CHAPTER 7. THE GIFTS OF THE MAGI

April 7, 2024.

"Hello, my dear friend! I have long and languidly agonized over the new plot for my novella—some people think that writing is easy... but that's what a person who doesn't know the agony and pain of a woman in childbirth thinks: every writer experiences something similar... and every artist, just like you—the torment and pain are not physical, but metaphysical, in the mind and in the soul! Involuntarily seeing a news notification on my phone that today is the anniversary... thirty years since the beginning... of the genocide in Rwanda, I thought about dedicating my next novella to this topic. This was my thought in the first moments after I awoke, but a little later, realizing the nature of the very dreams that settled in my being this night, I had no more doubts: the plots were already ready, given to me by the Almighty in three dreams... in those dreams, which by their nature seemed no less real to me than the genocide I mentioned before. To some, that genocide might indeed have seemed like a dream, because you never believe that such a thing can happen on our planet, especially when you live in peace and prosperity, far, far away from the events happening there, where the word 'genocide' is only visible to you in newspapers or messengers... where you don't feel or see what it is!..

So, about the dreams... I felt their aftertaste, as if after eating a lemon, but trying to bring back a dream that has passed is an attempt to breathe life into a stopped heart with a continuous and heavy thumping: you can never make the inanimate come alive!.. My first dream, which I want to tell you about, was connected with knowledge... How amazing is the nature of dreams! For there, within its confines, I knew and could do things that I didn't know or couldn't do in reality—I possessed the knowledge and terminology of a fisherman perfectly! There, I tied knots, I knew the differences between hooks—in reality, this was unknown to me! Oh, what a miracle a dream is! Is it really so unreal? Where is the line between reality and a dream? Which of them is more real—the dream or reality? I was part of a group of fishermen... These events took place at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries... at that time we were fishing... and then, we pulled a net from the sea—and there was a small shark. I thought about exactly what I should do with it—release it or take it with me so that some people would put it in an aquarium, of course, for a suitable reward. I soon made a decision—to let it go... Then the dream was interrupted for a while and... then continued—six years passed, I was swimming in one of the most picturesque bays in this world, and suddenly a shark attacked me... I recognized it, it was her: the one I once saved from death or, no better for her, from eternal imprisonment—not having received a reward for its slavery from people, I received a 'reward' for its freedom from itself... A moment later, before the second dream, I was plunged into an abyss of darkness—perhaps this was death between new lives?

This time I woke up as the ruler of a state. I had doubts about the integrity of one of my officials, so I decided to test him: in one of the newspapers, I gave an interview saying that I was going to change the leadership in the sector he was responsible for... The next day, he appeared before me with the only questions on his mind—why I wanted to fire him and how he could avoid it... He began to beg me to leave him in his position, but I told him that it was a test and he couldn't handle the pressure that the media had put on him, because I hadn't personally called him or told him anything, and now I was convinced that his position was carpeted with money... Where did I get such wisdom and prudence? In reality, I never showed it to such an extent, and I would certainly never have come up with such a solution, but in a dream, I could do more than in reality, and therefore I was stronger there...

The third dream was connected with love... Love! What a feeling! It is above meager forms and prejudices—only you will be able to fully understand these words! Look... in human form, there is a difference due to gender characteristics—there is a male and a female gender. There is a similar differentiation in other living forms, for example, in cats... You and your cat Thomas... you belong to the same gender, but in different forms—you in human form, and he in his, in the form of a cat. You are of the same gender, although there is a definite difference in forms, but... it's amazing!.. when you take him in your hands, gently stroke and kiss him, it does not arouse contempt in people, but you understand that if he had a human form, you would not be able to do that—because of the difference in your forms, this does not confuse you now... So, let's move on to the third of the gifts of the magi, the gifts of the Almighty, the gifts of the dream—yes, I call these three dreams the gifts of the magi now for a reason, because each of them gave me, for a strictly defined period of time, knowledge, wisdom, and love... although with my awakening they melted away as if they had never existed... In that dream, I worked as an ordinary civil servant... during my lunch break, I went to the same store that I always visited—it was located on the corner of two wide streets—a new cashier, about twenty years old, appeared before my eyes. I should mention that they changed there very often... So, after choosing the desired item, I left a hundred-dollar bill at her checkout... a few moments and she handed me back the change, where it turned out to be more than I had paid her—one hundred and ten dollars... she gave me back more than I gave her—what could that mean? After all, in dreams, everything means something, and every detail either determines something important or refers to it. I turned to her and said... "Excuse me, but you gave me back more than I gave you." She was embarrassed—in her mind, such a thing could not have happened... That sweet embarrassment, which suddenly arose in her being and was so quickly reflected on her cheeks, immediately awakened the most tender feelings in me—I paid attention to her, she was extraordinarily charming. After recounting the money, she was convinced that she had made a mistake—she sincerely thanked me, continuously repeating that I had saved her... How had I saved her? How had I helped her? By acting decently and in accordance with my beliefs? But I didn't do anything supernatural... Taking the correct amount, I handed her a check—she looked at me in amazement: I asked her to write her mobile phone number on the back of this check—she was even more amazed, and a gentle blush reddened her cheeks again. Smiling, she slowly wrote her number, after which she handed me that check—she liked my action!.. Having learned her name, I introduced myself in return—she wrote down my number on the label of one of the products she sold in that store... "Goodbye!"—she quickly held out her hand to me and I gently shook it in return. Oh, what a feeling that was! In the moment of this handshake, I realized, mentally and metaphysically, what you feel for a person who is destined for you by fate itself, by the Almighty himself! She was drawn to me, and I was drawn to her—and the Almighty introduced us, having transformed into the form of a coincidence, a moment, a mistake! What a fatal mistake! It truly was fatal! Having returned to my workplace, I immediately wanted to add her on Telegram, WhatsApp, or Viber, but these applications did not find her number for some reason. I was filled with fear of losing her, but a few minutes later a miracle happened—she herself texted me with an offer to meet on Friday morning and walk by the sea: I was out of my mind with happiness! And yet in life, I never knew this feeling, my being only grasped it in a dream—the feeling that you meet the one... the feeling of what processes are happening in your soul at that moment... You look at her not as someone with whom you wish to taste, to share the forbidden fruit, but as someone with whom you do not wish to act that way, so as not to leave the boundaries of paradise... But why was she sent to me in a dream? Or... perhaps... why do we always only think about ourselves? As if people are only sent to us, but can we not also be sent to other people for something? And you know why I asked her to write her number on the check? After all, I could have taken out my phone and written it down in my phone, but I did it on purpose so that she would write it with her own hand and I would keep it, and years into our relationship, we would, rejoicing like children, remember that check as a kind of shared relic of ours—if I had simply written her number in my phone, we would have been deprived of such anchors, such relics... I would have cherished that check, I would have treated its nature with the trembling of a banker, fully realizing that this ordinary, unremarkable piece of paper was more valuable to me than all the treasures of Ophir, because her number was written there—I would have protected it like a particle of my soul. And I realized all this in a dream. So are our dreams really so unreal? It was sent to me by the Almighty himself for some reason, and I am sincerely grateful to God for it! When you truly believe in God, you don't thank Him only for something good or for something specific; you are grateful to Him for everything that happens to you, and even for what you perceive as the greatest tragedy in your life, because you don't know the final outcome of these events and processes... Dreams! They are exceptional and unique by their very nature! After all, what is the rarest on the planet, what is exceptional, is valued more, and what is common—is cheap! These are the ordinary laws of the market!.. But how much we try to change, wanting to change nothing in ourselves! So, this dream partly returned me to reality, not to the love of a lovely stranger, but to the rejection of the no less lovely Alexandra! Dear friend! If I agree to be with Alexandra, who previously rejected me, I will thereby refuse the most important and the greatest love story, which, in turn, awaits me in the near future! With Alexandra, I will only have doubts and torments... and all because she destroyed everything, she did not respect me, and her desire to be with me is momentary, ethereal, ephemeral—even when she respects me again, she can never erase what she said about me, that I am unworthy of her, that I am not a man, that I am weak: this is a black stain on our relationship—this is a black mark! Yes, I would rather continue to be 'not a man' in her eyes, who wanted to make her happy and therefore become happy myself, I would rather continue to be as I am, to create and work on myself, than betray myself and become who she wants me to see! I accept her words that I am not a man in her eyes, and I acknowledge these words, that I am unworthy of her... however, I have only one request—let her never appear in my life again and not prevent me from continuing to be 'not a man'... Unlike the girl from the dream, a certain cyclical, like an ouroboros, thread of truly sacred, sacral attraction arose between me and Alexandra in reality—Adam must have felt such a feeling for Eve when he first saw her! I remember our last conversation—she told me that she wants to become a teacher, and you know perfectly well, better than anyone else, that being a teacher is synonymous with never thinking for yourself, and therefore acting only as the textbook dictates—a kind of recipe for doctors and patients... Dear friend! It's curious... what do women love us for? For being good or for being bad? Which one does love turn us into more often—the good or the bad?.. Women!.. Oh, pearls of the Universe! They reflect our desires and our inner state—this is what characterizes our choice of their being: to the one who has long awaited a miracle, the miracle comes whole, not by half or by a quarter! Sometimes pursuing them is as appropriate as turning on a fountain during the rain or a street light during the day, but someone does it... and not so rarely! Women! With words, they are able to inflict such injuries as no physical actions can create!.. But, on the other hand, is not he worthy of contempt who never enters into battles in this field, even if he does not always succeed?.. This is what I am writing to you now—my thoughts and feelings, without claiming to be wise, for who is the wisest person on earth? The one who believes in nothing, except the Lord, and therefore believes in everything!.. You know, I've noticed that time flies by quickly in the summer, and slowly in the winter—and only in the autumn and spring does it not rush anywhere."