Chapter 2

Handsome man

A handsome man was looking at me.

If it hadn't been for his eyes—the windows of the soul—I might have looked at him differently. I might have admired his expensive suit, his necklace, perhaps even said something.

But his eyes told me enough.

I automatically looked away, thinking about the next bus or train.

The Ten-Cent Coin

Yesterday, at work, I was writing a story about magic during the Second World War.

I had only a few minutes, so I wrote on a piece of paper and folded it before putting it into my pocket. Then I went back to work.
Later, I reached into my pocket to continue writing.
The paper was gone.
I checked my pockets again. I looked around me, under the things on my worktable, and everywhere I could think of. Nothing.
Then I noticed something else in my pocket.
A ten-cent coin.
I stared at it.
The coin was supposed to be in the little bin where we kept our work pens. I had no idea how it had gotten into my pocket.
For a moment, I just stood there holding it.
Then I looked into the box in front of me—the box I had been working with.
And there was my paper.
It was lying there as if it had never disappeared at all.
I picked it up and looked at the words I had written about magic.
I smiled.
Perhaps there was a simple explanation. Perhaps the paper had slipped from my pocket, and the coin had somehow followed the opposite path.
Or perhaps not.
I kept the ten-cent coin.
After all, when you are writing about magic, you learn not to ignore small things.
Sometimes magic does not arrive with thunder or a bright light.
Sometimes it is only a missing piece of paper...
and a ten-cent coin.

1.

В танце далеком

Ты ворон, шаман,

Сверкает звезда под луною.
Ты мой капитан, ты мой капитан,
Иду я в даль за тобою.
Зеркальный ли город,
Задумчивый стан.
В снегах заскрипели упряжки.
Любви капитан,
Царь из волшебной ты сказки.
Суровые ветры, степные цветы
Твоим заворожены танцем.
И смотоят они на тебя так как мы,
Не могут совсем оторваться.
Тайна волшебная, скорость минут.
Шаман или ворон, не знаю.
Я знаю лишь только,
Вдруг ветер умолк,
Ты птицей и в танце летаешь.

Woman and war.

She was young and beautiful, graduated from school and had all plans put together for the new chapter of her life in mastering what people "healing with witchcraft". She was only a woman in her family and her "road" was designed for her before she was born.

"Go to university first", - her father, warlock himself, said. He was educated himself, and proper education, this what he admired first. People without proper spiritual cleaning, education, even good talkers, meant nothing to him. He was old fashioned and high in his magic position and opinion.

Oh bella ciao.

War united them... Second World War united people who would never met in the real life. And twisted their lives in some strange magnificent circle where everything gets connected by invisible special power. When millions of personal stories becomes one and stay one may be forever.

 Four shining lights.

Snow, snow, snow… little flakes are drifting down on the road outside my window.

It is January. Dreamy hour at work again. This is what snowstorms create, quiet, romantic, unreal time when you want to think about far away moments, smooth, warm and cold like the weather outside and endless with all the dreams still where they are.

In falling snow, I always think of him.

Although we met in summer, snowflakes remind me of him more than sunlight ever could. Cold, distant, yet caring and strangely happy.

"Portals".

Chapter 1

Chocolate People

The old women seemed deeply troubled. The older they were, the more grief was etched into their faces. The eldest bit her lips, frozen in place, one hand covering her mouth.
They stood together in a small circle around a rectangular stone monument. The inscription told everyone that a village had once stood there, until it was burned to the ground by the Nazis during the Second World War.