Pinned down by logic, I watched the servant’s movements as he set a fat brown folder on the table and stuck a quill pen into an inkwell...
— All that’s left is your signature. Everything’s in this folder. Which life do you choose?
— I don’t know. How can you choose a life?
— Elementary. Want to be rich? You will be. Want to become famous? By all means. Want to decide the fate of millions? At your service. What’ll it be?
I thought about it. What did I really want? Wealth? Of course! I didn’t want to be poor. Fame? No use to me. To rule, to hold power? I was indifferent to that side of life. What to choose?
I remembered!
Tverskaya Street, all those successful people, and me!
— Can you make me successful?
The gentleman raised his right eyebrow. I found myself dressed in beige silk slacks, an orange silk shirt, a white blazer, a mobile phone hanging near the Versace medallion on my belly. Whoa!
And so?
Sell my life for this?
The gentleman’s right eyebrow rose another couple of millimeters. A car key with a rearing stallion landed on the table in front of me. Followed by a ring of apartment keys, foreign currency in bank-wrapped bundles.
Sell my life for this? Genuinely empty wishes.
— Can you make me happy?
The gentleman’s eyebrow returned to its original position:
— A person decides for himself when he’s happy. I have nothing to do with it. If you insist, I can give you a pill. Swallow it and you’ll reach a peak of bliss you’d never climb to in real life. Want one?
— No need.
— Then what would you like?
— I don’t know. I want my life to have everything in it. Is that possible?
— No. As you’re dying, you’ll keep putting off meeting me. There are always reasons: never dined with the Queen of England, never lined up at the start of the Monte Carlo rally, never crossed Antarctica by dog sled. You can always come up with a long list of things left undone in that last minute before death. I’m sick of it.
— I don’t even know...
