Idum-77

I’ve been relatively at ease for quite a long time. I used to believe I had an inspiring life, a not so unresentful seething in my guts and quite a few magnificent deals of my own. I wasn’t an inconsequential essence in the macro-dancing scope of existence. 

Until he arrived. 

He bursted in my days as an improbable occurrence, staring not unsurprisingly at every single inch of myself with incredulous eyes. His gaze was not ambiguous, nor innocent or childish. It was clear for me that he wanted to explore my wavy and ridgy shapes in a gingerly way, Sometimes he contrastingly seemed a whimsical little boy, smiling while touching and taking what he thought might be of his personal interest. 

He never realized I was watching him. Closely.

Having him sneakily toddling up and around, I tried to return to some of my projects without focusing on him. He could be so distracting sometimes! Whenever I got immersed in my things, I recovered the perception of birds flying higher, storms changing the perspective and grass turning purple almost everywhere. Yes, that was me experiencing the joy of my easy-going and self-challenging life.

So, please tell me, how could he equalize such a sensation? 

But...there it was. The unquiet sense that bristled my skin the day he decided to pose his gloved hand smoothly on my not rounded place. That same place I would have liked to show to someone who had dared to appreciate it. He tickled my fertile flatty-surface, making me rattle like a new steam train on a narrow gauge. As he sped up, he was not fearful in advancing and trekking silently and thoughtfully upon my hills and valley. Oh Heavens, he hardly was a thunderbolt but he could leave the same impression of a cheetah in my submissive registers. 

I didn’t venture to make him realize how insignificant -yet not unnoticed- his humanity had become for me by that time. Without any expectations, however, after a while of getting used to having him at my sight, his presence began to make my day brighter (who would say it…?).

He was not unexpendable. I must admit, though, I didn’t avoid sending him all kinds of clear signals so he could awake to the notion I had no intent of removing him from my surface. I wanted him around as long as possible. I became fond of him and his presence. I guess he noticed it as I catched him out feeling less uncomfortable with each incursion to my zones. He was a real risk-taker, undoubtedly. I liked that about  him.

It took me by surprise when he disappeared in the same sudden way he had showed up. I felt the sorrow of getting back to my old life, once perfect, without him in it. I felt the void, the nonsense of not being basked again by him. I felt the fire heating up my organic pucker, the same one he provoked upon arrival. 

Sometimes when I look at my sun, I miss him. Sometimes, when I face the shadows, I mourn him with methane rains. Never before and never again have I had a visitor from the distant Earth. Being Idum-77, a deserted planet in the Begordian system, now means I am inhabited forever.

Cyndi Viscellino Huergo 2020©Todos los derechos reservados

Reality sucks

"One hundred and sixty-nine", she wakes up counting the days, first thing on her mind before even opening her eyes. Her daily routine since the beginning of this nightmare. 

She gets up and switches on the fully automatic coffee maker. It is bright, trendy, silver-plated with some futuristic matt black lines. Her eyes stare at the device; she remembers buying it the day before the improbable yet feasible outcome in which the world turned around. So many months saving money to get this perfect morning mate! It was undoubtedly the best choice for a companion since Bryce died away from her life. And it was, clearly, a whole lot easier to understand. 

It has only two buttons: the classic "on-off" button and another that has to be used "only for resetting", a little round prominence in the rear with an unreadable inscription; the brochure stating it in a bafflingly warning way. She only used it once the very first day, just to try it, when she connected the electric pot. "There is nothing to reset, anyway", she told herself out loud checking its functionality that very first time.

While looking at the grains being crushed and pulverized, smelling the first drops of intense delicious scent falling off the beak, her mind starts to dazzle. Literally. A bright blue light stains everything all of a sudden, startling her and making her waver. 

 ("WTF...?")

 The light disappears as lively as it showed up.

She remembers having that same sensation one hundred and seventy days ago when going to bed that night. The day after, the inapprehensible waited for her and the rest of the planet outside.

Ever since, her life became a humdrum sequence of boredom. Unable to leave her house due to the deadly atmosphere derived from the gigantic meteor that impacted in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, alone and with no friends or acquaintances nearby, she had to get used to keeping on existing, online: buying, making errands, meeting, working, studying, dating, surviving. Unexpectedly fast, she got used to wearing slippers and sports clothes all day long except when some business meetings are scheduled. By the way, those meetings? They are turning into social gatherings where everybody brings up their nervousness, undue personal problems, and apocalyptic terrors on the table without taking care of what she or somebody else may need. Or want. Or wish. 

She still supposes that this catastrophic event would change people, but only a few began to behave more empathetically. Almost six months passed by and mankind still thinks everything is going to get back to normal, whatever that means. 

As for her, she has a terrible rash from time to time in the middle of her chest. She thinks it is due to the meteoritic dust, spread in every corner of every place on earth. Or it may be because of Bryce and his cowardly manner of leaving behind her humanity, not even asking if she was still alive. Days and nights have no other meaning than pursuing an endless loop of nonsense, awaiting for a strange newness to shake her existence in some way. In any way.

The last drop of aromatic coffee sinks in her cup and takes her out of the trance. The coffee machine spits some other unexpected little drops but they are weirdly light blue, not black. A minute later, it makes the distinguishable sound of fulfilling its duty. 

She unfolds her arm, takes the cupful, and smells the hot steamy infusion. Something is not right. She gingerly wets her lips and, while sipping an unflavored coffee, she thinks: "Well, maybe it's time to use that little button at the back, for real." 

She turns the device, touches the surface at the bottom to detect the tiny protuberance. "Was it so hard for the manufacturer to put a clear and legible sign here to show where the button is?", she moans to herself. "Oh, what the hell, I can't find it!" She keeps on caressing the coffee machine with the same attention she used to toy with Bryce. "Finally! Here you are, little bastard". 

Smoothly, she pushes the button. A bold sound thunders the air but...nothing else happens.

One hundred and sixty-nine days. Boring, chaotic, uncertain everyday life. Resigned, she throws away the liquid of her cup in the sink, prepares the machine for a new round and takes a magnifying glass to read the condemned miniaturized letters at the back of the coffee pot.

 They consigned in italics: "Reset only if reality sucks."

 (What the heck...!?)

Cyndi Viscellino Huergo 2020©Todos los derechos reservados