ECSTASIS
Ciela, 2023, 168 pages
A young man, called Mikhail, grows up in the 90’s in the post-communist country where freedom had just arrived. He is in his 20s when he fells in love with a redhead girl, named Lara. Their love is hot and beautiful, yet a little disturbing. Lara appears to be fond of a dangerous erotic asphyxiation. She teaches him how to explore safely this extreme experience with her, for her outstanding pleasure.
But Mikhail accidentally dies on a bus stop (a statue falls over him) and goes to his personal piece of afterlife, called “on the left”, where he is chosen for a special mission by “nullius” (well, the Creator of everything who wants to be called that way because he doesn’t like to be possessed by any of us, mortals).
After 20 years in the waiting room of the beyond, Mikhail receives a special task – to accompany dying people and collect their last breaths, then put them into a collection of jars on a big shelve, for nullius. This is his everyday routine – people don’t see him, because he is invisible – different people spend their last days or hours with him until their end appears and he bends over their lips and calmly accepts their last breaths.
Mikhail remembers nothing from his short life, not even his big love Lara. 20 years later she is a passionate middle-aged redhead woman, married, with a big daughter.
Mikhail is sent to her life because it’s about to end – she is practicing the asphyxiation by herself and that’s an easy way to die. Her last breath has to be collected. The great love of his previous life is about to blow up his calm existence on the left. In the very moment when the invisible Mikhail bends over the unconscious Lara to take her last breath, he decides to do something else – help her survive giving her some of those people’s last breaths, held in the jars in nullius’ collection. The Creator, of course, gets mad and Mikhail awaits his punishment – to be send to the right, a place where no one wants to go.
By resurrecting Lara he proves that love is stronger than death. But why nullius insists to possess humans’ last breaths? Mikhail has found the answer – nullius wants to experience what human life is. When folks are about to pass away, emotions (the essence of life) gather and run away – with the last breath.
At the end Mikhail is sentenced by nullius to be transferred to that frightening to the right. But when he arrives there he realizes that actually to the right is where he was before – he has been sent 20 years back – to his life.
