Angel Radurial, who art in heaven with the Lord, hallowed be The Lord’s name; The Lord’s kingdom come; Lord’s order be instated on earth as it is in heaven; The Lord will be done on earth as it is in heaven; Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For the Lord is the Kingdom and the power and the glory for eternity. Amen.

Greg turned the names over in his head but didn't like either of them. Metatron seemed arrogant and official, Raduriel seemed daft and slapdash. Which one to pick? Greg closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. Then he went over the translations to the prayers several times and keeping them in mind, read aloud the Aramaic transcription.

Nothing happened. Greg slammed the book shut and shoved it among the other books on the shelf. “You always drag home all kinds of shit,” he recalled his wife's words.

That night he again dreamed of Marie. The brain, pushing around the neurotransmitters, tried to synthesize the tidbits of memories into a coherent picture, weaving Marie's image into garlands of strange events, populated by strangers. Once again, she turned around and looked at him as if he were some annoying insect. He looked at his wife and sighed: "Can’t even share this with anyone."

Greg got up and to avoid waking his wife went to take a cold shower without turning on the light. He stood under the water until his teeth chattered, rubbed his body hard with a towel and wrapped himself in a robe. Still, he couldn't fall asleep and kept thinking and thinking; trying to understand how he had reached this point in his life. He was bored with everything, films, books, people, especially people. He was so tired of them; they became bothersome, useless, wrong. Inside him, anxiety turned to agitation. His hands shivered a little.

He got up again, dressed, left the bedroom quietly, went into the office and lit a table lamp. Then he pulled the book of prayers off the shelf. Once again, he began to repeat Aramaic abracadabra and even found some consolation in it as the unpleasant thoughts retreated. He continued to recite Aramaic words over and over, entering something of a meditative trance.

Then a voice rose gradually in his mind, as a fire from under a faint smoke. The voice was clearly extraneous, as it seemed to be speaking Aramaic, but, strangely, Greg understood the meaning.

The change of direction in communication flow depended on the compressions and decompression produced by the thought pressure of one or the other communicator.

“It’s weird. The way you speak and your word choice is modern.”

“What did you expect? Three-thousand-year old expressions? Our existence is beyond what you perceive as time changes. We translate information into the appropriate linguistic and cultural environment.”

“Explain to me then why... why everything turned out this way for me?”

The convenience of the new method of communication was that it was enough to remember all the circumstances of the spoken, surfaced as a cloud of dust in the brain, as the speaker had already seen the same picture.

“Not deliberately. Your particular life is neither subject to harassment nor of particular interest. We are interested in the life of the colony as a whole.”

“But why did it happened to me? Why did you do it? Why didn't we meet sooner or later than when we did? Why we got into this damn time loop?”

“Time loops are not designed for the evil they are done for good.”

"How is that good? My life has lost meaning. You just crushed me!”

"It is not for you to comprehend what is the meaning of your life. Time loops are the result of historical modifications. Accidents can lead to disasters. We constantly monitor such accidents and correct them. When such correction occurs, there are changes in the lives of a certain multitude of people, like a ripple on the surface of the water. The outcome you’ve ended up with is not a negative one. You didn’t disappear, didn’t possess mental abnormalities, you have normal average abilities, normal family. Your branch of development is not a dead end.”

"I guess I should be thankful that they didn’t crucify me, didn’t impale me and didn’t burn me at a stake..." Greg's thought for a moment jumped out of the communication stream as a fish from the water. And as if in confirmation of Greg's thought the angel continued:

“In your case, other more negative versions of events existed as well.”

“What other versions?”

“In one version your girl was molested by hooligans, you stood up for her and it ended in severe injuries and your death. In the second, you lived with her for ten years, but then she left you. As you can see, you were treated mercifully.”

‘Precisely. I wasn't crushed but just flicked as I recently flicked the bedbug. Maybe when I did it the bedbug was also going through his buggy sadness and frustrations.’ Greg's thought jumped out of the communication stream again.

“Besides, you have to consider that the life of that girl turned out to be more balanced. She met another person who became a better option for her.”

“The better option,” Greg repeated automatically, “Better option. But, but... Wait, there are people who live happily together all their lives and... so on. It is possible...”

The angel was silent. It became clear that the meeting was over. The situation became clearer, but Greg felt dissatisfied.

"Should I try another one?" But he had no more emotional energy. Greg returned to the bedroom and while he was undressing, his wife woke up.

"Where have you been for so long?"

“I couldn’t fall asleep. Took a shower.”

The rest of the night Greg lay sleepless looking at the ceiling.

For a few days, he read the transcription of the prayer but there was no connection. It felt like a viscous, muddy liquid clogged the communication channel. Yet he repeated and repeated the transcription of the prayer, this time addressing Raduriel. Strangely enough, no matter how much he tried to imagine an angel in white garments and with wings, all he could manage was the image of the old and puny salesman in the old antique store. Rather than distracting himself from the unpleasant thoughts, the resulting induced meditative state helped him to isolate himself from his situation. He felt as if his mind elevated above his body and flew in ambivalent space voided of feeling.

Everything became clear. There are those who love and those who allow themselves to be loved. Those who allow themselves to be loved can easily break away from the love thread, and allow someone else to love them. This model of being is more persistent across the Gaussian curve. Greg also happened to be on the receiving end in other relationships and appreciated its convenience. A thought that always been blocked by Marie’s image opened in his mind as lips waiting for a kiss. Maybe it wasn’t she that he craved so much all these years, but just a state of being in love. He craved this feeling as a junkie misses his fix. He wanted to feel it again, though he understood that it was impossible. 'Young man,' said the salesman. No. Neither he was a young man anymore, nor were his feelings capable of reproducing the intensity he could love in the days of his youth. In a short time segment allotted to one person, emotional reserves were limited.

Yet, once this understanding dawn on him, his mind returned in his body and the wave of irritation rose inside ‘Fucking tech support! It's always useless! I should have asked for a manager. Why the hell is it like this!”

He threw the book at the wall, turned back in the chair and covered his eyes with his hands. This way he sat for some considerable time, full of despair and malice. Opening his eyes, he did some face muscle exercises and picked the book from the floor where it lay face down with the pages open.

“Yeah, sure…” - he said, addressing either the book or the angel, “Our heavenly Father, blah, blah, blah…”

He closed the book, put it back on the shelf and at this moment noticed that he felt somewhat unusual. Marie's image, which usually overwhelmed him, became softer and somehow more distant. Marie's image, which usually overwhelmed his consciousness with deadline sadness, became softer and somehow more distant.

"Can this be that Raduriel actually heard me?" Greg raised his left eyebrow and grinned.

He felt like having something sweet.