Smashing The Mirror

Smashing the Mirror

He was sitting in one of those cheap bars drinking cheap beer from a mason jar. Donovan was a semi-homeless alcoholic, living in some shelter where they kept him as a janitor. His idea about his life was that he did not have any: He did not have any money, and therefore, his life did not have any purpose. He was just waiting for his death, as he did not have enough guts to stop his miserable existence by himself.

The bar was empty. The relaxed barman was yapping with someone on the phone. His ear was blinking pale light from a blue tooth hands-free device. He was holding overpolished rock glass that he would not stop polishing with a brand new napkin. Every time he turned the glass, he was leaving new fingerprints on it, so he had to start all over again. It did not bother him at all since he was obviously flirting with someone on the phone, and his brain was busy composing witty remarks with almost explicit content. Donovan could not quite get if the barman was talking to a woman or a man, but that was not important as long as he would let Donovan stay for one more beer. It was time to go out and get some smoke. Donovan opened the ugly, scratched door and inhaled cold air - too cold to enjoy smoking. He cursed all anti-smoking laws and all rich bustards who pushed those laws to become a new reality under the pretense that employers were losing too much money because of smoking. With struggle, he managed to light up a cigarette.

"Employers losing money – all they care about!” – he mumbled. – “How about people?!”- he scolded, inhaling his first puff. But before he managed to fully enjoy it, he coughed. "Stupid cold air!" – and he added a couple of harsh statements finishing with “Rich people!”

"How about me? I! My moneeeeey!” – he screamed loudly. "Me! Me! My Mooooney!" – he pronounced almost melodically and starting banging himself on the chest like a monkey. Donovan was absolutely sure that he had an unquestionable right to act like that and did not really care about scaring pedestrians. He yelled: "Money, Give Me Money!" at those of them who dared to look at him, prompting them to cross the street, turn around or start cursing back at him.

Drizzling rain infused his cigarette with moisture, and instead of smoke, Donovan’s mouth was suddenly filled with the concentrated taste of an ashtray. He dropped a wet cigarette butt on the asphalt, spitted on it, and jumped on it with all the hate he could produce. He continued crashing cigarette remains until it became one of those unidentifiable but still repulsive spots on the asphalt.

Recently, his cursing of rich people and nagging about not having money became more frequent after the anti-smoking laws had been implemented. For Donovan, smoking in a pub was the only thing that made him feel "fancy." After washing down salty peanuts with a cold beer, he could light up smokes and melt into the pleasure of existence. This was the only rare moment when he felt that his life was not so bad. And this was mercilessly and violently taken away from him. According to Donovan, this was done right before the winter to make his and other working slaves’ lives even more unbearable - and it was all fault of evil rich people!

Then he continued with his usual hysterical mantra - "only if I had lots of money!" – he closed his eyes, trying to visualize it in a form of pallets of money arranged like a pyramid. He tried to visualize a large sum of money in his bank account, but he could not since he never had a bank account. “ If I had lots of money!” – he repeated.

Once, he stole a white plastic bag from a well-dressed man, who was napping on the park bench. The bag had some Asian hieroglyphs on it and a picture of an appetizing dish. Donovan was hoping that he had stolen a takeout dinner, and after running for a while, he reached his favorite secret trail in the woods. He was immensely frustrated when instead of a nice meal, he found inside a heavy book called “The whisper of morning stars." He threw the book to the nearest paddle. The book opened, and he could see how dirty water started soaking pages with a cloudy brown hue. Then his eye caught the first sentence starting with “When I was homeless..” he quickly grabbed the book. Since then, he has been reading this book over and over again. The book was talking about the power of visualization, energy flows, positive frequencies, and how to get the things one wants. Donovan understood this book, agreed with most of it but was unable to fully implement it in reality. He managed to manifest little things like a nice meal or even his recent job and shelter but could not hit the Jackpot that would change his life drastically and forever.

One of the dreams he had while sleeping on the top of a subway vent was to have a real bed with clean sheets. After reading the book, he started visualizing that he would have a bed, and he would be able to stretch his tired, wet, and bruised feet and drown his head into a soft pillow. He got it: he had clean linen most of the time at the shelter, but his sheets smelled institutional, they had the aroma of industrial detergent with a slight hint of chlorine, and his pillow, although soft, was filled with some cheap artificial fiber. Those were not Egyptian cotton sheets with the aroma of lavender or the goose down pillows because he had no money!

The book talked a lot about money and how unimportant it was. In fact, it was insisting that one should not think about it at all. According to the book, money was secondary, sort of complementary to the dream, and, therefore, could not be a dream itself. Donovan could not grasp that concept.

For him, the necessity o having money was an axiom, an unquestionable constant like Pi or Fibonacci number for mathematicians. Nothing could be done without money! First, you need to get money and, then you can enjoy things you want and enjoy life – and there was no other way!

And here he was: wet, angry, smokeless, and of course moneyless.

-"Is that bad, ha?”- asked the barman when he glanced at Donovan, who looked worse than usual when he entered the room after attempted smoking.

-"On me!" – The barman winked and passed a pint of premium imported beer to surprised Donovan. The barman himself was a victim of the new smoke-free legislation that made him hate the job he used to love, but it also made him more tolerant towards Donovan. Before, he usually kicked him out after 11, never mind giving him a free beer.

- “Have you heard about those “wish makers” - asked the bartender pointing at the TV on the wall. Donovan felt obliged to look at the screen, although his mind was occupied with the daydream of what he would do to rich people if he became the world ruler. On TV, a very confused anchor was talking about the event that some people called an alien invasion, the second coming, interesting phenomena, devils deed, and even sabotage against Earth. Most people welcomed the event with relief and excitement in hopes that their problems would be solved. Hardcore religious fanatics, governments, military, and those who held power and money did not like it, but there was not much they could do.

The news came out when people started getting strange visitors. The visitors materialized at homes, at work, everywhere, and always one to one. Those strange-looking women and men appeared from nowhere but had a pleasant vibe, so their sudden appearance in the places where they should not be was not scary or creepy. Their first phrase was so straight and unexpected that people replied to it without thinking or questioning the legitimacy of the statement. “May I grant you a wish?” – was the phrase, and after the person answered to it, visitors replied – "You are ready to receive it"- and they left, leaving the person shocked, but with strong knowledge that everything will be fine no matter what situation they were in. Miracles did not happen instantly, but the waterfall of coincident events, synchronicities, and pure luck were so humongous that it was bringing people to their dreams in the shortest time possible.

-“I wish I would get one of those! "- said bartender putting aside finally polished glass – “I’ll go get some smoke, you are in charge!”- He smiled and showed Donovan a sign of "I am watching you" then he disappeared through the door with the faded "..st.f on.y" letters written on it.

Donovan was absolutely alone in the bar, fighting temptations to steal booze from behind the bar, but he did not want to betray the trust of the bartender.

- “May I grant you a wish!”- said the weird-looking pale man with a British accent who suddenly appeared in front of him. Donovan stared at a skinny man who looked like a typical sales-man. The man was smiling with all the charm he could accommodate on his face and was holding a translucent clipboard.

- “May I grant you a wish!”- Said he again while looking at Donovan with his pleasant angel-like eyes.

- “Ye, give me a million dollars!”- Reluctantly answered Donovan.

-"Million what!!!"- replied the visitor.

-“Dollars, you know, money!!!"- answered slightly annoyed Donovan.

-"You have money!?”– screamed “wish granter."

-"No, I do not have money!” – replayed Donovan angrily.

-"O, no!" – Cried alien – "You have got money!” – He dropped down on his knees and covered face with his hands – “I did not know, what a mistake, o No!” – He ran out of bar living clipboard on the bar stool. It quickly evaporated without leaving a trace.

Astonished Donovan stared at the bar stool for a second, then pronounced - "Too good to be true, cheers!" - And finished beer in one gulp.

That night Donovan returned to shelter with the horrible feeling of unsalvageable loss and, for the first time in his life, cried himself to sleep.

The next day very sad Donovan was sitting on the chunk of wood at his favorite unauthorized trail and was ripping off pages from a book titled "Whisper of morning stars." One by one, pages piled around him like fallen leaves, all too familiar, all too promising. Unleashed dog, which should not be on the trail, rushed to Donovan and licked him. Usually, he was very hostile toward unleashed dogs, but this time Donovan even petted the dog and added: -"You are stupid, and you don't care – enjoy that!". The dog was looking at Donovan with puppy eyes. It started wiggling her tail until she was called by the owner and rushed away. -"I cannot even make a wish properly, I am total looser…."- mumbled Donovan, and suddenly with anger, he yelled at the remains of the book – "total B.S., total B.S.!!!" and threw it to the tree.

Behind the tree “wish maker” appeared and gently picked up the vandalized book. - “So you got the signal from the universe, after all, we thought you were ready …”- stated the visitor. Donovan took the book from “wish maker” and stated collecting pages from the ground. The visitor looked at Donovan with watery eyes and touched him gently on the shoulder - “never mind, it’s too late, I called off all our people and declared permanent quarantine – your planet is doomed. ”

-"What do you mean?" – asked Donovan

-"You have got money" – and before Donovan had an opportunity to disagree with "wish maker" added - " It means you are diseased with money! Understand?” – Donovan seemed that he did not. - “By the way, my name is ArMinda in your language - simplified version, of course." – Suddenly said visitor and shook Donovan’s hand – "So, Donovan there is a legend about the multiverse."– Continued “wish granter” taking a seat on the wooden log without invitation – “Many dimensions ago multiverse have forgotten about itself and reached the point of being nothing. Then nothing asked itself "what am I?", and the new multiverse emerged. The cosmic self-awareness is manifesting itself trough intelligent life and is looking for the answer to the major question “what is the point of existence?”, thus discovering that happiness is the answer because truly happy entity never questions the point of existence. By analysis of self-reflection of the emptiness, we discovered that the previous multiverse was forced to collapse on itself by substituting happiness with something named "money”’. We do not know what money is, and it is something we never talk about. It's a taboo, sort of topic so dreadful that we fear that even mentioning it or talking about it would create it. Nevertheless, we aware that it might exist."

Donovan was listening to this weird fable with an open mouth, trying to sort out the meaning of what ArMinda was talking about.

-“So you see, I had to declare permanent quarantine, call off all our agents and isolate your planet from the rest of Multiverse."

-“So, why on earth you came here without checking if we were diseased?”– asked Donovan.

- "I wish I knew!" – Answered “wish maker” in a sad voice – "I stumbled across to the earth when I felt very disturbing vibrations from your location. This is how we find young worlds and check if they are ready for the next step of self-realization through manifestation. I have worked with thousands of worlds, the nice ones, and the cruel ones, so I was not surprised then I felt a lot of misbalance when scanned earth. I come across one particular weird case. There was your female captured by your male and kept in the basement of some sort. She was producing a lot of vibes of haplessness and total disperse, while her captor was generating waves of pleasure and satisfaction. That was the craziest and bizarre misaligned frequencies I ever have seen and decided that would be a good starting point. I asked her what was her wish, and she said that she wanted to be a photo model. So I initiated the following sequence: when her captor sent her to "work as a prostitute," whatever that means, the famous photographer stopped in front of her and invited her into his car. Photographer was looking for an ideal model, and this girl’s phenotype was perfect for him. The girl told him her story, and they decided to drive away. Her captor felt that something was wrong and jumped into his car and started chasing them at high speed. But his car drove over a broken beer bottle he left on the pavement, his tire blew up, and he lost control of his car. He drove off the cliff and burst into flames. He was burned alive.”

-“So you basically killed him?”- asked surprised Donovan.

- “No, I did not – his anger killed him - it captured his mind, and he lost the ability of cognitive operation. Anyhow his self-manifestation was so broken that it was beyond repair, so for his captured soul, that was the only way out."

- "I hope his soul burns in hell!" – added with anger Donovan.

-"He burned all right, but there is no such thing as hell or paradise. For that girl basement was hell, but for her captor, it was paradise. There is only balance in this world - the multiverse is a self-reflecting mirror..."

- “So how you initiate sequence?” – rudely interrupted Donovan, who did not agree with all of this and was bored with the theory that pretty much reminded him of the book "the whisper of morning stars."

- “O! I alter person's frequency to align it with the desired reality: this launches the sequence of events that brings a person to their dream." – Eagerly answered ArMinda, obviously talking about his favorite subject–“ I basically let them see and feel the direct pathway through the mirror, so they get to their desired frame of materialized reality. Since the multiverse is limitless, there is absolutely everything available. I mean absolutely everything! It is all the meter of choice in the free will world, Unless”…. – wish maker paused.

- “Unless?!” – asked Donovan impatiently.

- “Unless a mirror is broken, and money is powerful enough to break it” – ArMinda suddenly smiled –“So tell me what this Money is?” – He asked Donovan with anticipation.

-"You doomed our planet even without knowing what money is?" – Replied outraged Donovan, then he calmed down since money was his favorite topic -"Fine, I tell you all about money, and I have a lot to say about it.”– he ended a sentence with an animal like the incoherent sound – “But before I tell you all about money, I have to ask you - are not you afraid that if you will find out what money is you will be diseased too? ”

-"It's ok,"– answered ArMinda reluctantly – “I cannot win the battle against curiosity, so I gifted you my current materialization and will stay on earth trough temporal dimension about two to three million of your years until your civilization dies out and all traces of it will disappear, and then I delete myself. Meanwhile, I will be protecting the multiverse from your vibrations and preventing you from getting beyond your solar system. I will make sure that you will be locked within three dimensions along with the past to future vector …. Very sad, but what I can do?!"

-"So wait, why you do not destroy us right away?” – screamed Donovan

-"So why you don't kill your children to prevent overpopulation?"- replayed ArMinda in the same manner.

-"That's inhumane!” – answered Donovan automatically.

-"Exactly!"

Then there was a long pause. Suddenly Donovan realized that he was sitting next to the "thing" that doomed earth and thinking that he suppose to do something heroic about it. Fight him or convince him that humans are not that hopeless, but his brain was frozen.

-“so Money is…”

-“Money is everything!”- jumped Donovan from the log and started emotionally walking back and forth.

-“Everything is everything! - how possibly everything could be a money?”

-“Because you can buy everything!”

-“Buy ?!”

-“Yes, you can get everything for money. You want good food – you give money, and you have it, you want a house you pay for it with money…"

ArMinda made a very confused face. It seems that he had difficulty understanding the concept.

-“So where you obtain this money?”- He asked.

- “You work like me or steal it like rich people do!"

- “Work?”

-“Yes, you do things you hate every day, year after year, decade after decade, and in exchange, you get little money to buy and do things you want.”

-"Why would anyone ever do things they do not want to do? It's crazy!!!"-replied wish maker.

-“To get money…”

-“But everything you want is already out there - you just need to bring it in your life…"

-“Not on this planet!”- Proudly said Donovan, although he was not sure if he should be proud of it.

-"Where else can you get Money?"

-"From the bank."

-“And banks get Money from ….”

-"Banks make it or get if from rich people."

-“And rich people get it from….”

-“They steal it from pure people and force them to work and give them back only little” – Donovan was getting the feeling that was talking to five years old child.

-“So initially pure people get money from?”

-“From the bank as a loan…”- answered confused Donovan, who discovered that apparently, he has very limited knowledge about finances.

- “So the loan is money?” –

- “No, the loan is debt, and it's not good to have, it has a negative value”….

- “But it does not matter which way pendulum swings!”- Concluded ArMinda and continued - “It seems that who controls money and debts controls your planet. They force people to spend their lives doing things they do not want - and the majority of the people do it voluntarily?! – that is worth than slavery!!!" - ArMinda started shivering from digesting the knowledge he just received. ArMinda closed his eyes, and Donovan thought that this would be a good opportunity to grab two-by-four used as a temporary creek "bridge" to hit the guest and "un-doom" the earth. For a split second, he imagined himself as a hero, like Superman or Capitan America saving the planet from the villain. While Donovan was planning his great earth rescue, ArMinda opened his eyes.

- “Thanks for the information!”–ArMinda stood from log rapidly with a busy face – "I have to go and hide behind the moon and think. O, and you will be my last wish receiver on this planet -Ok, here it goes; 01, 04, 11, 23, 41, 48.”

As soon Donovan heard those numbers, he knew that those were His numbers….

Donovan drowned his recently groomed head into the pillow, sniffing the aroma of lavender oil sprinkled on linen. Crispy Egyptian cotton sheets were gently rubbing his clean skin, and he stretched and tossed around like a satisfied cat. He would purr if he could. He was feeling pleasant heaviness from the hot food he ate, and from the vine, he drunk. It was perhaps the first time in his life since he started drinking that he did not want to drink anymore - he was content. He climbed out of bed and touched the carpet with his toes. He continued placing his feet on the floor in disbelief that he was barefoot, and it was a clean, warm, and fuzzy surface. Donovan looked in the mirror and smiled at the image of 15 years younger himself. Groomed, shaved, with fixed teeth and the sparkle of passion in his eyes. First time in many years, he thought that maybe he would meet "Her" and start a family instead of a rare and quick relationship with women as measurable as him. He touched his still wet hair to correct haircut and sniffed his fingers. They smelled not like sweat or grease or smoke, but rather fresh, like cut grass or meadow flowers from the residue of fancy hotel shampoo labeled organic nettle something something. Then he went to the window.

He looked down at the world in panic attack mode and felt a somehow unpleasant but demonically satisfying feeling of revenge. He looked at the staircase that once was his street begging spot and now filled with people yelling at each other. "How does it feel not to have the money, you greedy bastards!" he thought, but for some reason, he felt that he did not care anymore. He turned his back to the world outside and went to the clean, sparkly, and covered with tiles bathroom to take a hot shower again and again…..

The day before Donovan took a shower, again and again, become known in the recorded history as “The most disastrous day of our civilization."

Everything that has been labeled as money and served as money was gone, even seashells displayed in the museum as "ancient currency" were gone. All the digital information about finances, mortgages, checking and saving accounts – gone, all the hard currency, gold and silver, and cash – gone, all written records of deposits, debts, loans, invoices, and receivables – deleted. There was an absolute "0" in the financial world. The only recorded monetary information remained was lottery winning amounts. The only people who had money on the planet were those few who won the lottery, and Donovan was one who won the biggest jackpot. He was admitted to the hotel without any questions. The hotel was nice enough to provide Donovan with the security to protect him from the rest of the world and banks. Bankers were annoyingly offering him large percentages for opening accounts in hopes that they will have some money so they can become operational again. Sleep and caffeine-deprived delegates at the UN emergency meeting were trying to come up with some solution while fighting with the catering company to force them to serve coffee pro-bono. A huge number of people refused to work since there was no money and went into self-preservation mode like robbing grocery stores. They were joined with police and the military. It was total chaos and no realistic plan of returning everything to normal. The economy was halted.

Meanwhile, ArMinda was traveling through the dimensions faster than light speed, a.k.a. instantly, carrying with him entire wealth & debt of earth and incurable disease: the idea of money. His cognitive thinking unit was totally infected. The concept that he could control entities to do things they did not want in exchange for money seemed previously ridiculous, now sounded very lucrative. He felt that multidimensional components of his essence were losing quantum entanglement replaces by a linear chain of monetary transactions as connection points. Now his soul was captured and imprisoned in a closed circuit labyrinth till the end of time. The Grand Holodeck of Multiverse got cracked, and a sequence of self-collapse was initiated.