UFO: Undefined Fantastic Observer
"Does the hamster wonder about the wheel it runs on?" thinks Uen, a being who claims to come from "another reality." After arriving in the city of Filonica through a vortex in the sky, like an interdimensional extraterrestrial, she meets Fumio, who will become her friend and ally in the quest to shed light on the mystery of reality and its background, always hidden and elusive behind our own limitations as well as lies, deception, and manipulation...
Index
First Chapter
A very brief and soft beep—delicate and somewhat melodic—emerged from the depths of the clock high on the back wall, momentarily seizing control of the vast, silent chamber, soaring above the dying clicks of computer keyboards to gently infiltrate the ears of Fumio Darou and his coworkers.
Fumio opened his eyes, taking advantage of his lowered head and lifeless arms beneath the desk, fallen upon his legs, timidly rotating a wrist to uncover, in such a subtle yet tiresome movement, his wristwatch. As he suspected, it was time to leave, as indicated by the right angle formed by the metallic hands. The clock on the back wall never lied, but it announced the hour change with such excessive discretion that one might say it actually wished not to be heard, attempting to go unnoticed, sounding only out of courtesy or obligation, and preferring that the workers stay overtime without realizing it.
"At last," thought Fumio, not hesitating to release a long, heartfelt yawn.
The only thing he had been wishing for since the moment he arrived at work was for the day to end, so he could return to his apartment.
"When I get there, soup and then bed."
However, the prospect of being in his apartment didn't excite him as much as being out of the hated office complex and his soulless, cold, gray cubicle—far away from them. The apartment in the west district provided Fumio with the meager comforts and sense of security circumstances had led him to settle for.
That night, Fumio only needed a pot of instant soup warmed in the microwave and the mattress in its usual corner. Subconsciously, he imagined he would need to cover himself with the jacket in addition to his sheets, given the cold outside that had gradually and unnoticed seeped in, filling the large lobby beyond the exit doors. And, anticipating the chill of the bed, knowing his lean and elongated body would have to warm it, he knew that even before grasping the jacket and spreading it over the sheets, he would silently pray that it wouldn't wrinkle during the night.
Pushing these thoughts aside until the moment to bring them back arrived, Fumio stood up, determined not to waste any more time, properly stretching his limbs and wearily retrieving his jacket from the chair's backrest.
"It's incredible that I've endured this week," he thought, immediately correcting himself: "It's incredible that I've endured today."
He waited with a passivity resembling patience for his desk computer to shut down, under the absent gaze of a pair of eyes more than tired of receiving hours of screen glare, eager to cover themselves with exhausted, heavy eyelids and also take their well-deserved rest.
"I hate this job; I hate working without purpose," he murmured to himself.
He had just involuntarily let out a thought he had repeated several times in the preceding days, and yet he couldn't explain it to himself; it spontaneously arose, and Fumio didn't understand why those words: "without purpose." Was something in his subconscious trying to bring forth an idea that he, burdened and distracted by the trivialities of routine, couldn't see?
"Darou," a very dry and clear voice immediately said behind him.
Fumio instantly froze, his skin prickling, and just as quickly feared the worst: that one of his superiors had just heard him. Faced with such disloyalty towards the company, the least he could expect was severe punishment and the consequent relentless contempt of his colleagues. Therefore, he dared not turn to the one addressing him and, instead, stupidly pretended not to have heard, as he was apparently concentrated on arranging the objects on his desk—the same ones he hardly touched on a typical workday.
"Hey, Darou," the voice insisted, now with a friendlier, less formal tone; Fumio suddenly felt relieved, as it didn't sound like a superior, and it didn't seem like he had heard his bitter, secret complaint. "We're about to go grab some beers, are you coming with us?"
Fumio turned around, breathing irregularly, and saw three of his coworkers, each with their jackets on and briefcases in hand, ready to leave.
"Yes," Fumio replied mechanically, showing no emotion on his drawn face, his beard hastily shaved, and his hair styled with minimal care, suddenly forgetting about the soup and mattress awaiting him in the cold apartment.
"Let's go, then," said the colleague, now with some laziness. He and his companions turned around and started walking, dragging their feet lightly towards the wide doors beyond which stretched the icy, silent lobby, all under the impassive crystal gaze of the clock on the back wall, at the opposite end of the floor.
Fumio put on his jacket while glancing at the small cardboard calendar, whose fixed place was one end of the desk, that calendar he usually ignored—because when every day is the same, dates are irrelevant—but on that day, he had paid attention to it.
"Today marks five months," he said to himself not for the first time that day, "maybe a beer will do me good."
It had been five months since his girlfriend left him. The date lingered in the back of Fumio's mind, resurfacing every now and then, on days like that, when the most rational part of an excessively rational being sees a temporal milestone, the completion of a cycle with the immediate start of the next, the coincidence of a number—a mere digit on a piece of cardboard—and Fumio used it to self-flagellate, like salt on the wound of his heart, internally writhing in his desperate and chronic misery, while outwardly presenting exactly the opposite: showing up at the office with a serious demeanor (or apathetic at least), then allowing himself to be carried by the flow of time during the journey back home and there, late at night, only lying on the mattress, completely still, covered up to the crown by the sheets, hoping to fall asleep to stop being aware of his pain and numb his spirit until he returned to a state of wakefulness, to distract himself with his work. Alcohol consumption helped with this, already a typical activity on those hard days, which, in reality, led him to collapse defeated in bed and facilitated the numbing of his spirit and entry into the always confusing and enigmatic realm of dreams. But that day Fumio had no alcohol in his house; the day before, when he went shopping, he hadn't felt compelled to grab a bottle of liquor from the shelf, mysteriously sensing that he wouldn't feel like drinking the next day. And he wasn't wrong, although, after all, he would end up drinking, only unexpectedly, given his coworkers' spontaneous invitation.
Fumio caught up with his companions as they opened the large doors, leaving them wide open for those behind them. In a matter of minutes, the office building had been completely emptied, leaving only the security guard inside, who had already taken his position behind the reception desk, sprawled in his plush seat, leaning back the weight of his wide body, wrapped in a thick jacket, wool cap pulled down, hands in his pockets, legs stretched out, one foot resting on the other.
A few hours later, Fumio and his three colleagues left the bar like beasts simply moving irrationally through the streets, but beasts don't usually walk so erratically and without looking where they're going. One of the employees lagged behind, stumbling, afflicted by terrible nausea, his spine bent forward. Fumio's other colleagues went together, vomiting with alcoholic jubilation incoherent phrases that dissipated into the humid, thick air shortly after being expelled. Fumio, on the other hand, walked ahead of his companions, at a certain distance from those who shouted their half-finished phrases and released laughter that rose to the sky; he walked with his head down, trying to watch where he stepped, knowing his comrades were behind him, close to him, even though several minutes had passed without them turning around to look at him or paying attention to their howls or laughter; the last functional neurons in his brain were what enabled Fumio to stand and walk properly, advancing one foot first, then the other, over and over again. And those same neurons, survivors of the alcoholic flood that had swept away the others, making them lose all connection to each other, were guiding Fumio—although he didn't know it—to a convenience store. And, if so few neurons were needed to achieve such a trivial task, it was because Fumio knew the streets he was walking on in the early hours of the morning. The worst-off in the group, unable to cope with his discomfort, sat down on the curb and finally vomited, staying there, hunched over like an old man, his pants splattered with thick acidic stains; the other two, having forgotten their friend, called out to Fumio with off-key, hoarse shouts, and when he turned to them, they greeted him and veered off at an intersection to continue their journey alone, taking advantage of living close to each other. Only then did Fumio realize what he was doing; however, this was not enough to make more effort, for which he could have started by lifting his head and shoulders, and straightening his spine. Nevertheless, he managed to walk three blocks in a reasonable amount of time—even for the deplorable state he was in—until he reached the store. And for a brief moment, he was surprised by an unexpected lucidity, given the circumstances, which made him stop in front of the store door and look up at the sky behind him. During the time he had been drowning his sorrows bitterly in alcohol, a layer of long gray clouds had spread across the sky, completely covering it. Normally, Fumio would have thought that the chances of an inconvenient rain were not negligible, and that it would be best to return quickly to avoid being caught by an unexpected whim of the weather. But his alcohol-clouded mind was unable to react with any coherent thought. However, he could at least notice something in the sky. Up high, among the clouds, almost above his head, there was a vortex. It didn't appear to be too large, and, due to the darkness of the environment at that hour, it could easily be mistaken for a piece of sky that, for some reason, had escaped being swallowed by the clouds. In any case, there were hardly any people awake and walking on the street who could notice the strange phenomenon, and, in any case, Fumio—the only one who had noticed it—barely managed to distinguish it for what it was. The man gazed at that eye in the sky for a few seconds, during which, in the most deeply sober part of his being, he perceived that an idea was trying to be born; an idea that, however, was aborted before it could take a recognizable, knowable form.
The idea he would have had was that, earlier that day, he had seen the same vortex in the clear blue sky of the morning. And in the center of that vortex, that is, at its bottom, a luminary remained motionless; it was brighter than any star in the sky, but less than the sun, and apparently smaller than it as well. However, it was not a star—a luminous point—, but rather an irregularly shaped object. Fumio had discovered it on his way to work, walking down the street. For some fortuitous reason, while waiting to cross one of the avenues that, wide as rivers, cut through Filonica from north to south and from east to west, Fumio looked up at a timid angle—not stretching his neck like a giraffe—, but reaching high enough for his gaze to travel far, as far as it could go, beyond the skyscrapers and office buildings to which the celestial vault was always unreachable, and he saw it. He saw the vortex and the luminary within it, and he became uneasy—and for good reason; such an unusual phenomenon could be nothing less than disquieting. For a few seconds, Fumio was able to observe that mysterious spectacle before the tide of people around him started moving, dragging him forward, forcing him to continue with his routine. Fumio continued on his way, but every now and then he glanced sideways at the corner of the heights where the vortex and its star seemed to observe him, and all of Filonica. He soon wondered how something like that could happen, and if it was due to an abnormal atmospheric phenomenon; then he wondered how long the vortex had been there; he didn't remember hearing about it on the news or in the trivial conversations of his coworkers... or ever in his life. Almost immediately, upon having these thoughts, without stopping or spying on the vortex—which involved looking above the crowd each time—, he realized that everyone around him (and he himself, until a few moments ago) ignored the existence of the mysterious vortex—or worse, they knew about it, but it had become so natural to them that they no longer paid attention to it, and Fumio was the only ignorant one—, since everyone walked with their heads down, or looked away to distract themselves with banalities of daily life, like a product on display in a shop window, a brightly colored sign, or a message arriving on their cellphone screen. Suddenly wanting to draw the attention of passersby so they could see what was bothering him and what he couldn't ignore, he stopped at the next corner, as if waiting to cross the street, and exaggeratedly stretched his neck in the direction of the mysterious phenomenon, and stayed there for a few moments, occasionally casting a sidelong glance at the pedestrians. But they paid no attention to Fumio or his silent and blatant indication. Eventually, he grew tired of waiting for a reaction from the people; nevertheless, he decided to inquire about the phenomenon and find out if anyone else had noticed it, and if it had made its way onto the pages of a newspaper—either physical or digital—as soon as he arrived at his workplace. But he arrived barely on time, and soon he was forced to turn on the computer to start his demanding tasks. All week he had been working on reviewing the computerized model of a piece of a device designed by the company he worked for. The model had errors that Fumio, despite the thorough examination he had been subjecting the code to, could not find; he could have rewritten the code from scratch, or most of it himself, but he was not allowed to make "essential modifications." And, while it would have been very easy for him to open a new tab in the browser to start his search for answers, he didn't want to and didn't like to distract himself from his work. In this, Fumio was very disciplined, no matter how heavy or hateful his tasks might have been on those days when his spirit was exceptionally depressed. Nor could he—it must be said—risk having a superior discover or find out that he was using the company's computer and internet service for personal purposes unrelated to work.
No, instead of remembering the vortex, Fumio observed it with an absorbed expression for a couple of seconds, before clumsily pushing open the store door, dirtying its large windows with the greasiness of his hands. As soon as he entered, Fumio headed straight for the nearest aisle, not hearing the employee who, uneasy about the unpleasant appearance he brought and his face clouded by alcohol, had timidly greeted him, with a hint of fear. And the secluded and sober bastion inside Fumio led him carefully down the narrow aisle of the store, for, if he had staggered, he might have knocked over the items on the shelves, or even fallen himself and hurt himself. Arriving at the back, in front of the large refrigerators filled with all kinds of drinks, among which powerful fluorescent tubes sparkled—still somewhat aggressive for his eyes accustomed to exposure to artificial light—, Fumio managed to recognize the cans of colors, perfectly classified and ordered on the shelves. It took him a while to find what he was looking for: a drink based on turmeric, from a very famous brand in Filonica, one of those taken to relieve hangover symptoms. Fumio's exhausted gaze found the cans of the characteristic black color; then, he languidly reached out an arm and grabbed one of them, causing a pair to fall. Without being able to be ashamed, he knelt for a moment to pick up one of the fallen cans, but not the other, which had rolled under the shelf. Something in his cloudy mind then whispered to him that perhaps he could buy both cans with the money he had on him. Fumio returned down the aisle to the cash register without causing more disorder, and placed the cans on the counter before the still fearful gaze of the employee, who, while not really considering her customer to be a dangerous individual, did fear that his drunken state would make his behavior unpredictable. Fumio slowly pulled out a handful of crumpled bills and several coins from his pants pocket and, without counting them, placed them on the counter. He then looked at the employee, silently asking her, with a strained grimace, to take the money, while his body kept swaying in random directions, forcing him to constantly make slight corrections to his posture to maintain balance—but the employee had seen people in worse conditions. The young woman allowed herself to first take the bills one by one—not without politely asking permission first—, smooth them out, and set them aside, while she counted the money she was setting aside meticulously, aloud, as if her client could have paid attention to her. As all the bills were not enough to buy the two cans, the employee then proceeded to take the coins until the total amount was reached, and once she had done so, she put the money in the cash register. In the meantime, Fumio, assuming he had given the employee enough money, had already allowed himself to take the cans, and had approached the door with the intention of leaving, not without taking a new look at the night sky. Through the smeared glass of his own skin grease, he thought he saw the vortex again, but he couldn't be completely sure. Then it occurred to him to ask the cashier if she had seen that phenomenon or heard anything about it; turning to her, he found her with her arm extended and her fingers together, clutching a couple of coins.
"Sir, your change," she said to him.
Fumio turned back, wanting to speak to the girl. However, he managed nothing more than to move his dry lips slightly, emitting only a couple of embarrassing brays. Knowing himself unable to make himself understood—and, to some extent, being unable to express himself with the appropriate words—, Fumio resigned himself to keeping decorous silence and accepting the change.
Back on the street, Fumio wasted no time in opening a turmeric drink and taking the first noisy sips right there, standing in front of the store. He didn't think about imminent rain or vortexes or luminaries within vortexes. He sat on the curb, finished the first of the cans, and stayed there for a few moments, resting his exhausted legs, and taking the time to regain mental clarity before embarking on the definitive return to his apartment. When he felt the heaviness in his head lift, he threw his arms back, resting the weight of his body on them, and looked up. Almost immediately, he remembered the mysterious vortex, and he looked for it. He found it just as always, above a couple of very tall apartment buildings, at a distance from them that could be either a few meters or several kilometers. But the luminous object within the vortex had disappeared, or perhaps, as Fumio supposed when he noticed it, it had gone out.
With not much else to do there, and with some of his energies replenished, Fumio decided to get up and return to his apartment. The cold that was starting to set in again brought to his memory the soup and the warm mattress he had promised himself hours before. He knew instant soup would be good for him; however, he wasn't sure if he would prepare it, given the sleepiness he had, which competed with hunger more than adding to it, and which made him walk slowly down the street, at a leisurely pace, once he had set off, with drooping eyelids, ready to close right there, shielded by the darkness of the night.
As he reached the corner, however, his sluggishness collided with a striking event. A powerful flash coming from some point several meters away immediately caught his attention. And when Fumio turned his head toward the mentioned flash, he saw a blue ball of light floating a meter above the ground, moving rapidly along the street he had just reached, disappearing from sight behind the first corner. Fumio had the inexplicable hunch that that object was the same one he had seen in the sky, inside the vortex—and that it had recently, apparently, abandoned it. He then rushed as much as his legs allowed in the direction where the ball of light had fled. His eyes now more awake (or, better said, more attentive, or more open) only managed to distinguish a glow many meters ahead, which slowly diminished in intensity until it completely extinguished. Fumio continued his course hoping to discover what had become of the ball of light. At the spot where it had ceased to exist as such, nothing out of the ordinary could be seen, and no trace of the mysterious object was visible... or so Fumio initially thought, who, looking down around him, noticed the presence of an object a short distance from his feet. At first, he mistook it for a fallen leaf from a tree, but when he knelt curiously in front of it and brought his eyes closer, he saw that it didn't have the shape of a leaf; in fact, its shape was highly irregular, difficult to describe, and unlike anything he knew and could imagine. Even seeing it up close, he couldn't say what it resembled, which prompted him to pick it up and examine it in the yellowish light of the street lamps. And yet the object in question persisted in displaying an indeterminate, elusive appearance. It could look like a more or less flat rock one moment, and the next moment resemble a thick piece of tree bark, and after a blink, it would look more like a rubber sole from a sneaker that a pack of wild animals had torn apart. Fumio feared that some strange ingredient, maliciously added without his consent or knowledge, in the drink he had consumed at the bar had altered his vision, although throughout the night he had no major problems seeing.
Suddenly, the mechanical wail of a siren broke into the quiet night, accompanied by the friction of four tires on the asphalt and blinding patterns of white and blue lights snatching the environment. A police car was speeding down the same street, and not long after, another siren could be heard in the distance. Fumio got scared and hurriedly tucked the object into the inner pocket of his coat and started walking, imagining that the reason why the law enforcement was making an appearance might be that a criminal was lurking in the area. The patrol car abruptly stopped a few meters ahead of him, and the policemen in the vehicle quickly got out of it, leaving the doors open, and stepped onto the sidewalk in brisk strides. There they met Fumio, who had stopped, seized by inexplicable panic, and who looked at them with terrified eyes, wide as saucers, and with his jaw somewhat dropped.
"What are you doing here, sir?" one of the officers asked rudely.
Fumio stammered but managed to reply in time to avoid further questioning:
"I'm going home."
The policemen took a few steps around him, examining him from head to toe despite the trees casting long shadows over him, almost completely covering him.
"What do you have in your hand?" the other policeman asked then, in a roar, as if he had seen a suspicious object in it, quickly bringing a hand to his waist.
"This, this," Fumio replied on edge, raising his hands like a caught criminal, showing them the can of turmeric drink, "I was buying."
"Well, go away, sir," the first policeman said impatiently, accompanying his words with an energetic and somewhat rude gesture.
Fumio obeyed without arguing, doing his best to hurry; to get away as soon as possible from the policemen, he crossed the street and turned the first corner, disappearing from view instantly.
With the long walk back home—no taxis or public transport in sight at that hour—and the effect of the turmeric drink, Fumio gradually began to regain clarity, able to stand almost fully upright and recognize the streets he was walking on. However, what settled in his body as the heavy fog that filled his head dissipated was an intense feeling of exhaustion, manifesting in the slowness of his pace. And, at the same time, despite his miserable state, a kind of thought constantly appeared in his mind, repeating itself over and over again, insisting on an out-of-place, inexplicable, incomprehensible idea. But it wasn't he who generated this thought; it had infiltrated his brain, altering his state of alcohol-induced lethargy and the prolonged period of wakefulness, preventing his functions from fully returning to normal. At first, Fumio was overwhelmed, then feared he might be going mad and remembered the possible strange ingredient in the bar. He soon resolved to try to distract himself, believing that if he ignored the intrusive thought, it would eventually disappear. However, dealing with it proved mentally exhausting, besides being enigmatic: that voice in his head urged him to obtain something, something special, the identity of which he himself was unaware of. The situation, thus, quickly became desperate.
By the time he reached the block where he lived, just a few meters from the entrance to the apartment building, he couldn't bear it any longer and decided to take out his cellphone and make a call. Amidst his schizophrenic need, which had persistently conquered his bewildered mind, Fumio felt some pity for calling someone in such early hours, interrupting their sacred rest. But he couldn't resist: what had seized his mind was already a mysterious force in its own right that dominated his entire being, and Fumio could only watch in amazement as his body was used to search the phone's contact list for a particular contact and call without delay. He was calling Akane, his only friend.
Fumio and Akane had met at a job they had both coincided in several years ago, after Fumio finished high school and moved on to "enter the workforce," as is often said. Akane was the kindest and most amiable person Fumio—and many others—had ever had the opportunity to meet in life. One could assume it—realize it, even—by seeing her serene, kind, and warm face from tens of meters away, and by her slow and calm pace, and by her actions completely devoid of exaggeration, affectation, or exhibitionism; Akane was not the kind of person who sought attention, without that meaning she was someone of low profile. Her kindness, unlike most people, was active (that is, she couldn't help but help anyone in need), besides being considerate to everyone equally, regardless of age, appearance, rank, personality, or anything like that; probably no one in Filonica was as dedicated to others as she was. So, it was natural for Fumio and Akane to end up being friends, although it must be said that there was no affinity on her part towards him other than a kind of fraternal and compassionate affection, like that of an older sister for a younger brother whose behavior oscillated between phlegmatic and indifferent, but it was most common for Akane to relate to him just as she did with the rest of her colleagues. And although it had been a long time—measurable in months or even years—since they had spoken, Fumio knew deep down that he could ask her for a favor, no matter how he did it in the middle of the night, and she wouldn't be bothered by it.
Akane's phone rang insistently from the bedside table. It took her a moment to wake herself and her husband. She reached out groggily to grab the device, initially thinking it was the alarm clock going off earlier than desired. But she found Fumio's name on the screen and was surprised.
"Hello?" she answered.
"Hello," Fumio responded hastily, then could only stutter, "Akane, Akane…"
"Fumio, is that you? What's wrong?" the woman asked, eyes wide open in the darkness, concerned.
"Akane, I need your help," he said with a hint of desperation, mainly because he didn't feel like he was the one speaking, but rather that something alien to his person was speaking.
"Fumio, are you…?"
"You know something," he interrupted her. "I need some stones; I can't remember their names…"
"Stones? Fumio, do you know what time it is?"
"Yes, sorry, but the stones you have at your house, what are they called?"
"Ah, those. I have several types of stones, but what's all this about?"
"The stones that… That draw energy from the air!" Fumio exclaimed, exasperated, impatient. "I need you to bring them to my house…" he continued, his voice fading slowly.
"Fumio. Are you there, Fumio?"
There was no response from him; Akane wanted to tell him she thought she knew which stones he was referring to, but there was no one on the other end of the line to hear her words. Feeling his strength draining away, Fumio had leaned against the threshold of the building where he lived and fallen asleep there, his phone dropped to the side.
"What's going on?" Akane's husband asked gruffly, groggily, and grumpily.
The woman was now sitting on the bed, having switched on the bedside lamp.
"It's Fumio, a friend," she replied. "I think something's wrong with him."
"Well, I hope he's alright," the man said with a hint of cynical disinterest in his voice, settling back into his side of the bed, turning his back to his wife and the lamp, and comfortably tucking himself in, the contentment of someone about to resume a pleasant rest immediately, thus forgetting (and 'forgiving,' he would have said) the unexpected scene that had just taken place in the cozy room.
Meanwhile, Akane, after a few moments of sleepy silence, uncovered her legs and turned her body, putting her feet on the floor.
"Ergenites," she thought aloud. "He must be needing ergenites."
Then she got up all at once, forgetting it was the middle of the night and that she would normally have to resume her rest. The tiny draft caused by the movement of the blanket made her husband feel a little cold, a cold as transient and harmless as it was annoying.
"What are you doing?" he asked, somewhat annoyed.
"Can you drive me to his house?" she asked.
"What?!" he exclaimed with indignation and disbelief, suddenly turning to her and lifting his head off the feather pillow for a whole second before letting it fall heavily.
"Yes, I need to bring some ergenites to Fumio… I think he's very sick," she said.
"To hell with it! I want to sleep," the man exclaimed, pretending to mold himself back into the warm and soft depression his body weight created in the mattress.
"Please, let's go," Akane pleaded.
"Why do we have to go? It's four in the morning!" protested her husband.
"Well, because he needs help," Akane replied calmly, as if giving a logical answer, and proceeded to change her clothes.
"And who is this guy, calling you at this hour?"
Now Akane's husband was lying on his back, frowning, his pupils turned to the silhouette of a kind of older sister outlined by the bedside lamp, which his eyes could tolerate now, as long as they didn't open too wide.
"I told you, he's a friend I used to work with."
"But he's not that important…"
Now Akane was pulling on her cotton socks, sitting back on the bed, muttering to herself again:
"Hmm… Maybe he needs an energy treatment with ergenites. He sounded like his bioenergy field was very diminished… In fact, it might be more serious than an energy imbalance…"
She stood up and looked at her husband, who had closed his eyes again and put his arms to his sides, all traces of happiness bitterly disappearing from his face.
"Are you going to take me? I don't want to go alone…"
The man first grunted, then let out an inarticulate mutter through clenched teeth and kicked under the blanket—he might have been about to throw a tantrum like a little child—then he turned abruptly, buried his reddened face in the pillow, exhaled a string of furious and unhappy words into it... and then, finally, he pushed the blanket off of him, sat on the edge of the bed, and started to get dressed, all without the slightest hurry.
Meanwhile, after a brief moment of sleep, Fumio came to his senses again and, feeling the intense cold and the merciless hardness of the wall against his spine, entered the building and dragged his feet up to his second-floor apartment. He was no longer thinking about energy stones or instant soups or drinks for hangovers, and—much to his unconscious relief—the intrusive voice in his head had vanished without a trace, making room for a feeling of freedom drowned in drowsiness; Fumio entrusted his instinct with the mission of taking him to the mattress itself, and so he ended up crawling laboriously under the threadbare sheets, like a worm burrowing its way through the earth, but collapsed before completing the journey and his legs remained extended outside the mattress. He hadn't taken off his clothes either, not even his jacket, not even his shoes.
Akane's incomparable—sometimes excessive—kindness went hand in hand with her beliefs. Although she hadn't been raised in a religious home, and her family and acquaintances observed only the most "profaned" dates and rites, during her adolescence she developed an interest in what some would call "spirituality," which quickly extended to esoteric matters. Thus, on the recommendation of a friend she had made at that time—a recommendation accompanied by a gift book—she began to study astrology, although she never reached an acceptable level of expertise in this field, mainly because she always lacked the constancy and dedication necessary to learn to interpret all the interactions between the celestial bodies and their influence on individuals (nor was there anyone to explain them all...). She then came into contact with alleged gurus, "wise men" or "masters," who informed her about all kinds of "metaphysical speculations," from meditation to the channeling of energies through body and vocal exercises, including, of course, the use of a variety of stones for various benign purposes, and learned about awakenings of consciousness, cycles of reincarnation, access to cosmic records of all human actions, intervention of extraterrestrial entities, "inter" or "extradimensional" in favor of or against humanity, the vibrational-frequency nature of the universe, and much more… Akane was particularly interested in the theories of a certain foreign doctor, who claimed that a subtle and cosmic energy he called "ergen" permeates through the entire Universe, and that said energy is, in fact, what enables the existence of life (possibly the "breath of life" that the Judeo-Christian God breathed into Adam, for example), and that the only way to capture said energy was through the use of a type of rock he had discovered, now known as "ergenite," named after the energy theorized by him. And this path of acquiring alleged knowledge was interpreted by Akane as a process of "consciousness awakening," which led to spiritual ascension; she saw herself learning the lofty laws that govern what many call different "planes of existence," which coexist in parallel with conscious reality, perceptible through the senses. And from these laws, she believed that ascension would be achieved by emitting "positive energies," vibrating at high frequencies, harmonizing her spirit with the Universe, and performing good deeds whenever the opportunity arose.
Akane, then, opened the doors of the living room cabinet where she collected her stones—each of which, it is said, possesses a particular "power" or "property"—, and placed the set of ergenites she owned in a cloth bag. If Fumio's case was serious, as she considered it to be, it would be best to bring them all, and it might even be that those rocks were not enough in number to restore Fumio's lost vitality.
A while later, husband and wife arrived at Fumio's residence. When they stood in front of the front door intending to ring the bell, they noticed it was slightly ajar. Akane had a bad feeling about it, while her husband frowned suspiciously. Nevertheless, they did not hesitate to cross the threshold.
The tiny foyer was completely dark, as someone had turned off the lights, leaving only the one that illuminated the lower steps of the stairs, and those of the elevator, next to the latter; both a few meters from the entrance. The visitors headed for the elevator, which awaited them with the door open; in a matter of seconds—almost non-existent due to their brevity—they had already been deposited on the second floor, facing a shadowy corridor that connected to the gallery surrounding the floor, and which provided access to all the apartments on it. Akane searched for Fumio's apartment door with some difficulty, as there too the darkness was almost total, although the little light in the environment, provided by the street lamps, easily penetrated the gallery, giving the doors a silver and cold sheen, as if the moon had given it. Only silence roamed the hallways and corners of the building at that hour.
"Something isn't quite right," Akane said somewhat absentmindedly, "I feel it in the air."
Her husband responded with a disapproving grunt.
They later found the indicated door. Unlike the building's door, this one was closed, and no sound could be heard on the other side. Akane timidly and respectfully knocked on the door. With no response or sign of any kind, her husband began to knock loudly on the door repeatedly with the edge of his hand.
"Hey, hey!" he shouted, not wanting to pronounce Fumio's name.
Again, there was no response, neither from Fumio nor from his neighbors, whom the noise could well have woken up. Then, Akane hesitantly rested her hand on the doorknob, turned it, and gently opened the door. Her husband would have preferred to give up and return home to sleep, but now (aside from the impossibility of turning back in the face of a question whose answer was so close at hand) he felt a little curious about this Fumio character and the problem he might be going through, although deep down he was convinced that whatever it was, it wouldn't be solved by ergenites, but rather by a doctor, a psychologist, or a few rounds of beer at a bar on a Friday night. So both visitors allowed themselves to make their way very slowly into the apartment, feeling the walls on both sides of the door for the light switch. They were greeted by a multitude of undefined shadows in all directions, where the light that filtered through the open space between the frame and the door leaf and the tiny window next to the door couldn't reach to a sufficient degree or quantity. Eventually, Akane managed to turn on the light. A low-power bulb showed them that the apartment consisted of two tiny rooms separated by a thin partition, connected by an opening without a door: in the first one, which they had just entered, to the left of the visitors, was what Fumio considered a kitchen, consisting of a countertop with a sink, complemented by a board hung on the wall with a steel grid embedded in it, which served as a dish rack, a dirty microwave, sprinkled with orange specks long since hardened, and a tiny waste basket on one side, overflowing with garbage. Plastic bags with containers and probably all kinds of waste cluttered the countertop, and more garbage piled up around the small basket, carelessly thrown away; to the right, there was a small refrigerator and a group of jars and various utensils on a shelf—and others empty on the floor—, and to the right another opening without a door led to a long and narrow bathroom, which shared a wall with the other room. Further ahead, that is, in the other half of the apartment, husband and wife were astonished to find a table with its chair, a tiny sideboard, and, in a corner in the back, Fumio's mattress... and Fumio himself, lying face down, with half his body covered by the sheets, and his waist and legs on the floor. On the table, there were more plastic bags with small containers—recognizable by their colors and shapes as instant soup containers—, a laptop, and a stack of paper sheets. On the floor, there was just as much garbage, folded newspapers, a second laptop, a can of turmeric-based drink, and a dark, irregular-shaped object. Akane contemplated the whole place with deep dismay, feeling sorry for the way her friend lived, vainly trying to suppress the undeniable revelation that he led a miserable existence and was profoundly unhappy.
"This is no way to live..." she murmured with a barely audible voice.
Her husband fell silent; what was initially a prejudiced disdain for someone he imagined as an infamous being quickly turned into a feeling of pity for him, comparable to that of his wife. But his initial lack of reaction was due more than anything to the unexpectedness of the situation: understandably, he had not expected to find himself in a pigsty in the middle of the western district, a residential area of Filonica, tidy and inhabited in every sense by average people. Nevertheless, he couldn't forget that he was angry with the stranger, who had made him leave his sacred rest halfway through.
"This is a pigsty," he declared disdainfully, with a hint of malice as well.
Then both approached Fumio slowly, taking care not to step on the objects scattered on the floor. Akane squatted in front of her friend, uncovered his head with extreme care, as if afraid of waking him suddenly, and observed the half of his face that wasn't pressed into the mattress without a pillow.
Before her husband dared to give him a gentle kick in the legs to confirm his vital signs for himself, Akane asserted:
"He's sleeping."
"You see, he's sleeping," said the man, indignant, raising his voice and arms. "Is this why he made me come here?"
Akane barely paid him any attention. She was relieved that her old friend wasn't dead.
"It would be best to lay him down properly," she said.
Her husband grumbled, but tacitly accepted the suggestion.
"And then we leave. Leave him the stones or whatever it is and let's go."
Then the man grabbed Fumio by the ankles, while his wife lifted the sheets a little, for the former to place Fumio's limbs on the mattress, together and aligned with the rest of his body. Akane gently removed Fumio's shoes and covered his limp legs with the dirty linen sheets.
"I'm going to leave the stones, just in case. But tomorrow I want to come back and make sure he's better."
"Come back? No way!" complained the man, and not wanting to see any more of the scene, he turned abruptly and headed for the exit, barely looking where he was stepping. "He better recover," he added.
"The energy imbalance is evident," Akane said to herself with a sigh, and straightened up. "It'd be better that..."
She took the ergenites out of the bag one by one, and placed them in the four corners of the room, orienting them so that a tip of each stone pointed towards the center. In the process, she had to be careful not to step on the trash. Her husband waited for her with crossed arms in the gallery.
"With this, his energies should stabilize," Akane said softly, as if explaining to someone (certainly not her husband) what she was doing, without wanting to wake the homeowner, while she tiptoed from one corner to another of the room, maintaining balance. "An ergenic field covering this whole room should keep him safe until I return... Being relaxed will undoubtedly help the frequency of the ergenic field synchronize with his internal energy flows, normalizing them..." She cast a compassionate glance at the homeowner as a thought about the unfortunate man's brainwaves complemented her recent expressions. "Just hold on a little longer, Fumio."
As she passed by him, she bid farewell with a caress to his now definitively disheveled and foul-smelling hair.
"Tell him to buy a broom and clean up this place," said her husband, leaning against the door frame.
"We could help him do it tomorrow."
"No, no, no! Why do you want to go back?"
"We need to see how he's progressing. Besides, I have to take care of his energy treatment, in case he doesn't know how it's done."
"But those stones don't do a damn thing. The guy must be sick, or drunk. Living like this, he's definitely sick."
"It's not good to underestimate the power of minerals."
Akane's husband grunted, looking away like a rebellious teenager when scolded. He had already been told that minerals are important and that "life is sustained on them," and he didn't want to hear all that again. Akane pressed the light switch and closed the door behind her gently, without making noise.
"A guy I don't know at all," muttered her husband, walking along the gallery with his wife, heading for the elevator, "makes us come to his house, asking for help, saying he's dying... And when we arrive, he's sleeping soundly, like a log. He must be shameless!"
He hit the ground floor button with the edge of his hand.
"Now I won't be able to sleep anymore," continued the man. "That guy ruined my night! And I'm surprised you make friends with that kind of people. He's a very strange guy..."
"No, he's not like that. He must be going through a difficult experience. That's why he needs help, he begged me for it desperately!"
"We've helped him enough! Don't you think? In any case, tell him to start by cleaning up his apartment, it's a...," and the last word of his sentence is frankly unrepeatable. "I'm not going back. If you want to come, you'll have to do it alone."
The next morning, Akane and her husband were back in front of the building where Fumio lived. Husband and wife had slept in late, and after breakfast and another round of grumbling and complaints from the former, they were back for a brief visit. Nothing could have calmed Akane more than to see for herself that her old friend was better.
This time they found the main door closed. Even if it had been open, Akane would have preferred to ring the doorbell, assuming that Fumio must be awake at that hour, and with enough energy at least to speak through the intercom. So Akane pressed the doorbell and waited eagerly by the intercom, while her husband paced back and forth with his hands in his pockets, eager to finish the disagreeable affair as soon as possible.
With no response forthcoming, Akane allowed herself to insist.
"Who is it?" finally asked a voice through the intercom.
Akane startled, even though what she hoped for most was for Fumio to answer.
"Oh, Fumio, is that you? It's Akane Asano, do you remember? You called me last night..."
"Oh, yes..." came the voice, after a mumble.
"How are you, Fumio? We came to see you."
"'We'?"
"Yes, I've come with my husband."
"I see. I'm sorry, I'd love to receive you, but I'm very busy right now," said the voice on the other side of the intercom, now lively, almost cheerful, one might say. "I'm cleaning the apartment..."
"We're sorry to bother you. So, are you feeling better now?"
"Hmm... Yes, thank you for asking," replied the voice, showing doubts again.
"Don't throw away my wife's stones... or do, it doesn't matter," said Akane's husband from a distance; he had stopped his impatient pacing and was still attentively following the conversation, even though he wanted to appear otherwise.
"Oh, yes, I've left the ergenites you asked for," said Akane. "Can we visit you another time? I would like to talk to you, to know how you've been..."
"Yes, of course! Today I don't think it's possible, but one of these days I would like to talk to you."
Akane's husband could easily have been annoyed by what seemed like an invitation to see his wife without him involved, but something in "that guy's" tone of voice, as he called him, candid and kind, like his wife, prevented him from considering it a threat.
"Okay, Fumio, call me if you need anything. It's great to know you're okay!"
Their interlocutor fell silent. Akane became worried and rang the doorbell again. Then, from the second-floor gallery, someone exclaimed:
"Here!"
Akane and her husband saw Fumio waving to them energetically with a smile on his fresh and rested face. He had changed out of his work clothes and was wearing a white shirt.
"Oh, there you are!"
"Thanks for the stones! I'll need them for a couple more days, but then I'll return them! And sorry for the inconvenience!"
"Okay, Fumio! It's great to see you well!"
"Hey!" exclaimed Akane's husband now. "If you wake us up again in the middle of the night, I swear I'll beat you up! I know where you live!"
Fumio clasped his hands in a sign of apology and, maintaining a big smile on his face, undeterred, responded:
"I apologize! And now I must go! Goodbye!"
And he quickly disappeared. Akane stared at the empty gallery for a moment, then, without saying a word, headed towards the car. Her husband followed her.
"That guy is very strange, I told you," he said.
The "guy" from the second floor watched from the corner of the gallery as his old friend's car, with her spouse, sped away; then he straightened up, leaned on the railing, and gazed at the landscape before him with great satisfaction. The street was empty and peaceful; only the cold autumn wind swept through it, and the rooftops of the neighboring houses reflected the majestic sunlight, dominating the cloudless sky, devoid of any vortexes and definitely without any strange luminous objects within vortexes.
Second Chapter
Fumio woke up well into the morning, closer to noon than dawn. His head wasn't as heavy, and he had some clarity to recognize where he was and why he felt the way he did, including the heaviness in his limbs, the unprecedented hunger gnawing at him, and the dryness of his foul mouth. Lifting his head slightly, he noticed he was still wearing his work suit. A mix of lament and resignation quickly invaded him, expressed in a loud sigh. Then, he dropped his head sideways onto the meager bed, contemplating whether he should choose between taking the suit to the laundry or washing it himself in the bathroom. In the middle of the room, on the floor, lay a solitary hangover drink can. Fumio deemed it appetizing and acceptable enough for breakfast. Partly due to the demand of his hungry gut, which would entail the additional task of procuring solid food, and partly because of the need to wash his suit—thankfully, it was Saturday, which meant he had the entire weekend to restore it to its proper condition—, Fumio first sat down, gathering the necessary strength to stand up in stages. When he decided to get up, he took off his coat and searched for his loungewear, which also served as his bedding: a white t-shirt and shorts. Normally, he would have found them where he left them, hanging from the back of the chair, but they weren't there. And at that precise moment, as he was about to continue searching for his clothes, he realized he had been hearing noises since he woke up, and they were coming from his own apartment; he hadn't paid attention to them, perhaps assuming they were produced in one of the neighboring dwellings—such was his accustomed silence in his apartment. Fumio picked up the turmeric drink can from the floor and placed it on the table quietly. Then, he advanced with the same stealth towards the bathroom; now that he was more awake, he could clearly hear the sound of running water and see the flicker of the bathroom bulb accompanied by a grayish, diaphanous shadow cast on the wall perpendicular to the doorless opening. Fumio peeked into the bathroom, and what he saw froze him on the spot. Standing inches away, looking at herself in the rectangular mirror hanging on the wall above the sink, he saw his ex completely naked. As soon as she noticed his presence, she turned her face towards him and said:
"Oh, so you're awake. Good morning."
"Ma-Marisa?" Fumio stammered, looking her up and down, incredulous to the extreme.
The young woman gave a slight and enigmatic smile.
"Ah, so that's her name," she murmured to herself. "No, no, I'm not Marisa," she asserted next with astonishing serenity, disregarding the extraordinary implications of her words. "Do you have any clothes you can lend me?"
A strong dizziness shook Fumio.
"What do you mean... But..."
The visitor left the bathroom—Fumio instinctively stepped aside to let her pass—and headed to the bedroom brazenly and shamelessly, without bothering to cover her private parts. Fumio followed her, bewildered. There were too many unexplained things: someone's presence in his apartment, who looked exactly like his ex but claimed not to be her, who didn't bring any clothes, who treated him as if she were the homeowner... And to all that, the events of the previous night must be added: the vortex, the blue ball of light, the foreign thoughts in his head, the unidentified object he had taken into his pocket...
"Marisa..." the young woman said to herself as she surveyed the scene in the tiny, untidy room, as if searching for something with her gaze.
"Sorry, did you say you're not Marisa?" Fumio asked.
The mysterious young woman turned towards him.
"That's right. I'm going to explain everything to you, don't worry, but don't you have clean clothes to lend me?"
"Yes, you can use mine," the man said, stunned, looking around. "I just can't find them."
"There was clothes on the chair," the young woman pointed out, as if needed, "but they were dirty, so I washed them, and they’re drying outside."
Fumio was puzzled. He never left the clothes "outside," but rather in the kitchen, hanging from hangers which in turn hung from nails in the wall, in front of the little window facing the gallery, letting the incoming air currents dry the clothes. He headed for the exit deeply troubled by the situation. Furthermore, and in no way irrelevantly, he felt great shame that someone, even if a stranger (uncomfortably familiar appearance aside), would see the poor conditions in which he lived; and, as if all that weren't enough, at the same time, he considered it an offensive intrusion into his life for someone else to wash his clothes—he knew the clothes needed washing, but no one but him had the authority to decide when it would be time to do it. Just as he left the apartment with this mix of emotions boiling in his confused chest, Fumio saw the t-shirt and pants hanging from the hangers, but these were attached to the frame of the small window, so the air running through the gallery was what dried the garments. Fumio reached for the clothes, and as he did, he found that they were not completely dry, although they were not very wet either. The unexpected visitor would have to accept these garments—which, moreover, were the only clean ones, as evidenced by their shiny colors and the absence of stains on them—or else, Fumio would have to offer her old clothes or a winter coat.
"I'm sorry," he said when he was back in the room, "they didn't finish drying."
The young woman took the clothes from Fumio's hands and kept them.
"It doesn't matter, they're fine for me. The heat of my body will finish drying them."
Then, she dressed in front of Fumio, who watched more out of incredulity than out of lust or morbid curiosity.
"It's not that I mind being naked; after all, you've seen this body many times, haven't you? But it's customary not to be like that all the time."
Fumio blushed and looked away.
"Could you explain to me what's going on? How come you're not...?" And he refrained from uttering his ex-girlfriend's name.
"Look, to be brief, I'm not from here. When I arrived, I had to adopt a body, an appearance," the young woman took a photograph resting on the table and showed it to the homeowner. "I can take the form of any being, but I liked this body that I saw."
In the photograph were Fumio and Marisa, standing side by side, cheek to cheek, embraced, smiling, happy. The man didn't want to look at it, and just recognizing the photograph made a painful feeling pierce his heart like an arrow, which distracted him, on the other hand, from the fact that the strange young woman had been poking around in the cupboard—where the photo was hidden or stored—without his permission, apparently while he was sleeping. Another unforgivable violation of his privacy.
"Besides, I must admit that at first I thought about playing a joke on you, thinking she was your girlfriend," the visitor continued, ungraceful in her voice. "But she's your ex, right?"
Fumio didn't want to answer. Not that it was necessary, in any case.
"Well, what I did was copy the body of the girl in the photo. She's a very beautiful woman."
"Yes, I already figured she wasn't the real Mari," Fumio thought. "She doesn't have the birthmark on the side of the navel, nor the mole on the thigh, nor the one on the collar bone." He had also noticed, perhaps too quickly, that Uen's breasts were slightly larger than his ex-girlfriend's, and her hips apparently a little wider too. This fact seemed to confirm the intruder's claim, as it evidenced that she had "copied"—in her own words—Marisa's body imperfectly, which was—when one thinks about it a bit—what to be expected, considering that she had based herself only on a photograph to copy that body. However, her face was identical: the lively, rounded, slightly bulging eyes; the small chin, topped by a bony marble as its tip; the small, somewhat pointed nose and the elongated mouth, whose curvature was guarded by two thin lips of a pale pink, and the height was exactly that of the real ex: half a centimeter shorter than Fumio's. Her hair, black as jet, with the tips resting below her shoulders, looked as if it were made of large independent locks, attached to the scalp by some physiological glue, and each styled in its own way, some of which opened on both sides of the head by the work of a gentle, imperceptible and perpetual wind, which at her twenty-something years still infused her appearance with a youthful freshness well known in somewhat distant times. Her skin tone and the shape of her limbs (especially her arms, each of which resembled a pair of fleshy rollers with smooth, straight surfaces, connected by an anatomical hinge, and soft to the eye's touch) had been imitated to perfection. The superficial similarity to Marisa was, in a way, terrifying.
However, if there was something in which both were undoubtedly distinguishable, it was the tone of voice. Marisa pronounced the words with a minimal guttural contribution, while Uen's voice sounded clearer and somewhat higher-pitched, without being shrill, and therefore more pleasant to the ear as well; additionally, the visitor spoke calmly and without raising her voice (it was too early to conclude whether this was due to mild temperament or mere laziness), and unhurriedly, without stumbling in her speech. And Fumio had noticed it as soon as Uen's first words entered his ears, only that, due to the confusion of the initial encounter, he had not paid much attention to the already described fact; as Uen's voice spread peacefully throughout the miserable hovel, it seemed more and more to Fumio that she was not his ex.
But then, an obvious question arose.
"Well, what do you think about having breakfast now that you're awake?" the young woman said, and without waiting for a response, she headed to the kitchen.
Fumio remained in the room, pensive. In his view, the strange girl who appeared to be his ex had not really explained anything, and this left him even more confused. The possible questions he could formulate in this unprecedented situation crowded his mind: Who was she, if not his ex? Where did she come from? Why was she there, in someone else's home—and precisely in his apartment, of all places in the vast world? What was her true appearance? And so on, and so forth.
"Do you have tea?" came from the kitchen.
"I have some in a jar," Fumio replied from the room.
The strange girl rummaged through the countertop items and found behind some plastic bags a glass jar with a few dampened tea leaves adhered to the bottom. She examined the contents of the jar against the light, shook it a little, and shook her head in disapproval. Fumio appeared on the scene immediately.
"I'll make the tea," he said. "You go sit down."
The girl feared that Fumio might be upset for some reason, but she complied silently and went back to the room. Before, however, Fumio asked her the first of the obvious questions:
"If you're not her, then what's your name?"
The girl gave him another calm, friendly, and enigmatic smile.
"My name... I haven't decided yet."
"Don't you have a name?"
"Yes, I do, but not here. How could I call myself...?" she thought aloud. "Vorticia? Vore-ticia?"
"What? 'Vorticia'? Why that name?"
"Haven't you seen the sky today?" the girl inquired with a meaningful look.
Fumio understood that there was something to see. He immediately opened the door and went out to the gallery. The neighborhood looked normal, and the day was warm, undoubtedly warmed by the rays of the sun. The sky, deep blue, was completely clear. And there was no vortex in it. This is what Fumio eventually noticed.
"The vortex," he murmured.
He returned just as quickly to the apartment. The visitor was not in the kitchen, as she had gone to sit down, just as he had ordered her a minute ago. "It wasn't to be expected that he would notice," she thought in the meantime. "He just got up and hasn't woken up yet, and he doesn't look well either; that's obvious."
"You have something to do with that, don't you? With what I saw in the sky yesterday..." and just mentioning the vortex and uttering the word "yesterday" reminded him of the other thing—"and the ball of light!"
He then had another strong dizzy spell, overwhelmed by the flood of memories crashing onto his mind like an avalanche, but he managed to stay on his feet, and his breathing became slightly labored. For a second, he feared that the strange girl might pose a danger to his life, in some way and for some inexplicable reason, despite appearing harmless and innocent, sitting very calmly as she was, visibly relaxed, with her arms resting on her lap and her legs halfway extended. More questions added to the ones already filling his head: What was her relationship with the vortex and the ball of light?
"Do you know what that was I saw in the sky yesterday? And what was it, a vortex? Or some kind of portal?"
"A portal is nothing more than a vortex seen head-on," observed the girl. "Haven't you noticed?"
There was silence for a few seconds; Fumio pondered what he had just heard, and the young woman insisted on maintaining a passive and even somewhat indifferent attitude.
"If you can't think of a name to give me, you can call me 'Uen'," she said.
"Uen? Is that a name?"
"Let's say it is. Here, I'll be called Uen."
"What a strange name," thought Fumio. He decided it was consistent with the mention of being from another place, even though she hadn't provided any details about it. This, in turn, made him think that the girl hadn't answered a single one of his questions, was delaying offering a clear explanation, and had just changed the subject of conversation (or so he believed she intended) to explicitly request to be called by a fake name. Faced with a person exhibiting such behavior, suspicion was the only option, and Fumio was already beginning to be suspicious. He couldn't imagine what kind of danger exactly he might be facing by letting the visitor stay in his apartment, but it was best to be alert, and for that, he had to be awake and free from hangover.
Feigning innocence, Fumio picked up the turmeric drink can from the table, quickly removed the shopping bags, and headed to the kitchen. He wanted to tidy up the house a bit since he had a visitor, but there was so much dirt that he wouldn't know where to start. Fumio filled the electric kettle with tap water, plugged it in, and decided that while the water was heating up, he would clean the table where they would have breakfast. In the sink, he found the rag, dry and stained; he poured some detergent on it and let the tap water run over it. Meanwhile, he didn't waste any time and opened the turmeric drink, drinking it hastily, in big gulps, letting some of the liquid dribble down the side of his mouth. He wiped it with his shirt sleeve, wrung out the rag, and returned to the room.
"If you don't have tea, it's okay, I just wanted to talk to you," Uen said upon seeing him.
Fumio remained still for a moment, seized by a sudden indecision, but then he resumed cleaning the table in silence, picking up the remaining trash with one hand and scrubbing the damp cloth with the other. He felt embarrassed and humiliated to have to do this in front of the visitor's eyes, and he even felt a bit angry that his solitude (which made his lamentable way of life a secret) was interrupted by a stranger, without prior notice and without asking permission. Uen sensed some of this, so she remained silent, refraining from making any comments that Fumio might find offensive or hurtful, and she turned her gaze to the nearest wall, in the opposite direction of the unkempt room—but even on the lower part of the walls, patches of mold were starting to spread in scattered and shapeless clusters. At the same time, Fumio noticed through a quick glance the posture Uen had taken, and he understood that allowing his annoyance to be visible wasn't helping the situation.
"I'm sorry for the mess," he apologized, lowering his gaze slightly, still rubbing the table. "I haven't had much time to clean."
"Oh, don't bother," she replied, "there's no need to clean. I don't know how long I'll be staying."
Fumio didn't know what to think about that.
"I have to be a good host," he said softly but also seriously, and he took the trash to the kitchen.
The water in the electric kettle was ready. Fumio took two plastic glasses—the only drinkware in the apartment—, sniffed them, and they didn't seem to really smell bad. Then he poured the hot water into the jar with the tea leaves, closed it, and stirred it, as he didn't have the proper equipment to make tea. Next, he served tea for both of them through a small wire sieve. Before taking it to the table, however, he took a brief moment to go to the bathroom and wash his face and tidy his hair in front of the mirror that Uen undoubtedly—no one else could have—cleaned.
"First of all, I must thank you," said Uen, once Fumio was back with the tea glasses.
He gave her a look full of curiosity.
"When I descended from the sky to the earth, I realized that I had to present a common appearance, so as not to attract too much attention. So you picked me up and brought me here."
"Wait a moment," Fumio interrupted, feeling his mind once again overwhelmed by questions, memories, and attempts to understand what had happened the previous night. "Where do you come from? From the vortex?"
"I come from another reality," Uen replied slowly, as an adult explains something complicated to a child. "And I came through the vortex."
"Another reality?" thought Fumio. He deeply distrusted what the young woman was saying, as it sounded incredibly far-fetched, but at the same time, he couldn't help but think that she was telling the truth, that she wasn't lying, that she didn't want to deceive or trick him; to such an extent he found Uen's words and attitude convincing.
"The vortex..." Fumio murmured. "And what about the ball of light? Was that you?"
Uen nodded, taking the first sip of tea.
"I understand you're referring to what you saw inside the vortex. That's how I descended to earth," she added afterward.
"Hmm..." Fumio murmured again, thoughtful.
He went to sit on the bed with his glass of foul, stale tea. Uen turned slightly in her chair to face him.
"When I saw the vortex and the shiny object inside it, I thought you were a UFO," he said.
"What's a UFO?"
But Fumio was already thinking of asking the next question. Unable to organize his thoughts in a short period, he asked what came to mind first.
"But then, what are you?"
"I am simply a being from another reality, parallel to this one, to Filonica."
"And what is that reality like?"
"It's very similar to this one. I even believe it's identical, but I don't know; they could be different."
"So, are you a human from another reality?"
"I didn't say that," replied Uen. "I said I am 'a being'; I didn't say I was a human being, nor did I say I was a woman..."
"I don't understand," grunted Fumio, baffled by Uen's answers, which seemed unnecessarily elusive and didn't seem to clarify anything about the matter he now found himself involuntarily involved in, most likely with that same intention.
"I would prefer not to talk about my true form," said Uen, now trying, as much as possible, to provide Fumio with an explanation of who "she" was. "Anyway, it shouldn't be considered a relevant topic. Yes, I manifested as what you call a 'ball of light,' and then I changed shape, so as not to attract the attention of those who shouldn't. Do you remember what you picked up from the ground last night? That was me."
Fumio instantly remembered the irregularly shaped object with an undefined and changing appearance.
"I knew both things had to do with each other," he thought aloud. "So, as I see it, you can change shape. Well, right now you look very much like my ex," he concluded, and he was surprised internally to have uttered that word, which he couldn't even formulate in his thoughts (but he had done so by accident).
"That's right. I have the ability to change shape. But I can only adopt the appearance of something I know. That's why I borrowed the appearance of..." and she almost said "your ex," but decided to correct herself in time: "...Marisa."
The mere mention of that name struck poor Fumio's ears; except on occasions when it became inevitable, thinking about the ex-girlfriend was forbidden, and even more so, uttering her name, under penalty of acute spiritual torment. However, what could he do when the only one aware of the prohibition was himself? One didn't need to come from another reality to unintentionally transgress such a dark and secret rule. On the other hand, his eyes had been enduring the sight of the lost girlfriend almost from the moment he woke up, when his broken heart tore apart again just from seeing her in photographs. And Uen was to blame for it, but he didn't imagine that her way of proceeding would have such effects on her host. After taking the blow without moving a muscle of his face, with a stoicism as impressive as it was atypical in him, Fumio fell silent for a moment to organize his thoughts and digest the information he was receiving. In the meantime, he took the first sip of tea, but found its taste repugnant—what he was drinking could have been more accurately described as ditch water—and had to make an effort to swallow it. However, Uen drank without being disgusted.
"Does it bother you that I have taken this appearance?"
Fumio shook his head insincerely.
"I was just really surprised," he said in a slightly nervous voice.
He wanted to take another sip of tea, hiding his half-offended face, barely managing it. With each gulp, the tea became more repulsive; it tasted more like rotten water, and the presence of the virtual clone of someone so familiar became more unbearable.
"How's the tea?" he asked afterward. He supposed in a fraction of a second that perhaps only his own glass had something wrong with it, something that had escaped his quick olfactory examination, and not that there was something wrong with the water or the aged tea leaves.
"Fine, I guess," Uen replied, raising the glass in front of her eyes and looking at it from the side.
"Don't you taste something strange?"
"Honestly, I can barely taste it."
Uen drank a little more.
"Maybe I'm not used to it here. I don't have a great sense of smell either. And touch, now that I think about it..." she said, running a finger across the table, hoping to feel its texture, "I can barely feel objects."
"That's weird," Fumio commented, more incredulous than surprised. "And in that other reality you're talking about, do you have senses?"
"Of course. The reality I come from also has a physical part, and I can perceive it normally. That's why I say maybe I'm not used to this reality yet."
But she omitted to explain that, in her reality, she usually ignored her senses to some extent, considering them a distraction; Fumio would have been even more confused; he wouldn't have understood it.
"And, tell me," Fumio said, careful of the tone he gave to the next question, so it wouldn't sound offensive, "why have you come?"
Uen took a second to think.
"I had a desire to experience this reality. I was curious," she said, her eyes wandering into space, to a spot on the bare wall that for a while had held a picture of Marisa, which she had taken with her five months ago…
Fumio was disappointed by such a brief and uninformative response.
"Is that all?" he inquired.
Uen thought for another second before replying, "Yes, that's it."
Now Fumio was irritated by the visitor's attitude. Understandably, he suspected that she was hiding the real reason for her sudden appearance in Filonica.
"Well," he said, getting up laboriously, his frustration certainly evident in his words, "what do you think of this reality?"
Uen perceived a hint of irony in the way Fumio said "this reality," and she wasn't mistaken.
"I haven't seen much yet, but what I can say is that it's quite similar to the place I come from," she replied, ignoring her host's anger.
"I see," Fumio commented dryly, out of obligation.
He then took his half-full glass to the kitchen.
"You've chosen a bad place to come," he said from there, now with a touch of bitter humiliation in his voice. "I haven't had time to clean lately."
"Remember, it was you who brought me here," Uen said innocently, suddenly leaning against the doorway that connected the kitchen to the bedroom.
"I didn't know what I was doing," Fumio muttered, motionless, his head tilted forward toward the sink, where he had just poured the rotten tea. "I had no idea that object was going to change shape and stuff..."
"I understand. No one would have expected it," Uen said.
She took a step toward him and delicately extended her arm to place the empty glass on the countertop.
"Thank you for the tea and for your hospitality," she added. "And now, I'll continue with my experience outside. I'm really sorry for causing you trouble."
With that, Uen headed to the door and left calmly. There was no sign of offense in her words or actions; rather, only a warm and sincere feeling of gratitude reflected in them, hinting at a faint and serene smile on her face.
"Oh, I'll come back to return your clothes as soon as I get new ones," she said finally.
Fumio watched her from the sink, regretting his attitude toward the visitor. Anyone who had noticed his annoyance could easily have felt offended, but that wasn't the case with Uen, and Fumio presumed that she might be hiding it with astonishing skill.
The door closed gently, and the apartment fell back into absolute and typical silence. Part of Fumio wanted to open it immediately and apologize to Uen, inviting her to come back. However, his indecision easily prevailed, and so Fumio stood by the door, without reacting. After a moment of serious stillness, he looked into the room, which was still mostly cluttered and dirty, and thought, "How could I ask her to stay in this pigsty?"
Wanting, on the other hand, to distract himself from the regret and guilt that were trying to torment him from within—although he was aware that he had let Uen go without shoes—Fumio set out to do the much-needed cleaning of the apartment. At the pace his energy allowed him—despite his willingness—without exerting himself too much to avoid getting tired too soon, he picked up all the garbage and put it in several unnecessary plastic bags, took off his work clothes, and put on old clothes he kept in one of the drawers without caring about their smell and the dust on them. Then he shook the sheets and turned the mattress on its side, leaning it against the wall to air it out, even though there was no airflow inside the cramped room, and he picked up the newspapers and other idle papers, made piles with them, and set them aside to tie them up and leave them outside the building when he got some string. While doing these tasks, the scenes of the previous night and morning kept coming back to his mind. Still, trying initially to distract himself and not think about Uen, his awake and active neurons insisted on trying to answer the lingering questions at the back of his mind—or complete the answers half-answered by Uen. But it was definitely impossible for Fumio to set aside the enigmatic matter when he found, in the corners of the room, the ergenites he had desperately asked Akane Asano, his old friend, to get. He had never seen one, but upon finding them, he knew they had to be the blessed stones that the intrusive voice in his mind had persuaded him to get. They had a shape between octahedral and biconical, with blunt tips; they were as smooth as pebbles and of a color reminiscent of desert sand, with pinkish veins like salt, and somewhat dense too, like any good rock. Now that Uen had left, it would be his responsibility—that's how he understood it—to return the ergenites to Akane and apologize for bothering her in the wee hours of the night. However, at the same time, an obvious question arose in his mind: what did Uen need the ergenites for? And why had she put them in the corners of the room if, wanting to hide them, she could have thought of much better places to do so? And why hadn't she taken them with her when she left, if she needed them?
Once he had left the bedroom in order, Fumio went on to take care of the kitchen. In the corner closest to the door, he deposited the bags with the garbage; he intended to dispose of everything in the street waste container the next day. He also cleaned the countertop and the sink, and with the last squirt of cleaning liquid, he mopped both the kitchen and bedroom floors.
When he finished, noon had long passed. Fumio sat at the table, on which only his laptop rested, took paper and pencil, and began making a shopping list. He took his time doing it, as he wanted to make sure he didn't forget anything and did buy everything he might need. But above all, amid his precautionary meditations and plans, he couldn't prevent more questions about the ergenites, alternate realities, "borrowed" appearances, vortexes in the sky, and balls of light from slipping into his mind...
Once he considered that he had listed everything necessary, and that nothing escaped him, Fumio got up and went to take a shower. He was so pleased with the result of his cleaning that he felt a bit sorry to tread on the gleaming floor on his way to the bathroom. He showered unhurriedly, thoroughly cleaning every part of his body, and came out feeling good about himself for doing what was right. His definitely improved mood helped him overcome the fatigue that insisted on accompanying him and the complaints of his empty stomach. Having to put on the same old clothes as before, as he was not willing to go out in public in the suit, which, on the other hand, was too dirty and wrinkled to be seen by others, Fumio went out to do the shopping.
"I should have some more clothes... Well, it's only two blocks to the supermarket, it's not like I'm going to see too many people..." he thought. "Tomorrow morning I'll take the suit to the laundry..."
He spent quite a while in the supermarket, carefully choosing the items on the list, paying attention to brands and prices, and trying to find everything he had planned to buy. He left the supermarket loaded with bags, feeling upbeat, as the satisfaction of having made his apartment a more life-friendly place transferred to the fact that, for the first time in a long time (several weeks at least), he was seriously taking care of his needs. He felt like taking a different route back than the one he took on the way there. His steps thus led him down a street parallel to his own—though, because of the weight of the bags, he didn't want to deviate too much—to reach, as he had planned from the moment he made his spontaneous decision, the western neighborhood square. In a spot not far from the sidewalk, Fumio recognized Uen. She was sitting on the grass with her legs bent and her feet still bare; serene and smiling, she lovingly stroked the back of a gray cat with black stripes. That same cat was Fumio's neighbor, and whenever the animal saw him approaching, typically when the man was going to work, it would run to hide under a parked car or behind the nearest tree. But now, it rubbed its side against one of Uen's thighs and purred docilely under the hand of that being with the appearance of a young woman. Perhaps out of shyness, Fumio suddenly feared that she might accidentally see him there, but that didn't happen; Fumio quickened his pace and disappeared from view around the corner. It was still difficult for him to see his ex's face and not feel sorrow for his own spirit. When he returned to the apartment, he noticed that he had lost his sense of satisfaction along the way, and he didn't regain it when, pushing the door with one leg, he found the kitchen as clean as he had left it. Fumio closed it with another push of the same leg and went straight to the table in the room, dropping the shopping bags on it. His fingers hurt a little. He put his hands on his waist and sighed tiredly, and then, without wasting time, he took his phone from the sideboard and dialed Akane's number.
"Hello," a sweet voice said on the other end of the line.
"Hello, Akane," Fumio replied; the embarrassment of calling her, after having bothered her in the early hours of the morning, threatened to break through into his voice. "I'm Fumio Darou."
"Oh, Fumio. How are you? Are you feeling better?"
"Yes," he replied, not without some hesitation.
"But?"
"Nothing, I'm just a little tired."
"Oh, I see. Well, cleaning is exhausting, isn't it?"
Fumio felt embarrassed.
"What?"
"You were cleaning your apartment, or so you said this morning."
"This morning?" Fumio murmured, more to himself than as a question to Akane.
"Yes, I went with my husband to visit you after last night, don't you remember?"
Akane became worried.
"Fumio, do you have amnesia?"
"No, no," said Fumio, dazed. "Anyway, I wanted to ask if you've seen anything in the sky lately."
"Like what?"
"Something like... a UFO. And a vortex."
"Hmm... No, I haven't seen anything like that."
"Have you looked at the sky lately?" Fumio inquired, remembering that nobody around him, not even the morning before, nobody in a crowd, was looking up as he taught them.
"Hmm..." Akane hesitated again, not even slightly deviating from her perplexity. "No, I don't think so. What's going on? Have you seen a UFO?"
"Something like that... Tell me, can we talk one of these days?"
"Of course we can, I already told you. Do you want to come to my house?"
In the background, a male voice exclaimed in the distance, "No!" It was Akane's husband. Neither she nor Fumio paid him any mind and continued with the conversation.
"Yes, and I have to return the stones you left me. I'm sorry for any inconvenience."
"Don't worry. What matters is that you're okay. Have you recovered? I trust you have."
"Yes, I'm better... What are those stones for?"
"Ergenites can capture ergen, which is a subtle energy found throughout the Universe. With certain ergenite 'arrangements' or 'devices', one can capture that energy and harness it."
"What for? What can be done with that energy?"
"It can... heal people, for example. Wasn't that what you needed?"
"A somewhat more complicated use than heating up food," thought Fumio.
"And what about shape-shifting?"
"Shape-shifting? What do you mean?"
"Well... That an object changes shape and becomes a person."
"Ah, you're talking about animating objects. Well, I think it would be possible, but I'm not sure if it would be desirable."
"Why would anyone want to give life to an object?" Akane wondered to herself.
"No, I'm talking about... It doesn't matter, I think it would be better if I explained it to you in person."
"Yes, of course. My doors are open, Fumio."
"In that case, is it okay if I come tomorrow?"
"Of course."
Then Akane gave Fumio her address. The friends said goodbye, Fumio apologized once again, and hung up. When he did, he didn't feel like his mind was any calmer, as the questions remained unanswered. Also, he was still hungry and tired, so he devoured a fruit from the ones he had bought at the supermarket, barely thinking about all the things he didn't understand and wanted to know about, and only after doing so did he put the items away in their respective places. Then he allowed himself to rest a bit, after a busy day, to which circumstances had denied him his usual tranquility. So, Fumio laid the mattress and lay down on it, with his arms crossed under his head. He wondered very seriously if what he was experiencing was nothing more than a kind of very long and realistic dream, in which he could perceive and be aware of the smell and taste of the fruit and the rotten tea. It wasn't necessary for the rational part that each person usually has inside them to tell him that that was probably not the case; Fumio already sensed it; he was convinced that this was reality, or, believing in the words of the inconceivably mysterious Uen, one reality, one in which he lived and which he had always unconsciously assumed was the only one. Relaxed for the first time all day, Fumio tried to organize his thoughts, to make an attempt to connect the events of the previous day with those of the morning, Uen's unsatisfactory explanations, and what he had just talked about with Akane... "A ball of light in the sky," Fumio reviewed, after seeing the scenes brought back to his memory pass in front of his eyes disorderly, "that comes down to earth, because that's the expression she used, and that turns into a woman? Yes, she told me she was the ball of light, and that she took the form of Ma... —and he took care not to even mentally pronounce his ex's name. And Akane... came to see me today, yes, she told me that, and she also told me that she brought me the... what are they called? 'Ere...,' 'Eger...' Now, what are they for? Wait, so Akane was here? How embarrassing, seeing the mess of this place... She must have thought a thousand horrible things about me..."
He lay down for a good while, on his side with his arms crossed, as if he were cold, perhaps too accustomed to it. For a moment, he thought that the apartment looked empty without so much rubbish populating the corners like a sessile plague; the place even seemed bigger. And that he would take his suit to the laundry, and that he would have it ironed, since he didn't have an iron, and it wasn't good to go to work with wrinkled clothes. Gradually, his mind also calmed down, tamed by the need to calm down and patiently digest what had happened; without drowsiness getting too close to his tired bones, rest suited him well. Then he got up with an unusual lightness for those days of spiritual tribulation, but it was a firm decision that drove him. Fumio rummaged through a certain drawer of the dresser, took a good amount of money from his reserves, resolutely put the dirty clothes in a hemp bag, put on his house clogs, and left the apartment.
The nearest laundromat, the one Fumio used to visit, was empty when he arrived. Only the shopkeeper was there, in a corner near the entrance, folding a two-person red blanket with the skill that is only acquired through experience. As he passed her closely, on his way to the large and cyclopean washing machines, which formed an imposing, compact, and metallic row in front of and along the back wall, inhaling deeply the warm and humid atmosphere, saturated with the scent of fabric softener, Fumio briefly observed how the woman held the blanket by two of its ends to shake it with a vigorous and precise movement of her thick arms, thus shaking off microscopic particles of fragrant dew before proceeding to fold it quickly on the counter in front of her, making it dance in the air with each fold; her poorly combed dull golden curls rose and fell like springs with each shake. Not impressed, but acknowledging the woman's skill in that work, the man headed to the long polished oak bench facing the row of machines, and there he untied the bag, took out its contents garment by garment, and placed them in one of the washers. After selecting the fastest washing program, he returned to the bench and rested with his arms extended and supported on the backrest, and his legs bent. The clothes spun in one direction, and then in the other, integrating into the watery and foamy vortex imposed by the machine's programming, all observed through the round window by Fumio's hypnotized eyes; the shopkeeper now read a magazine at her station, occasionally casting a brief glance at the only customer, not so much out of interest in him as out of reflex.
When he grew tired of being entertained by the constant movement of the clothes and being practically immobile, Fumio stood up and took slow steps along the perfumed corridor formed by the separation of the machines from the elongated bench. Next, he headed for the door and stepped out onto the street, but he stood on the threshold for a moment, looking up. That vortex hadn't returned to its place in the sky. He soon re-entered with a slow step and a pensive expression.
"Young man," said the shopkeeper, "do you want a coffee while you wait?"
Fumio mentally returned to the laundromat.
"I'm fine," he replied.
He turned on his heels, facing the wide door once again.
"I'll be right back," he added then, glancing sideways at the woman, as she got up to prepare herself a much-needed cup of coffee on that long and lethargic afternoon.
And he left.
A moment later, he was back in front of the neighborhood square. There were more people than after the much-needed shopping, and the sunlight began to take on a pale golden hue that already hinted at the approaching sunset. It didn't take him long to spot Uen in the same place as before. She had her face turned towards the sun, which bathed her in its glorious rays, and she seemed to be meditating with her eyes closed and what from afar looked like a faint smile, peaceful and satisfied.
Fumio approached Uen silently; she noticed him when his shadow, cast on the ground, crept over the fragrant and fresh grass and climbed up her legs.
"Hey," he said, suddenly seized by a shame as inexplicable as it was uncomfortable, "I think there are things we need to talk about."
"Yes, that's true," she said.
"There are some stones in the apartment. My friend says she brought them this morning. Would you mind explaining what happened?"
Deliberately, Fumio had avoided mentioning that, according to his friend, they had spoken that same morning, thus giving Uen the opportunity to explain that as well. If Uen was honest, Fumio thought, then she would recount what happened with Akane.
"Yes," said Uen, "the ergenites. I needed them to acquire a specific physical form."
And before Fumio could say with a grimace that he didn't know what she meant by "specific," Uen continued:
"I mean a recognizable, identifiable form."
Fumio then did not understand that Uen was making a distinction between her indeterminate form and her current appearance, too recognizable, besides other considerations of a mysterious nature.
"So, a human form, right?"
"Yes."
"But wait, what does the ergenite have to do with all this? I don't understand."
"The ergenites provide the energy that allowed me to adopt my form. Only with that type of energy, and in sufficient quantity, could I do it."
Fumio doubted the words he had just heard. Uen responded with a calmness and conviction that one usually associates with sincerity, but still, there was the possibility that the young woman was skillfully and cunningly lying. And if that were the case, it meant that Uen was a being to be wary of, since she would be capable not only of deceiving a poor unsuspecting person like Fumio, but of much worse things, why not? Therefore, Fumio thought he should be cautious and avoid confronting Uen, at least until he discovered who she was, what purpose she was truly in Filonica for, if her story was true, however difficult to understand it might seem, and, no less importantly, if relating to her posed any kind of danger or risk to him.
"But you had already turned into that ball of light, and then into that strange thing I picked up from the ground… You didn't need the ergenites for that," he observed lucidly.
"What you call a 'ball of light' is what I was when I entered this reality: pure energy, no matter. But it seemed best to me to acquire a physical form, so I took a basic form. I call it a 'seed.' That's the object you picked up from the ground. For that, I used my own energy, which is why my size was small. To take a more complex form, it's best to use the energy of the Universe. And that's what I did. The energy necessary to take on a human appearance I extracted from the ergenites."
"And how come I know nothing about this energy? I had never heard of anything like it."
"Because it's simply not talked about. People don't perceive it, and even if they did, they wouldn't know how to use it. The scientist who discovered it had his laboratory and house set on fire, and all his colleagues repudiated him and accused him of the worst things, like a confederacy of dunces…"
Uen was now serious, and in her words emerged a bitter complaint against those who had cowardly ostracized the discoverer of the ergen, whether out of fear, envy, or personal interest.
"Well, I'm going to return the rocks to my friend."
"Good," said Uen calmly, almost indifferently.
Fumio gave her one last chance to prove that she needed the ergenites.
"I take it that you no longer need them."
"I take it that you don't plan to change your appearance," he could have added.
Uen hesitated for the first time all day.
"I don't think so," she said after a moment, "But I would like to meet your friend, the one who gave you the ergenites."
The man fell silent. Loose ends began to appear before his mental eyes and attempt to tie themselves together: he didn't know that Akane had ergenites (and was completely unaware of this strange mineral, known, apparently, by a few), and the reason for suddenly having them in his house, specifically arranged in the four corners of the room, as if it were a 'device,' was…
"I should explain… that I talked to her today."
Fumio widened his eyes a bit, displaying supreme interest. Uen slowly sat up.
"She came to see you this morning, to your apartment," she continued, "She was worried about your health. And you were resting, so, to reassure her... I spoke to her as if I were you."
Finally, Uen began to recognize her role in the matter.
"You took my form?"
"Yes, I did," confessed Uen, in a solemn tone, without intending to justify herself, without asking for compassion or leniency in the judgment to which her actions would be subjected.
The loose ends came a little closer together; suddenly, the pieces of the puzzle brought by the mysterious vortex were falling into place, starting with the phone conversation he had had with Akane moments before. Being aware of how the events he had witnessed and was experiencing showed coherence, to begin to relate to and explain each other, gave him a sensation very similar to relief—the relief of knowing that even the most enigmatic and unusual facts have at their core a reason, a purpose, an explanation. But at the same time, it was impossible to ignore that a part of reality was also infuriating. Uen had acted dishonestly, and her sincerity about it could not be enough to absolve her of guilt.
Fumio wanted to make a malicious comment, but the words to use didn't form in his brain. It's just that, at the same time, he knew in his heart that Uen hadn't done anything too serious. He couldn't explain why, but he was already convinced that Uen didn't plan to harm him. If she had wanted to, for whatever reason, it would have been extremely easy for her to take advantage of his deplorable state from the day before.
"She's so considerate. Even obsequious," observed Uen, speaking to herself, and for that reason looking aside, scanning the balconies of a building across the street without focusing on them. "I wonder if she can lend me some clothes, at least for the time that I'll need..." she added, this time mentally.
"I'll go see her tomorrow to return what belongs to her," he said, referring to Akane and the mysterious stones, "but you could go too."
"I would love to," Uen affirmed.
"I'm going to the laundromat now, to pick up the clothes," he added. He hesitated whether to ask her explicitly if she wanted to accompany him, or to leave his invitation as a suggestion, risking that she might not catch it. Uen quickly resolved the question with her actions, coming alongside him when Fumio timidly set off.
How many times Fumio had walked down that same street (and all the ones in the neighborhood) with Marisa, and now... secretly he saw the resemblance to what until a few months ago was the norm (so ordinary that its value had long been buried by the needs of routine), even though Uen was a completely different being from Marisa, with slightly larger and firmer breasts, wider hips, a more feminine voice—celestial, in its own way, if one were to exaggerate—and, not less importantly, with a different personality, somewhat far from Marisa's typically serious character, which, when she was happy, turned vigorous; energetic and decisive when circumstances required it, adept at inferring malicious intentions in people's actions, and quick to draw lines in the sand...
"Don't your feet hurt walking barefoot?"
"Not much. I still can't feel things much," replied Uen; again, she refrained from explaining that, in her reality, she put her senses in the background, maintaining this habit in Filonica; much less did she mention that there are those who judge the senses "a trap."
A part of Fumio wished right there that it was Marisa walking beside him.
"Anyway, you should check the soles of your feet; make sure you're not hurting yourself," he said, more like a friendly doctor than a man concerned for his girlfriend's well-being.
Uen showed no reaction to that. She just continued walking at a normal pace, ignoring the stiffness and roughness of the granite tiles and asphalt.
"Do you think I could go to your friend's house today? Just tell me where she lives," the girl inquired after a minute of quiet silence.
Fumio was surprised because, during the walk, the idea of spending at least the rest of the afternoon with the strange visitor was already taking shape in his mind, and he was vaguely projecting—daring to savor the imaginary moment—inviting her back to his apartment, so she could see how much he had improved since the morning, and thus know that he was not a despicable and filthy being, that he did take care of himself, and that what she had witnessed earlier was not rooted in the unbearable and insurmountable pain of a wound that refused to heal.
"Yes, of course," he replied, however.
Immediately, he calculated how his response altered the initial outlines of his plan.
"But I should call her first. Oh, I could even return the rocks to her today."
"And get rid of that issue," he added in a thought.
"We'll have to go to the apartment. I'll leave the clothes there and put on clean clothes if I have to leave the house. You should also put on something clean."
Both entered the laundromat under the gaze of the lonely shopkeeper and her cup of good coffee.
"Yes, I'll change clothes, don't worry," Uen said.
The shopkeeper found Uen's face familiar. Seeing that Fumio was with her, she thought she recognized Marisa in her; if it took her a while to do so, it was because she hadn't seen her around for months. "I was wondering what had become of her," thought the shopkeeper, observing Uen and her makeshift outfit with great curiosity.
She had seen one or the other numerous times, and on other occasions, he had seen them together, particularly on weekends: they used to sit on the long bench chatting peacefully—just as Fumio was now doing with Uen—, making long pauses, characteristic of those who don't have much to tell each other—just episodes of everyday triviality—, and after a while, one of them would leave, leaving the other to watch the process to its end and pick up the washed clothes to take them back to the nest...
The woman wondered what had happened to "Marisa," to appear after a long time, dressed in little more than rags instead of the exquisite garments, comfortable and with just the right amount of elegance, that she used to wear.
"I put a pair of extra clogs I had at home to wash," said Fumio. "You can use them when they're dry."
"Okay," Uen replied, while taking a long look at the wall of the establishment, above the washers.
There was a moment of silence; a silence that could not be complete in that place, because of the constant mechanical murmur of the machines, the agitation of the soapy water and the swirling of the garments, to which was added the noise of the cars outside, coming and going through the wide-open door, and the shopkeeper’s sluggish flipping through the magazine dedicated to local showbiz characters on the counter next to it.
"And what will you do? Do you have money, a place to stay...?"
No, but I can get what I need. Maybe your friend can make room for me to sleep, at least for tonight."
There was a new pause in the conversation.
"But, if she can't, it doesn't matter," Uen added.
"Do you plan to stay long?"
"I don't know how long I'll stay."
"Maybe tomorrow I won't be here anymore," she thought immediately afterward.
"It won't be long until I come back," she continued, "It depends..."
She wanted to say "until I return to my reality," and "it depends on how much time from here fits into the time there," but she couldn't tell Fumio this, not until he knew or understood certain things first.
The shopkeeper watched them stay silent and distracted by the drum of the washer. Fumio hesitated to mention the fact that he had cleaned the apartment—embarrassed as he was to refer to the matter, as he wanted to pretend that there had never been any sign of abandonment there—and suggest to Uen that, if Akane had difficulty providing her with asylum, he had made his home a habitable place, where she could stay if she needed to. After all, while he didn't consider Uen to be a malignant being, it wasn't the wisest to trust her completely. The best, as he then thought, was to observe Uen's behavior in Akane's house, and hope that his friend agreed with him. But he couldn't completely ignore what a part of himself felt: that it wasn't unpleasant to be with Uen.
"There's something I don't understand."
Uen raised her eyebrows slightly and turned to Fumio. The tone of her words announced a serious or at least non-trivial question.
"I'm trying to remember... How did my friend Akane bring the stones to the apartment?"
The washing cycle ended at that moment.
"I think... no, I'm sure I called her on the phone. But why?"
"Maybe you drank too much last night."
"Yes, but... I felt as if a voice had ordered me to call her."
"A 'voice,' you say? They usually call that 'conscience.'"
The employee thought about offering coffee to the young woman, since she had been courteous to Fumio, but she assumed she would say no, so she refrained from doing so.
"I know what conscience is," said Fumio, "and that voice wasn't my conscience. It was someone else's voice."
"A voice in your head? Sounds more like schizophrenia."
Fumio was about to get angry; it was easy to take such a response as an offense.
"I'm not schizophrenic," he asserted quietly, so as not to be overheard by the attendant.
He stood up and opened the washing machine door somewhat vehemently.
"If you really want to know..."
"Yes?"
Uen took her time.
"I asked her for them."
Fumio fell silent. The clothes were waiting to come out of the machine.
"And I can explain it; I can try to explain it."
"Go on," said Fumio as he straightened up. He was extremely serious; his mind was preparing to hear from Uen that she had manipulated him in some way.
Uen also stood up.
"I gave you the information that I needed the ergenites to acquire a human form. Remember, you brought me to your home as a 'seed.'"
"And how are you supposed to have done that?"
"Everything contains information and is capable of transmitting it. It's as if we have antennas inside us. Well, I asked you for help, and you called your friend. That's why I thanked you this morning."
Fumio looked at her, incredulous. He both believed and disbelieved that Uen was trying to deceive him more than explain another of her strange properties or abilities. After a moment of open-eyed astonishment, he turned to the washing machine and finished taking out the clothes.
"Your friend must know about these things. Why don't you ask her?"
The man pretended not to have heard.
"I mean, I think she knows how reality works. Not everyone has ergenites in their house..."
The employee understood less than Fumio himself. He once again felt that there was nothing truly malicious in Uen's actions, and that the reason for his unease was his lack of understanding of certain theories that apparently Akane and Uen understood, and yet, they didn't have to be true. Perhaps those ideas were nothing but nonsense, but that nonsense fit with the events since the previous day. However, the issue still divided him internally: a part of himself reproached him for not being suspicious enough, given that he was dealing with a being of probably incredible characteristics (if there was any truth to the claims she made), whose purposes and intentions had not yet been revealed. Exposing the situation in such terms, wouldn't it be expected for one to try to keep a safe distance from such a being?
"They're barely damp. Do you want to use them?"
Fumio handed her the clogs. Uen accepted them with a gentle nod and put them on, standing on one foot at a time, that is, without sitting down or leaning on the bench, maintaining balance effortlessly.
A neighborhood customer entered the laundromat at the precise moment when Fumio and Uen were leaving.
"Sorry if I wasn't a good host," said Fumio; his improved mood and the sensible understanding that it was desirable to avoid any confrontation with Uen had made him want to make amends with her.
"Don't apologize. I understand that I didn't arrive at a good time."
Very quickly, they found themselves riding the elevator, and then walking a few meters down the gallery to Fumio's door.
Fumio struggled to extract the key from the worn pocket of his old pants, which was also somewhat frayed at the hems, and opened the door. The change from hours before was as profound as it was positive. Except for the garbage, which had been compacted and gathered in a few plastic bags, the whole place was tidy, from the kitchen countertop to the bedroom dresser, and the floors, clean and even somewhat fragrant as well, although Uen couldn't fully perceive it.
Uen slowly went to the bedroom. There, on the table, she found the ergenites. She couldn't help but reach out for them and feel their latent energy in her palms. Fumio watched her in silence.
"You know?" the girl said, her back to the homeowner, "I'll return your clothes now."
Immediately after, she took off the clogs from each foot with the tip of the other, and proceeded to undress. Fumio turned half away immediately, not wanting to see his guest's nudity. Then he heard the clothes make a dull, brief, and almost imperceptible sound as they fell; Uen took the ergenites and placed them on the floor, arranging them in a square with herself at the center. And then, Fumio noticed an intense pink glow enveloping him, illuminating the walls; overwhelmed, he glanced sideways at Uen, and what he saw was a luminous silhouette, emitting dazzling flashes as it changed shape...
Third Chapter
Out of the corner of his eye, despite the incomplete closing of his dazzled eyelids, in Fumio's retina, the whitish silhouette kept changing; Uen moderately opened her arms and then her legs amidst a vortex-seen-from-the-front, or portal, which, however, wasn't visible itself, but through the movement of the air, like the one that rises in transparent spiral from the scorching asphalt of the desert road on a summer day. Different parts of Uen's body rotated; her torso in particular tried out a new shape to adopt, and on either side of it, structures vaguely reminiscent of wings formed—six asymmetrical wings: the three on the right different from the three on the left. Uen's hair opened as if a whirlwind had settled on her scalp, separating each hair from the rest. Soon the movement of the figure stopped, leaving her with a graceful posture, on tiptoes—almost floating above the gleaming floor and Fumio's clothes—; the wings atrophied and disappeared behind her back... Finally, the pink flashes suddenly faded, as the vortex calmed down (or, in other words, the energy portal closed), putting an end to the atmospheric disturbance that had been located in the exact center of the room. This entire metamorphosis occurred in a couple of seconds (the changes described above occurred practically simultaneously), but in Fumio's mind, it unfolded over a longer period, and he was able to perceive each event individually, even with his eyes squinted and the luminous beams struggling through his corneas, narrowing difficulty through his pupils. And he even had time for such an unheard-of situation to terrify him, freezing his eyes on the spot, forcing him to witness the unthinkable, the unexpected, violently dispelling any doubts he might have had about the truth of Uen's story or, at least, her mentions about having the "ability" to change shape, and that for this, it was necessary to extract a type of energy from the ergenites, as special as it was unknown to him.
No: Uen truly changed shape in front of him; his eyes couldn't have been deceiving him.
However, the image that Uen presented didn't really vary much from the one she "borrowed" from Marisa: she still had black hair, just a little shorter and unkempt, with a half-white, half-reddish tuft on one side; Marisa's features and peculiar traits persisted on her face, as did her physical build. Truth be told, nothing else had changed in her external appearance apart from her hair and her clothes: now Uen was wearing a short-sleeved white shirt with blackish buttons, a blue bow tie around her neck, a skirt with a pattern of black and red figures, complementary and inverted to each other, and a pair of shoes the color of soot. It wasn't an outfit that could dazzle or impress any fashion designer (Marisa probably wouldn't have approved either) and yet, it suited Uen well. She and Fumio faced each other again.
"Are you afraid? What are you afraid of?" the first inquired, seeing the terror in the homeowner's demeanor.
"Afraid?" a hesitant Fumio replied, trying at the same time to adopt a neutral expression and to normalize his disposition.
"You're trembling," Uen observed.
"I'm not trembling," Fumio asserted somewhat irritably, and immediately began to pace back and forth, in a vain and stupid attempt to disguise and eliminate his trembling, which, however, and much to his frustration, showed no sign of disappearing.
Uen hid an innocent smile with a rotation of her torso, almost perfectly turning her back to him; looking at him askew with a single eye, harmlessly, she said (though without bothering to use a reassuring tone):
"Don't be afraid; I won't do anything to you."
Next, he proceeded to gather the stones, after which he delicately placed them on the table. Then a silence was born from the terror that did not leave Fumio—since he had just witnessed an event absolutely unsuspected by him, which shook the foundations of what he considered "real"—, and from Uen's desire to wait for her host to regain his composure before taking her to the house of the so-called Akane. The latter didn't hesitate to move to the kitchen, always with the same blatant ease of body with which she conducted herself in a stranger's home, and always with the idea of relieving the pressure on her involuntary host.
She was close to feeling some pity for him, and pity herself for paying so much attention to what her eyes saw.
Meanwhile, Fumio timidly approached the table, as if afraid of being observed, and touched one of the ergenites with the tip of one of his fingers. Despite being rather smooth, Fumio perceived roughness on its surface. And nothing more. He didn't perceive any energy flowing towards him, which he would have expected, nor anything special, nor anything different in reality from the bland hardness of an ordinary rock. Then he laid his palm on it, but the sensation didn't change in the slightest.
He wondered, then, how it was possible that from such apparently ordinary rocks energy could be extracted, and that a "being" could change shape in such a miraculous way, emitting a powerful glow, like in the legends of the saints of yore. And, being unable to even attempt an answer, he was forced to acknowledge that there was something about the world—about reality—that escaped far beyond his limited understanding, which apparently lay in the inaccessible heart of some mysterious and strange stones; mysterious and strange, but which his friend possessed for some reason.
Perhaps the reason Akane possessed the ergenites was simply because she had sought them out. What one has is what one has earned.
With this in mind, visiting the woman suddenly seemed like a sensible decision... if the purpose was to inquire into the case that had him as the protagonist and obtain concrete and clear answers.
But at every step, doubt tried to assail him, making him sense or fear that any misstep or distraction could bring severe consequences. In this sense, however, Akane could—and would have to—be of help. Among the mystical-mysterious matters she knew or pretended to know, there must be the beings "from another reality", their nature, origin, feelings, and intentions.
Uen walked in tiny and discreet circles in the kitchen, noticing with her eyes the positive changes that had taken place in the place since morning. Now that the apartment was tidier and cleaner, it became evident that Fumio's possessions were rather scarce. She didn't let herself get carried away by what she saw. That was a positive change, yes, but it didn't mean that anything in its essence had changed. However, it could still mean to him an impulse in the due direction.
Through the small window (now free of dust) near the door, it was noticeable how the celestial canvas had acquired a deeper hue.
Fumio stepped away from the ergenites and let out a huge yawn. Suddenly, he became aware of how tired he was, after the succession of activities and uncommon events that had caught his attention and consumed his meager energies throughout the day, which had added to a week of poor rest and worse mood.
He didn't think about it then, but it would have been very convenient for him to have been able to extract some energy from those darned rocks, to feel at least more awake.
Leaning on the kitchen countertop, with her back to it, palms resting on its clean, dry, and utensil-free surface, Uen clearly heard her host dialing a number on his phone. Every sound produced in the apartment, no matter how slight or superfluous, was—with greater or lesser ease—audible; such was the silence that usually reigned in the place, where there was nothing that made noise on its own (such as a clock or an appliance), but rather needed an external agent (Fumio and, now, her) to occur. For this reason, Fumio's small steps resonated with their dryness throughout the apartment, filling Uen's ears as much as the words he exchanged with his friend. And nothing from outside the room penetrated with its noises or its music, unless it was a very loud noise, which was not at all common in such a peaceful neighborhood as that, as if the apartment were to some extent acoustically isolated.
Uen briefly thought that the apartment was in its own way isolated from the rest of Filonica.
"Could I visit you tonight? And there's someone I'd like to bring, someone I want you to meet," Fumio said, throwing a quick sideways glance at Uen when he called her "someone."
"Of course," Akane replied, unconsciously disguising her surprise; Uen heard her voice and was able to interpret the words she said, even without intending to listen to the conversation, without having a particular interest in it, "no problem."
"Okay, I hope I'm not bothering you."
"Not at all!" Akane replied with a certain inexplicable joy. "Come whenever you want."
Uen briefly remembered Akane's husband, who would surely disapprove of the visit. But she didn't care at all about being a nuisance. Visiting this so-called Akane was what Uen considered she had to do, no matter who might be against it, with or without the explicit intention of doing so.
"Thank you, Akane. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, Fumio. I'll be waiting for you."
The silence became absolute again without the voices of the old friends invading it, trying to interrupt it, with little success; some sternness in the atmosphere managed to remain despite the excessively friendly words and their respective echoes, and the minimal noises that sporadically splashed it.
"I think you heard," announced Fumio from the room, with a tone perhaps too innocuous, "my friend is waiting for us at her house."
"Hmm?" murmured Uen, looking at him and raising her eyebrows, but showing no enthusiasm about it, and pretending disinterest instead.
"Do you want to go now? We could have dinner at her place."
"And I'll meet her husband," he added to himself in thought. He hadn't met him, as he had lost contact with his friend before she could introduce him and before she married him. In fact, Fumio had been invited to the wedding; however, he ended up skipping the ceremony and the subsequent reception out of apathy. He only knew his name, and even had to make an effort to bring it back to his memory.
"That guy Nayas, Yukio Nayas," he finally remembered.
Meanwhile, at that time—it was just past six-thirty in the evening—Yukio was watching television, reclined on the sofa rather than sitting, with his legs fully extended. Until a few moments ago, he had been entertained and quite content with what was happening on the other side of the screen—at that time, a successful game show was airing on the local channel—; however, now he looked at the eager participants with a sullen expression. He had arrived home from work later than usual and had taken off his shoes and pants in the living room, on the sofa itself, while turning on the television, and so, in his shirt and boxers, he had remained since. It's not that Yukio was accustomed to walking around the house "lightly dressed," as they say, but on that particular afternoon, he had returned somewhat tired and not in the best mood, needing to distract himself as soon as possible with the darned game show, so he hadn't wasted any time going to the master bedroom to change clothes, although he had thought of putting on another pair of pants and taking off his shirt during a commercial break, and only remembered the latter when he half-heard his wife's phone conversation. He was going to have visitors at the house, and he disliked that.
Akane approached him slowly once she had hung up the phone. Not all visits were disagreeable to Yukio, of course; only those that his wife usually received were. Akane worked as a "spiritual counselor" using the knowledge she claimed to possess, which has been mentioned before. Every week, she interviewed people at home who needed assistance with various matters, mainly health—both physical and emotional—or work-related issues, or who wanted a "birth chart" done, or their future read, or to communicate with their ancestors, or to have some supernatural phenomenon they had witnessed or heard of explained, and so on... Yukio greatly disapproved of these activities as he considered them vain and futile superstitions, beliefs without rational foundation, formulated to deceive fools, but he tolerated his wife earning money with them, seeing that the sessions—or "consultations," as Akane called them—typically took place during the week, early in the afternoon, when Yukio was at work, or on the way home. But from what he had just heard, he understood that there would be a "consultation" that very evening, and what was worse—much worse—, detestable Fumio would be present. "Goodbye, Fumio. I'll be waiting for you." His wife's words left no room for doubt, and as her ears were penetrated by them, Yukio's serene and somewhat amused expression transformed into one of furious horror.
Akane understood all of this even before affirming "I'll be waiting for you," and as she approached her husband to announce what he had already heard and to ask him—if necessary—to accompany them for dinner (Akane believed Yukio had understood it was a dinner with friends and not a common consultation), she could almost guess the expression he had acquired in such a short time. And even so, she felt no guilt about troubling her husband, only the duty to explicitly communicate the news to avoid confusion and so that he could not complain that "you didn't tell me."
"Today Fumio and a friend of his will come for dinner," she said at once.
Yukio remained silent, petrified with disgust and a little anger too, fixing his gaze on the host of the program, who, so cheerful, so alien to the nonsense that filled the hours of each "consultation," made jokes to a couple of participants from his colorful plastic lectern. He remained like this for a few seconds until he spontaneously decided to take the matter in the best way possible; he nodded slightly, never taking his eyes off the screen, and simply said, "Fine."
His voice sounded noticeably dry, devoid of any enthusiasm. Perhaps his relatively mild reaction was due to a sudden resignation to his wife's desire being fulfilled, which, by its very nature, he could not prevent. Or perhaps his anger towards this Fumio character had subsided despite having believed that same morning he had seen him safe and sound, which had outraged him as much as his mysterious and untimely call for help. Maybe he was just so tired that he didn't feel like arguing or complaining loudly, as he sometimes did when any mention of receiving "consultants" came up, whom Yukio, by the way, disdainfully called "patients." But, in this regard, it was also true that, according to what could be inferred from Akane's announcement, Fumio would not present himself as a "consultant," but would only come "for dinner," and furthermore, accompanied by a friend of his. This fact in itself was an attenuating circumstance, although it could also give Yukio an excuse to complain about what he did not want to endure: why she invited such unknown and strange friends on the spur of the moment, why for dinner and not just to "have tea" (in his absence, of course), or something like that.
Be that as it may, Akane happily accepted her husband's succinct response and promptly retired to think about what food to prepare for the visitors. Almost simultaneously, a commercial break occurred in the program, which Yukio took advantage of to get up heavily, pick up his pants, and resignedly head to the bedroom.
On the other side of the city, in the apartment building in the west neighborhood, Fumio and Uen patiently awaited the right moment to leave for Akane's house. The silence that followed Uen's acceptance to soon have dinner at the woman's house was absolute, to the point that either of them could have felt overwhelmed by the silence itself. Fumio had decided to take a seat in the room, parallel to the table, with one foot resting on the thigh of the other leg and an elbow supported on the table. Uen, on the contrary, had not ceased to walk with tiny steps through the kitchen and the room, casually looking to the sides, as one would normally do in a museum, but without paying attention to any particular detail. Innocently resting in the center of the table were the ergenites. Fumio glanced at them from time to time, as if expecting something to happen to them suddenly, although deep down, he had to settle for his power not manifesting itself again without Uen's intervention. The whole situation continued to generate mixed feelings in him. On one hand, he was about to convince himself that he harbored no negative feelings toward Uen, even with all the mysterious and suspicious facts about her: her supposed origin from another reality, her amazing ability to change appearance, even to acquire non-human forms, and the boldness she had exhibited during her stay in the apartment, acting as if it belonged to her as well or, in other words, as Marisa did until five months ago. These unusual characteristics seemed to prove to Fumio that indeed Uen came from "another reality," because what other possibility could there be? That she was a foreigner from a country where the rules of behavior in a stranger's home were completely different from those observed in Filonica, and that's why she had entered the apartment without asking permission, without ringing the bell, and without apologizing once she had done so? Or that she was an impostor or an illusionist, who performed mental tricks or magic tricks right in front of his eyes, without him being able to detect the trick? Each of these questions opened the door to numerous other questions and hypotheses, as is often the case with unknown matters. But Fumio did not wish to dwell on the possibilities of Uen's true origin because he was overwhelmed by curiosity about that being who came and went mechanically, who so closely resembled Marisa, but dressed in an extravagant way (the real Marisa would have used exactly that word: "extravagant"; she had already done so on one occasion), who he believed felt as uncomfortable as he did when he saw her walk towards the door, but who, when returning to the table, showed a serene, almost indifferent expression, as if she didn't care to be there, waiting for him to decide it was time to leave. Fumio liked Uen. He didn't consider her evil, although he didn't see her as a kind being either (she by no means possessed Akane Asano's "active kindness"); the fact that Uen had turned from a "ball of light" into a "seed" for him to pick up and save or something like that, that she had persuaded him (so to speak) to ask Akane for help so that she could provide him with a source of energy for her to take on a human form, and that she had then "copied" his own appearance to impersonate him in front of the same friend they were about to visit!, all of that had hints of being explainable in some mysterious way; there was the possibility that in all of that there was no malice or malevolent intentions, but, perhaps, for example, the most natural and ubiquitous desire to survive. Therefore, Fumio did not judge any of those actions as evil or questionable at all—everything had happened in such an atypical and incredible context that he hadn't stopped to examine what had happened through a moral prism; he even felt inclined for brief moments to suppose that the extremely strange circumstances could somehow justify Uen's actions, but he hadn't taken the time to properly reflect on this idea.
Then, suddenly abandoning his thoughtful disposition, Fumio stood up, rummaged through the bag with the laundry done earlier, took out his work clothes from it, and went to the bathroom. It was unnecessary to announce to Uen his intention to dress for the evening, just as the fleeting exchange of glances that occurred between them didn't do so either. As he got dressed, Fumio remembered that in the bag he had brought from the laundry, there were clothes he could lend to Uen now. "A little late," he thought immediately after this occurred to him, "she has already procured clothes for herself." But that made him realize something: if Uen could "dress" herself in some mysterious way, why had she asked him for clothes, who usually didn't have clean clothes (which he could hardly dress in)? "She appears here out of nowhere, naked, and bothers to wash my clothes to use them later," he thought. "How strange." Next, he wondered how it was possible that she had forgotten such a useful and convenient ability at the moment when it could have been most necessary. Instead of trying to foresee a possible explanation, he didn't want to wait and returned to the kitchen.
"If you can create clothes for yourself, why did you ask to borrow clothes from me this morning?"
Uen smiled softly; she found positive the sudden clarity that she had sensed in Fumio.
"This," she said, rubbing the shirt she now wore with two fingers, "is still my skin, so to speak. I've modified it to resemble the clothes a woman would wear.
"I still haven't gotten used to the fact that you can," and mentally he added the word "supposedly" afterward, but there was no reason to say it, as it had been proven right in front of his eyes, "change your appearance."
"Yes, and I... I think neither have I. Honestly, I prefer wearing something, no matter how light. It's more comfortable."
As she carelessly uttered the last words, Uen realized she was making a mistake, speaking as if unaware of her "responsibility." But Fumio knew nothing about such "responsibility," and therefore, he wasn't going to point out that innocent mistake, let alone judge her for having made it.
"So, do you still want me to lend you clothes?"
Uen hesitated for a moment, but finally made a decision; gently waving a hand, she replied:
"No, no, there's no need. I'll ask your friend for something appropriate to wear."
Fumio shrugged, unwilling to object to his guest's decision. Then, in silence, he went to where his shoes were, examined them superficially in the light of the room's bulb, looking for any stains or traces of dust, and, not finding any dirt so noticeable that it he would find with his quick glances, he decided they were "presentable" and set them aside to put them on when leaving, which, by the way, was imminent at that point.
Descending in the narrow elevator to the main floor of the building, Fumio couldn't help but cast a discreet glance sideways at his companion. Despite the change in appearance, she still maintained a disturbing resemblance to Marisa, which not even the difference in the features of both women contributed to diminish: Marisa was the type of human being whose aspect is by default serious, and that many easily confuse with an anger of unknown cause, perhaps—why not—by default too, or a bad predisposition to interact with others, a displeasure at having to expose oneself to the sight of other people’s eyes, whatever they may be; in contrast, Uen's face had never stopped expressing the peacefulness that manifests from a prolonged state of inner peace; nothing seemed capable of disturbing that state, even though, truth be told, she hadn't been through situations as impactful as Fumio had; everything that had happened since the moment the "ball of light" detached (so to speak) from the vortex in the sky Uen assumed with a naturalness only partially explainable (at best) if one took her story as true: that she was "a being" capable of moving between different "realities" and changing appearance as one changes clothes, and not for the first time precisely.
How many cities had Uen "manifested" in before her unexpected arrival in Filonica was something that Fumio couldn't imagine, and, if he hadn't been distracting himself with the sight of his guest gently bathed by the light of the shy autumn moon, maybe he would have wondered.
He wanted to say something, to break the silence that had enveloped them since the very moment Fumio announced the long-awaited moment of leaving with just a silent look and a move towards the door of the apartment, taking the keys and putting on the "presentable" shoes, but nothing occurred to him other than what he would have judged as nonsense, even for a situation as trivial as the one that was fundamentally there, in which anything one says, no matter how banal or insignificant, cannot be poorly received. But such was Fumio's degree of insecurity, and, not seeing himself capable of thinking of a conversation topic that wasn't excessively trivial, he felt some desperation, and the negativity regarding himself, his already low self-esteem, only sharpened in such a situation.
And Uen, just as she had felt all morning, didn't feel a particular need to talk, although, as mentioned earlier, this fact wasn't caused by discomfort in her particular situation, nor by not feeling sure of what to say, nor because she couldn't think of a phrase to break the ice. On the contrary: Uen didn't talk too much because she wanted to, because, unlike many people, who talk about any subject to avoid the discomfort of prolonged silence—even if "prolonged" refers to a mere moment—who prefer to start a conversation about anything, no matter how trivial and insignificant it may seem. No: Uen preferred to maintain a conversation only if it had a purpose, if she could obtain some required or interesting information from it, or learn something, or point out a fact, or share an opinion, a worldview... In other words, to put it much more simply and easy to understand, Uen only felt like talking when a relevant conversation topic arose, especially for her interests, because you must know that Uen must have had a reason for coming to Filonica, regardless of how it happened.
And in that moment, which seemed so sweet, so pleasant to Uen, as she simply walked down the street on a warm autumn night, barefoot, and yet, not quite feeling the roughness of the stone tiles under her seemingly shod feet, she felt a modest desire to engage in a conversation with her kind but troubled host. However, she was held back by the sad but expected certainty that Fumio wouldn't be up to the intellectual and spiritual concerns that occupied Uen's mind at that time, and not knowing what kind of questions he could ask her to get to know her better without falling into references to the mundane chores that seemed so dull and tasteless to her.
So they walked for a few moments in silence, observing what little was revealed to their eyes, given the abundance of shadows around, under whose wings indefinite shadows and silhouettes thrived, some quiescent like during the day; others moving, as if the security of the night suddenly animated them, and only taking on color when the orange lights of the neighborhood street lamps or car headlights caressed them, without necessarily being enough to bring them to a certain existence... as it happened, so to speak, with Uen herself.
In the distance, toward an important avenue, a myriad of small, motionless, bright, eyelike, bluish-white eyes seemed to indicate the way forward. Fumio hadn't indicated it, but they would have to go to Akane's house on foot. In the absence of the corresponding indication, Uen understood that this would be the case.
Fumio wanted to spend as little as possible of his meager salary; for this reason, he only took public transportation for the daily trip between work and the apartment, and Uen didn't mind walking, nor did she easily get tired; so it seemed that there would be no problem with the trip being made on foot. However, Fumio hadn't thought that Uen was actually going barefoot, as he hadn't properly understood the visitor's explanation regarding altering the appearance of her own skin to resemble clothing and footwear. If he had noticed, he would have insisted before leaving to lend his guest his shoes or old clogs, or, already in that situation, where they had left the apartment, he would have made an exception to his strict savings policy and taken a taxi.
Furthermore, he had just thought of refreshing his memory regarding the exact location of Akane's house, where he had never been before, as it was the house he had moved to with his spouse after the wedding, for which he would need to open the map on his phone. This would give him an excuse to not stay a minute longer in painful silence, indecisive about how to act or what to say.
"It's about fifteen streets from here," he finally said; his voice sounded so dry in the pleasant and light air of the night that for a moment it seemed they were still in the apartment, where nothing but one's voice could be heard, and it did so with extreme clarity; for a moment, moreover, the occasional and fleeting breeze, the crickets, and the vehicles seemed to suddenly fall silent. "I thought it was farther away, I don't know why..."
Uen nodded gently, turning her smiling face towards Fumio for less than a second.
That phrase, which he had uttered almost without thinking, encouraged him to try to continue the conversation.
"It's been a long time since I've seen my friend. I suppose," he didn't know why he used this word, "I owed her a visit, to her and her husband, whom I didn't have the chance to meet."
He should have said, "whom I didn't give myself the chance to meet."
"It's always good to visit your friends," said Uen, always with the same sweet calmness in her voice. "And your relatives. Do you have relatives, Fumio?"
It was the first time she had called him by his name, and Fumio didn't miss this fact.
"Yes, I have my parents. They live quite far away..."
Uen interpreted that they lived in a remote part of the city, and not elsewhere outside Filonica.
"And you?" Fumio dared to ask, although, as the words compulsively left his mouth, he feared there wouldn't be a clear answer, or not a usual answer, at least.
"Yes, I have them," Uen replied. "I have parents and a brother."
"Hmm..." Fumio looked at her, astonished by the mundanity of the reply. He even almost asked her if she meant it for real, or if those parents and brother were "metaphorical," so to speak, but he chose to hold back, as suddenly and fleetingly he worried about sounding offensive. But it must also be said that what Uen had just expressed seemed to go against or not match what she had been telling him, that she came from "another reality," nor with the suggestion that perhaps she wasn't even human. And Fumio sensed some of this without realizing it, and perhaps that contributed to his not reacting with the same naturalness with which Uen had answered his distracted question.
"But they live very, very far away," Uen added then, and chuckled.
Fumio then understood that his interlocutor had just referred to something he didn't know; the chuckle seemed to imply that this "very, very far away" was figurative.
Did they all live in the reality on the other side of that darned vortex?
They crossed the street without paying much attention to the traffic, which was very light at that hour and in that corner of the city.
"How's that?" Fumio inquired.
If Uen allowed herself to reference having relatives and added that they lived "very, very far away," then he had the right to ask what she had meant, even if she had wished to keep the truth secret by hiding it under an ambiguous phrase and a laugh of dubious motivation.
"They live in a very distant place, my parents and my brother. But I have them, yes," Uen responded, with utmost calmness, as if giving the most sincere answer possible. "And now that you mention it... I haven't seen them in a while..."
"And what are they like?" Fumio asked now, somewhat encouraged by slowly getting Uen to provide some specifics about her life and what she was, or feeling or deluding himself into thinking that she was finally willing to do so with words he could understand.
"They're... like me. How else could I define them? What did you mean?" Uen replied.
"I don't know," said Fumio, pretending not to fear another evasion from Uen. "You said you're 'a being,' something not necessarily human..."
"Ah, I understand. They are also 'beings,' just like me."
There was a brief pause as they approached the next corner. Two streets ahead, they had to turn left, and walk a kilometer to Akane's house.
"And you're right to say that I'm not 'necessarily human'," Uen added, smiling with satisfaction; in her opinion, Fumio was understanding something, or becoming capable of doing so. "I'm... Where I come from, we are simply beings, 'something' that exists, difficult to define with words in this language. And we have the ability to manifest ourselves as human beings or other types, but only in appearance..."
Fumio then remembered that he once had heard Akane mention "shape-shifting extraterrestrials."
Sometimes he found himself remembering a particular phrase or word that, because of the context in which it had been said, had a certain importance, but he hadn't understood it until later, until perhaps a random moment.
And now, as his mind was activating, trying to establish connections between what he remembered Uen had said and what he could recall of what had happened to him since the moment he had first seen the vortex in the sky, he hadn't paid proper attention to Uen's last words.
"But what kind of 'being' are you if you're not human?" Fumio insisted.
Uen tilted her head questioningly.
"Simply 'a being.' 'Something,' let's say, that exists, that doesn't have a predetermined form, but that I acquire at will, according to the circumstances."
"A human form, at this moment, from what I see," Fumio pointed out; he struggled to advance his reasoning in the midst of such an unusual scenario, as he wasn't used to making mental efforts at all.
"Yes. You could say it's the most convenient."
"Why wouldn't it be?" Fumio wished to ask then.
"Are you an extraterrestrial? A shape-shifting extraterrestrial?"
Uen locked eyes with him for a second; then she burst into laughter, but strangely, she abruptly stopped laughing.
"An extraterrestrial? There are no extraterrestrials," she said, with a broad smile dominating her face.
And before Fumio could say anything, the young woman continued:
"What exist are beings from alternate realities, as I already told you. But," and she looked up at the vast sky, sweeping the air in front of her eyes with a graceful movement of her hand, "all those stars and lonely planets up there are empty."
"But many people say they've seen them..." Fumio tried to defend his words from the humiliation of someone who seemed to know much more than him.
"Have you spoken to any of those people, those who claim to have seen them?"
Fumio timidly shook his head.
"If you were to talk to those people, perhaps you would notice that some of them are lying, others are confused (because they trust too much in their senses or are deceived by them, or draw wrong conclusions from what they perceive or believe they perceive), and others repeat stories from others, from supposed witnesses..."
"I was just asking," Fumio resumed his defense. "Akane says there are 'shape-shifting extraterrestrials.' Does that make her a liar?"
"People will believe what others say or what they believe to perceive through their senses."
Fumio fell silent. He wasn't liking the direction the conversation was taking. Truth be told, he had never been interested in the subject of supposed extraterrestrials, nor any paranormal matters in general. All his life he had clung to the rationality of everyday life, and had not asked questions about what is unknown or incomprehensible, nor had he faced a situation that made him question the nature or extent of reality. Nor had he ever discussed those topics with Akane, although he knew she was fond of theories about extraterrestrial life and its interference (or "intervention") in the vicissitudes of human history. He even wondered if he really needed to know what Uen was, if his curiosity was worth it. Perhaps the strange visitor would get along better with Akane; surely his friend was more suited to hold a conversation with Uen, so they would understand each other better, even though Akane seemed to be mistaken about the existence of extraterrestrials.
And, taking advantage of the pause caused by his restless thoughts, he again proposed to change the subject of the conversation.
"There, reaching the corner, is the laundromat where I washed the clothes today."
"Hmm..."
"And on this same corner, we must turn left."
He no longer felt the desire to ask her why she spoke of deceptive senses, as if it were more common than believed that one would be deceived by them. He would wait, in any case, until they arrived at Akane's house and, during dinner, when the opportunity arose (because there was no way it wouldn't), he would listen to Uen elaborate on the mysteries that practically surrounded everything about her, and from the conversation that Uen and Akane would undoubtedly have, the answers to the questions that might have occurred to Fumio would emerge.
Until then, his disposition would be different: he hoped that sooner rather than later the journey would end, and that any moment now they would find themselves in front of his friend's door.
Such was the confusion in his mind those days, that on the one hand he felt curious about the curious case that had him as a protagonist or as a privileged witness, while on the other hand he pretended to disengage from it, leave it in the hands of an expert—as Akane must be—and return as soon as possible to the well-known routine, which, miserable and suffering as it may be, provided him with the feeling of security or certainty that he believed he needed, without surprises, without alterations to his daily activities, without unforeseen changes that forced him to choose between confrontation or submission.
Yukio Nayas was sitting at the dining table, frowning, with the bills for the services to be paid in the following days in his hands, when the doorbell rang. His immediate reaction was limited only to quickly shifting his gaze from the figures on the paper to the entrance, perfectly visible from his location. Akane immediately came out of the kitchen, and ran excitedly on tiptoe to greet the visitors.
"They're here already? That was fast..." the woman murmured.
Her husband slowly got up without taking his eyes off the door.
"Hello, Fumio!"
As happy as she was to see her friend, Akane didn't decide to greet him with a hug, unconsciously fearing it would be an exaggerated gesture, and instead, she shook his hand warmly. And her enthusiasm prevented her from seeing that Fumio didn't look entirely well: to his state affected by the events of the previous night, which only added to the disorderly existence he had been leading, was added a certain tiredness caused by the activities of the morning and by the walk that had brought him to her threshold.
"How nice to finally see you, Fumio! Oh, and is this your friend?"
"That's right," Fumio said, not hiding his slight fatigue. "This is Uen..." and he wanted to also pronounce her last name, but he didn't have it, or at least she hadn't told him.
"Uen?" Akane said, surprised by the rarity of that name. "Nice to meet you," she said to the girl, and she shook her hand gently with a broad smile.
Uen observed Akane briefly but attentively: she was one of those people who, being scarcely taller than another person, make that difference in height seem greater than it really is. The same thing happened with Fumio: Akane seemed much taller and larger than him too. She had a well-nourished body (she had gained some weight lately, but that didn't prevent her from moving with her usual vitality), bright hazel eyes, and long dark hair that reached her waist.
"Good evening."
"Oh, please, come in," Akane said deferentially, stepping aside to allow the guests to enter.
"How have you been, Fumio? Have you been able to rest?"
Only then, seeing her friend's face more clearly and paying more attention to it in the warm light of the hallway lamps, did the hostess perceive certain signs of tiredness in him.
"A little," Fumio replied, as he took off his jacket. "I've had a busy day."
Yukio, who hadn't moved his feet from his position by the dining table, looked at Fumio with a certain hatred. He had recognized him instantly, despite having seen him (seen his image, in case clarification was needed) for a few brief seconds that same morning. But he also knew that it was he who was invited to dinner; he and no one else but him, except for the young woman accompanying him...
"Uen is your name?" Akane inquired, bringing her pronounced closed-eye smile too close to the visitor without realizing it.
"Yes, I'm just Uen."
"Please, have a seat," the hostess then invited, pointing to the dining table, which was nothing more than a space occupying a third of the large front room of the house, and which was completed by the areas that served as a hallway and living room.
Uen wasted no time in moving towards the indicated spot; in such a short distance, she noticed that next to the door shone a Hiyalama salt lamp, and the atmosphere was imbued with a subtle scent of patchouli.
Yukio watched her walk towards him with the graceful body of a young girl; every limb of her body, every ripple in her skirt, even each of her hairs, moved harmoniously, rhythmically, complementarily, in perfect and natural synchrony, free from all affectation. The serious expression on Yukio's face unconsciously vanished. He had never seen anyone move with such elegance, much less in such an everyday situation as walking the insignificant distance between the threshold and the dining table —his wife, yes, exhibited a certain grace in her movements when she was in a good mood, as was precisely the case that night; however, compared to Uen, his wife's occasional grace seemed no more than a simple agility of someone who is still young. And, moreover, Uen was truly beautiful, undeniably beautiful, strikingly beautiful, despite the "extravagant" nature of her attire, her ridiculous blue bow, and the incomprehensible geometric figures on her skirt. An enigmatic flash shed light on her small dark eyes and shook something inside him as they approached him. Yukio spied for a fraction of a second the narrow space open between two buttons of her shirt. Uen barely glanced at the homeowner for the brief moment she greeted him; she saw at once his head, which was becoming bald, adorned involuntarily by a not particularly majestic crown of grayish hair, his penetrating, emotionless eyes, wide open, his colorless lips, long and thin, which pressed slightly against each other in a gesture of impression, his light blue shirt and gray pants hastily fastened, and the bulging abdomen that was beginning to exert some pressure on the fabric, slowly but steadily growing at the pace of "the good life," as some call it.
"Good evening," Uen said in a mellifluous voice; then, she placed a hand on the back of the nearest chair, as if claiming it for herself.
Yukio furrowed his brow slightly and straightened his neck, thus regaining his attitude of seriousness bordering on disapproval or anger, and forgetting suddenly the fleeting turmoil within him.
"Good evening," he said dryly, feigning indifference.
He almost added "Take a seat," but stopped himself just in time.
"Oh, I hope you like what I prepared!" exclaimed Akane, disappearing behind the door at the back.
"They will. They better like it," her husband told her.
Then he set his eyes on the detestable Fumio once again. There he was now, a couple of steps away, concealing the tiredness on his face, dressed in the same clothes he had gone to sleep in the previous night in the miserable apartment, reeking of alcohol and rainwater, with half his body sprawled on the floor and half his body lying on the meager mattress. He did not look at all like the average "consultant" (perhaps the term "patient" suited him better, but in its more usual or conventional sense); he was not a woman like the vast majority of the "patients" to begin with, more inclined or more accustomed to intuitive explanations than rational ones; the few men who visited the house came either with their partners or were distressed individuals seeking the ultimate cause of their concerns in the mysterious energetic phenomena that Akane claimed or considered herself to know. Fumio looked worried and subdued. Yukio was starting to get irritated again. He would have to spend the evening in such jarring company, and there was little he felt capable of doing about it.
The visitors took seats next to each other. Yukio immediately stepped aside and went to the kitchen, complaining loudly to his wife, so as to be clearly heard by her and the diners:
"So now consultations are held at dinnertime? We'll charge them for the meal and service."
Fumio lamented bothering the man, but Uen paid no attention to Yukio's complaint, busy as she was exploring everything around her with her eyes, perhaps also sensing that offending anyone who imprudently crossed his path was part of Yukio’s personality, and not taking it to heart. Akane and Yukio's home was impeccable and simple in the sense that it was not overcrowded with belongings or ornaments, as is often the case in homes of the wealthy. At the other end of the large front room was the living room, with its black faux leather three-seater sofa, coffee table, and television, and a sideboard without doors where unused crockery and some unread books were stored, all guarded by various ceramic and clay figures, including a saint purchased on a trip, and some statues of pagan inspiration. The living room, like the dining room, was delimited on three sides by brick walls; among them, aside from the space that served as a hallway but was not enclosed, a rustic cabinet with a single compartment and two doors could be seen next to the doorless opening leading to the rest of the house. Uen got up from her chair driven by a sudden curiosity. She opened the doors of the cabinet and found various types of minerals on the four shelves of the piece of furniture. In front of each stone was a label with its name. An empty space was too evident, where the ergenites used to be. The visitor could hardly inquire further when Akane appeared back with the food served for her and for Fumio.
"Oh, that's my rock collection," the hostess pointed out, surprised but not bothered by Uen's boldness. "Are you interested?" she added, noticing that Uen had her eyes fixed on the specimens she treasured.
Uen ignored the question, which Akane understood and didn't really expect an answer to, as she was focused on carefully placing the hot and overflowing dishes of food in front of Fumio's and her own chairs.
Once the dinner for the guests was safely arranged, Akane stood behind Uen, who, with her hands resting on the edges of both doors, surveyed the different types of rocks that Akane owned. Yukio feared with deep disgust that the situation would lead to a conversation (or lecture) about energy mineralogy, while Fumio realized he had forgotten to bring the ergenites to return them to their owner.
"The stones! I completely forgot," Fumio lamented.
Yukio secretly celebrated what he judged as the odious and hated Fumio's stupidity.
"Oh, it's okay, no problem," Akane replied. "If you still need them, you can keep them for as long as..."
"That's not it," Fumio interrupted, interpreting that his friend thought he had left them in the apartment on purpose. "I was going to bring them and I forgot..."
"Oh, I was just saying..."
"It's just that I," Uen interjected, releasing the cabinet doors and stepping back a bit, "I didn't tell him to bring them."
The sorrowful tone in which Uen spoke and the words she uttered might have led anyone who heard her to believe that she also acknowledged her part in Fumio's omission. But the truth was that she deliberately avoided reminding him to return the ergenites to their owner, and she chose her words carefully so as not to lie to her. It goes without saying, therefore, that Uen had an interest in keeping the rocks from leaving Fumio's apartment...
"I really mean it, there's no problem," Akane insisted. "You can bring the ergenites another time."
With that said, she went to fetch the missing food plates.
"We're better off without those stones," Yukio affirmed with exaggerated sarcasm. "And even more so if you take the rest," he added, referring to the ones still on the wooden shelves.
Uen didn't even bother to fake a smile. Fumio, on the other hand, turned his gaze to a corner. Yukio wrinkled his nose, perhaps frustrated; he expected a negative reaction from either of the visitors, preferably both, but especially from the girl with the blue bow and the implicit, invisible smile. He silently picked up the bills and placed them on the corner table, where the phone rested and, on a shelf, the modem; in that place, he wouldn't forget the obligation to pay the bills. Then he sat down again, not in the seat he had occupied before Fumio and Uen arrived (which would have put him in front of the former), but at the end of the table.
Akane returned with dinner for her and her husband. He received it with a resigned sigh. The woman left one last time to bring bread and something to drink.
"What would you like to drink?" she asked from behind the door. "Water? Lemonade?"
"Tea," Yukio responded, raising his voice, but he realized almost immediately that a nice cup of tea like the ones served in his house could prolong the guests' stay ("patients'" stay and he changed his mind: "No, bring water. Or nothing."
Either Akane didn't hear him or she ignored him, as she came back with the pitcher of lemonade.
"I said bring water."
"Water? Isn't it better for them to try the lemonade I made?"
"Why did you ask what they wanted to drink, then?" Yukio thought. He responded, "Lemonade doesn't go with the meat..."
Akane was about to object to such a statement, but Uen spoke first.
"I only drink water with meals," she said calmly.
Yukio was glad that the beautiful stranger agreed with him.
Akane suddenly found herself dismayed, but she said nothing and went for the water. The expression on her face, however, quickly disappeared to make way for the serene happiness that was usually permanent in her, and she soon peacefully prepared to dine. She sat to the left of her husband, facing Fumio, who was thus located between Yukio and Uen.
She had exquisitely prepared steaks and rice—an attempt at the typical curry from certain places.
"Well, Fumio, how have you been? It's been too long since we've seen each other. I still remember those endless afternoons at work..." she said with a knowing laugh.
Fumio felt embarrassed to recall some of those distant times, which were no less sad and tasteless—less devoid of meaning or "purpose"—than the present times, where he wasted equally endless afternoons designing spare parts for all kinds of machinery, mainly for the industry; only, during the time he worked with Akane, he had no partner nor did he have to go through a difficult breakup. He looked down and then his eyes roamed the table, not far from him, as he mechanically stirred the rice.
"Yes, I've been fine, you know... living and all that," he replied.
Akane ignored the tone in which Fumio spoke, so devoid of spirit—not even lazy or indolent—and just smiled briefly with her eyes closed, as she used to do when she was happier than usual. She then commented to her husband, "As I told you, he worked with me in the insurance office, so long ago now..."
But Yukio barely heard her. He had been stealing glances at Uen from the moment he sat down; at first, he unconsciously believed that he wouldn't look at her more frequently or significantly than at the rest of the diners, but very soon he realized that he could no longer resist the temptation to observe her again and again, more frequently than he would have liked or seemed convenient, given the proximity of his own wife. Those glances he gave the visitor ranged from her perfectly straight hair to the gentle bumps under her shirt and back, barely stopping at her round, dark eyes, small thin lips, the incomprehensible bow tie, and the folds and buttons of the shirt between which nothing could be seen.
Her eyes suddenly closed and those delicious lips moved very softly, almost imperceptibly, uttering silent words. A few seconds later, Uen returned to her previous state.
"Were you praying?" Akane inquired, having noticed the same thing as her husband, quite surprised.
"Blessing the table," Yukio corrected.
"Sorry, we didn't know you are... a Christian? We just don't know you," she added, in an affectedly kind tone, "Would you like to bless the table out loud?"
Uen shook her head softly.
"That's okay," she said afterward, "I just don't want to lose the habit."
"I see."
Yukio allowed himself to look her in the eyes for a second and a bit longer too, while he took a bite of steak. Normally, he would have thought that what Uen had just done had to do with the beliefs that the "patients" brought to the house—things about spirits and energies that he despised, things he judged as fanciful and "irrational." Instead, however, he fell into an unprecedented and respectful silence. It was the first time in a long time that he was interested in a woman other than his wife. And for this reason, he remembered hearing from his wife that the detestable Fumio would be accompanied by a friend, and he wondered in his innermost being, while still relishing the steak, if Uen was just a friend of his.
It must be said, by way of explanation for those who may not know or understand, that what Uen had done was not exactly bless the table, but rather utter a very brief prayer to release the soul of the animal from the meat she was about to consume. But neither Akane, nor Yukio, nor Fumio had ever stopped to think if animals possess souls, and therefore they didn't even have an opinion on the matter.
"So, Uen is your name, right?" Akane asked, to remedy as soon as possible the issue of "we just don't know you."
"Yes, just Uen."
"Oh, it's a very curious name."
More curious to her was that she didn't have a surname, or didn't want to reveal it (but why wouldn't she want to?).
"Where is it from?"
"My name?"
"Yes, what's its origin?"
"Well, the truth is that's just what I call myself."
"Oh, I see, like a stage name, isn't it?"
Uen nodded slightly and took a bit of rice into her mouth. She ate delicately, slowly, without haste.
"And are you work friends?" Akane inquired. "What do you do now, Fumio?"
"I work at Sh. Company, in machinery spare parts design and optimization..."
"Oh, how interesting!"
Then she turned to Uen.
"Do you also work there, Uen? Or how did you two meet?"
Fumio stopped chewing and observed his companion. He was very interested in what she would answer.
"Ha, ha! I know I sound like a gossip, but I want to know..." Akane tried to justify herself.
"You are," Yukio intervened.
Uen smiled at the hostess.
"It's not bad to be curious. The truth is, I've known Fumio for quite a short time..."