“A Story of Living a Life That is Not Yours”
“Wait a minute,” I said, and my voice suddenly broke, “How’s it never happened? Are you sure there’s no mistake in your records?”
The elderly Angel smiled condescendingly and adjusted his round glasses. “We have everything recorded here, everything is meticulously monitored by You-Know-Who,” he said. “As for mistakes, we can’t afford any. Do you know what would happen to us if we make any mistakes? Have you heard of Lucifer? Blink and you’re out. You don’t want that, do you?”
“Just a second,” I tried to compose myself. “Please, take a look, one more time.”
The Angel looked at me kindly over his glasses. “And?” he asked after a moment of silence.
“Maybe it’s not me,” I said, cautiously stirring the jelly-like substance that now replaced my familiar earthly body. The substance quivered and shimmered with iridescent colors.
— “Someone is definitely here. But not LN, as you have introduced yourself, ” the Angel sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead, “I’ve seen plenty like you, too many to count. And, for some reason, mostly ladies. Well, never mind. Let’s check, miss. Step by step. From the very beginning. Okay?
— “Let’s do it,” I said, determined to fight until the end.
“Here we go,” the Angel said, pulling out a massive book from under the table and blowing the dust off it. He mumbled and licked his finger, turning the thin cigarette-like pages. “These are all trifles… diapers… childish whims… doodles… not yet a formed personality… character not yet revealed, all drafts… let’s skip childhood altogether and take a look at your conscious life… ah, here it is!” He triumphantly raised his finger. “You had a romance in your final year of high school!”
“Oh, how unexpected,” I couldn’t help saying. “To have a romance at sixteen!”
“Don’t be ironic, mademoiselle,” the Angel said sternly. “The romance was intense and quite happy until your friend intervened. And she took the boy away from you, right under your nose. I mean, not yours,” he corrected himself and blushed. “Mademoiselle LN’s, to be precise.”
— And so what? – I asked suspiciously, – It happens to everyone. Is it some mortal sin that they forgot to write in the Bible? Like, don’t give away your man, donkey, or ox…
At the word “Bible,” the angel grimaced.
— What does sin have to do with it, for God’s sake! You and your sins are getting on our nerves… Focus on the point. How does our LN behave in this situation?
“As a fool,” I said gloomily, vaguely remembering that unfortunate affair, “a la Pa-de-trois.”
“That’s it,” the Angel said reproachfully. “And now listen carefully to me. Imagine you were alive. What would you do?”
“I would kill her,” the words flew out of me before I realized what I was saying.
“Exactly!” the Angel exclaimed, even jumping a little in his chair. “Exactly! Of course, you wouldn’t actually kill her, but you’d at least tell her to go to hell. Now, do you remember how many of these ‘romances’ Mademoiselle had in her life?”
“About five,” I recalled, suddenly feeling sick.
“And all with the same result,” the Angel pointed out. “Let’s move on. Mademoiselle tried to get into the university and failed. How many points short was she?”
“One and a half,” I felt like crying.
“And for some reason, she took her papers to the pedagogical institute, where her score was just enough to get in. But, what did you want at that moment?”
“I wanted to keep trying until I got in,” I whispered, barely audible. “But you have to understand me too, my mother cried so much, begged me not to take a gap year, afraid that I would go on a spree or something, and then I suddenly didn’t care anymore.”
“My dear,” the angel looked at me sympathetically, “we don’t care about who cried and why. We only care about facts, the most stubborn thing in the world. And our facts are quite unpleasant. Why did you, seriously, even get married? I mean our LN. And even in the church! So, she got married… but what were you thinking at that time?!”
I was silent. I remembered very well what I was thinking about in the stuffy church, holding a candle in my sweaty fist. Love is love, but all of this is temporary; I might be able to endure it for a couple of years, no more, and then my true nature will prevail, and then forgive me, Lord, if you exist…
“That’s it,” the angel shook his head and turned the page, “you have pitfalls at every turn! My dear girl, this can’t go on! At the age of thirty, you wanted a tattoo – why didn’t you get one?”
“Um…I don’t remember,” I puzzled.
“I’ll tell you,” the angel smirked unpleasantly, “Your then-boyfriend was against it. Primitive, he said, tribes… and besides… your butt will sag with age… Remember?”
“You know better,” I frowned, although something like that was indeed said once…”
“I know better, of course… It was your body, not your boyfriend’s, right?! Okay, let’s move on.”
“Here it says – thirty-five years old, housewife, in other words – unemployed, hobbies – perhaps only cooking. A quaint picture emerges. Only embroidery with smooth stitches is missing. Well, remember, remember, what did you really want?!
“I remember. I wanted to shoot.”
“Shoot who?!” – the angel was amazed and looked at the book.
“A moving target. Or a stationary one, it doesn’t matter,” I couldn’t cry anymore, as it turned out, but my misty body lost its brightness and turned into thick gray waves, “I wanted to do target shooting. I also wanted to sing. It was a long time ago…”
“I confirm,” the angel pointed his finger at the Book, “you, my dear, had quite decent abilities for all of this. Given to you by God! Incidentally, from birth! What happened to all of that? Where, I ask you, are the dividends?!”
“I didn’t know that I should…” I whispered in response.
“You’re lying, you knew perfectly well,” the angel took off his glasses, wearily squinted, and rubbed his nose. “Why do you all lie like this, what a disaster… Alright, madam, let’s finish and proceed to your distribution.”
He took out a large form, spread it over my biography, and began to write something.
“How can you all not understand,” Angel’s voice was filled with despair, “you cannot betray yourself at every step, otherwise you might die before death! And that, among other things, is the ‘SIN’ that you all fear so much! You think everything will just work out… As if it’s a joke that every third soul is not living their own life! It’s a terrifying statistic! And everyone has some foolish excuse – their mother cried, their father was angry, their spouse was against it, it rained that day, or they didn’t have enough money. Homo sapiens, they’re called… Okay, it’s done,” the Angel irritably threw down his pen, “please stand for the reading of the verdict. Stand before me, I mean.”
I floated over the table and stopped in front of the angel, expressing my guilt and remorse with my entire demeanor. Who knows, maybe it will work.
“The Unidentified Soul is charged with the crime of not living their life and pleads guilty,” the angel looked at me with stern pity, “No mitigating circumstances such as a) not knowing what they were doing, b) physical incapability to act, or c) not believing in the existence of a higher power have been found. The punishment is to live the same life until they discover their true selves. The sentence is final and cannot be appealed. Defendant, do you understand the sentence?”
“No,” I blinked plaintively, “Is this hell?”
“Well, you haven’t earned hell, kid,” the angel smirked, “and as for vacancies there…,” he waved his hand hopelessly, “You’ll go to purgatory, live through simulated situations until the court deems you to have lived your life. Now, is everything clear?”
“More or less,” I nodded confusedly, “And where do I go now?”
“Just a moment,” said the angel, snapping his fingers. Something clinked, crashed, and my vision darkened…
“…my parents won’t let me go alone, but with you… you’ll be fine,” I heard a familiar voice, “and Oliver says that you should help, come on, Lilly, dear, you’ll help, right? We’ll even get a separate tent for you, and it’ll be cool… imagine, two whole nights, a bonfire, a river, and the three of us?”
I was at my schoolyard, a dusty and stuffy evening in May, and Emma, a beauty with a doll face and a figure from Sandro Botticelli, my friend, was chirping in my ear as usual, not noticing how hatred and pain slowly twisted me like a screw, making it hard to breathe. Such a familiar, such a native feeling… I am a good girl, I will endure all of this, I will behave decently, I am good, good, good…
“Go to hell,” I said softly, with sadistic pleasure watching her porcelain eyes round, and feeling a sense of unfinished business, I added, “Both of you go to hell!”
When the angry clack of Emma’s heels died down somewhere around the corner, I listened to the ringing emptiness around me and realized that right now, I am finally deeply, indecently, and unpunished happy.
Art & translation by Alexandra Adara, written by Karma Amrak
