bits and pieces

In a city that never really sleeps there're roads, entangled paths that may take you to places so wonderful you could never even imagine to exist, right there, right behind that building, down that alley. Sometimes it makes me wonder whether Moscow is just a three-dimensional place or there's more to it, for there's certainly something magical about it.
It's as if the city's alive and every time you're about to enter its gates - be it an airport or a railway station, it scans you, your moods, your dreams, your expectations, it tests you, sort of like a lithmus paper, and then, depending on the calculations - it decides what to show you this time. Each time you visit it - it's different.
It was early May and I was showing my friend A. around the city. It started as a usual landmark/sightseeing walk, only a bit more personal - "here's the Red Square and there's this cool book store that sells rare vinyl records, and over there's a coffee shop where they serve you unusual-flavored latte! let's get a lavender one and head to the zoo! hey". But by the time we got to the Moscow zoo to see red pandas, it was closed, so I suggested we went to the next underground station, only not not the usual way. And just a few hundred meters away, past the park with strange sculptures and a 20-storey building with a fountain in front of it, hidden away from the eyes of a crowd, there it stood - a catholic cathedral, made of red bricks and gothic motives and history.
We saw people coming out from the front door, but we sneaked in. We saw lights going off, but we stayed inside, sitting in the front row thinking about just how many stories those walls have heard, just how many tears those marble-eyed saints have seen. And then, all of a sudden, we found out nobody was there anymore and that the front door was locked, and so were the other! The same minute we tried to open the door somebody up there started playing pipe organ and did it feel surreal and like a movie-scene brought to real life or what! Standing there, just the two of us, a faint light coming through stained-glass windows, ethereal music almost palpable..
Half an hour later the lady who was practicing for her upcoming concert came downstairs and let us out, and so the little magical adventure was over.
We went home, talking about how cool things never happen to us and how it was a one-in-a-million chance and how this city never ceases to amaze its visitors. Moscow - mundane and apocalyptic at the same time.