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Totally tangled in her thoughts, where she first took Michael’s side accepting his arguments and then opposed to him, Mary stopped trying to understand everything. She hoped that soon her personal hell – the experience of life on earth – would end and she could come back to forget it and get the next task. But could her soul forget, turn away and pretend that none of this ever happened?
Though, one thought kept bothering her. If she comes back with a failure, she won’t receive the assignment. Eternal idleness frightened her more than eternal punishment, since punishment also implied hard work. The work she would hate, but Mary saw that she could put up with it. People did...
If she wins, Michael will fail. And for some reason she didn’t want him to have any troubles. She couldn’t conquer him by fair means, so she had to use a trick. But is it right to act like this towards somebody who offered cooperation? Would he do the same towards her, would he trick her?
And so the week passed. The despair unknown before now stuck firmly to her. Nobody worried about Georgie. Several times they called from work. But they quickly calmed down and quietly fired him for his absence, as they say, without any trial, citing the strangeness of his behavior. Time was relentlessly slipping away like sand in an hourglass. Then despair changed into frank fear. It’s always condemned at the sermons with the words “If you are afraid, you do not believe...”. Condemnation – there is so much of it in this world. People are watching others so carefully and thus have no time to watch themselves. A fu
y thing: if you try to explain this to them, this will make you a condemner. It turns out to be a vicious circle in which someone still has to take responsibility and all sins so that others don’t commit them.
“Oh dear, where have you gone?!” She exclaimed by the end of the eighth day.
But nobody answered. She went on the streets, wandering among the people for hours. But she no longer broke up the fights, gave her hand to the suffering or felt sorry for dogs. Like a human doctor, she developed some kind of immunity to someone else's pain. It’s impossible to help everyone at once. You can’t save everyone. Not everyone needs to be saved. Not everyone should be saved by her.
Her little dress wore out quickly because she hadn’t learned yet how to care for earthly things. And she didn’t dare to use magic, afraid that she would be found out and punished for that. Before she was afraid to be found because she wanted to have time to save George and now she was simply afraid for herself.
In the evening of the ninth day, she went outside again. The birds were singing quietly, tired during the day just like people, getting some food and escaping from cats. The sun was sloping to the horizon, not willing to be alone either. People were walking in pairs along the streets, jealously guarding their temporary happiness, forgetting that they were born alone and not in marriage. So she was wondering for a while as she soon found herself in some godforsaken area. It got dark. From the nearest alley she could hear the muffled sounds of slaps, the sobbing of a child and woman’s laughter. From somewhere, the strange human desire to run away arose. The farther the better. But her angelic spirit prevailed and she followed the sound.
Mary made a few hesitant steps, staying in the shade, while the evening lighting was unfolding the bloody pictures of the battle of interests before her eyes.
Two men were circling on the pile of garbage heap against each other. The child who hid in a corner with fear was screaming loudly, clutching a grimy torn soft toy in his hands. And all this was observed by the woman whose laughter was clearly heard by Mary from around the corner. The woman stood with her hands on her hips, a half-torn dirty shirt that opened up almost all of her breasts with dirty handprints on them. And apparently, she took everything only as a performance that didn’t bother her at all, but even amused her.
A small streetlight at the corner of the house was swaying with a creak, illuminating the alley with a dim light, but it was enough to see everything and get horrified. Mary froze, not daring to move or breath as if she could harm someone with any careless movement. At that moment, one of the fighters lunged and the second bent down and tried to grab the opponent by the throat. The attacker dropped his knife in surprise. The one who held him by the throat turned, accidentally exposing his face to the light. Dark-ski
ed, brunet, with brown eyes, tall, athletic…
“Oh my God!” Mary gasped, recognizing the imp in this man. God, how inappropriate is any exclamation which associates with you. But how not to mention you in vain, if another option is to mention your opponent?
“Well?” The man asked, smiling victoriously to the woman which apparently he had known before. “What to do with him? Come on, baby, say something! Your captive, so it's up to you…”
The woman laughed loudly, throwing her head back, and the opening of the bodice became even larger, with her chest literally falling out of it. Both men, despite the unequal position, fixed their eyes on this very opening and swallowed nervously that made Mary shudder in horror. Still laughing, the woman wiped her hands on the bottom of her skirt carelessly, snorted and came closer.