04. He lay on the edge of the bed, his mind drifting through the haze of pain and confusion. He remembered talking with Lenny once, or maybe more than once, about memories. Lenny had explained it to him, clear and simple, in the way only a best friend could.
He closed his eyes, trying to recall. Lenny had said memories weren’t just snapshots. They were stories, the brain a storyteller, weaving experiences into a narrative. Each memory constructed, not recorded. He could almost hear Lenny’s familiar and comforting voice as if he were beside him.
Memories, Lenny had said, were stored through a process called consolidation. When something happened, it was first captured in short-term memory. But it didn’t stay there. The brain worked on it, reshaping, transferring it to long-term memory. This process could take hours, days even. The hippocampus, Lenny told him, played a crucial role. It kept these nascent memories, sending signals to different parts of the brain to store fragments. Sensations, emotions, details—all dispersed, yet connected.
Freaking nerd. They were just ten or twelve years old. At most.
Lenny also mentioned how memories were malleable. Every time you recalled something, you altered it slightly. The act of remembering was also an act of rewriting. Like a computer program or so. Information could be added, lost, changed. It was like telling a story over and over, each retelling a little different.
He thought about the night sky, the grass, the pain in his leg. Were these true memories, or were they becoming something else each time he tried to remember them? He wondered if Lenny’s words applied here, in this strange, liminal space. If his memories were shifting, evolving, as he lay there.
Frustration washed over him. If memories were so fluid, so unreliable, how could he trust what he remembered? Lenny had said our sense of self, our identity, was built from these stories. But what if the stories were wrong? What if the past he was piecing together was just a series of misremembered events, stitched together by his mind’s need for coherence?
He opened his eyes, staring at the wooden ceiling. The smell of pine and jasmine, the soft hum of the night outside. These were real, now. But would they become memories too, altered by time and recall? He felt lost, adrift in a sea of shifting recollections.
Moonlight’s footsteps approached, soft and deliberate. She entered the room, her presence a steadying force in his turbulent mind. Nadir wondered if she understood if she too was a keeper of stories, a guide through the fog of memory.
Lenny’s voice faded, leaving him with the uncertainty of his own thoughts. He would have to navigate this world, this purgatory of past and present, trusting in the process of remembering and the stories yet to be told.
05. He didn’t know how long he had been asleep, but the pain in his leg had faded, and his mind cleared. He was still in the same place where the man and the child had taken him in. Slowly, he sat up on the edge of the bed, looking through the window. Time seemed frozen. The clouds, the stars, the trees—everything was suspended in an unbroken twilight.
He stood up, at first distrusting his leg, then treading more firmly on what seemed like a wooden floor but wasn’t. It was hard to tell, so he didn’t hesitate to walk outside. For the first time, he took in the landscape. The grass was unnaturally green, almost synthetic. The hills appeared drawn, like one-stroke traces of pale green—no textures, no highlights, no contrast. He breathed deeply, but the act of breathing felt strange and hollow.
The house stood alone in the valley, though he could see distant lights from what seemed to be other houses. Why so isolated?
I see you standing straight, qué bien, came the voice of the old woman. He turned to see her holding a jar of golden jelly. It looked neither gross nor palatable. She noticed his interest.
Golden apples, she said.
What? Golden apple sauce?
The golden apples of the Hesperides.
Really? You’re kidding. Where am I?
They’re guarded by a dragon, and those who eat them gain immortality.
Who are you? I’m confused. I don’t remember much. I feel like I’m in a dream or another world. You look human, but nothing here is human to me. There’s no real fire here, so I’m not breathing air.
Clever. Where’s Moonlight?
I don’t know. I just woke up and came to look around and found myself in this… planet? But this isn’t a guessing contest. No reality TV.
Too bad she won’t see you before you go.
Go? Where?
He felt as if he were floating, a beach ball drifting in space. A silent wind blew him away, and he felt himself flying, his feet hovering above the ground. His body dissolved into the atmosphere, becoming air. He didn’t feel his limbs or see through his eyes. He was a whole eye, seeing all, being all. Lights wove through his pores, and he expanded into an ether. Fear had no hold over him. A peaceful sensation nested in everything he seemed to be.
Suddenly, he reincorporated into a three-dimensional form, human-shaped but still lightweight. He realized he was now under the shade of an oak tree. The man was sitting on a rock, gazing into the distant horizon as if contemplating a great work of art or a profound enigma.
I take it you wanted to see me, the man said. His hair was brown and long, his nose wide and protuberant. His skin seemed like all skin colors melted into one, and his tattoos glowed with a blue-neon complexion.
Yes, Nadir replied, feeling a sudden urge to cry.
06. In the soft twilight of that place beyond time, Nadir found himself on the threshold of existence, where the air seemed to hum with the echoes of forgotten songs. He stood in front of a bridge woven from threads of light, suspended over an abyss that was not dark but filled with a gentle, luminescent mist, indistinct at first, yet growing clearer as Nadir approached.
You must understand that you still have things to do before you can stay here, the man pronounced. He was serene, cloaked in simple robes that shimmered with some kind of ethereal light that became more obvious as they talked. His face, both youthful and ancient, bore an expression of profound calm. He might have been Jesus, or perhaps merely a messenger, an angel sent to guide the lost. His eyes, deep as the cosmos, held Nadir in their gaze, and a sense of peace enveloped him. And yet, Nadir thought that, according to what he used to think, none of this made sense.
Nadir, the figure spoke, his voice a whisper and a roar, reverberating through the space between worlds.
That’s not my name.
It’s the name Moonlight gave you. A thing without a name doesn’t exist. She named you into life.
My name is Zero.
I see. Now your thoughts are coming back.
Well.. yes… I believe so, yes.
Good. You have wandered far, treading the thin line between life and what lies beyond. Right now, the closer you get to that bridge the nearer home is.
Home is here.
Yes, but not yet.
Nadir felt words forming within him, questions rising like bubbles to the surface. Who are you? he asked, his voice a mere breath against the vastness.
I’m a keeper of moments, a guardian of the temporal threads that weave the tapestry of existence. Call me what you will—messenger, angel, or merely a guide. My name is unimportant; it is the message that bears weight.
So if the name is not important, according to what you said before, you might not exist.
Or I might be all in one with existence.
The time-being extended a hand, and in his palm lay a fruit, glistening like a captured star. This is the fruit of remembrance,” he said, “a gift for those who have glimpsed the edge of eternity. Taste it, and you shall understand the memories of your soul.
Nadir took the fruit, feeling its coolness against his skin, and as he bit into it, a flood of visions washed over him. He saw his life unfold in vivid clarity—the joys and sorrows, the fleeting moments of wonder and despair. Each memory was a thread, woven into the greater fabric of his being.
Tears welled in his eyes, not of sorrow, but of profound recognition. I see, he murmured, I see the path I have walked, and the paths I have yet to tread.
The time-being smiled, a gentle curve of understanding.
Good.
A warmth spread through Nadir, a fire kindled by the time-being’s words. He felt himself drawn back, the mist parting to reveal the distant glow of the world he had left behind.
Must I return? he asked, though he knew the answer.
Yes, the time-being replied, for your story is not yet complete down there.
As the light enveloped him, Nadir felt a hand upon his shoulder, a final touch of reassurance. Then a push down the bridge of light.
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