Confession of a Ghost. 27. 14. Apples of Eris

“CONFESSION of a GHOST”
a novel by Alexandra Kryuchkova
in the “PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY” series

14 BEFORE/27 AFTER. HOUSE No. 11

*****APPLES of ERIS*****

***
Somewhere in the Universe


On the second floor of the Palace, instead of the expected Sun, I noticed two girls talking sweetly. The red-haired beauty looked like a princess from fairy tales, and the short brunette, seeing us with the Guardian, smiled enigmatically, took out an apple from her pocket and threw it … at me! I closed my eyes involuntarily, but the Guardian kicked me in the side,

“Catch!”

I opened my eyes and caught the apple, but just in case I decided to clarify,

“Shall I throw it back?”

“No way! It’s yours! Eat it later on Earth.”

The girls came up smiling and greeted me.

“Unexpected, huh, Rukh?!”

“Don’t be afraid of us!”

“What is this apple trick? Do I need to stock up on food in advance? Who are you? Friends of Pluto or Vindemiatrix?”

The brunette laughed, gestured for us to sit down in chic chairs at the round table, and then said,

“I’m much larger than Pluto, although being a dwarf planet, however, earlier on Earth they claimed that I was just an asteroid. My name is Eris, I have a phenomenal reflectivity, only Enceladus, Saturn’s satellite is brighter than me in the solar system. As for apples, I just like very much to throw them at people!” Eris laughed again. “Whoever catches one, well done!”

“In Greek mythology, Eris is the goddess of discord,” the Guardian commented. “At the wedding of Thetis, daughter of Zeus, with a mere mortal Peleus, she threw an apple with the inscription ‘To the Most Beautiful’, and Aphrodite, Athena and Hera rushed after it simultaneously. As a result, the Trojan War began, and the ill-fated apple was nicknamed ‘the apple of discord’. However, Eris did so with the permission of Zeus-Jupiter. There are no only bad or good planets, Eris is in charge of competition, stirring up the spirit of rivalry, she makes you compete. There is always the winner in any competition.”

“Aristotle considered me the basis of dialectics,” Eris added. “I contribute to the implementation of the law of Unity and Struggle of Opposites. Translated from Greek, my name has many meanings, such as fight, battle, struggle, enmity, discord, dispute, rivalry, competition. I point to the enemies-rivals as well. However, you can’t even pull a fish out of a pond without work. Development and achievements require a stimulus, and the spirit of competition is appropriate here.”

“Eris is a distant and slow planet, with a cycle of about 560 years. She stands above humanity looking coldly for the place to throw an apple. She has been in Aries for 120 years, so it’s not really appropriate to talk about personal manifestations. It’s not Eris that changes in the Sign, but the Sign accentuates its qualities, adjusting to her.”

“Warlike, even explosive competition is characteristic of the current age,” Eris clarified. “Aries is ruled by Mars, the god of war. They call me his companion. People tend to lose their heads. I have been in Aries since 1923, and in 1941–45 one of the most terrible wars on Earth took place. As Homer said, I’m rushing above the battlefields in a thirst for the blood of new victims. However, I prefer the spirit of social competitions that spanned entire countries.”

“So why did I have to catch the apple?” I asked, not understanding what my modest soul could have to do with the global age-old processes of militant Eris.

“I am located in a degree of quiet people,” Eris chuckled, “it’s easier for you to go with the flow and stay behind the scenes, and any challenge is a huge psychological problem. Instead of catching apples, you prefer to close your eyes. The task is to accept the challenge, otherwise we won’t succeed.”

“What are we supposed to succeed in?” I was surprised.

“Don’t hurry,” Eris smiled and exchanged mysterious glances with the red-haired princess, who hadn’t uttered a word. “The degree gives many difficulties and trials, nostalgia and painful attachment to the Past, longing, isolation, emigration, violent death and … reward.”

“In the Future,” I exclaimed, “in which I will no longer be! Sorry Eris, go on.”

“On the other hand, it’s a degree of occultists, astrologers, healers, people who deal with the Spheres and everything spherical, including soccer balls and apples. An analytical mind, the desire to improve, as well as the quality of Saturn to think a hundred times before doing anything.”

“According to the interpretation of the Silver Age stargazer Isidore Kosminsky,” the Guardian clarified, “the man on the mountain looks sadly at the valley below, where people are fighting over a sack of gold, and a monkey is eating their food. To the right of the man is the spirit of Truth, to the left is the spirit of Delusion, at the feet is the spirit of Love, and behind is the spirit of Hatred.”

“What does that mean, Angel?” I asked.

“A Teacher, who is tempted, but if he resists, he will look for a spark of Divine Light in every person to help it flare up, to lead people out of the Valley of Darkness, performing small, but real miracles. Overcome fear and shyness, catch the apple of Eris and go to the masses.”

“You must stand on the stage,” Eris smiled. “The Dragon head, your North Node, Rahu, is in the Royal degree in the House of Creativity. You have the Royal Star of Fomalhaut on the MC and…”

“What does your location in House No. 11 mean?”

“People for whom public opinion is nothing,” Eris stated. “Astrologers, inventors, revolutionaries, dissident emigrants. Giordano Bruno. Nikola Tesla. Vladimir Lenin. They will be remembered on Earth. But with my slowness, even the House of my location is not so important. Who do you think my companion is?”

“A princess. I don’t know, that was the first thought to come to my mind when I saw you both here.”

“You are a bit magician,” the princess laughed. “I’m Sirrakh, the star that many people called Princess. The controversial star, better known as Alpheratz. Alpha of Constellation Andromeda, the Head of Andromeda. I bring royal honors, wealth and good luck, having the properties of Jupiter, I give strength for victory, in your case, in conjunction with Eris and the Sun, popularity among the masses, but I can cause suicide or violent death, fall down from a height. Love can become an obstacle on your Path and…”

“Evil Pluto, it’s he who deprives me of the Sun.”

“I’m accented in passports of ‘flying’ people – the first American astronaut John Glen, who flew around the Earth; Galileo Galilei, the first to point a telescope at the stars, the writer Jules Verne, author of the novel ‘From Earth to the Moon’. Until 1928, I was considered to belong to two Constellations at once, including Pegasus, the patron of poets, the winged horse. My name in Arabic means horse’s belly button. I love freedom and speed in everything! Independence in actions and a flight of thought that takes your breath away!”

“Let’s sum up,” Eris smiled. “Our conjunction indicates in which area it’s necessary to catch apples in spite of fears. Aries is the first Sign of the Zodiac, the winner and the pioneer. One floor above, the Sun shines, your strongest planet, along with the Moon. Just don’t abuse your love of speed on Earth. The flight of thought has nothing to do with the earthly means of transportation.”


***
Library of the Universe


“Tell me, Angel, does what they told me about my car accident in the House of Death have something to do with Alferatz?” I asked in the Reading Hall.

“Many people with Alferatz returned from Earth ahead of schedule after accidents that usually occur at great speed. You don’t need to fear. Anyway, you’ll be shy like a bunny and backing up like a cancer. Oh, how many chances you’ll miss because of your shyness! You’ll feel somehow uncomfortable, then somehow else or…”

“Or you won’t kick me too hard in the side!” I chuckled.

“I’ll try to send you people who will take you by the hand to the right place at the right time, but it’s not as easy as you think. I need to negotiate with their Guardians in advance, organize your meetings. In brief, if you think it’s harder for you than for me, you are mistaken.”

“Eris has said that the Sun is my strongest planet, on a par with the Moon. So are they hostile to me?”

“No, they are very friendly. It’s a great opportunity, Rukh.”

“A chance for what?”

“To fulfill your destiny on Earth, not to escape prematurely. Don’t put off until tomorrow what can be done here and now.”

The book opened at the story “See you tomorrow!”. The protagonist, head of an experimental theater, fell in love with an actress, but confessed his love to her only when he was diagnosed with cancer.

““I promise you that since tomorrow,” she said slowly and clearly, as an oath, “all the following days will be the best of your life!”

Sergey left, singing some children’s song. He suddenly felt completely happy for the first time. They never saw each other again. That night he was hit to death by a car while crossing the road on his way home.”


*****LUNAR TROUBLES*****

***
Somewhere in the Mist


“Hi, Alice, come in, undress,” he smiled, opening the door of his flat. “Is it cold outside? Raining?”

I nodded, took off my jacket, left my umbrella, and we walked to the kitchen.

“Did you come to me as an official or…?”

“Official,” I replied calmly.

“Do I understand you correctly, the Writers’ Union knows that you have come to me to discuss this project?” he asked, turning on the kettle, sat down next to me, and I nodded. “So what do you want?”

“Last year, the director of Artist-TV contacted me and offered to make a joint project. As a result, I was the presenter, we filmed a series of TV shows called ‘New Faces of Modern Literature’. We can do several projects with you.”

“Why not. And we’ll promote you at the same time.”

“All this is…” I thought about the wording, but I couldn’t pronounce “mouse fuss” out loud.

It was dark outside the window, it was cold, and the plans of the rain, apparently, didn’t include at all getting away. He poured me some tea and put a cake on the table. We discussed the details.

“Do you like it there, with them? Don’t you regret leaving the business?”

“It’s like a service there, in the Writers’ Union. And ghosts live there.”

“The ghosts of poets? By the way, I liked your book about ghosts. And a story about your trip to Italy, ‘A photo film’, it seems. And the poem ‘The Trap’ that you read at the Central House of Writers. About the black rosary as the only thing left after you. You have grown up.”

“I make some corrections of my poems. For those who will find them later.”

“They will. They will surely find you already,” he sighed.

I was putting on my jacket when, without touching me, he said wearily,

“Stay here.”

I froze for a moment, but fragments of the Past flashed one after another. We were too different. It was no sense just like that.

“You’ll like it,” he repeated calmly, without any emotions and again somehow devastated, leaning against the wall.

“Admit that he did a lot for you,” came the voice of Ray, who was calmly watching the scene from the side.

“I agree. I helped people as much as possible too. Everyone who helps each other on the Path will definitely be rewarded.”

“You say so because you made your choice in the Past and left. But, if now you could change the Past in that fragment, wouldn’t you stay?”

“If I had stayed, it wouldn’t have been me, Ray.”


***
Moscow


I scanned the last box with the recordings of TV shows on various channels I was invited to. I didn’t advertise them much.

“Modesty and fear, Alice, are not the best companions of life on Earth. Whatever people threw out into the Internet, just to illuminate their Selves. Their bullshit was viewed and liked by millions of subscribers. You were afraid of something and hid under the shell.”

“You are right. Publishing houses didn’t release even masterpiece books on hand-made arts if the author hadn’t at least a million subscribers. All the crap of millionaire bloggers was published without looking at their content. Where did people find time to hang on the social networks constantly? I remember that in the subway, instead of open books, there were phones with fingers nervously running on them. The mad competition of zombie like bodies in terms of the number of posts and received likes. Plunging into the virtual world of superheroes, people devalued the warmth of human heart-to-heart communication. In my opinion, it’s much more pleasant to chat face-to-face over a cup of tea in the kitchen. No?”

“I agree. I stayed behind the scenes too, but you needed to shine! It’s funny, the Internet is designed like the PC of the Universe – everyone has their own page, accessed by almost anyone at any time from anywhere, but on Earth, information is posted selectively.”

“The Universal Computer has everything about me. Whoever wants can find it. And here are the recordings of the literary parties of the Writers’ Union. I hosted them on Mondays, first in the basement of the club-cafe ‘Alibi’ on Turgenevskaya, then in the hall ‘Traveler’ of the club-restaurant ‘Petrovich’, later in the museum-theater Bulgakov House on Mayakovskaya. Once a month in the Small Hall of the Central House of Writers, a couple of times in the house-museum of Marina Tsvetaeva. Then I took a delegation to Yelabuga for the Tsvetaeva’s bonfires. The director of the memorial complex honored me with lighting Marina’s bonfire and reciting my poems first! I hardly not burst into tears! It was the second happy period of my life.”

“You were afraid of the stage and publicity…”

“Yes, in unfamiliar places. But someone grabbed my hand and dragged me to the stage. Contests were a torment! I remember I refused to go to the final of the ‘King of Poets’, and Vadim forced me to.”

“You ended up winning.”

“In 99% of cases, yes. But when I stood on the stage, no one in the audience could imagine how hard it was for me. It was even worse on TV. A month after the accident, I was pulled out on TV ‘Culture’. When I was reciting, the fans of the second participant, sitting in the front row, talked to each other purposefully loudly and impudently, they even were asked to be silent, but didn’t stop. They wanted me to make mistakes. It was terrible. And what they said about me afterwards…”

“You won on TV ‘Culture’ too. No matter their obstacles. No matter they wrote in the newspaper the day before, that you were no match for their girl. Come on, Alice. It’s normal for competitors to psychologically crush each other.”

“I helped my pen colleagues, invited them to competitions and they won, I promoted them to publishers, wrote reviews. I respected not graphomaniacs. Good people gathered at my literary parties.”

“Did they all write well?”

“Of course not. However, there was a warm atmosphere, no one offended anyone, we all were ourselves there. It’s important, Ray, to be yourself. Perhaps the most important thing in life on Earth is not to try to be someone else and to accept others as they are. Here we have my solo performance in Prague. My emigrant friends organized a concert right in the center of the city, in a church. It’s the film ‘Holy Russia’ based on the book of the same title. It was shown on Spas-TV, and its presentation took place in the Solzhenitsyn House. I got into both the book and the film thanks to Inna Shakhova, a great woman, a poet, with several heart attacks, and until her last breath she was running, worrying, organizing, pushing and… after the release of the film, she left for Heaven. Hmmm… I haven’t found anything here, Ray!”

“Tomorrow you’ll end scanning here, and you’ll have as much as 12 days left. You’ll be able to concentrate not distracted by anything. Although what you have to remember and complete is openly on the surface! Maybe you just don’t want to leave, Alice. Think why.”


***
Ouranoupoli


“What different ways icons come to people’s homes!” Leah said thoughtfully as we drank coffee at Janis’ shop. “Today, for example, a strange man ran in, saying, “I want a cup!” I told him, “We don’t sell dishes!” And he replied, “No, an icon with a cup!” He had seen it somewhere. I showed him the “Inexhaustible Chalice”, but he noticed “Zoodochos Pigi” nearby, that is, the “Life-Giving Spring”, and said, “I want this one, because there are two sitting in one cup at once!” Well, obviously She brought him to Herself!”

“‘The Life-Giving Spring’ is not a very common icon in Russia. Its holiday is celebrated twice – on the eve of my birthday, on April 4, when the Virgin appeared in 450 to Leo Markell, they read an Akathist, and then they remember the restoration of the temple over the spring on Friday of Bright Week with the water blessing and Easter procession. Previously, people used to sprinkle gardens and orchards with water blessed at such service for a rich harvest in villages.”

“That’s how a man went to a grove and ended up in the history of centuries,” Leah sighed. “I’m about Leo Markell. Do you know where it happened? Not far from Constantinople and the Golden Gates. The Virgin visited that place once, and the spring became healing, but was forgotten and overgrown. In 450, during the reign of Flavius Marcianus, a soldier Leo, walking through the grove, saw a blind, lost old man and decided to help him. The Virgin appeared to Leo, told him the place of the spring, asked to get water and mud from it, and predicted the reign of Leo. He gave the old man water to drink, put mud on his eyes, and the old man regained his sight. After 7 years, Leo became Emperor and built a temple on that place, calling it the Life-Giving Spring. The icon of the same name was placed in the center of the temple, and miracles continued. A century later, Emperor Justinian, thanks to the spring, was cured of foot disease and built another temple and monastery next to the first one. The son of Emperor Basil, Leo the Wise, was cured of kidney stones by the spring water, his wife was cured of fever, and the Patriarch of Jerusalem regained his hearing.”

“I’ve heard that water spring raises the dead, Leah! A Thessalian came to that grove with pilgrims, but suddenly fell ill and felt death nearby. He asked his fellow travelers to bury him, but only after three vessels of the spring water were poured over his body. After the third one, he revived and decided to become a monk.”

“I personally consider this icon to be one of the most powerful and protective. It’s written according to the type of Oranta, the ancient Byzantine image of Nicopeia Kyriotissa, or ‘Mistress of Victory’. Similar to the ‘Unbreakable Wall’, the Virgin holds her hands with open palms to the one who looks at her. It’s a pity that the first temple was destroyed after the fall of Byzantium and the arrival of Muslims in 1453, although the spring itself was covered with earth only at the beginning of the 19th century. True, not for long, in 1833 the temple was restored and 2 years later consecrated by the Patriarch of Constantinople. Now there is a female monastery there, but the icon, apparently, hasn’t survived. On the first copies, the spring wasn’t depicted, but now it’s in the form of a fountain on the 4 cardinal points. Archangels are drawn to the right and left, and below it, there are ordinary mortals or Saints gathering water: John Chrysostom, Basil the Great and Gregory the Theologian are below. All of them were glorified by their Word. Less often they paint the icon with scenes of healing at the spring. There are several old copies in the Athos monasteries and a fresco of Andronicus the Byzantine of the early 15th century, in a chapel of the church at St. Pavlou monastery.”

“I’ve seen a copy of this fresco at Socrates! In Russia, the earliest image of the Virgin with the Chalice was found in the Crimea on a plate of the 13th-14th centuries, but it’s not a fact that it was the Life-Giving Spring. In the 16th century, the tradition of consecrating springs and reservoirs on the territory of monasteries came to Russia from Athos; chapels with the Life-Giving Spring icon were installed near the springs in the form of a well, not a bowl-fountain. In the middle of the 19th century, a copy of the appearance of the Virgin at the place of the spring was brought to the Sarov Monastery from Constantinople, but the most famous one was brought there at the beginning of the 18th century by Hieromonk John. St. Seraphim of Sarov loved this icon very much and sent the suffering people to it, and nowadays there is a queue for many hours to his monastery pond.”

“Did you bath there?”

“Yes. It snowed at the beginning of April, my teeth were chattering. The ‘Life-Giving Spring’ is also called the Virgin of the Spring. She is the Spring, including the birth of the Savior, as ‘Life-Giving Christ’, where ‘Life-Giving’ means God, who gives life, vitality.”

Janis came up to us and asked about our conversation. I asked him whom the icon could help.

“Everyone who doesn’t have the strength for something, probably,” he answered thoughtfully, and we somehow abruptly fell silent, perhaps because each of us clearly had not enough strength for something.


***
Tower of Ouranoupoli


“I have not enough strength to remember,” I sighed, finishing my astral tea. “Yesterday I read in my diary about wishes, how to make them and why they don’t come true. I want to wake up, Joice! I don’t like this dream! There is a Matrix of Destiny with the labyrinth given to you from Heaven, and you can’t jump into another one. Jump as much as you want within yours, left and right, up and down, but not in someone else’s…”

“Do you think it’s unfair?”


***
Library of the Universe


The Moon Cat came to my feet and jumped on my knees asking me to scratch his ear.

“You’ve been waiting here for me all this time, haven’t you? All these years?”

“Meow!”

“Well, tell me, do mice live in the Library of the Universe? Or are you no longer interested in them? A little more, Moony, a little more. I hope by the 40th day I’ll understand your cat language.”

“If you don’t want to know the truth, you won’t recognize it, no matter how it arrives to you and no matter what language it speaks to you.”

“In the evening, Nina Landysheva called and invited me to a live TV program of the North-Western District. It’s about the Silver Age. Probably, I’ll tell them about Blok and Akhmatova. On Saturday I was on TV “Culture”, they filmed a program about poetic translations…

Starting from November 26, I spent most of my time filming TV programs of “the New Faces of Modern Literature” series. I’m the presenter. Each program has a group of 5 writers. 4 programs were filmed with critic Andrey Shcherbak-Zhukov (deputy editor-in-chief of the Ex-Libris annex to the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta). Larisa Kuzminskaya visited the mystical-esoteric one as a guest astrologer, and Vadim Shiltsyn attended the poetic one, the rest 3 programs were hosted by me only (I called Andrey Korolkov, the head of the Moscow branch of the International Guild of Writers (Germany), but foreigners came to him).

Each writer was given 10–15 minutes as part of our dialogue for answering questions + reading their works. The purpose of the program was to show oneself to the world, to say that one existed and wrote. No criticism. I warned all participants in advance about what was strictly forbidden (to come drunk, fall asleep during filming, snore, pick your nose, etc.). I wrote my standard questions so that concise answers would be rehearsed in front of the mirror, because the rental time of space was limited, and the last participants were at risk of not being filmed. I asked them to keep the book open at the page they were going to recite even if they knew their poems by heart. But miracles happened in front of the camera. Just the first question, “How long have you been writing?”, the person managed to answer for more than 20 minutes and not answer at all! They not only didn’t open the book, they even didn’t take the text of the verse with them and, of course, forgot the words!

We rolled on the floor laughing with Vadim, since at each of our shoots that day a wall fell down when one of the guests answered the question, “Name your favorite writers”. When Podolsky was talking about Gogol, I joked, “The Spirit of Gogol,” and at the last shooting I was already laughing, “Oh, we have a spirits summoning seance here!” When Tatyana Chesnokova said, “Carlson is the best ghost in the world,” the wall fell off forever, and the operator had to hold it with both hands, standing on a chair, until the last second of filming (Tatiana had written the book “Stockholm of Astrid Lindgren times”).

Individual filming is also fun, but I get tired of them, as well as of group ones. Yesterday we went to Kordyukova’s cottage. It has a fireplace. Her film will be shown the 4th in a row and the 2nd individual. She is my age and writes well. There are those I want to show. We sat in armchairs by the fireplace. Just like a Christmas fairy-tale. I got up after filming, stomped my foot and said, “Katya, I want a house with a fireplace!” She promised, “It will appear!” There are about 6 films left.”

“There is an amazing episode in the movie “Interstellar” that clearly demonstrates what I described in my “Book of Secret Knowledge”. I was jumping for joy that someone else saw the same thing as me There. The same room exists at the same time in every second of the Past, and you can connect to any second and see everything that was going on in it then. In the chapter “Lila”, I described my adventures with the Moon Cat in the Fulfilled Past, in particular in Egypt, that I had during meditation in the mountains of China (at Mansurova’s seminar).

I asked the Cat, “Why do you always mix up verb tenses?” (we connected to different times and saw everything there as here and now). The Cat replied that ALL moments co-exist there simultaneously. They will exist forever in the Memory of the Universe. Getting There, we just imagine where (the place) and at what time we are, as we immediately find ourselves there and then. In a second (conventionally), we imagine another place and time, and we are already there. This is exactly what, albeit under a different sauce, is gorgeously shown in the episode with a room in a cube! Nothing can be changed in an already implemented sector. The options for the Future are there too, but the realized ones are alive, filled with energy, and the unrealized ones are dimmer, depending on their realization probability % (it depends on our swimming through space every second). There is almost no energy in the unlikely ones. When there is only 1 option left for the next step, it comes to life There, is realized Here and fixed There.”

The film tape of life on Earth is being fixed every second about each of us. So we have at least 2 conclusions as following.

1. Fortune-telling the Future is useless and even harmful, because it’s multivariate every second. You can energize far from the best of the possible options, that increases the chances of its implementation.

2. Everything is known to everyone in Heaven about everyone in every moment of one’s earthly life. You cannot erase it in the accomplished Past. As soon as you get There, you’ll immediately learn everything about everyone, even about those who lived 2000 years ago and had nothing to do with you. As soon as you remember what once happened to you / your acquaintance, you will instantly find yourself in that place at that very time and find out what the other person felt and thought, which you could not know then. Similarly, any person will know your thoughts and feelings behind the scenes. And it’s a nightmare, if you think about it, because there is not a single person on Earth who wouldn’t be ashamed of something.”


***
Courtroom in the Universe


The Mist, it enveloped my mind, and I heard the sounds of the Moonlight Sonata and saw at the Scales an elderly man, Constantine, a professor of the University and the author of one book only, his autobiographical novel.

“All my life on Earth, I was a total non-believer, but Alice brought me an icon of St. Constantine from Mount Athos, and something clicked in me, switched on. I was baptized, and God immediately took me to Heaven, right on Easter!”

Constantine put his “thank you” in the right bowl of the Scales and disappeared.

Frames from the Past flashed on the screen. Shortly before his death, Constantine sold his luxurious dacha in order to renovate his flat and to live on a grand scale. He flew into the Writers’ Union wearing a black leather jacket and black leather trousers, looking like a biker, and enthusiastically told me that half of his dacha had been spent for the white piano, the dream of all his life. He offered me a romantic dinner by candlelight at the piano. I smiled and shook my head in negative. On Easter, instead of holiday greetings, I received a text message from his phone number with the time and place of his funeral.