A second viewing immediately preceded the funeral service. Attendance was a little lighter than the previous day, but it was still busy. Hector endured the empty platitudes from well-meaning acquaintances. He found himself exhausted by the ordeal. It felt like every new face was stealing a portion of his emotional energy.
By the time the funeral director asked them all to find a seat, Hector was ready for it all to be over. Jen sat beside him and took his hand in both of hers. The flat screen televisions mounted on the walls stopped displaying the power point presentation that had been on constant loop for the past two days. Then Drew, one of his dad’s oldest friends, stepped forward to officiate.
For the next half hour, stories of his dad were told. Many of them were humorous in nature. A few were tales of his generosity and warmth. Drew did an excellent job of balancing the need to keep the service moving and welcoming each speaker forward. And then came the final portion.
Drew looked around the room. “If everyone is done, we have one last person who would like to speak.” He nodded to the funeral director standing at the back of the room. A few seconds later, the television screens came to life once more.
His father in a hospital bed waved jazz hands at the camera. “Surprise!”
As the laughter was still ongoing, his father continued speaking, not there to judge the reaction his joke had evoked. “I am incredibly honored to be asked to speak at this event. Honestly, the guy was not my favorite person, but don’t tell him that! Seriously, though: thank you all for coming. I tried to live a good life and there were so many people who meant a lot to me. If even a fraction of you made it out to attend my boring service – no offense, Drew – then the place must be packed. To show my appreciation, at this time the body double I hired will jump out of my casket to perform an interpretive dance I choreographed.”
More faces turned towards the casket than Hector would have expected.
His dad’s laughter filled the room. “Some of you looked! I might be dead, but I know some of you looked. Anyway, I just wanted to extend my love to each and every one of you… from beyond the grave. Spooky!”
The screen faded to black and Drew turned to the audience. “That’s it for the service, folks. Some of us will be meeting for a beer at the tavern down the street if you want to drink a toast in Terry’s honor. Otherwise, the family appreciates you coming out today.”
The way ‘the family’ was said to refer to Hector felt odd. He was so used to those words being used in reference to the members of the Shaocheth clan. In this context, ‘the family’ meant just Hector. He was the only one left. As he waited for the room to clear out, the funeral director approached and promised to contact him in a few days when the cremation had been completed. Then Drew came in for a big hug. “Are you coming to the tavern?”
“I don’t think so. I’m drained from this whole experience.”
“That’s understandable, my man. I will catch up with you in a few days. If you want to talk before then, you have my number.”
“I do,” Hector assured the man.
Jen waited with him until the room had cleared, then they drove home. While Hector sat dejectedly at the dining room table, Jen stared into the refrigerator. “We have casseroles, pastas, and salad as dinner options.”
“I wish people wouldn’t just send random food items to me.”
“Yes, yes, it’s not healthy enough for your tastes. What do you want to eat?”
“I’m having chicken and broccoli.”
“You’re not going to eat any of this? It’s going to go to waste before I can finish it all.”
Hector shrugged. “I didn’t ask anyone to send me food. And I really cannot bring myself to care about food waste at the moment.”
“So what now? Are you going to sit in your room and meditate again?”
“What else am I supposed to do, Jen? I’m spent. At least cultivating is a productive use of my time.”
“I’m the only family you have left, Hector. Don’t you want to spend time with me?”
And so it began. Hector folded his arms. “I accept that you’re back in the house. You and the dogs have a warm place to stay and I won’t complain about covering the bills. But the two of us can’t go back to what we were before, Jen. I don’t feel the same way about you any more.”
“In almost a year, you never dated anyone else. That means something, Hector.”
“And you dated several someones. Does that mean something, too?”
“Well, I’m back now,” Jen said.
“And I’m not.”
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Jen moved to stand directly in his line of sight. “Why stop me from becoming a dog kin?”
“Because that would be a terrible decision,” Hector said.
“Why should that matter if you don’t care for me?”
“Just because I stop someone from stepping in front of a bus doesn’t mean I want to spend the rest of my life with them. We had a few good years, Jen. Then a few bad ones. Then it ended. This right here is called ‘being roommates’. Don’t expect it to become anything more than that.”
Jen slammed the fridge door. “We can talk about this later. It’s been a hard day.”
Hector remained in his seat as his wife left the room. Then, sick of everything, he went to his car and began to drive without a destination in mind. He found himself at the small community park after a short trip and got out to sit on a swing that didn’t quite fit his adult frame.
As the light of day faded, Hector began to cultivate. At first it was just the escapist instinct he had adopted from Volithur. Lazy, repetitive, calming motions of his aura to lull him into an artificial peace. It came with the illusion of progress – or, rather, actual progress but at a glacial pace.
The unending drive for optimization in his heart stirred, pushing him towards deliberate experimentation. Hector pushed his aura as far out as possible, seeking to maximize its volume when it was in its expanded position so that he could drag back as much cosmic energy as possible. Then he began shaping his aura for maximum benefit. The ground and other solid objects partially obstructed his aura and didn’t have as much cosmic energy as the air, so he began to expand only up and to the sides, which further increased his yields.
Then Hector made his first true discovery. The cosmic energy seemed to grow more plentiful higher in the air. So Hector left the swing to climb to the top of the slide, where he stood and extended his aura straight up to capture a sample. The increase in energy density was small but noticeable. Which kicked his mind into a higher gear.
His half ass attempts at optimization had triggered Hector’s problem solving skills to emerge from the fog of the day’s events. Cosmic energy appeared to increase with altitude. Did that mean he should cultivate on rooftops? Maybe spend time at that rooftop bar downtown? Or could he be more extreme and book cheap flights to cultivate in the air?
Maybe not that last one. He could comfortably retire on his savings, but he would not be able to afford constant plane rides. A few drinks at a rooftop bar, though… that was certainly within his budget. And his purpose wasn’t imbibing beverages, so he could nurse a single drink for hours while he sat in silence and worked his aura.
A conclusion reached, Hector departed the park and drove to the bar. The place was fairly busy, but he happily waited half an hour to get a table. While he stood in the waiting area, Hector went through round after round of aural cultivation, finding himself pleased with the energy density. It was perhaps a five percent improvement over ground level. That meant cycling his aura twenty times in his current environment equaled the work of twenty-one times at his house. Not an exciting difference in the eyes of most people, but it got Hector’s blood pumping. Innovating a five percent efficiency boost when he was managing the warehouse would have been worthy of celebration.
He finally got a seat and had to wait another half hour for a waitress to notice him. While his fellow customers at nearby tables seemed put out by the lacking service, Hector found himself immensely pleased by the neglect. He hadn’t actually come here to eat or drink, after all. He just wanted to borrow the building’s six floors of height.
The waitress took his order for a mojito and disappeared for ten minutes. Hector had been inspired by Volithur in his drink choice. The fifth household seemed to only serve rum, which Volithur had rapidly gotten a taste for. Choosing rum based cocktails in the future would be a tribute of sorts to the benefactor Hector would never meet.
He took his time sipping at the drink, focused on his cultivation. By the time two in the morning rolled around, he had only ice melt remaining in his glass and felt that he had made good use of his time. The waitress from earlier stopped by to take his glass, drop off a bill, and announce they were closing up. Hector dropped a twenty dollar bill onto the table and left the bar. Being allowed to spend six hours in that environment had been well worth his investment.
When he arrived back home, Hector retrieved a ladder from his garage and went to sit on his own roof. The energy density proved good enough. It was better than his bedroom and wasn’t much worse than the bar had become after he drained its atmosphere for hours on end. The constant stream of fresh air prevented the depletion of cosmic energy on the roof, which gave him another data point to work with.
Hector needed to find a tall rooftop location that was open to the elements. Looking out of glass windows onto the city skyline wasn’t his goal. He needed fresh air from the highest altitude he could reach without drawing attention to himself.
He pulled out his phone and began researching the local area. The first thing he found that met his criteria was a spot half an hour’s drive from his house. A hiking path wound through a nature sanctuary, stopping at several lookout points. One of those locations had an elevation superior to a sixth floor bar in the city.
The thought that he should visit in the morning brought with it the realization that it already was morning. Hector’s mental torpor from a night of no sleep following a stressful day could not compete with his hope of unlocking another secret of cultivating outside of Tian. So Hector got in his car and drove to the nature sanctuary.
Which had not opened yet. A metal gate prevented entry into its parking lot. Hector went to a nearby restaurant and ordered breakfast while he waited. Though he typically fasted between dinner of one day until lunch the next day, he had not eaten the day of his dad’s funeral. Eggs and bacon and toast went down his throat rapidly, followed by a glass of orange juice.
The nature sanctuary had opened by the time Hector returned, and after spending a few minutes to memorize the map painted on a sign in the parking lot, he set off to reach the tallest lookout point. It took him two hours to reach his destination, during which he came to realize he had not prepared for a hike.
He still wore a suit and dress shoes from the funeral service. Combined with his lack of rest and insufficient hydration, it added up to a miserable experience. Nevertheless, he persevered. At the end of those two hours, he arrived drenched in sweat, his suit pants ripped from thorns, his jacket thrown over one shoulder, and his fancy shoes hidden beneath layers of mud.
Only to make the worst possible discovery. The tall lookout spot had some of the lowest levels of cosmic energy he had yet discovered. His clothes-ruining hike through the woods had been a waste of time. All the energy and drive that had motivated Hector’s manic post-funeral actions drained from him. He released a weary sigh as he sat on a bench placed at the peak of the climb beneath the boughs of tall trees standing sentry.
“Whelp,” he said, “I guess it’s not as simple as I thought. Shit, I’m tired.”
Hector turned to lay on the bench for just a few minutes...