We, people, have deliriously difficult problems in interacting with Edge-runners. Some humans call them funny small frames. Not all of us even know about their existence. Most of people write off any strange occurrences of them per optical illusion, and some of us attribute them to a category of miracles. Well, for instance, I had a chance to peep a turn in the amusement park one day. There was a kid about four years old staying in the middle of an alley who surprisingly looked all around, as if seeking to distinguish something invisible or imponderable. The children’ sensitivity level is much higher than of adults.
Mother of an astonished little boy seemed to notice nothing at all, and kept sitting on a bench and discussing some regular Mexican soap opera to another mammy. As for me, I immediately guessed that something unusual should happen next moment, and stood motionless nearby, slightly covered with a tree stem from the eyes of the closest relaxing public. The behavior of the child spoke for the Edge-runner’s presence, and the invisible appearance of the latter conversely suggested that some funny thing needs to happen at the moment, and particularly with the participation of this very boy. I stretched my perception towards the kid and sensed floating vibration, as it was a hula hoop revolving round his waist, just made of air instead of metal or plastic.
The Edge-runner was over there, it moved round and round, and in the center of imaginative ether circles the little one stood helpless and stone still, barely lost and eyes gazed into a vacant space alongside, allegedly trying to get the vision of something that he assuredly felt. I understood perfectly well that it was an inopportune moment to interfere or to start mental conversation at this point, because the Edge-runner anyway would not settle for a contact before the conceived agenda got done. And, of course, I made no doubt that a small frame wouldn’t undertake anything bad.
Next second, I experienced some spanking ambiance fluctuation and my peripheral vision caught a motion from the direction of a pond shifting to our occupied corner. I screwed my head round and noticed rather big pedigree canine, either Pit-bull, or Staffordshire terrier, which had been approaching to us in stretchy leaping. I don’t think that the dog was intentionally set, most probably, it was scared and did a scoot from the source of its panic. The cur coursed on the straight route, doubtless tracing itself to the quickest way finishing point about the end of the alley. The only obstruction on its line was a man-cub, too short to be feared of, so the dog even did not try to change its motion pattern into more sophisticated one. Making no bones about a kid the hound jumped on. I really heard the chaps of the beast snapping, as it had an intention to clear its own pathway according to the law of jungle. But that day was not the animal’s day, because one soft-hearted Edge-runner came up with the boy, interposing between them at the best accurate moment.
The little human plopped onto the asphalt surface softly and absolutely painless landing on all four limbs, as he were stumbling, exactly a split second before the dog’s jaws pulled level with his face. The hound clutched atmosphere with its teeth and flew over in a racing frisk little more than estimated without meeting any hindrance, which it had been going to crush by such a broad chest. That is why during landing it began to mince with paws and slightly got out of time changing from gallop to quick jog-trot. Anyway, the dog reached the end of the alley without a backward glance just gradually slowing down its walk, then it stopped over there and turned the whole body in our direction.
I don’t know how much time the poor animal would have needed for understanding of what had happened, but the canine’s master called ‘front and center!’ exactly from that point of space where the beast had aspired to arrive, and it began jogging joyfully to accept an invitation leaving behind that transient adventure. None of men and women paid attention to this incident, except for one old lady occupying the bench on the opposite side from chattering mums and my shelter. The granny managed to shout on the heels of bad doggy, like, ‘where do you wing your way through the air and why do you send humans flying’, to dress down the canine’s owner in a sort of ‘such type of curs shouldn’t be let out without a muzzle’, and to advise baby’s mother that ‘it is necessary to keep an eye on children’. But since the boy had already risen and dusted down by that time without any taint of bitterness against the dog, his mom considered the careful oldie to be an old goat and returned to an animated conversation with her interlocutory partner breathing no word to the address of the odious babushka.
The whole episode, from the very moment when I had noticed confusion of the infant and till this such a happy end, took at most ten seconds. Being hopeful that hero is still about here, a short distance away, I have accelerated to speak to him, because I haven’t got any opportunity for setting a contact to the Edge-runner for such a long period of time, seeing that almost five years passed since my latest trip to India. But alas! I was late, I could find no trace of him yet.
The Edge-runners reside next to us, if the expression may be tolerated, here, on earth, but in another parallel world. In their dimension time slips past millions times faster than in ours, for this reason chance for the intersection and communication is negligibly small. We, humans, even having some uncanny ability and certain expertise cannot speed up physically up to the rapidity of their world. Only few of us have got a natural gift of accelerating mentally through the time substance as far as it becomes possible to come up with an Edge-runner and pull level with him, and thus to keep up a telepathic rapport shortly. In their turn, the Edge-runners cannot physically slow down to our state, since for them – this is the mode of almost absolute rest, in terms of human comprehension – it is death.
Their universe is so much fast-moving in comparison with ours that we can’t see it, and we remain invisible in optical sense for theirs. Both worlds have been evolving differently, though specific similarity with respect to stages of development can be observed, but where we needed million years their every step occurred kind of momentarily (of course, if you recalculate these moments against the speed of our chronology, then the same millions appear). Both races are very unlike, thorough and thorough, exactly because of paradoxical timing difference, yet at the same time our worlds have something in common – it’s a space, which we constantly occupy together.
Even though, there is a certain creature that finds itself perfectly comfortable in either of each universe. Actually it prefers living in the kingdom of the Edge-runners, but anyway it possesses that uncanny ability, which allows physically slowing down to our time flow, and then fresh legends about the Dragons appear in various folklore arts of the earth nations.
The researchers of this universe still fail to obtain any material evidence of the Dragons existence; for this reason they have no opportunity to trace detailed analysis of bones or tissue and make plausible summary on the matter, such as for instance conclusions on life and death of dinosaurs. Except that giant lizards extincted many millions years ago they nevertheless had been animals populating this planet, which means they left tracks of their presence on the Earth.
Consequently, we can’t be of the opinion that the Dragons are defined as another specie of dinosaurs, the more especially as the scientists argue that dinosaurs disappeared long before man springing like homo sapience. So, where the Dragons come from, how they have been rising in folklore of European nations, who is Gorynych Dragon Snake, the famous character of Russian fairy tales, and where is the source of the Dragons flickering adoration by all Oriental cults? My knowledge in respect of this subject is drawn not from our books but from communication to the Edge-runners.
That time I showed up in India by no accident. In my home town I was spotted by the Hindu, experienced Fakir, Yogi, and Maharishi, at the moment when I sporadically and completely unwittingly geared the Edge-runner’s mind and built the millisecond rapport. The Guru happened to stay nearby by chance and he became a witness of my personal discovery. Then he initiated my invitation to India and played the role of my escort and mentor over there.
India – it is wonderful and mysterious country. When I arrived over there, main local sights of that small town hidden in the jungle were elephants, fakirs, street dancers, temples, and dragons. Any newcomers appear around here seldom or never, for this reason hotel business is not in a great demand in this place. In case if any visitor gets here indeed, then he is logged in a house of person, who invited the one. So typically I was accommodated in the humble dwelling of my host party. It was a genuine cabin without any distinct geometrical configuration, as sure as it is habitually described in geographic textbooks, earthen walls with roundish corners under peaked roof of reed. The interior decoration of the commodious, but still single room, impressed with its austerity and bewitched me by the collection of vintage folios and artifacts, which “pearl” was the Dragon’s tooth. Seriously, from the first sight I rather dropped a hint of doubt and expressed my assumption to the proprietor that it was a dinosaur’s ivory, probably, even from tyrannosaur. But he shook his head as a token of negation with a cunning simper and shared a story about rebellious Dragon, who emerged in the lower world directly above this town couple of decades ago and resisted flying away in spite of prohibition. The Edge-runners had to take pretty of effort that time, and in the rage of “battle” the Dragon lost its tooth. My Guru picked it up and kept. Perhaps, it was a young dragon, the cabin’s owner summarized.
I was so much impressed with all this diversity that I would never forget it, and especially that very day, which left behind an exclusive memory trace. The first remarkable character whom I met in the street was an old man – a street vendor with a trolley, which was made in the form of a large wooden wheeled box. This small-scale pedlar with a broad white smile approached to me and started to speak in the rubbish English language offering to buy some original Indian perfume named “Japanese garden”. I picked at a pink bubble, found out that, really, the inscription “Made in India” was printed on its base, and immediately gave the perfume back to the graybeard.
His capacious trolley attracted my attention more than its content, so I asked the street vendor in Russian: «Ñêîëüêî áóäåò ñòîèòü, åñëè òû ïîâîçèøü ìîè âåùè âåñü äåíü?». By rather confused expression of the Hindu’s face I understood that he made nothing of my words. Oh, I missed the fact that he tried to communicate with me in English, so I hastened in correcting my negligence: “Sorry, how much will it cost if you work for me…” but time failed me hardly finishing the phrase when the old man changed his countenance and with the proud head-up launched his trolley into the opposite side. I wished to bite the tongue, so I began long and extensive apology. The street vendor forgave me quickly and gladly started to narrate about the Dragon’s visits. ‘Once the Dragon sufficiently stayed in the sky over the small town so much long that all the dwellers came running and enchanted kept watching over its pirouettes’, he said. ‘That day, the battle between the Dragon and the Phantoms broke out on earth, on water, and in atmosphere. Everything was over as suddenly as it commenced’, he summarized.
With the last line pronounced by the street vendor, wide concentric circles emerged heaven high over the local temple, and the Dragon’s head came into sight from their center. Everything that I “saw” further was beyond the reach of a human eye. Someone shuffled a lasso on the Dragon’s neck from behind and pulled it right back. So swiftly the patrol of the Edge-runners operated. (2005)