– Please, Roman, do your best. We need this girl to stay alive, or her mother will chase me, – the lab boss asked.
And Roman really tried, but the girl seemed to be like a dense forest – the more he was persuading her, the more she was keeping distance. He was really handsome. She thought: “Oh, such a pretty doc…what if he had been my boyfriend…Yes, it’s really better to die than to stay here – with him physically, but not mentally”. The last session started – after a few training “trips” Alina was ready to make an attempt, to jump into eternity, to tempt her fate. All the wires were plugged in, hungry machines – ready to get new spiritual food, and Alina was slowly losing her memory, mind and soul forever. Roman looked sad, in such cases he was always singing. Suddenly one very old song crossed his mind. It was about the last day on Earth, about love, sorrow… and time for miracles. Straight after – one miracle happened. Alina, almost felt asleep, woke up, opened her eyes and stood up from the bed. Wires, droppers, plasters – all this scrub scattered on the floor.
– We were dancing, listening to this song with my ex-boyfriend, who left me, – she told slowly, – So, in the beginning I wanted to die… But your voice… I can listen to this song gor ages, if you sing it.
– Pretty wonderful, – he exclaimed, – Probably, your ex-boyfriend wanted to take your place?
– I don’t know. And don’t mind any more… – after this notice she fainted.
– Oh, sheet, – Roman sighed, but it was too late to take any action.
Next day he saw a new angel, shining brighter than others. He saw her often since then and noticed that she was the first spirit singing. Fortunately, Alina pushed the evolution forward, starting a new kind of air creatures – unlike ordinary angels with white wings, hers were golden. The best graduate of Angel’s Factory. Oh, as I told this story was funny… and it really was. The point was that the same day Roman got the first government order – one thousand of golden angels – for the special kind of job: to represent the society in the Universe and to protect its boarders. One more accident was leading to one more stupid inquiry.
– Government order… – he repeated and started laughing, – The humanity is so funny: one step forward, one hundred of steps back, really!
Then he asked for a few hours to think, closed the door and made himself the injection of slow-acting poison. Very quickly he inserted the complicated combination in the machine controlling program, cut most of wires, increase the electrical tension and laid down on the bed. In just ten minutes all the machines exploded, destructing ambitious human plans. The same time one more golden angel appeared, the second – and the last one. Since then he was always trying to catch up the first one, but no success. Like perpetuum mobile they were moving one by one, non-stop, and soon – to see them “dancing” this way became the good omen for every creature. They were reminding the humanity of its most stupid mistakes and at the same time bringing hope and joy to this multifaceted world…
Thirteen Fallen Snowflakes
Prologue
Many years ago there was a warm climate on our planet; so that people didn’t celebrate winter holidays, because snow never flew. A bright constellation, consisted of thirteen cold stars, was seen high in the sky every night. In a small European village there lived a nice curious girl called Alice. During many years she had been dreaming of winter times that would come soon to the Earth, and composed poems devoted to the Snowflake constellation. This girl was so different from the others, and her songs were so wonderful that even the cold stars slowly began to melt down. One ordinary December day the whole constellation disappeared and only thirteen miniature snow-flakes fell down to the surface of the Earth. They found Alice and told her thirteen Christmas stories before the last snowflake died in the warm air. Since then every December a lot of snowflakes cover the Earth, and in honor of fallen therteen Snowflakes every spring they melt down. Alice collected all the stories, but she didn’t have children, and then this manuscript was lost. Some pieces of mysterious thirteen stories passed from generation to generation and had been kept for us in this book.
Short story #1. The Christmas cake.
It was 22nd of December and Lina, as usual in the evening, was sitting in old brown armchair near the large window. This girl was twenty-two years old and, while studying in technical institute, she had to live in squalid hostel in the outskirts of Hamburg. Lina’s parents, although they were divorced, lived in Elmshorn, where the girl spent her happy and carefree childhood. One day her strict parents decided that their daughter needed good technical education, so they sent her to a big modern city, against girl's will. But it was ordinary for Lina to trust her parents; so she flew to Hamburg and studied technology there. It was the last year of her education and Lina was thinking of better life in another city and in different conditions. This evening was a rare moment, when the girl was alone in the whole room, so she could dream and write something in her small diary. By the way, Lina was drawing on the pages of a notebook much more often than writing lines of poem. She was the great dreamer, and her dreams, broken by reality, found their embodiment on the sheet of paper.
Lina was drawing for half an hour, and her last picture was almost finished. On the twenty-second page of her diary there was the sketch of young and handsome man. He had bright hazel eyes, straight nose and curly fair hair. Every touch of this portrait was so realistic, that the man even seemed to breath and move, smile and whisper, while Lina was looking at him. Finally, the masterpiece was ready, and Lina sighed heavily. Once she used to know this boy; they grew up in Elmshorn together, and their houses stood side by side. Lina was only five, when she was spending time with thirteen-year old Garz, her neighbor. Lina’s parents were busy those days, earning money to live on. So they often left their small daughter with Garz, who had some spare time after ballet school lessons. Garz was usually dancing and rehearsing one of his performances, while Lina was sitting and looking at him with admiration. He didn’t seem to be handsome or attractive at this age; he was a little bit funny and odd like many schoolboys. But there had always been a shade of unforgettable charm in his words and movements. Sometimes Garz tried to teach Lina several steps or took her to the dancing class, and she was really happy with her “elder brother” as Lina mentally called him.
After two years, Lina went to school, and Garz, the best pupil in the ballet class, began to take part in his first serious performances. Soon his family moved to another city, and he even wrote her rare friendly letters. However, Garz was very talented dancer; so he had a lot of work, and soon he got a million of offers from worldwide theaters and famous shows. Gradually, he forgot about casual little girl, because of new admirers. Meanwhile, Lina was studying at school and didn’t hear any news about Garz. She didn’t even know his whereabouts and activities. A few years passed and one day, sitting in the cinema and watching one of the most popular modern films, Lina saw familiar face on the screen. Some minutes later she understood that it was Garz, but no longer simple-hearted and insignificant boy. It was twenty-two year attractive man with shining smile, hypnotic eyes and fantastic appearance. Lina fell in love with this man from the first sight, like many fifteen-years old girls, and every minute she was thinking about Garz. As she understood from the TV news he was living in New York, blinded by the rays of fame, and was not going to return to Germany. A few times Lina tried to find his address or any other contact, but it was a secret information; so all that she could do was just to write letters to his official Fan Club. Certainly she wrote not once and not twice; Lina sent her letters almost every month, but there was no reply. Only cold silence…
