You might be wondering, where was our hero in all this? Where has he been all this time? Well he was sunking on bed like the waste of life he was! He had already missed his last two classes and he wasn’t even trying to hide his misery anymore. He looked around his room trying to understand his surroundings. He remembered the conversation at the University, he felt shocked still, apparently a simple phonograph broke his camel’s back. First the telephone was already there, the motion picture camera and even the modern bicycle had already come to light. But the light bulb seemed to be taking a while, there didn’t seem to be any automobiles anywhere in the cities yet. That things were evolving similarly enough but not quite there yet like they did back in his world was messing up in his mind. He didn’t want to think about the bad things that were going to take place soon that he had read about, or the things that could repeat from his old world!

He looked at the calendar on the wall. The year was thousands of numbers apart, but the week still had 7 days, the day, 24 hours, the year? 364 days! But the months? No, those were different, there were 13 different months, each one with 28 days plus a year day, a special holiday everyone looked forward to, but even then, the earth in that world also gained enough time every 4 years to make year day, 2 year days. So many things were so similar, yet a few were slightly different, that it caused him a sensation of an uncanny valley he could never escape.

He remembered the conversation he had with his closest acquaintances. As he thought, it had been complete failure, he either wouldn’t convince them to treat him any differently or give him emotional support, or even worse, he would have to work for it, and he wouldn’t, because he was soulless, he barely had any spirit inside of him. Isn’t that right, Caruncle? That you are really soulless? Come on, tell them, tell them that you can’t do anything at all, tell them that the mere threat of trouble and the fact that there will be pain on the horizon is enough to shut you down.

I wish I could see what you would do if you were in my place, you piece of shit!

Sigh.

Listen, I apologize, it’s just, it is always like this, you get attached to someone, you follow them and you think, this is a person that can represent me, someone that will do in the world something that presents the life we both have shared, you follow them for so long, but then they don’t do anything of what you would do, and you just feel stuck. You might not think so considering that we dwell without any consequences, but existence as a ghost is actually quite taxing.

Oh, wait everybody. Our protagonist finally decided to stand up! Go ahead Caruncle, what are you going to do today? Are you going to gain some pants finally? Will you be responsible and do what you know you have to do? No, listen here everybody, this guy wants to escape, that’s right, he wants to leave everything behind before the big pile of shit he has been standing below falls over him! Go ahead Caruncle, I can hear what you think, show us what is going to be this so-called plan of yours.

He stepped out of his bedroom and found that the day was dark and the clouds were covering the sky.

“How are you feeling, Caruncle?” His mother quietly asked. She was sitting on the sofa, knitting a beautiful ash tree. I had forgotten my mother’s face long ago, and ever since, I had been looking at older women trying to find the face of my mother, to see if they could help me remember her. Caruncle’s mother didn’t look like mine, but if I was still alive, I think I would be happy to call her my mother.

“I think I’m just a bit under the weather,” he said quietly, silently, without looking at her.

“I saw a beautiful flower arrangement the other day,” she said knitting.

“What flower arrangement?”

“Orchids, they were beautiful, of a subtle but light purple, it almost seemed as if they were shining through their petals.”

Caruncle’s mother was a fragile woman that had been sick for most of her life, she spent her time at home reading, knitting and working on certain projects of her own, she even liked to cook and clean at times since she felt cleaning helped clear her head.

“I see, that sounds nice.”

“Maybe I can ask your father to bring me some, if we get to finish the garden indoors, I could probably take care of them.”

Caruncle looked through the window. He was now properly dressed, shiny black loafers, a dim suit with a just as dark old tie. If you looked at him, you would say he could be a decent chauffeur.

“Your father said I shouldn’t be trying to work on the garden on my own. He’s saying it could hurt my back even more, but I think I’m finally convincing him, if it’s just a small garden, I think it's a lot more manageable.”

“Of course, that’s very true.”

He looked back at the window and let his soul wander on the outside for a while, for a moment I thought we could even finally meet.

“You look beautiful today, mom,” he looked back at her, detailing her wrinkles in her foreskin. She was wrapped in a comfy and slightly old sweater and he thought about asking her to make one for him too.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“Thank you, dear. But you look worried, anything you would like me to talk about?”

“Oh you know, just some difficulties with these weeks' themes, that’s all.”

“Really? Is the professor you told me about the other day causing you trouble?”

“No, not really, I just still feel lost with all the material.”

“Oh please, I’m sure that you will do alright.”

“Really?” He looked back at the window. Trying to come up with something to say to his mother was difficult enough and every time he ended with empty answers made him feel a pang of guilt in his heart.

“Yes, I always thought you were a very smart kid.”

He looked back at her.

“Truth is, if I’m honest with you, really, is that I don’t even know if I can finish this, what I started I mean, I don’t think–”

“Yes, I believe you will.”

“But you know I always have a hard time to focus and I… I don’t know, I can't keep up. I can’t, I just can’t seem to–”

“Caruncle, please, you might lack some strength, I have the same issue myself, but you won’t fail because of lack of wits. Give yourself a breather and go ahead.”

“...” He looked back down at the floor now with a strange sense of embarrassment. “Okay.”

“It’s nothing, dear. As I always tell you both, I know and love my children, regardless of anything.”

Caruncle looked around the living room, he was taking careful note of the walls, the ceiling, the stagnant but warm air inside the house. Compared to the cold outside it felt even somewhat comforting.

“In any case, I shall take my leave.”

“God bless you, dear.” His mother continued knitting from the worn out chair while looking at the window from time to time.

Caruncle stood up. He looked around the living room. The house was quite spacious, but to him, the old wood walls and floors were very unpleasant to the eye. Personally, I thought the house was beautiful. He took some steps towards the door and took his bag. The floors quietly creaked, to me it sounded like a melody, but to him it felt like a screeching noise that made him scared he was going about to fall beyond the ground. His father had promised them to renovate the house next year, but he knew this wasn’t really the case at the end. He left home and saw a carriage parked across the street. He walked his way towards and sat with trembling legs. He looked at a bag that was at his side, once he had made sure of all that was needed inside he went on his way.

I sat at his side, it always felt curious to me how I could simply sat down in situations like this just as if I was actually sitting down, as if I was flesh and blood, I wanted to study the phenomena further and work into a theory I would call “ghostly magnetism” where celestial beings like myself where anchored towards the planet’s movement and the things they followed, but you know, with no else to test this with and nowhere to note it out, I just lost interest in the idea. I looked back at Caruncle. The whole time I spent on the trip I carried a smirk on my face.

Caruncle stopped close to a restaurant, he looked at the back entrance at the side of a small alley. From what he remembered reading back in Pisces’ library, that restaurant was a perfect target for what he had in mind, he remembered well what had been written in one of the books. A burglary would occur next year. The back entrance door’s back up key was kept below a trash can. An employee would take the key and enter to take the money stored in the safe when he was on his day off knowing that his coworker on the back would usually like to smoke at the front entrance before the store opened. Caruncle would only need to steal the money first, and he would leave the city with a lot of cash in his pockets.

But he couldn’t, he couldn’t stand up, his muscles wouldn’t move. I looked at him in exasperation again, but this time I didn’t tire my voice out. I just whispered. What is it, Caruncle? The perfect heist, and you still are unable to do it. His heartbeat was already at its limit and he was sweating cold, he hadn’t even moved an inch, his whole body was aching and he was starting to get nauseous. He felt that the last thing he could ever do in the world was to stand up from his seat, he felt that he had turned into a statue and he wouldn’t be able to move a muscle again in his life.

“Damn it!” He yelled, he punched himself in the knee and continued ahead. He thought he had probably enough money, and that the last thing he would want is to leave suspicion about the reasons for his departure and probably even make the police pursue him. He thought that if he ran out of money down the road, he would figure it out. He went on his way and tried to forget the whole incident.

When we got to the center of the city he stopped in a small, rusty old house. The center was the poorest part of the city, the area overall was actually very commercial and at the peak hours the streets would be filled with crowds of people buying, and people selling, but around that time of the morning, the neighborhood was fairly quiet. Caruncle stood and knocked on the door. I felt a knot in my stomach, maybe what he had planned wasn’t as funny as I thought myself. He knocked on the door several times and waited. I stayed in the car myself, rather frozen by the sensation. “Goddamnit it, what are you going to do now, you idiot?” I wanted to slap his face.

“I knew you would come.” A woman slightly smaller than him greeted him. She was wearing a worn out apron and underneath it, a modest one piece with a squared pattern. I thought she looked cute, she had jet black hair and she had it on a rather long ponytail.

So, who was this woman? Lila was a rather strong willed but hard working person. She would always help her parents go to the market, they would sell all sorts of fruits and vegetables. Her father and uncle would grow on a small farm at the north of the city. She was pretty good at negotiating the prices with the customers that came by and she would often convince them to buy even more than what they came for, just for the promise of a slightly reduced price. She was a bit tired though, she was a couple of years older than Caruncle, and the idea of leaving her old life away appealed to her. She wouldn’t have to get her hands dirty moving around yuccas and potatoes. When Caruncle came one day looking around one day for masato, a fermented beverage one of the servants in the home liked to drink, he found her when asking for directions. She befriended him, or rather, adopted him as a little puppy, and continued to win his confidence with the silly hope that she could charm him over. What she didn’t know is that Caruncle would actually suggest her to run away with him one of those days.

“Lila. Were you working just now?” Caruncle asked.

“My mother asked me to help and I didn’t want to make her suspicious.”

“Well, o-okay, it’s fine. It’s going to be a long trip, but maybe you can take some rest on the way.”

“Really?”

“It depends on the road, now come on, before anyone else sees us.”

“Okay.”

They both got in the car. Caruncle sat at Lila's left side and I sat at her right. Now it was the three of us, almost as if we were a true family.