LITMIR.BIZ

      Part I. LOVE ME NOW!

      0. Bonfire

      I walked for a long time somewhere far away, in an endless thick fog, until I suddenly came upon a Man.

      “I’m sorry,” I apologized, trying to move on, but realized there was someone there, too.

      “Follow me,” the Man said.

      “What do you mean?” I asked.

      “The queue…”

      “What are you queuing for?”

      “Everyone gets their own.”

      “And how long do we have to wait?”

      The Man shrugged. The queue moved a little further. I began to distinguish some voices.

      “Do you know what is there?” I asked.

      “I don’t know,” the Man replied indifferently. “They say, there is the City of the Sun beyond the fog. However, not everyone can reach it.”

      “Are you from the City of the Sun?”

      “I don’t think so,” the Man grinned. “More likely, from the Land of Dreams’ Dungeon.”

      The queue moved forward a little.

      “So, are you an atheist?” I supposed.

      “Not anymore,” he sighed.

      Suddenly, a girl of about five years old emerged from the fog. She ran between us and immediately disappeared.

      “Are the kids in the queue, too?” I wondered.

      “I guess so,” the Man replied and shrugged.

      The Girl emerged from the fog again, but from the other side. For a moment she stopped next to us and then turned to me.

      “There’s a cat waiting for me there! And who is waiting for you?”

      “I don’t know,” I shrugged.

      “Weird!” the Girl said thoughtfully. “There must be someone waiting for you! If there was no one waiting, you wouldn’t be here!”

      I smiled, and the Girl disappeared in the fog at once.

      Soon we reached a bonfire on the side of the road.

      “Well, we can relax until morning,” the Man said.

      A shadow of a woman separated from the fire and approached me and the Man.

      “Join us!” she suggested.

      The Man and I sat down by the bonfire. How many of souls were there? Anyway, I couldn’t count, Mr. Fog clearly didn’t want us to see each other …

      “What are they throwing into the bonfire? There is no wood at all!” I asked the Man in a whisper.

      “Stories!” he smiled.

      “And you both will definitely tell us yours, too,” the Woman smiled, handing cups of tea from a thermos to me and my neighbor.

      “What for… tea and thermos?!” I asked the Man, without ceasing to be surprised at what was happening, when the Woman left for the fog.

      “It’s more familiar,” the Man answered calmly, and at the same moment a sad female voice sounded out of the fog.

      “He told me, ‘See you tomorrow!’…” I heard it and regretted I had nothing with me to write down the stories thrown into the bonfire by ghosts that night …

      But… if I ever come back…

      1. See you tomorrow!

      Natasha adored the theater since childhood and went to premieres almost every weekend. A tall, slender, blue-eyed blonde, with an uncommon power to attract men, she had just graduated from the best Theatre Institute and decided to devote herself to the stage. Late autumn, Natasha played her first major role. Tired but happy, she was walking to the dressing room, when suddenly someone caught up with her and took by the hand.

      “Congratulations! You were great!” Sergey, the theatre director, said enthusiastically.

      “Thank you,” Natasha replied calmly. “I don’t like compliments. See you tomorrow!”

      …Sergey returned home and, as soon as he crossed the threshold, he heard the usual words.

      “Try walking in my shoes! I’m so tired of your nightly returns!”

      “We had a premiere tonight. You knew about it. I offered you to come, but you refused! Natasha was amazing! A really talented actress. Not what I thought of her.”

      “That bitch must have already confessed her love to you, and you hung up your ears, idiot!”

      “Don’t talk like that,” he asked wearily.

      “The theatre became everything to you! You care as hell for me and our son! You live your own life in which there is no place for us! And you appear and disappear like a ghost!”

      “You’re wrong,” Sergey tried to argue.

      “I’m right! Theatre is an entertainment for idlers, a waste of time! Lazybones! You adore doing nothing, and the theatre is your shelter!”

      Sergey silently turned around and walked off into the night.

      …It was snowing outside. Immersed in heavy thoughts, he wandered along the road, wherever his eyes looked.

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