On the Wings of Hope: Prose (Recognized)

Warning: God!

"Warning: God! Entrance is strictly prohibited for idle passers!" Ivan read a sign on the ordinary-looking gate, leading through a fencing to the inconspicuous looking building. And there was a small addition slightly below: "The Entrance. Accept the hope, entering one!"

"Oh, what only they won't make," he thought at first. "Trying to lure us this and that way. Oh, sure, we have heard plenty of these fairy tales of yours in due time, about the New World, End of the Millennia, the Second Coming, everything at once. And predictors all unanimously chattered, "The world is changing, something is happening!" and everything like that, and where is all that? We cannot see it yet. And maybe it doesn't even exist if we cannot see it? Or maybe it does exist, but we still cannot see it? Who knows it for sure..."

Ivan began hesitating – to enter or not to enter?

Nobody cries aloud any calls, no one stands with banners and posters on corners. Somehow strange, unusual. Not a single sign of what is called promotion, no sort of marketing in that disgusting style: "The Savior! Only with us! Only for you!". Just some ordinary-looking gate... Who even enters such ones, it doesn't even look like a door. Somehow wrong, not common style. But, on the other hand... who did say that God must correspond to some man's idea about him?

Oh.

Ivan was starting to feel himself more out of place – not mainly due to his current reflections, but from some arisen during this moment aching and disturbing feeling somewhere in the depth of his breast, that if now he will pass this gate by, like he has been passing for all these years, hurrying somewhere in unknown distances on strangest affairs – he may not be able to find in the future this most ordinary-looking gate...

And, after all, he was looking... he has been searching for Him for a long time. Since the very birth, if it's possible to say so, he has been looking. In autumn silence of parks and conversations soul-to-a-soul with others, in the noise of human crowds and rich furniture of churches, in endless loneliness of own soul, he has been searching for Him. He thirsted to once find Him so greatly, but all this was something not totally so, not totally right... He has been seeking Him for all his conscious life! And now... some sort of gate...

Finally, he decided. Pushed a gate with his hand, expecting to hear a scratch of ungreased loops, but instead of it shutters softly and silently swung open, he made a step forward – and...

The world changed. Suddenly the city disappeared somewhere, as well as hurrying on affairs from work and for work thousands of sleepy people together with one thousand and one building, even the gate was no more. Now he was standing in the middle of some large hall with carved shining columns and ceiling, rising into infinite distances up and up and some sort of warm light surrounded him from everywhere.

"Have I already died?" Ivan was suddenly frightened. "My heart stopped pulsating and now my useless body is most probably lying on some dirty operational table, and a group of laymen in white dressing gowns is working on it while I am standing idle in this unknown new world?"

"Greetings, Ivan! I have been waiting for you!" some immensely powerful, filled with greatest inner force and at the same time very melodious voice suddenly filled the area, coming, apparently, from all directions and at the same time somewhere from Ivan's breast.

"I... just... just... don't know... what to answer..." Ivan mumbled.

"Don't worry about it," answered the Voice. "I can read minds. I have been watching you from your very birth... as well as many others. You desired to find me – and so now you are here. What is that you want to tell me?"

"So, are you really the Most Powerful One?"

"Yes," the Voice answered softly. "The First And The Last. The Beginning And The Ending. I am the One whom you call the Maker."

"So, you are really..." and Ivan stopped short. "Well, certainly! How could I forget about it!"

"Yes," the Voice answered. "I truly exist. But many of your kind have forgotten and ceased to search for Me."

"To search where?" Ivan asked shy.

"Inside and outside. I am inside and outside. All these worlds are mine, and parts of me are living inside you. I have once given you particles of myself so that one day you can become similar to me..."

"So that people become similar to God?"

"Such is the true evolution, Ivan."

"So, you are together with all of us..."

"Yes, always I am. Now in your world as well. I have many homes," invisible Voice was filling the room with matchless melodies and colors.

"In our world too? So, it means that the gate..."

"All your world is mine. I can settle in any corner of it. I have no need for your empty praising. I desire to see all of you live, Ivan, with living particles of me."

"That's why Your arrival was..." the sudden guess enlightened Ivan's heart.

"Yes," the Voice answered. "For this reason. I desire to see ones searching and coming to me in their free will. They are capable of the true evolution."

"So all these people in temples and mosques, calling themselves believers and at the same time remaining the same from the very birth..."

"They can continue to believe in their illusions if such is their wish. For some time."

"And what of your Son? He was speaking of You and Your return in the due time..."

"He is together with Me as well. My second Son," answered the Voice. "You dared to offend him too much in the last time. This will not repeat anymore."

"Oh, how wonderful it is that You are together with us!" a sudden shout of joy escaped Ivan's breast.

"The looking one will find. The going one will come. Accept the hope – and give it to others! My time is coming!" the invisible Voice filled the entire enormous brightly shining room, and traveled, apparently, into the very core of the human soul.

"Yes, oh my Maker! I will tell them of You! I thank you!"

The shining stream of light captured and shrouded Ivan. It, this Light of God, was coming, apparently, from everywhere – was shining from inside and outside. The sparkling stream shrouded him in a flash of time – and...

"Savior! Only with us! Only for you!" Ivan confusedly read red shining letters on a sign of some striptease club.

The gate was no more. The chance was accepted. Another world greedy stretched own hands towards him once again.

"Yes, oh Maker, I will tell all these sleeping ones of your time," Ivan decided. "Right now there is nothing more important than that."

22.10.2010