One short story from my book: “Beyond the Absurd” #FollowFriday,

There’s a street from the distant future, where it’s always raining. I’ve asked myself a thousand times why it only rains there. I love rain. It’s eternal and cleansing.

Once again, I’m there at dusk, waiting for the ghost of that mysterious woman to appear, the one who caused the end of the world to come. The only woman in eternity that I’m in love with.

I knew I’d shown up a little early and decided to take a walk while waiting for her.

I headed down the cross street. It was made of glass. It was deserted and ablaze with light. There was nobody around. I stared at the dusky sky, where I saw something that looked like an enormous airplane. What is it doing there and where are the people now, I asked myself, though I knew I wouldn’t find out, as I couldn’t possibly know all the details about the distant future. As I walked down the sidewalk, I reached something resembling a large, open kiosk. It looked like a pharmacy. Suddenly, a blond kid with sad eyes and strange clothes popped up in front of me and, without paying me any attention, went up to the kiosk. At its window stood a young woman wearing a white lab coat. She was beautiful. I stopped in front of them.

“What would you like? Are you feeling sick?” the woman asked the kid.

He fell silent for a few seconds.

“I’d like something against death…?” he said, to my amazement.

“You know I can’t do that. You’re way too young. Where are your parents? Why aren’t you at school?” the pharmacist’s answer amazed me even more.

“Please, give me something against death!” the kid continued to insist.

“Look, I think you better go home and get some sleep, no matter what happened or who died. You must’ve heard that giving out drugs against death to children is strictly prohibited. They could poison your psyche.”

“But can’t you give me just a tiny bit? I feel terrible and want to try some! Everyone says these drugs are quite effective,” the kid continued to insist.

“If you don’t feel well, go to the doctor. If he prescribes you a children’s dose of medicine against death, and you come back with the prescription, then I’ll give it to you. Otherwise it’s impossible.”

The child fell silent for a while.

“Then at least tell me, what are these drugs against death like?” he finally asked.

“I knew it! You little scoundrel! Nobody’s actually died, have they? You just ran away from school and now you’re trying to trick me, just to satisfy your curiosity. You better go home, before I call your parents. And when it comes to these drugs against death,” she gave him a teasing smile, “you’ll find out what they’re like when you grow up.”

The kid hung around for a few more seconds, then ran down the street and quickly disappeared from my sight.

“Good afternoon!” I was already standing in front of the window.

“Good time of day, rather!” the pharmacist replied.

“What does that mean, good time of day?” I inquired.

“That’s how people greet each other between noon and evening! Where do you come from?” she asked with a surprise.

“It doesn’t matter. I’d like some medicine against death!” I said and dug into my pocket for some money.

“You need a prescription for that, sir.”

“I’ll pay double!” I said.

“What? Are you addicted to drugs against death, or what? You better go, before I call the police.”

“Look… all right. I’m not going to insist. I’d just like to know, what are these drugs like, exactly?”

She gave me a somewhat apprehensive and bewildered look, as if she was looking at a mentally ill person.

“Sir, where do you come from? Are you mad, or are you maybe suffering from severe amnesia?”

“Yes, I’m suffering from severe amnesia and I need to be reminded of some ordinary things, which I seem to have forgotten. Please, just briefly explain to me what these drugs against death are, and I’ll go immediately.”

Her face looked frightened as she hesitated for a few seconds.

“Well, most commonly, they are special eyeglasses, which cause powerful visual hallucinations. Bright visions that provoke dark sexual fantasies and increase the human libido a hundredfold. They cause people to fall into the abyss of their own sexuality, making it possible for them to have up to one hundred orgasms per minute. As long as the drug is working, the patients totally forget about death as a whole, and even – to quote some of the information leaflets, ‘all the death in the world,’ since they’re obsessed with chasing after their pleasure. But these drugs are only available by prescription, and only to people who are very depressed. Most frequently, these are people who’ve lost a child. One has to be very careful with them, as they can be highly addictive. That’s it. I hope that this has made you remember. And now, please, go away,” she says.

Astounded, I continue walking down the sidewalk. At its end, there is a small, glowing table. An elderly man wearing glasses is sitting at the table and reading a newspaper. There’s an empty chair next to him. I go up to him and take a look at my watch. I still have fifteen minutes before my meeting, and the street where it’s always raining is just a few hundred feet away.

“Sir, can I sit down for a bit?” I ask.

“Of course, go right ahead,” he says and continues leafing through the paper.

Unintentionally, I start scanning the headlines. It says:

“The Chinese man, – – –, has fallen in love! Something that hasn’t happened in two hundred years! Unfortunately, this unfamiliar feeling made him so worried that he condemned himself to being unafraid of death and got into a fatal car accident that same night! The doctors will be able to revive him for an hour at most, but that should be enough to run some tests and find out how the ancient feeling arose in him!”

Elsewhere, it says:

“Psychologists have finally proven that the entire justice system’s deep motives and its idea as a whole, which have existed for thousands of years, are completely false, since they rest upon empty human delusions. Namely, the delusion that people can control or change the future and win over the evil that has already taken place. According to the studies, this is impossible, since it’s the evil of the moment that makes the world go round and this is a fixed constant.

“All efforts and means to somehow compensate for it in the future serve only to feed the human ego in an imaginary way and are thus impossible, since both the world and its people are changing constantly and at a very quick pace.

“According to our editor-in-chief, this is undoubtedly reminiscent of an idea of the great author from the end of the third millennium, – – –, ‘On an unconscious level, the idea of what’s good and moral is nothing more than an empty illusion, which weak use to people compensate for their own powerlessness in an imaginary way.’”

Next to the article, set off in a small box, I read the following headline: “Exclusive Interview with the Mother of the World’s Youngest Suicide, 4-Year-Old – – –, Who Killed Himself Yesterday, Just After his Birthday.”

“My son. He died very young, a mere child. But he died like a hero. He was barely four, but he’d hated the whole world ever since he was two. I think that deep inside, he felt as only a child could feel. Yesterday, shortly after he turned four, he went up to the roof of our apartment building, to the 12th floor. A crowd gathered below and started starting at him. He looked at it with the eyes of an adult and jumped over the railing. Then, as he fell to his death, and seemingly without a drop of fear, he put out his hand and showed everyone a vulgar, but very real gesture – his middle finger. A truly mystical death. I’ll never forget it.”

The man turns to another page. On it, it says:

“According to the contemporary sociologist – – –, the end of the world will come when people start to commit murders in the name of hope! When they realize that each death in the present eventually gets forgotten and the only way for the human soul to be purified is for the dead to outnumber the living in the present moment! The dead themselves, or the idea and memory of them, are debating on the subject!”

I take a look at my watch. It’s already time. I get up from the table.

“Goodbye, sir. Have a pleasant time of day!”

He looks at me and gives me a strange smile.

“Goodbye, and have a pleasant evening, rather!” he says, and continues his reading.

I walk quickly. Before long, I’m already at the beginning of the street where it’s always raining. It’s dark and the evening rain is swooping down on the dim lights of the street lamps. Why isn’t that woman here? I even came a little late! There’s something I’m forgetting. I think about it and I remember.

“Everything, even the end of the world, is an escape from loneliness,” I say out loud.

And then, as I look on with amazement, her mysterious ghost slowly appears at the end of the street.

Translated from the Bulgarian by Ekaterina Petrova

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