Paris Nights and Other Impressions of Places and People: A Collection of Stories

At one party, he met a charming German girl who came to visit her friend. As Gerda was about to leave, she flirtatiously suggested that Yohan accompany her. Yohan blushed crimson and said that it was what he wanted most in the world; but if she really wanted to get home without obstacles, she would be better off without such an escort like him.

At that point, friends surrounded Yohan and Gerda, laughing and talking about what a “terrible” person Yohan was, and how dangerous it can be to go with him somewhere. Gerda listened to them with her gentle smile. When the stream of stories and jokes dried up, she took Yohan’s face into her hands and said: “So, you’re just a little Kai, who was enchanted by a wicked witch! Do you know how to break any powerful evil magic or curse?” As Yohan blinked in confusion, Gerda kissed him. “That’s all. Now you are disenchanted; there’s no bad luck anymore! From now on, you’re on a lucky streak!” she said.

Of course, Yohan walked her to her door, and then he went home. And nothing bad happened to him. Moreover, all the lights were green, as if on cue. When he appeared at the bus stop, the bus immediately got there. By the way, his favorite window seats were vacant.

Yohan and Gerda have been married for five years; and he still thinks that his Gerda is an enchantress, although it seemed to me that they both have magic within. This magic of sweet love that hovered over them and around them, their eyes, touches and smiles… Perhaps love can really save us from the most evil spells.

Little Charlotte, who came to Paris with her mother, shared that she got what she asked for every day. Her mom thought that this was amazing luck; but Charlotte, as a real magician, decided to show that she could actually get what she wanted!

First, she told a lot of small stories, where her dearest desires came true – from just a cake to a trip to the zoo or cinema. The adults listened to her with a smile, looked at the little “enchantress”, and nodded warmly at her mother who, for various reasons, granted her child’s wishes one way or another. Old mademoiselle Jacqueline smiled and, with her proven expertise, told Charlotte to take care of her mother because she fulfilled almost all the desires of her daughter.

I stopped writing and just watched them: Mother, Charlotte and Mademoiselle Jacqueline. At some point, there was a completely different creature instead of the five-year-old Charlotte, with wise eyes and an unchildish experience. And what the little girl said shocked not just me…

“My mom is the simplest person to fulfill all my desires. But she cannot do everything. For example, she cannot change the weather. I would so like to go to Disneyland! And I would so like not to leave. And now, look – planes do not fly. So, we’ll stay here for a little bit more; and if we’ll stay, why not stay a little longer? Just one day. The weather will be nice tomorrow; we will go to Disneyland and then fly home.”

As if to confirm the baby’s words, there was especially bright lighting outside, and a heavy thunder made the windowpanes vibrate. And Charlotte, smiling cheerfully, went back to being just a baby, comfortably seated on her mother’s lap and completely sinking into the contemplation of the bizarre patterns drawn by raindrops on the windowpanes.

Bridget, a giggly girl of about twenty years old, told us her magical story. It all began with a craze for esotericism, rituals, etc. It came to a logical stage: the visualization of desires. Well, it’s different for everyone: someone can get everything he wants, and someone just leaves behind his dreams of a “happy life”. There is no doubt that sometimes, well-crafted desire maps produce amazing results; except that there are a lot of recommendations on how to create the desire map, but there are almost no details on how to reach an ideal balance in the desire map. Once, I made small maps of short-term projects, and they always hit the bull’s eye. But Bridget told of a magical incident which only confirmed that the Universe is not just a Reason, but a Reason with a very good sense of humor.

All she could ever dream of was money – namely, money as the end result. And if experienced “wizards” advise to at least understand what that money will be spent on, Bridget was guided by this principle: “First, a bag of money will fall on me, and then I will take good care of it.”

So, on one beautiful evening, in a state of creativity, she started drawing her dream. Using Photoshop, Bridget began to carefully collect the components of her happiness. For starters, she chose as the background a pile of scattered coins. Then, she placed a close-up photo of herself at the center. “What else should I add to that?”, thought Bridget. She added “diamonds” – drawings of small cut stones. Then, after thinking that for happiness, she might need real American dollars, she added to the collage as many dollars as, in her opinion, a million looked like. After that, she was pleased to look at her creation and, having remembered the picture, went to bed.

The next morning, the Universe responded. Having opened the locker, Bridget, as usual, wanted to get a glass of orange fresh. But for some reason, the bottom of the glass was slightly stuck to the glass shelf. We don’t know how this happened, but the shelf fell, incidentally breaking a piggy bank and dropping a photo of the girl. The result was simply amazing! Bridget looked at her “wealth map”: a photograph laid on the pile of coins from the untimely broken piggy bank, a scattering of “diamonds” turned into splinters of the ill-favored shelf, and a million dollars from the same piggy bank. And a million dollars was painted, too! Long ago, Bridget put a dollar bill into the piggy bank, having previously drawn the number of zeros necessary for a million.