Damenstok

I'm being watched from mirrors. Forty-two-year-old surgeon Paisii Mirazhev woke up in a cold sweat after another nightmare and immediately began to feel for a glass of water on the bedside table with a shaking hand. Lately, his nerves had been shattered by a sick imagination and a cursed eternal lack of sleep. From the constant tension, it seemed to him that some kind of spy was watching him from the darkness, who could attack and kill him at any moment; everywhere he saw terrible bloody images, and especially mirrors and glasses. In the reflection, he saw not only himself, but also his dead patients, who stared at him like pale ghosts, smiled a toothless smile and waved a decrepit hand at him. But when he turned around, he found no one and was ready to burst into tears from panic fear that he had become attached to him like a burdock. Smoothing his mustache, short spiky hair and putting on glasses, Paisii got out of bed with a convulsive sigh and went to the kitchen with white tent walls, where he poured himself strong green tea with mint. Ah, that bitter taste! He calmed and lulled his eternally awake brain, helped him concentrate and not go into the depths of thought and madness. Yes, it is madness, because it is impossible not to go crazy with medicine. After sitting in silence for a while, he realized that he didn't like the silence at all and turned on the radio. The cello began to wail, followed by the piano, which began to dance, and his favorite symphony orchestra began to play. Looking at the colorful poster with the very young maestro of music – composer Samuel Lonero, Paisii plunged into sweet dreams of how someday in his life he would get to a Lonero concert, take his autograph and hang it in a frame next to a photo of his late wife and daughter. Having amused himself with dreams, he returned to the room with a sweet smile and fell into a wonderful dream to the choral singing. ... "Honey, be sure to call me when you get home". "Okay, dear, we will definitely call you. Yes, Sofochka?" "Yes!" I don't want to remember this conversation. I don't want to remember those voices, I don't want to remember that unfortunate day and nightmarish evening. I don't want to, but I remember. An important patient died in my arms that day. His wife, even the little children, blamed me for this death and cursed me forever, screaming and cursing with tears in their eyes that smeared on cheeks and chins. Perhaps one of them was a real witch, since their curse came true. I still remember the moment when another heart froze on the operating table. I didn't have time, I didn't defeat death in a dishonest duel, and I couldn't hold back my tears. It always hurt me to look at the suffering of people, it was scary to see endless deaths and realize that I could have saved them, but I did not save them. The realization that I am not completely guilty does not help to get rid of the burden of horror and responsibility that I always carry on my heart. And this damned evening when I was left alone in this world forever... Oh, God, if you can hear me, then you are ungrateful and terrible! What have I done wrong to deserve such a fate?! I do not know, but I want to know what I have done to annoy the Lord himself. I have nightmares about this evening all the time. "Honey, be sure to call me when you get home". "Okay, dear, we will definitely call you. Yes, Sofochka?" "Yes!" They didn't call. They were attacked at the entrance by some bastard who robbed my sweet Akulina and killed them, but not just killing them, but brutally killing first my baby Sofochka, who was about to go to first grade, and then raped and cut my Akulina's throat. I couldn't believe my own eyes when I found their bodies near the house in the bushes, I couldn't and didn't want to. The police hushed up the case, because no one saw or heard anyone. "There were no witnesses, which means there is no case," that's what they told me, to me, a man who cruelly lost his whole world and his life. I did not know how to continue to drag out my miserable existence, and more and more patients died from distraction on the operating table in front of me. They began to come to me in nightmares, which made me sleep badly. Both Akulina and Sofochka, and the deceased patients, all come to me with a question: "Why are we dead?" And what should I say? Nothing. And I don't answer anything, but they don't like my silence at all, so they've made their way from the dream world to the real world. I constantly see these black shadows in the mirrors and involuntarily imagine their terrible revenge on me. I can see them. The clock struck three in the morning. Paisius woke up screaming for the third time. His white face and wide-open eyes sparkled in the moonlight in the darkness. Putting on his glasses with trembling hands, he wanted to take a glass of water, but felt a touch and pulled his hand away. By the bed, hugging a hand-sewn teddy bear, stood a little girl with charming purple eyes and long blond curls, dressed in a white fluffy dress. A mystical glow emanated from her. "Hi, Dad," Sofochka whispered and smiled. Paisius recoiled from his daughter as from a fire and shook his head. The vision was gone. "It's all a dream... a dream... Yes, it's a dream..." he turned on the lamp above the bed, got to his feet and walked past the mirror, when suddenly out of the corner of his eye he noticed a light shadow in the mirror. When he returned, he saw a young woman with a radiant smile of even white teeth and kind cornflower blue eyes next to him in the reflection. She reached out to touch his hand and say, "Honey, we're home," but Paisii grabbed the bust of the Creator from the shelf and swung it with a scream. The mirror shattered into myriad fragments that sparkled like stars in the light and fell to the floor like a snowfall along with the headless bust. However, Akulina did not want to leave him and appeared in a small mirror on the bedside table. "Hi, honey!" she waved her hand. Paisii grabbed a mirror and threw it on the floor with a flourish, mixing it with the fragments of a large mirror. It became harder and more painful to breathe, tears involuntarily welled up in my eyes. After stretching his face, Paisii went into the bathroom and decided to wash his face with cold water. "It's all a dream, it's all a dream... Wake up, Paisii..." But it wasn't a dream. After rinsing his mouth with water, the surgeon smiled crookedly and stupidly to himself, looked up mockingly and, turning pale, froze. From the mirror, as if from the depths of Hell itself, dozens of hands were desperately reaching out to him, touching his cold face with their fingertips. They pleaded in their throats for salvation, sobbed violently and shouted curses at him. Paisii could not stand the pressure of his own inflamed imagination, grabbed his hair and began to bang his forehead against the mirror. With each blow, the number of cracks that sprouted branches on the glass grew, and the fragments mixed with sticky blood that sprayed in all directions and flooded the walls. Rolling his eyes, Paisii staggered back with a mad laugh and staggered out into the corridor. Pressing his sweaty back against the icy wall, he looked away with a blissful smile and met the gaze of Sofochka, who beckoned him to her with her small palm. "Dad, let's go for a walk!" "Walk... walk..." he echoed after her and, holding on to the wall, headed towards the vision. Sofochka led him to the kitchen and pointed to the window, in whose reflection Paisii saw, in addition to himself and his daughter, his beloved Akulina and dozens of patients who died because of his fault. They all waved at him and grinned. "We've come for you," their voices rang in my ears along with the howling. Paisius turned deadly pale, turned around and came face to face with Death, who appeared before him as a lanky man in a black robe and an axe. "Boo!" grinned Death, his golden eyes wide. The surgeon screamed in horror and fell out of an open window on the tenth floor.