Of course, it rained. It rained in a soft, monotonous way but not torrential. Water whispered and whispered about something from the sky. Nobody listened to it. All the world had music in its ears, its neck is enveloped with the wires, devastating its mind with suffering hypoxia of artificial and non-existed sounds. The rain still whispered and whispered, the ground exhaled fragrance before to fall asleep.
For a month Victoria had job that she had got with Kharon’s help. She like her job and Olga Vladimirovna kept on mumbling that her daughter had to be a doctor not a street painter. There were quarrels and scandals. The mother and the daughter understood each other less and less.
Olga Vladimirovna didn’t want to admit the fact that her daughter was already an adult. She could be let to a life sea, sometimes giving a piece of advice if she asked for, but her mum shouldn’t trust down throat.
For the month after work Victoria met her mysterious friend. She was going deeper and deeper into unheard love for him. She wanted always to see him. She wanted his voice to sound in her head and ears for her entire life. Victoria was filled with her desires for the demon. She always touched his hands, examined his long, beautiful fingers, neatly trimmed fingernails, soft skin. His hands didn’t face with household use not orally neither in dictionary.
Sometimes when she stayed with the demon at nights, Victoria liked looking at his fabulous trunk. She liked seeing his fingers move awkwardly, hardly being able to button his shirt and how quickly they unbuttoned it. She liked seeing them tear off cloth when he didn’t succeed in undoing just one button.
His rarely laughed. Kharon nearly always frowned or was suspicious. He studied to live with people. It didn’t amuse him. Besides after the demon had noticed that Moscow wasn’t too much smiley, especially when it was about mornings, Kharon stopped smiling at streets at all, accepting it as ill-mannered and idiotism sign.
Victoria tried to explain that people in Moscow had an original opinion about laughing. Russian people didn’t use to smile just for nothing: it was a bad behaviour, an imbecility wave. But it didn’t mean that in Moscow laughing was tabooed. You just needed to find a good reason to smile and laugh and also convince others that you were mentally healthy, here was your reason to laugh. Kharon was difficult to understand it. He was easier to say good-bye to his smile than to adapt to changeable social mood.
Victoria liked walking with Kharon. The demon sometimes examined with pleasure and admire one or another historically significant building, being amused with human abilities: it turned out that people were capable not only of destroying but also of creating.
Vic often argued with Kharon about this theme. She wasn’t fascinated by the modern buildings; most likely she was irritated with them. She was perplexed with obscure tendency to create phallic forms and structures. Where had all worthy architectures gone who had had perfect imagination and abilities to realize all of those into life? Why were there similar skyscrapers, spread all over the world? It was ok with the world, but did they try to fill Moscow with lean, tasteless and simple buildings everywhere?
Certainly, Kharon enjoyed both modern buildings and past centuries architecture. It was simpler for him as he had had no chance to examine carefully none of them before Victoria appeared.
They walked over the whole capital of Russia on foot in the evenings, speaking about everything what they thought of. The demon confessed that he hellishly liked Moscow, its buildings, structure and movement, frowned people who, despite their gloominess, were ready to help and smile at any time. He liked movement most of all. It was everywhere in Moscow: on the roads, under the ground, in the sky, in buildings and basements, on roofs and railways. There was nothing static in this city. The tartar representatives were fascinated with crazy Russian chaotic conditions.
No Victoria’s arguments worked that to live constantly in turmoil was very difficult, it sucked out of you your energy… life in the long run. Moscow absorbed everything. It was like a black hole, swallowed up you. Few people could notice them be in the centre of the vile city abyss. That was because no one wanted to run away from it.
Moscow made most part of its population exist but not live. It managed to keep millions of people with its beauty and massiveness. Perhaps it was tired of us but due to its habit it kept on absorbing and sucking surrounding materials.
Victoria told about miracles of underground life in the capital, about true architecture that was covered under the strata of the ground.
The demon visited every metro station in the underground, having looked over great mosaics, statues, patterns, frescos… It would be nothing to say that he was shocked. He didn’t suppose people to have done those. People weren’t supposed to have definitions of beauty and ability to give life to beauty.
Certainly, Kharon couldn’t help seeing female part of Moscow. He happened to be with people, but it hadn’t been for so long and as a rule it’d been in Europe and its buttoned-up ladies. He had one-day relations and none of those women did even try to have a walk with Kharon. None of them gave him a possibility to see also beautiful medieval London, pretentious Paris and laid down base of the Elfie Tower. He saw nothing but respectable ladies who were preoccupied with their own desires when they, hiding from their husbands, enjoyed sins of the flesh not only with people but with incubi. Before Kharon had seen nothing bad of it. The demon was had been created to satisfy the fair sex, what did he have to complaint of?
Kharon read like a neon signs, women’s minds, their desire no one knew about. He liked their minds. Women didn’t always think of sex: they had a lot of things to do and feel, which their minds were full of. They tried to keep everything in mind. They were in a hurry.
Every time Victoria was madly jealous when she noticed Kharon looking at one or another girl. He could fascinatingly smile at any girl that made Vic angry and confused. The girl said nothing to him. She silently got over her emotions. What could she say to him? She didn’t even know if Kharon was capable of being jealous and what it was in fact?
In his turn the demon understood what to be jealous meant but he didn’t understand well what he did so special that Vic was getting angry. It was enough to give a good look to any girl and he could hear her teeth grit.
Victoria almost got used to her visions and spirits. She saw spirits every day. She could see the same souls near her colleagues who accompanied them. Almost every person had near the deceased. Victoria didn’t know why the deceased were among people. Fortunately, spirits didn’t speak to her. They sometimes brazenly immersed her into their own memories, showing their past lives. Most of all those were moments of their deaths. Rarely they showed to her something good or other happy moments.
Victoria changed her mind about death. Now she was sure that no reason was to be afraid of death as there would be a life after it. Yes, it could be probably not as funny and happy as it was before, but it would be. There was a soul that continued to live, and it remembered how it used to be. Once it threw its corporeal skin it started remembering about what a person dreamt but while he was alive, he didn’t get.
Spirits often showed their memories of childhood to her, wiping away tears of impossibility to be there again, embrace a young mum whom they pulled from with their hand and legs. Souls remembered everything.
Victoria still didn’t understand what all that meant but she took it rather coolly. A man’s walking – ok. A soul’s walking near – ok. Nobody can see it but only I – ok. That was what the girl thought of it, assuring herself that she was ok. Vic made herself believe that everything happened to her was ok.
The girl sometimes could see lonely spirits. They followed no one and existed on their own. They slowly walked down the streets, percolated through the walls as if they were on their way to somewhere, they needed.
Some of them smiled but the smile was sad and enchained. If you saw such a smile, you’d never understand good or bad made the person smile like that. Maybe he didn’t smile at all, but he had a trifacial problem… You could hardly believe such smile… there was no soul. It was pretended.