium into controversy.
- Where did the human logic disappear when they described the Hades? The Kingdom of Heaven, as well as the earth atmosphere, at least is somehow similar to that space where we inhabit. To say that we are located in the sky is stupid, because pure and simple sky does not exist. This is a pattern. The Hades, again in your language, is nothing but entrails of the planet where nobody is able to exist because no one of us wants to be over there. Will you tell me what this is? What are sins, which don’t allow immortal airborne soul to soar? This is a weakness of energetic substance. The weak electric field can't abandon the physical cocoon. And those were humans themselves, who invented the method of burying their deceased compatriots under the ground. There you go and drudge before the capsule decays finally with the meanwhile release of the energy. And this process may take eternity, in case if to express myself with your words.
- So simple! – The last gasp of the Oldman tumbled out of his mouth.
- Alas, non possumus to disclose this simple truth to living human beings. On the other hand, we’ll be together now and forever. I hope you don't care if I do travel now together with you along the Doldrums.
Two clouds raised from the bench toward indefinite direction; they were light, invisible, weightless, more similar to transparent gauze but having certain oval and torn shapes. Nobody noticed their movement, so far as it occurred to be volatile. The body of that Oldman was discovered by his relatives two hours later. It was occupying the same seat on the bench, and keeping the same pose taken by the person for reading, only his head sank lower than it should be. People walked around the public gardens. Trees softly murmured with their foliage above their heads. In the center of the square the fountain roared with tender flows, and the empty benches kept the perimeter defense staying round it. (2004)