Chapter 7

A handful of trams rode by the street, the only sign of life in that block, in that whole city. Rush hour, lone hours, it never made a difference. Whatever the time, whatever the season, the city seemed forever empty, forever silent, a desolation that could often soothe as well as smother.

«This is a good day.» He thought, taking a deep breath, exhaling very slowly, and enjoying all the warmth that filled his breast.

The lukewarm winds of the dying summer were always the most pleasant. They were as hot as they could be in those farthest nethers, like a blanket at body temperature hugging him, enveloping him.

He carried his bags and himself back to his building, taking his time, leisurely pacing aboot. Though he had planned to do some work that day, he had been slowly convincing himself, since the instant he stepped out of that doctor’s office, that «well ... another day off isn’t killing nobody, is it?»

From street to street and block to block, he stopped by the small parks and gardens to smell the flowers, hear the birds, and contemplate the desolate beauty of his town. It was very late in the evening, quite deep into the lands of dusk, yet the sun hovered still too far above the horizon, everywhere so bright and ready to shine just as intensely for many hours more. In the peak days of sun, that shine went on forever, no night to be seen for weeks. «Everything so dry.» Rain was scarce, and the winds often merciless. If one wasn’t careful, didn’t watch their steps, a sudden, treacherous gale could push a grown man into the streets, which would have been dangerous, of course, if those streets had any life other than lumbering trams and slow-moving buses.

«Everything so ... white.» If he could have summed up that city in one word, it would have been that one: white. «It’s all white in here, all the time.» He looked around. «It is so bright everywhere, so much light, so much shine, that the colors just fade into nothing, all coalescing into a big, dead sum of ... white.» The sun was always naked. It bathed the land with uncompromising harshness and uniformity. «It feels like sitting in that cubicle, that strange machine in the doctor’s office right before the lights went out.»

The impeccable streets and straight, narrow roads all sitting on a massive, sprawling plain, and the minimal architecture, the smooth walls of the countless buildings, everything acted like giant mirrors of varnished stone refracting the rays to every direction, boosting the white and spreading the silver everywhere.

The trees, though many, were scarcely exuberant. Their crowns were rarely wide, their leaves often too thin, and their spareful branches were always too spread out and wide apart. Even the ocean by his side, beyond those streets, wasn’t really blue, but a soft cyan and thin-ice teal, like foam dissolved in a slim sheet of water on a shallow plate.

In every direction on those farthest edges of the earth, everything seemed to be covered in snow. He could not explain this optic illusion, but it did seem like, as his eyes met the horizon, both earth and heaven turned to cream, like the dense froth of a cascade as it crashes on a lake. «It’s easy to see why some people would have thought the planet was flat, or why they would have imagined fantastic lands beyond where the eyes could reach, far away and clear off the boat’s sail.» He stopped from time to time, stretching his walk to let his thoughts wander. «Lands of frost giants and wind spirits. Of beautiful nymphs made out of flowers and trees. Of large serpents swallowing the earth and massive turtles holding the planet on their backs.” He closed his eyes and inhaled. “I feel like I could just ... walk out through the horizon and fall into the void. To pierce through its layer of magic and enter these mystic realms of folklore.» He opened his eyes and exhaled. «Hmm.»

A stoneful of birds followed him, chirping random tunes to match his steps. About halfway into his block, he took notice of the strangest sensations. Maybe the spirits, the nymphs, and the giant turtles from beyond the veil had blown upon him some mystic winds, some transformative aura that made his body feel like it wasn’t his own, but ... someone else’s. «I feel ... lax. Soft. Wobbly. Like pudding spread out over too big a plate.»

Was it ... peace? Tranquility? Serenity? Happiness?

He stopped again to look at his surroundings. For the briefest of moments, but still an instant so impactful it resounded in him like a punch to the liver of his soul, he believed to be in an imagination of sorts, a reality that was not really real, but a made-up dream, a pure fantasy, not really reality but ... being inside someone else’s dream. A byproduct of thought out of somebody else’s mind. “Oh ... whoa!”

Like a sleepy person falling down, he snapped back violently into what he believed to be reality. Looking down at his own body, he touched it, pinched it, pulled his skin, and felt himself whole again. «Yes, yes. This is my body.» And looked around once more. «Yes. Yes. This is ... my town.»

The chirping of the birds ... this he could remember, this he could recognize. «Hey, little fellas.» He smiled at them. «As long as you’re here, I know I am awake.»

The birds stopped chirping. Their silence was so intense he felt it like a concrete thing, colder than the air around him and harder than the ground beneath his feet. “Oh. Hmm...” A couple of steps later, all the birds had flown away. Almost. A single bird remained landed on a dry branch just ahead of him, and there it sat still and quiet, strangely silent, moving only its head slowly to keep the boy in sight. «Don’t, um ... don’t mind me.» He too kept a careful gaze at the strange little creature. «I’m just passing by.»

Strange birds or uncanny feelings aside, he could scarcely remember the last time he’d felt so good. Partly because he rarely felt good, partly because he barely kept any records of his moods. All his sensations, he felt them in the present. For him and his emotions, the past went only as far back as a couple of minutes, and the future was only dread, no good to bring about. «Yet the good days... » He lifted his head high, almost prancing on the streets. «I know them when I feel them. I know that they are rare ... and must be cherished every second as they come, moment to moment.» He looked down again, smiling like a fool. «Step by step.»

Could he ever replicate those days? Could he pinpoint the elements which made them lovely, and maybe court them on days less jolly, to multiply them, like the early farmer who first discovered agriculture, and thus was no longer bound to the wills of the soil and the rain, the whims of the winds, and the caprices of Mother Nature? «People were nice to me today.» He reflected. The doctor, the pretty clerk ... No. That couldn’t explain it all. «I was feeling good before I met them.» Since he’d got up, things just felt ... right. Like he had a charm on him, repelling (or at least repressing) all the darkness that usually haunted him. «Is this what the folks call the Law of Attraction?» He smirked. «A magnet of happiness, a harbinger of good fortune?»

He stepped into his building. Hey, man! This happy aura even seemed to call to him with a friendly voice. «Oh?»

He shook his head, looked around, and realized it was no aura, that which spoke to him—but it was close, and it was just as bright and happy: “Hey, man!”

He saw a young man, a handsome lad waving at him. “Oh ... hey.” The young porter. What was his name again? Gi ... Je ... Jerome? Yohan...? “It’s, uh, Joh- John-...” He shut his eyes, perused the folds of his brain. “Jonathan, right?”

The lad winked and whistled, a big, warm smile unfolding on his face. “Right I am. And you are...” A second of thought. “John!” He snapped his fingers. “John, eh? Oh, right! Told ya was an easy name to remember.”

“Hmm ... oh.”

John himself had forgotten about it. His name. «John. I am ... John.» He looked again at the lovely chap and nodded with vigor. “Yeah. That’s me.”

“You’re from seventeen-nineteen, eh?” Jonathan grabbed two envelopes from the mail wall behind him. “I think theeese ... are for you.”

“Oh ... thanks.”

As he took the papers, he noticed how wide and beaming the man’s smile was that evening. «Do I, uh, have something on my face?» He smiled back, not knowing nor needing to know why, only reflexively, instinctively, like the social animal he was supposed to be. «Is it ... the aura? These good feelings I have with me today? The good vibrations?»

He had little time to ponder. “So, you’re actually out!” Jonathan whistled. “Finally, finally! Oh, I think this is the first time I actually see you here, at least since our last talk.” Then, half-joking, half-serious, he leaned closer and stared at him with his big, blue eyes. “Just so we’re on the same page: you do live here, right?”

“Yes, I ... I, do.”

“Long time, do ya?”

He shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“Oh, well, that’s great. Phew!” He leaned over the counter, laying his weight on his forearms and elbows. “I know pretty much everyone from the building. Like, everyone! Really everyone ... except for you. Oh, I was even wondering, hey, if you really existed. Like, you were not just a dream or ... an apparition! A ghost!” He shivered, then chuckled. “Kinda need to rub my eyes now that I see you. Hardly believed you were actually real.”

“Oh, well, umm ... yeah. I can...” He touched his own body: arms, shoulders, and chest. “Yep. I am pretty sure I’m real.” In silence, then, he looked at the fellow for a second. «Jonathan. Hmm. This guy.» He smiled. «He likes to talk.» He paused. Then shivered. «Maybe ... well, maybe... » Gulp! «Maybe I should talk back?»

Before he could ponder any further... “So, you out and about t’day?” Jonathan beamed. “What you up to? Out to meet som’body special, I bet.”

“Oh, um ... what? Ah, no.” He touched one arm, pulled it over his chest. “It was, uh, nothing special.”

“Oh.” He seemed disappointed. “Nothing special, you say. Really?”

From one of his grocery bags, he grabbed their heaviest item. “Urgh. Look.” He dropped the large, almost foot-long envelope on the counter. “Went to the doctor. These are, uh, some of the results.”

“Ah.”

He tapped on his head. “Really bad ... migraines. I had an, uh, accident last week and ... head was, uh, hurting. Quite a lot.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, comrade. But, you know, you’re alright, eh?” Mimicking him, he tapped on his own temples. “Every right up there, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes. Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.” Clumsily, and with a lot of effort, he placed the package back into the bags. “Guess I just need to, uh, sleep and, err, uh, eat better.”

“Oh, totally.” He smiled. “Which brings me to ... well, it doesn’t have anything to do with it, anyway, but still, as I have your attention...” He snapped his fingers, trying to nudge his own memories into the surface of his brain. “I think we’re having an inspection soon. We don’t have a date yet, but it’s pretty sure it’s gonna be either this month, you know, or next one. Yeah. Next month at the latest.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“We’re checking the usual stuff: pipes, gas, electricity, pretty standard stuff. You probably saw the notice in the lifts, eh?” He looked at him. “You did see the note, right?” John could only look away, shaking his head in a very tepid, timid manner. “Oh, okay. Well ... consider yourself notified, then. Did you ever have an inspection before?”

“Uh, an inspection? Oh, well, I guess not.” He scratched his head. “In my apartment? No. No one has come to it, no.”

“Huh. That’s weird. Well, I guess they only really looked into a few apartments at a time. Last year, if I remember right, it was the northwest block, but not even the entire block. This time, though, I am told it’s a full inspection. Inconvenient little stuff, I know, but necessary, I suppose. Just a heads-up so you’re prepared.”

“When ... uh, when is it?”

“Again, we don’t have a date, but next month probably. I will let you know when they’re checking your unit.”

“Hmm.”

“We will need to have someone present when they check it, though. We can try again if no one’s there, but this is a state thing, you know. Government stuff. They have deadlines and such, so if we can do it as early as possible, you know, on the first visit...”

“I get it.”

“ ... all the better.” His smile became somewhat caustic. “But, anyway, you do spend all the time cooked up in there already, right?” He chuckled. “Guess it won’t be a problem in your case.”

“Yes. I mean, no.” He smiled back, his lips cracking a bit. “Guess it won’t.”

---

Time to leave. He bent over to pick up his things and turned aroun- “Hey.”

He dropped everything. “What?”

For once, it was Jonathan who looked timid, hesitant. “I ... am ... not sure you’ll be interested, buuut ... well, probably not, but ... ah, what the hell. Worth a try.” From behind the counter, he pulled out a leaflet. “Her’ya. Take it.”

And gave it to John. “What is it?” He had a good look at it, and... «Hell! Fuck me!» His eyes burned. «Argh! Fuck! This design!» The injuries all over his head flared up with force. «Oh, heavens, it’s hideous! What is this?!» It appeared to be an invitation of sorts, a call to a night out at a bar, yes, a song night at a pub downtown, or so it seemed at his first glance, before John’s eyes were burned by the hideousness of it all. «The fonts are leaping off the page! Argh!» He rubbed his eyes, feeling that they would bleed at any moment. «And the colors! Hell! The colors are all over the place!» It was clear that whoever made that thing was extraordinarily tactless and unprofessional, or at least had spared every precious penny on the cheapest artist they could find.