Dream on Christmas night

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

A white crinoline dress with a heavy bell sways in time with my hurried steps. Bare shoulders are unusually chilly, and I wrap myself in an airy transparent scarf. I'm in a hurry. I don’t know where, but we must hurry, because everyone has already gathered … Who are these"

What a long corridor … No, this is not a corridor, but a whole suite of completely identical rooms, as in a chain of mirror reflections. And only at the very end shines a patterned white door. I go there. But one has only to take a few steps towards it, the door moves back further, as if alive. Teases, mocks, laughs! Well, let's play catch-up. Who will win?

I quickly kick off the sharp-toed and silky white shoes. It is so pleasant to touch with bare feet the marble smooth as glass …

What an easy, rapid run! I barely touch the floor with my fingertips. Who am I? Ballerina?

Behind his back, long curly curls flutter through the air. Really mine … After all, yesterday I was in the hairdresser and cut my hair a la "winter cherry-1". I have no time, no time … I jump high into the air and fly! The heart stops. I didn't know that I can also fly.

Careful! The door suddenly pops up in front of the very nose. Don't miss, grab her by the handle … Well, who's in charge! What if you don't laugh anymore, you squeak plaintively, they say, it hurts, let go … Never mind, you will bear with me. Look at how determined my gloves are. White, long, above the elbow. You can't argue with them …

The door gave up. Complaining on the sly and whispering something indistinctly, it slowly opened wide. And I solemnly, royally, swam into the huge hall. Mirrored subfloor and tall, four-sided white columns. They are light - they hover over a black mirror just like me, barely touching it … Their slender figures so strive upward that they are lost somewhere inconceivably high in the bluish clouds. There are a lot of people here. However, everyone is dressed strangely: ladies in white, gentlemen in black, exactly like chess pieces or extras in ballet. Who sings the title role here? I guessed it was me!

“The last one,” a warm, rolling baritone is heard in the void between the columns. Hmmm, a little wrong, a blow to pride. And behind one more blow. Resounding, metallic - the angry door slammed shut. I am trapped. The main thing is that no one notices my bare feet peeking out from under the dress.

- We are starting the ball of winter dreams, - the same voice, only its owner is nowhere to be seen.

Well, let. Let's see what the rules of the game are.

Music … Funny naive waltz. This is not by the rules! First, there should be a polonaise, and a waltz - that's it, for a snack. But it's still nice. From a sweet melody, my heart suddenly ached so sweetly, to tears … What a fool! Tears drip onto the dress in transparent balls and, rolling down the silk, melt on the floor. Some kind of stupidity … I - who? Alice in Wonderland?

Already the first couples are dancing. Weightless, beautiful, shining in the rays of light emanating from their souls. What are the eyes of all women! Bottomless whirlpools … And I think they are the same. For whom?

Interesting things are happening here. For example, this old man. He jumps up, shifts from foot to foot with impatience, stretches his neck, looks around, waits for someone. Probably about fifty years already hanging around here … And that pretty girl, plump, pretty, almost knocked me off my feet, purposeful. And her goal is that mustachioed man of Caucasian appearance. So joyfully he grabbed her by the magnificent waist - and rushed into a waltz. There is one couple, there is another. All clear! Something like a dating club. Ugh, what kind of prose …

And yet, for some reason, it is so warm in my soul, it is easy and I want to fly up to the very clouds. But then everyone will see that I am barefoot and without shoes. Who am I? Cinderella?

Then I'll go look for my prince. Ah, here's the thing! Prince! The heart moans tenderly … And for this I am here. Hmmm, the hormones were playing out in earnest, if here, far away, I flew almost on a broomstick to see some … Come on, I'll at least go and see who he looks like.

Not that one … And not this one … Maybe at the column? Never! Well, where is he, where ?!

What kind of music is this, Strauss? No, it is not ringing in the ears, but in the heart … Closer and closer … Here He is !!! Now I know what they feel when they say "the light came together like a wedge."

Stands with his back, does not see me. So tall, slender, broad-shouldered. Hair is golden, long, luxurious - a real Prince, as in the picture in my children's book "The Princess and the Pea". I dreamed about Him, prayed, cried. And now it became scary: what if not waiting for me?

"Who-who is this ?! Warm touch of someone's fingers on my hand. I turn around … It's HE !! His face is so close, but I just can't make out the magic features - my eyes seem to be covered with fog. Only a smile is guessed, only a smile … And gentle, quiet voice: "I am your fiance …"

* * *

Ugh … what disgusting, Vaska, take off your fluffy tail! The wool got right into my mouth. Get off your pillow! Where am I? Ah, I remembered, I'm spending the night with a friend. Her cat's name is not Vaska, but Leopold. Ooh, what a disgusting one! Woke up before everyone else … Look, Lika is so sweetly sleeping. And Straw is near, and her sister. How did we manage to fit everything here, across the folding sofa? I want some tea … What were we doing here yesterday? It smells of singe … Ah, you guessed! Annual entertainment.

So, judging by the "readings" of the saucer, this year I will marry some Dmitry. Let's see, last year Timofey was predicted in general - a cat's name. I suspect that Lika spelled the saucer herself on purpose …

Further, further … They burned old crumpled newspapers in the toilet. They looked at the shadow on the wall. Straw had a big crown, Lika had something obscene. And I have a terrible wolf head with huge teeth. Then they tormented the paraffin candle, crumbled it on a grater, drowned it in a spoon and dripped it into a basin of water. Straw has a cheerful, carefree girl, dancing, waving her handkerchief. Everything is clear here, she is like that, this Straw. Lika turned out … a man in high boots. As easy as pie. And I got some kind of smooth pink "pip". And so we turned it around, and that way … Nothing is clear, so be it.

And then it was great! Fortune telling on mirrors. Likina baushka instructed us. She had once seen her husband in the mirror. She wondered in the barn, hiding from the brothers. I put candles and mirrors on a keg of sauerkraut, and let's look with wide eyes. Suddenly, he sees - the boy walks up the mirrored stairs closer and closer. Then he stopped, pulled out a galvanized bathtub from somewhere and began to undress. Climbed into the bath - and let's wash up. Likina's grandmother did not even tell her friends about it, it was a shame - the betrothed was dirty. And then, when I got married, I remembered this story. The husband, it turns out, worked as a locomotive driver. Every day he came home from work, dirty and blackened, and washed in exactly the same galvanized bath.

And then we stuffed ourselves under the pillows all sorts of magic notes, "spoken" combs, mirrors, kings from a deck of cards … I even built a well from colored pencils and closed it with a tiny lock, and the key was also under the pillow. My grandmother used to say that this is the surest remedy. This is how she saw my grandfather in a dream. Moreover, in the very suit in which he later married her in church. Wait … Wait! It seems I …

- Li-i-ika !!! I just saw Him in a dream … I'll tell you now !!! - I am mercilessly pushing my beloved girlfriend by the shoulders.

She slowly opens one eye and reluctantly asks:

- This is your hereditary, to see suitors in a dream, - Straw stretches sweetly.

And her sister didn't even lift a finger. Disconnected yesterday immediately after the fortune-telling on a saucer …

Well, what a muddler!

- He is slender, tall, blond, hair from-to-here, long. He smiled. He said that my fiance …

- Did you see your face? Straw yawned.

- Not very clear, but …

- Did you ask the name? - Lika closed her eye and buried her nose in the pillow.

- No…