The beginning of Fantasia

"I awoke in the darkness of the day, and was ready for a new page. My room was enveloped in darkness; I could not see my hands before my eyes, but I knew that it was already a new day, and the sun had surely risen already.

After getting out of my bed, I raised the blinds and the rays of the sun entered the room in an instant. The small room lit up at that moment and revealed the chaos that had taken up residence in it in all its size and mess. My books were piled up in this corner, some in the other; mounds of sheets of paper were on the ground almost everywhere, resembling the constructions of a drunken architect, because of the ugliness of the shape of these pyramids. The desk of old wood was placed beside the bed, just in front of the window of the little room, and the small, uncomfortable chair revolved in a circle behind it; I must have pushed it when I let the rays in. On it lay more sheets, some with finished lines, others half-finished; thirds torn in half, not yet discarded. The smell of ink was very easy to smell in the room, but eventually so many pens in one place will cause that effect and it is inevitable.

Ah, my creativity has been on the wane for the past few months. I'm sitting here in this backless hydraulic chair in my underpants and socks and I'm thinking, what's it going to be like?

I am a writer, yes, in desperate need of some motivation and nudge, some spark. But lo and behold, no progress for so long.

I have no idea what to start writing today. Until yesterday, I was creating chapters and pages from the magical and fantastical to the real and familiar; whatever it was, it gained popularity and admiration, but alas, with only a small spread from my street to the next. I was not very good at creating poems, but they were my first creation, after all, rhyme was my first admiration.

Until yesterday's sun I was composing "The Three-Headed Serpent," "The Witches' Closet," and "The Deacon and the Dragon," and today I have not enough imagination to brighten up my dull morning. Not a single line of composition came to my head! I didn't even think about tomorrow; if today is bad, tomorrow will be disastrous.

But my problem is, my journal, that I actually have ideas and inspiration, but they are too, um... unfeasible, crazy maybe. Some of them would strike people as too diabolical or too politically polemical, others too indescribable and abstract to sit on rows of sheets outside my head."

Suddenly there was a knock at the door and he got up from his diary to open it, but first he pulled on a white shirt and dark blue trousers.

But suddenly he stopped in his tracks, filled with doubt and fear. What if it was the landlord who wanted his money for several weeks? When the door was opened, another scandal about the rent would take place, but this time it would end with his expulsion from here. Where would he go then? But the landlord had a key; he would soon let himself in!

– Although... wait a minute.

Glancing out the window, one could see the fat, short landlord with his shirt half unbuttoned, revealing his hairy chest, talking to someone outside the building.

Then who the hell was at his door?

Although he was a writer and had published books, no people came to his door uninvited.

A great curiosity came over him suddenly, replacing his feeling of insecurity, but fear still simmered in his head.

The knocking on the door had stopped after several attempts and silence reigned in the room as well as the corridor beyond.

He approached the wooden door and listened for the sounds beyond, but to no avail, for there was nothing there. Opening the door revealed the stairs going up and down and the aged walls of a worn brownish color, but that was it. There was not a living soul here before him. Unless the guest has left and wants to come back at a later time or another day.

When he turned, however, after the door closed, his heart almost skipped a beat.

"Good day," said the unknown man sitting on the chair in front of the desk, and behind him the curtains swayed from the light breeze that came in through the already open window.

"How did you get in here?" sounded the writer's question, despite the obvious answer that whistled behind the guest.

"The answer to this question is of no great importance," replied the gentleman dressed in a black suit and a dark bowler hat on his head. "If you have the desire, you will find the means.

"Did you knock on the door just now?" continued the author's questions. "And who are you?"

"Some call me Darko, but don't ask about my last name," grinned the costumed guest. "But more importantly, I came to you for business reasons, Lazarus."

The writer again felt a blow in his chest and a pounding in his head. His pulse quickened and rising fear began to make his knees weak.

"How do you..."

"How do I know your name? I already told you about the desire and the means. But let's get down to business. I understand that you are having trouble distributing your books. We can handle this endeavor with ease; after all, they don't call me Darko the Merchant for nothing. Your second complication, however, is not so easy to fix; it's not superficial though. As a writer, you're someone who pours your soul out onto a bunch of paper and creates your own world, which I really like! But I noticed from reading your books that you are tormented by the hatred of people and their malice, if I understood correctly?"

Lazarus was still in great shock, but the talk of his books and the obvious, impressive knowledge on them attracted him, so he answered bluntly:

"I write books with the aim of enlightening people. Through words I tell, through books I learn. I let go of my imagination and create a picture familiar, but distant to most."

"Hmm, interesting. Then why in your book 'The Redemption of the World' does Nemisa sell the world instead of atoning for her sins? That doesn't sound like an decent lesson to me."

"If you have read correctly, you will understand the reasons. They are not unfounded. Hatred was the main driving force her heart, along with alienation from other human beings..."

"There is a lot of interest between us and I think we will have a good partnership in the future, but now the time is calling. See you soon, Mr. Kasimirov!"

The gentleman with the browler hat stood up with these sharp words, revealing his tall stature and unnaturally long limbs. He walked by with his formal black shoes and walked out the door after passing Lazarus with a look that could only be described as sinister and mysterious, yet alluring through the blue iris of his eyes.

Lazarus looked around the room in confusion, trying to piece things together and find the logic and meaning of what had just happened. On his desk was left some unknown pen with the number six engraved on it. A really strange occurrence in general...

Before Lazarus came to his senses, someone knocked on the door again, but this time the writer did not open, thinking that it really was the owner. A few curses and threats were heard in the corridor, which died down with the footsteps.

In the following days, Lazarus only collected money from wherever he could, and wrote nothing more. His expectation of the merchant to return was indescribably great. He took notes deposited in his bank account, took back money from loans from acquaintances and asked some of his fellow citizens for a favor of a certain amount. He even asks Miroslav Dobrolyubov, with whom he had spoken before and struck up a friendship when they had seen each other in the city theater, for a loan of ten leva. The writer knew that this man was quite famous in the city and that he was a special person, but he did not know exactly what he did by profession. He only had the impression that Dobrolyubov was a decent person and would do him a favor.

As he entered the building and climbed the stairs, a piece of paper could be seen taped to his door and.

"I need the money..." the lines began, but Lazarus tore it from its place and threw it out the window of his room.

The wait tormented him. He could only guess and imagine where Darko could appear from.

"Through the window again? Hardly. Would he not meet me in the street somewhere, or in some building or shop? Perhaps he would send a letter. Or come to my door again?"

This was what Kasimirov wrote down in his diary, although these were only part of his ideas. In fact, his thoughts mainly revolved around the impossible and the unthinkable like: this person is just a figment of his imagination and he is just going crazy; maybe he was undercover as one of the neighbors in the building, or maybe he was the landlord himself.

These thoughts overwhelmed him more and more, and the author decided it would be better to write down his requests from now on. He wrote with the strange pen left by the merchant:

"I want my books to become more famous. I want..."

His wishes only reached here. What more could he want from a merchant, from a common man? Kasimirov had other wishes, but he didn't write them down...

Days later, there was another theatrical performance that Lazarus went to for distraction and inspiration. The merchant had not yet appeared, and the author would otherwise have remained in his room bored of waiting, so he went to the theater without a second thought, hearing that there was to be a performance.

The building was filled with people from different backgrounds, some wealthy, some not so much, to see a performance of art that has the potential to intrigue and take them away from everyday life, as in the case of Lazarus Kasimirov. On the front door of the theater was pasted an advertising sheet for the performance with the title: "The vulgarity of the writer".

It was getting dark outside and the temperature had dropped, so people were rushing to get inside where it was warm and cozy. As Kasimirov entered, he found a place in the front rows and waited for the stage to begin. Already seated, he noticed Dobrolyubov behind the already exited, rehearsing artists, talking to what appeared to be the director. This surprised him to some extent because he did not think that this person could be associated with such literary processions. One could hear in the chatter that the author of the play was indeed Dobrolyubov, and it was rumored that it was one of his first works to be performed in the theater.

On hearing these words, Kasimirov assumed an immodest and vulgar look, and was already looking forward with even keener impatience to the play, which would begin in a few minutes.

It all started and the sets moved and so did the actors with them. The words flowed one after the other, the characters played their roles, emotion poured over the stage, and applause was frequent after each pause in the plot.

Kasimirov was the only one who sat during the thunderous applause that brought everyone to their feet. He sat on his fire-red chair and watched and listened, his every word growing more hazy and his gaze more and more dismissive and absent-minded.

"Writers are on the edge of society because they like to create their own worlds through chaos, unknown to anyone, incomprehensible, some, even, unnecessary and selfish," recited one of the actors playing the jester.

The play continued to its end and the hall burst into applause. The evening was full of emotions: sadness, joy, admiration, confusion.

Kasimirov didn't have much idea why people showed the feelings that flew out of them. At one point he wasn't following the end of the plot at all because he was lost in thought.

The audience began to go outside, meanwhile expressing all kinds of comments and impressions related to what they had seen so far.

Lazarus, getting up, saw a gray woman's purse forgotten in one of the rows behind his seat. He had no idea whose it was because no one was coming back to get it and everyone was already heading for the exit, so he decided to take it with him.

He, then, headed in the other direction to the place behind the scenes, where people were talking to Dobrolyubov about his play, how the individual elements would be interpreted. Now was the time to ask about the monetary favor, for otherwise they might not see each other for a long time, until the merchant returned.

Dobrolyubov's words were descriptive and captivating. They explained the plot perfectly and revealed parts that are small but very important to the story.

"I wouldn't have thought of that, but now that you mention it," said one woman.

"You put a lot of thought into the plot, well done!" said a man.

"I liked that in the end the good won!" the child smiled at the woman.

Lazarus just listened from afar. His desire to speak suddenly evaporated and he decided to head back home. It was raining heavily outside, soaking his dark blue suit, making it look blackened and oppressive.

The streets were empty and lit by the tall lamps. Lazarus walked on them and thought.

"The play wasn't bad, but it was wrong. Writers don't create only for themselves... At least I don't... They teach with their works, show new worlds. All they need is support from people and nothing else. Absolutely, it's simple..."

His head blazed with emotion and his cheeks flushed and burned. It turned out that he had taken the pen with the engraved six and put it in his pocket. At that moment, while thinking about literature, he was clutching that familiar object tightly in his pocket.

"Is this exactly the kind of play that will present us to the people? Is this exactly the kind that will be widely seen? Yes, it is true, my works are darker and more unsatisfactory, but they are the truth! The great public wants to take the sweet poison rather than the bitter medicine! Ah, you fools!"

With his head down and walking in a straight line on the sidewalk, Kasimirov bumped into someone.

"Be careful where you walk!" said the female voice.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Kasimirov replied.

He looked at her and saw straight brown hair, beautiful dark green eyes, big red lips and a cute little nose. She appeared to be young, about 20 years old.

She was dressed in a pretty red dress that highlighted her elegant figure.

"Next time, watch your step, sir," said the lady in a low voice.

"Well, I was just thinking... I didn't... didn't I..." Lazarus was sruttering.

The writer had already smelled her peculiar and alluring scent. It smelled like vanilla and amber.

"Ah, but this is my bag!" she exclaimed, looking at Kasimirov's hand.

He had already forgotten that he had been holding it in his hand the whole time, but he had still protected it from the rain, sort of out of habit.

"Is it yours? I wondered whose it could be. Here you are," said Lazarus, returning the bag back to its owner.

"Thank you very much! I was just going back to look for it."

Lazarus stood and stared strangely and did not answer a word. He couldn't take his eyes off hers. They just attracted his.

She wondered why this man didn't answer, but his look was interesting. An impression was made to her by the big tousled hair, the oval thin face and the strange greenish eyes that seemed to be dreaming, especially at this moment. His face gave the appearance of a small child, because of the childish look, but the overall beauty of this peculiar, young head was visible.

"My name is Eleanor," said the woman in the red dress, blushing at the awkwardness of the situation, and held out her hand.

"My name is Lazarus," answered Kasimirov, waking up from his trance.

He squeezed her hand, feeling the tenderness of her skin and touch.

"I have to go now..." Eleanor smiled and started to turn.

What an elegant and quiet voice she had.

"Wait! Are you going to the show in a few days?" Lazarus asked.

Eleanor turned over her shoulder and said,

"Yes. Are we likely to meet there?"

"Most likely!"

After Lazarus' answer, she looked at him with a satisfied look and strode down the sidewalk and out of sight.

Kasimirov was seized with madness. His eyes scanned her entire figure until he could no longer see her. His mind was racing with mental arousal, and his nose could still smell the wonderful aroma: vanilla and amber.

The street was still wet, but it wasn't raining.

"When did it stop?" Kasimirov asked himself and headed for home.

There were two lamps in front of the building, one of which was lit and illuminated the front door. He climbed the steps and went inside. The corridors were dark because there were no lamps in the block. The only light coming in was from the moon through the upstairs windows, which gave the stairs a blue tint. Entering his apartment, or rather his room, Lazarus sat on his bed, all wet, and thought. The moon was the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Suddenly he found himself in a meadow somewhere. A green expanse, drenched in the rays of the great sun above him, stretched along. Lazarus was sitting on the grass and saw a figure in the distance that looked a lot like Eleanor. She stepped so elegantly and walked towards him, dressed in a pearly white dress that made her look like a real angel, which was complimented by her beauty. However, she was not coming to Lazarus as he first thought. Another man in fashionable, elegant clothes came from the corner of Lazarus's eye and hugged and kissed her, and Eleanor returned it warmly.

The sun at that time began to burn Lazarus' face terribly. His gaze couldn't take the sight, so he looked down at the ground. He saw the grass begin to rot around him, and then he realized why he was here. The landlord needed money, and Kasimirov had not given it. Apparently he's already been kicked out.

Beside him lay his briefcase, which was half open from its overflowing volume with a sheet of papers and manuscripts. With a sharp and mad look at it, Lazarus jumped to his feet and kicked him into the air.

"Useless work!" he thought.

He meant authorship. He was tired of trying to support himself like this and having little to no success. What was worse was that Kasimirov put so much love and soul into his works, but alas, there was no desire among his fellow citizens to read his thoughts on these sheets of paper.

Thoughts of his father, who was adamantly against this dream, also entered his head.

"You're going to waste your life!" Find a decent job!" Lazarus saw it before his eyes, how his father raised his voice and contradicted his idea.

Well, when he was at school it was the same:

"What are you going to study next?" one of Lazer's old school friends asked the other next to him.

"I'm going to study medicine, what about you?" replied the other.

"I'm going to become a teacher, I hear it pays well. The rest of the class, I realized, were also headed somewhere. Some to law, others to tourism, others to engineers... Lazarus, what about you?

"I do not know yet. I like to write some stories."

He was looked at strangely by his classmates.

"Don't make things up, you're not even good at languages or literature. Now be serious. Don't you have an idea?"

Lazarus stood there and did not answer. There was no other idea for now, and everyone else already knew what to do...

Ah, those memories! In the end, what happened...

Sheets of paper were flying in front of him, and there was not a dime in his pockets. His one crappy costume from the school play remained. That's where his ambition got him. Here you go. What a fool... a broken and desperate fool.

Kasimirov, after sitting on the ground to think, tried to get back on his feet on the grass, but something was strange. The movement was phlegmatic, even impossible. It was as if he stood up for a long time and with great difficulty, but at the same time without great fatigue.

"Fingers!" thought Kasimirov.

With a look at the hand, his apprehension became true: he was asleep!

His left hand was perfectly normal with five fingers. The right hand had six fingers.

"You worked with this hand..." a voice was heard from somewhere.

Kasimirov looked around, but saw nothing. The surroundings were getting darker and darker. Eleanor's figure could no longer be seen. Nor the buildings that surrounded the meadow. At that time the sheets flew again from the briefcase, and some were torn in flight, for the wind that lifted them was mighty.

Kasimirov reached out to save them from destruction, but he still couldn't move fast enough.

The index finger of his right hand was stretched out at the front of all six fingers trying to grab the sheets. Then something fell in front of him.

"You wrote on these sheets..." continued the external voice.

On a piece of paper, Lazarus read the number six.

"This is an excerpt from 'The Deacon and the Dragon,'" thought the writer with wide eyes, searching for meaning and logic in what was happening.

At that moment he felt something pressing against his thigh. Some thin and oblong.

His right hand reached into his pocket to pull out the item. Then he remembered as he took it out that it was the pen, with the engraved six...

"...With this pen you made a wish!..."

Darko showed up with that last sentence.

"The three sixes have gathered, Kasimirov!"

His right hand with six fingers, the piece of paper with a six on it, and the pen with the number six embedded in it...

Darko didn't seem quite himself. His face was split in half. One half was the merchant's face, the other, a ghastly and ugly face with a horn on its forehead, and the eye on that side was frighteningly large and staring. The merchant's suit was still on him, quite clean and elegant, and his boots shone with loveliness.

"What is happening?" asked Lazarus, seriously scared.

"Since you didn't want to tell me, or rather write, what exactly you want, I had to ask you here, where all your thoughts are the king: in your dreams."

"Trickster!" Kasimirov shouted.

"Trickster? Did you collect the money? I thought you wanted a deal? I know what you want! Everything became clear to me here, where the world is as you make it. You create truly impressive buildings and creatures in this kingdom of yours. Some even from my world…

Here is my offer:

Your imagination will enter the world and give you the ability to create, even to erase. In return, I will receive this imagination in your afterlife…

"What...," muttered Lazarus, wildly confused.

"Think about your ambitions and ideas. Ideas will become an ideal, the ideal an ideology. Even think about people. Don't you have any plans related to them?

The landlord? Dobrolyubov?

...Eleanor?

You have feelings, lots of feelings...

But here I am offering you the end of this torture and the beginning of a full life, just as you imagine it."

With that, Darko had moved closer and was looking down at the kneeling Lazarus. The writer didn't dare look up lest he meet that devil's gaze, but instead stared down at the grass.

"And then Nemisa took the responsability..." the last line of his book, The Redemption of the World, ran through his head.

"I accept."