Part Two — The Machinations of the Future

Wisdom and the Future Walk Into a Bar

You see — the Future didn’t live alone. The one who had greeted her in the night and was now, the next noon, waltzing into her room with a sheepish grin on her face, was her cohabitant called Wisdom.

I need to make something very clear before any of you get charmed by this creature:

She’s the villain. A really terrible woman. Without her, we would all live very happy lives forever. The birds would sing, the children would laugh. We’d be lying at the beach with our sister, no pesky girl to stand between her and us. There’d be rainbows weaved within the glistening rays of the sun as we’d enjoy our existence in neverending, beaming world peace.

Sadly though, Wisdom exists. Do not let yourselves be fooled by her cheerful nature!

Anyway, I digress. My sister’s room was incredibly bright. She had white clothes, white furniture, white walls. The midday light bounced around inside like a butterfly trapped in a box, powdering everything incandescent. It was just too bright.

Wisdom slowly crept towards my sister and found her, slept to ruins, lying within countless dishevelled blankets — or maybe just a single irretrievably disfigured one; the difference was impossible to make out.

“Hey,” Wisdom whispered into the Future's ear. “Wake up!”

When the slugabed barely moved, Wisdom pulled her white, green dotted nightdress. As there was still no reaction, she began to shake her mildly, eventually even tugging away the cushion from right beneath her.

As her head fell down onto the mattress, the Future opened her eyes a hair’s breadth wide.

“You know what they say, right?” Wisdom asked. “A healthy, balanced life leads to a healthy, balanced sleep. If you can’t find the motivation to get up, you might want to think about changing your ways! Come on, I made breakfast. Like, hours ago…”

After staring at her housemate for a few seconds, the Future eventually got up without saying a word. Wisdom put an arm around her waist to support her on their way into the kitchen. The table was all set; maybe almost too filled for just two people. The bread Wisdom had baked early in the morning was still a bit warm and lying beneath a cloth — a cloth she’d embroidered with a colourful picture of a large fish many years ago.

In fact, most of the food on the table that day had been made by Wisdom from scratch; be it the oat milk or marmalade or the various, to some extent experimental soy and bean based spreads, as well as the different vegetables from the garden she had grown and pickled in the summer.

“…”, the Future said at some point.

Wisdom looked up from the pancake that she had made in the morning using baking powder, flour, sizzled water and sugar. By now, it had gone cold. “Well, because I don’t want you to mess up your sleep schedule. I know I shouldn’t be the one to say this, considering what my own schedule sometimes looks like… but you are the one overexerting yourself. Even more so than usual, lately.”

“…”

“Yeah, exactly. You would have slept ’til the afternoon and then went on to your work as usual, coming back even later! It’s like an endless circle of demise.”

The Future poked a finger into the honey on her bread slice in order to taste it. It was honey from the hive in their garden.

“Even though it might not have sounded that way, but that was me begging you to stay home,” Wisdom said, her face turning a bit more serious. Her eyes wandered over the dark spots on her friend’s skin that were showing through the thin fabric. Of course, Wisdom had wanted to treat them the night before, but as always, the Future vehemently opposed any of that.

“…”

“Figured,” Wisdom sighed and gulped down a huge bite. “Well then, when are we leaving?”

The Future raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“What? After how you came back yesterday, no way am I letting you leave alone again… I’ll come with you.” She reached out to squeeze the Future’s hand. “So? Where are we going today?”

That’s how Wisdom (… every time I have to call her by that name I want to puke a little) came to accompany my sister on her travels for a while. I will spare you the details of their ‘adventures.’ It’s already a torment of my soul to know all of these stories myself — and since I am a people-loving philanthropist through and through, I don’t want to take part in spreading this agony.

Anyway, they managed to get quite a respectable amount of people to shed tears within the span of a mere few weeks. Although, actually it’s not that surprising after all, since just thinking about my sister spending so much time with Wisdom makes me want to cry, too.

Normally, Wisdom was just a lazy nymphomaniac lying on the couch or going out to party all the time. Thus, it was a bit unusual for her to take part in my sister’s endeavours. This tension was the reason why both of them knew that they’d have to find a replacement at some point, since Wisdom was not going to let her friend go out on her own all the time anymore. Yeah, I know what you are thinking… Wisdom really was an awful control freak.

Oh, I’m sorry, I should not be writing ill of my sister’s best friend. Because to do that justice would require more space than is left in this story. On the other hand, I have to say that she did take care of my sister somewhat during that time. That’s all I am willing to admit.

When I say “during that time,” of course, there is something associated with it that I already hinted at — a reason as to why my sister was so out of it back then, even leading to mistakes like her failing to get a person to return to their spouse in time, or accidentally getting shot at. And, while Wisdom back then didn’t know what had caused her friend’s turmoil — what had put the Future’s entire world upside down —, she absolutely knew that something was off. Because some things had changed. The Future slept much longer. She had started to collect tears for some reason. And she spent much more time in the daymaker now than she ever used to.

Another indication that Wisdom couldn’t help but notice was the state of the Future’s shed. It was a shed in the garden that contained all her stolen goods. And for the longest time, she had been adding more and more stuff to it. But now, for the first time ever, the Future started taking more things out of the shed than she added. A worrying trend, for sure.

Still, as much as Wisdom wanted to help, the lifestyle of following the Future wherever she went just wasn’t hers. Because of this she was pleased that after just a few weeks, a suitable successor happened to present herself out of thin air.

January 27th, 2017

“We’re gonna do the professor next, right?” Wisdom asked her housemate in the evening. She listened to the silent reply while shoving aside the rusty, squeaky iron gate that was overgrown by ivy. The path led to a small bar in the southern part of the town.

A spring-foreboding cool breeze sugared their hair in flower dust. While Wisdom herself seemed dressed a little too lightly, she had made the Future wrap herself in a big white anorak. They descended a few stairs to enter the pub.

“I’ve been waiting for this one all day. She’s gonna be a tough nut to crack, right? That’s why you’ve been procrastinating on her.”

“…”

“No use denying it. You mentioned this, didn’t you? That you wanted to meet her a few times but didn’t. Are you afraid she’s forgotten about you?”

The interior design of the bar was chaotic — a mess of different tables that stood too closely, as well as ornaments of completely different styles hanging all around the walls. There was a renaissance-style painting of Yggdrasil on one wall standing right next to a shelf containing nothing but modern Japanese comic books. Everything seemed like it was put together by a toddler pointing at things in a flea market.

While the interior design was completely overloaded, only a few people were actually inside. And most of them minded their own business. If not for the out-of-place techno music, the atmosphere may have seemed gloomy, since only the two hosts who were standing behind the counter even talked.

The Future cut through the rooms as linearly as the furnishing allowed her to and eventually sat down on a stool in front of the bar. Her choice of where to sit seemed a little peculiar, as there were six empty seats in front of the counter while only one was taken, and she sat down directly adjacent to that taken seat — which was occupied by a young Latina woman who was sprawled out over the counter next to her half-drunk orange juice. A second later, Wisdom sat down on the empty place to the right of the Future.

“Good evening,” said the well-built barkeeper and Wisdom nodded with a smile, while the Future ignored him and instead studied the plate of the counter: It was a marvel of construction work; centimetres thick epoxy infused with deep blue clouds and glittering little sparks within, making it seem like a deep ocean or a night sky full of nebulae. She let her fingers slide over the surface gently, sometimes increasing her pressure as if she wanted to dive in.

“Any orders?” asked the woman behind the counter as she was cleaning a few glasses to pass the time. None of these glasses actually needed cleaning.

“I want a banana smoothie,” said Wisdom.

“…” said the Future.

The woman looked back and forth between her and Wisdom a few times, seeming a little confused.

“She wants watermelon slush,” repeated Wisdom.

There was no such thing as a ‘watermelon slush’ on the menu. Still, the woman looked at the Future for a second, then smiled and said: “Okay!”

Teresa was still lying on the counter — head buried in her folded arms, just one eye a slither open to watch what was now happening beside her. She couldn’t help but feel a bit in awe at Halinka’s creativity as she slid the ‘watermelon slush’ to the new guest. The guest who had just invaded Teresa’s comfort zone by sitting down right next to her. Sigh.

A watermelon slush. She glanced over the drink. Halinka had mixed some red juice — probably that of a strawberry — with some green, heavy liquid that was now on the bottom of the glass. That plus a bit of other magic that Teresa didn’t understand, and now the drink really did look like a well improvised watermelon slush. Unbelievable.

Of course, now Teresa wanted one as well. However, there was no way for her to ever attain one, as that would leave her vulnerable to the start of a meaningless conversation. She saw it play out in her head: “Oh, now you, too? That girl seemed interesting, right?”

God, no. This was absolutely not happening.

Instead, Teresa just continued indulging in her own misery. Water melons were her favourite fruit, and that was the only reason she even opened her eyes at their mention. And now, she felt worse for doing even just that.

While Teresa still quietly looked at that slush, the companion of her neighbour somehow managed to entangle the barkeeper in a chat about the board game Go and how exciting it was that an artificial intelligence had finally beaten a professional player the year before.

She closed her eyes again and listened to their conversation absent-mindedly.

“Go is a lot about intuition, as it’s impossible to calculate all the moves even for a machine. It’s amazing that they got an AI to emulate that,” said he.

“Yeah. Kinda makes me want to play Go,” said the girl.

“I can only recommend it. I played a lot when I was small, my parents even drove me to tournaments.”

Teresa gathered all her strength to lift her head up and drink a bit more of her juice, staring into the glass counter. The newcomers had disturbed the calm atmosphere. Now, she didn’t feel very comfortable any more, and thought about just going home. Of course, she knew that it wouldn’t be any better there. She tried distracting herself by examining the small, starry dots buried in the glass.

“So, did you win?”

“Well, not really,” said the man. “Second place was an occasional occurrence, though! I actually have a board and game pieces in the back, in case you want to play a match.”

The woman smiled but shook her head. “I don’t know how to play. But, even if I knew how to play, I’m not sure if I’d have the patience.”

“What about your acquaintance?” he asked, nodding towards the quiet one.

Unbeknownst to Teresa, that quiet one was about to make an attempt to change her fate. Truth be told, all things considered, it was an incredibly well-engineered attempt; making use of not only an incredible prop, but also Teresa’s fazed and tired mind that had just been loosely activated by placing an order for an impossible drink, and the dark atmosphere of the bar and the design of its furnishings. It was quite likely the best attempt that could have been made that day. It tied Teresa’s distant past together with the reasons for her present pain, aiming to deliver what for any other person would likely have amounted to a final blow.

Wisdom laughed. “Well, you can play against her if you’d like. I imagine though it wouldn’t be very fun. Like playing against someone who always knows what move you want to make next. Very frustrating — and before you realize it, bam, checkmate!”

At that moment, the Future inconspicuously flicked a black pearl with a large, glistening highlight across the nebulous bar table right through her neighbour's field of view, like a radiant sparkle traversing through a starry heaven. Teresa’s eyes widened, as she saw the pearl roll over the table without truly registering it as what it was at point-value.

A shooting star, she thought in awe, feeling goosebumps as if she had just been submerged in a flush of warm, bubbly water.