2+2=2?

Cover design: Sofia Tischenko

Edition: Wendy Soler

The characters and events depicted in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Dedication: To my beloved wife

Introduction:

Since I was a child, my mother introduced me to the amazing world of books. She helped me discover that magical moment when small, inconspicuous black symbols, scattered across the surface of a white sheet of paper, suddenly transform into vivid images of colorful and overwhelming adventures.

Today, after enjoying countless fascinating stories, I am daring to contribute my grain of sand and share my own story with you. I ask that you give a warm welcome to my characters and help them through the challenges that await them. Without further ado…

Chapter 1

“Victor, Victor…”

The voice grew weaker and weaker until it collapsed into a dense silence. The world vanished and only a mere awareness of the essence remained: ‘I am…’, ‘I exist…’ and nothing else. Zero thoughts, emotions, sensations. Everything vanished. I found myself suspended in a dimension without time or space. Dimension Zero. An eternal instant. At least that is how it was recorded in my memory. Suddenly the void exploded, fragmenting into infinite, sharp splinters of pain, which implacably nailed into my head. Reality was regaining space, and not in the noblest way.

“Be careful, don't rush.”

“Lift his head.”

“His blood pressure is dropping. Take him straight to Orma Hospital. Are you his relative?”

“No, but I'll go with him.”

“Follow me. Your name?”

“Elia.”

I tried to open my eyes, but my strength failed me and the world began to spin, but it did not go out. Beep, beep, beep, it is getting closer, beep, beep, how annoying, beep, beep… How insistent! Beep.

“He's coming back to his senses, call Dr. Pedroso.”

I tried to open my eyes again, but something insisted on keeping them closed. My mind was in chaos under the ominous symphony of the impertinent beep, which kept hammering my out-of-tune neurons. The attempt to examine the rest of my body did not bring very encouraging results. I had no strength for anything.

“He's improving well, if he continues like this we'll change his treatment tomorrow. Who's coming on duty today?”

“Jimenez.”

“OK, I'll see him before I leave. Mercedes, please tell his family that he's out of danger. Good night.”

“See you tomorrow, doctor.”

The voices faded away. I spent the night restless. At times it felt like I was somewhere else. It must be because of the fever.

The next day I was surprised by a sweet caress on the cheek.

“Elena?”

“Shhh, don't strain yourself my love.”

My aching body confirmed to me that what happened was not a nightmare.

“Where am I?” I asked in a hoarse voice.

“In the hospital, you had an accident. How do you feel?”

“My eyes…”

“They are bandaged.”

She was going to tell me something else, but at that moment a loud argument in the hallway left her speechless.

“But, ma’am, it will only be a minute. Just to take a quick look, and then we’ll leave,” echoed the unmistakable bass of Rafael, my crew chief.

“Please understand, ma'am, we escaped from work to come early, we can't just go back like that.” That's Pacheco, the plumber.

“We are going to behave.”

“Won't take but a sec.”

“He won't even notice.”

“We won’t disturb, I swear.”

Almost all my colleagues were there, excited like children. With the naive hubbub of high school children, they were breaking down the nurse's brave defense. Apparently the attack was successful, as the door rang and silence fell.

“Look ! There's our hero” said one almost in a whisper.

“Hello,” that was the greeting to my wife.

“How is he?”

“Did he wake up?”

“Did he say anything?”

“They made him look funny. He looks like a mummy from the Saturday night movie.”

“Who told him to challenge the KP3 1? He got off pretty well. The bike didn't make it.”

“They say that a child had crossed his path…”

“Yes, right on the intersection. He was just leaving the job site.”

“Those children playing in the middle of the street…”

“ What did the doctor say? Is he doing better? Yes? That's great.”

“Hey, you said just for a minute.”

“Yes, yes... we're leaving now.”

“Yes, let's go.”

“Sure. Let’s go, Serrano must be there furious by now…”

“Hope he gets better soon!”

“We'll stop by tomorrow after work.”

“See you later, ma'am, take care of him.”

Trying to be as quiet as possible, the surprise visitors left.

“Your colleagues are tremendous. Miracle, you turned out to be calm.”

She tried to act confident and cheerful, but the suffering of a sleepless, desperate night, not knowing what to think, and a silent reproach for neglecting myself, was evident in every word. What I had heard, as well as what I was beginning to remember, was enough to picture how I was doing, and to imagine how she was feeling.

“I'm sorry.”

In response, she took my hand in hers and squeezed it with surprising strength. She kissed it and stayed there without pulling away, as if she wanted to protect me from what had happened. My fingers became damp with her tears, spilling straight from her heart. I knew just how much she loved me.

The annoying beep took off running, faster and faster.

“Oh dear, I’m sorry, I…didn’t…! Oh, what did I do, instead of… look! Please calm down. Nurse!”

Light, hurried footsteps approached the bed. The beep was becoming unbearable.

“It was my fault. I, well, couldn’t hold on and…”

“He is still very weak. Any strong emotion can hurt him. Please, you will have to leave us.”

“Of course… when…?”

“I'll let you know, don't make him talk.”

My wife walked out silently as everything began to drift away.

“Maria, locate Jimenez. Urgent!” That was the last thing that reached me during the accelerated descent.

“No, don't go. Elena!”

“He's moving his lips, he's talking. Please call the doctor.”

“What did he say?”

“I don't know, the only thing I understood was: ‘Elena.’

I was weak, but in much less pain.

“Elena,” my voice was barely audible.

“Elena ? Are you calling someone?” a young female voice asked.

“My wife. Has she left already? How long was I unconscious?”

“Well, this is the first time I've seen you conscious since the incident.”

“What?! What do you mean since the incident?”

To my surprise, my eyes were not covered. So everything else was just a figment of my imagination? The visit of my colleagues, of my wife…? I was confused. I felt strange. I tried to raise my head to see better. In vain, my muscles did not respond.

“And my wife? How long have I been here? Does she know? Which hospital am I in?”

“Wife? Are you married? We don't have any information about it in our database.”

“What?!”

I made another effort to get up.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of locating her. ‘Elena’, right?”

“What do you mean, locate her? What shift is this?” I was getting upset.

“Please relax; you shouldn’t strain yourself…”

The feeling that something didn't fit was getting stronger and stronger, and being lost and helpless was starting to get on my nerves. My surroundings had changed: the tedious beep was gone. The atmosphere around me was different. Quieter? I don't know, the air too... Yes, the air was different.

“Where am I?”

I imagine the look on my face worried her.

“Please don't worry, your are in the hospital, you are fine, well, better. I've already sent for the doctor.”

“What hospital?”

“Orma Central Hospital.”

“Or … What?”

“Orma”

“Where is that?”

“In Pirson, at the foot of the mountain.”

I couldn't see her face, but from the tone of her voice, it didn't seem like she was mocking me. But what she was saying didn't make any sense. Was I dreaming? Too real. Or not?

“Pinch me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Pinch me, hard” I said, lowering my voice.

In order to hear me, she came so close that I could see her face. She was a young woman of about twenty-five. She had fine features. Very pretty, despite the trace of worry that reflected her face. During a few moments she remained motionless, staring at me. That image of her expressive brown eyes on her sun-tanned face, fringed with dark brown hair and highlighted by a white sports suit, was worthy of being perpetuated on a canvas.

The magic shattered abruptly at the echo of the doctor’s voice. The yang woman sat up hastily, and my pinch was a thing of the past. ‘If it is a dream, I want to remember it when I wake up’ I thought, and had to drop the subject, for my attention was completely occupied by the rigorous medical examination. At the end, Dr. Redmond called for the young lady.

“The patient must be very grateful to you. You saved his life…,” the doctor began to tell the young woman, when a uniformed man in his fifties entered the room. His small, penetrating eyes scanned everyone present.

“Good morning, I’m Detective Maonsin. I’d like to ask you some questions,” he said, checking his notes on his glasses. “Is Elia Tian here?”

“Yes, it's me.”

“As I see in the report, you contacted the emergency agency, correct?”

“Thats right.”

“Are you a relative of the patient?”

“No,” my enigmatic caregiver replied timidly. My gaze seemed to make her feel less confident. Since I was now half-seated, I could observe her better. “I was the one who found him.”

“Found him? Are you referring to the scene of the incident?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know him? Do you know any of his relatives?”

“No.”

“Do you have any idea what might have happened? Did you see anything unusual? Did you hear anything?”

“The door of the cabin was open and there was a smell of burning.”

“Anything else you would like to add to the investigation?”

“I can't think of anything else right now.”

“Okay, thank you very much. Here's my card, in case you remember anything else. You can leave if you want.”

I didn't want her to leave. I’ve got a ton of questions I was eager to clarify, but I didn't know how to make her stay. Luckily, she took the initiative.

“Can I visit him tomorrow?”

“Of course. Visiting hours are from four to seven in the afternoon,” the doctor replied, finishing his notes.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Take care”

“Well Mr…” continued the man in uniform.

“Labrada. Victor Labrada” I replied.

His eyebrows raised for a moment but were quickly returned to their place, restoring his usual expression.

“Why don't you tell me about the incident that happened at your house, were you assaulted?”

“No, no. It was an accident. And it wasn't at the house. It was on the way home. I was leaving work on my bike, as I always do, and when I got to the intersection, a kid ran into me, chasing a ball. Trying to dodge him, I heard a screech of brakes and lost consciousness. My colleagues say it was a KP3.”

The doctor and the guard exchanged glances and the doctor gestured him toward the hallway.

“Please rest, Mr. Labrada.”

The door closed, handing me over to myself. Only after they had left did I realize that I had told them about the real accident. I still had to find out what happened to me in the dream. I had plenty of time to think and hypothesize. Only the nurse would occasionally interrupt my thoughts, checking that everything was in order.

After a while, sleep began to overcome me and I closed my eyes.

But I couldn't sleep. A powerful horn from a car, followed by a desperate: ‘JOSEFINA-AA! Can you harry down already?’ was the music that caressed my ears and made me… wake up? Yes, wake up. The atmosphere of my beloved Havana was unmistakable. I perceived it with all five… well, with all the senses I had available at that time. ‘Sweet dream,’ went through my mind. The pain, apparently dulled by painkillers, didn't take long to arrive, and the familiar beep greeted me with its harmonious monotony. My return to the world of the living wasn’t immediately noticed, so I had time to examine myself and get my bearings. My head was cloudy, but the eye bandage had been removed and I could see a vast piece of ceiling. Or rather: a false ceiling. I also counted the squares that made it up n times within my sight. Twenty-three and a half. What a waste of time! Agree, but believe me, it was the only entertainment I had at that time. Oh, and gossip. Yes, I don't think I've ever heard so much news in such a short time in my life. In a little while, the two nurses went around Havana. They analyzed, evaluated and judged everyone from the neighbor next door to the country's top officials. They debated hot topics in the national and international arena, they made a broad critique of the last chapter of the soap opera, to which they invented four endings, they discussed fashion, they made plans for the future and, still getting up, one of them said to the other in an apologetic tone: ‘Oh, friend, we'll talk later. Let me check the bed forty-three, that must be running out of oxygen. See if the slacker of Jorgito brought up another oxygen tank’. I think that the Granma newspaper with all its journalists and Radio Reloj with its twenty-four hours of transmission, fell short of such efficiency.

After a while the doctor came by. He congratulated me on my good mood and told me to keep it up, irritating me with his impeccable mastery of answering all your questions without really telling you anything. I had no choice but to calm down and settle for what I already knew.

The doctor went to his next patient, leaving me alone. In this busy life, it’s all about work, work, work. After work, you rush to sort out this or that, and you barely have a chance to pause and be with your loved ones. And now, I honestly didn't know what to do with all that free time. I spent it going through my memories from childhood to the fateful day of the accident. I was returning to my routine at the false ceiling, when suddenly and very inconveniently, I got an itch on the sole of my foot. No matter how hard I tried, immobilized by numerous bandages, I couldn't find a way to scratch it. I tried to ignore it, but it got stronger and stronger. To top it off, there was no one around and I didn't want to scream. What a frustration. My release was the prompt and very timely arrival of my wife. When I saw her, before greeting her, before letting her say a word, I shot her through my teeth:

“It itches!!!”

It took her a few moments to understand, and when she did, she burst out laughing. Wiping away her tears with one hand, she used the other to alleviate my emergency. What a relief!

I spent a very pleasant time in the company of my wife. She looked after me with so much love and tenderness that she managed to distract me from my critical physical condition. I convinced myself once again that I had not made a mistake almost ten years ago in saying ‘yes’ in the church. A few minutes later, fulfilling their promise, my colleagues came by. They were not allowed in, but they were able to greet me from the door. And finally, my father-in-law brought my children.

“Please, relatives, leave the room,” the nurse's voice rang out in a tone that allowed for no contradiction.

“Take care, my love, don’t do anything foolish.”

Silence was restored. Reflecting on how I spent the day, I remembered, among other things, that I didn't get to tell Elena anything about the dream. I imagine she wasn't going to let me do it anyway so I wouldn't strain myself too much. Tomorrow I will definitely tell her about it, even if it's in three words. Finally my eyelids filled with lead and, accommodating myself as best as I could, I surrendered into the arms of Morpheus who slowly took me to…

“Good morning. Time for breakfast. I can't let you sleep any longer. The doctor is coming soon and you have to be in a good shape.” I heard a voice that was getting clearer and clearer.

“A joke,” I said to myself. I didn’t have a watch, but my wife left around six in the evening, plus the time I spent meditating, it must have been nine at the latest. But the voice kept insisting and I had no choice but to give in. With a terrible look on my face I opened my eyes, and then I had to open them even wider. Before me was… the dream. Yes, but not the same dream, but the dawn of the next day where I had left off the night before. It was the continuation of the other dream as clear as if it were in real life.

“Sorry, was I here yesterday?”

The nurse, a lady of about forty, flitted perfectly into the Russian saying that goes: ‘There must be plenty of good person.’ Everything about her was soft, from her hands to her heart. And with that kind of way that grandmothers usually have with their grandchildren, during the ’Why?’ stage she answered me:

“When I came in this morning, you were already there, and according to yesterday's shift, they brought you the day before yesterday afternoon.”

Everything matches, incredible. How can this be? I've never heard of dreams that last from one day to the next, and certainly not with such consistency!

“Excuse me, I need to replace your blood collection kit. It might bother you a little.”

“Aa-ay!”

“What’s wrong?”

“It hurt!!!”

“I’m sorry, sir. It is a very necessary procedure in order to administer your medications…”

But I had ignored her comments. It hurt! And so real. The sensation of the needle in my skin felt all too vivid. What if I wake up? How do you wake up in a dream? I haven’t tried. Is it possible? What if I don't play along with the dream? ‘What if it’s not a dream?’ suddenly crossed my mind. So what is it? Am I delirious? I don’t seem to be, I feel… well I don’t know how one feels when delirious.

“Please turn your head a little, I'm going to change the bandage.”

I mechanically subordinated myself, immersed in my thoughts. And when will it end this time? What if it doesn't? I have to wake up sometime, don't I? This last thought calmed me down and I decided to go with the flow. Besides, I wanted to see the young lady and hear her story of how she found me, who she is and what she thinks I'm doing here. It's a little absurd to demand so much from a dream, but I had nothing to lose and not much to do.

“How do your hands feel?”

“What?” I asked distractedly “ah, the hands” I looked at them.

They were enclosed in a kind of rigid sleeve that covered most of the forearm and wrist, leaving the fingers free. An electrical cable extended from each device. In the middle was a screen that displayed different symbols and figures in constantly changing colors.

“Pretty good” I replied.

“Can you move your fingers?”

That was more complicated. They barely moved, but I didn't feel any pain. I told her so.

“You have peripheral nerve blocks. Start doing exercises. Little by little. According to the doctor, it may take several weeks to regain movement. In the meantime, you will be fed like babies,” she concluded, taking my breakfast from a mobile table.

“Please open your mouth, am …”

Wow! How far back does that take me? To when I was One? Two? I remembered that video from the family archives, where my mom, with all the patience in the world, fed me. She had developed a great skill in making sure that most of the food ended up in my mouth and not on my cheeks, nose or even in my hair. And look at me now, going through the same experience again. How life has its twists.

“Take your time. Are you comfortable? Should I lift you higher? No? Okay, another…good.”

It was a cream with a pleasant taste, perfect for these occasions. A little later the doctor arrived and I spent another rather entertaining time.

“Well,” he said to the nurse at the end, “prepare what is necessary for his next recovery at home.”

The dream is getting interesting. I am going to visit ‘my home’. When I wake up I have to tell Elena about it for sure. I spent the afternoon watching strange television, listening to strange music. In short, everything was strange. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. To my disappointment the young lady did not come to see me and that made me a little sad. I felt alone in this unknown world. The nurses were the only people who visited my habitat from time to time, but they were quite busy and did not have time to chat. I had to make do with the TV. I was awake all night. I thought about my family, I missed them. How were they? Of course I will know when I wake up. But when will it be this time? I thought about my work, about my colleagues. And I tried to remember in detail how the damn accident had happened. And about many other things.

So, between the television and reflections, dawn had arrived, and with it the doctor escorted by two nurses. One of them held a kind of thick quilt in one hand and a coat in the other.

Right! I was supposed to be discharged today. How could I forget? But who is coming to get me? And that coat?

“Good morning” said the doctor “How are you doing today? I hope you have felt well cared for in our hospital. You will now be able to continue your recovery in a more pleasant, comfortable environment at home. Given the complexity of your injuries, I recommend that you be attended to and monitored by a professional nurse. If you have no objection…?,no? Perfect. Miss Tian,” he said to the nurse that was holding the coat, “please come forward. She will take care of you from now on.”

She came closer and then I recognized her.

“You?!” I was surprised.

“Why not?” she smiled.

“But she wasn't the one who...”

“Yes,” the doctor smiled too “your rescuer.”

“I was on vacation. Solo mountaineering.”

“And since you live in such an intricate place, and she loves the mountains, “the doctor continued, “and is faithful to her duty...”

“I will unite vocation with the knowledge of life in the heights.”

I must have looked like a fool, because as she covered me with the quilt, she said to me in a playful tone.

“Don't worry, you're going to be fine.”

And there began the most incredible adventure of my life! Well, of my dream.

With the speed and precision of each movement I was transformed into a moving object. With the mastery and skill of professionals I was transported to the elevator. Everything was going well until we reached a door marked ‘ambulances,’ when it opened, a strong chill hit my lungs. It took me a few seconds to adjust to the sensation. My eyes were watering and I preferred to keep them closed. I think it was the first time I remembered fondly the stifling heat of Havana. Luckily it didn’t last long, because they put me in the ambulance. The surprise awaited me when the vehicle whistling and shuddering swung through the air. It was a helicopter. I couldn’t complain. I didn’t know what it was like to fly in a real helicopter, but the one in my dream felt fantastic. With the help of my new nanny I was able to look out the window. Below stretched out to the horizon a huge city painted white. ‘Snow,’ I thought and I was right. I’m going to see snow. I was excited. I looked like a boy with a new toy. For a while I completely forgot that I was dreaming and I had a lot of fun. The ship changed course, and majestic mountains with their white peaks dazzling in the sun replaced the labyrinth of streets. A few minutes passed and below us a lake spread out surrounded by a carpet of pine trees, from dark green to almost blue. I was fascinated. Neither the screen nor the photos really reflect the full splendor of these places. And it was here, according to my address, that I had chosen to live. In a wooden cabin, on top of a hill, which from the air looked like a toy. The descent began. A little away from the main building I saw a concrete circle with another ship. I decided to pretend that everything was fine, until I was alone with my nurse, and then to get even by bombarding her with questions. It was logical that I was seeing this house for the first time, but I did not want to create confusion. So with the exclamation ‘Home, sweet home’ I allowed them to put me in 'my' bed. The ambulance left and the silence was pleasantly soothing. I looked around.

“Yesterday I tried to organize it as best I could. I don't know if it's okay. Everything was full of glass. There's still a burning smell. If you'd like, feel free to share what happened. I found you a few meters from the entrance, lying in the snow” my nanny was telling me as she was putting things away.

‘Nice dream,’ crossed my mind as I looked around the house, and I caught myself thinking that I liked the environment. My gaze passed over the shelf with long rows of books, made in the old-fashioned way. On the other side was a large table, filled with towers of papers, which contrasted quite a bit with the ultra-modern design of a computer. I kept looking around and my attention was caught by the mirror on the door of the wardrobe, large and impeccably clean. And there, right at that very moment, my beautiful dream, in less than a blink of an eye, became my worst nightmare. My hair stood on end, my heart jumped in the middle of my chest and ran away. From the mirror, another completely unknown man looked at me. And that man was in the bed. And that man was me!!! A bolt of lightning pierced my mind, making it explode into tiny pieces. A tornado was passing through my brain, destroying everything in its path, throwing into the air disordered fragments of images, thoughts, sensations, and after playing with them for a few seconds it threw them with uncontrollable fury in all directions as if they were to blame for being in its path. The lightning did not stop illuminating with its fatalistic light scenes of the chilling disaster.’Up’, ‘down’, dimensions and limits disappeared. Everything trembled under the influence of a gigantic battle between two titans, turning into a cataclysm. A wave of memories invaded me and an alien consciousness began to displace me. The fight for space continued. It was as if someone suddenly saw you inside, everything you are, what you think, found out about all your memories and at the same time the same thing was happening to you.

“Who are you? Get out of my head!”

“That's what I'm telling you!”

“You got in here. Where the hell did you come from?”

“I'm in my head and the owner here is me!”

“No, me!”

Finally, a fusion occurred and remained me? Or me? Neither one nor the other. Remained ME. It's hard to describe. I didn't even understand it. It was me, but as if I were double. That state made me sick. I don't know how long I spent trying to control myself, or to control us. I felt doubly naked. I felt... I don't even know how I felt. It was terrible. Only now, after a dubious and insecure truce had been established, forced by exhaustion, was my brain able to pay a little attention to the outside world. I was suffocated, lying on the floor in the middle of the room, bleeding from my nose. When I looked up, I saw Elia huddled in the corner, and from her expression I could tell that what had happened was truly shocking. You don't easily scare a nurse who spends her holidays alone in the mountains. My strength had left me. I couldn't move a muscle. I lay prostrate, with my eyes wide open and breathing heavily. All my wounds were screaming in pain. She stood still, not daring to take a step and not taking her eyes off me. She was trembling. I don't know how long we had been like this. The moment came when the impulse to help me prevailed over fear and, getting on her knees, she began to examine me with her hands still trembling.

“Blood pressure 180/120. Heart rate 123. Saturation 97. Superficial skin lacerations. Capillary bleeding. No fractures or dislocated joints detected. No signs of internal bleeding…” she confirmed out loud, trying to concentrate.

“There is no need for hospitalization,” concluded and went after her suitcase.

My brain was blocked. I perceived everything but did not react in any way. I only noted the facts and nothing else. After carefully treating me, she arranged me in her sleeping bag. She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. Meanwhile, a fierce battle was taking place in my head to restore order and internalize the new situation. During the course of the day, Elia tried to talk to me several times, but I had closed myself off and barely listened to her. When I came to my senses, it was already night. My table lamp was shining on my caregiver who had fallen asleep on a book. ‘Brave,’ I thought, remembering what she had to face today. I wanted to wake her up, so she could go to bed, but I was not prepared to face her. At dawn I still had many doubts. But I was sure of one thing: what was happening was not a dream, and that by closing my eyes here, I would open them there. I spent a little more time preparing for that moment, to finally give my weary body its well-deserved rest.

Chapter 2

The immediate awakening in Havana was no longer a surprise to me. It was the perfect confirmation that the dream of two generations became reality. Although not in the way my father and I thought. We only wanted to create a subspace that would allow us to use our abilities to the fullest and would give us extra time, so we could take advantage of our hours of sleep. But discovering another world and being part of it without losing the connection with your own, exceeded all expectations! It was spectacular. And I confess that it cost me a lot of work to dissimulate and spend the day in the hospital without raising suspicions. I was eager to return to my nook lost among the mountains and fully immerse myself in my laboratory. Review the calculations and try to understand what had happened. I was needing to share my excitement with someone. It was too big for me alone. I knew that the only person I could try it with was my 'brave doctor'. That’s what I called her. The day was coming to an end, and I didn’t feel the slightest bit tired. The more irritated I became, the less I could sleep. A portable radio was the solution. The soft music alternated with sections of poetry transmitted by Radio Encyclopedia with its relaxing effect and...

Eureka! A tasty food smell was bothering my nose. Yes, food. It didn't smell like something made in the food printer. Was she actually cooking? No, I don't think so. It must be some new recipe she downloaded from the net. I'll ask her to save it in his memory among the favorite dishes.

“Home sweet home!” I exclaimed, and this time I truly meant it. It was strange. It was strange to have someone else inside these walls. For years, no one but me had ever come through that door. Only once in the time I have been in this house has someone else been here. It was a mountaineer who had gotten lost due to bad weather and asked me for shelter. It was fun and we had a good time, but I breathed a sigh of relief when he finally left.

Many years spent in research gradually turned me into a hermit. I wasn't used to going out often. I only interacted with the outside world when necessary. I think it was only my physical state and my experience with Elena, gained from Victor, that prevented me from being harsh with my nurse. This allowed me to enjoy the good sides of companionship, overlooking things I would normally not tolerate, like letting someone disorganize my belongings in their own way and disrupt the order I had established for a long time. I could not deny that it felt good to be taken care of, seeing my lair becoming a decent place. The trail of clothes and shoes in the corner disappeared. The books and papers suffered being piled and compressed in straight and compact columns, stuck together in perfect alignment, after I had accustomed them to being spread all over the table and sometimes even on the floor. The windows became transparent, revealing the beautiful landscape, framed by the curtains that had regained their original color. The dust disappeared, the cobwebs in the corners and the collection of socks that adorned the back of my bed. And now that smell coming from the kitchen… ‘She’s just doing her job,’ crossed my mind. ‘As soon as you recover, she’ll leave.' But I pushed those thoughts away and, making myself more comfortable, I was enjoying my domesticated home. Suddenly I heard her soft footsteps approaching, and before she saw me I pretended to be asleep, imagining how she would wake me up. I was already starting to get worried, because time was passing and nothing. Didn’t she come to wake me up? How late is she going to let me sleep? I’m already hungry, and with that smell, even more so. ‘But she doesn’t know.’ ‘Then she should imagine it!’ I was about to wake myself up, when a beautiful instrumental filled the room, and for a moment I regretted not being truly asleep, so that the effect would be complete. It was my exquisitely equalized audio system pouring out the magical sounds of Dawn, a masterpiece by F. Doks. Good taste, if I had to choose a piece to wake up to, it would be this one. She was sitting in the chair gently swaying to the rhythm of the music.

“Good morning,” she said carefully, then paused. “How are you feeling?”

I felt good, and I told her so.

“With your permission, I will examine you.”

During the check-up and technical maintenance, she kept looking me in the eyes, as if trying to understand something.

“You don't seem worried about the attack you suffered yesterday. Is this something usual for you? Do you have any illness that is not reported in your medical history?”

“No” I answered. “It was my first time. By the way, I want to apologize for the bad time that I put you through. I am partly to blame for what happened.”

“I don't understand. Did you cause it? Did you do something, take something?”

In that moment the excitement went to my head. Yes, I was very excited, because I was going to share, to announce the most remarkable and the most transcendental achievement of my life as a scientist. I was going to reveal the great secret that I had kept locked away for years within these walls. And she, not a council of illustrious scientists, not the government, not the fat colonels and generals, she, my brave doctor, is going to be the first human being after me to know that there is a world apart from this one. And that it is not in the distant galaxies, but here, on this very planet, in a different temporal dimension.

I realized I had so much to say, I didn't know where to start.

“My dear doctor!” I began nervously.

“Nurse,” she said to me, smiling.

“No. My brave doctor. Because, if after what you went through yesterday, you are still here, it's because you are very brave. I highly value the effort you are making for my recovery, including the transformation you have made in my house. And that's not to mention that I owe my life to you. If it weren't for you, I might not even be buried. Wild animals would have devoured my body.”

“Don't even mention that,” she replied, shaking her head as if wanting to scare away that vision.

“You, as far as I can understand, are a mountaineer. You know better than I do that a small mistake in these places can be costly. And you know very well that the probability of you finding me alive in that sea of snow is practically zero.”

Flushed and troubled, she lowered her head.

“But yesterday you were in danger again! And this time I didn't know what to do. I've never even heard of such a thing. This morning I had a telephone consultation with the doctor, but he couldn't tell me anything definite. I even made an appointment with a psychiatrist, who by the way should be here in about two hours. And now you tell me that you brought it on yourself!” she said with strong notes of reproach in her voice. “Your body could not have resisted!”

‘She was scolding me,’ I thought. She was really worried. She was making me feel guilty.

“It wasn't on purpose. I didn't expect it myself. I assure you that it won't happen again. And please cancel the psychiatrist's visit. I promise to behave. What I have to tell you is very serious and very complicated. And since you, without intending to, have played an important role in making this dream of many years come true...”

“What are you talking about?”

“I will explain everything. But first please cancel the visit, and if it is not too much to ask, I would like to eat something…”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, rising to her feet, “what a head I have! How could I forget? I made some soup. I'll bring it to you right away.”

“Soup? In the printer?”

“No,” she answered a little tensely, “on the stove. I hope you don't mind. I had won a traditional cooking class and finished it with good grades, but since then I have hardly been able to practice. You know how difficult it is to find a stove these days. I have used it very carefully. I swear, I won't ruin it.”

The expression on her face, like that of a little girl who has just confessed a prank and expects hes mother to explode in reproaches and scolding, made me smile.

“Don't worry. I'm glad you put it to good use. It's been lying idle for years. My father would be very pleased.”

“Oh, what an honor, thank you very much.” Relieved, she disappeared behind the door.

Within a few seconds my stomach was happily greeting the delicious meal. My brave doctor, with a spoon in one hand and a phone in the other, canceled her appointment with the psychiatrist, leaving the afternoon free just for me. If she hears me! A homemade jam concluded my feast while in my mind I finalized the details of the speech.

My only listener was already primed and intrigued, lost in assumptions.

“Well, my dear doctor.”

“Elia, please.”

“Okay, Elia. What you are about to hear is a big secret and cannot leave these walls. If it falls into unscrupulous hands, it can cause a lot of damage. Do you agree with that condition?”

An affirmative gesture.

“Excellent.” I cleared my throat. “My father was a very peculiar scientist. You won’t find his name in any literature. If you hear any man of science mention him, he would remember him with a wry smile as ‘The Escapist,’ because he dedicated his life to try to prove that human consciousness can be scanned and copied to another platform, such as a computer, where the person, or rather, his or her digital copy, can continue working while the physical body rests. At the end of the section, the result could be downloaded back to the brain for later use. It is difficult to predict all the applications of such technology. At least eight more hours available to work without affecting health. Being able to do high-risk experiments using a robot. It would allow training firefighters, military personnel, and members of other dangerous professions without risking their lives, among many other things! The load that your five senses would normally carry as receptors and your brain, as a processor, would be on the computer and the sensors, which by not getting tired could allow the analysis and learning process to be accelerated exponentially. Not to mention that the person could be connected through an AI to a colossal real-time database. At the end, the algorithm optimizes all the information similar to how your brain does it and downloads the result ready for use. For you, it will feel like you have years of experience in a subject that you learned in a few nights. Just imagine!

Unfortunately, although my father was a dedicated person and worked until his last breath, he never achieved a practical result. So everyone made fun of him.

He also couldn't get funding for a super experiment he needed to do.

At the university they would say to me: ‘Here comes the son of a madman,’ and I had to be strong enough not to be provoked. Eventually his reputation declined so much that he was forced to give up teaching and seclude himself in this place. He worked tirelessly trying to develop the practical model which would allow him to demonstrate the validity of the theory. A severe pneumonia shortened his days. My father's last wish was for me to carry his calculations through to the end. That I would not let the idea die. He told me: ‘A man's life is too short to develop all the potential that this project contains, but I am confident that if you persevere you will see the result.’ At first I thought that my father's wish would be my great punishment. I was months away from graduating. Full of youth and plans for the future, this lair hidden from the human eye smelled like a prison to me. I said to myself: ‘I will make one attempt. If it doesn't work, I'll give it up.’ And that attempt turned into four long years of intense work. I spent more and more time here, until I sold my father's house in the city and moved out completely. My world was reduced to that crazy idea that had first captivated my father and now had taken hold of me as well. I dedicated myself to seeking greater accuracy and precision. I couldn't count on the support of the scientific pole, so I had to develop a way to do the same thing, for which my old man requested satellites and a nuclear generator, at the level of this modest laboratory and myself. And I succeeded! I made a device that allows modeling the calculations. What my predecessor lacked was maintaining a constant connection with the brain. Yes, it's not ideal, but it's the only way I found to make it work. The process would be similar to how computers from the past worked, where the brain would be like a hard drive. The microprocessor and RAM did most of the work but had a constant connection to the hard drive to load the information to be processed and download the result in small portions. Even so, ninety percent of the brain's capacity would be freed up. You would still wake up well rested.

The shelf you see at the end is a door. Behind it is the laboratory. I spent some time working for several companies collecting money for the installation and covering up the parts I ordered with their names. Thus, without raising suspicions I got the two generators and put together the consciousness receiving module.”

With a frown, Elia was slowly massaging her temples.

“So as not to tire. I prepared the conditions and started the experiment. Everything was going well, until I fell asleep. From that point on, the AI took over. Maybe I should have an assistant to oversee the process, or have a volunteer, but with what I told you earlier… Anyway, to this day I have no idea what could have gone wrong, but the result of my mischief exceeded all expectations. Instead of creating a connection with the computer, I ended up connecting to another human being. And that's not all. That person is from another world! And now I'm part of both!”

From the look on her face, Elia was beginning to regret canceling the psychiatrist's appointment.

“Please, you have to believe me. I'm not crazy.”

It didn't seem convincing.

“I have no elements yet to give a scientific explanation, but I will have them as soon as I sit down at the machine and review the recordings. I, Deneb, as I appear in the database, was unconscious until yesterday afternoon. But it was not noticed, because the consciousness of Victor Labrada, as the being from the other world is called, was replacing me. For him, he was only dreaming. Didn't he ask you to pinch him?”

Her gaze changed, remembering the events at the hospital.

“Victor Labrada. Yes, the doctor told me that you called yourself that” she said thoughtfully, “and also that your way of behaving was unusual” she continued frowning slightly. “But throughout the entire journey from the hospital your behavior was very consistent. You didn't seem disoriented or surprised.”

“It's just that, as I told you, I imagined that it was a dream and I went with the flow. How many things happen to you when you dream. You have no control over what you dream about. It just happens.”

“Let's assume. So, you're daydreaming?” Elia tried to joke, getting tired from the arduous task of understanding the fantastic story she had just heard.

“No,” I sighed. “The dream ended when I saw myself in the mirror. And what followed was the clash of two consciences in one head. And now I am a new person, the result of the union of two consciences from two different worlds. When I sleep there, I am here, and when I sleep here, I am awake there. Always functioning. The explanation I am giving you now I prepared there while I was sleeping here. And Elena, who I was calling at the hospital here, is my wife there, but at the time, I didn't know what was going on, since it happened before the fusion, and when I fainted there and came back to my senses, naturally I imagined myself in the same place, but when I realized that I wasn't in the same place, I assumed that everything that was happening here was a dream.” I tried to summarize my explanation.

The expression on her face was similar to that of a college student in front of a blackboard of one and a half meters by four full of letters, graphs and numbers, where you don't understand a comma, at the moment when the professor after being for two hours spitting out formulas, turns to the classroom and satisfied with the work done asks, ‘Doubts?’

I know that feeling, so I stopped bothering her. Closing my eyes, I leaned back, settling into the chair as best my aching body would allow. If I were not living it, I myself would not have believed everything I had just said. It was frustrating to experience something so incredible and not have a way to prove it. At that moment I understood my father better and feared I would have the same fate.

“I believe you,” she said after a long pause, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I know you are convinced of what you say. But I fear that it is all true only in your imagination, the product of a dream you wanted to fulfill and that the accident you had may have left you somewhat confused.”

Her voice was full of tenderness, sweet and soothing.

“Confused? Are you saying I've lost my mind?”

“I didn't say that, you had an accident and... professional assistance can help you.”

“I don't need any professional assistance!” I was getting upset. “My father was clear when he told me to keep everything a secret, until I had solid evidence. He did! But since I owe you my life, I thought you deserved to know. I see that you don't, that you thinks just like everyone else...”

“Please calm down. I didn't mean to...”

“…but I will prove it to them! I will silence their mouths. I will wipe the memory of my father clean! They will have to erect a monument to him at the entrance of the university. They're going to have to listen to me!” I finished heatedly. “The mistake was mine.” I continued, calming down a bit. “You have nothing to do with this. You're doing an excellent job. Excuse me, and please leave me alone.”

It was getting dark. Elia was sitting with her back to the window so I could only make out her silhouette. Some time passed in absolute silence. She did not move, and I did not dare to tell her again to leave. The second hand on the wall clock turned several times.

“When I was eight years old,” her voice sounded low but confident, “my mother was getting married for the second time. They brought a beautiful wedding cake and left it on the table. Everyone left to continue with the preparations. I, however, had stayed behind to contemplate the beautiful decoration. Suddenly, a little bird flew in through the window and got entangled in the curtains. Desperate to free itself, it began to flutter around in disorder and ended up knocking over the frame with the photo of the groom that my mother had on the shelf above the table. And who would say, that the aforementioned photo ended up right between the two rings, pinning my future stepfather headfirst into the meringue. I knew that Mom wouldn’t like that at all, so I tried to get him out, but I couldn’t reach. I had to climb up on a chair, and at the same moment when I had finally managed to grab the corner of the frame, the door opened and in walked none other than my mother’s future mother-in-law. At that time I was accused of wanting to destroy the marriage and the bride and groom had a bad argument. The ceremony was on the verge of being canceled. My mother punished me very hard that day. Afterwards they made up and she forgave me, but she never believed me.”

She stood up suddenly, took several steps towards the door, stopped and, turning around, said with an intonation surprisingly serious for her age.

“I will help you look for the evidence. If you’ll excuse me.” Her silhouette faded away.

I spent another long day in Havana. My recovery on both fronts was progressing just fine. I decided not to tell Elena anything. At least not until I got home and found the right moment. When I returned, Elia was waiting for me with a delicious tea and a plate full of sweet biscuits (She has already used my oven for the first time.)

“How is Elena?” she asked, watching me devour her sweets. “And the children?”

There was no irony in her voice. That day I told her about my family, the neighborhood, the 2libreta3, the coffee and dominoes. She listened with interest about life in Havana, that city of contrasts, where history refuses to stay in the past and continues to coexist side by side with the present. Where three and even four generations cohabit under the same roof and the neighbors are part of the family. The city where I was born, where I grew up, and which I have learned to love with all its virtues and defects. I left the solar4 and took her to the bodega5. It took me a while to explain why in the ration book were included resources that you couldn't use, like cigarettes for non-smokers, and that you would then have to exchange with your neighbor for what you do need, instead of providing monetary help so that each person could buy what they needed directly, if they really needed to. Confusing? Yes.

“Don't worry,” I said at the end, “we Cubans don't understand it either. It is what it is.”

From there, quickly changing the subject so as not to continue getting entangled in her arguments I got into an almendrón6 with her which took us first through Carlos Tercero and then through the whole Reina Street to Fraternidad Park. I showed her the Capitol with its neoclassical columns and the statue of the Republic, considered the third tallest indoor statue in the world. I stopped in front of the Gran Teatro de La Habana, home of the National Ballet. I walked around Parque Central with its twenty-eight palm trees. There I told her about José Martí and his role in Cuban history. We walked down the Paseo del Prado with its centenary lions to the Malecon, where, crossing the bay, the majestic view of the Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro opened up. Sitting on the seawall, enjoying a couple of slushies, I told her about the rise of the tradition of the nine o'clock cannon shot. In a carriage with two elegant horses we traveled to the Castillo de la Real Fuerza. It is said it was one of the first built in America. And if you believe my friend Pedrito, who is dedicated to taking tourists around here, in front, where there is a small building called the Templete, back in the sixteenth century, the current capital of all Cubans originated. It was in that historic place that we were caught up in lunchtime.

Elia listened fascinated, asking countless questions. She was interested in everything. I was perplexed by the amount of things that I saw in Victor's world, which had become so common and everyday that one didn't even realize how interesting they were.

After lunch, we decided to try to open the lab. Elia was helping me at every step, as my mobility was still limited. Maybe I was overconfident, but she seemed so sincere and cheerful, that I couldn't keep my defenses up. I refused to imagine that she could hurt me. I took the risk. I had been carrying this secret inside for a long time and I was very happy to be able to share it with someone.

So we opened the laboratory and… what a disaster! The smell of burnt plastic irritated the throat. There were traces of foam everywhere from the automated fire-fighting system, the same one that had catapulted me out of danger. It had also cut off the electric power, so everything was in darkness.

“Can you fix it?” she asked, looking from one one piece of equipment to another.

I looked at my hands.

“Not until mobility is fully restored. There are very fine pieces that require a lot of precision. And not only that. I would have to go out and look for them.”

“Then we'll close it and put all our efforts into your speedy recovery. And in the meantime, if you want, you can teach me something so I can help you later.”

Her words were full of enthusiasm, and from that day on we became a team. I learned that she was studying medicine at a distance, so she had extensive knowledge of how the brain works. During my days of recovery we were able to discuss the project quite a bit, and she helped me re-analyze the theory. Time and time again, I found myself caught in the thought that I was getting used to spending time with her. In some dark and well-hidden corner of my consciousness an alarm was going off, which although clear and increasingly frequent, I did not want to hear.

Time flew by. So, between one thing and another, the day came when I was discharged in Havana and returned home. I hadn't really stopped to think about that moment and it caught me off guard. I didn't expect to see everything so different. For it to affect me so much. No, everything was exactly as I had left it. The one who wasn't the same was me.

It all seemed absurd, irrational. The scientist part of me didn't understand why I was like this, if it could be solved so easily. After the tranquility of the silent ocean of pine and snow, the noisy life of my solar home overwhelmed me.

“Daddy!” my two sons came out to meet me.

“Be careful, dad can't lift you yet.” It was Elena helping me to get to the sofa.

A large cake was waiting for me on the table, and on the wall, made with cut-out paper letters, some more accomplished than others, without professionalism but with much love, was written: ‘WELCOME.’

The family atmosphere helped me relax and rest. Despite everything, I had missed home. Between those walls, built with my own hands, the result of necessity, sweat and much sacrifice, surrounded by family, friends and some neighbors, I spent the afternoon. The ‘Estelar’7 informed me of the national and international news. Of the rest of the news I was updated by my friends. At about ten o'clock, my wife, with great class and impeccable tact, dismissed everyone so that I could rest.

Finally we were alone in our bedroom. As I watched her body gradually free itself from its cloth confinement, a strong contradiction troubled my mind. On the one hand I desired her as always, and on the other I had not seen a woman like that for a long time. But the last straw was when, sensitive and passionate, she gave herself over to a kiss as deep as space and fervent as a volcano. I cringed, barely able to control the avalanche of emotions that had invaded me.

“You're tense.” Her breath made my skin crawl. “Don't worry. I know you are still recovering. And that cast must be pretty uncomfortable. I just wanted to give you a kiss. Relax.” Her hands circled my neck. “I missed you so much. But now, rest.”

Women really do have some extra sense that we men don't have. It's that of presuming things without having any real clues for them. So now Elia's first sentence when I woke up was:

“Did something happen to you?”

“Why do you say that?”

“I don't know, I thought something had happened to you. You seem different.”

Dying of embarrassment, searching for less compromising words, I told her what had happened to me with my wife. It really wouldn't leave me alone. On the one hand, she was my wife with whom I have been living for almost ten years and on the other hand, she was a complete stranger to me. As if I were rediscovering her, seeing her from a new angle. At times I felt as if I was half to many there. As if that intimacy partially did not belong to me. I was confused. Elia smiled affably.

“You are different. Any other man in your place would enjoy the moment without questioning the moral part so much, and even more so if he could not be discovered. Nowadays many men and also women have lost values regarding relationships. In that both worlds, from what you have told me, are very similar. There are few men like you left.”

I didn't know whether or not to rejoice at being a relic, a specimen of a dying breed. The problem was still there. The sudden sensation of her fingers dipping into my hair and sliding in a soft caress made me shudder. When I raised my head in a questioning gesture I was stunned to find his eyes, deep and enigmatic, full of tenderness and something else that touched me deeply.

“You have a beautiful heart,” she said without looking away.

The spell ended as suddenly as it had begun. Getting up and changing the subject, she went about her chores around the house, leaving me even more confused. We didn't talk about Elena again that day, and from that moment on, every time I tried to bring up the subject, she found a way to avoid it, leaving me alone with my problem, which was getting worse and worse. No matter how hard I tried, Deneb's personality changed my behavior. Everyone noticed that I was strange, that I had changed, that I wasn't the same.

The one who complained the most was Elena, the person who knew me like the back of her hand. She was getting more and more worried. On the other hand, Elia had changed. She didn't seem angry, but she wasn't like before either. Desperate, I didn't know what to do.

I thought about telling my wife the truth, but... how? She would think I was making fun of her. If Elia, seeing the laboratory, witnessing the accident and observing many details first hand, almost didn't believe me, how do I explain that after the accident I got together with another man from another world? Who am I going to sell that story to?

I was also worried about work. Until now the cast gave me a break. Could I hide my change? Would it create problems for me with others? I had more questions than answers, and time was not on my side.

Chapter 3

Two more days passed and Saturday came. First Saturday at home since my return from the hospital. Everyone sat at the table and Elena was serving the food on the plates.

“Do you want okra?” she asked, taking mine.

“Yes, Elia, please,” I answered distractedly.

“What did you call me?”

“E...El...ena.”

“No! You said Elia. Who is Elia?”

Suddenly, a tense silence fell over the room, and all eyes turned to me. It's hard to think in those conditions, and after one nonsense, I let out another.

“She is, um... my nurse.”

“Nurse? I didn't meet anyone with that name at the hospital.”

Two flames ignited in her eyes.

“My love, look, I’ll explain later. Everyone is waiting for lunch. It's nothing important. We’ll talk afterwards.” The lunch unfolded in a charged atmosphere and ended quickly. Shortly after, all the guests rushed to leave under different excuses.

As soon as we were alone, my wife broke the silence.

“Who is she, Victor?! Who is this Elia that you would confuse me with her? Answer me! In all the years we’ve been together, you’ve never called me by another name. Who is this Elia?!”

She grew more agitated with each of my words as I tried to sidestep the issue and forget about it, and I was forced to tell her the truth. At least, I tried.

“Look, my love, when I had the accident, I connected with another man from…”

“What?! Elia is a transvestite?! That’s the last thing I needed! Have you turned gay?”

“No, please, listen. He’s from the beyond.”

“Oh, so you became a hustler? Don’t tell me!”

“No, my dear, really, there’s another world apart from this one, and there lives a man who had an accident too, and at that moment our minds connected. And Elia is the nurse taking care of him…”

“In the other world?”

“Yes.”

“Of another man?”

“Yes.”

“Her eyes watered.”

“Look. At least have some respect for the years we’ve been together, so that at this point you come up with these ridiculous stories. Shame on you. You don't even have the courage to tell me straight out that you have a mistress, you wretch! And I, like a fool, worried. What’s wrong with him? What is going on with him that made him change so much? Of course, how could you not reject me in bed? I don’t interest you anymore. It’s the other one who gives you what you like, right?”

“No. No, my love, it's not that. Elia is the woman of my dreams. She's not real, well, yes she is, but on the other side.” I made a last desperate attempt.

“What?! And to my face! Get out of my sight!”

It broke my heart to see her crying, but I knew that continuing the conversation at that moment was pointless, and that the best thing to do was to leave her alone until she calmed down. I put on my shirt and went out to the street. Neighbors averted their gazes when they saw me. They had all heard about it. The solar is the best means of mass dissemination ever invented. You don't even have to upload the information, or respond to comments. Everything is done for you in a completely automated way and one hundred percent free. You just have to have an event in your life, and the network goes live immediately. What a hassle.

When I came back, she was sleeping. I didn't want to wake her up, so I lay down on the couch. I spent hours thinking, trying to find a sure way to make things right with my wife. I had to get her to believe me. There was no other way to explain my changes. I didn’t want to lie to her. I loved her with all my heart and had always been honest. But how could I make her believe the truth? The night flew by, and by morning, I still wasn’t prepared. A sedative gave me the time I needed.

“Good morning, Mr. Deneb.”

Next to me sat a man in his impeccably white coat. It took me a few moments to recover from my surprise and remember those features.

“Doctor... Redmond?”

“Yes, it's me.” He smiled behind his thick black beard that merged with his mustache, nearly obscuring his mouth entirely. “How are you feeling? From what your caregiver told me you can do almost anything now. Please sit down.”

I did.

“Very well.”

Elia was standing behind the doctor, but her gaze revealed that her thoughts were far away.

“Miss Elia.” The doctor turned to her after finishing the exam.

“Ah… yes?”

“Congratulations! Your patient is doing very well. Good job. We'll discharge him right away.”

“Thank you, doctor,” she replied, trying to muster a smile.

“Please get ready. You will be picked up in an hour. We have another case that requires your skills. Keep up the good work. And you” he said getting up, “make sure to come to my office in a month. Take care.”

The vessel departed, returning the usual silence to the surroundings.

“I wanted to warn you when you woke up, but as you can see, the doctor came three hours earlier than scheduled. He had to attend to an emergency in the area and diverted here.”

The hour flew by. While gathering her belongings and organizing everything, Elia wouldn’t stop giving me instructions on how I needed to take care of myself from now on. The chopper arrived on time.

“Well, you’re ready to continue restoring the laboratory on your own and to carry on with your life, now also with your new family, whom, from what you’ve told me, you care for a lot. I wish you the best, and if you ever need me...”

Her mouth uttered a classic farewell between a medical professional and her patient, but her eyes conveyed something entirely different, deep and moving. Suddenly, she turned her face, and before I could say a word, she hurriedly covered the distance to the volatile giant, which trembled and lifted clouds of snow as it soared into the sky, disappearing behind the treetops.

“Goodbye” I said puzzled.

“Dad, Dad.”

“What?” I replied sleepily.

“Dad.” It was my youngest son. I opened my eyes.

“Dad, why is Mom sad?”

“What?!”

“Yeah, she’s in the kitchen crying.”

Summoning all my willpower, I shook off the remnants of sleep and got up from the sofa.

“Stay here and watch the cartoons. I’m going to talk to her, okay? Good boys.”

I left the living room and closed the door behind me.

“Elena.” My mouth went dry, and my tongue felt like it was tied in a knot. I had never seen her so devastated. My chest tightened. Dark circles marked beneath her eyes. She was sitting on a stool, motionless, staring into nothingness. Tears of pain streamed down her cheeks.

“Elena…” I began in a choked voice. “Elena, please, listen to me.”

The words trembled as they came from my strained vocal cords. Slowly, as if her head were made of lead, she lifted it. Her gaze pierced through me and seemed to lose itself in the infinite. I couldn’t take it anymore and knelt before her, taking her hands in mine and pressing them against my chest.

“Don’t touch me,” she said in a voice from beyond the grave, pulling her wrists free.

“Please, give me one last chance to explain. Just listen to me one more time.”

She sighed, giving me the green light. I took a few seconds to steady myself and organize my thoughts. I knew the phrase ‘I love you’ wouldn’t work right now. I had to make her think.

“You suspect that I have another woman. If that were true, this woman would have to exist; I should know her in some way, and most importantly, I would have to maintain that relationship. I would need to dedicate time, money, etc., right?”

Silence. 'Good,' I thought with relief. 'I can keep going.'

“You, better than anyone, know my routine. You know that your father and I work together. Do you think he wouldn’t notice something strange at work? In the construction crew, there are only two women, and neither of them is named Elia. After work, I come straight home. You know I go out little, and when I do, I prefer that you go with me. On the weekends, I'm always with you. So when do you think I could attend to another woman? You have access to the bank account. You know how much I earn each month. Doesn’t it seem impossible to maintain a mistress like that? When have I ever cheated on you, huh? You are the only woman I love in this world.”

She looked me in the eyes and shot back.

“Then who is Elia?!”

“Well,” I sighed, preparing for the hardest part. “Elena, I have always been honest with you. You know that. If I haven’t told you this from the beginning, it’s because, first, when it happened, I didn’t even understand what was going on, and second, after I did manage to understand it, I didn’t know how to say it. It’s so incredible that I feared you wouldn’t take me seriously. If you’ve noticed, since the accident, I’ve changed without meaning to. And not just with you. I think everyone has noticed.”

She shifted positions, sitting directly across from me.

“Well, there’s another world that isn’t the world of the dead, no. There, everyone is very much alive. It’s not abroad either. It’s like a parallel world, in another dimension, perhaps even on this same planet. And in that place lives a scientist who conducted an experiment on how to materialize thought, or something like that. As a result, it went wrong, and he had the accident at the same moment I did, and our minds and consciousnesses merged. And now, I am the result of the union of both.”

The tapping of her foot on the floor showed her growing impatience.

“Well, anyway, when I’m awake, I’m here. But when I fall asleep here, I wake up there. And Elia is the nurse who was taking care of the scientist there. That is to say, me, after his accident, because I live in a very beautiful but very intricate place, and I could hardly move. I don’t have family. Well, I do have some relatives, but we haven’t spoken in years. That’s why she was taking care of me. Until yesterday, when I was discharged, and she went to attend to another case. That’s why I hold back from being with you, because part of me hasn’t been involved with a woman in years, and it feels strange to just give myself to someone without even knowing her. That’s why I oiled the door after five years of squeaking, and with Tonito’s help, I fixed the float in the water tank. Now I’m also a scientist, you see? I can’t see things the same way I used to, nor can I act the same. And that’s why I unintentionally said ‘Elia’ when you were serving me food. I spent whole days over there in the house, and the only person I communicated with was named Elia. She was the one who took care of me, and... well, I’ve already told you that. And now I’m caught in this tremendous mess because what I am now was a product of chance. According to the calculations, I was just supposed to upload a copy of my consciousness to the machine, but when it overloaded and much of the system went out of control, the relationship between time and space got disrupted. I would have to rely on Fertel's research and investigate the behavior of matter, specifically at the cellular level under the new conditions I’ve been presented with, to see if I can then model...”

Without realizing it, my thoughts drifted, trying to understand where the failure occurred and what consequences this state might have for the future.

“Oh dear, that’s all I needed! That blow to the head didn’t do you any good,” Elena whispered.

I reacted when she embraced me with a mother’s sweetness, rocking me from side to side as she said:

“Don’t worry, my dear. Dr. Fernandez is going to fix that head of yours. This very week I’ll try to get you an appointment.”

My whole being protested against the unjust accusation, but I hurried to control my indignation. I had just regained my wife. It was the most precious reward I could obtain at that moment.

The three days of truce did me a lot of good. Yes, that was exactly the time my beloved needed to move heaven and earth to get a break in Dr. Fernandez's tight schedule. Although the kids looked at me with suspicion and were quieter than usual, Elena was all love and understanding.

While life in Havana was buzzing with events, the days passed slowly in the mountains. Elia's absence was increasingly felt. The hours stretched incredibly long. I couldn't understand how I could have spent years in this confinement completely alone. Even the intense work restoring the laboratory didn’t alleviate that deep feeling of nostalgia. It no longer filled me like before. Elia had stolen the monopoly of my micro world. It was no longer just mine. Her traces were everywhere. There was nothing I touched that didn’t raise a cloud of memories, making my heart beat faster. Something had broken inside me, something that I, with all my skills and knowledge as an engineer, couldn’t fix. On the other hand, the situation with my wife wouldn’t let me be at peace. That dubious truce I had unintentionally achieved worried me more and more. On one hand, I managed to gain her support, but on the other, I allowed her to drift away from the truth. That visit to the psychiatrist, the story of my ‘mental problems.’ How long could I keep up that charade, that deception? And what would be the outcome? It makes my stomach turn just thinking about putting on that whole act in front of her. She, with whom I had managed to live without secrets, in whom I could trust with my eyes closed. We had built a relationship without shadows or forbidden doors between us, where we were one in the deepest sense of the word, to the point that even envious tongues hadn’t managed to tarnish our relationship. And now, our love is in serious danger. And the worst part is that I can’t find a solution. I even started to think it might have been preferable if the betrayal were real. At least there would have been something I could do to fix it. I would do anything to earn her forgiveness and work tirelessly to heal her wounds. But what can I do in this situation? I can’t judge her for not believing me. And even though I know that deep down in her heart she cannot accept infidelity, how can you believe something like that?

Afflicted and exhausted, I let myself fall into the armchair. The light snowflakes on the other side of the window descended, swirling curiously as if dancing to the rhythm of a magical waltz. It was getting dark. The silent solitude, now in shadows, made me remember Elia once again. Images of when she was here began to pass before me; of how she took care of me. How she was the first to learn about my discovery, and that depth in her eyes at the moment of farewell, as if she wanted to say something. Yes, that look. That way of looking was familiar, but...from where? A shiver ran through my body. But of course I know from where, and not just the look.... The same thing had happened to me with Elena more than a decade ago. She made me feel exactly the same way. No. How can this be? I love my wife, how then can I... but that is what is happening. But it's wrong! You can't be in love with two women at once. Yes you can be physically attracted to them, but love is much more than that. Love is surrender, you can't give yourself to two different people at the same time. I have to get that out of my head! I am not an adulterer, I was and will be faithful to my wife! At that moment a part of me rose up in protest. ‘I can’t do that! You know that what I feel for Elia is as strong, sincere, and pure as what I feel for Elena.’ My poor brain could barely keep up with all of this. There was a time when engineers started putting two microprocessors in a computer because one wasn’t enough. Well, I had a dual computer squeezing a single processor. Concepts, feelings, principles, facts, mathematical probabilities were swirling, overflowing, and threatening to drown my common sense and healthy capacity for analysis. I was losing control of my mind, and just as I was about to explode, the avalanche began to take shape, leading me back to the moment when it all began: the experiment. And soon it boiled down to a single question: Who am I? Yes, I had understood that I was the result of the collision of two consciousnesses, from two different worlds that resembled each other like twins, where two different bodies were now united by a complex consciousness. There were not two people living in the same head; no. There was not two ‘I’s.’ It was a single, composite ‘I.’ As if I had a dual nature, like when you mix salt and sugar in a single glass of water. Or like light, which behaves both as a particle and a wave. From a scientific point of view, it was an extremely fascinating phenomenon that, if published, could immortalize me in the history of humanity. I would be world-famous, and maybe even awarded the grand prize! But how to manage it when you are the guinea pig, and when success destroys what you value most, pushing away and making suffer those you love the most? Unintentionally, I had set a trap for myself. It was becoming clearer in my mind that the only way out of this situation was to go back. Yes, to go back.

The laboratory was almost ready, and I could project my complex theory in a large holographic image. I couldn’t stop admiring it. It was my masterpiece, and not just mine. It was the result of two generations of hard work. And now I would have to destroy the only evidence that validates its truth. If someone had told me a month ago, I would have laughed at that possibility. 'Not a chance,' would have been my response. But Victor's influence made me see the importance of family. How fragile it is and the care it demands from its leader. I had no right to destroy it to save a scientific project. I decided without delay to find a way to return everyone involved to normality. I would work until I achieved the result. Hands on deck. I armed myself with all the anti-sleep substances I had in the cabin and all the sleeping pills I could find in Cuba. The strategy would be to set the alarm to wake me several times during the same night in Havana, repeatedly if necessary, take a sleeping pill, and keep sleeping for another hour until the next alarm went off. In the lab, on the other hand, I would stretch my wakefulness to twenty hours, sleep for four hours, and repeat. That way, I should be able to gain a week’s worth of work, equivalent to one night in Cuba. I hid the alarm clock in a tin of crackers, sealed it tightly, and placed it under the sofa. That way, only I could hear it.

I reviewed the entire process from start to finish. I studied the recordings of the experiment's parameters. Overall, everything matched the previously developed calculations. If there hadn't been a parallel world, the result should have been as expected. But now, it’s not what I was looking for. That's why I incorporated the new parameters, which, to my surprise, fit perfectly into the general formula. One segment after another was reconstructed and expanded, polished and refined meticulously.

By the end of the fifth day, under the effect of the last capsule, I had finally, as they say in Cuba, ‘assembled the doll’. I entered everything in the simulator.

“Start,” I told myself, and pressed the button. Minutes turned into hours for me. Tired, I was trying to push the progress bar on the screen with my gaze. ‘Simulation completed. Time: seven minutes and thirty-six seconds. Analyzing results.’ Messages appeared. My nerves were on edge.

‘Insufficient data. Please enter the following parameters…’ The effect of the capsule was fading, my vision was becoming blurry, and my mind felt clouded. I hurried to fulfill its request. Two more minutes passed, and before me, in three dimensions, the machine displayed the terrible verdict in red letters: ‘THE PROCESS IS IRREVERSIBLE.’

Desperately, I repeated the process, checking subprocess after subprocess. There was no error. It could only be reversed before the fusion of the two consciousnesses. But now it was impossible. Disheartened and defeated, I pulled away from the computer. There was nothing more to be done. A few seconds later, my exhausted body drained its last resources, and the inevitable happened.

Irritated and powerless, I opened my eyes in my apartment in Havana. My body was aching after a bad night, and my mind was troubled. I had no time to process the grim outcome of my research.

“Good morning, darling,” Elena greeted me, looking through the mirror as she put on her earrings. “I laid out your clothes on the chair, the gray pants and the plaid shirt. Is that okay?”

I summoned all my willpower not to let my mood get the best of me and to avoid saying something harsh.

“Are you sure, my love, that this appointment is really necessary? I don’t have anything wrong; I don’t need a psychiatrist.”

“But I do! I need someone to explain to me what’s really going on with you. Please, it won’t cost you anything. Come on, get dressed; I don’t want to be late.”

“Alright, my love. You know I’m doing it for you.”

After filling out a million forms, drawing little pictures, and answering silly questions, the assistant took the valuable fruit of my squeezed brain and went in to play Fernandez in person.

“Well, while my assistant processes the tests, let's talk about what concerns you,” he said, looking at me with a friendly smile.

“Actually, the one who’s worried is me, doctor,” my wife interrupted, before I could say a word. “For a while now, he’s been completely different. Well, more precisely, since the accident.”

“An accident. Did he suffer any head injuries?”

“Yes, doctor. He was hospitalized for a week and a half.”

“Alright, and what does this change consist of?”

“I don’t know... in everything. The way he talks, the way he treats those around him. He does things he didn’t do before, and lastly, he told me a totally fantastic story about a parallel world; that he merged with another man and... he even called me by the name of another woman. At first, I thought he was cheating on me, that he had someone else, but I checked everywhere he goes, and there’s no one with that name. He has never given me any reason to suspect another relationship. He tells me that it’s in his dreams when he sees her and that’s when he becomes another man. But how can a dream transform a person like that?”

“Do you sleep well, Victor?”

“I don’t sleep,” I answered reluctantly. My thoughts were still in the lab.

“Do you suffer from insomnia?”

“Something like that.”

“Since when?”

“Since the accident.”

“Victor?! But you hadn’t told me anything! I... I saw you, and I swear I thought you were asleep,” Elena complained, with strong notes of guilt in her voice, as if she were negligent in her role as a wife. She couldn’t understand how something so obvious could have slipped her mind.

“That could explain some changes in behavior,” Dr. Fernandez hurried to break the uncomfortable pause.

“And, well,” the doctor continued, “on the days you manage to sleep, do you have dreams or nightmares?”

“No,” I replied, frustrated.

I was trying my hardest to stay calm. I knew that both of them genuinely wanted to help me. It broke my heart to see the hope in my wife's eyes as she followed the doctor's every word. It was as if just a couple more right questions would lead to a diagnosis, and the right treatment would bring back her beloved husband, leaving all the anguish as nothing more than a bad memory, forever in the past. How much longer did I have to prolong this charade?

“Very well,” the doctor said with an impeccable attitude, changing his posture to help relax the atmosphere. “Why don’t you tell me a bit about that dream you mentioned to your wife? Was it in black and white or in color?”

“It’s not a dream,” I sighed.

“Is it not? Then what is it?” His gray eyes, reminiscent of a cat’s, were now looking directly at me with genuine interest.

“My other life.” I was starting to get upset. “In the other, parallel world.”

His eyebrows arched in an ‘Oh, really?!’ expression.

“Why don’t you tell me a bit more about that other life, Victor?”

“I already told my wife, and she brought me here,” I replied, trying to control the irritation that was growing inside me with each passing second. “And I’m sure that if I tell you, you’ll prescribe me a bunch of pills and send me to a madhouse. But what’s more important, accepting my new nature and helping me learn to live with it, neither of you is willing to do. Excuse me.”

I stood up and left the consultation room.

“Victor!” Elena shouted, astonished. “What are you allowing yourself? Come back, Victor!”

She struggled to catch up with me on the stairs.

“But he’s just trying to help you,” she said desperately, trying to regain her breath.

“Help me? My love, believe me, he can’t help me. He doesn’t have the slightest idea what he’s dealing with. It’s not a psychological problem. Well, it is, but what I need is a scientific solution. I’m not crazy. I understand myself perfectly well. The one who needs to understand me is you, and for that, you have to believe me. And he, despite being a good professional, won’t help you with that.”

In that moment, we realized we were blocking the way in both directions. A dozen eyes were watching us with silent reproach. Everyone wanted to pass, but no one dared to interrupt. Apologizing hurriedly, we left the hospital.

On the way back, we didn’t exchange a word. The children were at school. The house was quieter than usual.

“Victor, I can’t go on like this,” Elena finally resumed the conversation. “You’ve become a stranger. I don’t recognize you, Victor. You scare me; I don’t know what to expect from you.” Her hands kept squeezing her purse. “The kids ask me questions I can’t answer. The neighbors go silent when I walk by. Many don’t even greet me anymore. Please, tell me the truth. I’ll try to understand you.”

I sighed.

“I’ve already told you the truth. Do you believe me?”

“Believe in what? In the parallel world? In the secret experiment? In the mental powers of the mad scientist who got into your head? Is that what you want me to believe?”

Tears of pain covered her face. Broken and hopeless, my beloved stood there. So close and at the same time, more and more unreachable. Every cell in my body cried out to rush to her aid, to hold her tightly and wipe away her tears, whispering words of comfort until the last shadow of her anguish faded away. But how? The only thing that would allow me to get close in these moments would be to tell her the ‘truth’ she so desperately wanted to hear, the one I couldn’t give her.

“Never did I think you would fall so low, Victor. But don’t worry, you won’t have to invent any more stories,” she continued, calming down a bit. “I’m letting you go free to do as you please with your life, with whoever you’ve chosen.”

“Elena, there’s no one else, please…”

The door closed behind her. She was gone. Damn experiment!

How can I reconcile that the greatest success any scientist can dream of has come to destroy the most precious thing I've ever had in my life: my family?! But on the other hand, if I had a family, I wouldn’t have been able to develop the project. It had taken years of work, twelve, sixteen, sometimes twenty-four hours a day. For a moment, I imagined my kids playing in the lab, making little airplanes with the sheets of calculations, running and jumping all around the cabin with the excitement that characterizes them, shouting, ‘Dad! Dad! Look!’

There was a knock at the door. I rushed to open, hoping it was my wife. And already the words of love were filling my mouth and my hands were stretched out in an embrace, when I realized that in front of me, bewildered by such an effusive welcome, stood Luis Alberto, the pastor of the church we were attending.

“Uh, V… Victor, uh, hi,” he began, regaining his composure. “How are you?”

‘First a psychiatrist, now a pastor!’ protested the scientific part of me. ‘How did he find out so quickly? Elena just left, and now he’s here?’ ‘Calm down. Yes, he’s our pastor. He’s a good person and he can help,’ I replied to myself in my mind, though I was also intrigued by the immediacy of his arrival. Had my wife sent him?

“If it’s not a good time, I can come another day…”

“No, pastor, please come in,” I stammered, stepping aside.

“I can see you’ve recovered quite a bit from the accident. From the last time I visited you in the hospital until now, you’re a different man. Glory to God! You just need to worry about that cast for a few more days. And, of course, physical therapy. Our prayers have been answered. And at home, I imagine everyone must be very relieved.”

“Yes, pastor.”

A lump formed in my throat. I was eager to tell him about the terrible situation my family was in, but I feared that by speaking the truth, I would push him away just like everyone else.

“Well, I suppose you need to rest, so I won’t bother you any longer. Let me pray and I’ll be on my way.”

When a person is moved by the Holy Spirit, you don’t have to tell him anything. Every word, every phrase that the Lord placed in his heart resonated with my situation. After the ‘Amen,’ I made another attempt to share what was on my mind:

“Pastor…” I began, only to be reprimanded by the scientist in me: ‘Don’t even think about it!’

“Yes?”

“Nothing. Thank you for your visit.”

“May the Lord bless you, my brother. See you later.”

In the afternoon, my mother-in-law came to pick up Elena’s things and the children’s. She didn’t say anything, but the accusation was felt in every gesture. Afterwards, no one else interrupted my solitude. A bottle of Havana Club, saved for a very special occasion, gradually dulled my consciousness until it completely extinguished it, but... what a nuisance. For the first time, I genuinely regretted not being able to sleep. The house in the woods felt as desolate as the one in Havana. Even more silent. And all my pain had moved here. I had no escape. There was absolutely nothing I could do.

The days kept passing. I was immersed in my anguish in my solar when I was surprised by a knock at the door. I opened it and froze in place.

“Can I come in?”

“Uh... yes, of course,” I hurried to move aside, regaining my composure. Her gaze reflected confusion as she looked around.

“You keep it nice.”

“Yes, I try.”

There was a tense pause. Neither of us knew what to say. Her attention was drawn to a picture on the wall. In my long hours of solitude, after multiple attempts, I had managed to depict two couples. One was Elena and me, sitting on the armchair of our home in an embrace; and the other was Elia and me standing in front of the little house in the mountains.

“Who are they?” she asked, looking at the second couple.

“He's Deneb, and she's Elia.”

“Nice couple,” she said with a tone I didn’t quite understand.

She felt uncomfortable, trying to control her emotions.

“I’m not going to bother you,” she rushed to say. “I just came to let you know that the doctor found stones in my gallbladder and scheduled me for surgery on the eighteenth of next month. At Calixto Garcia.8 I thought you should know.”

She turned to leave, but stopping in front of the door, she spoke thoughtfully and melancholically:

“You know, after so many years together, I think I no longer know how to live without you. I would give anything to be part of your world again. To enter that fairy tale you’re living in and prefer over reality. I would face anything to get you back. It’s just that I don’t know how. Luckily or unluckily, my mind is still sane,” she sighed helplessly.

She was about to say something else, but desisted and almost ran off down the stairs.

I was so surprised that I reacted only when I could no longer reach her. An almendron whisked her away right in front of me.

“Idiot, stupid” I was judging myself mercilessly. “The eighteenth, at Calixto. In twenty days.”

My gaze stopped on the drawing, and a wild idea passed through my mind.

‘Operation... Unconscious... In... No, I... don’t have the right to do that. It’s very risky. But...’ I remembered my wife’s last words. ‘What if it’s the only way?’

Standing in front of the window, nerves on edge, I was determined to risk everything as I squeezed the lightweight casing of the phone, making it creak, pleading for mercy.

Two long rings, a third. It was the first time I dared to dial Elia’s mobile number.

“Hello?,” the voice sounded tired.

“Elia?”

“Deneb!” A mix of surprise and joy came through on the other end of the line.

“You told me that if I ever needed you, I could call…”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, I need you…”

***

“Elena, darling.”

“Aunt Antonia. What brings you here?”

“I came to this market to buy some groceries, because our store is bare today. How are you doing?”

“Eh, you know.”

“Oh, my little one, how that man has made you suffer. Poor guy, he’s not doing well at all. Locked up most of the time. When he goes out, it’s just to grab a bite and rush back. He’s all scruffy, with his clothes a mess. The house is filled with papers. The other day, one blew away and he was running around the yard after it. And when Pacheco's grandson took it and, like a child after all, began to break it, he knelt down in front of the boy so he would return it. And Pacheco says that nothing could be understood on that page. Oh, what a man he used to be!”

I couldn’t take it anymore, and, saying goodbye however I could, I turned my face and hurried back to my mother’s house with tears in my eyes.

The day of the operation arrived.

“My sweetheart, the alarm has already sounded. It's time,” whispered my mother, softer than usual.

The mischievous little sunbeams, as radiant as ever, peeping through the curtains, played among the porcelain ornaments on top of the chest of drawers. The criers filled the air with their joyful uproar. An exquisite aroma of coffee called from the kitchen for a rich breakfast. Life was bustling all around. Only inside me it was all muted. In spite of my family's care to support me, sadness was eating me up inside. Why did all this have to happen to us? What did I do to deserve it?

“Mommy, fasten my shoelaces, please.”

The sight of my helpless little boy made me stop lamenting and, taking a deep breath, fill myself with courage to face reality.

Everything was ready. The anesthesiologist was preparing the syringe. ‘He didn’t come’ crossed my mind and everything went dark.

Suddenly a loud noise made me open my eyes. Before me appeared a room with bright walls, full of strange equipment. What happened? Where am I? My voice caught in my throat from the shock. I could only shrink, trying to defend myself from what I couldn’t understand.

In the middle sat a young red-haired man, surrounded by complex machines, which blinked with lights of different colors. He wore a white coat, but very different from those of the doctors. In front of him, hovering in the air, floated compact lines of text. He was writing something down hastily on a sheet of paper, looking from one monitor to another. Noticing my gaze, visibly excited, he tried to approach me, but stopped halfway, like someone afraid of scaring away a butterfly, carefully observing my reaction. Those features… The ideas, rushing over each other, were spinning around in my head. Yes, I had seen that face before but... where? As if in slow motion, the drawing of the two couples emerged in my memory... what was it... ‘Deneb?’ I remembered the crazy story of parallel worlds.

“Victor?”

His face broke into a deep expression of tenderness.

“Welcome, my love.”

Chapter 4

The two-bell mechanical alarm clock from Soviet Union Era filled the room with a mighty clang exactly one hour after I fell asleep. The country that produced it ceased to exist years ago, but the items they made are still faithfully serving, in one way or another, many Cuban families. Rustic objects, like the Órbita fans, and the Aurika washing machines, which have refused to succumb to the past and continue to reinvent themselves and take on new roles to fit between the modern and the sophisticated, earning the favor and admiration of their owners. So too that clock, like a sentinel, has watched over the sleep first of my parents, waking them up every morning for work, and later my own. It has become part of the family heritage, and even the day it stops working, it will continue to adorn a shelf in our house, telling countless stories that it has witnessed. It has not failed me this time either, warning me, like a good friend, that one of the most important moments of my life has arrived.

I woke up full of energy, despite weeks of sleeping three to four hours a day. Since I can remember, I don't recall ever having worked so intensely. Although the bulk of the work was done in M, in Cuba, I dedicated myself to reviewing the conceptual part. Armed only with a calculator, not even a scientific one, paper and pencil, I had to memorize entire documents, write them down by hand, do the calculations and then memorize the results in order to enter them into the computer in the laboratory. Thanks to the invaluable support of Elia, who not only volunteered to be Elena's counterpart in M, but also threw herself wholeheartedly into the preparations. She dedicated her entire vacation, which was interrupted on the second day by my accident at the cabin, to the project. Her enthusiasm, her encouragement in difficult moments, her perseverance, were the key to be able to prepare everything on time. The days we spent together, trapped by the same idea, were delightful. Two addicted to defying limits, in action.

And here I was, with my heart in my throat, heading to the Calixto to welcome our world-traveler back to this hot land. What irony that an achievement of such scientific magnitude did not go to any of the developed countries with their vast resources and technological advancements. Not to some prestigious university with sophisticated facilities. No. The first journey from planet Earth to a parallel world was made by a bricklayer, and now his wife. In a small country with modest means. Supported by a medical team that didn’t have the faintest idea of what they were part of. And what I think set this journey apart from any other into the depths of the ocean or space, what distinguished it from every exploration I’d ever heard of, was its purpose: to restore my wife’s trust.

Breathless, I entered the hospital and headed straight for the waiting room.

“Hey, watch it, comrade!” nurses and patients exclaimed, stepping aside as I rushed past.

“Excuse me,” “sorry,” I replied, not slowing down.

Within minutes, I reached my destination and... stumbled upon my in-laws, joined by a few church sisters, talking peacefully in hushed tones. As soon as they saw me, their conversations froze mid-sentence, and every gaze turned toward me. A few made faces, as if they were seeing a ghost.

“Hello,” I stammered, struggling to catch my breath.

All my attention had been on Elena, and it completely slipped my mind that I would have to face them. My in-laws exchanged glances, trying to figure out how to handle the situation. They didn’t know if it was good or bad that I showed up at the hospital after everything I had caused. The church sisters looked at me with some suspicion. After the accident, Deneb’s humanistic influence had made me feel more insecure about my faith. My shallow knowledge of the Bible couldn’t counter the solid scientific arguments against my beliefs. That internal contradiction, combined with the rumors of adultery and the countless hours I had dedicated to the project, kept me away from the church since then.

“How are you, Victor?” my father-in-law broke the silence, more to assess the level of danger he was facing than out of concern.

“I'm fine, thank you,” I replied, glancing at my wristwatch. “How's Elena?”

Before they could answer, the door opened, and the doctor walked in.

“Tell me, doctor,” my mother-in-law interrupted. “Is it over? Did it go well?”

But he, visibly troubled, looked around at those gathered and without preamble asked:

“Is Victor Labrada here?”

“Yes, that's me.” I raised my hand.

“Please, come with me.”

The family tried to object, but seeing the firmness with which I was requested, they gave up and, reluctantly, stepped aside. Followed by looks full of astonishment, I stepped out behind the doctor.

We headed to the post-operative room, where my beloved wife was still unconscious. Despite being out of the operating room, she was still connected to half a dozen machines. What’s happening? Did I make it in time?

“We haven't been able to wake her from the anesthesia,” the doctor began, clearly concerned. “It's not common for someone in her physical state. With the current sedative levels, she should have regained all functions, except maybe memory. And despite all our efforts, nothing has worked. Then, shortly after, this message appeared on her monitor. Nothing could be understood, except for: ‘Victor Labrada’. Do you have any idea what's going on? have you interfered with our medical equipment?”

The doctor was still speaking when my wife’s monitor activated again, and a robotic voice, delivered the following message:

“Attention Victor Labrada! Attention Deneb! The automatic disconnection has failed. I repeat, the automatic disconnection has failed!”

I felt a chill rise up my spine as I processed what I had just heard. Immediately after, my wife’s vital signs began to deteriorate one after another.

“Blood pressure, one hundred over sixty.”

“Heart rate decreasing.”

“She’s losing body temperature. Reading thirty-five and a half.”

“Oxygenation at seventy-five and dropping.”

The medical staff interrupted each other as they confirmed the rapid decline in Elena's health.

“She’s going into shock! Maria, prepare the dopamine.”

“Blood pressure ninety-five over fifty-five. Temperature thirty-four and a half.”

“No!” I shouted so loudly that everyone stopped and turned their heads. “You need to sedate her again. Right now!”

“She’s having neurogenic shock,” the doctor replied. “And you want to sedate her again?”

“Precisely! That’s why you need to sedate her. You can’t wake her up. She’s still connected. If you wake her, you could kill her!”

“Pulse forty-five...”

The barrage of readings, announcing the rapid deterioration of her condition, made the doctor stop listening to me and focus entirely on directing his team in a desperate attempt to pull my beloved wife out of the dangerous situation she was in.

“Pulse thirty-five. Blood pressure ninety over fifty.”

“You're going to lose her. Doctor! Stop!”

No one was paying attention to me. The medical team, unintentionally, was leading Elena down a dead-end. A few more seconds, and it would be too late. I had no choice but to take control by force. In one giant leap, I covered the distance to the nearest nurse, grabbing the scalpel from the instrument tray on my way. In the next instant, my strong bricklayer arms, now fully recovered from the accident, were holding her firmly, pressing the sharp tip against her throat.

“Stop immediately!”

The doctor, stunned, stood frozen in place with his eyes wide open, and an expression of refusing to accept that what he was seeing was really happening. His left hand halted halfway to press some button, while with his right hand holding a syringe he made a gesture trying something between defending himself from the scene in front of him, and shooing it away.

“Tell everyone to stop. Now!” I roared, in a way that left no room for contradiction.

The doctor, in slow motion, shifted his gaze from me to Elena, then looked at the poor nurse, who must have been as white as marble. The shock left her speechless. I could feel how uncontrollably she trembled. With a gesture of resignation, maintaining the calm only a surgeon can have in such moments, he asked:

“What do you suggest I do?”

“Sedate her for 30 minutes.”

With a glance, he gave the order to the anesthesiologist: ‘Execute.’

As soon as the drugs reached the required level for unconsciousness, her vital signs began to slowly stabilize.

For a moment, everyone forgot about the dangerous scalpel placed at the nurse's throat and, anxious and incredulous, they fixed their gaze on the monitors. There was no doubt that everything they knew from their long years of medical study was being nullified in this situation. What, in their experience, should have finished my wife off, was instead bringing her back to life.

Suddenly, the numbers flickered.

“Attention Victor Labrada! Attention Deneb! The automatic disconnection has failed. I repeat: the automatic disconnection has failed.”

The doctor turned to me with a look that reflected a mix of terror, intrigue, and admiration, searching for answers to what he had just witnessed.

“Thank you, doctor,” I said, relieved, without letting go of the nurse. “For now, she’ll be stable, but if I don’t disconnect her as the anesthesia wears off, she’ll relapse. Promise me you’ll help me. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I can’t do it alone. I need your assistance to save her.”

My tone was softer than an ultimatum, but still quite firm. The doctor nodded slowly. I had known people like him before. It’s hard to get them to commit to anything, but once you have their word, they’ll follow through no matter what.

I glanced over the nurses and the anesthesiologist. One by one, some out of fear, others out of curiosity, they nodded, joining in the doctor's commitment.

“Good.”

As gently as possible, I released my hostage and returned the scalpel to its place.

Stumbling from side to side, still shaking, she backed away until she collapsed into the arms of another nurse, and only then did she burst into tears.

“I'm sorry,” I said, and immediately after, I heard the doctor in an urgent tone:

“Tick-tock.”

I looked around at everyone again, as if inspecting the new army the surgeon had just handed over to my command.

“The patient is remotely connected to equipment that prevents her from leaving the unconscious state. The message you heard came from the computer. In order to save her and wake her up safely, I have to intervene.” I paused. Here came the most dramatic part. “To access the equipment, I need to be sedated by you.”

I scanned the room again, observing the reactions. Perhaps in other circumstances, as Cubans, they would have burst out laughing, unable to stop for quite a while. But now, they only exchanged glances.

“And then?” the doctor asked.

“You wake me up exactly fifteen minutes later. No more, no less.”

He nodded and pointed to the table on his right. I lay down and extended my arm.

“Migue,” the doctor addressed the anesthesiologist, “put him under.”

“Deneb! Wake up, Deneb!”

The alarm pounded in my ears.

“Attention, Victor Labrada! Attention, Deneb! The automatic disconnection has failed. I repeat, the automatic disconnection has failed,” my AI’s message kept echoing.

“Yes, I’m here!” I raised my voice, trying to overcome the noise.

I struggled to open my tired eyelids, which were refusing to obey. Deneb's body did not have the adrenaline with which I left Victor's, and it craved its well-earned rest. But rest was nowhere to be found.

“Coffee?” I pronounce, pleading.

The red lights flashed, casting a depressing color over the lab.

“Right away.”

Elia, as tired as I was, without a single reproach, hurried to the kitchen while I collapsed into the command seat. At a glance I scrolled through the information displayed and, with precise gestures, began entering commands into the computer. Silence settled, and the lights went out. I looked at the clock.

“Ten minutes,” I told myself.

In this situation, I had to work in real time. I couldn’t use the usual delay. I had to synchronize both worlds and solve the problem before Elena's delicate improvement slipped out of control again. Her body couldn’t handle another dose of anesthesia. The good thing was that I was better prepared this time. Hours of simulations had trained me for different scenarios. We had tried everything we could think of; even the most absurd ideas. And today, I was very grateful for having a plan B.

“Coffee.”

The long, sleepless nights hadn’t managed to take away that warm expression on Elia’s face that brought me so much comfort.

“Thanks.”

She sat quietly by my side, prepared to step in wherever needed. When, on the contrary, she should be attended to by me, monitoring her recovery after the session. I was immensely relieved to have listened to her and agreed to the idea of staggered disconnection: Elia first, keeping Elena connected to the machine, then my jump, and then the machine should have disconnected my wife without my direct intervention. Instead of my original idea of disconnecting them both at the same time and then performing the jump, trusting that the doctors in Cuba would take care of any situation with my wife until I could get there.

Unfortunately, for reasons I still had to investigate, the final phase hadn’t gone as planned. Even so, it was far easier to manage complications in one world at a time. I couldn’t imagine what I would have done if I’d had the same emergency on both sides at once.

“My brave doctor,” I thought, catching her reflection on one of the screens. My chest was overflowing with gratitude.

The coffee wasn’t like the one in Cuba. Despite the scarcity, Elena always managed to get the best that was produced on the Island. She had me spoiled, to the point that I was forced to teach Elia how to prepare a similar one. We had bought dozens of different brands until we found one that convinced me. A few settings changes to my coffee maker and voila!

The delicious aroma filled the room, while my fingers continued to operate the complex equipment with such dexterity that even I was amazed. The tension of the moment couldn't overpower my senses. On the contrary, it sharpened them, allowing me a concentration and focus I could not remember having experienced before. Everything around me disappeared. I was completely immersed in the brilliant holographic image. It was the most intense interaction that could be achieved with a computer without being physically connected.

When I clenched both fists to signal the end of the session, Elia was already with the syringe ready. I glanced at my watch. Fifty seconds.

I extended my arm.

“Be careful out there,” her gentle words reached me.

The light went out.

“Comrade Díaz. With all due respect, that guy is out of his mind. We need to call the police before he wakes up. Just look at what he did to Maria.”

“Yes, I know,” Díaz responded, “but unfortunately, he's the only one who's managed to stabilize the patient. Whatever's going on is directly connected to him. You don’t want another episode like what we just saw, do you?”

“Not a chance,” replied a deep voice. “But we don’t even know if he’s a real doctor.”

“He's her husband,” a female voice interjected. “Here he is, listed as an emergency contact.”

“Husband? What on earth did this guy do to interfere with the medical equipment?”

“Witchcraft.”

“Witchcraft or not, treat him well until we discharge the lady! We don’t want this getting beyond these walls. Agreed?” the doctor’s voice rang out, making it clear that the discussion was over.

No one had noticed I was back.

“It’s time,” I heard another female voice say. “He said fifteen minutes.”

“Miguel, it’s all yours.”

Something cold was placed under my nose. The sharp scent pierced my brain, forcing it into action.

I opened my eyes and checked my watch, relieved to see that the delay with M was under a minute. I immediately approached Elena.

“Is everything okay?” Dr. Díaz asked, observing me with unfeigned interest.

“Yes,” I replied without lifting my head, glancing back at my watch. “She could wake up any second now.”

“She’s still got a lot of anesthesia in her system,” Miguel interjected.

I ignored him, bracing myself. And then... Elena took a deep breath and opened her eyes. She turned her head, looked at me tenderly, and said softly:

“Victor!” And she burst into tears.

I hugged her, unable to hold back my own tears. We stayed like that for an eternal moment. Everything else faded away; the sounds drifted into the background, and it was just the two of us in a tight embrace, motionless, filling ourselves with each other after all the suffering we had recently endured.

Chapter 5

One step after another, my feet carried me forward, complaining of so much work without any apparent purpose. I don't know how much time had passed when the Ceiba of the American Fraternity captivated my sight. It stood like a guardian of peace and order, imposing respect with its mere presence. All around, life bustled as usual: taxi drivers announcing their routes, street vendors carrying baskets and carts full of treats, lively lines of passengers waiting for their buses, pedal-powered tricycles weaving through the crowd, and groups of cheerful children freshly released from school heading back to their homes.

I lingered for a few minutes, observing the immense colossus, wondering: why, out of all the places my feet could have taken me after leaving the hospital, did I end up here? But of course, this was the place where I’d once brought Elia on a virtual tour, that cold morning in the cabin while savoring exquisite tea and cookies she’d baked herself.

“Elia,” I sighed, recalling her exhausted face the last time I saw her. In such a short time, she had become a loyal friend, a battle companion, a courageous pioneer in the world of science. How she faced each new challenge with a smile on her lips, tackling every obstacle in the strenuous mission of building a bridge between two worlds. A technological feat with the ultimate goal of rescuing my wife. It’s incredible how family can make the greatest professional achievements take a back seat, making them feel irrelevant. I had just carried out an unprecedented experiment, in both worlds. Perhaps the most significant achievement since humankind ventured into space. And yet, a single sentence from Elena brought it all crashing down.

After the eternal embrace in the hospital, which was my greatest reward, Elena suddenly pulled away, and with a look full of reproach, fear, and suffering, she said to me:

‘What have you done?’ And she repeated it: ‘What have you done, Deneb?’

Only at that moment did the message that had been pulsing in some dark corner of my consciousness all this time and that I stubbornly did not want to hear, finally broke through and with all its force shook my mind: ‘Opening the truth to Elena is not going to solve the problem.’

While I was stunned as I was processing that harsh reality, the doctor and his team wasted no time, and a heavy hand rested on my shoulder.

“Come with me, comrade,” I heard a booming voice say. Beside me stood a pair of well-polished black boots followed by dark blue pants. When I looked up, I saw one of the finest specimens the hot eastern land of the country has ever produced. His broad figure blocked the light from the window, and his towering height made even the tallest person crane their neck to see his face. Even without the gun hanging at his side, he was commanding enough to inspire respect. I mechanically followed his lead toward the door.

“The doctor asked me to escort you out through the other exit,” he said, guiding me down a narrow hallway I hadn’t noticed before. “Have a nice day” was the last thing I heard from the big uniformed man, still stunned and at the same time surprised not to suffer further consequences.

And now, contemplating the immutability of the ceiba, I wondered how many human stories it must have witnessed over its long existence. How many passions, triumphs, and failures had unfolded under its unyielding guard, with no rest and no replacement.

Here was one more. One more soul caught in the wild whirlwind of life, where the line between black and white, good and evil, right and wrong becomes so hard, and sometimes, impossible to trace. ‘What have you done, Deneb,’ I heard Elena’s words echo once more in my mind. What have I done? Nothing. Tried to follow a dream. My father’s dream, now my own. With very good intentions, to offer the fast-paced society, where most people do not even have time to eat in peace, a few extra hours so they can enjoy those small, yet important things that are swept away by rush and anxiety.

And what did I get as a result? A bridge between two parallel worlds, making me a pioneer not just in the fusion of two distinct minds, but of two separate worlds.

‘And a serious family problem,’ I heard a voice in my head.

“Yes,” I sighed. ‘A good pleasure, a hard blow,’ my grandmother used to say. In this case, though, the pain of the blow has far outweighed the glory of the pleasure.

“Well?” Elia asked as soon as I opened my eyes.

“We did it!” I tried to force a victorious smile. But who can fool a woman's sixth sense?

“Don’t worry,” she said to me. “Give her some time. It's not something easy to understand, much less to accept. And don’t underestimate the great scientific achievement you’ve accomplished today. I just finished making several copies of all the data. It's impressive!”

I looked at her with gratitude, and only now did I notice that she was fully dressed in outdoor clothes. Her huge hiking backpack was ready, leaning against the doorframe. Intercepting my gaze, she took a deep breath and said:

“Now you need to focus on getting your family back. I’d ask you to take a break from your work as a scientist and catch up on your life in Cuba. They need you.”

The alarm on her phone went off, announcing the arrival of her taxi.

“Well, it was a pleasure to be the pioneer in the discovery and the first journey of a woman between the two worlds. Thank you for trusting me with that opportunity.”

“Thank you for everything,” I replied. “Thank you for helping me rescue my family.”

“Good luck.” She kissed me on the cheek and left.

I stayed in silence for a while, contemplating the laboratory. Looking at each piece of equipment as if I were seeing it for the first time. How many resources, how much sacrifice, how many sleepless nights had been invested here. Suddenly, I felt all the exhaustion of those years weighing down on my shoulders. This wasn’t how I had imagined this moment. For so long, I had savored that vivid image in my mind of the day of victory. The day of the great discovery. The day of glory. I should be drinking champagne while preparing the publication of my work’s results for the scientific community, dressed in my best suit, which I had kept aside for this occasion, with music blasting and a radiant light show. It should have been the most important moment of my career! And here’s the reality. All that scientific achievement has merely become an imperfect and dangerous tool to try to save something that, without realizing it, has become the most important thing, usurping the first place in my mind and heart. Now the original goal was no longer ‘The goal,’ but just another step toward achieving the new goal, with the latter being even more unattainable than the first. It was no longer just about me doing mischief in a laboratory. What have you done to me? Why do you matter so much to me now? Something told me that this question was beyond the reach of science, and that the answer to it would never be found.

I sighed.

Like an elderly man well advanced in age, I got up from my command post and slowly, like someone with nowhere to go, I made my way out of the laboratory.

“Victor! Victor!” The entrance door was shaking under the brute fists of my neighbor Lino. “Buddy, open the door! I have a message from your wife. They just called me from the hospital…”

Before the whole neighborhood could find out what my wife had to tell me, in two jumps I reached the entrance and flung the door open. Lino, thrown off balance, let out a sharp ‘Heeey!’ as he stumbled into my house, his hands tracing chaotic shapes in the air, desperately trying to recover his footing.

“Man!” he exclaimed, regaining his composure.

“Hey, Lino, how are you?!” I said with a smile, closing the door behind him. ‘Mission accomplished,’ I thought. ‘Private message saved from the neighborhood grapevine.’ At least for now. “Come on in, have a seat.”

“Hey man, what were you doing? I’ve been pounding on your door forever.” He looked me over more closely. “Don’t tell me you were sleeping. Do you know what time it is? Eleven in the morning!” He answered his own question, giving emphasis to each word, making it clear how serious my transgression was. “It's about time that mess you’ve got going on ends and you get back to the grind. Ever since you hit your head, I hardly recognize you…”

“You're right,” I replied with the magic words that make any Cuban shorten their speech by at least two-thirds of the original volume. “I'll start on Monday.”

“About time, my friend, about time! I'm glad to hear it. So, you're all good now, right? Ready for the battle.” His fists went up in a high guard position.

“Thank God.” A phrase slipped out. Phrase I couldn't remember saying since the accident. An inner struggle resurfaced, dusting off a conflict between the scientific me and bricklayer me, that during the whole whirlwind of the experiment I had not paid attention to again.

“Hey, my brother, don't get mad at me, what I said was for your own good,” Lino interrupted my thoughts, clearly concerned by the expression I had at that moment. The theological discussion had to be put on hold once again.

“No, man, no,” I relaxed, patting him on the shoulder. “It’s all good. Tell me, how’s my wife?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” he began, straightening up on the couch. “That's what I was getting to. They called from the hospital, Elena is coming here after they discharge her. Make sure everything's nice, and don't you leave.”

“Here?!” I exclaimed. “Did they say about what time?”

“No, so get on it, because your house looks like a recycling bin.”

I looked around and scratched my head. Everywhere were the sheets with the complex calculations and diagrams.

“Well, if anything, you know the drill,” my neighbor said as he headed for the door.

“Yeah, my man, thanks. Say hi to Yulisleidis for me.”

“Will do.”

When calculating the required workload against the estimated available time, considering the processing unit's capacity, which was me, I had no choice but to start right away. Still without breakfast and without changing clothes, the chances of finishing on time were approaching zero. Despite logic opposing it, my heart beat faster, urging my limbs to move more quickly.

Indeed, the knock on the door caught me by surprise with the penultimate stack of paper wedged between my hands and chin, on my way to the wardrobe. With the loudest ‘Coming!’ my lungs could provide, I shoved the pile in and quickly locked the door to prevent it from spilling out again.

On my way to the living room, I grabbed the last tower, spinning in all directions looking for the tiniest space that wasn’t already occupied. Finding no other place, I split it into smaller portions and stuffed it under the couch.

I gave the room one last glance and opened the door.

“Good afternoon, Labrada.”

My mother-in-law looked me up and down with a sincere expression of concern, evaluating if it was a mistake to agree to her daughter’s wish to spend the first days of recovery alone with me.

“Good afternoon,” I replied.

Apparently, the brief visual inspection of the house made her relax, because as she turned, in a friendlier tone, she said to her children.

“Come in, boys. Lay her down here in the living room for now. Take your time.”

My two brothers-in-law carefully brought my wife in, as if she weighed nothing, and gently settled her on the sofa.

“Put a pillow under her knees, too,” my dear mother-in-law continued, like an army general directing her troops. “Leave her things in the bedroom. My love, please put the bag with food in the kitchen,” she told my father-in-law. “Take out the chicken and put it in the freezer. Leave the carton of eggs on the bottom shelf. Victor, here is the sheet with her treatment instructions; don’t lose it. The pills they prescribed are in the side pocket of the pink backpack. Don’t forget, they’re every eight hours. Remember, the wounds can’t get wet during her bath. The doctor said she shouldn’t eat anything fatty for a while. For today, there’s the soup I made. If she feels better tomorrow, give her some mashed potatoes. She still shouldn’t eat rice. Do you hear me, son? Alright, my dear.” She turned to Elena at the end. “Are you sure about this, sweetheart?”

From my wife’s expression, it was clear she’d had to answer the same question at least twenty times today.

“Yes, Mom, don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

“Take care, my beautiful girl. We’re leaving you your brother’s phone for a few days. Call if you need anything, okay, my little one? A kiss. We’re leaving.”

“Take care. Thanks for everything,” I said goodbye to the whole family and closed the door.

“Are you hungry?”

“Not much.”

“You should eat at least a little.”

My mother-in-law’s soup, if it had competed, would have won several awards for excellence. If there's one thing you can't take away from her, it's her gift for cooking.

“Coffee?” I asked as I emptied the second bowl.

“Have some yourself, I’ll pass today.”

“How do you feel, do you need anything else?” I asked, moving my chair closer to the sofa.

“You,” she said almost whispering, taking my hand. “Thanks for coming to the hospital. I thought you had forgotten.”

“How could I?”

“But you left without saying goodbye. My family told me the doctor had called you earlier, and that almost an hour later they let my mom in. My old lady was desperate when she came in. And when she saw that you had left without telling them anything, she got...” She made a gesture and a face representing her mother upset. “But, well, you know she gets over it quickly. She loves you in her own way.”

“Yeah,” I said, shaking my head. “You’ve already said it, in her own way.”

Some time passed in silence. I had planned so many things to say the first chance I got to be alone with her. The scientist part of me was boiling, threatening to overflow into a long speech; and tell her about the great feat he just accomplished. Flooding her with the endless details of the preparations during those never-ending sleepless nights. How he managed to convince Elia to participate in the experiment and how brave she was to accept. The failure during the disconnection and how his intelligent system sent a message to the monitor to notify him. How he saved her at the hospital, facing the healthcare professionals, and how he was escorted by the police, who miraculously let him go without further incident.

But in this moment, all of that faded into the background. Once again, I had my wife back, and life’s hardships had taught me to cherish these magical moments here and now.

My fingers sank into her hair, gliding slowly, gently, as they used to before the crisis.

Elena looked directly into my eyes, as if trying to understand who was hiding behind those pupils of mine.

It was getting dark. The sweet sounds of La Calabacita9 could be heard, followed by the intro of the Cuban TV news.

Suddenly, a strong breeze came through the window, the kind that announce an approaching storm. After playing a little with the curtains and the blades of the ceiling fan, so mischievous and inopportune, it circled the room and ended up underneath the sofa, scattering the hastily hidden stacks of paper into a chaotic white whirlwind.

“And what is this?” Elena asked, dying of laughter. “Victor?”

Her expression changed as she took one of the sheets and began reading aloud:

“Elena's Journey. Associated risks during the experiment:

1) Loss of control over participant one's self-recognition. Effect: permanent fusion of the participants.”

She skipped a few lines and continued reading further down.

“Risks associated with the conclusion of the experiment:

1) Temporary failure during disconnection. Effect: neurogenic shock.

2) Permanent failure during disconnection. Effect: …”

Her eyes scanned the rest of the text.

Of all the hundreds of papers left from the preparations, why did it have to be that one, the one that fell into her hands? Why?!

Pale and with trembling hands, Elena, not taking her eyes off me, hurriedly began to search for something by feel.

‘The phone,’ crossed my mind. No, no, no, no, no. I can’t let her go like this. Not now. In a lightning-fast move, I grabbed the device and slipped it into my pocket.

“Victor! Give me the phone! Victor, I’ll scream! Help!”

“Stop. Alright. Stop. Here it is.” I handed her the cell. “You don’t have to call. I’ll take you to your parents’ house myself. I'll just pick up the stuff and we'll go.”

She burst into tears.

“My love, listen…”

“Don’t touch me!” She kept sobbing. “And I, fool, thought that God had given me a sign at the hospital because He wanted us to come back.” She kept crying uncontrollably. “The doctor said it couldn’t be, that I couldn’t remember or dream about anything, but I saw it so clearly that I thought it was a miracle. I was hopeful it was a divine vision because I saw part of that crazy story you told me… and you were just thinking of taking away my memory, or worse: killing me! Why, Victor?! What have I done to you?”

“It was the only way I could show you the truth,” I answered seriously. “It wasn’t a vision, Elena.”

Apparently, my tone made her react, because she stopped crying and looked up.

“What?”

“It wasn’t a vision. It was the only way to prove to you that everything I told you was true.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’ve traveled to the world of Deneb. You’ve been to the other side, Elena. The other world is real.”

I paused, allowing her to process my last words.

This time, she didn’t call me crazy. She closed her eyes, trying to relive the experience.

“I was I in the parallel world?”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“During the surgery?”

“Correct.”

She laughed nervously.

“It can't be. I had hands and feet on the other side. And according to the doctor, I never left the operating table,” she said with a victorious tone, catching me in a contradiction.

“They weren't your hands and feet. They were Elia's.”

“Haha, yeah, sure. What else are you going to make up? Why are you starting all this madness again? I even dream about all of it now. Why don’t we stop and talk about something more serious?”

“You had your hands bandaged,” I continued, ignoring her comments.

“What?” she asked, bewildered.

“I need you to try to remember. You couldn't see your skin,” I insisted.

“Could it be, and what does that have to do with anything?” she responded, getting irritated.

“Answer me, yes or no.”

“Yes, I had... okay, I couldn’t see my fingers. How do you know that?”

“Because I was there. The man who greeted you was Deneb. That's what I look like when I'm on the other side.”

“Here we go again,” she said, clearly getting tired of the same story. “Alright. Want to play? I’ll make it harder. I’m going to ask you, and with your clairvoyant powers, you’ll answer me.”

“Okay.”

“Hmm, tell me, were there flowers in the room?”

“No, it was a lab.”

“No,” she made a face, “that was too easy. Tell me, what picture was on the wall?”

“It’s a portrait of my father.”

“Aha!” she exclaimed. “That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is, but you couldn’t see it because it was covered with a blue cloth.”

Her face lost the cheerful expression it had had until now, turning everything into a game.

“How do you know?”

Her forehead furrowed slightly as she tried to understand what was happening.

“I already told you, I was there. I covered it myself. We were neutralizing any reflective surfaces where you could see your face. It was necessary to minimize the risk of a permanent fusion.”

“It can't be.” She looked down, trying to recall more details.

“What brand of laptop did the man have in his hand?”

“None. We don't use laptops, like here. We have smart glasses to work on the go. But in the lab, I had a simple notebook. A paper one. And a pencil.”

Her eyes filled with fear.

“What did the man say when he saw me, and what did I respond?” She made a last desperate attempt to defend herself from the overwhelming reality that was becoming clearer and clearer, threatening to drag her into an abyss from which she would never escape.

“You asked me, 'Victor?' And I responded, 'Welcome, my love.'"

She made an involuntary move as if trying to distance herself from me, unsuccessfully attempting to control the tremor of her entire body.

“After that, the alarm went off, and I had to immediately disconnect Elia, to prevent what happened to me from happening to you. I don't know if you had any experience afterward, but the next thing you should remember is your awakening in the Calixto in Havana,” I concluded.

She looked at me, like a scared little kitten hiding under the dresser.

“So it’s true...” she whispered after a long pause.

I nodded.

“But if you were already at the hospital before I woke up...”

“That's right. I had just crossed over. Like I told you before, when I fall asleep in one place, I automatically wake up in another. That's why I couldn’t be there from the start. Only when I disconnected you could I move,” I replied.

I decided not to tell her about the setback. She wasn’t ready.

Another long pause.

“And you... you made me go through that experiment, without even asking me? Aware, like you wrote in that paper, that I could even die? With what right, Victor?!” she got heated with every word. “And the kids? Did you think about them? What would become of them if something happened to me? Huh?”

I had no answer. I had asked myself the same question a thousand times before going through with it. I prepared as best as I could to ensure success. We practiced tirelessly, but even then, the risks were there.

“Please, leave me alone,” Elena asked, calming down a bit.

Chapter 6

Ri……………..ing!

I looked at the clock. Two in the morning. Who could be calling me? And at this hour? Ri……………..ing!

“Hello?”

“Mr. Deneb?”

“Yes?”

“Miss Tian was in a traffic accident and is in intensive care,” a female voice rushed in, sounding like an answering machine.”

“Oh no! Have you notified her family yet?”

“You are the only emergency contact the patient has designated so far, sir. It is your decision whether to tell anyone else. Do you have any other questions, sir?”

“Not right now, no. Thank you very much for letting me know.”

“Have a good day.”

“You too.”

‘Family? I never asked her about her family. How selfish of me. It was always about me and my problems,’ I reflected as I dressed. ‘Intensive care,’ my heart was beating faster and faster. Running, I reached the helicopter pad. I entered the coordinates into the computer and plunged into the darkness of the night.

“I fell asleep, I fell asleep, I fell asleep!” I woke up, lamenting in Havana.

“What happened?” I heard Elena’s voice from the bedroom.

“Don’t get up, my love. I’m coming to you,” I rushed to reassure her, getting up from the couch.

“What happened?” she asked again as soon as she saw me in the doorway.

“I fell asleep,” I sighed helplessly.

“You overslept for what? It’s Saturday. You don’t start work until Monday. Why did you need to get up so early today?” she asked, still half asleep.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. How are you feeling?”

“Better, still a little sore. So what happened?”

“It’s Elia. She was in a traffic accident. They called me in the middle of the night. She’s in intensive care. I was with her waiting for the doctor to come by to check how she was doing, when I fell asleep.”

It took her a few seconds to get situated.

“Are you talking about the nurse on the other side?”

“Yes.”

“So Deneb, is that his name?, he’s at the hospital with Elia, and he fell asleep?”

I realized it was easier for Elena to imagine me as two independent people to avoid getting confused about the coexistence of both worlds.

“That’s right.”

“Oh, tell him when you go back to the other side that I’m sorry.”

“Thank you very much,” I replied.

“What do you want to do today?”

I sighed. There was no point in judging her for not feeling connected to Deneb’s world. It was something so abstract and unreachable that it was still hard for her to take it seriously. Or maybe it was her way of shielding herself from something she couldn’t possibly resolve.

I knew my time in Havana wasn’t going to affect or influence in any way what was happening in Pirson. I couldn’t make myself wake up any earlier than I would naturally wake up. All I could do was go to bed earlier, but Elena needed me, and it was a beautiful day. With the maximum effort of my will, I forced myself to stop worrying about the situation in M. At least for now.

“I invite you to breakfast.”

“Wow!” She liked my proposal.

We carefully checked the wounds and prepared everything so we could move.

“Can you walk?”

“Yes. Slowly.”

“Very good. Take your time.”

Everything was going smoothly until we reached the stairs. There, like in the old days, I got all romantic, took her in my arms and... Aaaah, my back!

Raging with pain with a smile on my lips, grinding my teeth, I counted each step until I put my beloved back on the ground and then, I stayed a few seconds very diligently stretching one by one each wrinkle in my pants, because I couldn't straighten up.

“Are you okay?” Elena asked, not knowing whether to laugh or seek help.

“Better than ever,” I answered, looking at her sideways, leaning against the railing.

Either Elena has gained a few pounds, or my time off work has made me loose my shape, but it definitely took me out of service.

Finally, the crisis subsided, and in a rheumantic embrace, supporting each other, we slowly made our way to the street.

Luckily, our dear neighbors weren’t awake at that early hour. Otherwise, we’d have made their day.

‘To Havana. To Havana,’ the almendrons’ drivers’ cries filled the air as we flagged down a ’56 Dodge Custom Royal.

The driver was a Guantanamero10 who was more than happy to answer all the questions I couldn’t help asking as a scientist during our ride.

He told me he bought the car four years ago all beat up. He and his buddy worked on it for six months. They installed Avia steering, a Camaro 700 automatic transmission, and a Mitsubishi Canter engine, revamped the electrical system, and swapped the original brakes for discs on all four wheels. They even installed power windows!

‘It is true that we Cubans are the best mechanics in the world!’ I thought as I helped my beloved step out onto the Prado.11

“Mamey?” I asked, ordering a couple of milkshakes.

“Oh yes, you know it’s my favorite flavor.”

Some cheese empanadas completed our feast.

“I missed being like this with you,” Elena said as she savored her breakfast. “Just us, no rush, no pressure, nothing strange. Just you and me and no one else.”

Her last words reminded me of Elia. How was she? What exactly had happened? What did the doctor say? Would he wake me up during the visit?

“Damn!” I said aloud, suddenly remembering that I hadn’t listed Elia’s allergies on her hospital form.

“Excuse me?! Victor?!”

“Sorry, my love. I just remembered I didn’t list the medications Elia is allergic to on the hospital form.”

“Again?!” she said, exasperated, as if she couldn’t believe what was happening. “Once again, that other life of yours is interfering with us! So, Elia, huh? And what about me? What am I, chopped liver?” she added, in a tone that turned heads.

“And what do you want me to do?” I replied, hurt. “Forget she exists?! Pretend nothing’s happening? The only person I’ve been close to in recent weeks is critically ill in the hospital. The person who saved me from certain death! If it weren’t for her, maybe I wouldn’t even be here talking to you right now.”

“Better! Then you wouldn’t have gotten into my husband’s head…” Elena shot back, heatedly, and immediately bit her tongue, realizing just how cruel her last words had been.

Staying in the cafeteria was no longer possible. Now all eyes were on us. Paying, I hurried to get us away from there.

“Sorry,” Elena said to me when we settled on one of the benches on Paseo del Prado.

I remained silent.

“What can I do to make you feel better?”

I shrugged.

“Help me fall asleep for a few minutes. Just one minute of deep sleep will be enough to cross over.”

“Lie down.”

I obeyed. Slowly, she began running her hand over my head, humming a soothing melody.”

“Good afternoon.” I heard a deep voice and looked up. The doctor, entering the room, immediately approached the monitors. I glanced at my watch. Half past eleven in the morning. I exhaled in relief. I woke up just in time.

“Nurse, please change the IV for this one. Increase the oxygen level a bit. Mr. Deneb?” he turned to me after the facial scanner built into his glasses confirmed my identity.

“Yes, doctor?”

“My name is Ron Melton. I’m the intensivist attending to Miss Tian. You’re the only one of the two persons the patient designated as emergency contacts that we can count on,” he continued, simultaneously reviewing the information displayed on his lenses, while his fingers moved through the air with impressive fluidity, controlling the device wirelessly. “Unfortunately, the other contact was in the same vehicle and died in the impact.”His hands made a logout gesture, and his lenses became clearer, neutralizing the slight blue tint they have in screen mode. “The young woman's condition is deteriorating rapidly. We’ve done everything we could. There's only one treatment left that we might try, but it's experimental.” He paused briefly. “We can't give any guarantees. There’s a twenty-five percent risk that her psychomotor skills will be severely affected permanently.” He paused again, watching my reaction. “Some patients have never been able to care for themselves again. That’s if her body can tolerate the treatment,” he concluded. “I’m very sorry.”

My heart faltered inside me.

“What is the life expectancy under current conditions?”

“Twelve to twenty-four hours. I’ll give you a few minutes to think about it.”

The doctor left.

Elia, my brave doctor, was dying. It was the hardest decision fate had ever placed in my hands! Do nothing and see if by some chance her body overcomes the severity, which according to the doctor is impossible, or risk the experimental treatment that could leave her incapacitated for the rest of her days. Her, who is so active. So enthusiastic. How I wish I had Elena by my side right now to help me make this decision. For the first time in many years, I felt the high cost of catching my father’s madness. I had no friends. The few family members I still had alive hadn’t spoken to me in years. And the only person who managed to break through the barrier of my isolation now needed me. What do I do?

So much tension was suffocating me. I stepped out of the room onto an adjacent balcony. The invigorating icy air threw tiny snowflakes against my skin. Below lay the impassive vast city. Tons of concrete and glass. The towering buildings, like mighty giants, stood watching indifferently over the labyrinth of streets stretching at their feet. The dense, colorful traffic flowed nonstop in all directions. The tiny cars, hurried, overtaking one another, slid in a frantic race as if all at once they’d been called to extinguish a fire. Life went on.

Only mine had suddenly lost its stride. I turned back toward the room. Elia, my dear Elia. If it weren't for the equipment she had been hooked up to, it would look like she was just taking a nap. A little while longer and she rises radiant like a ray of sunshine illuminating everything around her with her smile. I remembered the times in the laboratory. How much vitality she brought to that lair of mine.

The last image was snatched away from me by the muffled sound of the alarm. Immediately, the room filled with white coats, and my world came to a halt. In slow motion, I saw the doctor gesturing, giving orders to the nurses, who like a well-tuned mechanism carried them out quickly and precisely. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Nor did I need to. Their faces told the story better than words ever could.

The defibrillator came into action. It was unbearable to watch her body react to the electric shocks. I closed my eyes and, for the first time, leaning on Victor’s experience, made a sort of prayer. When I opened them again a few seconds later, the medical staff was leaving the room one by one.

With a jerk I opened the glass door and darted in the direction of the bed. The doctor turned at once and opening his hands in a ‘Stop!’ gesture, caught me halfway.

“Man! Calm down. She’s fine. For now.” He separated me by grabbing my shoulders to look directly into my eyes. “Relax. Breathe. Very good. We managed to stabilize her. But we don't have much time left. You need to make a decision.”

Tears ran down my face.

“Thank you, doctor, thank you.”

The doctor kept looking at me, waiting for an answer.

“Yes, of course.” I took a deep breath, regaining control. I looked at Elia, then shifted my gaze to the bright waves representing her heartbeat.

“Seventy-five percent success rate?”

“In case her body can withstand the treatment,” the doctor emphasized again. “I'm only suggesting it because I believe that without intervention, her chances of survival are virtually zero.”

“Let's do it.”

“Alright, I'll prepare the procedure. My assistant will bring you the documents to sign.”

The waiting room adjacent to the surgical suite felt too small for me. My feet couldn’t stay still in one place. Round after round, I paced the room in circles, irritating the receptionist, who followed my movements with her eyes, clearly making it known that I was distracting her from her work. To be honest, I didn’t even recognize myself. How many times had I subjected myself to dangerous experiments in the lab, assisted only by the AIS (Artificial Intelligence System)? But today it was not about me. Today it was out of my hands.

‘It’s not a surgery, but it is a complex procedure that can last several hours. It’s a combination of electric acupuncture, chemical treatment, and biological therapy.’ The doctor told me while the nurses were preparing the transfer. ‘The challenge is to balance the three agents so that they stimulate the body, forcing it to accelerate the healing processes without causing harm. If everything goes well, the result is immediate. In two to three hours a recovery is achieved that in normal conditions would take weeks. That way, tissues that, if not treated immediately, could cause death are repaired in record time.’ Everything would be wonderful if it weren’t for the risk that the treatment itself could overload the nervous system, permanently damaging it, or even worse.

An hour passed. I tried several things to relax, to no avail, and, without realizing it, I went back to my solo run around the room. Suddenly, I noticed someone was following me. When I turned around, I saw a child, thoroughly amused, imitating my gait. Realizing he had been caught, he stopped with a guilty look on his face.

“Hello,” I said to him.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he ran off toward one of the seats and threw himself onto the lap of a stout woman, who hugged him in a very peculiar way. Something so unusual in modern times within our society, where family has been sacrificed in the name of progress. Mother, father, grandparents became nothing more than mere titles. Since natural conception was replaced by a computerized system, which handled everything from the collection of genetic material to the complete formation of the fetus, the role of parents was reduced to that of donors. The model was initially introduced as a safe method for women at high risk of miscarriages to have children. Later, it became widespread, spurred on by the pressure of employers to eliminate the time during which women would be unable to give one hundred percent at work, keeping pace with men. Not to mention the reduction in healthcare costs. Appearance standards had also risen to such a level that losing your figure could cost you your job and create serious social problems.

The second phase involved freeing parents from the demanding task of raising children. One-hundred-and-twenty-hour childcare centers became increasingly popular, where children were dropped off on Sunday afternoon and picked up the following Friday.

Until the government decided that a six-day workweek was necessary and that on the seventh day workers could not devote themselves to their children, who exhausted them to such an extent that their productivity decreased at the start of the week. Only once a year, on the day of their desincubation, did children meet with their parents for a ceremony. Or on special occasions, such as a wedding, a funeral, or as it should be in the case of this little boy, if one of the parents is between life and death. But even in that situation, he would be brought by a specialist assigned by the childcare institution where he lived. But this woman was not one of them. This lady behaved as grandmothers used to do in the old days.

“Don’t bother the gentleman,” she said, pointing her index finger at him. “Excuse us,” She turned to me.

“Don’t worry,” I replied, and automatically, as I would have done in Cuba, I began looking for something sweet to offer the boy. Of course, I had nothing. Only a folder with the documents I had just signed. ‘They already sent me a digital copy anyway,’ I thought, and pulling out the one that seemed least important, with the dexterity acquired through years of practice, I folded it into a dinosaur and handed it to the child.

“Wow!” the little one exclaimed as he received the gift.

“What do you say?” the woman leaned over him, trying to capture his attention.

“Thank you,” the boy replied, then took off running, making his new toy fly by holding it by the tail. For some reason, the animal sounded like a jet airplane. In the imagination of a child, it seems anything is possible.

“Do you like children?” the…, grandmother?, asked, with genuine surprise and curiosity.

“I have two at home,” I replied without realizing how suspicious my words must have sounded in Pirson.

She looked at me with distrust.

“And you get along very well with your...” I asked, trying to divert her attention.

“Grandson,” she said proudly. By that point, we were the only three left in the waiting room. “We’re from the Refuge,” she explained.

“From the Refuge, the village? Where families live together?”

“Hmm,” she said, surprised. “Do you know it?”

“No, I’ve only heard it mentioned.”

Some time ago, I remember a news story about a town south of Pirson that had won a lawsuit lasting nearly five years, which almost ruined its residents, over the right to build families in a traditional way. It was so brief and disappeared from the headlines so quickly that it became almost a myth. And now, entirely by accident, I had crossed paths with two of its inhabitants.

“Yes, we're not very popular. They accuse us of disrupting order, sowing confusion. Of exposing our women to mortal danger, of being lazy for not dedicating our entire existence solely to work.” She pressed her lips together, clearly holding back her emotions. “And to think, just a few decades ago, the traditional family was the norm.”

Her words were interrupted by the secretary's announcement, informing them that their relative's operation had concluded and they could proceed to room H for the surgeon's report.

“Well, it was a pleasure,” the woman said as she took the child by the hand. “May everything go well for you.”

“Thank you, likewise.”

For a few seconds, I watched how they interacted with each other. So different from what I was used to seeing in society these days. They seemed more... human?

Now I was completely alone. I stopped looking at the clock. The numbers stuck to the screen, making the passage of time painfully slow.

I remembered Cuba. I missed my children. With all that going on, I hadn’t seen them in weeks. How they’ve grown! It seems like just yesterday they wouldn’t let us sleep at night, making us get up three or four times to give them their bottles. Was it demanding? Oh, yes! But I still don’t understand how the people of M could give up the joy of holding them in their arms. Hearing them say ‘pa-pa-pa-pa-pa’ for the first time while blowing bubbles with their lips. Helping them take their first steps. Seeing the excitement on their faces when they finally succeed. Receiving their kisses and hugs… Like the vast majority of us who were raised in Pirson, I could only truly know and interact with my father when I came of age. What a contrast to my upbringing in Cuba. Seeing Dad come home from work. Always bringing us something delicious. Gathering the whole family around the same table at dinner, devouring the tasty food lovingly prepared by Mom, and listening to everyone share how their day went.

And on the weekends, when we would go to Grandma and Grandpa's house... what fun we had! Grandparents sure know how to make one have a good time!

“Mr. Deneb, please report to room L.” The receptionist’s bland voice echoed through the speakers.

I jumped up from my spot, as if I had been pricked in the buttock. In just a few steps, I was at the door to room L. Dr. Melton, noticeably exhausted, was interacting intensely with the computer on his glasses. I waited impatiently for him to finish.

“I’m sorry,” he said, making a few abrupt final gestures. “The patient has successfully undergone treatment. She has come out of the coma.”

“Hallelujah!” I exclaimed, deeply moved.

“I beg your pardon?” The doctor's eyes widened in confusion.

“I'm sorry. It's an expression of joy in my native language.”

His eyebrows arched.

“Well,” he continued after a visible effort to restore his train of thought, “as I was saying, the patient has come out of the coma and is progressing favorably. The initial tests haven’t shown any psychomotor disorders, but we need to keep monitoring her. They may not manifest immediately. Do you have any questions?”

“Yes, can I see her?”

“Of course. We’ve already moved her to room fifteen, where she was before the procedure.”

“Thank you so much, doctor!”

I approached and gave him a hug. He froze in surprise until I let go.

“You're welcome,” he stammered, shocked, adjusting his gown.

The air played with my jacket as, like a Cuban teenager, I ran through the maze of hallways toward room fifteen. Panting, I opened the door, and… there was Elia. Serene, with her eyes half-closed, watching the snowflakes dance on the other side of the window.

I approached carefully, as if afraid of startling the fragile breath of life that only hours before had threatened to escape forever from her delicate body. The emotions overflowed within my heart. Tenderly, I took her two hands, riddled with numerous needle marks, and held them against my chest.

Slowly, she turned her head. Our gazes met, and like two magnets, they drew us closer, closer, until our lips melted together and our hands intertwined in an embrace. Everything happened so suddenly, so naturally, that when we pulled apart and regained our sense of time and space, neither of us had words to explain it.

A profound sense of guilt overwhelmed us, and, averting our eyes, we remained silent, trying to understand something that was never meant to be reasoned. Something we were fully aware had reached the point of no return.

On my way back to the cabin, a strong wind shook my aircraft, threatening to take control away from me. Burdened with my thoughts, I left the hospital despite the warning from Trafi (that’s what we private pilots called the air traffic controller). And now, I found myself in the midst of a storm, as fierce as the one raging inside me. Furious and defiant, I navigated through the night between those two tempests, shouting obscenities at them, shaking my fist threateningly. In response, I received lightning strikes and gusts of wind filled with snow. One after another, alarms went off, hammering my ears with spine-chilling sounds. My tired horse was losing the fierce battle against nature.

“A-a-a-h you piece of junk,” I roared, gripping the controls even tighter. “Up!”

‘Two miles to destination,’ notified the on-board computer, and immediately, everything shut down. The exhausted engine gave its last groan and fell silent. Only the raging wind howled outside the cockpit, declaring its undisputed victory.

I connected the emergency battery and immediately began the autorotation procedure.

How was it? 'Collective down, cyclic back, right pedal...' I heard my instructor's words in my mind. A gust of wind made me realize that the standard procedure wasn’t going to work this time. No one trains for this situation. I began improvising, trying to use the wind to my advantage to slow the descent. 'Just don’t let the blades stop,' I heard another phrase from my instructor. Frantically manipulating the controls under the constantly changing wind speed, I did my best to keep the revolutions stable. I couldn’t see clearly what was beneath me. I braced myself for the worst. A white patch half a mile away, illuminated by a flash, gave me hope. One hundred meters, fifty, thirty, fifteen... Gently, I pulled the lever. 'Flare smoothly,' my instructor’s voice echoed in my mind. Snow clouds lifted around me, and a strong jolt made me bite my tongue. I moved my feet and hands. I touched my head. I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t know if it was the adrenaline, but the only part I could feel injured at that moment was my tongue. I immediately moved away to a safe distance, anticipating a potential explosion. A puff of smoke was coming from the engine compartment. I looked at my clothes. There was no way I was going to make it to the morning alive with what I was wearing. And no one would come to rescue me until the storm passed. I checked my smartwatch to ensure the computer had sent the correct information to the Search and Rescue Center. Indeed, the estimated operation time was nine am the next day. I remembered the tent that, since my father's time, always traveled in the cargo section. How many times had I been on the verge of taking it out of there so it wouldn’t get in my way! And look now. It was my only hope of protecting myself from the harsh weather.

“Well, you decide…,” I told myself, jumping to warm up. “…you die by burning or freezing. If you think about it too much, you won't do it...”

I examined the smoky silhouette again and rushed toward it. To my surprise, the cargo compartment door didn’t jam, and within seconds, I was jumping through the deep snow toward the trees with my prize in tow.

With the skill of a soldier, I set everything up and slipped inside. Now I was well shielded from the icy wind. My attempt to turn on the integrated electric heater failed. The adrenaline was wearing off, and the full gravity of what had just happened began to settle in my mind. A tremor took hold of my body as I realized this could have been my last day on this planet. And for what? All because I wanted to escape a situation of my own making. No matter how fast or how far you run, you can’t outrun yourself.

The bittersweet reunion with Elia, after almost losing her forever, replayed in my mind over and over again. Isolated from everything familiar, in a confined space amid a hostile situation, the arrogance of a young, successful scientist and the confidence of a seasoned bricklayer wavered. Concepts began to shift in my scale of values.

Apparently, the snow had buried the tent, as the structure stopped trembling, significantly improving insulation and finally allowing my chattering teeth to cease their percussion. The now barely perceptible sound of the storm acted as a lullaby, and before I realized it, I succumbed to its enigmatic charm.

“Victor, wake up.” Elena's soft voice was pulling me back to Havana. “What’s with that face?”

“What face?” I snapped back.

“Oh, don’t take it out on me,” she retorted. “You look like you’ve been run over”

“Sorry, I had a long day,” I replied, stepping directly into the sunlight. “Oh,” I exhaled, savoring the hot rays penetrating my skin.

Judging by her expression, she was still struggling to adjust to the way I operated between both worlds.

“Fine, if you want, we can head back. I’m getting tired too. You can tell me about it on the way.”

During the entire ride back, she listened attentively, only interrupting briefly to complain when the car hit a pothole.

This time, I didn’t try to play Superman, and together, we climbed the stairs to the house one step at a time.

“How are you feeling, sweetie?” came the shout from across the solar.

“Better, Rosalina, thank you.”

We went inside. I served lunch. Elena was still under the impression of what I had just told her. I hadn’t held anything back. I was surprised by how maturely she handled the whole situation; instead of getting upset, she asked practical questions to understand things more clearly.

“Hmm,” she murmured, rubbing her forehead after a long pause. “So what do you plan to do?”

“At first, I thought the best solution, if Elia and Deneb’s feelings were confirmed, would be to unite both of you the same way I am. That way, both of us would experience the same thing. But now, with everything Elia just went through and after what I experienced with you in the hospital… ” I bit my tongue, realizing I’d said too much.

“At the hospital? You mean during my surgery? You didn’t tell me anything about that.”

I don’t know if Elena was simply tired of being upset or if the Divine Spirit had enveloped her with grace, but what would’ve once sparked an argument now unfolded as a peaceful discussion. It was as if we were talking about the color of curtains we’d put on the window.

I told her in great detail about the emergency I had to face that day.

“And you, what? Did you threaten the nurse? With a scalpel? Have you lost your mind?”

“It was the only way to save you. It was the first thing that occurred to me. I needed the medical staff to sedate you again.”

“I think you're going to keep sleeping in the living room,” she said, half-joking, half-serious, pointing to the sofa. “And you put a lock on the bedroom door.”

She remained thoughtful for a few seconds.

“Hey, darling, listen. From what I can understand after everything you told me, you don't belong there, and Deneb doesn't belong here. Right?”

It was hard to accept, but as much as it might hurt me, it was the best summary of the problem. Hard to find more accurate words.

“I understand that, as a scientist, it must be a great achievement for Deneb,” Elena continued. “But if it's all this trouble, and it's making us all suffer, then just disconnect both worlds, and that's it. Let each one live their own life.”

“I can't,” I sighed. “I already tried it in the simulator. There's no way.”

“There has to be a way,” she said, with a serious tone, very unusual for her. “How long are we going to drag this situation on? It's time we seek help.”

“Help?” I replied, searching my mind, trying to figure out who she could be referring to.

“We could talk to the pastor, he...”

“And tell him what?” I interrupted. “Even if he believed what I tell him is real, how could he help?”

She had nothing to respond.

“At least go to the service. Let God speak to you.”

The scientist inside me stirred at the mention of church.

“What’s it going to cost you? Come with me. It's on the other block.”

“And be the gossip of the town?”

“Imagine what they’ll say if I go alone. We’d give them even more reason to talk.”

We arrived early. Elena insisted that we sit in the first row. ‘That way, no one will distract you,’ she told me. The service began. After the greeting and a brief prayer, it was time for praise. How beautifully they sang. It wasn't a professional group, but the sincerity with which they praised God was something else. They ended that time singing ‘How Great Thou Art.’ Part of me missed that atmosphere.

The sermon was about Nicodemus. It dealt with matters so abstract that I had to make a great effort not to fall asleep.

When it ended, the pastor, as usual, stood by the exit to greet the congregation.

“I'm glad to see you,” he said. “How have you been?”

“We're hanging in there, pastor, we're hanging in there.”

“Remember that God is bigger than our circumstances.”

Who asked him to speak up? At that moment, the long-postponed theological debate surfaced, and one after another, I began throwing darts at everything that didn’t make sense to me in the Bible and in the Christian faith.

The pastor looked at my wife with the expression: ‘And what's gotten into this one?’

I was tactfully separated from the crowd and invited into the office.

“Don't worry,” Elena told me. “Fefita will accompany me home.”

Two hours later, Luis Alberto, visibly exhausted, wrapped up our debate with the following words:

“Victor, I thank God for your concerns, but there are things that only the Lord Himself can reveal to you. Jesus promised to be with us every day. He never promised to give us all the answers. If we had all the answers, faith would be invalidated. And it is precisely faith that God chose to give us salvation.”

‘Blah blah blah,’ I thought on the way home. Just believe and don’t question anything. What a convenient way to dodge the uncomfortable questions. I needed a solution, something practical. Not mere theories.

The sound of an engine made me open my eyes. It took me a few seconds to understand where I was. Groping in the dark, I started touching everything around me until I found the flashlight. My tongue felt swollen in my mouth, and my numb limbs protested against the rough night. After several attempts, my clumsy fingers managed to open the zipper, and my hands hit the thick layer of snow that had covered my tent. I felt movement on the other side, and a few seconds later, strong hands pulled me out of my hiding place.

“Thank you so much,” I said, squinting against the bright glare of the sun.

“Thank Zeko,” the man replied, pointing to the panting dog by his side. “Here, take these,” he added, handing me a pair of sunglasses. “That should help.”

“You were lucky not to have a fire. The wiring is melted,” said another young man, closing the engine compartment cover of my helicopter. “The structure is compromised at critical points. I'm sorry, but with the damage it's sustained, your aircraft can't be repaired. It will have to be declared a total loss. I'll contact the tow service to have it taken away.”

I looked at my veteran one last time. It was an old model, simple and robust, that had served my family for decades. It was my father’s legacy, just like the cabin. One way or another, its glorious days in the air were coming to an end. If not in this accident, then in a couple of months. The insurance company had made it clear there would be no extension due to the equipment's age. It would have been even more painful to scrap it while still perfectly functional and without a scratch. Rest in peace, my faithful friend, and may the blazing heat of the smelting furnace grant you a new life, hopefully a more peaceful one.

Sipping a cup of hot tea and wrapped in a thermal blanket, I rose above the site of my forced landing. It was a small beach on the edge of a lake covered by a thin layer of ice, surrounded on the south and east by a dense forest. To the north rose a mountain. To the west lay a cliff.

‘A miracle,’ Victor’s voice echoed in my mind. I couldn’t disagree.

“Elia? What a surprise! Are you okay?” My swollen tongue was stubborn, struggling to cooperate.

“I’m fine. Are you okay?” she asked, her voice full of concern. “I'm watching a footage about the accident on the news. I didn’t know what to think. They only showed the wreckage of your helicopter, but I recognized it right away.”

“Yeah, but don’t worry. I’m already home. The worst I got was biting my tongue during the crash.”

“Oh, what a relief. Did you get checked out?”

“Yeah, the rescue team brought a paramedic. Plus, the lab scan confirmed everything’s fine.”

“Why did you have to go out in such bad weather, you madman? You could’ve gotten yourself killed! And it was all my fault” she said, her voice shifting from angry to tearful. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said all those things yesterday. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just… I can’t handle this situation anymore. I know it’s not your fault. It was an accident. You tried to fix it.” Her tone softened as she continued. “But the truth is… the way things are now, you’re a married man with two kids. No matter how much I tell myself they’re in another universe, and that here you don’t have anyone… I don’t feel I have the right to get close to you. It’s just wrong.”

My heart clenched hearing her talk like that. So many years alone, and now that fate allows me to meet a woman so special, with values so rare to find, now that I have her so close... I can't reach her.

What irony that the same phenomenon that brought her into my life in the first place was now taking her away.

“Deneb?” she asked cautiously. “Are you there?”

“Yes,” I sighed. “I understand exactly how you feel. Honestly… this life that never stops is wearing me down too.”

“Have you thought about asking someone else to check your calculations? Someone you trust?”

I smiled.

“Me? Trust someone? I think you and I are a lot alike in that regard. You only approved two emergency contacts, and one of them is someone you just met.” At that moment I remembered that I had not yet put anyone as an emergency contact and, embarrassed to reproach her for something I was guilty of myself, I changed my tone. “You surprised me. Thanks for the confidence.”

“No, thank you for making the decision that saved my life.”

“I was just repaying my debt,” I joked, then sighed. “You didn’t make it easy.”

We stayed silent for a while.

“You told me your dad started the project with a classmate, didn’t you?”

“Oh, Mr. Mustache? That’s what my dad used to call him.”

“Yeah. What was his name… Professor X?”

“Yep. I guess his parents didn’t like him much. They only gave him a single letter as a name. Didn’t even bother assigning him a last name.”

“Not even when he came of age?”

“I think in his case, his parents were the perfect example of ‘donors.’ They donated their genetic material and and dismissed the matter.”

“Yeah, you hear more and more cases like that these days,” Elia said, her tone disapproving. “I was lucky to be born the old-fashioned way.”

“What do you mean?”

“My mom had me at the family farm, with help from her sisters,” she answered half embarrassed, feeling uncomfortable opening up those details to a man. “They hid me until I was four,” she added, anticipating my next question. “Until the FPA (Family Planning Agency) found out and threatened to put my parents in jail. Even after they handed me over to the system, they bribed the officials so they could spend more time with me. Anyway, back to the topic, do you know how to locate him?”

I took a moment to reply, thinking about the enormous sacrifice her parents were willing to make out of love for their daughter. Not only had they avoided the permanent contraceptive implant somehow, but they also had to keep her mother hidden throughout the pregnancy. And then the child as well, and… Ugh! I could only imagine how many hardships they had to go through. Thank goodness that today there is at least one legal place where families can raise their own children. I remembered the woman from the Refuge. Even so, the financial sacrifice was immense. No formal workplace would accept them.

“Ah, yes… um… I could check my old man’s files,” I hastened to reply. “Although I wouldn’t count on it much. After the first few failures, when the project became an object of ridicule, X quickly distanced himself and made, as he put it, a professional career. He didn’t discover anything extraordinary, didn’t invent anything groundbreaking, but he got a good salary and recognition in the scientific community. I doubt seeing me would bring him good memories.”

“Got a better idea?”

“Not really.”

“I have to go. The doctor’s here. Take care of yourself. Don’t do anything reckless.”

“Yes, Mom,” I said, laughing at the tone she used to tell me to behave.

“Oh, funny guy,” she said, slightly annoyed. “You better.”

Chapter 7

“But look who's coming over there!” Luisito crossed my path. The bacan12 of Havana! We already thought you weren't going to grind it anymore. They say you've become a real intellectual now....

I tried to pass him by without being provoked.

“Come on, man, tell me something straight, just between us,” the bastard wouldn't let go of me. “How did you manage to get your wife to let you cheat on her? Huh, Christian boy?”

“Come here.” I gestured with my index finger for him to come closer. “Come,” I told him again, “Do you want the secret or not?”

He stopped in surprise, not knowing how to react. It was enough so that after a lightning maneuver his thin neck was firmly trapped between my calloused hands. Without knowing it, he had become the last straw, the one that caused the giant cup of my frustration to break and the tsunami of emotions to rush with all its momentum over my mind irreparably drowning what little self-control and common sense I had left. The combination of Deneb's temperament and Victor's physical strength in an instant became a lethal weapon. Luisito's feet hung helplessly, while his terrified eyes popped out of their sockets and his skin was losing its natural color.

“Victor! Let him go! Victor!” I heard my father-in-law’s voice from a distance. “Oh man, he’s going to kill him!” he exclaimed as he ran toward us.

‘Vengeance is mine. I will repay!’ A voice echoed in my mind with such authority that I did not dare to disobey. I took a deep breath and slowly returned the wretch to solid ground.

He coughed, gulping air through his mouth, clutching his neck with both hands. Without a word, stumbling and nearly falling, he disappeared from sight.

Still winded from his sprint, my father-in-law grabbed me by the shoulders. As he caught his breath, he said:

“Boy! What a scare you gave me. What happened to you?” He glanced in the direction Luisito had vanished. “Son, I know that scoundrel has been asking for trouble for a while, but for God’s sake, don’t get yourself in hot water over that good-for-nothing. It’s not worth it,” he continued, looking me in the eyes. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on between you and Elena, but that’s not the way to handle it, you hear me, son? I’ll talk to Rafael and have them assign you to another crew today. And pray to God that guy keeps his mouth shut.”

“Forgive me, will you? I’ve been under a lot of pressure,” I said, breaking into a cold sweat as I realized that the double life I’d been living lately, combined with all the complications it’d caused, was beginning to take a significant toll on me. I was on the verge of committing something barbaric. I shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t been stopped.

I left with another crew to the construction of a multi-family building. I was given the task of erecting a wall between two concrete columns. ‘Easy,’ I thought, and got to work. Easy? Ha! By the time I finished the first row, I was drenched in sweat from the intense concentration it took to keep the line straight. Deneb’s influence had diluted the skill I’d honed for years, and it felt like I was learning all over again.

“Hey, buddy, up there! What’s wrong with you? Quit dumping mortar on me!” yelled the coworker from a level below. “Who did they send up here today?” he grumbled to his partner. “Is he new or what?”

Embarrassed, I tried not to peek over the edge so he wouldn’t see me.

“Hey, Gonzalez,” another worker called out to the supervisor after I’d finally managed to finish laying the blocks. “How am I supposed to plaster this?” he asked, gesturing at the wall where some blocks were sticking out more than others.

“What’s going on?” The supervisor walked over.

“See for yourself.”

The supervisor, who’d known me for years, looked at the wall, then at me, then back at the wall.

“Look, stop complaining and just do your job.”

“But I’ll have to carry up twice as much mortar to get it level.”

The boss shot me another irritated look. I dropped my gaze.

“Well, that’s what you’ll have to do. You’re a grown man, so quit complaining so much,” he told the other worker. Then, turning his back, he motioned with his eyes for me to follow.

“This time I covered for you because of the years we’ve worked together,” he said as we walked away. “I understand about the accident and all that, but what you did today can’t happen again. Ask the doctor for more physical therapy or whatever you need, but get back in shape fast. Now head over to the second building and help Pancho unload the cement.”

When I finally got home, my mother-in-law, who had come to help, was leaving. She stopped in front of me, shook her head, and walked out.

“What?” I turned to my wife.

“Nothing, you look awful,” she said, scanning me from head to toe. “How did it go?”

“It went,” I replied. I had no desire to go into details right now.

“What are we going to do, Victor? This situation is affecting every part of our life. Are you sure that if Deneb takes another look at his work, he won’t find a solution?”

“Deneb, I don't think so,” I followed her way of speaking, “but the former colleague of Deneb's father is possible.”

“Oh, great!” Her eyes lit up. “Victor, if you need anything, anything at all, just let me know. I can go back with Mom so you can make the most of your free time without distractions. Just let me know.”

I looked at her intently.

“Okay,” I crossed my fingers on my belly. “A computer, a printer, and a refrigerator full of food,” I said half-jokingly.

“Done!” she exclaimed with determination. “Get to work!”

Well, when a woman sets her mind to something…

Two days later, in front of me, there was a computer with two monitors, a laser printer, and even an Internet connection. Maybe in other parts of the world, this wouldn’t be anything extraordinary, but in Cuba…

Don’t ask me how, but the truth was I had no excuses left for not getting back to the project. I spent a week going over every detail, every little thing in the program, looking for something to grab onto to reverse the situation. Most of the parts, I knew by heart. And even though I was able to optimize and improve some procedures, I didn’t achieve the result I was aiming for. On Sunday, I had to accept Elia’s suggestion to ask Professor X for help.

She, enthusiastic as ever, not only managed to get the professor’s contact information without leaving the hospital, but she also squeezed me into his tight schedule and set up an appointment.

Ding-dong, the soft doorbell rang, and a pleasant lady in her sixties opened the door.

“Mr. Deneb, please come in. The professor will see you right away.”

I entered a spacious foyer decorated in Renaissance style. Pink marble columns alternated with elaborate windows that stretched to the ceiling. Sunlight reflected off the many golden surfaces, filling the space with a colorful radiance.

A couple of minutes later, the door opened, and the professor himself appeared.

“Good morning, young man. A pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” I replied.

“Come in, come in,” X said, leading me to his office. “Tell me, your secretary mentioned you wanted to present a project.”

‘Secretary?’ I nearly burst out laughing in surprise.

“You’ve been very lucky to get a spot in my tight schedule so quickly, you know? These days, everyone’s seeking my approval,” the professor continued without pause, leading me down a long hallway with multiple doors. “I really don’t know when I’ll have time to review all that amount of works,” he said, gesturing nonstop.

We finally reached a spacious room decorated with photos of the professor posing with various academic personalities. The back wall was covered with diplomas, honors, and awards.

The phone on his enormous desk rang.

“Hello? Yes, please transfer him to line two. Thank you.”

He struck a pose that indicated the call was of utmost importance and gestured with his index finger, as if to say, ‘just a minute,’ before diving into the conversation. Laughing and joking in an entirely forced and exaggerated manner, the conversation unfolded in what could best be described as high-society verbal fencing. It was a style of speaking that focused less on exchanging information and more on maintaining status and inflating one’s worth. And the professor had honed this skill to the level of an artist.

The last five minutes were spent on mutual flattery. I was beginning to think he had forgotten about me, standing there like another piece of furniture, when I finally heard him say:

“My most illustrious and exalted colleague, you cannot imagine how honored I am to engage in such an enriching and elevated exchange of ideas with you on this splendid afternoon. Alas, I find myself compelled to attend to matters of the utmost urgency,” he concluded, turning toward me. “I shall certainly pass along your regards. Adieu.” He hung up.

“Oh, pardon me,” he said, with no real intention of apologizing. “You see, I have so many things going on... Well, tell me about your project.” He pulled out a cigarette and walked over to the window.

“You know, it's not really...” I was going to say ‘necessary, thank you very much’ and leave this conceited old man hanging. But I remembered all those involved who had put their hope, effort and sacrifice so that I could step forward in the search for a solution and instead, changing my tone, I finished the sentence: “ …my project.”

“Oh? How so?”

“It's my father's.”

“Hmm, your father? Is he a scientist? Have I had the pleasure of meeting him?”

“He was.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry. What was his name?”

“Sygnus. Sygnus Dord,” I answered.

His until recently overbearing manner abruptly vanished. He stood motionless for a few seconds. Than, slowly turned away from the window and extinguished the cigarette he had in his hand.

“Sygnus,” he uttered with surprising warmth. A feeling somewhere between pain and melancholy was reflected on his face.

He looked at me, as if he was doing it for the first time.

“And you” he took several steps towards me “are you his son then?” he said, holding out his hands. “Deneb Dord?”

“That’s right, Professor.”

“Oh, my boy, you’re a grown man now,” he exclaimed, gripping me by the shoulders. “I knew your features seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place where. Come, sit.”

He motioned toward two armchairs with a small table between them at the far end of the room. The arrangement looked like it was meant for playing chess. I sat down and watched as he pulled a bottle with a fine layer of dust from the minibar, pouring its contents into two heavy-bottomed glasses.

“To Sygnus.” He raised his and emptied it in one go. I joined in.

He remained thoughtful, observing the vessel, as if in its glass bottom he could see the images of his past. I did not dare to interrupt.

“You know,” he finally said, not lifting his gaze from the glass, “I’ve achieved everything I ever wanted: fame, recognition, wealth. Far more than I could have imagined.” He paused. “But to this day I haven't managed to have what drove your father's every step: his passion.” He sighed and continued thoughtfully. “I didn’t have the courage to follow him on that adventure that was consuming him. And all these years, deep down, I’ve envied him for how he lived and died doing what he was most passionate about. I knew his ideas could be revolutionary someday, but I always felt they were a bit ahead of their time.”

He looked me in the eye and continued more animated:

“So, you’ve come today to talk to me about his project? Did you rich any results?” he asked.

“More than my father ever dreamed of,” I replied.

No, I wasn't sure if I could trust this person, who once turned his back on my father, but Elia's phrase: “Do you have a better idea?” kept resurfacing in my mind every time I hesitated to continue with my narration. He had only interrupted me to cancel the appointments he had left for that day, and to ask his assistant to ensure we wouldn’t be disturbed. The room had plunged into dimness when I finished recounting the last details.

“Well, you know everything now,” I said, exhausted. The story had made me relive the dramatic events in my mind once again.

X didn’t respond immediately. He leaned back, thoughtful, while combing his prominent mustache with his fingers. At times he looked at me, as if wanting to verify if he really had in front of him a being that was half from another world.

“Don’t you worry, son” he said finally, standing up and placing a hand on my shoulder. “I'll do everything in my power to help you.”

The next day, early in the morning, X’s luxurious ship landed beside my house. With genuine interest, he walked around the laboratory, asking endless questions. He filled the air with exclamations of approval or amazement.

“You guys have dine quite a job here,” he concluded, combing his fingers through his mustache.

“Thank you very much”

“Well, you know my time is unfortunately limited. Let's get down to the calculations.”

I deployed the complex program on the hologram. Despite all his eccentricities, he was undoubtedly one of the greatest scientists this land had ever produced. It took him just over eight hours to digest the work of several decades. It surely helped that he had been one of the founders, but still, my respect.

“Impressive!” he said when he finished, looking at me with a mixture of admiration and concern. “This is the most exceptional work I’ve seen in my entire career. Your father would be very proud. Congratulations,” he said, visibly moved. “Under normal circumstances, I would tell you to publish it tomorrow itself. But in your case...” He shook his head.

I didn't want to push him, but I was anxiously waiting for him to tell me what I so desperately needed to hear. He noticed and looked back at the complex algorithm full of numbers and formulas.

“There is a way to undo the spell” he began after a long pause and a sigh. Choosing each word carefully, he continued, “there’s a parameter you haven’t accounted for until now, for very logical reasons, that makes the algorithm work.”

He turned and entered some data without me being able to see and gave the order to the simulator to run the program.

After a while, the long-awaited words appeared, hanging in the air in bright neon green: ‘Disconnection Successful.’

I rushed to the computer eager to see the new parameters.

“Not so fast, young man,” the professor stopped me.

“Why? What’s wrong? What did you do?”

“Please, take a seat.”

I obeyed reluctantly.

“The condition for permanent disconnection to be achieved,” he paused briefly, assessing how to say the rest, “is that one of the two subjects physically cease to exist.”

I burst into a nervous laugh.

“Haha! What a genius!” I snapped, furious. “What an incredible mystery you've just uncovered for me! Of course, with only one subject, there can’t be any connection! You don’t even need an elementary school education to figure that out!”

I couldn't believe that I had just been so miserably mocked. Like a maniac I was walking around the lab gesturing and hurling all sorts of insults at X.

He, still seated at the command post, unperturbed, followed me with his gaze. Relaxed, he waited for me to empty myself, and when, exhausted, I fell back in the chair, recovering my breath, he said very calmly:

“I showed you the condition that I introduced into your model. But I haven't told you the value of the parameter.” His fingers ran across the keyboard and a group of formulas appeared hanging in the air. “Don't you notice anything interesting?”he asked, irritated by my lack of attention.

I shrugged.

“None of them depend on the time factor!” he raised his voice in an effort to get me thinking.

“So?”

“What do you mean, ‘So?’ Not being time-dependent, the only thing that matters is the fact. It doesn't matter how long it lasts,” he concluded.

“It's possible,” I replied, crushed by the weight of his revelation.

“Alright. I know I just dropped a bombshell on you. I won’t overwhelm you further with theory.” He sat down beside me. “You don't have to die, how better to put it, permanently, to achieve your goal. A clinically induced death, controlled by an experienced resuscitation team, should be able to resolve your dilemma. Now I recommend that you make no decision and rest. Tomorrow with a fresh mind you will be able to see more clearly what is best for you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to see my old friend’s work completed. Keep me posted. Good night.”

X left.

I spent another long day at work. They kept sending me to unload cement, and I didn’t argue. I wasn’t in the frame of mind for any task requiring more focus anyway. I called Elena to come home, and when I arrived, she greeted me, looking both intrigued and a little nervous.

“Well?” she asked once we settled on the couch.

“We found a way,” I began after clearing my throat. “There’s a way to undo the spell, as my father’s colleague put it.”

“That’s wonderful! Glory to God!” She exclaimed, full of hope. “You see, it was worth checking again.” She took my hand in hers. “God always has a solution up his sleeve. Didn't I tell you?”

“God?!” I responded, insulted. “If that's God's solution, then...”

I stopped mid-sentence, when I remembered the pastor's last sermon on Nicodemus. I looked at my wife, frightened.

“What’s wrong?” “What is it?” she grew alarmed at the site of me.

“Yes, it’s from God,” I responded, bewildered. “He had told me days before Professor X reviewed the algorithm. It can’t be.”

“I don’t understand anything. You’re making me nervous. Just tell me what you’ve found, boy.”

“I have to be born again.”

“What?!”

“I have to be born again,” I repeated. “I have to die and be born again.”

“What are you talking about? You converted to Christianity years ago. You already have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you.”

“No,” I said, “this time it’s literal. I have to die and be revived. It’s the only way the formula works.”

“No, no, no, no, no. Wait, what nonsense are talking about?”

“It’s not nonsense,” I replied. “We ran the simulation, and it works perfectly. Deneb has to undergo clinical death and be revived again.”

“And that's the super solution of the super professssor from the other world? Well, tell the bastard that he will have to look for another one, you hear, because that's not the way to go. He just wanted to get out of you by saying the first thing that came to his mind. Come on, shake it off and get to work.”

If Elena exploded in indignation, Elia fell into a depression. It was her last day at the hospital, and the joy of finally being discharged was soured by the news of the outcome of the meeting with X. She had worked with me on the project. She knew how meticulous I was with my work. So, she deduced that if I had accepted X's verdict, it was because mathematically it was correct and the only possible solution.

“Don’t do it,” she said, tears in her eyes. “If there’s no other way, I’m willing to merge with Elena to be like you. I’ll learn to take care of your children, to navigate both worlds. I’ll adapt to the life that never stops. Whatever it takes, but not that.”

Sitting in the cabin, looking at the tall pines outside my window, I tried to understand the depth of feelings and emotions that surged within my complex being. The last few weeks had been so wildly intense that it seemed like decades had passed since the day of the accident. On one hand, it had been an incredibly exciting time, but on the other, I looked at the glass that trembled slightly in my hand, my physical bodies were paying the price of being on this permanent roller coaster. ‘And as long as you live, you won’t be able to get off,’ crossed my mind. This thought, at any other time, would have excited me. Now, it felt like a millstone around my neck. I thought about Elia’s words. Even if everything turned out well, and the fusion was a success, it would be such an emotionally overwhelming burden that I wasn’t sure if she could bear it. And even if she could, would she enjoy it? Managing two households, two families... without stopping, without being able to sleep? Or when the children get sick? How many times would she cross from one side to the other in a night? Spending the whole day worrying if the fever on the other side had gone down in their little ones. That day, she wouldn’t be able to focus on anything until she crossed back. Exhausted from so many hours of uncertainty. And would Elia really want to get tangled up with children? Or did she say that just out of desperation? But even to unite them, I would have to wait months, allowing Elia’s nervous system to recover enough to withstand the procedure. If it even recovers. And I’d still have to see what Elena thinks about all of this.

So many details. So many possibilities. How to know what is really convenient? How do you handle the consequences? I, who until now have been a loose electron in my cabin hidden from human eye, am now responsible for so many lives.

The hands of the clock turned several times. The moon watched me indifferently from the sky. I looked at my reflection in the mirror. Back at me looked a disheveled face that not so long ago radiated vigor and youth. I slowly nodded my head. The decision had been made.

“Victor Labrada!”

“Doctor!” I extended my hand.

“I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” he said with a mischievous tone in his voice.

“Please, have a seat. Waitress!”

“I’m still intrigued by what happened that day.”

“Well, you witnessed the first journey of a woman from planet Earth to a parallel world.”

“Wow! Amazing. What an honor!” He laughed. “Alright, now seriously.”

“You managed to rescue a patient from neurogenic shock,” I shifted the perspective, knowing the parallel worlds thing wasn't going anywhere.

He looked at me suspiciously. Nothing made sense to him. Not the procedure at the hospital, nor the way this conversation with a bricklayer was unfolding.

“Are you with State Security Bureau?” he asked, observing me carefully, searching for the slightest slip in my camouflage in order to solve this mystery that, as far as I could see, was not leaving him alone.

“Me? State Security?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “No, no, nothing to do with it,” I replied, turning over in my head different scenarios of our conversation, looking for a way, in the short time of his lunch break, to convince him to help me. “But I do have an ultra-secret mission that’s going to need your involvement,” I said. “I’m going to need you to sedate me again for a few minutes.”

“Haha. What, they don’t let you sleep at home?” he smiled mischievously, savoring a bite of ropa vieja13. The food here was delicious.

‘Sleep,’ I thought. A wave of longing hit me for the not-so-distant past when I could lie down, drift off peacefully, and dream of unicorns and green elephants. To have an hour-long nap and then pick up where I left off without having to wait a whole day to resume my activities.

“Yes,” I sighed. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to truly sleep anywhere.”

“I’m sorry, but I think you’ve come to the wrong specialist in that case. I’m a surgeon, not a…”

“You’re the only one I can trust,” I interrupted, glancing at the clock. “You’re the only one my wife would trust for this mission,” I concluded, remembering the full weight of my decision.

“Oh, well, if that’s the case… What can I do for you?”

I briefly explained that I would need to be connected to all the monitors with the medical team on standby, ready to pull me out of potential shock and to resuscitate me if necessary.

“You don’t seem to be joking.” He stopped eating and set his plate aside. “I’m not sure what trick you’re planning to stop your heart, but as a doctor, I have a responsibility to urge you not to do anything that endangers your health. No matter how serious a problem may seem, there’s always a solution.” He pulled out a notepad, wrote something down, and handed it to me. “Here’s the phone number of a counselor, a good friend of mine. He’s helped many people. You could…”

“Thank you for your time, doctor.” I stood up from the table and extended my hand.

“Thank you for lunch.” The doctor rose as well, shaking my hand. “Take care. Don’t do anything foolish. Give my regards to your wife. I’ll see her at the next appointment.”

On the way home, I went over every possible alternative to Dr. Díaz. None of them convinced me. He was still the best candidate to oversee the process.

“Hmm,” I muttered aloud as an idea crossed my mind. I felt a smile appear on my face.

Luckily, in Pirson I had no major problems getting a medical team and the necessary premises. Elia, despite being completely against it, seeing that I was determined once again moved heaven and earth so that I would have the best of the best.

‘Mistakes are costly,’ I thought as I let the cashier take a third of my savings. All I could do was pray to God that this would work.

“Thank you so much for offering to supervise the event. It will be much more reassuring for all of us to have you in charge.”

“It’s a privilege for me. Thank you for your trust. Besides, I owed it to your father,” X replied after taking a sip of the delicious tea.

We were seated on a spacious veranda. Predominantly made of glass, the structure rested on the edge of a cliff, giving the impression that we were suspended in in mid-air. Below, about a hundred meters down, the waves crashed relentlessly against the immovable rocks.

“I understand that the decision you’ve made is the right one. And I commend you for having the courage to see it through. Although, I must confess, as a man of science, it’s incredibly difficult for me to let go of the only evidence that the other world exists. Will you remember what happened when you wake up?”

“I haven't the slightest idea. As you know, there have been no precedents of that kind. We're walking on totally virgin ground.”

“Yes, if only there were some way to obtain at least some sort of recording. Something that we have left. I can’t reconcile myself with sacrificing a feat of such magnitude.”

“The only recording I’ve managed so far is a conventional video of Elena’s visit, but since she was in Elia’s body at the time, I don’t think it serves as proof of anything. It was very brief. The AI has made highly accurate recordings of the parameters during the experiment, but it can’t capture even a fraction of the thoughts or memories of the subjects. The only way I’ve been able to transfer information between worlds is by memorizing it and later writing it down on the other side. Very primitive, but it’s what I’ve had at my disposal,” I said with a smile. “I’ve only just begun to grasp the complex mechanism that I’ve unintentionally created. Today, I have more questions than answers. Essentially, all I’ve accomplished so far is building a bridge.”

“That’s true, as I’ve already told you, it’s the most astonishing work I’ve encountered in my entire career. Well, since you can’t retain anything, I’d suggest you go and say goodbye to the other world. You’ll probably never see it again.”

Leaving X’s house, I realized that it wasn’t just Cuba I had to say goodbye to. I had no certainty of ever seeing Pirson again.

We live such restless lives, consumed by countless tasks, each seeming crucial. None can be ignored, delayed, or abandoned. Only when our existence is threatened, when we face the sudden awareness that our heart could stop beating from one moment to the next, do we finally see that the truly indispensable things can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

If I truly had only one day left on my calendar, what would I do? The honk from the car behind me reminded me that the world doesn’t stop for anyone, no matter the circumstances. I pressed the accelerator and let my vehicle glide through the bustling streets, heading nowhere in particular. As I looked around, I passed places filled with memories, and others that meant absolutely nothing to me.

I drove for another half hour, when I realized where my subconscious was taking me. On the horizon I could make out an imposing building about fifty stories high. Veneered in marble and glass it rose like a wall to the south of the city, representing the end of the road for the vast majority of its inhabitants. There on the thirty-fifth floor, wing B, number one thousand five hundred and sixty-nine, lay the remains of my father. After the ‘burial,’ I never returned to that place. It hadn’t made much sense to me. He wasn’t in that bronze urn. The cabin and the lab had far more traces of his presence and were more symbolic than this vessel behind a pane of glass.

But today, standing in front of it, I felt an overwhelming need to come to terms with the other side of our relationship. About the deep resentment that I had held for the last four years in my heart and that until today I had not been able to eradicate. Despite having been an excellent father who recognized me after I reached adulthood, gave me the opportunity for higher education, and entrusted me with the work of his life, he never gave me the chance to know my mother. He told me she had died when I was little. Only after my father passed away did his lawyer grant me access to his safe, where many documents were stored. Among them, I found the contract in which my father essentially paid my mother to be a donor, depriving her of any subsequent maternal rights. In other words, he had bought me for himself.

But that wasn’t all. Upon investigating further, I found the contacts of my half-siblings. When I met with them, they told me the other side of the story. How my father had taken advantage of my mother’s dire situation after she became a widow, on the verge of losing her home because she could no longer afford the high payments on her own, and how he had threatened her with jail when she tried to approach me so I could meet her. Ironically, she had passed away just days before I managed to find them.

When I first heard their story, I called them liars. I accused them of trying to exploit the situation to claim part of my father’s inheritance. I didn’t believe that they had always wanted to meet me and welcome me into the family. They were so offended that we haven’t spoken since. Later, I was able to confirm that they had indeed told me the truth.

I don’t know why my father had acted so selfishly. The pain lingered in my heart. I felt betrayed. No matter how hard I tried to find some reason to justify such actions, I couldn’t come up with anything convincing. He had no right to treat us that way, to rob us of the privilege of being a family.

My cheeks grew damp, and my vision blurred.

I am certain that if I hadn’t been impacted by the accident, I would have carried that resentment to my last breath.

But today, on the thirty-fifth floor, standing in front of my father’s remains, I decided to forgive. Immediately, I felt relieved. Only now did I realize the magnitude of the weight I had been carrying on my shoulders, how much it had affected my character, how much it had embittered me. I felt the tensions within me ease, allowing me to breathe again at the top of my lungs.

“Rest in peace,” were my parting words.

As I returned to the car, my next destination was already clear.

“Good evening,” I greeted when the door was opened.

I never ceased to be amazed at how confident people lived here. No cameras, no alarms, no sophisticated locks. And above all, how they opened the door to a stranger without fear.

“Hi, who are you looking for?” asked a young girl of about sixteen. From the way she carried herself, she seemed freshly graduated from high school. She must have just rejoined her family after years of boarding at the Academy. Could she be my niece? Olivia?

“Is your mom home?”

“Mom!” she shouted from the doorway. “Someone’s looking for you.”

A woman in her thirties approached the door. Her fiery-colored hair was meticulously arranged in a tight braid. Seeing them side by side, there was no doubt they were mother and daughter.

“Deneb?” she said, her tone filled with unpleasant surprise. “What brings you here?”

“Congratulations. Olivia has graduated.”

“Yes, two months ago,” she replied, softening her tone slightly but still guarded. With a gesture, she signaled the young girl to leave.

“I know our first meeting didn’t go well.” I cleared my throat. “I came to ask for forgiveness for the way I acted. I’m about to undergo a very risky procedure, and I’m not sure I’ll make it out alive. If this is the last time we see each other, I wanted it to be on peaceful terms.”

I turned and hurried away without raising my eyes. As I got into the car, my half-sister’s silhouette was still visible in the doorway. For a moment, it seemed like she raised her hand in a gesture of farewell.

Once I opened my eyes in Cuba, I realized I had so many places I wanted to visit that I didn’t know where to start. Deneb’s side was so curious to explore, to discover, to experience. Even things that, as Victor, seemed so trivial or even repulsive to me, like taking a ride on an overcrowded city bus after waiting two hours at the stop. ‘You won't miss anything important if you don't do it,’ I tried to convince myself. After some deliberation, I decided that music was something worth including in the farewell list. Especially traditional music.

Elena, surprised, listened to the trio performing ‘Chan Chan’ while enjoying her mojito14.

“Nice place, and the food is really good.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“It’s... different,” she said, looking around.

In the center, several couples with plenty of accumulated youth were enjoying a little dance.

The tres15 player delighted the audience with a virtuosic improvisation.

Despite the many similarities between our worlds, I had never heard anything even remotely like this in M.

The night was very pleasant. The moon emerged from the ruins of the colonial buildings, bathed in bronze. Walking through the lively streets of Old Havana, we reached the Malecon. The sea caressed the rocks, whispering something only they could understand. We walked along the massive wall, filling ourselves with the soft breeze. The contradiction of having Elena by my side, so beautiful, on a night like this, and not being able to touch her, once again confirmed that I had made the right decision. 'Tomorrow,' I thought, 'tomorrow this torture must come to an end.'

The operating room was buzzing with activity. The intense lighting forced one to squint. Once again, Professor X was going over every detail with the specialists.

“Everything's ready,” he told me, gesturing toward the operating table.

Elia approached me with unsteady steps, as if walking on the deck of a ship in heavy seas. With her hands she clumsily surrounded my neck and remained motionless on my chest.

“Come back to me,” she whispered, listening to the beating of my heart. “Did you hear? Come back!”

I held her in my arms, wanting to protect her from what was to come.

“Everything will be fine. You'll see,” I said softly in her ear. “Everything will be fine.”

“Deneb,” I heard from behind me. “It's time.”

Chapter 8

“Another day you're going to miss work!” Elena reproached me, while she arranged her untamable curls in front of the mirror. “It wasn't necessary, I already feel fine. I could go with my mom, if it worries you so much.”

“No, my love. Your mom has already done more than enough. Now it’s my turn. Come on, we don’t want to be late.” I looked at the clock.

“Almost done, almost,” she replied, applying lipstick.

'As beautiful as always,' I thought as I opened the taxi door for her.

“Good morning, Mrs. Mart-inez,” the doctor stammered as he saw me follow her into the consultation room.

“Good morning, doctor,” I replied.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, focusing on his patient and turning his back to me.

‘Perfect,’ I thought, glancing at my watch. I opened the chloroform bottle and soaked the sponge in a mask I had prepared in advance. I placed it over my face and leaned my head against the wall, remaining calm. Just a few minutes later, the pleasant scent reached Dr. Díaz, who immediately paused his examination of my wife’s wounds and looked up. It took him a few seconds to identify the source of the smell.

“Victor, stop!” he shouted, throwing himself toward me.

Elena turned her head with a frightened look and her face as white as snow.

‘Late doctor, late,’ I thought with a macabre smile and inhaling at the top of my lungs repeatedly I lost sight of them.

Beep, beep, beep, it’s getting closer. Beep, beep, how annoying. Beep, beep, so insistent. Beep.

“He’s not responding adequately to the anesthesia.”

“Yes, I can see that. Let’s switch to a different sedative…”

The beep faded away, and a gentle breeze swept over my body.

Everything was spinning. My stomach twisted as if trying to eject a breakfast it hadn't received. A strong headache didn’t let me concentrate.

“He's awake! Doctor! He's awake! He's moving.”

“Where am I?” I tried to articulate, but my tongue refused to cooperate.

“Let me see,” a male voice said. “Indeed,” he sighed. “Excuse me” Someone pressed against my wrist, apparently checking my pulse.

“It’s normal for him to feel a bit confused and disoriented. He’ll be fine.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

“What happened?” I made another attempt to locate myself in time and place.

“What happened?!” a familiar female voice snapped indignantly. “You tell me what happened!”

“Shhh, not now. Let him recover fully first.”

“Do you think he’ll have another episode?”

“I hope not. Though with him, you can never be certain. I need to get back to my office. Let me know if you notice anything unusual.”

“Yes, doctor.”

The footsteps receded until they faded into the distance. The even, monotonous creaking of an armchair and the soft murmur of a fan was all I could hear.

Someone placed a hand on my head and whispered a fervent prayer, asking for my well-being and protection. It worked, as the fog in my mind began to lift, and my thoughts started to take more defined shapes. ‘Armchair, fan, clinic’... Elena?’ My mind resisted, wanting to slip back into the soothing limbo. I had to start again: ‘armchair... Elena.’

“Elena,” I called out, my voice emerging as a high-pitched squeak. I grimaced in disgust.

“Victor?” she responded, filled with emotion. “Deneb? Victor?”

“The one and only,” I tried to joke. “Don’t you have some coffee by chance?”

My vision was returning, and I could see my wife’s face, smiling in relief, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Coffee? A slap is what I'm going to give you, you scoundrel.”

“No,” I clicked my tongue disapprovingly. “Just kisses,” I replied. “Here.”

With my still-clumsy index finger, I pointed to my cheek.

She kissed me.

“What a scare you gave me,” she said holding her head with one hand and brushing my hair with the fingers of the other. “What got into you this time?” she continued without waiting for an answer. “Promise me you won’t do anything like that again!”

“Yes, sugar”

She looked at me, puzzled.

“What’s wrong?”

“Since your accident, you haven’t called me that,” she said. She looked at me closely. “Victor? What’s going on?!” she demanded, stepping back from the bed.

I looked around as if searching for the answer.

“Good question,” I replied, trying to remember how I’d ended up in this place.

With great effort, I sat up, holding onto anything I could find for support. I felt dizzy.

Finally, my brain finished putting together the fragmented mosaic, and abruptly brought me back to reality.

“Deneb!” I exclaimed, trying to get up. “Deneb!” I held my head with both hands.

I started to cry.

“Victor! What’s going on? Nurse, please call the doctor!”

“No need,” I replied, sobbing. “I’m fine.”

I rested my head against the wall and closed my eyes. So much time longing for this moment, and now that I was finally living it, I realized I hadn’t prepared for its arrival. What an enormous emptiness. It was as if my clothes were several sizes too big. He’s gone. My second self is gone. I was left alone again in this head. I remembered everything, down to the last moment in the hospital at Pirson. The farewell with Elia, the preparations with Professor X. It worked! Whatever happened on the other side worked. I was free again to enjoy my wife, my children, my church, my friends, my work…

I should be happy, jumping for joy. No more confusion, no more calculations and complex formulas, no more doubts and anguishing searches. No more ethical, moral, religious, or social conflicts. No more uncertainty.

I was certainly relieved. My world became simple and uniform again. But why this sadness in my heart? Why this melancholy?

“Let’s go, dear,” I said to Elena as soon as my feet deigned to hold me up again.

“Are you sure?” she looked at me, concerned.

“Yes, now. We’ll talk at home.”

We peeked into Dr. Díaz’s office. He had just finished dismissing another patient.

“Thank you, doctor.”

“Hmm,” he looked, making an annoyed face and pointing at me with his finger. “You finally got it your way. No problem. I owed you lunch,” he joked. “Take care of him, ma’am, and please don’t bring him back to my office,” he said, half-joking, half-serious.

“Don’t worry, doctor, I’ll keep an eye on him now.”

“Thanks again,” I said. “May God reward you.”

We entered the house. I stood there observing everything around me, seeing it in a new old light.

“Now, can you explain to me what all that was about, Victor?” The accusation was in every word. “I'm getting fed up with your little games with Deneb in sleeping beauties. It's dangerous. Thank God the doctor was right there and could react immediately.”

“You won't have to worry about Deneb anymore,” I sighed.

“What?”

“Sit down, please. You won't have to worry about Deneb anymore,” I said again.

“What do you mean? Don't scare me.”

“What you saw during your appointment was the permanent separation of Victor Labrada and Deneb Dord. You have your bricklayer back.”

She was perplexed, not knowing what to make of the news. A mix of joy, disbelief, and concern reflected on her face. She looked me straight in the eyes, trying to see if it was true, or if I was playing a sick joke on her.

“And Deneb?” she finally asked.

“Deneb…” I lowered my head. “I hope he's okay.”

I told her about the preparations and the great sacrifice that had been decided to restore the lives of everyone involved.

“So, how do you know if everything went well?” Elena asked, shocked.

“Well. I'm here, I'm alive, I'm free. The procedure was a success. As for Deneb… I don't know,” I replied. “It's something I'll have to learn to live with.”

“Poor Elia. Can you imagine if something happened to that man?”

“The only thing I can tell you is that he was in the hands of the best specialists in that field.”

We fell silent. Elena moved closer, and let me hug her. That night, I decided to sleep on the couch. It would be the first time. I preferred to be alone.

The next day, I opened my eyes and... I was home. On my old and faithful couch in my beloved solar. Oh, what a relief. I tiptoed into the room and leaning over my wife’s ear I whispered:

“Congratulations, my love.”

She slightly opened her eyes and, with a still sleepy voice, said:

“Oh, sweetie. You remembered!”

She placed her hands around my neck, letting the blanket fall to the floor and...

‘… O noble daughter! Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand.

Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, which looks toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks are like purple; a king is held captive in the tresses. How beautiful and pleasant you are, o loved one, with all your delights! Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit. Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine.16’

Life gradually began to take its course. I began to shine again at work. I even earned a promotion. Thanks to the experience with Deneb, I retained all of his scientific and personal knowledge at my disposal. And although my brain’s capacity was far below the prodigious gray matter of the scientist, he taught me how to get the most out of my neurons. I trained myself in mental agility until I could teach math exam preparation to students of various levels. Carefully, so as not to raise suspicions, I would go to more distant neighborhoods where no one knew me personally.

Elena became more relaxed. With her fine common sense, she helped me restore relationships. The kids eventually stopped asking uncomfortable questions, and everything was going smoothly.

Amidst all this, a year passed, and we, as usual, went down to the coast to the place where we had met, to celebrate. Leaning against the trunk of a palm tree, we watched the seagulls fly over us, carried by the wind.

“Eleven already” Elena said, settling herself on my chest.

“What a stamina!” I replied with a joke.

“That's what I say!” She jabbed her elbow into my ribs.

“Ow, sweetheart! You're going to open a hole in me.” I pinched her lightly in response.

“Drama king”, she said, playing with her hair. “Did you see what a pretty bluish-green color the water has today?”

“Well, technically speaking, the water in this part of the Caribbean is colorless. What you're seeing is the reflection of part of the sun's light spectrum. The blue tone is because shorter wavelengths are absorbed less by the water molecules, and therefore they reflect more easily, reaching the receptors in your eyes as the dominant color. On the other hand, the greenish tint is due to the phytoplankton that inhabits the upper layers of the ocean. Those microorganisms absorb electromagnetic radiation in the reds and blues of the visible spectrum, but reflect the greens, which is why the waters they live in appear that color.”

“Oh, how technical. As you say, professor,” she responded playfully, stumbling on the last word. She sighed and fell silent, drawing her hands and feet together and placing her chin on her knees. I held her tighter to my chest.

We both remained silent, thinking the same thing. We hadn't mentioned them much lately, but they were still very present in our hearts.

“Do you think they are okay?”

I was about to answer her the same thing I had so many times before, when some children playing on the shore began to shout:

“Mom, look, look!” they were pointing at the sky.

I looked up and was left speechless. With a gesture, I pointed to Elena in the direction of the clouds. We jumped to our feet, astonished. We stood there with our mouths open, witnessing how the deformed cumulus clouds began to form a clear image, showing a smiling couple, hugging, with a baby in their arms. We looked at each other and broke into tears of joy. It was the best gift we could have received on our anniversary. The image vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, but it would stay forever in our memories.

“Glory to God!” my wife exclaimed when we finally regained the ability to speak.

“Thank you, Lord!” I echoed her praise.

We hadn't realized how much we needed that contact. During the last year, the worry about what could have happened on the other side hadn't let us be at peace. In some way, we felt guilty for enjoying so many blessings the Lord had poured upon us, while there was still a chance that everything in M might have ended in a tragedy. Just knowing that Deneb made it out alive would have been a great relief. But what we saw today exceeded all expectations.

“Wow!” my beloved said, wiping away her tears. “How did he do it?”

“I don't know, but somehow he managed to manipulate matter, and this time without a human intermediary.”

“So?” she asked, looking at me sideways, referring to our recent conversation about my self-improvement.

“Yes,” I replied, checking how I felt about it after today’s experience. “Yes, I think the mason’s spoon is going to have to excuse me.”

Acknowledgements

I give thanks to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for all His blessings. Especially for gifting me this beautiful family, who has been the inspiration and unwavering support throughout the entire journey of creating this book.

Notes

1. Popular name for KRAZ (КРАЗ) brand trucks imported from the Soviet Union.

2. Refers to the ration book ("libreta de abastecimiento") used by Cuban citizens to access subsidized basic goods such as rice, beans, eggs, sugar, and other essentials. Introduced in the 1960s, the libreta is issued to each household and lists the quantities of items they are entitled to purchase monthly at reduced prices.

3. Refers to the ration book ("libreta de abastecimiento") used by Cuban citizens to access subsidized basic goods such as rice, beans, eggs, sugar, and other essentials. Introduced in the 1960s, the libreta is issued to each household and lists the quantities of items they are entitled to purchase monthly at reduced prices.

4. A group of informal dwellings built by the inhabitants' own efforts, organized around a courtyard, connected to the street by a common corridor. They are generally the result of dividing a large property into sections, during which each room becomes an independent dwelling. They tend to be noisy, and are characterized by being in precarious conditions and being a place of refuge for the most humble strata of society.

5. In Cuba, a bodega is a small government-run store where people purchase their goods using the the ration book (libreta de abastecimiento.)

6. Large, old American car, typically from the 1940s or 1950s, that has been preserved and repurposed as a shared taxi. The term comes from the word "almendra" (almond) due to the cars' rounded, bulky shapes resembling an almond.

7. In Cuba, "El Estelar" refers to the prime-time segment of television news, officially known as the National Television News (Noticiero Nacional de Televisión or NNTV). This program is the country's main nightly news broadcast, airing in the evening.

8. The Calixto García General Hospital is a landmark medical institution located in Havana, Cuba. It was inaugurated in 1896 and is named after the Cuban patriot Calixto García Íñiguez, honoring his legacy in the independence struggles. This hospital is one of the most important in the country, both for its history and its role in healthcare and medical training.

9. "La Calabacita" is a short animated program that aired just before the 8:00 PM newscast on Cuban TV, marking the end of children's programming.

10. Originally from Guantánamo Cuba

11. refers to Paseo del Prado.

12. Man supported by his wife or lover. (colloquial, Cuba)

13. A traditional dish made by slow-cooking beef with vegetables, spices, and tomato sauce until tender and shredded. The name "ropa vieja"(old clothing) comes from the appearance of the shredded meat, resembling worn-out clothing.

14. A drink made with rum, lime juice, water, ice, and sugar, garnished with a sprig of mint

15. The tres is a Cuban string instrument with six strings in three pairs. It has a small, guitar-like body and is played with rhythmic, percussive strumming, contributing to the distinctive rhythm and bright tone of Cuban music

16. Song of Salomon 7:1-9. English Standard Version Bible.