Blessed are those who believe

Too bad he was an atheist. God! He wanted this so badly – to be able to go in the church, find the priest and confess. He needed someone to say to him:

“My child, you are forgiven.”

This was not fair. This was cruel.

Too bad he was an atheist. Now it was all up to his conscience and no one knew better than him – the fucking bastard had no mercy.

Verdict

It felt as if an earthquake made the heavy icings break and pierce through her unresisting body.

"You have changed."

She wasn't sure if that meant she's dead or what.

Night ride

It seemed as if we've been driving for ages now and the darkness outside made me deluded. I was struggling to keep my eyes open and my mind clear, feeling somehow certain that the second I lose control over my senses, the man beside me will do the same and we will crash.

The headlights cut a small, some thirty meters long, world of dreamy reality in the emptiness around us. It always looked the same. The narrow road and the grass and leaves on the sides, trembling in the light for a moment before disappearing in the nothingness again. We knew we were lost.

He pulled over and stopped the engine. We looked at each other and stepped outside of the car.

The air was cool and I trembled.

My eyes began to adapt to the sight around me. The world was slowly getting bigger. I could see the stars, the mellow moon and the hills around. The grass was leaning gently, caressed by the wind. I could hear the soft sound of everything out there that existed... despite me?

I felt as if someone pushed the mute button of the world I knew, made the walls and borders disappear. For the first time since... I didn't remember when... I felt I was out there and a part of it all. I started smiling.

"You can feel it too, can't you?"

The man in the boat

This one deals with the idea of "letting things happen in a natural way". It always seemed to me that it's natural to act like that. Let us, though, convey an experiment.

Think of rafting. I put a man in a boat in a river and try to state some questions about the "natural" aspect of his actions.

I assume we neglect the fact that it's not quite natural for a man to go down a river ("down" is natural in this case, "in a river" bothers me), even though it's natural for a boat to be in the water.

Now, think of the man. What should he do? Is it natural for him to let the river do its natural job and take him to wherever the natural laws of physics command?

Maybe. He could also try and paddle, leading the boat to a chosen direction. Or try and crush it in the rocks instead.

The decision seems to depend on the knowledge the man has of the river and the effect of paddling. Or rather, it depends on what the man thinks he knows, as it should be clear, complete knowledge is impossible.

There is one important observation. The "man trying to understand the flow of the river" is too similar to "me trying to understand the man". I stop any further investigations till I know how natural they are.

Want some coffee?

Roses

Roses on my balcony. Three by one meters of artificial garden. The roses are real, though.

The fortress

Some say history is a sequence of events. I say life is in between them. Change does not happen suddenly, men are too inert for that.

It's been months since the fortress fell under our enemy's last attack. Some say we lost then. I say it was then when we started losing.

We used to be strong. That same night when everyone knew that we were doomed, we were still strong and had strong belief. We had our glorious past and the brave determination to walk into the future with our heads high and if we had to, to die.

I look into my men's eyes now and I frown. We have forgotten everything. We thought we had nothing to fight against and let an invisible enemy crawl inside. Fear and despair caught us off-guard. Losing is a process.

There has to be a way to stop that. We need to find a way to gather the shredded pieces of our hopes and build ourselves a new fortress. A fortress for out hearts. A home for our souls. A new belief for our future. Winning is a process. It just has to begin.

Wish list paradox

It all begins with a magic lamp in the attic of a man's house. I think we all know what follows.

The guy gets everything he wanted. Stories tend to stop at this point but no, this one won't. There is a question I need to ask: What happens when there is nothing left to long for?

It all ends with a magic lamp.

Let him live, please. Let him mutter a last wish to the lamp.

"Give me back my dreams!"

It all begins when you throw the magic lamp away.

A stamp of mine

Do you know the Philatelist? A sulky, grumpy man. Some say he used to have the biggest collection around. Then his wife left him because he seemed to love his stamps alone.

People are strange. They hated him before because he was spending too much time on something that everyone thought was pointless. Now they hate him because he mindlessly destroys his priceless collection. Everyday he writes a letter to his wife and puts yet another stamp on the envelope.

I wonder what he feels. The thing that hurt his wife was the only thing he could give her. The only thing he had. Now he didn’t want it any more.

I’m confused. What is valuable? What is important? And when did he know he loved her?

Deja Vu

I was almost running.

Today. Today I had to have it done.

Half way up I started panicing. I remembered the flames. Red and yellow, orange with shades of green and blue and purple where the fire touched the ceiling. Till then I never knew this sight could be so fascinating.

I started gasping. I tried to walk slowly. My face was burning.

Here it is. The door. I knew what was on the other side, why was I afraid to see it?

Come closer, my dear. Come closer. Open it.

I could see them again - snow white embers.

I let go of the door handle. No.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will be ready.

On truth

We all are versions of truth. We meet where our beliefs intersect.

A house on the tree

A small river passed by this tree and we used to play in the pools, laugh and lay in the shadow of the crown. They changed the direction of the creek to water some fields. But trees are slow to forget and the roots still take in the moisture of memories. This one remembers the tickling of the sand between my toes and the splashes that made my dress wet no matter how hard I tried to prevent it. And as for me – I remember how to climb up and whisper with its leaves.

“I am alone again. And I should not fall as you have no arms to catch me.”

No tea for me today

A small pot with some water for tea
White fragile steam over it
I'm watching
Steam like stormy clouds
I'm watching
Bubbles that get furious
More furious as the water disappears
I'm watching
Still watching
Though there's nothing left there
Can you hear it?
No
Nothing to hear
Heat is silence
Like the silence of Sahara
But that's another story
I guess I should put it off
No tea for me today

Dragon

All started one stormy summer morning when two kids, sister and brother, were sitting in a small cave in the rocks by the sea, watching the big rain drops splash in the water. The sound of the storm added to the roar of the surf, making the world around echo in anger.

The kids were sitting together, their eyes open wide, screaming at each lightning, then laughing loud when the thunder came, counting the seconds between. Not much. The storm was over them.

They saw it together. An ideal egg-like stone, just as big as the little palm of the girl, black as night, blazing wet from the rain, glowing like a dark diamond every time a lightning struck. The kids looked at each other. Then the boy ran quickly outside and returned with the stone in his hands.

They made up the story together. This was a fire dragon egg. It was lost. And the dragons were angry and desperate. Their tears were the rain, their cries - the thunders, and the lightnings were their fire breaths. The kids had to take their child back home somehow. They were going to find a way!

The egg was placed in the cave, in a cozy nest of moss and seaweeds. Every morning the children came to see it, the girl sang, the boy defended it from imaginary elves and dwarfs. The kids spent the days flying kites, running on the shore by the water, screaming with joy, dreaming about the day when their dragon will take them and fly up in the sky, higher and higher and higher...

Every night when they managed to sneak away from bed they came back to the rocks. They stayed there, feeling the cool wind, breathing in the scent of the sea, looking up over the horizon trying to see a falling star. And when they did, they jumped and waved, hoping it will see them too. For that was a fire dragon coming back from his journey to the Sun. He had travelled a long way, fighting dreadful monsters, cold magic and his own exhaustion to take fire from the heart of the Sun and take it back to Earth. Back to his home in the Ocean. Somewhere there, deep down in the water, the dragons lived. They wrapped the fire like pearls and these were their eggs. Just like the one in the cave. It seemed it was washed away somehow to the shore. The kids were going to take it back.

One day they took the egg, got in a boat and started rowing into the sea. Far away from the shore, far away from the rocks. The sky was cloudy. It soon started to rain. The waves became higher and higher. There was nothing else around but water. The girl started to cry, the boy was pulling furiously at the oars, his face grim, trying not to show his fear. Then a lightning tore the sky.

They did not remember how they got to the beach. They woke up there and went home wet and sad. Days and nights they ran to the sea, crying out for their dragon. They knew he had returned to where he belonged - to the Ocean, and the Sun was calling him now.

I believe that finally he came.

To give them his fire.

Someplace

She had a small shop two hundred meters away from the Temple - the place where technology had captured the Angel of Space, as they called it - the thread that ran through their world and connected it to every place in this and all other Universes that their civilization knew.

She watched the passengers through the window. More and more every year. Stranger and stranger as time passed away just like them. Every one different. All of them the same. Coming or going. She was the only one standing still. Two hundred meters away from Everywhere. She was standing still. In her small souvenir shop.

Every piece she sold was made by her. That was how she lived - creating little miracles. Pieces of her soul. Those were her treasures, those and something else - her poems.

She wrote them sitting alone late in the evenings in her kitchen. Poems of space. Poems of time. Poems of all those worlds on the other side that she had never seen and no one had ever known. For she made up all of them. She didn't know what was beyond. She never asked, never wanted answers. Her only knowledge was her imagination.

The souvenirs that different strangers bought went away with them. Spreading little pieces of her across worlds. Taking her away bit by bit, threatening that one day there will be nothing left of her.

At the same time she was capturing the Universe in her poems. Place by place, world by world.

She was like the Temple she lived by. Standing still. Feeling everything passing through her. Falling into small pieces that slipped away. Putting herself together into a Universe of imagination. Standing still. And still always in motion.

"I dreamed of everything. I made up all the world. I put down all the stories in my head. I'm tired of being here. I need to go there for just once! I want to see what's beyond. I want it to be different from everything I thought about. I long for something to surprise me, something I never expected, something that's not mine, not in my mind."

The shop didn't open the next day. Of course, no one noticed.

Love story

Let me tell you about the most unusual love. She was 72, living in the suburbs of a big city, he was 78, had a small apartment at the other side of it. Every day he travelled for ages just to see her and have some tea at 5. Then he went back, letting her have her evening ghost session - letting her go back in the past, talking to her dead relatives. And all the time he just hoped for her to let him keep her here - in the presence. With him. While he was still alive, loving her.

One day he got on the bus and half way to her place felt his heart beat faster... then it stopped. She got worried when he didn't show up. When the sun started to go down, a pale image emerged in the vanishing light. He smiled. "So that was the way to really be with you". She had a new ghost in her cosy home and heart.

A ribbon for my hair

A little girl went into a store with colourful and shiny things. She saw a wonderful red ribbon, touched it and started giggling in amazement. It looked so pretty.

She ran out and couldn't stop running for a while. Then she stopped suddenly and turned back. When she entered the shop again the ribbon wasn't there. She asked the old woman behind the counter.

"It wasn't made for you, you know. You can't have it. It's gone."

The girl couldn't believe her ears. She held it in her hands for a while. It was cruel to take it away from her like that. "Not made for me. Not made for me..."

"If you want one for your hair, you need to give me something in exchange. Take this glass and come back when it's full of tears that have fallen from your eyes."

That was something, right?

The girl went back home and tried to think of something sad. Memories flooded her thoughts.

She's been crying for quite some time now. And the glass is almost full. She takes scissors and cuts her hair. Here are the tears she needed. She gets out, takes an autumn flower and puts it in the glass.

"Maybe my hair will grow again some day. Maybe I'll get my ribbon then. Or maybe I should put this flower behind my ear and run through the fields."

Dark Sci-Fi Horror Story

It's my last day here.

I think it's time to get frightened but I'm not. I haven't been frightened for years now. I knew what I was doing.

I live in a small world. Too small for all of us. The resources are limited so everything is calculated. I could state all the numbers that concern me. Number of calories I consume, volume of air I breathe, minutes of rest I deserve, area I occupy. And time I've earned to live. One day left.

It's an ever-improving evolution model that our society has gone into. Only the best have the right to live, so everyone is struggling hard to rank above the death-line percentage. All you do is evaluated and the more you achieve, the more life-credits you get. As for the system that says what is a "valuable achievement" - it is perfect! Too many people have worked on it and earned a lot of years in exchange for their perfect work. And we all know that what they've made is right, as all is been voted for. All people with a life-credit above five years have the right to vote for the way they are being judged for.

We all start even. We have no families. We grew like babies in lines and later got into an impartial system that made sure all got equal opportunities. After that it's up to the inner potential to get you ahead in time. It's all a matter of competitiveness. There's no emotion in evolution.

There's no evolution in emotion. I came to realize I didn't fit a long time ago. I grew to like some people. Most of them didn't understand it or tried to avoid it. I think I know why. The few that opened themselves to my feelings towards them are long dead now. Love won't earn you longer life. Even worse - the evidence shows it can't even make your life better. They have seen us suffer, so they know. Everything is measured.

It's only me that have felt the immeasurable. I tried to give my life-credits once. To die instead of someone else. They did not let me. It's not your right to say if you are valuable to society. Only the system can decide this. So you will live. She will die.

I stopped doing anything some time after that. Anything but research and writing against all this. I wonder if one day someone would see my choice to die as a final stroke to a gift to mankind. A gift that could make people better if they choose to take it. Or maybe my work is invaluable indeed.

I fear I might be the only one left that knows another way to evolution. I'm the only one that thinks all of this is ridiculous. I'm the only one that loves them. And tomorrow they will kill me.