House of Gaze, December 2022.

Homero had been reminiscing the paths he traversed after that youthful decision to change professions while, armed with a sickle, saw, and machete, he toiled in the garden, balancing on a ladder borrowed from a neighbor. His aim was to fell a robust tepozán bush that had grown quite large between the dividing wall of his home and the crumbling wall of the neighboring Spanish House. He went about it with great care, ensuring he didn't fall or injure himself. He wasn't elderly, but senescence is the borderland marking the arrival of old age, and at nearly sixty, Homero didn't want to venture beyond what was prudent, especially when alone and lacking the means to seek help or access medical services.

Furthermore, when the winter chill had set in a few days ago, the old knee injury he sustained at seventeen while skiing in the snow began to trouble him with bursitis. That was one more reason to take care of himself. Nevertheless, he seized the opportunity provided by the tools and the awkward position to trim the thick branches of the red bougainvillea, his father's favorite, and later he would do the same for the purple bougainvillea, his mother's beloved. Both had grown so long that they now extended over the chain-link fence he had installed when he got Micha, his first calico cat, in the hope that it would prevent any disturbances to the neighbors, limiting the feline's activities which, in accordance with her nature, involved prowling provocatively across hot rooftops on full moon nights.

'Oh, naive me!' he thought. Soon he learned that the determined cunning of a cat knows no bounds and always finds a loophole, tactic, or technique to escape through the most unsuspected routes, be it climbing, sliding, or leaping through seemingly insurmountable obstacles. 'In life, everything is a coincidence,' Homero mused about how Micha came into his life while, carefully and using rose scissors, he removed thorns from the bougainvillea branches left by his pruning. 'And yet, oh contradiction, nothing in life is a coincidence. Everything happens for a reason. Life doesn't happen to you, Homero; it happens for you,' the writer thought, recalling a statement he once heard actor Jim Carrey express in a recorded conference available on YouTube. It was fascinating how two similar and synonymous prepositions could also imply different intentions. 'What happens 'to' one, not always happens 'for' one; but what happens 'for' one, even if it happens to another, necessarily happens 'to' one, even if it's in a virtual and vicarious manner. On the other hand, what happens 'to' one, happens either directly or indirectly 'toward' one.'

Engrossed in these ideas, Homer ruminated without much awareness of his mechanical movements. Inside the house, Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 60 in C major resounded. 'A,' 'para,' 'hacia,' in any way, implied a motion for which one is not always the cause unless as a coincidence with another in the same place and time, even if they were the wrong ones. This,' he thought, 'was a concise summary of Einstein's relativity partially applied to linguistic phenomena.'1

As is often the case when one is occupied, brief distractions suddenly arise, which, however, do not affect concentration but perhaps sharpen it, making repetitive actions automatic. It's problematic when these distractions linger, as they can lead to unfortunate accidents.

So, while Homero sawed a thick branch, thinking about how that cat and some people appeared in his life as coincidences, a proverb his parents had often mentioned came to his mind: 'The world is a handkerchief.' While the metaphor fascinated him, it also confused him. Once, musing idly about its meaning, he devised an absurd syllogism with which he argued that if the world is a handkerchief and every head is a world, then every head is a handkerchief. Even more absurdly, invoking the Calderonian allegory, if every head is a handkerchief and life is a dream, then life is a handkerchief. Interpreting this allegory, he immediately conjured, as many do, an image of a dirty handkerchief, where we, with all our desires, dreams, perversions, and fantasies, are the phlegmatic humors, as tenacious and adhesive as the very urge to live.

Sometimes, on the contrary, he pictured a clean, smooth handkerchief, possibly adorned with an embroidered monogram and scented with wood essences, much like the fragrance wafting from the fresh sawdust. It was a byproduct of Homero's labor, which humans might consider corrective or even destructive, but the plants understood it as a form of love as wild as nature itself, for they knew the secret hidden in the thoughts that crossed the writer's mind. In those days, Homero had read a scientific news report about botanists from Tel Aviv University who had discovered that plants indeed feel and scream by emitting ultrasonic sounds.

This time, his imagination went a step further, incorporating the idea of a handkerchief containing coins, tied in a bundle that jingled, much like the one his mother had used to keep the twenty-five Morelos one-peso coins that Toño had given as tokens when they celebrated their silver anniversary. Each coin represented a year of marriage. Some of them, after his mother's death, Homero sold to a coin dealer at their silver value, while others he kept to add to his numismatic collection. And to think that tradition stipulated thirteen as the limit, symbolizing the material assets of the couple, the expected and shared prosperity; twelve for each month of the year, but also, with the thirteenth coin, the seasons of lean times and the charitable, compassionate obligation to share with the needy. A marital guarantee that could be lost in case of infidelity, just as Judas lost the Messiah's trust for thirty pieces of silver.

'Ah, if only my father hadn't been unfaithful, perhaps things would be different for me today,' the writer pondered, looking at his deteriorating house, but also wondering about the future utility of his numismatic and philatelic pursuits in a world where everything seemed to be moving toward a new form of monetarism based on digital virtuality and cryptographic mining, rather than the printing of banknotes, stamps, and the minting of commemorative coins. What use would it serve, especially when he had no one, apart from his nephews, whom he hadn't seen in years, to bequeath his collection as a legacy? Then, he gazed at his cats, napping, and thought, 'Oh, if only they were Puss in Boots...'"

In a dynamic turn of events, the writer's imagination transformed the serene into a vibrant Mexican bandana of brilliant yellow hue. Much like the one that the perspiring American singer, Johnny Mathis, with his velvety voice, removed from his head during a performance to gift to Tere. This occurred at a concert in Mexico, attended by the writer's mother back in nineteen seventy. She was accompanied by Toño and a group of friends who happened to be publicists, a gathering of individuals with diverse personalities. Monthly, they hosted meetings at their homes, where families converged and intermingled.

While this chapter existed as a separate entity within Homero's memories, it flooded his spirit as if it were assailants. They overcame him much like ancient mariners during a swift, summary trial following a mutiny. They adamantly refused to become shipwrecked castaways abandoned in the Sea of Oblivion and Absence. These memories drew the writer into a whirlwind, where they seemed to disintegrate and entwine around the concrete figure of his father.

He comprehended that his biography was inextricably linked to his family's history and, perhaps, to the very history of Mexico, if not the world. Homero abruptly shook his head, closed his eyes as if to arrange his thoughts, evade the digression, and returned to the proverb that had triggered this fleeting journey through time.

In his mind, a mere and ordinary fragment of a worn-out sheet, barely stirred by a breath, emerged from a cloud. It veiled a beautiful full-bodied moon, perhaps reflecting the shadowy silhouette of a nude model. She possessed an athletic figure, delineated musculature, firm breasts, ample and taut buttocks, erect and proud nipples, bronzed skin, with a moon and a path of stars tattooed on her left side, hinting at her provocative profession. Her hand rested between her legs, arousing herself to a liquid climax, overflowing like a river eager to sweep everything in its path with the force of pleasure and desire.

Suddenly, as if an impertinent and invisible hand tore the veil to reveal the forbidden, synchronized with the trumpet in the symphony in the background, the mental cloth appeared discarded in a hidden corner, shamefully concealing a stain. Was it lipstick or blood? The writer blinked, and the substitute mental image presented a neatly folded handkerchief in the pocket of a well-arranged blazer. Only a corner peeked out from beneath the lapel, adorned with a delicate Castilian rose, winking coquettishly at its silken petals.

Then the metaphor, altered by a single consonant, became a paraphrase. It suggested, much like an old, crumpled treasure map sealed with the compass rose, that the lines of life were etched on a handkerchief. Some argue that death is but a transition, although they do not elucidate the destination or the process beyond the evident moment of passing. Some see it as a point of convergence and coincidence.

In that final mental image within Homero's thoughts, the marked routes, the potential pathways to other places, times, or dimensions, converged the characters of his novel like strokes on the canvas of life. They met at a point where magic, adventure, and history united them for better or worse, alive or dead, real and fictional. Here, the hero could put his faculties, fears, and courage to the test, facing the trials of love and heartbreak.

Among these strokes on the canvas of life, there were those of the enigmatic Micha and her children, Rorick, Tabby, and Blue, along with many other characters. They formed, in the tapestry of Homero's existence, new and instructive chapters whose initial pages explored events beginning from Tere's fifth memorial anniversary.

* * *

Casa de la Mirada, January to February 2014.

It is commonplace to associate cats with magic and the supernatural. For those who believe in extraordinary phenomena, some of us are believed to reincarnate into other beings, particularly felines, especially when it's believed that karma or dharma have left some unresolved debt. This is also linked to the belief that there are objects and places hiding portals, windows, thresholds, and passageways through which one can access other times and dimensions, either by accident or by one's own will, often guided by a mentor. It remains uncertain whether Micha was a reincarnation or if she hailed from a supernatural dimension, sent to be a mentor to Homero.

What we do know is that Micha entered the writer's life, coinciding with his mother's birthday, on February ninth, and ten days after the fifth anniversary of her passing. It was during those days, amidst the tapestry of coincidences, that Homero rekindled his interest in Second Life, the pioneer of virtual metaworlds that emerged in the year two thousand and three. There, he shaped his very first avatar, Beggar Mayo Slaegon, akin to the action figures of his childhood. Just as little girls dress and undress their dolls, he adorned and transformed Beggar, constructing a character to escape from his daily routine. However, he quickly became entranced by the technological wizardry underpinning this virtual realm, beginning to perceive Beggar as an extension of himself, an alter ego. Beggar evolved alongside the platform's technological advances, reaching an astonishing level of realism.

For Homero, Beggar became a vessel for his desires, fantasies, and dreams. Through him, he projected the hope that if scientists ever found a way to transfer consciousness into technological constructs, he would live on happily, even after death, as a nearly eternal, nearly omnipotent, nearly omniscient, and nearly omnipresent digital entity capable of teleporting through space, time, and dimensions. (How peculiar it can sometimes be to speak of oneself in the third person!)

Homero entered and exited this virtual metaworld sporadically, without rhyme or reason. Yet, by the year two thousand and ten, a mere year after Tere's passing, the writer in the midst of grief realized he couldn't live in isolation. He turned to Second Life to socialize in some fashion. In contrast, a real-life circumstance that impacted his community led him to become an activist against the government, exposing him to the tempest of politics. This drew him away from the virtual window, where he had not only found entertainment but also honed many of his dormant skills.

Then, a bit removed from the whirlwind of social activism, a day before his mother's fifth death anniversary, Homero resumed his forays into the virtual realm. Bewildered by the technological changes, he once engaged in an intriguing conversation on a paradisiacal island with a user whose female avatar had a feline appearance and went by the name Ana Gramma, though her nickname tag read Nekomusume.

Days later, as he returned from shopping, just before closing the gate, a little cat he named Micha darted into the house, fleeing from some unknown peril but determined to stay. Homero found it curious how his mind connected these seemingly unrelated events. He had never owned cats as pets before; his companions were mainly dogs, with the occasional ducks, hamsters, chickens, frogs, fish, and canaries. Therefore, Micha's arrival marked a new learning experience on many levels. In the ensuing weeks, Micha took a central place in his life, especially when he discovered that the little cat was pregnant with what would later become his beloved Blue, Rorick, and Tabby.

Once, while Homero was connected to Second Life, Micha stared intently at the screen, purring. Her eyes followed something that only she seemed to perceive, something that appeared to move from the computer screen to a corner of the room. She fixated her gaze on that spot, as if drawn by an invisible force. Then, a sudden creaking sound in another part of the house captured her attention, prompting her to dash off, curiosity ignited.

Before Micha's arrival, in the Casa de la Mirada, there was a sewing cabinet that seemed to possess the mysterious quality of serving as a transdimensional portal. Periodically, without adhering to a precise schedule, this cabinet would emit a distinctive creaking sound, followed by the unmistakable scent of tuberoses filling a specific, confined space in the house.

"Your grandmother Luisa has arrived," Tere would exclaim to Homero, attributing this to the spectral manifestation of her mother visiting her loved ones, particularly herself, her "Burrita." Everyone in the family, except for Toño, Homero's father, whose sense of smell appeared somewhat atrophied, had experienced this phenomenon. Of course, the rational explanation was rooted in the mechanics of materials and temperature changes in the environment. Nonetheless, it was quite peculiar that this was the only piece of furniture in the house exhibiting such behavior, regardless of its location. An alternative explanation justified the phenomenon by the presence of some of the grandmother's belongings still stored inside the cabinet.

In the year preceding her passing, Tere had made the decision to part with several pieces of furniture and odds and ends. This decision, however, sparked a heated discussion between mother and son. The cause of the dispute was the woman's decision to part with a true gem of 1930s craftsmanship.

It was an ebony wood telephone table, styled in Art Deco fashion. The lateral supports were carved to resemble the legs of a lion, ascending like vines to the flat surface, adorned with a mosaic puzzle of geometric shapes, evoking floral motifs. These were meticulously crafted from two-tone cedar marquetry, finished with a natural varnish. Beneath, a hollow drawer, lacking lateral covers, served to store notepads or the phone directory.

Tere had opted to part with this piece of furniture to make room for another, part of the same household inherited from her Aunt Pita, the teacher and eighth sister of grandmother Luisa. The alternative, more practical for Tere, was a small and simple vitrine from the same era and style, albeit less ostentatious. Made from thin pine plywood, it had turned legs and subtle carvings, with the sole purpose of providing a decorative touch. Tere used it to store her glassware and her collection of cups.

Despite her desire to lighten her load and detach herself from knick-knacks, Tere preserved the dining room set, composed of a table, eight chairs, a sideboard, and two long two-tiered bookshelves. The sinuous lines and delicate forms, influenced by Bauhaus design, captivated the writer's mother, who, in agreement with her husband, repurposed some of them as bookshelves for her substantial collection of around five thousand books. Following Tere's passing, however, Homero chose to sell them to a secondhand dealer. The last pieces sold were a chest of drawers and the sewing cabinet.

"I'm leaving you with less burden, fewer problems, son, and we could use the extra money," the "Coneja" argued. "Coneja" was one of Tere's nicknames, dating back to her childhood.

The chest of drawers was part of Tere's bedroom and matched the dining room set. These pieces, in a Mid Century style, specifically from the Van Beuren Danish line, had been acquired to furnish the couple's first decent apartment. Located in the emerging Guadalupe Inn neighborhood, near the Villa and Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City, this love nest would become the birthplace of their firstborn, Patricia, in 1952. Three years later, Sandrita the "Picolina" would arrive, followed by Sandra, equally named after the second.

"That's over fifty years of life's history," Tere said, her voice tinged with melancholy, after Homero inquired about her prolonged silence as she watched the secondhand dealers load the bulky piece where she had stored part of her privacy.

The sewing cabinet, on the other hand, was more modern, functioning as a laundry hamper that Tere repurposed after acquiring it from street artisans. She was drawn to it because its design and color matched the Van Beuren furniture. Before parting with it, Tere retrieved fabric scraps, yarn, and a knitting bag her daughter Patricia had crafted as a child, containing a few of her mother Luisa's belongings. Once the cabinet was emptied, Tere stored her most sentimental possessions in a large trunk, her "world."

This term, a synonym, was borrowed from Grandfather José, Toño's father, who referred to a chest placed at the foot of the bed in this way. He used it to store, rather than bed linens, mementos that connected him to his late Angelita. This was despite the begrudging acceptance of his second wife, María Luisa, whom Toño and his siblings called "La Pirata," not only because she was their stepmother but also because, crippled since a young age, she used a wooden leg.

Tere adopted this concept to refer to the travel trunk in which Toño and their daughter Patricia brought back clothes purchased during the young woman's year-long stay in England. This was in 1973, during which time Toño sought to distance Patricia from Fausto, the boyfriend he never approved of. The pretext was to send her to a ladies' boarding school to study English. It was hoped that this decision would serve as a last resort, after attempts to reason with his daughter and dissolve her emotional ties with her boyfriend due to the distance had failed. In that world, at the time, just like Grandfather José, Tere organized family memories.

After parting with the sewing cabinet, it was expected that the strange phenomenon of creaking wood would not occur again. But, lo and behold, it recurred, only now in a bookshelf located opposite where the cabinet had stood.

The writer, always skeptical, moved the bookshelf, suspecting that its location might be causing the creaking due to temperature fluctuations in the wall. The result remained unchanged. As usual, without a discernible pattern related to air circulation or temperature changes, the bookshelf creaked with a distinct cheerfulness, and the scent of tuberoses occasionally emerged in different areas. Homero began to take the possibility of the paranormal more seriously. His mother smiled, taking it all in stride.

"The mysteries of God are beyond our comprehension," Tere would remind her son.

Tere passed away on January 30, 2009. Three days later, something changed. Clear paranormal events would become a part of the writer's life.