Today is April 31st.

He opened his eyes. No, not when the alarm went off. Harry was forced to open them by a strange silence. No hum of cars outside the window, as always. No birds chirping. Nothing. Only a spider crawling on Harry's hand in absolute silence. Strange, he thought. Something had happened, apparently. Something had happened to the world. He slowly picked up his smartphone. What day was it today, the weekend perhaps? Although he didn't remember being in the mood for the weekend the night before. The phone's calendar showed April 31st. Maybe I hadn't quite woken up yet, a thought flashed through his mind. Harry, a mathematician, always remembered numbers well. He knew that April didn't have 31 days. It didn't. So what had happened here? The impossible had become possible.

And that silence around. As if people had disappeared. He looked out the window. An empty street. For a whole minute, no one appeared. Only whitish clouds drifted lazily above.

Harry gradually began to feel anxious. What had happened? Although the room in his house looked normal. A table, a bed, a chair, yesterday's pizza that had been eaten. A bottle of wine that had been drunk. Only that calendar number. He needed to reboot his phone, he thought. Probably some kind of virus. Hackers are everywhere these days. They just want to infect someone.

Unfortunately, after rebooting, the phone still showed April 31st.

Harry began to remember physics, which he had always been interested in, he followed all the news. He knew about the quantum world, a world where ordinary laws do not apply. About parallel universes, where the strangest things can happen. And they really exist. Only slightly different, different from the world we are used to every day.

Could it be that a quantum transformation has occurred and I found myself in a parallel Universe? This idea was so incredible, so bold that Harry immediately rejected it. Why fantasize unnecessarily. This does not happen in reality. Only in very small, smaller than atoms, quantum dimensions. That is where, they say, thoughts are born

Harry knew, he had read about the power of human thoughts. Thoughts that sometimes come true. They say you need to be careful when dreaming. Because you never know if it will not come true, for example. And how do dreams come true? Somehow they start to come true. Well, if they are good...

The doorbell rang. Who's there at this time of day, early in the morning? I should go and see. It's a bit scary, though. You never know who's there. Harry crept quietly to the door. Some beautiful woman, he thought, peering through the peephole. He had to open it, he decided.

The tall, dark-haired woman smiled timidly.

– Hello, – she said. – Were you waiting for me?

– Who are you? – Harry asked.

– I am your dream, your soulmate.

– How? It can’t be, – he whispered.

– Why can’t be. You’ve been dreaming about me for so long, you’ve been praying to God to send me to you. Here I am, – the woman said. She continued to smile timidly. Only a little, almost with her eyes.

Harry noticed the tiny dimples in her cheeks. He remembered all those sleepless nights, all his searches. The search for a soulmate, which every man lacks so much. Long wanderings through the streets, dubious acquaintances, relationships that led nowhere, which ended after some stupid quarrel.

And when you see your woman, it immediately becomes clear that this is her. You no longer need to judge her by the criteria of compatibility, doubt your choice, wait in fear when she will bite you, when she gets angry. Because, after all, you will have told another woman a lot of personal painful things that she can use against you. And a soulmate is a part of yourself. The missing part that makes you whole, enriches you. Gives happiness.

Heaven is on Earth. As is hell. When you see your soulmate, it seems that heaven descends onto the surface of the planet. Here, as in that song, "even if I couldn't see your face in the dark, I would still know you, because it's you..." Such is a soulmate. Rarely does anyone manage to meet her. Often, God or the Universe jealously prevents close souls from reuniting. So that it wouldn't be too good for a person. But I would allow it, thought Harry, so that only good, wonderful things in the world increase. In a world where there is so much pain, wars, betrayals, injustice, diseases, inhumanity, stupid revenge, greed and condemnation of others.

– How did you end up here? – asked Harry. – Maybe someone told me my address?

– No, I simply knew where you were. This world is different from the one you fell asleep in. It is a parallel world. A world where dreams, wishes, thoughts come true. Wise people were right when they said that thoughts are material. Only sometimes they are embodied in parallel worlds.

– Isn’t that true after all, – Harry said quietly. He was shivering more and more from the incredible reality. But that shiver was pleasant. Pleasant because of his real soulmate at last. Standing and smiling. He had already lost hope of meeting her anywhere. Because Harry’s great efforts had borne no fruit.

– Then you will invite her in, – she said timidly, a little coquettishly.

– Of course, come, – said Harry, taking her by the hand. – What is your name?

– Aelita.

Aelita was Harry's favorite female name. It symbolized some kind of fairy to him when he was still a teenager and was struggling with hormonal storms. Later, he would imagine holding Aelita in his arms for a long time and gently stroking her hair. And his woman would hug him tighter and tighter, pressing her trembling body against him. What could be better than such a situation, such a state? Paradise, no different. Once it is realized in reality, those minutes remain for a lifetime as a perfect feeling of happiness. A feeling that warms you whenever you want. Even in snowy Lapland under the northern lights rippling in the sky.

– This means that dreams and thoughts finally become real, – said Harry. – Although in a parallel world.

– That's clear, how could you still doubt it? – replied Aelita.

– Now I won't let you go. I've waited too long, I've called you. I've dreamed at night. Or, you know, sometimes when the sun rises in the sky it seemed to me that I saw your face. Next to the sun. A strange thing. But pleasant.

– Maybe you still have some wish, – asked Aelita, squinting. And smiled encouragingly. So naturally, without any lies or manipulation.

– Well, yes, I would like to... – Harry began and stopped.

– Well..,. – she encouraged.

– I would like to undress you and then dress you in my clothes. Warmer ones, so that you don't freeze. Because it's still early spring, and you're only wearing a thin green dress.

– Of course, – she said.

Closing the door, Harry turned to the closet, pulled out his warm sweater, scarf, and red knitted hat.

– Here, – he turned and showed. – Do you like it? You will be a real winter fairy. You will be warm and we will talk for a long time about the adventures and painful experiences we have had. While we were waiting for each other. While I was writing letters to Heaven and the saints so that they would send you to me.

– Oh, you had to change yourself so that you could once enter the parallel world where I have been waiting for you for so long, – said Aelita. – But you knew that the door existed there. That's what intuition led you to. And stubbornness.

– Come on, let's drink wine. Wine that I have been saving for you for decades. And it has been maturing and improving. Now that time has come.

Harry filled the glasses. Then he slowly unbuttoned the top button of Aelita's dress. Another one. And another.

I'll dress her tomorrow. She won't be cold with me, he thought.

Aelita didn't resist.

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