Of greetings and goodbyes

Of course, what I was about to do bordered on idiotic, but at this point, no one—not even me—could be surprised by the level of idiocy I can handle in situations like this.
Or rather, no one would be surprised by the level of idiocy I can handle after a situation like the one that just happened.

Why did I choose the bridge and not the cemetery?
Different situations; different settings.
I wasn’t looking to vent, nor was I seeking some kind of absolution for the things I hadn’t done, which were significantly more than the things I had done.

I hadn’t forgotten Lyse, but as I said before, it’s a weight I’ll carry. Everyone has one, I think, so I’m not alone in this.
No one is.

There were no shadows dancing around the bridge, no eyes watching from beyond the human plane.
Just an abandoned bridge.
A round wooden table, a bit old and worn but draped with an overly ostentatious tablecloth.

A table.
Two chairs—one for her, one for me.
Two cups of tea: “hello” and “goodbye.”

“Eiji…” she said, gesturing for me to sit.

“Sereres…” I replied, taking a seat.

If I had to say something about this moment, I’d say the chair was pretty comfortable.“Pardon?” Her hand, reaching for her cup, paused. She looked at me and blinked once.

“Sereres.”

“What’s that?”

“Your name.”

“I don’t have a name, Eiji.”

“Everyone has one. Those who don’t, should. So I gave you one.”

She sipped her cup, as if contemplating something. “Why that name?”

“Because it’s a palindrome.”

“Like Aranara.”

“Exactly. Same, but different.”

“Still, I meant your choice, not the reasoning.”

“The first time I saw you was in the cemetery. It was raining, so I think that name sounds like rain hitting something.”

“Interesting choice…” Her eyes, captivating in their own way, were two black orbs that reflected nothing. “I’ll keep it, at least until someone gives me a better one.”

“As if that’s gonna happen…” I said, chuckling a bit as I picked up my cup.

Oolong tea, perfectly oxidized, slightly fruity.
No, it wasn’t poison, nor some weird potion—just well-made tea, which is almost as rare.
No one makes good tea these days. Everyone seems too rushed to do it right.

“Don’t you think someone could sit down for a drink with me and give me a new name, Eiji?”

“Honestly, no.”

“What about in a million years?”

“Not in a trillion years squared.”

“You’re being awfully harsh, Eiji,” she replied with a subtle mockery that held no malice. “Why do you think that?”

“Uh… fear, I guess. People fear death.” I extended the cup toward her.

“You’re right…” she added, refilling it.

“But they shouldn’t, don’t you think?” I asked. I set the cup on the table and leaned in a bit, careful not to put my elbows on it. You know—manners. “We see death—sorry, we see you, Sereres—as the culprit behind the end of every story, but looking at it another way, you just close a chapter.”

Her bluish lips paused just before touching her cup. “You really believe that?”

“Completely. At least now.”

“Why do you believe that, Eiji?”

“You know the answer.”

“I’m omnipresent, Eiji, not omniscient.”

“Aranara said you were omniscient.”

“Ah… in her head, anyone who knows more than her is practically omniscient.” She let out an empty laugh, devoid of humor, anger, or any emotion, really.

“In that case, I feel a bit omniscient.”

“What an idiotic comment.”

“Yeah, you’re absolutely right.” I picked up my cup again. “The why is simple—if no one feared death, a lot of people would be tempted to seek it out, to rush the story’s end, so to speak.”

“Like you.” She said.

“Like thousands,” I corrected.

She stood slowly, adjusted her chair, wiped her lips with a napkin, and walked to the edge of the bridge. Again, she only gestured for me to follow.

“Let me be honest—I was prepared for this to be more than just a ‘chat.’ I thought you’d come loaded with rage and insults that, though I’ve heard thousands of times, I’m not in the mood for,” she said, resting her hands on the bridge’s railing. Her eyes watched the small waves crashing below us, or maybe part of the town.

“For a moment, I considered it, yeah. But I don’t have a reason to, you know?”

“I gave Aranara a role more painful than you could imagine, Eiji.”

“I know.”

“Imagine someone slicing your brain in two with a knife that lost its edge long ago. Imagine it happening every minute of every day, for all eternity.” She turned her face just enough to meet my eyes. “Even then, I don’t deserve a torrent of insults, Eiji?”

“Even then.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not something you did just to cause her pain. It’s just that you—Aranara and you—are… dense.”

“Dense?” She laughed a little as she asked, that laugh, perfectly pitched, sounding like a couple of notes from a song never played.

“Yep… Aranara exists because you don’t understand how humans work, and in turn, her pain is our fault, not yours.” I lightly tapped the bridge’s railing. The faint clink of metal was the only sound, besides our voices, cutting through the night’s silence. “Life isn’t easy, though no one ever tells you that. Life has more pain than joy, more losses than wins—that’s true for everyone, to some degree. Some, like me, can’t handle the pain and decide it’s better to ‘close the book’ than ‘see how it ends’… our pain vanishes with us, often ignored. That’s why you gave Aranara that role, isn’t it?”

“…”

“I remember what she told me a while back—she remembers the names of every single person who took their own life.”

“…”

“What you did was an act of twisted empathy. I can’t blame you for not understanding us, but I can—and since I can, I will—blame you for making her carry the weight of what we, as humans, should.”

“I think this chat’s gone on long enough, Eiji.”

“You think? When’s the next time you’ll get a talk like this, or am I just too dense?”

“Yes, I think so. It’ll probably be thousands of years, if it happens at all, and yes, you are too dense.” Through her eloquence, her elegance, the firmness of her tone, I could see a desire—maybe she genuinely wanted me to spit venom at her.

“In that case, let’s get to the point…” I said, returning to the table.

I refilled the cups. The teapot seemed bottomless, which I appreciated, because the tea, in all honesty, was some of the best I’d ever tasted.
I chose to drink from her cup instead of mine.

“Time for ‘supply and demand,’ right, Eiji?” she asked as she sat, clearly noticing the cup switch.

“You make it sound like we’re corporate suits—how awful.” I faked a shudder while sipping the tea.

“Since you did something as absurd as giving me a name—which, don’t take this as likely, I might come to appreciate—I want to do something absurd too.”

“Tell me.”

“I can silence all that pain.”

“I’m listening. Go on.”

“But…”

[Of course there’s a “but.”]

“You’d forget her. Like Sayo and her family.”

“Pass.”

“Why? I’m offering to free her from the pain.”

“Yeah, but… Sereres… I’m just a selfish guy. I want you to ease that pain and let me stay with her.”

“Selfish indeed.”

“Exaggeratedly selfish. So I won’t settle for less.”

“What do you want, then?” she asked, eyeing her cup without touching it.

“Let her be just another death. Don’t tie her to people like me—no, better yet… how about giving her a new title?” I pointed to the other side of the bridge. “Make her the death of this town.”

“The death of this town?”

“Yeah, since she lives here, I want her to see for herself that not all deaths are painful farewells, that people don’t always scream in horror when they… well, see you. That there are lives, however few, that end fulfilled.”

“I didn’t expect that.” Her fingers tapped the table softly, like keeping a rhythm, almost like a clock. “What do you offer in return?”

“Let’s see… we could have meetings like this at least once a month…”

“Eiji,” she said, as if I were mocking her.

“Maybe weekly, if you want. I’d like to hear your stories too.” I finished the tea.

“Eiji,” she repeated, more serious, probably with a hint of annoyance.

“And when I die… which I hope is many, many years from now… you can let go of my hand.”

“Let go of your hand?”

Concern? I don’t think so, though I won’t rule it out.
Curiosity? I think so, almost sure.
Whatever it was, I’d proven that, even on a microscopic level, I’d stirred something in her.

“Yeah. Don’t take me to the other side when I die. Let me disappear.”

“Eiji, we’re talking about nothingness itself.”

“I know.”

“You still want that?”

“Don’t you see it as a fair trade? I’m asking for a lot—I have to offer as much as I can.”

“You won’t see her again when you die, Eiji. In fact, there’ll be nothing when you die.”

“I know, Sereres. That makes me want to spend more time here.” I showed her the empty cup. “Not exactly here with you, but with Aranara, with Sayo, and who knows? Maybe I’ll meet more people…” I set the cup down and stood. “Maybe you and I can have tea more often.”

“I can’t undo it once you leave this bridge, Eiji,” she said, not intending to stand, though her voice urged me to sit again.

“Sereres, have you seen Casablanca?” I asked, still walking—no, heading home.

“Eiji, I’m trying to make you understand there’ll be nothing for you when you die.”

“Did you see the movie or not?”

“I had the fortune of meeting Humphrey Bogart, so in a way, yes, I know the movie.”

“Great… then you know... we’ll always have Paris.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said, her eyes returning to the cup one last time.

“My cool line,” I replied.

I didn’t expect to keep talking, nor did I want to. I just wanted to get home.
I hoped Aranara was helping Sayo settle in, though I had a slight hunch they’d both be waiting for me to organize everything.
Sayo, because I was the one who offered, and Aranara because… well, she’s Aranara.

Not seeing her again… did that weigh more than the void itself?
Yeah, the first one, if I’m honest.
But something kept circling in my head over and over as I walked home. Sereres’ gray Montgomery didn’t seem as threatening as I remembered it the first time. She herself didn’t seem threatening—maybe because I didn’t push her to her limit, maybe because she didn’t have a limit to push her to.
I’d like to think my cool line did something.

Maybe, in truth, that gray Montgomery was something so simple it went over my head until now, it was simple, actually.
There’s no such thing as black or white, no absolutes. We live in a gray area we often fail to notice or, more often, misinterpret as something bad just because it doesn’t have the color we want.

Before I knew it, I was at the front door, hesitating about whether to go in or not.
No, nothing was out of place—it was exactly that that made me doubt whether to enter or spend the night in the garden.

The first thing I noticed was the kitchen in shambles. It didn’t take much to figure out who was responsible. On the table were three plates of “something” that looked literally like vomit.
Aranara was eating like it was nothing. Sayo, on the other hand, had her eyes glued to the plate, like she was staring at a corpse.

“You guys could’ve waited for me, right?” I said, slumping into a chair.

“Technically, it’s not a dinner if we’re not all together, so we’re not eating, and…” Sayo said, before her eyes returned to the plate. It was clear this was gonna give her nightmares. “I’m not eating this stuff.”

“Hey, it doesn’t taste that bad!” Aranara complained, not even taking the fork out of her mouth.

“This is vomit, Aranara… you forgot to cook the egg… the rice is sticky… I wouldn’t give this to an animal.” Sayo got up and headed to the fridge.

Looks like they’d gone shopping while I was gone. I wonder how that went, but… I’ve got time to find out next time.

“Sayo, come on, don’t be hard on her.” I grabbed her fork and tried what, in some other universe, might be tamago kake. Yeah, it was awful, and swallowing it was, I think, the greatest feat of my life.

“Where’d you go, Eiji?” Aranara asked, eating like it was nothing. We were really gonna have to keep her out of the kitchen, for our own good.

“Just… for a walk…”

“Just that?”

“Just that.”

Aranara tapped a finger to her temple. “I haven’t heard anything for a while.” She spoke with a smile.

“Glad to hear that.”

“What’d you do, Eiji?”

“Uh…”

“Eiji, what did you do?” she repeated, leaning her face closer to mine.

“I... gave Casablanca a sequel,” I said, laughing.

There aren’t answers for everything, and I don’t have answers for everything either.
There are probably things you want to know… sorry, I’m not like that guy on TV who showed how magic tricks were done. Sometimes not knowing adds its own thrill.
You probably want to know why I switched the cups. Well, sorry, I’m not gonna tell you just like that.

Let’s just say… 

I don’t like goodbyes.