Тёмная Башня. Dark Tower. Премия им. Э. Т. А. Гофмана / E.T.A. Hoffmann award (Билингва: Rus / Eng)

«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 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…

Suddenly I felt someone’s gaze on me. I turned around and saw an Angel.

«Hello,» I whispered. «Have you come for me?»

«Yes,» he nodded.

«The bonfire stories are still going on,» I tried to protest, as I felt cozy in the fog that hid the faces of the storytellers, and I was about to share my own.

«Don’t be upset!» the Angel smiled as he read my mind. «The bonfire won’t go out for a long time, and stories will follow each other until the last soul leaves the Earth. Now you have to go.»

I looked at the Man. For some reason, I didn’t want to say goodbye to him.

«Well, go,» he patted my shoulder. «I’ll find you later.»

«In the City of the Sun or in the Land of Dreams?»

«Wherever it is written in the Tablets,» the Man sighed.

The Angel held out his hand to me, and we walked away from the bonfire.

«Where are we going?» I asked.

«To the Chancellery.»

«What about the queue? Or…»

«No… however, there are exceptions to every rule.»

We stepped abruptly out of the fog and found ourselves on the outskirts of the City, flooded with the Sun, at the entrance to a skyscraper. I noticed several angels bypassing the queue to lead inside the souls guarded by them. We followed them in. The Angel asked me to wait for him on a bench at the ajar door to the Courtroom, next to others like me waiting something out of turn.

«What a pity,» sighed the Boy sitting to my right.

«Pity? For what?» I decided to clarify.

«We are here and not there,» he answered sadly.

«Why?» I asked, not understanding what he meant. «And where is „there“?»

«I want to be an angel,» the Boy sighed again. «„There“ means in the general queue. And we are here… There is almost no chance to become angels from here.»

«Why not?» I wondered, still understanding nothing.

«My grandma used to say that all children leaving the Earth become angels. Outside the queue, only exceptions are served.»

A devil’s head popped out of the Courtroom.

«Shit! What the Hell are you talking about?! Shut up you both, exceptions! In this Hall, the most interesting begins! And I can’t hear a damn thing because of your chatter!»

«I’m awfully sorry,» I whispered apologetically and involuntarily walked over to the ajar door.

The Moonlight Sonata was playing there, the lights were dimmed. Frozen in anticipation, the judges were ready to listen. The left bowl of Libra tilted almost to the limit, although it contained only one scroll of jubilant demons. Images from the earthly life of yet another soul started projecting on the screen…

What I heard in the Courtroom was shocking, but…

«It’s time to go,» it sounded from behind me.

I turned around and saw my Angel.

«To the Courtroom?» I asked to clarify.