"Everything has its price," the gray-haired old man concluded, setting aside his glittering pen after making a brief note on the book in front of him. "Both in your world, and in the coming one."
"So, I can't save them under any circumstances?" The middle-aged, thin man sitting in front of him at the large desk was obviously very upset by the answer, even though he tried to hide it.
"You can. But your payment for it may become too great. The question of the price of a human life. The price of a soul's life. Eternal questions that we have been asking ourselves and you for a very long time by earthly standards," the old man replied, looking at his interlocutor intently and with concern from under his slanting eyebrows.
"I agree. Ready," his voice rang out firmly in the ensuing silence after a brief pause.
"Don't say 'ready' until you've flown," the blue-eyed old man said confidently. "For there is no limit to the height of the heavens."
"Can I go back now?" The man asked, fidgeting slightly in his chair.
"The price of choice. Yes, now that the question we were so interested in has been resolved, you can return. As they say, God loves the Trinity, so get ready to go on the count of three. Are you ready? So… One, two…"
* * *
"…Three! My husband spent three weeks in a post-operative coma after that bloody massacre. You literally pulled him back from the brink of death! Thank you, doctor. Thank you!" A barely visible, tear-stained, and happy face leaned over him, and the familiar scent of lavender filled his nostrils.
"Consider yourself extremely lucky. The bullet passed through his lungs, narrowly missing a heart. If it hadn't been for the timely medical intervention, I fear we would be conversing under entirely different circumstances. As they say, God saved him, and we did everything within our human capabilities."
The voices seemed slightly muffled, and the faces were barely visible, but he would never confuse the smell of his beloved's brown hair with anything else. Not in this world, nor in the next. He is alive. They're alive. They'll be together again. That's the only thing that matters. Everything else can wait.
Almost fainting from the sharp pain that pierced his chest, he turned on his side and squeezed his wife's hand with all his might. They would live. That was the most important thing.
* * *
The jeep, which had been waiting for almost two weeks for its next trip, was parked in the garage, ready to roar to life at any moment. His fourteen-year-old daughter was in the kitchen with her mother, preparing for the trip, while he was finishing the inspection of their four-wheeled friend. Soon, they would be on their way to explore the vastness of the country. The smell of the road, like lavender, was inviting and stimulating. It was a blessing to have them by his side.
Is ten years a long or a short time? For some, it's just a painful instant. For him, it's a whole, unclouded, joyful little eternity that has passed since that memorable terrorist attack and the strange, almost forgotten vision and conversation. What only can be imagined in a state of clinical death!
"Mila, Larisa, are you prepared?" he called to his wife and daughter. "The car is ready, so we can leave now. I'm waiting for you, my loves!"
"We're on our way, Dad!" his daughter Mila replied with a ringing laugh. "My, you're so impatient!"
* * *
A sharp turn, and a truck that has lost control flies into the oncoming lane right in front of them. He slams on the brakes, and the jeep skids and spins out of control. The terrified screams of his wife and daughter, cutting through the steady chatter of the roadside radio, explode in his ears like a deafening thunderclap. It feels like the frozen seconds are melting into an endless eternity of existence…
Everything was happening just as he had seen it once, a long time before, almost ten years ago. Just before he heard the soft voice of a gray-haired man with blue eyes. Suddenly, his memory came back to him in a flash. The voice was soft and persuasive. These words. "The price of choice."
He turned the steering wheel as hard as he could, trying to avoid a collision. Or at least to steer away from the right side, where his wife and daughter were sitting, their faces frozen in horror, as the seconds stretched on. His little sunshines. His life. His death.
The price of choice. There is no other price.
The impact was so forceful that it crumpled the entire left wing. The airbags deployed, but it was too late. For him, it was too late. The car's momentum carried it off the road and into a ditch. What happened next was beyond his mere human perception.
* * *
"Everything has its price," the gray-haired old man repeated pedantically, again peering intently at the man sitting in front of him, as if trying to find there, in the depths of his soul and memory, the answer to the question that the old man had not asked aloud. "And yet you have almost forgotten about it."
"I… where… what about my wife… did they… did they survive?"
"We had no plans to take them away before their time," the old man's words floated gently and melodiously in the air for a brief moment, only to dissolve softly with a gentle tinkling sound after an unknown amount of time. Was it an instant?
"So they're alive?" the man breathed out with relief, “Praised be the God!”
“Of course, he will be praised,” the interlocutor calmly agreed with him. “They are alive and will live on for many more years, largely thanks to you. But for you, this path is now over. You are, how should I put it more precisely… no longer in the right physical shape to continue your earthly journey. That's why you're here.”
“They're alive… they're alive…" the man kept repeating, as if he still hadn't fully recovered from the event.
"The Observation Hall is right behind this door,” the elder said softly, “You can visit them in their dreams. To cheer them up. They will really need your help right now. The knowledge that the path does not end with earthly life.”
“And… then? What's next? Where to next?”
“To the Trial, of course," God smiled good-naturedly at him in response, “We'll all be there one time.”