January 28th, 2017

While she was peacefully sitting on her bench, contemplating the strange words of the small child that had just left her, Teresa suddenly got yanked into a standing position by none other than Wisdom, who pulled her up with a grin, shouting “Come on, be quick!”

With no time to wonder where the hell this woman had come from all of a sudden, Teresa got dragged from the school yard.

“Don’t worry, she can’t harm you. We’ve already defended you a long time ago” Wisdom explained cheerfully, still pulling Teresa along, who hadn’t thought to be worried in the first place. “I’m getting you out anyway, just to make sure. She won’t really know what’s happening here because whenever she appears somewhere, her knowledge surrounding that point in space gets hazy. Because she’s influencing it herself, you know. A bit like with Fate. To no one’s surprise, actually, because Fate was her prototype, after all.”

Teresa understood absolutely none of what Wisdom said. “Wait, wait! Slow down. Who was that? Was that a relative of the Future? Her… daughter?”

“Okay, that should be far enough,” Wisdom said. “Hey sweetie, take it easy. Yes, yes, calm down, there we go,” she added as Teresa was completely out of breath and couldn’t even stand anymore. She stroked her back to reassure her and helped her sit down on the curbside. “Wait a second, didn’t you have a cap on or something? Your hair looks all flat at the top. Did we leave it behind?”

“It’s my favourite beanie,” Teresa panted.

“Well, it’s not a good idea to go back there. It’s best not to tangle with her. But…” She gave Teresa a very meaningful look. “… Feel free to tangle with me anytime! So if you ever feel lonely…!”

She did that even though she’d known Teresa since birth. Wisdom had no morals.

“I watched the Future steal something from a school girl,” Teresa mentioned to avoid the topic.

“How horrible!”

“Oh my god, Wisdom, would you stop clowning around! I’m serious. This is all so confusing.”

Suddenly, Wisdom gave Teresa an angry stare, taking her off-guard. “I am not a clown. If you ever insinuate such a thing again, I will blow you up and twist you into a butterfly shape.”

Teresa sighed. “I should have just stayed in bed, honestly…”

“Well, it’s too late for that now!”

Wisdom's cheerfulness had come back, and as Teresa stared into her teasing expression, she remembered something. “Oh, that’s right! You! You must think you are very funny.” She pulled out the note she’d gotten from the Future earlier. “If you have any questions, ask away!” she mockingly read the writing, “My ass! She didn’t reply a single time!”

“Oh, if you can complain, you can walk!” she said, pulling Teresa up. “Let’s go to the Future’s home. You’ll be safe there. I’ll even make you tea.”

No matter how much Teresa regretted her choice to visit Captivity Plaza to turn herself in to the Future, now she had to live with that choice forever, because Wisdom sure wasn’t planning on letting her go.

It started with her getting a hold of Teresa’s phone number, to swamp Teresa in messages to remind her of her upcoming meet-ups with the Future, and when she for the first time tried to flake on my poor sister, Wisdom would call her angrily, then go to her home in person. At some point, Teresa figured that resistance was futile.

On the other hand, if truth be told, Teresa enjoyed her time with the Future for what it was — an escape. An escape from everything. No students or colleagues trying to get a hold of her, no spokespeople from organizations or journalists, no letters she spent effort ignoring — just her, the Future, and some random stranger they could cast some magic on to get them to cry. And magic was the only word she knew to use to describe the incredible machinations the Future pulled off on a daily basis.

Of course, the Future still always stayed silent. Even though her appearance was incredibly off-putting, most people didn’t even seem to take note of her existence. Teresa herself sometimes had trouble keeping an eye on her. That said, she still felt at home around her, and the reason she did was because it seemed to Teresa that the Future also felt at home around her. Because after a while, it wasn’t Wisdom who stood by her bedside in her apartment in the morning to get her to wake up; it was the Future herself who went there to get her. And when she did, she looked at Teresa with her big doe-eyes and caused Teresa’s heart to sink to her pyjama-pants.

And finally, Teresa ended up being so involved in this new everyday life that she forgot to even consider skipping a day with the Future.

But, her frustrations didn’t subside either. In fact, her relationship with Wisdom got worse by the minute, because all Wisdom did was tease her about all those questions burning inside of Teresa’s chest. Let me give you some examples of exchanges that happened over the weeks:

Teresa: “By the way, what is your real name?”

Wisdom: “Wisdom. Yeah, I know. It’s just who I am, as a person!”

Teresa: “How old are you?”

Wisdom: “I’m turning 21 this year. Like every year.”

Teresa: “How long have you known the Future?”

Wisdom: “Good question, let me see… I think I met her for the first time like 90 years ago?”

Teresa: “What’s the Future gonna do with all those tears?”

Wisdom: “Oh, nothing big, those are just used as bathing water at our home. Don’t worry, if you ever donate a tear, I will make sure it touches ALL of my body parts!”

This went on until the end of April, when Teresa didn’t appear at a meet-up. It didn’t take long until Wisdom appeared at her home to see what had happened. And she found Teresa, ill and feverish, naked, in her bathtub, when she was trying to lower her body temperature with water.

“Oh my god, can I help you somehow?” Wisdom asked when she saw her but Teresa was too exhausted to even respond. She had overdone the cooling and now was shivering. “I’ll go make you some tea, sweetie. Be right back. Tell me if you need anything else.”

Teresa just let out a tired moan.

“Maybe it’s better if I get you home to us. I’ll be able to take care of you there,” she suggested, but Teresa just shook her head.

“I don’t want to pass it on to the Future,” she explained.

“Don’t worry about that girl. Even if she were to get sick, she could just ignore it. She only needs her willpower to move.”

Wisdom walked through the apartment to get something to wear for Teresa but came to the conclusion that there was no clean clothing anywhere here. “I’ll get you clothes when we’re home. The Future has some stuff that should fit. For now, just wear this,” she said, picking out some random slightly smelly laundry to throw on Teresa for the moment. “Let’s go when you’ve finished. You’re gonna be fine.”

“Okay. Thanks,” she answered, wrapped in her blanket, her hands closed around a big cup of green tea. In the meantime, Wisdom started tidying up Teresa’s apartment, but got sidetracked when she found some empty bottles to skilfully juggle with.

Not a clown, huh?, thought Teresa. “Done,” she coughed eventually. “I don’t think I can walk even a single step.”

“Nah, you can!” Wisdom claimed, taking Teresa’s hand to help her up. Then, she put her arm around her waist to support her. “Take my shoulder. I’ve got you.”

That’s how Teresa got a room in the Future’s home. It was a small two-floor house with a garden and a big shed next to it; the ground floor including the living room, the kitchen and the Future’s room opposite of the stairs, which led to the second floor containing the guest room now occupied by Teresa, Wisdom’s room, and the bathroom.

Teresa didn’t recollect much of her first week in that house since her illness had left her mind much too hazy to function. She slept day and night; sometimes, Wisdom would feed her and change her clothing, or wash her, and once, her bedsheets had to be changed because she’d thrown up in them. It took a while for Teresa to get to the point where she could walk again.

So, one evening, she went down the stairs to get something to drink from the kitchen, where she’d find the Future who was busy eating a thin apple slice coated in honey. Wisdom wasn’t home; she’d gone out to party.

On her way to the refrigerator, Teresa lost her balance, knocked over a chair and then shoved the Future, who in her surprise broke the apple slice in half. The viscous honey crept down her arm.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry,” coughed Teresa, but the Future just put the rest of the apple in her mouth and started licking the honey off her skin like a cat, completely unfazed. Then, Teresa realized that the shirt she was wearing — it was one that belonged to the Future, a white one with the letters “AITAI” printed on it in red, also had been sullied by honey. Great, she thought.

She hurried back to not bother the Future any further and went back to her room to continue sleeping.

A few hours later, she was woken up by whispers from the hallway. She felt awful but knew she wasn’t going to be able to sleep again. After breathing through her mouth the entire night because of her shut nose, her tongue felt like a 2 days old bread bun.

Steps from the hallway. Clock showed it was 4 am. Teresa got up to get some fresh air. Walking around tired felt like the better option compared to having more weird fever dreams.

Just as she’d left her room, she saw a naked man and a naked woman lying on Wisdom’s bed half asleep. They must have had a fun night. Wisdom herself wasn’t in there, though.

When Teresa passed the bathroom, she heard water running inside it, as well as the Wisdom’s soft humming voice. She went down the stairs to enter the living room she knew very well by now. It was stock full with books, and a piano stood at the window side, and a big couch in the middle. Teresa decided to read until she was tired enough to sleep again. Most of the books here she already knew, since over the past few months, she’d borrowed many of them to get through nights when she couldn’t fall asleep.

These books were mostly fiction, as Wisdom had a knack for that; there was only one shelf that belonged to the Future that was full of scientific textbooks as well as a good amount of journals with peer-reviewed publications, with subject areas such as physics, biology and mathematics. Teresa knew most of these studies already, so when she picked out things to read from here, it was mostly Wisdom’s side.

Before meeting the Future, Teresa never had any reason to read novels and stories. She’d always found scientific non-fiction to be much more compelling. Her favourite book of all time was an old encyclopedia listing endangered species with pictures and descriptions. Her second favourite was one listing animals that had already gone extinct.

Only now that she had access to this Wisdom-curated little library of fiction, Teresa had actually started reading any of it. For example, she’d been reading, over the past three days, little by little, a children’s book called Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. She’d known the name of that story for a long time, of course, but had never known its contents and knew basically nothing about it.

That said, it only took a couple of pages until Teresa started to recognize herself in it. Being thrust into a strange world defying all laws of nature felt all too familiar, because she’d still fallen short of finding a sensible explanation for all that had transpired since that evening in January. And now, she had to learn new rules from scratch. As frustrating as it was, it did reignite her lost curiosity, and with that, nurtured a small sense of purpose. While she was sitting on that couch, having the book in her hands, she remembered a small conversation she’d had with Wisdom the day prior, who had seen her read the story.

“Oh, you’re reading Alice in Wonderland!” she’d said with a smile, which strangely reminded Teresa of the Cheshire Cat.

“So you know this story?”

Wisdom dramatically acted like tearing her own hair out. “Are you serious? For one, who doesn’t? Also, are you really asking me whether I know a book you borrowed from me? That sickness must be worse than I thought. Let me call the hospital. They are never gonna let you out again.” She took Teresa’s wrist to feel her pulse. “Oh my god, it’s too late. I think you’re dead.”

Teresa blushed furiously. She had asked that question on auto-pilot and now regretted every word.

“Joking aside, yes, I know it, and I like it a lot! Children’s books always have this… magical quality to them, don’t they? Easy to read, and yet so profound.”

“Are they?” Teresa asked monotonously. “So, how does the book end? Is it worth reading?”

“Oh, you’re asking about the end?” Wisdom wondered. “Don’t you want to come to know it yourself? Where’s the fun in me telling you?”

“What are you on about?” Teresa asked, laying down on the couch. “It’s completely normal to show the results of a study in the first paragraph. Why would I want to read something if I don’t already know if it’s worth it? That would be a complete waste of time.”

“Well, you are talking about scientific studies. But stories are completely different now, aren’t they. A story is all about that slow burn. All about not knowing anything, and then, slowly, getting to know everything. That’s the whole fun of it.”

“No wonder reading fiction never really appealed to me. What if the end of a story is unsatisfying? I mean, sure, the books you recommended to me so far were good, including the endings. But I mean. What if I read a book and the ending is stupid? Then reading it would have been all in vain. It’s a blind bargain.”

Wisdom pulled up her eyebrows. “You think the end is the most important thing and the rest doesn’t matter?”

“Well, it is the most important thing,” Teresa affirmed. “The essential part about everything is always the conclusion. What’s the point of the story? What is it supposed to say? How does everything connect? When the book doesn’t achieve anything, when there is no coherent conclusion, or even worse, if it doesn’t conclude at all, then it’s pointless, right?”

“I have a feeling that you’re not going to like the end of Alice in Wonderland,” Wisdom mumbled.

“Well… for some reason, that does make me curious,” Teresa mumbled, even though this might have just been her distrust of Wisdom spilling out. “… Fine. I’ll finish it.”