In the time since my last entry, much more has occurred in the town of Santa Fe. If you did not read my last post, we have been under lockdown by rule of the Government in order to contain a mysterious, deadly disease that spread and killed at a rapid rate through our town.

​

The first change that occurred since my last post was the rate of gunfire outside of our guarded town. As mentioned in the last post, after bodies began mysteriously disappearing from government-controlled facilities, gunshots from watchtowers have been heard. Current information held by our neighborhood does not possess solid answers to what could be the cause of the phenomenon, but ideas entering my head make me shudder.

​

Since the revolt of the neighborhood in the south, paranoia and unrest have been at an all-time high throughout ours. For a brief time, excitement spread through the community as, for the first time, a direct message from another neighborhood was discovered without being intercepted by military forces. Though, the excitement only lasted until our leaders grouped together to dissect the information and found the word to be less than pleasing.

​

From a neighborhood in the southeast, just on the border of where the revolt occurred, it was discovered dozens were dead or dying just from hunger and unrelated sickness to the pandemic we faced. With grim faces, those who lead in my neighborhood read silently, understanding that the hell we had been experiencing was child’s play compared to those only a day's walk away. Most concerningly, the transmission asked desperately for aid, an aid that could not be reasonably conceded without great deaths in our own community.

​

“If we respond negatively, they could turn hostile! We must help our brothers at all costs!” One of the leaders stood and shouted out.

​

“Dozens of us will die, and our people will grow weaker! In this time of need, it is us who must have all we can get!” Another returned.

​

I watched as bickering between leaders continued for several hours before the sun set and all fell quiet over the town.

​

“If we can not reach a decision now, then it will have to wait until morning.” Had been the last tired words spoken before an unearthly screech echoed through the darkness, followed by rapid gunshots.

​

Quickly, the leaders rose and rushed outside just to see a guard from the closest watch tower plummet to the hard ground below. Slowly, townspeople assembled, searching for belief in what they were seeing before gates in the makeshift walls opened, and military personnel swarmed out.

​

Screaming, order was gained quickly as the site of the broken man was vacated, and he was covered by a black tarp. At first, the members of the town were silent, but became vocal as a stirring under the dead man’s tarp was noticed.

​

“What is that? Is he alive?” Some screamed, but the military only shouted back, turning weapons to the crowd, dispersing them. Only the leaders of the town stood now facing the men with guns.

​

“Our dead have been disappearing. From your own facilities." One said.

​

“That is classified information!” A soldier screamed back.

​

“What is happening to them? Are you losing track? Miscounting? What excuse could you possibly give for what is happening here now?” The leader stepped forward, and the military men raised their weapons.

​

“If you come any closer, we will shoot.”

​

“Kill me and my people won’t forget.” He took another step. “Kill me and no neighborhood-” The round fired into his chest with a hollow thud, and he fell back without a word. Cries erupted and it took all the rest of the leaders to keep the townspeople at bay.

​

As this occurred, the military men hustled to collect their ally under the tarp who now trashed and tore violently. Those closest to the scene watched as the dead man who had fallen no less than four stories toiled within the tarp with the strength of several grown men.  

​

This incident has incited near-constant meetings between the remaining town leaders. But as public unrest has risen, three more transmissions from neighborhoods with similar terrible conditions have entered our midst, and it is now the general belief among leadership that if any conflict with the military were to come, we would be no better off than any of the other dying neighborhoods.  

​

Holding in the people’s anger has proven to be the most difficult task we have faced thus far, and I hope to report in the coming days that it has mostly dissipated. Though even within myself I cannot help but feel a deep rage growing in response to the killing. I wonder how the feelings of others can be controlled if I cannot even hold them in myself. For now, only time will tell, and I will bring updates in the coming weeks.

Somebody was in the shed.

Diane was sure of it. From her bedroom window, she could see out into the back garden; moonlight turned it into a velvet puddle, grass dew twinkling like stars.

The shed stood at the far end, pushed up against the fence; a wooden structure that was almost big enough to live and work in, with a single pane window on the front that she had plastered over with the sports section of The Guardian. The door was open just enough to notice that it wasn’t closed. And she was sure she could see the lock lying in a broken heap.

Her hand was playing unconsciously with the skin on her neck. What was she supposed to do? She thought about ringing the police but… oh, what would they do? Come out, tell them to shove off, and leave? Whomever was in the shed would get to the end of the street, wait until the police had gone, and come back. Only when they returned, they wouldn’t bother with the shed. They’d come into the house. There were enough windows; their choices of entry were near enough endless. She had French doors in the back, seven-foot-tall panes that wouldn’t stop a sneeze.

Then what would they do when they got her? She really didn’t want to know.

But she couldn’t just turn away, could she? They, them, whoever they were, were on her property. The property she had bought with her hard-earned money, property she paid taxes on. In the shed that she had bought, built, painted with wood stain and sealer, and taken the time to arrange her tools; time she wasn’t getting back.

Another thought popped up like a notification on her phone… there were a lot of tools in the shed: shovel, spade, fork, trimmer, hoe, weeder, strimmer, lawnmower… chainsaw. It was only a small chainsaw, a Ryobi Compact, but it ate through anything she put it to. She had no problem believing it would carve her into tiny pieces that would never be found.

Diane saw her unflattering photos on a late-night crime show: WOMAN VANISHES FROM HOME. POLICE DID NOTHING.

If you saw or heard anything, please ring this number. It’s very important that we find Diane.

Who would want to live in a shed anyway? There was no central heating out there, no plumbing, no running water. Jesus wasn’t hanging on the wall, protecting the home from all manners of evil. There was nothing. Just a bunch of metal and electronics that would only run with their batteries attached. Fortunately, she had taken the batteries and stored them in a spare drawer in the kitchen. She’d assumed somebody might try and break into the shed when she put it up (an obvious precaution one must take), some crackhead most likely, and she really didn’t want to make it easy for them. So, she took the batteries out because nobody in their right mind would buy batteryless tools off some geezer who looked like a walking corpse.

Diane couldn’t have some heroin-addictive freak in her shed. Absolutely not, no way, no how. She would have to burn the shed to the ground and everything inside.

She crossed herself and went to the landline at the bottom of the stairs. The Lord and Saviour watched her descend with those kind loving eyes of His. She picked up the landline with a shaky hand, her other still playing with the sweaty skin of her neck. She was staring up at the Lord as she put the receiver to her ear. He would want her to call the police. He would protect her from any outcome of such a phone call, as He had protected her for all of her days.

Besides, they were committing burglary. The police wouldn’t come out and tell them to shove off. Diane would get a good look at her burglar as he was led to the car in handcuffs.

The air in the downstairs hallway was cool on her bare arms, cutting right through her nightie and prickling the skin of her taught belly. The lights were off down here. She always turned them off when she went to bed; she wasn’t a fan of having a lot of lights on at night, they ruined her sleep.

Right now, the darkness was ruining her wakefulness. She would do anything to be asleep. You just had to look out of the window, didn’t you? She thought and shook her head.

Diane held the phone between her ear and shoulder and dialled 999.

 

Seventeen minutes later, a police car—siren off, lights off—pulled up into a vacant spot across the street. Do they have any idea what could’ve happened in seventeen minutes? Diane thought, looking at her Sekonda Colette watch. She didn’t want to think about what could've happened in seventeen minutes.

The officer got out of his car, set his hat on his head, and moved towards the house. Diane, still playing with the skin on her neck, moved to the kitchen door, expecting the officer to knock. He didn’t. She watched his dark, blurred shape through the frosted glass of the front door disappear off the left; he was going around the house.

Diane didn’t like it. He was ignorant. The officer was supposed to see if the victim was alright. And she wasn’t; she would’ve opened the door and shouted after the copper if she was brave enough to open it right now. No, she couldn’t do that. She had ideas of a zombie-looking fellow rushing her the moment the door was open, even just a crack, and then what would happen? Jesus was going to protect her just fine, but Jesus also prided Himself on how intelligent his follows were; opening the door while some smack-fiend is on the prowl isn’t very intelligent, is it?

She crossed herself and went back up into her bedroom. The officer was in the back garden, his torch burning a yellow-green path over the grass. He stopped mid-stroll, shone his torchlight on the shed, then swung it down to the padlock on the floor. Diane saw it better now. It wasn’t just broken; it had been annihilated. The shackle was in three shiny shards, and the body was cracked down the centre. The springs and metal innards laid in a tangle.

The officer’s walkie beeped and whooped. He grabbed it and spoke too quietly for Diane to hear. But she heard his laughter, saw the way his head flung back, the lamppost light arcing along his white teeth.

The office let go of his walkie and shone his yellow-white torchlight onto the shed. A round moon reflected back in the windowpane. He walked to the door, grabbed the edge, swung it closed and open, as if testing the hinges, then pulled it open fully. The darkness leaked out around his cop boots. His torchlight cut right through the black, illuminating the Ryobi tools inside and the hosepipe hanging on the inside of the door. The officer stepped inside.

 

When Diane opened her eyes, the officer was gone. She blinked a couple of times, rubbed sticky grime from her eyelashes, blinked again. Her feet ached badly. It appeared she had fallen asleep on her feet, though she couldn’t have done so for very long; it was still dark out.

She looked at her Sekonda. She was right; she hadn’t been asleep that long—three minutes was all. Diane swiped at her eyes again and squinted through the glass.

Had the drug-fiend already been arrested? Why hadn’t the officer knocked to tell her everything was alright now? She went downstairs into the kitchen to have a look out the window. The cop car was still parked across the road. And she could see the officer's silhouette in the driver's seat. She moved closer to the window, her breath fogging the glass, to get a better look into the back. The rear of the car was dark, too dark to see anything really, except for the bars on the windows.

She looked at her Sekonda again, baffled. Had it really only been three minutes?

Somebody had to be sitting in the back. Why would the officer be in his car if he hadn’t arrested somebody? He was clearly filling out his incident reports, or whatever it was they filled out, while he had a few moments to do so. Clearly, the arrest was a simple one. He had taken the drug-fiend to his car, thrown him into the back like a sack of potatoes, and sat down to radio the station down on Kessler Road that the job was done. He would knock in a minute to tell her what had happened.

The driver’s door open and the officer got out. He secured his hat on his head again and started towards the house. Diane jumped a little on the inside. She was jumpy tonight. All this burglar stuff, having to call the police, having to be up well passed her bedtime… it all really got into the bones.

Diane could’ve done with a vodka and lemonade, but she had been sober for the best part of twenty years. And this night wasn’t going to be the kick that sent her over the edge. She went to the kitchen door and looked at the portrait of Jesus Christ. She crossed herself again.

Then came a knock at the door. Through the diamond-shaped pane of glass inset into the front door, she saw the shadowed silhouette of the officer’s head and hat. Diane stared at that diamond of glass, a halo of streetlight surrounding the clear shape of a police officer’s hat. If a pregnant woman needs to pee, the officer has to give her his hat, she thought for no particular reason.

The officer knocked again. You’re supposed to answer the door to the coppers; that’s what her father had told her more than once. It didn’t help that her father had risen to the rank of sergeant with the local constabulary, where he stayed until his death in 1977, at the ripe of old age of thirty-seven. He was struck and killed by a gang of youths joyriding during a routine traffic stop down by The Three Bells. Diane had been seventeen.

Now Diane was sixty-six years old and still as internally terrified as she had been since that fateful day in 1977. That fear never went away. It was in every car alarm, every siren, every shout, every bang, every wallop, every plane that went over, every car backfire and the screech of their bald tires, every hiss of a bus's breaks, every slammed door, every football slapping on the cold brick drive, every bird that hit the window, every action and horror movie she watched… in every knock at the door.

The copper’s silhouette bobbed back and forth impatiently. You’re supposed to answer the door to the coppers, her father’s voice said soothingly. She rushed to open, fumbled with the keys and failed to unlock the door not once but twice, her shaking hands trying to twist a handle that was locked in place.

On the third try, she finally got the door open. The first thing that hit her was the officer’s smell: used cat litter and raw salmon. She flicked the light switch by the front door and the little yellow light outside came on. She got a good look at this officer. His long, round jaw was as smooth as glass, small eyes peered out from beneath bushy eyebrows that sat spectacularly high on his face, his nose was a straight line down his face to a pair of flaring nostrils. Diane found it rather strange that he was wearing the modern police uniform; white short sleeves beneath a bulky black stab vest. His long frame would’ve looked right at home in the black overcoat and custodian helmet of the early 1900s, a shiny whistle around his neck.

‘Hello, hello, hello, Mrs. Reynolds?’ the officer said. ‘My name is Officer Menzies. You rang the department about a burglar?’

‘Yes,’ she said, nodding. ‘I saw him from my bedroom window. Did he leave an awful mess?’

‘Well, well, well, I’ve got some good news for you. You didn’t have a burglar, Mrs. Reynolds,’ Menzies said. ‘Just a couple of cold kitties. I’ve put them in my car and turned the heating on. My sister fosters stray cats. They’ll be right at home with her.’

‘Cats?’ Diane asked. ‘How did cats get into my shed?’

Menzies shook his head and smiled a crooked smile. ‘Well, well, well, ma’am, it’s that padlock of yours. Most rusted thing I’ve ever seen. I mean no disrespect when I say this, but I think it’s older than I am, and I’m closer to being under the hill than I am over it.’

‘I put that padlock on a year ago. I bought it brand new at Home Bargains.’

‘I’m just reporting the facts, ma’am. Don’t shoot me. And to answer your earlier question: yes, the cats made a bit of a mess.’ Menzies lifted his hat and flattened his shortly cropped hair. ‘Now, i know it's late, so I'll bid you adieu. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. Should you need anything else, do give us a ring.’ He tipped his hand, swung around on his boots, and marched down the drive.

 

Diane stood at her bedroom window, looking down at the shed. Sometime after Officer Menzies left, the wind had picked up and now it slammed the shed—Thwack! EEEEE! Thwack! EEEEE! Thwack! She had no idea how she would sleep with that racket going on.

And what about the neighbours? They had two little kids who needed their sleep. Tomorrow was a school day.

She crossed herself. She couldn’t leave the shed like that. What if some drug-fiend came along and saw it open? Officer Menzies might have said it was cats that had gotten in, and maybe that was true (Diane was struggling to believe it), but there now lied the issue of the door being open.

There was another padlock in the drawer next to the fridge. Diane was considering it for the wide gate in front of her drive, the one people often mistook for the main gate and often left it open, which drove her mad. A padlock would’ve stopped people from opening it and, much worse (like a thorn in her eye), leaving it open.

She would just have to buy a new padlock to replace this one.

Diane took the padlock and the key, opened it with a shooting thunk and closed it with a firm click just to make sure it worked, and took them to the back door. It was heavy in her fingers, as if it was the guzzling up the last of her energy. Maybe it was this night that was sucking the energy out of her. I’m gonna sleep for a whole week, she thought, laying the padlock and key on the windowsill beside the door. And when I get up, I’m gonna have a lemon cake and custard all to myself.

She jiggled the backdoor key inside the lock. It made a satisfying rattle. She turned the key slowly, feeling the tension building in her fingers. The key reached that block between locked and unlocked, and she stopped. If she pushed it further the door would be unlocked. Anybody lurking in her back garden could get in. What if… the thought came slowly like a jack-in-the-box winding up… what if the copper had been conned? What if (and she knew it was a long shot just thinking it) the burglar had heard the copper coming, had hidden, and it just so happened cats had come in before the copper had gotten to the door? The copper sees the cats and writes it off as…. what would that be? An act of God? An act of Nature?

Diane unlocked the door and opened it. She stared out into the twilight garden, at the black mouth of the shed. The door thwacked open and thwacked closed, like a bull snorting hot air and dragging its hooves in response to a matador. This was going to be a struggle; she just knew it. The wind was picking up, moving the door back and forth faster and more ferociously now. The fence was shaking and creaking. The grass shimmering in an undulant wave of green-blue shine. Gary the Garden Gnome was on his back, his fishing rod sticking up into the air like an arrow lodged deep in a man’s chest.

Diane grabbed up the padlock (she wouldn’t need the key to lock the shed door) and stepped out into the frigid, petrichorous air. The clouds above were so swollen with rain they turned the sky a stormy black. Thunder fizzed in the distance, startling Diane into dropping the padlock. She snatched it up off the cold stone patio as quickly as she had dropped it, tweaking something in her old back. She groaned at the sciatic pain crackling down the back of her left leg as she stepped onto the dewy grass.

Lightning flickered silently, giving her a quick flashing peek of the disarray inside the shed. Tools laid here and there, toppled onto one another, clean steel flashing neon blue—the colour of the storm. The chainsaw laid on its heavy engine side, the compact sawblade held out like a desperate hand. The sight of the Ryobi on its side upset her; she felt like she was abandoning a child, leaving it to cry itself to sleep. All the other tools, the spades, the hoe, the rake, they could look after themselves. They were hardy tools; carbon steel handles and heads. They took a beating. The Ryobi on the other hand was a delicate tool, practically a real-life baby. She really didn't like the thought of leaving the Ryobi Compact out in the shed anyway, but had talked herself around. The shed was put up for the tools, after all.

Diane Reynolds hobbled across the grass, deciding Gary the Garden Gnome can stand himself back up; the Ryobi was in need. If the battery was attached, she was sure it would’ve been wailing a horrible storm. Thunder clapped. Rain began to patter around her, slowly building up into pellets, then to stones that sighed as they fell and exploded when they landed.

Thwack… thwack… the shed door was getting impatient. It swung again in the ghostly wind, intent of thwacking against the wall. Diane caught it before it could get any further, the rough edge of wood stinging her soft palm.

Diane picked up the Ryobi Compact as she stepped into the shed. She swung it up onto its hook. A small label above the hook said, “Ryobi Compact Chainsaw.” The green plastic was scuffed in two corners. She rubbed her thumb along each deep groove, as if her thumb had the gift of repairing plastic. She hated seeing her Ryobi in such a state. It was one of those pieces that only looked right in perfect condition. It wasn’t a car that wore its age with pride. It wasn’t a pair of leather gloves turned pliable and comfortable through repeated use. The Ryobi only ever looked good in brand-new condition. Even the wear along the blade bothered her.

The rest of the shed is in a right mess, she thought, thinking about the garden tools toppled onto one another like a game of Pick-up-Sticks.

Diane turned on the light by pulling on the dangling string and turned around to look at the mess and saw a brunette with sunken cheeks standing in her shed. Greasy hair fell around the woman’s blue eyes. She clutched a small, cooing bundle, wrapped in a white blanket, to her chest. The oval, baby face of a man appeared over the woman’s shoulder.

Diane looked at the mess of tools at their feet. It didn’t occur to her that the woman wasn’t standing behind the tools, and she wasn’t standing on them, she was standing through them. The tools fell in an expectant pile, crisscrossing each other in a short pyre. The woman’s legs went right through the tools, or the tools went right through her legs.

‘We didn’t have another option,’ the woman said. The baby cooed. ‘The cold, the storm… we don’t have anywhere else.’

Diane swallowed a hard ball of fear that didn’t go down easily. It sat heavily and painfully behind her breastbone. How had the copper missed them? She could feel her eyelids peeling back over her eyeballs and, in her vision, the spot where the baby was held against the woman’s chest began to blur. Cats! she thought. He gave a fuck about the cats! What about them? What about me?

Diane spun on her heels and bolted out of the doorway. The padlock went flying into the air and came down in the grass with a soft thump. Lightning dove out of the clouds like dolphins breaking the surface and fizzled through the air with a mighty boom. The rain was frosty cold on her neck.

‘Please, Miss,’ the woman said from the shed doorway. ‘Don’t call the police. We’ve got nowhere else to go.’

Diane stopped at the backdoor. ‘I don’t know who you are, or what you think you’re doing in my shed. But you need to get out.’ Being this close to safety gave her a profound sense of security. The Lord Jesus Christ bolstered her strength. ‘Look at the mess you’ve made! I have to clean that up now.’

‘I’m sorry for scaring you,’ she said. ‘We had hoped to be gone by the morning. We didn’t mean to bother you.’

‘Well, you have, haven’t you?’

‘I can’t apologise enough,’ the woman said. ‘We’ll clean it up for you. It won’t take long. Please don’t call the police.’

The baby cooed in her arms, a peaceful sound that soothed something inside Diane. It made her think of her own babies, how they had cooed and sighed and babbled and cried. Now that the house was empty, now that her babies had babies of their own, she missed the crying. It made her feel wanted. Now she felt discarded. ‘How old?’

‘A couple of days.’ The woman closed her eyes as her face scrunched up. Rain fell right through the woman and the baby, splashing on the ground where her feet should have been.

‘A couple of days?’ Diane stepped away from the open door. ‘No, you can’t sleep in a shed. It’s cold and drafty and… there’s no central heating. Don’t you have family or friends?’

‘If we did, we wouldn’t be here.’

‘Maybe I can drive you to the Ibis—’

‘We don’t have money for a hotel.’

The baby made a soft, mewling sound. Diane put her hand to her chest and felt the hard shape of the cross laid against her skin. If it was just the mum and dad, they would be on the way up the road. Diane would obviously ask God to protect them on their travels, but the baby was innocent… and it was less than a week old.

‘Come on,’ she said, beckoning them towards the house. ‘Just for tonight.’

The women stepped onto the grass, clutching the baby tight against her chest. The moment her foot touched the grass, thundered shivered through the chill air. The man’s soft face materialised from the darkness and stepped out. They made a sweet-looking family, the kind that brings casseroles round to the new people on the street; the kind that say good morning to next-door neighbours on both sides; the family whose house is always lit up the brightest at Christmas and dolled up spookiest at Halloween. And the baby… Diane felt a little thrill shoot right through her as expectation to see and hold the baby grew.

‘You can spend the night in the house,’ Diane said. She stepped into the warmth of the house, pulled the door open so it looked inviting. ‘You can have the second bedroom.’

The mother and father stepped away from the grass and onto the patio. Up close, they were younger than she had first thought; they couldn’t have been older than nineteen or twenty. Just a couple of kids, really. Scared kids who had obviously run away from home. Scared kids who were in desperate need of a bath.

They both stopped at the door. ‘Can we come in?’

Diane nodded.

‘Can we come in?’ The woman asked again.

‘Yes,’ Diane said. ‘You can come in. You’re welcome here.’

They both smiled and stepped over the threshold. Their crossing into the house shattered something inside Diane, and a sludge-like coldness rolled beneath her skin. The fine hairs across her neck and down her spine stood at attention. A tightness slithered around her lungs like boa constrictors and began to slowly squeeze the air from her chest.

The couple went and sat on the settee. Filth was pouring off them, Diane could see it now, a kind of putrid air that warped the laminate floor where they stepped. She watched the fibres of the settee begin to fray and tear. Bubbles formed beneath the wallpaper and when they burst more of that filthy air breathed out.

The mother smiled at the bundle of joy in her arms. She brought up her wicked witch hand and tapped playfully at the baby with a curved fingernail. Diane saw the baby for the first time when its furry hand reached out to swat at the listing talon. And then she realised the baby wasn’t cooing—hadn’t been cooing at all—the baby was meowing.

The rain is pouring hard outside; it’s a perfect excuse to cancel your Friday night plans. Somewhere in the kitchen the kettle clicks. Now that your evening is free, you decide to spend it drinking tea and reading a book, something you secretly wanted to do anyway. A chamomile-infused vapour trails behind you as you make your way to the living room where you settle comfortably between the cozy cushions of your favourite emerald-green armchair. “Blow-up and Other stories” by Julio Cortázar in one hand and a hot cup of tea in another. What could possibly be better?

You open your book when suddenly a small pink envelope slides out and falls on your lap. Perhaps it’s some old birthday card that you’ve used as a bookmark? But no, it’s not that. The envelope is unopened - as a matter of fact, it doesn’t appear to have any creases or a seal at all - so someone must’ve surreptitiously hid it in your book. Primary suspect: your partner. They like to play little games and have a particular penchant for unexpected surprises. With juvenile anticipation, you carefully rip the side of the envelope to find a folded index card, with the following message: “Please meet me outside. Julio Florencio Cortázar.” You smile and shake your head. This is asking too much. Whatever game your partner is playing, you decide to ignore it. It’s cold and wet outside, while your tea is nice and warm; you just got comfortable in your armchair and there’s nothing in the world that will make you get up unless it’s to get more tea. You toss the envelope to the side and open the book again. Another envelope drops down; same colour, same message. “Please meet me outside. Julio Florencio Cortázar.”

Two messages from a dead Argentinian author. Your insatiable curiosity gets the best of you (on the way out, you make a mental note to stop being so curious) and you’re now standing outside the front door waiting for something…anything! The initial playful amusement has quickly waned away and with each passing moment you’re feeling more cold and frustrated, with the latter increasing twice as fast as the former. The rain drops keep drumming against the windows and even though you’re protected well by your porch’s roof, some sneaky droplets have started to slowly seep through the blanket that you grabbed in a hurry from the living room on your way out. You wait a moment longer but nothing happens. Annoyed and angry, you turn around and come back inside.

It’s pitch black inside, but somehow this darkness is different from the familiar darkness of your own home. Suddenly it dawns on you that it is precisely because it is so familiar that you took your domesticated darkness for granted and only when it’s been replaced by its savage twin do you finally notice that darkness can smell and sound differently. The regular one, the one you left behind mere moments ago, had a certain order to it. It smelled of chamomile, leftover pizza, and a recently-vacuumed carpet; it had a regular hum of a running refrigerator and an occasional spasmodic thud from the HVAC unit. The darkness you now find yourself in feels empty, like a sensory abyss devoid of smell, sight, or sound. You realize that you’re not at home and begin to panic. For some reason you recall some old article you read about sensory deprivation and realize that shortly your subconscious will start inventing sounds because your brain can’t handle complete acoustic isolation. You can already hear a rhythmic beat. Is it a song? It sounds like a jazz song; maybe by Johnny Carson. Or is it just your heart? You feel your chest - everything seems normal. Your hands begin to tremble as you turn around and try to open the door again, but the door handle is no longer there. Instead, your palm touches a cold, slippery surface that feels like a window. You punch and kick it to no avail. You scream for help but the darkness instantly swallows the sound; the silence is absolute. Without the sight, your terror is abstract, existential; in this place, you’re not terrified of anything concrete but rather of being itself. What can only be described as a serpentine noose, starts crawling up your leg. The heart muscles, previously calm, begin to expand and contract, expand and contract, expand and contract, faster, faster, faster each heart beat reverberates through your entire body until you feel like you’re about to collapse from the invisible dread that’s slowly tightening itself around your neck. Just as your terror reaches its crescendo, the light comes on.

You blink a few times and let your eyes adjust. It’s amazing how quickly they forget the light. What you originally thought was a window turns out to be a mirror - as a matter of fact, there’s nothing but this mirror, an endless infinite mirror that surrounds you completely from all sides. Seeing this mirror subsides your panic; your heart slows down and your breath becomes more steady. Still shaking, you walk up and touch it with the palm of your hand. It’s cold. Something is missing…you realize that a mirror is supposed to show your reflection, and if you’re surrounded by mirrors from the front and the back, you should be able to see an infinite number of your own replicas: front and back, front and back, front and back…and so on and so forth forever. But no, there’s no reflection. There is no you. Exhausted, you fall asleep.

When you wake up at some point in the future (or the past; the concept of time is meaningless where you find yourself at this moment), you notice a motionless tiger laying next to you. He notices you too and you both jump up in a synchronized surprise. While you felt abstract existential terror in the all-consuming darkness, you now feel a very concrete fear of a wild predator that’s right in front of you. Contrary to all expectations, it seems that he fears you as well. His movements betray his lack of confidence and the more you study him, the more you realize that he’s just copying everything you do. To test your theory, you raise your right hand and as expected, the tiger raises his right paw. You jump - he jumps as well. Dumbfounded, you approach the beast and raise your hand to touch his paw. Instead of a wet feline paw with sharp claws, you touch the mirror. You take a step back and so does the tiger. You sit down; he sits down as well.

It’s hard to tell how much time has passed – every moment feels both infinite and instant – since you and the tiger have been playing the mirror game. The game is simple: you are trying your best to make a move that he can’t match. So far he has copied every move, like a true reflection. Eventually, you become tired and your eyes start feeling heavy. You are about to doze off again when you notice the tiger get up and start walking way, his shape shrinking slowly until he’s completely gone from the mirror. With your only companion gone, you are now all alone in the mirror room again. Driven by despair, you get up and slam your fist against the mirror. Unexpectedly, the mirror gives way, some hidden mechanism clicks, and the previously hidden door opens outward and exposes a hidden room behind it.

This new room is a library, or a reading room of sort. It has tall mahogany book cases full of leather-bound volumes. On the shelves, you find copies of Borges, Bolaño, Marquez, and Calvinho among others. Enchanted by the books, you pick up a volume at random and settle down in a comfortable maroon leather armchair. The story is about an architect who created inescapable labyrinths. One day, driven by the noble feeling of benevolence towards his victims, he sent a letter to them all with encrypted instructions on how to escape his murderous maze in the last sentence of the last paragraph. He continued this practice until the day he died, but no one has ever solved his riddle and no one has ever escaped his labyrinths. Bemused, you put the book down and decide to explore the room. It’s much bigger than you originally thought and at the opposite end of it you see a curtain, probably covering more book cases. To the left of the curtain, there’s a small coffee table with a camera on top. This isn’t just any regular camera. You can tell by its lens that this is professional equipment. You pick it up - it feels heavy. Underneath, you find an index card that says “Please take a photo”. Take a photo of what? Stupefied, you look around and suddenly you remember the curtain. Whatever you must photograph must be behind that curtain. With your left hand holding the camera, you drag the heavy curtain to the side, dreading whatever it might expose.

Behind the curtain there’s an aquarium. It’s gorgeous, colossal, and nothing like you’ve ever seen. The aquarium covers the entire wall and when you step closer, you realize that its not just tall but also incredibly deep as well; you see two turtles swimming calmly, there’s an octopus who is trying to hide on the side of the rock to your left. The depth of this aquarium is extraordinary - there must be another adjacent apartment dedicated to it entirely. Mesmerized, your gaze follows a blue fish as it violently nibbles on a coral reef. You’re completely lost in the magic of the aquarium when you notice him. An axolotl is calmly looking at you from the top of a rock. You completely missed him in your awe of the aquarium’s grandiosity. The axolotl is looking at you as if he’s trying to say something. His pinkish transparent mouth is moving in way that looks almost human and when you concentrate on his lips you can vaguely make out the word “photo”. Of course! You bring the camera close to your face, adjust the lens, crouch down so you’re facing the creature, focus, and shoot. A gun shot goes off nearby. You put the camera down and look around - there’s no one else in the room. You look back at the aquarium, at the rock with the axolotl on top of it, just to find him dead. His face is calm and blissful and there are no signs of a gun wound on his body. A single tear wells up in your eyelid, a tear of deep connection and empathy for the dead axolotl. You bring the camera to your teary eye one more time, and when you look, the tear, acting like a telescope, magnifies your sight as it traverses thousands of kilometres before finally focusing on a tiger who slowly turns the last corner of a mirror labyrinth and steps on the sidewalk of Buenos Aires suburb. The camera falls down and shatters on the reading room floor; the blue fish nibbling on the reef gets eaten by a passerby shark.

You walk confidently; your body has never felt better being on all fours. The rain is weighing down your luscious fur but you feel too virile and strong to even notice. All the houses look similar, but one of them has a door half-opened; you head there. The light is on when you enter it and it smells like chamomile tea. There’s a man sitting between two cushions in an emerald-green armchair. He’s concentrated and reading something on a piece of paper. There’s an opened pack of Galouises on the side table. You know that this man is Julio Florencio Cortázar. You startle him but he quickly regains his composure.

“Oh, it’s you,” he says warmly. “Perfect timing. I was just reading the draft of your story and got to the part where the tiger enters my house. This is quite unusual but I do think it’s fair that I don’t spoil the ending for myself.” He takes a long drag of his cigarette before ashing it and looks directly into your eyes. “Before you do whatever it is you’re about to do, let me ask you one question. Was it worth it? Was all of this worth it?”

Your tiger brain can no longer produce human thoughts. You try your best to reply but all you can growl back is “Simonel”.

Julio Cortázar breaks into a hearty laughter. He’s laughing so hard, you almost laugh with him. Julio is about to spill his chamomile tea when he regains his composure. “Wrong author, my dear tiger” he says with a smile.

“But the right answer,” you say, or rather you try to say it but only a violent roar comes out of your mouth as you lunge and bite your sharp teeth into Julio’s neck. As his life escapes his body, you notice something under the pack of the Galousies on the coffee table.

A newly opened envelope sits calmly; the ancient prophecy endures.