Guardian Angel. 1. 15. Dear Mwwn

"A GUARDIAN ANGEL"
a mistical novel
by Alexandra Kryuchkova

PART I. A GUARDIAN

1.15. DEAR MWWN

June 25, Tuesday morning
Moscow, Alice’s room


The city had been suffocating from the heat for many days. Alice stood in front of the open wardrobe for a long time, hesitating. On the one hand, she wanted to put on a recently acquired poppy dress, appropriate for showing to others in such weather. On the other hand, after meditation, she associated it exclusively with the Man in White, who was about to appear. Alice wasn’t dating with him. Glamourous materialized in the room, having decided to visit White just in case to remind him of the meeting, and found no one there but Alice.

«White, bro, where are you?» Glamorous cast a glance at the impressive number of dresses in the wardrobe and smiled, «Alice, honestly, with poppies or with irises, or even without, it doesn’t matter.»

Alice chose a dress with irises so that the hope for the appearance of the Man in White would be the last to die. Glamorous, having scanned Alice’s thoughts, at saying goodbye, praised her, «Well done, good girl! Don’t be late!»


***
daytime, Moscow, a glamorous restaurant


Alice got off the subway twenty minutes before the meeting. The restaurant was a long walk away. The asphalt was about to melt from the heat, and both sides of the long street were flooded with the Sun. Apparently, someone had stolen the saving shadow, as well as the fresh air. Finally, Alice reached the right house with the restaurant, bypassed it from all sides, but didn’t find any restaurant. Having failed to find a shadow and hardly standing the heat, she angrily stomped her foot, piercing the melting asphalt with the heel, dialed the number of the MWWN who had made her the appointment, and in a deep calm voice, involuntarily arching one of her eyebrows, said inquiringly, «Darling?»

While he was trying to explain which one of the closed doors without identification marks needed to be knocked on a certain number of times to be let inside as a guest, Glamorous appeared in front of Alice. He tried to find White nearby and grumbled with displeasure, «Bro, where the hell are you? Did you fell through the ground? Alice, what kind of places did you send your Guardian to?»

Alice kept listening to the phone speech. Glamorous took her by the astral hand and dragged her with all his might to the right door, «Here it is, almost right in front of you!»

Alice obeyed and took a step towards the door, which had no bell, no button, no sign, nothing at all on it. Moreover, it was locked from the inside, and through a small glass window in that door one could see another door behind the first one!

«It’s the right door, Alice! My ward will be late for half an hour, even though he tells you now about ten minutes. Well, you know him. Don’t stand in the heat, it’s no good for your health! Knock on the door!»

«Darling, I’m sorry. I’ll be there in 10 minutes,» the Man Who Was Not said.

Alice, already crazy from the heat, started knocking on the door, not counting the agreed password number of knocks. After a while, she noticed in the window on the right, that a man from the inside was looking at her with interest. Alice went to the window and, pointing to the door, expressed her indignation. The man nodded, and a minute later the magic door opened and Alice was interrogated with passion.

«Who you are?» the man asked.

«I have a dating here,» Alice answered sharply and, without waiting for an invitation, passed into the saving twilight of the mysterious place.

«With whom?» the man kept on asking, relentlessly following her.

«With a man,» Alice replied and went into the second room, where it was obviously quieter and cooler.

«Excuse me, but with which one?»

«With your regular one. He’ll be here in ten minutes.»

Glamorous appeared in the hall, observed what was happening, ran up to Alice and, at the same time aligning her astral body, said, «Darling, don’t be nervous, please! Sit down at that table over there, it’s the most glamorous! I’ll ask them now, and they’ll bring you the menu. Order yourself something exclusive! The driver hasn’t picked up my sinner yet. Wait, please, darling! Hey, Quick! Menu to our guest, quickly! And stop asking her stupid questions! She’s ours. She has a dating with my ward here.»

Alice sat down in one of the four chairs at the table indicated to her. Glamorous had chosen that table so that they would sit crosswise: Glamorous — opposite White, and Alice — opposite the MWWN. Alice placed her newly published books, brought as a gift, on the table. The waiter ran up and held out the menu, «Would you order something right away?»

Alice would never have dared to order something without the MWWN when they first met. That day she ordered freshly squeezed juice and continued to study the menu. «So many years passed like an instant,» Alice thought with a bit of regret, remembering how, after certain events, she had come to the Teacher asking to erase the MWWN from her memory. The Teacher suggested a virtual trip to the cinema. Alice had reeled the film of her life back, pondering from what place to erase it, and had decided to keep safe and sound the very first frame when they had met, in June, many years before. She had been sitting in a beautiful dress in front of the MWWN. He had asked her, «What does this mean to you?» and she had answered, «The game.»

Alice was brought the juice. She had already studied the menu and knew that when the MWWN appeared, she would order fish. The same one he had once ordered for her for dinner, not in that restaurant, but she hadn’t touched that fish. Alice couldn’t eat when she was nervous. That day, she would enjoy the fish with great pleasure.

Someone entered the first room through the secret front door. Alice immediately felt it was the MWWN. Glamorous ran up to the table, sat next to Alice, on the right, grumbling, «White! Where are you? Completely insolent! We agreed to be here together! How can I manage them both now?»

The MWWN approached Alice from the side of his guardian. Then, many years before, she would have jumped up. That day she barely turned her head. After a glamorously «Hello!», he kissed her on the cheek the same glamorously and pulled out the chair to the right of Alice from behind the table.

«Hey! My dear, sit down opposite Alice, opposite!» exclaimed Glamorous, who had almost been sat on. The MWWN pushed the chair back and sat opposite.

«This is for you,» Alice said, holding out her books that she would have already signed to him in those previous life, but left them unsigned that day.

«Thanks!» the MWWN flipped them through, stopping at the last pages, where the circulation was indicated.

«Does the book titled «My favorite poems’ contain really your favorite ones?»

Alice nodded.

«Sign them to me,» he asked, simultaneously taking out a glamorous pen from somewhere.

Alice pondered for a moment. She recalled she had signed her first book to him with a shy inscription like, «To a great one from an insignificant one», and it made her funny. Alice took the pen and wrote, «To the Man Who Wan Not from the Queen of Poets».

He read without showing any emotion and asked, «Did they really make you the Queen?»

«It’s me who made Alice the Queen!» Glamorous clarified, being offended.

«Haven’t you listened to my performance on the radio?» Alice asked.

«It’s already very close to a monument,» the MWWN said not kidding at all.

She remembered herself reciting poetry at a glamorous party many years before. He had said to everyone about her wide-ranging fame. Alice had shyly corrected, «According to my stars, I’ll have the posthumous fame only.» The MWWN had laughed, «Don’t worry, we’ll wait to see it!»

«Don’t wait for me dead!» Alice said categorically.

The MWWN opened her book of poems at random and read a line aloud, «People never die…»

«Shut up!» Alice cut him off and thought she would have never dared to speak to him like that before.

Glamorous got scared. He grabbed his ward by the hand and said to him, «She has an evil Pluto in 6! Don’t tell her about Death!!!»

«Well, okay,» the MWWN said calmly, closing the book. «It remains to publish a complete collection of your works.»

«Already done,» said Alice.

The waiter approached them, they ordered food, and then Alice told the MWWN about her returning to the House of Serving to Creativity.

«Don’t you want to get back into business?» the MWWN asked.

«What for? It’s my past life. A happy one, yes, but I did everything I could in it.»

«Haven’t you done yet everything in your creative life?»

Glamorous was nervous. He pulled the MWWN by the hand, «Tell her, finally, why did you call her here! Why the hell bring her to thoughts about Death?»

«Well, as for my creativity, I’ve done everything I could, too. Done myself. On my own, without money, without contacts. You know I had and still have no one behind.»

«I know. You deserve all kinds of respect.»

Once the MWWN had promised to make her the Queen of Poets, to organize all that here and there, the fifth, the tenth, but had changed his mind, saying, «You are too expensive!» Some years later, a great national competition was announced. Alice didn’t want to participate in it, since it was impossible to win honestly. But the MWWN called and urged her to come and recite, just to recite, saying that she would definitely win. Two months before the announcement of the results, the MWWN called her again and, laughing glamorously through the phone, said, «Look, an underage girl with terrible rhymes fell in love with a member of the jury. Therefore, she’ll take your place.» Alice came to the ceremony of announcing the winners to look into the eyes of that girl, but she didn’t see anything poetic in them.

Glamorous was reading Alice’s thoughts, periodically searching for White, but he was still out there. «Alice, forgive him! Please, forgive! White, where the hell are you? Tricky! You left me here all alone!»

«Let’s suppose what’s next,» the MWWN said. «What is your relationship with…? Can you become…? What do you want yourself?»

«I’ve been published in the newspapers,» Alice stated, «appeared on radio and TV several times. They filmed a whole series of shows I was the presenter. I host literary parties in clubs and coffeehouses. I organize competitions. I recite here and there. I have successfully presented the Russian literature even abroad.»

«You need a boy,» the MWWN stated.

«I don’t need boys. I need a Man,» she corrected him. «I’m the Moon. He should be the Sun.»

The MWWN nodded and suddenly said glamorously, «I’m going to Santorini in August. On vacation. The Island of your sunken Atlantis. What do you think?»

Once upon a time, the MWWN had asked his astrologer to look at their stars for compatibility. Then he had interrogated Alice, checking the correctness of the astrologer’s words, since without knowing the exact time of her birth, the picture had been too blurry.

«I see. But why Santorini? What’s there to do, especially in August? There’s nothing even to breathe there, in August. Firstly, I’ve been to Santorini and exactly in August. Secondly, I have no vacation this year in August, but a festival in Bulgaria. Thirdly, I can’t think about vacation now. I have two surgeries ahead.»

«When?» he asked, and Alice guessed that their mutual acquaintance, a poet, had already reported everything to the MWWN.

«The first one on Friday. The second one is on the 17th of July. Remember Nona’s words, „A surgery! Be careful! You can die!“ It’s apparently about the second one.»

«Damn, tell her why you invited her here!» Glamorous shouted.

«I want to give you a present,» the MWWN said.

Alice chuckled. How many times over the years had she heard that phrase? He had been going to give her a present, he had already bought her a present and all like that. True, then the MWWN had always disappeared along with the gifts.

«Deja vu,» she said indifferently.

Glamorous jumped in the chair, «Alice! Stop it! Well, give him another chance!»

«No, you’ll like it, really,» the MWWN said quietly. «I want to give you…»

«Okay… Give it to me!»

Glamorous sighed in relief. They talked for a long time about this and that, as if nothing of what Alice tried not to remember had happened in their previous life, since he had been the Man Who Was Not there.

They were brought the bill. The MWWN paid, they went out the restaurant in the hell heat. He called his driver. Alice, as always, had to walk to the subway.

«A very glamorous dress!» the MWWN said at parting. «Is it expensive?»

«Don’t you care about me, darling?» Alice laughed.

The MWWN hugged her and kissed her glamorously, «Darling, I’ll call you!»


***
evening, Moscow, Alice’s kitchen


Alice habitually lit candles, took out a photo of the Man in White, looked at him with love and wished him happiness. He had his own life, and she had her own. She didn’t want to remind him of herself. Alice opened the astrological program on the Internet to see the Transits of the planets. Without going into details, she started tracking them day by day for some reason. Would any planet wander into her 8th House, the Sphere of Death? But everything was calm there, and even the Moon on the day of her surgery should move from the 8th to the 9th, thus, Alice seemed to have nothing to worry about.