We. We crawl up the ladder as best we can. Clinging tightly to its woody flesh. Suddenly someone stops. For him the ladder becomes the frame of a window through which one looks at death.
Death metal flies across the sky.
We saw the sky when we took our eyes off the stairs, managed to lift our heads and look up. We heard the words «peaceful sky». One man, who had been a soldier in the past, used to tell us that he had seen another, different sky, and then he kept telling us that this was the peaceful one, we had to cherish. He was a relative, but not of our time. He had already climbed down the stairs, and we kept walking and remembering his words. And then the words became flesh, poured out in blood, and someone at the cost of his life knew their meaning.
And yet doubts sometimes creep in and keep him awake: he is high and striving to be even higher, and heaven is receding-why? And why does the woman follow him relentlessly, half a step behind. She has an unpleasant disembodied face, and so piercingly her eyes look at him from the crumpled black sockets. And there is no one beside this woman, although he knows for sure that there are billions of people on the stairs, he hears their voices and even speaks to them, but he is alone…
And then, one day, someone with six wings whispered in his ear:
– Look, you’re crawling down… And there’s no sky down there at all…