The shock passed, my breathing steadied. A neuron fired somewhere in the folds of my brain and gave birth to a question:
— Am I dead?
— No. If you’d died, you’d have arrived here in a different capacity.
— What capacity?
— Not as a guest.
— I’m a guest here?
— Yes.
— I don’t get it.
— Nothing to get. You got on a train car and arrived.
— I was heading somewhere else.
— Correct. But I wanted to meet you. I had to change the route.
— Why?
— I felt like it, so I changed it.
— Why meet with me?
— To talk, I suppose.
— About what?
— About this and that. About the soul, for instance.
— It doesn’t exist.
— Is that so? Then indeed, there’s nothing to discuss. No soul, no subject for conversation. Still, I have a proposal — sell it to me.
— What?
— I want to buy your soul. That’s why you’re sitting here talking to me. Ready to sell?
— No.
— I’m prepared to pay well. Name a price.
— I won’t sell.
— Hm... You say it doesn’t exist. And you have no wish to sell what doesn’t exist for a good price?
— That’s exactly why I don’t want to. It doesn’t exist.
— Iron-clad logic, — the gentleman laughed.
The laugh sounded cold, ataractic. That’s not how people laugh. That’s how you rattle the air and frighten people.
