Ирина Одарчук Паули роман Струи дождя на англ

Prologue
The city was drowning in gray. The rain poured endlessly, turning the streets into mirrors, reflecting only the silhouettes of hurrying passers-by. Drops flowed down shop windows, mixing with shadows of the past, with memories that were better forgotten.
Anna stood by the window, pressing her palm to the cold glass. There was something important hidden behind this rain, something she couldn’t see, but felt on her skin.
This is how her story began.

Chapter 1
The first time she met him was under the streams of rain.
A man in a black coat, without an umbrella, stood in the middle of the bridge, as if waiting for the sky to finally open up above him. Anna slowed down, but did not stop. She walked past.
“Are you afraid of getting wet too?” his voice caught up with her, mixing with the noise of the water.
She turned around. Drops were running down his face, but he didn't wipe them away.
“I’m not afraid of the rain,” Anna answered.
- Then what are you afraid of?
She didn't know. But something in his gaze made her stay.

Chapter 2
His name was Maxim. He was a writer, but he didn't publish. He said that he wrote not for others, but for himself.
“What are you writing?” Anna asked, squeezing a cup of hot coffee in her palms.
— Stories about people who got lost in the rain.
She smiled.
- And how do they find their way?
- They don't find. They just go.

Chapter 3
The rain did not stop.
Anna began to notice strange things. The water in puddles sometimes reflected not what was above them, but something else - other people's memories, fragments of other people's lives.
"It's not just rain," Maxim said. "It erases boundaries."
- Between what?
- Between the past and the present. Between truth and lies.
She wanted to ask what he meant, but he had already disappeared into the gray haze, leaving behind only footprints on the wet asphalt.

Chapter 4
Anna found his manuscript.
There was her story.
Every word, every detail - everything matched. Even the things she had never told anyone.
The last page was blank.

Chapter 5
She ran after him.
The rain lashed her face, blinding her eyes, but she did not stop.
Bridge. That very bridge.
Maxim stood where she saw him for the first time.
“Who are you?” Anna shouted.
He turned around.
- You already know the answer.
And then she understood.

Epilogue
The rain has stopped.
The city froze in anticipation of a new day.
Anna opened her eyes.
There was a blank page in front of her.
She took a pen and began to write.

Chapter 6
The ink spread across the paper, repeating the patterns of the rain outside the window. Anna wrote without stopping, as if the words were flowing through her, like the water that had flooded the city just yesterday.
"He wasn't real. But neither was I."
The pen trembled in her fingers.
Maxim left behind not just a manuscript, he left behind rules.
1. Rain erases only those who want to be erased.
2. Reflections in wet asphalt show not the past, but what could have been.
3. If you finish someone else's story, it becomes yours.
Anna reread the last line three times.

Chapter 7
She returned to the bridge.
The puddles from yesterday's downpour had not yet dried. Anna leaned over the nearest one - and saw herself, but in a different dress, with a different expression on her face. The woman in the reflection was laughing, holding a child's hand.
“It wasn’t me,” Anna whispered.
“No,” a voice said behind me. “It’s you, who could have existed if not for one turn.”
Maxim stood two steps away, but now his coat was dry, and he held an umbrella in his hands.
"Have you finished the ending?" he asked.
— There is nothing to add there.
- So you chose the rain.
He turned to leave.
- Wait! - Anna grabbed his sleeve. - Who are you really?
Maxim smiled for the first time in a long time.
- The one who once stood under this bridge and asked the same thing.

Chapter 8
The Pause Cafe was the only place in town where the coffee always remained hot, even if it was freezing rain outside.
"We are all failed versions here," said Maxim, stirring the sugar. "Those who chose the wrong path, said the wrong words, remained silent at the wrong moment. The rain gives us a chance to rewrite history."
- But why me?
- Because you stopped. Most people pass by.
Anna squeezed the cup tighter.
- So what now?
- Now you decide: to return to your life or create a new one.
He took the key out of his pocket and put it on the table.
- Where is this door?
— To you. The real you.

Chapter 9
The key fit the old attic door in her childhood home.
The room behind her was flooded with sunlight. On the table lay an open notebook with two sentences:
"Anna woke up to the sound of rain. Today she had to make a choice."
Outside the window, without a single cloud, the sun was shining brightly.

Epilogue (new)
The city was no longer drowning in greyness.
Anna went outside, breathing in the smell of fresh earth. The key jingled in her coat pocket.
She smiled and walked against the wind.

Chapter 10. False Sun
The sun was deceiving.
Anna walked along familiar streets, but she felt that something was wrong. People were smiling too widely. Birds were hanging in the air for a second longer than they should have. And when she raised her head, she saw that the sun had not moved. It was hanging at its zenith, like a decoration.
The phone in my pocket rang. An unfamiliar number.
"You almost got out," Maxim's voice sounded distorted, as if through a thick layer of water. "But the door was not an exit. It is a trap for those who doubt."
- Where are you?!
— Look under your feet.
The puddle by her boots reflected not the sky, but that same rainy street with the bridge. The water began to rise, wrapping around her ankles with cold tentacles.

Chapter 11. Paper Storm
The world fell apart into sheets.
Buildings turned into written pages, trees into lines, people into ink blots. Anna ran through the raging paper hurricane, snatching up scraps of phrases:
"...she still hasn't made up her mind..."
"...it would have been better to stay in the rain..."
"...there is always a third option..."
At the epicenter of the storm stood He - a man in a transparent cloak made of polyethylene pages. Editor.
"Everyone makes choices," he said, without looking up from his typewriter. "But no one reads the fine print."
His fingers hit the keys:
"Anna tore up the manuscript."

Chapter 12. The Real Sky
She woke up.
Real rain was pounding the windowsill of the dorm. A mug of tea was steaming on the table, and in front of it lay a grade book with the only unsubmitted assignment: "The Theory of Narrative Universes."
The laughter of classmates was heard behind the door. A guitar was playing somewhere in the corridor.
Anna went to the window and opened it wide. Cold drops hit her face, washing away the remnants of sleep.
The wet asphalt of the yard clearly reflected two months ago - the day when she did not go to her dying grandmother because "there was a lot of work."
“Okay,” she whispered. “I get it.”
The phone buzzed: a message from Mom. "Are you still coming Saturday?"
Anna began typing a reply when she heard the creak of bed springs behind her. On her bed lay a tattered notebook with the title: "Rainfalls."
The last page was blank.

Epilogue: Ten Years Later
The bookstore smelled of coffee and old paper.
Anna stood by the display case, where the novel "Rain Streams" with her name on the cover lay in a prominent place. Next to it was a "Bestseller of the Year" award sticker.
- Mom, look! - a girl of about seven pointed her finger at a puddle by the exit. - There are pictures again!
Anna leaned over. It wasn't today's sun that was reflected in the water, but that same rainy street from the past. A silhouette in a black coat stood in the reflection.
“It’s just rain,” Anna smiled, adjusting her daughter’s hood.
— Does he really erase people?
- Only those who want to disappear themselves.
They went outside. The rain was already ending.
The phone in her pocket was ringing - the editor was asking about the draft of a new book. Anna looked at the last drop stuck in her daughter's hair and answered:
— I have an idea. About a sun that... No, wait. About a false sun.
The girl tugged at her sleeve:
- Mom, who is this?
Opposite, by the telephone booth, stood a man with an umbrella. Not young, but not old either. Not at all like Maxim.
And yet.
He raised his hand in a strange greeting—as if adjusting invisible pages in the air—and disappeared into the crowd.
Anna pulled a tattered notebook out of her bag. On the last page, under her childish scribbles, new words suddenly appeared:
"Thank you for finishing us both."