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Отрывок из современной фантастики “What’s Your Purpose?”

“Where did you come from?”

“Erm… Britain.”

“How old were you when you died?”

“Seventy, as far as I remember…”

“Did you have a family? Children? Anyone left after you?”

“Oh, no… I was an old spinster, as they say.”

‘What was your occupation?”

“I worked as a nurse all my life… I helped a lot of people.”

“I see… A lot of sacrifices… Alright, where do you want to go now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, according to your deeds, you gained quite a lot of points in this life; however, you did not use them to actually enjoy life… So, you can choose and be reborn somewhere, where you don’t need to sacrifice so much.”

“But I am sure that people need to help each other, that’s why I chose to be a nurse so that I could see that I do something valuable in this life.”

“Yes, that’s all good, but you also need to fulfil your own purpose.”

“My purpose?”

“Yes… you always get to the earth with a bunch of talents… How many of them did you actually use?”

“Hmm… I don’t know… I played the piano fairly well. My patients enjoyed listening to me playing.”

“What about other talents?”

“Excuse me? Other talents?”

“Yes, you need to love. Be loving and obviously, you need to go back to earth and find out your other talents and influence people. This is your main goal… love and influence people. Now, here is your pass. Good luck and have a nice life!

* * *

As Bernard Werber wrote in The Empire of the Angels, each of us is assigned an angel when we are just being conceived. There is a plan for each of us written somewhere in the heavens in the big Book of Life. And the angels must look after each soul on the Earth that is assigned to them. The most complicated years are usually at the beginning of someone’s life and later, when this person is already a grown-up and can take responsibility for their actions, the angels interfere less and less.

I will tell you a story of a girl whose angels had to be highly vigilant, alert, and quick in reactions in order to help her fulfil her destiny.

* * *

At the angel distribution venue, which, one might think, would look like an old train station, and which in reality looked like a white desk on a white feathery cloud, the superiors said that the energy in the new girl was going to be smashing. That is, she was going to be so fast and vigorous that one angel would not be able to do the job, so they decided to assign a team of four.

The first in line came up two brothers — Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, as she was going to be an inquisitive mind with an extremely vivid imagination. And the brothers were well known for writing down the scary folklore stories that people made up for their kids not to go far into the woods when they went berry picking, or not to get distracted near rivers, well… you know all those instructions. These two German brothers were supposed to predict every move a hyperactive child could make.

The third was her old Granny Nesibeli, whom she had never met, as the old lady had died before her parents even got married. She was a meek and gentle woman, who survived WWII, bringing up her six children, though the twins died at an early age during those hungry years, thus, leaving her with four on her hands. The baby’s father was born two years after the war finished, and after that, her grandfather was sent to a Soviet camp for eight years. It turned out in 1943, he was shell-shocked during the attack and came back to his senses wounded on the way to a concentration camp somewhere in Poland. Later, he managed to escape, together with some other prisoners of the war, but they were captured, and after being tortured and starved, he was sent to another camp. There, he met the victory. However, after his return home, the Soviet authorities started questioning him about how he got captured, whether he surrendered by his own will, or whether he betrayed his comrades. In fact, they did not need to hear the truth; they just took him away from his family for an even longer period than he actually spent in the fascist camps. So, Nesibeli was bringing up her children by herself; and their children were stigmatized as the enemy of the state’s children.

And the fourth was Marilyn Monroe, the singer, actress, and simply a beautiful woman and a newbie who could not understand her purpose in all that project. Well, you remember her… Poo-poo-pee-doo…

Episode 1

On the day when her mother started having contractions, it was cold and windy in that part of the earth. The assigned team of angels was almost ready. However, it seemed that the baby did not want to come out. It was cold, after all. Understandable…

It was November 16 when it all started, and that was when the angels were supposed to get in contact with the baby.

“Hi,” she heard some strange voice coming from somewhere other than her mother.

“Hi,” she replied, still wondering who it was.

“It’s time for you to come out, you know,” the voice said.

“Is it? But it’s so cosy here,” she said, giggling.

“Oh, come on, she’s not even taking it seriously,” another voice interfered.

“Who are you?” she moved in the tightening womb, trying to figure out where the voices were coming from.

“Don’t move too much, you’re hurting your mother,” another voice, obviously older, joined in.

“But I don’t want to come out now, it’s too early… and besides, my mother’s birthday is on Monday, I wanna pop out then! Wouldn’t it be fun?!”

“But it’s in six days!”

“But the date will be pretty! 22/11…”

“Oh no, it’s a bad sign… You know, my friend was shot on that day!” said another younger melodic voice.

“Oh, come on, Marilyn, you would bring that up every time?”

“But I’m getting sad every time… he was a good man… I can’t deal with it…”

“Hmm… so, I’ll wait; you won’t persuade me to come out any day earlier. I wanna be a birthday present!”

“Oh, she’s stubborn, not good,” Jacob stated.

“That’s going to be fun!” said Wilhelm. “You’ll see!”

Due to the long period of contractions and water breaking, thus leaving yet the unborn child without much water and nourishment, labours were complicated, and what made it even worse… the baby girl was infected right after her spectacular appearance at 7:50 am on Monday, November 22…

“You were supposed to be there and protect her!” Jacob yelled at the others. “How come she has that horrible infection now?”

“You were supposed to be there too; why are you blaming us?” the others objected.

“I wanted to have my breakfast in peace and quiet for once… It’s been a tough week for me.”

“Oh, so, you want to say you are the victim here. Look at the girl! Her skin is disgusting! Ew, what’s that on her?”

“Those are pustules, I guess, not good, not good…”

“Is she gonna die? Oh my… we failed! I failed my first task!” blubbered Marilyn.

“Shush, nobody is going to die. It’s almost the end of the XX century, after all! Did you forget? They have medicine for that.” Said the granny.

“Right, right… alright, so, what do we do?” Wilhelm inquired.

“We’ll wait…” they all agreed that the first step was always the hardest.

The baby girl was immediately taken away from her mother and sent to the infectious diseases’ hospital, where her parents could not even visit her.

“I blame the weather… Look, this blizzard hasn’t stopped for three days already!” Wilhelm tried to reason, more himself rather than anybody else.

“How is it even relevant? I blame the nurse; she did not sterilise the instruments!” Jacob argued.

“It doesn’t matter, guys. The thing is that my granddaughter is now all alone in that hospital ward. Look at her. She’s freezing there. I’m going there.”

“How can you even help, weirdo?” the blond singer smirked. “Just admit that we failed… I read that not every child makes it, even now… in the 1970s. This infection is deadly.”

“Why is it so cold? Why is nobody coming up to me? Where is my mother? Where is everyone?” Diana cried at the top of her lungs.

“There, there, dear. I’m here with you. I wish you could feel me, and I could hold you, but I cannot really touch you.” Her grandmother was standing at her crib, trying to soothe her. “A nurse will come and change your wet nappies; you’ll get fed and taken care of. There-there.”

Diana calmed down for a while, still snivelling in her restless slumber. The nurse came only in an hour. Diana was cooling down, desperately trying to attract someone’s attention, crying, and crying.

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