[Mesnick]

I want to share a story that was told to me. Perhaps not the most exciting and interesting, but, as it seems to me, worthy of your attention today. But first, I need to explain the context in which I heard it. So prepare for long explanations.
The city of Lubny, in the vicinity of which I live, is more than a thousand years old. 1037 years, to be exact. Built as a fortress in the year of the adoption of Christianity, the city has a long and multifaceted history, the retelling of which would take more than a dozen pages. It even found a place for independence from 1905 to 1907. But for my story, one specific historical monument is important - the Mgar Monastery.



Founded in 1619, this complex of buildings has changed many purposes. At first it was just a wooden church, then an Orthodox women's monastery, a vineyard, a Catholic Benedictine monastery, an Orthodox men's monastery, a military unit, vegetable warehouses, a zoo, again a military unit, a historical museum-reserve and finally again an Orthodox men's monastery. During my school years, I went there several times on excursions and also prepared a scientific paper based on the materials there. But in adulthood, fate brought me back to this monastery.



Because of the political situation, it's very difficult to find a job in my country. I guess that's why I find it especially easy to sympathize with Kamen Rider Zeztz. So there's not much choice in terms of earning money.
I got the next job at the monastery. Due to the bombing, it was decided to take all the historical artifacts to safer places. And so they did, but over the course of 400 years, not only the things on display have gained value. The monastery has a huge area, interspersed with forest. Many buildings from different eras, some of which are half-destroyed or in the process of being renovated (which is even worse). It even has its own catacombs. No archive lists all the treasures there. So I was tasked with disassembling things, sorting them by purpose and quality of preservation, then dating them and, accordingly, distributing them for shipment, disposal, and preservation. As you can imagine, the work is exhausting and practically endless. However, this is even a plus when you are looking for at least a shred of stability in today's crazy world.
Of course, I didn't do it alone. We didn't have a stable team, because this job isn't for everyone, but I think the number of people employed fluctuated around ten. Most often, I worked in a pair with Anton Petrovich Rilfool. He himself asked for his full name, so it's not a dean. He's a well-educated man, a little older and a little taller than me. Very responsible, maybe too much so. He always came to work early, which was even a little annoying. I remember once setting a goal to beat him to it, but in vain. Whenever I came, an hour or two later, his name was already written in the admissions log. But, apart from that, and some not-so-good jokes, I can't say anything bad about him.
And so we are approaching the promised story. That day we were dismantling one of the oldest churches and collected a lot of medieval icons. On the wood, blackened by time, in some places you could see very strange pictures, like wolves with halos or monstrous angels. I noted that fantasy sometimes led icon painters to heresy and suggested that this was because of their pagan upbringing. Anton suddenly became thoughtful and asked if I knew what angels really looked like. I thought that we were talking about descriptions from Kabbalah and the first pages of the Old Testament, where there were many heads and eyes. But Anton said that this was complete nonsense. He knows this for sure, because he saw angels with his own eyes, just like I did now.



(Example image from the Internet. I am strictly forbidden to photograph monastery artifacts.)
Of course, after that I wanted to hear the details. And who among you wouldn?t? And Anton told me the story.
In the spring of 2010, having successfully passed all the tests and received automatic passes in the exams, he graduated from the first-year program two and a half months early. His parents were so pleasantly surprised by this that they gave Anton a trip to Japan. At that time, anime had already ceased to be a rare interest, but had not yet become a mass market. At least, here, I think, the situation was different elsewhere. The important thing is that at that time almost everyone was fond of anime and because of it they began to be interested in Japanese culture and dreamed of visiting this country. In Anton's case, this dream came true.
So, on the second day after arriving in Tokyo, he was about to cross the road when the traffic light suddenly went crazy. It didn?t just turn off or switch unexpectedly. The colors started flashing and changing at a dizzying speed. Several cars collided and traffic came to a standstill. It didn?t end there, because suddenly one of the damaged cars started flashing its headlights and turning on its wipers. And although Anton didn?t know Japanese, the driver?s bewildered face said more eloquently than any words that he was out of control of his car.
Anton noticed a green flash and, following it with his eyes, saw on a nearby bridge a brown beetle the size of a man with metal TV antennas on its head. Anton thought it was a cosplayer or a mascot, especially since it was dancing. And there were some people milling around next to it, and bright flashes of light were flashing all the time. The contrast between the accident below, on the road, and the fun activities above surprised him, but he wrote it off as a cultural difference.
A few hours later, another strange thing happened. Suddenly, a thunderstorm began, without rain, and in a very small part of the city. Lightning struck from the sky and even caused several small fires. And it ended as suddenly as it had begun.
The next day, Anton encountered the huge beetle again. And from the reaction of the crowd, he realized that it was no cosplayer. People ran away in fright, one boy fell and the monster danced in front of the frightened child, stomping on his school bag. Suddenly, several young men appeared, and with them someone in an elegant motorcycle helmet with a dragon image, a red jacket and boots, and white pants. His entire outfit was decorated with gold and a golden emblem resembling stylized wings flaunted on his chest, immediately suggesting a superhero. This hero pushed the beetle away and picked up and comforted the boy, who immediately dozed off, even forgetting about his things.
Anton at this time broke away from the crowd and hid, watching with interest what would happen next. The rest of the teenagers, two boys and two girls, began to talk to the beetle. He did not understand the words, but the conversation seemed peaceful until they suddenly attacked the monster. And then they grabbed some golden masks, put large cards in their mouths and also turned into heroes, differing from the first only in colors and emblems. And the girls also had skirts. The teenagers were changing in a bright glow and, despite this and the distance, Anton clearly saw the white wings behind their backs. And then he realized that these were real angels.
Having changed, the angels took strange poses for a while and said something, as if giving the enemy time to recover. During this time, support came to him in the form of a blue beetle with a spear, much more serious and threatening in appearance. The new insect quite easily defeated the four angel heroes, and the red one for some reason turned into an ordinary person. And then suddenly a hurricane hit, an explosion thundered and they all disappeared.
Shocked by what he saw, Anton could not move for a long time. Explosions continued to rumble somewhere nearby, suggesting that the battle was continuing. In the end, Anton recovered a little and was about to run away when he suddenly saw the brown beetle again. Only now it was several times taller than the skyscrapers around it. And it danced again, this time destroying everything around. Then four multi-colored dragon heads flew in, attacked it and broke its antennas. And then the ground shook and either huge beasts or giant robots began to appear from everywhere. Anton claimed that just a step away from him, a black robot snake several times larger than a subway train crawled by!
This menagerie gathered around a huge robot, joined by dragon heads, after which the brown beetle was burned with multi-colored fire. And what happened next, Anton did not see, because he fainted from shock. And I cannot blame him for that.
This incident became the most vivid impression of his trip to Japan. Even more vivid than autographs from Jun Maeda and Yudai Chiba. And also the reason why he never returned there, although there were opportunities. And although he suffered a lot of fear, he was still lucky to get over the fright. And also to find out what angels really are like.
Of course, after listening to this story, I thought that Anton was playing a trick on me. He did not insist on the opposite, and soon he was fired. Unexpectedly and without saying goodbye. It?s just that one day when I came to work, I did not see the usual inscription A.P.Rilfool in the attendance log. I don?t know what?s wrong with him now. But since then I haven?t stopped thinking about his story. Suddenly, all this is true? What if the angels are really five colorful heroes fighting huge bugs and other monsters? And piloting a giant prefabricated robot? And what do you think?



Happy April Fool's Day!

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