THREE
Infinite
Present
There are moments that come to stay.
Sweat drips from his forehead as he brings his chest closer to the bar. His veins bulge with the last effort.
As he lowers himself, his hands lose their grip and slip. He falls backward onto the floor, in pain and panting, but not from the fall, and certainly not from the exercises.
Even if only in memory, they etch themselves like marks in metal, and when they invade the mind, they leave traces of dead neurons behind.
With each exhalation, he releases an agonizing breath into the air, which mixes with the relentless rain falling outside, like a distorted memory of Neptune's climate and his cosmic journey.
*
Christopher arrives at the library as if he were going to meet her at the usual time.
He knows he shouldn't be there, that he shouldn't have walked those streets, that he shouldn't have returned. He can't help it; he has to do this. Stopping means turning his back on everything he's experienced, it means suicide, and there's no way out. Being there helps to confirm that if anything of him had touched her vanished heart, then she would return, as she had confessed.
With the notebook in hand, he enters the familiar hallway and waits, watching as the sunlight dies in the window. It's just another day disappearing into time.
He looks at the entrance door and waits for a chance, a coincidence, or better yet, a decision. He knows he shouldn't do this, he shouldn't be there, but he has no other place that claims his presence with such warmth.
How many times had he gone to wait for her? Is he becoming a measure of time?
He can't give up; there's a very small chance, but that's enough, it's all he needs.
Thinking this way had kept him steady, but suddenly he starts to feel he needs an alternate measure.
He checks the time. The place is about to close. He must leave, he must go, but he can't help but keep waiting, can't help but hold onto the hope of an encounter. He knows he shouldn't be there, but he stays a little longer, trapped between light and darkness, clarity and mystery, past and present.
*
He returns to his apartment and opens a sport bag. He packs clothes and canned food, driven by the urgency of not losing the memories of the Mermaid and determined to find another portal to Neptune to find her again. He puts on a black jacket and stores his documents, cell phone, and keys in his pockets, grabbing them from the table. The notebook of his story he places in the inner chest pocket, like a space compass that will guide him.
*
It's already night. Christopher is walking along the roadside, amidst car lights, with nothing but trees on either side. He carries the bag slung over his shoulder and his hood up. He eats a can of tuna while signaling for rides. The rain begins to fall, and the sound of the drops hitting the pavement revives memories of when he used to walk accompanied.
An hour later, Christopher adjusts his jacket and settles in the corner of a pickup truck. There are other travelers with him, enduring the same cold. The fog surrounding him brings back the days when something greater was part of him.
He takes a pen and his story notebook from his pocket. He remembers what he had last written. It wasn't a good idea; suddenly he finds himself analyzing the past, and that disorientation highlights his feeling of being lost, but he finds the logic in it.
No matter how much you review the facts, one thing always stands out: everything happens for a reason, regardless of chance.
He looks for the last written page, and in doing so, a piece of paper falls from between the pages. As he picks it up, he finds the five lines written by her in coded letters. A single glance is enough for the content to seize him.
There's always a why, always. Buried beneath the facts like pieces that solving a homicide.
His eyes moisten, and a solitary tear slides down his cheek as the truck moves along the road, taking him further away from everything he once knew.
Limbo
A drop of blood slides down a suspended mirror, the one that had made a line on his leg.
The walls torment him with loud cries of heretical intent. They spit out deathly phrases, alleging that the Universe is nothing more than a blind and colossal mechanism that spins incessantly.
The pieces of the mirror suddenly vibrate and begin to fall slowly, numbed, in slow motion, as gravity awakens from a deep slumber.
Christopher realizes that the pieces are not in random positions, not chaotic, but organized in a single spiral that comes from the infinite sky.
He moves, struggling to avoid the nearest edges.
The fragments begin to spin on their own axis, and Christopher, suspended in the air, is surrounded by the gleaming flashes of his own reflections.
The walls taunt him, claiming he's nothing more than a fragile edge. They tempt him to try to evade the activity of the spinning mechanism.
A blade cuts his arm. Christopher lets out a muffled scream. Blood emerges like a sweet tear. Another one cuts his chest. Another, his rib...
Christopher fixes his gaze on the infinite. And he defies it.
Past
It was a day like any other, and Christopher was on his way to work amidst a crowd of people waiting at the corner. The pedestrian traffic light turned green, and the stream of people dressed for work crossed the street. The sun was shining timidly, and its light reflected through the windows of the modern buildings lining the street. Traffic flowed smoothly with only a faint sound of car horns, and the streets were still damp from the early morning rain.
While waiting at the next corner for the pedestrian light to change to green, something in the building across the street caught Christopher's attention. In one of the windows on the second floor, he spotted the woman in the crimson beanie once again. She was taking selfies with her cellphone. He couldn't take his eyes off her. How was it possible that he had never seen her there before? Had she been living in that building all this time?
As he watched, the traffic light changed to green, but Christopher stayed behind to keep watching her. At that moment, she turned and looked directly at him. Christopher felt a chill run down his spine. How had she known he was there? Was it another coincidence, or was it something more?
She quickly pretended to be doing nothing, but her cheeks flushed pink.
How had she managed to spot him in the crowd? Who or what was bringing them together? Was it all just an absurd and mundane coincidence?
As Christopher pondered this, a car splashed through a puddle at the corner, and water sprayed onto his coat. She stifled a laugh and hid behind the curtain to avoid drawing attention. He shook off the water and looked back at the window, but this time, it was closed. All of this seemed like a humorous coincidence, a senseless cliché that rarely happens.
Christopher crossed over to his workplace, located right next to the building where she lived. Questions kept swirling in his mind. How could she be there? Was all of this just a strange twist of fate?
*
In the afternoon, the woman in the crimson beanie was browsing one of the aisles in the library, engrossed in the strange story from a notebook she had found, when she heard the door. Turning around, she was hit by a wave of nerves when she saw him, Christopher, the man who had seen her taking selfies in the building this morning. She hastily hid behind a bookshelf, clutching the notebook to her chest as if it were a shield.
Christopher moved across the carpeted aisle, heading directly towards her, confident that if he looked for her in the same place and at the same time, he would find her again.
The woman peeked through the books with one eye to see Christopher approaching. She didn't want to talk to him again; surely, he would ask her for her name and all those uncomfortable questions. So, she slipped quietly down the aisle, trying to escape.
Christopher reached his usual spot and, not finding her, began checking the shelves one by one. But she wasn't in sight. When he reached the last shelf, he paused to think of another way to find her. Where had she hidden?
She was behind a small ladder in the previous aisle, peeking through the books to see if Christopher was still there. But her crimson beanie caught his attention, and he approached to take a look. Then he saw her running past, with bent knees and agitated breathing.
Christopher chased after her, and she ran into the next aisle, desperate to shake him off, but when she believed she had arrived without being detected, Christopher appeared behind her.
"Hello," he said kindly.
She came to an abrupt stop and then quickly turned to avoid arousing suspicion. She was extremely nervous, and her hand was trembling for no apparent reason, which she quickly concealed behind her back. However, the confidence with which Christopher looked at her made her feel more at ease. Perhaps he wasn't a threat after all.
"Ah... Hello..." she replied, not sure what else to do.
"Are you hiding from someone?" Christopher asked with a curious smile.
"No, no, from whom?" She glanced to the side with the unique nervousness that characterized her. "I was just afraid you'd throw more books at me," she said, trying to sound indignant.
"Forgive me, that wasn't my intention." He made a apologetic gesture.
"Just kidding." She smiled.
Christopher noticed that she was holding her notebook in one hand.
"You really like that book, don't you?" he asked curiously.
"This one? Not really. Well... somewhat," she replied, not wanting to reveal too much.
"Why are you still reading it, then?"
"Because...," she turned and made sure no one could hear her, "I think someone forgot it," she confided in a whisper.
"Do you come here often? Because I haven't seen you apart from yesterday."
"I'm always back here. It's quieter."
"Do you read Bécquer here?" He pointed to the poetry section.
She smiled, surprised. "The rhymes," she said, unable to hide her smile.
"Do you like poetry?"
"Maybe..."
"Tell me one," Christopher said with enthusiasm. She raised her eyebrows as if to say, "Why would I do that?"
"Excuse me, teacher, I didn't know I was going to take a test," she replied sarcastically.
Christopher laughed. "Okay, you're right; I shouldn't have put you on the spot. But tell me, what's your favorite poem?"
The woman in the crimson beanie looked up and regarded him with suspicion before responding, "Why would I tell you?"
"Well, I'll tell you mine."
She stood on one leg and crossed her arms, incredulous that he even knew a poem. Christopher continued, “Dejé la luz a un lado, y en el borde de la revuelta cama me senté, mudo, sombrío, la pupila inmóvil clavada en la pared".
Suddenly, a terrible memory overcame her as she recognized the rhyme Christopher was quoting. It was the very one she had read during a time it took her a long while to overcome. Her arms relaxed as she struggled to contain the overwhelming emotion that surged within her, regretting having challenged him.
"¿Qué tiempo estuve así? No sé; al dejarme la embriaguez horrible del dolor, expiraba la luz, y en mis balcones reía el sol. Ni sé tampoco en tan terribles horas, en qué pensaba y qué pasó por mí; sólo recuerdo que lloré y maldije, y que en aquella noche envejecí", Christopher finished, oblivious to the impact his choice had on the woman.
She lowered her gaze and fought back the tears that threatened to spill. Christopher, not understanding what was happening, asked if she was okay, but she didn't answer. Instead, she moved away with tired steps toward another bookshelf.
Christopher felt he needed to do something to make amends for his mistake and followed her. He stopped by her side, unsure of what to do. For a long while, he accompanied her in complete silence as they both read book titles.
"It wasn't my intention," he finally said, but she interrupted him.
"Do you see that book? My dad bought it for me when I was a kid," she said with a nostalgic sigh. "And I loved it. I kept asking him to bring me more books by that author."
"What's it about?" He lowered the book; it was a thin one. The cover showed an illustration of three young people preparing lemonade.
"It's very funny," she said with electric enthusiasm, as if she had never cried. "You have to read it; it's really funny," she added with a suppressed laugh.
"Do you read novels?" he asked, trying to change the subject.
"Some..."
"Would you give me your opinion on mine?" He tried not to seem too eager.
"Are you a writer?" She raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"Yes, but not as good as you, I'm sure."
"Me? I'm not a writer; I just write occasionally," she replied humbly.
"You are; you have that soul, it shows in how you talk about books."
"I don't know... I wrote something a while ago, but it's not much."
"Let me see it."
"Someday, maybe. And what do you write about?"
"Nothing too interesting, it seems, but you seem to enjoy reading it," Christopher said, pointing to the notebook she held in her hand.
The woman in the crimson beanie frowned, trying to understand what he meant.
"How do you know I like what you write?" she asked.
"Because you haven't stopped reading it." He gestured towards the notebook the woman in the crimson beanie held in her hand. She looked at him in surprise, unable to believe she had spent the entire day reading a notebook that turned out to be Christopher's, the man with such sad yet lively eyes.
"Is this yours? Did you write this?" She said, a shiver running through her. How had he created a character identical to her without even knowing her?
Christopher nodded with a slight gesture.
"The main character is just like me. How is that possible?" she asked, a little frightened.
"I know, what a coincidence, right?" Christopher replied, unable to explain something that defied his understanding.
"Have you been secretly spying on me or something?" Christopher smiled.
"Of course not, I was just looking for my notebook," he said, trying to calm her fears.
The woman in the crimson beanie suddenly felt there was more to the coincidence. She gazed at Christopher for a moment, noticed his sad yet now more brilliant eyes, and felt a strange connection with him, as if they had known each other for a long time, although she couldn't recall ever seeing him before.
"I'm sorry; I didn't know it was yours," she said, returning the notebook with an awkward smile, but he didn't take it.
"It's okay; it's yours now," he replied. "The story is incomplete, and I think only you can finish it."
The woman in the crimson beanie felt uncomfortable. She didn't want to be disrespectful, but she couldn't accept Christopher's gift. She examined the notebook carefully, with its black cover and cream-colored pages.
"I can't accept this. It's not fair for you to take your time to write something and then give it away," she protested.
"If you accept it, you might find something interesting toward the end," Christopher suggested.
"I can't, it's yours."
"Then maybe you could help me make it better."
She became more at ease, knowing that perhaps she could find the answers to all her questions in those pages.
"Are you sure? I don't know much about literature," she said.
"Don't worry; I'm not looking for an expert. You just need to read it and see what you think. Maybe you can give me some ideas."
The woman in the crimson beanie nodded, curious about the rest of the story. Although she didn't have much writing experience, she enjoyed reading and was always creating characters and new stories to immerse herself in.
"Alright, I'll read it," she finally said.
*
Through the window, the orange sunlight filtered in as it disappeared behind the mountain. It had been almost an hour since they had taken their seats at the desk, and the woman in the crimson beanie had been reviewing Christopher's story with her glasses on and a pen in her hand, crossing out, reading, and crossing out again. Until she reached the end of the writing and scribbled a question mark, but when she turned the page, she found the rest of it was blank.
"And...?" she asked, taking off her glasses and crossing her arms.
"I haven't finished it yet," Christopher replied.
"I can't believe you left it like this!" she exclaimed. "How am I going to go on with my life now without knowing what happens to the characters?" Christopher burst into laughter. "Well, seriously, this is the worst thing I've ever read," she said, with a stern tone.
"But you didn't stop reading."
"Because you asked me to," she defended herself, "but it's hard, especially with these clichés at the beginning," she said coldly.
"But... can you give me some advice?" he asked, hoping for constructive feedback.
She took another look at the story, closed the notebook, and considered her options. She knew she was being a bit harsh, but she also knew Christopher was strong enough to handle it. Finally, she decided to tell him what she really thought.
"Burn it," she said with a wicked smile.
Christopher was stunned. He knew she was joking, but the idea of burning his creative work made him feel uneasy.
"What? I can't do that!"
Of course, she was being extreme, but she enjoyed seeing him lose his composure. She smiled mischievously, relishing his reaction.
"Of course, you can't, calm down. But I have no idea how to make it better. Seriously, burn it."
Their gazes locked in a moment of silent laughter, and their hearts began to beat with an irresistible force. An palpable energy coiled between them, drawing their souls closer. Their eyes communicated in a language beyond words, creating a silence full of meaning. Both felt that something powerful was emerging within them, something that would lead them into an abyss of emotions and sensations they couldn't fully comprehend. However, they knew it was too early to let it fully unleash. So, they sat there, enjoying the moment and feeling that special something happening.
In the midst of the electricity filling the air, Christopher knew that nothing would ever be the same in his life. He had the feeling that the universe had conspired to bring them together in that place, at that moment. However, the woman in the crimson beanie, realizing what was happening, was overcome by a wave of fear. She became serious and somewhat nervous. Although she tried to hide it, she couldn't fool him. Christopher sensed the change in her attitude immediately. A shadow loomed on the horizon of his mind, and he knew she was hiding a profound sadness, but he also knew he had the power to help her. He understood that he wouldn't rest until he did, even if she tried to conceal it.
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