Gagarin Meets Veles

Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin was surrounded by complete darkness. Slowly, he started noticing millions of tiny flames appear around him, although he had a feeling that those flames had already been there for a long time. They seemed familiar, and in an instant, he realized that they were stars. It seemed to him that the instant had lasted just short of an eternity, time during which the cosmonaut was trying to remember who he was and what he was doing. Before he could finish, however, he witnessed a very bizarre sight – right in front of him, about ten steps away, there was an unknown human silhouette. He intently stared at this person, who he decided was likely a man, trying to discern his features. But as soon as he though he was close, it was as if the man changed, and Gagarin had a hard time finding an identifying characteristic. Not understanding if this was a real person or not, Gagarin decided to try to communicate with him, although he wasn’t sure that the person would understand him, as he could now see that the man in front of him looked like a foreigner.

“Who are you? Where am I?” he started.

“We’re in space,” the stranger answered in perfect Russian. He had a pleasant and cheerful voice, but his tone was playful. “Do you know why you were sent to space?” quickly asked the stranger.

“I… I was on a mission… I think…” Gagarin’s voice trembled, as he struggled to find the words he needed, trying to remember human speech in such an outlandish scenario. Although he was in general a calm and collected person, he found himself at a loss in his present situation. The stranger picked up on this and seemed to be quite enjoying it.

“Yes, yes, I know. First man in space! That is truly amazing! You will be remembered for centuries – trust me, I’ve been there!” said the stranger in an ever more playful tone.

“W-Where?” Asked Gagarin. “And why does he even ask if he already knows?” he thought to himself.

“In the future.”

“What?” the confused cosmonaut stared at the stranger, and thought, “this man is completely just messing around with me.”

“Why are you staring at me like that? We are in space and Earth’s laws do not apply here. Well, they do, but with some limitations. Time flows differently if one learns how to swiftly walk along its surface,” said the stranger.

“I don’t understand,” said the cosmonaut.

“There is nothing to understand. It just is what it is. It is impossible to understand, it is something that must be experienced. You for example, you are stuck in the flow of time, and so you don’t understand. You just need to get out of the flow, and you will understand everything!” stated the stranger, quite matter-of-factly.

A new and strange sensation took hold of the cosmonaut, who was already at the end of his wits. “Where is my spacesuit?!” he yelled. He was completely naked in space, with the bright blue glow of the Earth below him, which reflected the light of a bright Sun he could see somewhere in the distance. “Am I dead?”

“Oh, come on now, get a hold of yourself, will you? Are you not breathing? Do dead people breathe?” cheerfully asked the stranger. “Aren’t you a cosmonaut after all? Gather yourself!”

Gagarin was, in fact, breathing, and as soon as he noticed that he was, he remembered that these was nothing to breathe in space, and started choking.

“Oh, my dear. What are you doing? Breathe, breathe, or you will actually die, and that won’t be interesting,” said the stranger as his lips betrayed a playful little smile. He was a man of average height and build, with brown eyes and tan skin, with unbelievably white teeth, and dark, thick hair. He was dressed in all white – white suit, white pants, white shirt, white tie, and elegant white shoes. “Breathing is so easy!” he said, “you have been doing that your whole life!”

Gagarin started getting red, and he had to think of and remember how to breathe. When he finally managed to do that, he caught his breath, and asked: “W-why are you clothed? Why am I not?”

“What do you mean, why? Because that is how you appeared into the world!”

“And you appeared into the world in a white suit?”

“Naturally! See, you are beginning to understand!”

“This is some crazy fever dream,” though Gagarin to himself. “This is a dream and I am asleep, I am still on Earth and all of this is an illusion.”

“What are you saying, my dear!” bellowed the stranger, “You offend me! I am just as real as you are!”

“So you also read minds?” asked Gagarin, annoyed.

“Of course! Thoughts are the most efficient way of communicating in open space. You just have to set your brains right.”

Gagarin started to choke again.

“Thinking is a good habit but don’t stress yourself too much with thought, my dearest! Breathing is extremely easy, even in space!”

“W-why am I here?” asked Gagarin, after he remembered how to breathe again.

“Well, how would I know? You said you were on a mission. It is not me who was strapped into a rocket and shot into space,” came the reply. “Maybe everyone down there is just sick of you? Or maybe it is the other way around, and you are sick of them, so you came up here for a bit of solace? I get bored down there too, some people are just so annoying! But in space, everything is more fun. You just need time, lots of it, you see. And there are no people. Until now that is.”

Clearly this was all a dream, or some sort of elaborate prank, or something, or so the cosmonaut thought. The man in the white suit was extremely annoying and saying things which made no sense and Gagarin just wanted to wake up already.

“Who are you? What are you talking about? What is this nonsense? Where is my ship?” yelled Gagarin, clearly irritated by the other’s demeanor.

“Oh, dear, calm down! What ship? Are you a ship’s captain, did you sail up here?” the stranger chuckled to himself. “I was under the impression you were a pilot. O-o-o-h, I think you refer to the metallic ball they sent you up in. It is w-a-a-a-y over there,” the stranger pointed to a distant object with his gaze. “Would you like to go take a look?”

Without waiting for an answer, the stranger started to walk in the direction of the Vostok capsule. He walked across empty space as if he were walking on an invisible floor, and Gagarin could hear his steps. The cosmonaut tried to follow, but as soon as he tried to step forward, his legs didn’t move, his whole body trembled, and his head began to spin. Noticing that he was not being followed, the stranger stopped and turned around.

“Well, why are you still over there? Do I also need to teach you how to walk?” the stranger said, smiling.

“But there is noting to walk on here!” yelled the cosmonaut, still irritated, but also scared.

“Easy now. Of course there is. If there was nothing to walk on, could I do this?” the stranger said, and stomped his feet energetically, which made a loud noise that reverberated across infinity.

Gagarin tried to get up. “I can’t. I will fall.”

“How will you fall? There is nowhere to fall to here.”

“Down!”

“We are in space. There is no such thing as ‘down’,” smirked the stranger.

The stranger took Gagarin by the arm and started guiding him, or, more precisely, dragging him, behind himself. The cosmonaut’s legs lightly bounced off some sort of soft surface, almost too soft to feel, but nevertheless present. He started picturing the stranger dragging a naked lieutenant of the Soviet Air Force behind him through empty space, and almost laughed at the absurdity of that image. But afterward he also thought of how humiliating that was, and that if ground control were to find out, they would not be too pleased. Who would have known that space was full of strange people dressed in elegant suits? “This must be an alien,” thought Gagarin.

“Do you feel that?” the stranger interrupted, “it is a space path which I am making as I walk.”

“What?”

“A path. Beneath you.”

“Oh.”

The cosmonaut was lost. His head hurt, and he was dizzy, he did not understand anything, and he felt like his strength was leaving him. He just wanted to shut his eyes and go to sleep.

“Hey! What are you doing? Wake up immediately!” yelled the stranger. “Just look at him, I drag you all the way, and you have the audacity to fall asleep!”

“Sorry...” mumbled Gagarin. He opened his eyes and saw the stranger standing next to the Vostok.

“Why are you laying down?” Come closer, take a look at your spaceship.”

Gagarin slowly stoop up and took a hesitant step forward. His foot was on an invisible, soft surface, so soft that he could barely stand on it, and he almost fell through.

“Step with more confidence! The hardness of the path depends exclusively the confidence of your steps!”

Knowing that there is some kind of surface under him after all, Gagarin felt more confident, and the path got hard enough for him to be able to uncomfortably stand on it. Swaying from side to side, he slowly started to make his way to the spaceship.

“Go ahead then, come look inside,” said the stranger while looking at Gagarin.

As he wobbled, it occurred to Gagarin that perhaps his soul had escaped his body, and that he was the soul, trying to find its way back. But surely that could not be it. And if it were, did that mean he had died?

“Am I inside of the ship?” cautiously asked the cosmonaut.

“Let me ask you a question,” smiled the stranger. “Where are you?”

“Here.” said the cosmonaut, without much confidence.

“Can you be there,” said the stranger, pointing to the Vostok, “if you are here?”

“Well, no… I suppose,” said Gagarin, afraid of the answer.

“Are you sure?” asked the stranger, with a large smile from ear to ear, and a spark in his eyes.

Gagarin was now truly afraid. He did not like the smile of that strange space man, he did not like the darkness of space, he was cold, and standing on nothing in the middle of nowhere was quite uncomfortable and exhausting. He was shaking, but slowly approached the spaceship, and after he made his way, investigated the small, round window. He managed to glimpse a brightly colored orange spacesuit. His heart started pounding so loudly that its sound filled the entire universe. Inside of the spacesuit there was a man, one very much like him, but it could not be him, since he was here, and the other man was there, inside! Who could it be?

Before he knew it, Yuri Alekseevich felt the surface under him disappear, and he started to fall into the void. The Vostok was getting smaller and smaller, until it became a white dot mingled with other white dots and disappeared. He knew that he will soon fall towards Earth, burn up in its atmosphere, die and finally be free of this terrible dream. But he kept on falling, past the Earth, which began to shrink. The cosmonaut thought that it too will disappear until nothing is left but emptiness and darkness. Instead of that, he suddenly hit a hard, unpleasant surface, covered with sharp sand. Gagarin opened his eyes and saw an impeccable white shoe on the silvery white sand.

“How was your flight?” asked the stranger, smiling as usual.

“Where am I?” replied Gagarin.

“Welcome to the Moon!” the stranger said, spreading his arms as if to show Gagarin the desolate landscape.

“Why are we on the Moon?” asked the cosmonaut, very confused.

“I told you, you must stand with CONFIDENCE!” came the reply. “You had doubts and so you fell. As to why you ended up here on the Moon, I don’t know. Personally, I like Mars better, the tallest mountain in your Solar System is there, you know? Olympus,” the stranger started rambling again. “Although the tourists have nearly ruined the place. Anywhere you look – there’s a tourist! And for each tourist there are five salespeople selling some sort of junk! Oh, sorry, wrong time again,” he caught himself. “The Moon is not bad though, especially right now, no one to bother you, you can quietly just sit and think. But enough talking, you must be starving… join me at the table!”

The stranger moved forward, and Gagarin got up and followed. Despite the enormous distance he fell and the force with which he hit the surface, he felt no pain. He noticed that he was now also dressed in a white suit with a white shirt and white shoes. The stranger sat at one end of a long glass table, which seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, and which had the most diverse dishes upon it. Gagarin spotted a roasted chicken, a roasted pig with an apple in its mouth, duck, calamari, caviar, mackerel, and all manners of fruit. The drinks were also varied, including wines, some of which seemed to be served in ancient Greek urns, cognacs, and other liquor, up to juices and strange shining drinks. Gagarin did not understand how it all could fit on one table, no matter how large it was. It looked like every second new dishes appeared, while others disappeared, and then appeared again.

Gagarin sat at the other end. Although the table was very long, and the cosmonaut could barely see the stranger sitting on the other side, he could hear him well. He wanted to ask how it was all possible, but he knew that he would probably not get a straight answer. Besides, he truly was quite hungry – walking through space was a very consuming task. He saw a golden plate in front of him, decorated with human figures moving and dancing some macabre dance, one of them holding what looked like a human heart in its hand.

“They only do that on the Moon,” said the stranger, and then corrected himself, “well, also under moonlight on Earth, but too slowly to notice.” He poured himself a shot of vodka. “Let’s drink to our acquaintance” he said, lifting the glass. Gagarin, noticing that and identical glass had appeared next to his plate, did the same thing. They toasted and drank.

“Ugh,” said the stranger, making a face, “how do you people drink this stuff?” He paused. “Well, why are you sitting there, help yourself!”

“How can we drink to our acquaintance if I don’t even know your name yet? Who are you?” countered Gagarin.

“I will answer all of your questions, but first have a bite, eh?”

The dishes really looked appetizing, especially the duck covered in sauce. As soon as Gagarin thought about that, a warm serving of the duck dish appeared on his golden plate.

“Wonderful thing isn’t it?” said the stranger, “a plate which brings you food.” Although it only works on the Moon; it is powered by the moonlight, so to speak.”

Gagarin took a bite of his duck. It was the most delicious duck he had ever tasted. He swallowed and said, “But there is also moonlight on the Earth.”

“Yes, but it is far too weak, I just explained that.”

“And moonlight is just the reflection of sunlight.”

“No, those are completely different things! The plate would never work under sunlight!” yelled the stranger, as he ate the meat of some small animal, covered in spices and greens, and drank some dark green drink. He swallowed, and then said, “Well, I suppose you have questions,” and paused. “Ask away.”

“Who are –” started the cosmonaut but was interrupted.

“Oh, yes, yes, who am I? Sorry, I know you’ve asked this quite a bit. Always the first one they ask me…” said the stranger and continued, “I suppose I am what you would call a god.”

“A god?” Gagarin was perplexed, still unsure of whether this was a dream, but decided to play along. “What kind of god?”

“What do you mean by what kind? A regular one!” laughed the god.

“I mean, whose god? What is your name?”

“Oh, that. My name is changing and getting longer and shorter as we speak, and it’s always different, and you won’t be able to understand it anyways since you’re stuck in time, dear,” answered the stranger. “But right now I feel like going by… Veles. I think that’s what your people called me.”

Gagarin had never heard of Veles. “So why did you bring me here?”

“Oh, I was just bored,” the playful tone was replaced by a very sincere one, “it’s not all that fun to be a god you know?” said Veles, and then laughed and almost spit his drink. “No, it is actually quite fun! I lied!”

Gagarin started to feel a little dizzy. Something wasn’t right. Was the food poisoned? Would he finally be free of this nightmare?

“Oh dear, I think you bit off more than you could chew...” Veles’ voice was fading.

Everything went dark.

“Cedar, come in Cedar!” the voice on the radio said. Gagarin woke up in his capsule. He must have fallen asleep, although he did not remember it. The communication was back on.

“Dawn, this is Cedar,” he radioed back. “I am feeling great, everything is nominal.”

In the distance, behind the window of his spaceship, he though he caught a glimpse of a human figure, but it vanished almost as soon as he noticed it.