Haus des Blicks, December 2022.

"Ouch! As Homero tugged on one of the thick, tangled branches of the red bougainvillea, a massive thorn sank into his finger. Despite his careful efforts and the protective gloves he wore, the curved thorn, like a hawk's talon, pierced through the fabric, scratching his index finger."

The memories surrounding the kitten Micha and how and when she came into his life suddenly faded due to the painful prick. Although the pain didn't reach the level that would turn Homero into a raging ogre from whom even his parents would flee, it was enough to distract him and cause him to clumsily pinch his finger with the rose pruning shears when cutting a thin branch in half. His intention had been to gather the pieces into a bundle, which he would later use to make crates for constructing raised beds in his garden. Again, if it weren't for the gloves, apart from the prick, he might have seriously cut his thumb.

For the time being, he thought he had had enough exertion. He would continue later. He needed to tend to his wounds and still had to work on fixing the wooden shelves for some furniture owned by Golán, a young Israeli who had become a naturalized Mexican citizen and was once his tenant, renting a room from him. Of course, he also needed to continue making progress on his novel.

One of the ways Homero had found to earn a few meager incomes to survive was by renting out rooms or areas of his house for storage. He stored some furniture for neighbors and a friend. His first tenant was his former brother-in-law Fausto, followed by a young student, then Golán, and lastly, during the pandemic, a photographer descended from the famous Casasola lineage who ended up leaving without paying what he owed. In the midst of all this, he occasionally rented the house for nude photography sessions, which gave rise to a whole chapter of what his teenage friends called his "chubby adventures."

Homero met Golán years before the pandemic through a neighbor and good Jewish friend, Hayyim Benolol, an amateur actor like Homero, a biologist, and a marginal veterinarian who neutered the writer's cats and saved Blue's life. Due to a motorcycle accident and poor blood circulation, this friend had to have his right leg amputated and fitted with a prosthesis, which did not, however, diminish his cheerful and combative character, sometimes verging on extremism.

After leaving the room and as soon as the pandemic restrictions were lifted, Golán rented a space to store the beauty and diving products he sold, as well as the furniture he used to display them at trade fairs. The writer developed a good friendship with Golán, who was as young as his own son, and he saw his little daughter, Noah, as a grandchild. Although he didn't feel a similar affection in return, the young and skilled entrepreneur's eagerness to care for him made Homero feel grateful in his solitude, supposing that someone cared because contact with his family at that time, especially after his mother's passing, was practically nonexistent for various reasons.

For Homero, working with plants had always been a dream and a challenge since childhood. If he could now enjoy tending to his garden as a gardener, it was also thanks to Golán's teachings. Golán, who had learned about farming both in the kibbutz and during his time in the Israeli army. Gone were the frustrating attempts to germinate vegetables, grow fruit trees, or shape bonsai. Now, the knowledge he had acquired and his imperfect experiences had given the writer the patience to await the fruits without haste.

Every time he stepped into the garden to care for what he had sown or transplanted, or simply to observe the progress of his efforts, Homero repeated to himself the idea: "one step at a time," a mantra applicable to every other aspect of his current life. Though sometimes the stubborn reality of his poverty, the lack of food, challenged his patience and confronted him with his dearest dreams, like becoming a successful writer. He believed that if anything acted as a bridge between happiness and misery, it was art, and this thought often distracted him from his goals when desperation threatened to take over. Fortunately, he had a roof over his head, which made a world of difference.

It was true that when he looked back at his past and compared it to his current situation, Homero wondered what he had made of his life. At those times, he felt an urgency to chase answers that would ensure a peaceful, comfortable old age, rather than the tumultuous ones experienced by his grandfather José, who suffered from senile dementia, or his father, who was a victim of his incompetence and mental lapses. This was in stark contrast to his mother, who, in her own way, despite multiple surgeries and rampant osteoporosis, left this world almost fully intact, at least mentally, lucid. The recent deaths of friends his age did nothing to alleviate his sense of restlessness and haste. Although he was inwardly confused, deep in his heart, Homero intuited that he still had an unfinished, not yet clear, mission to accomplish, and he had to stay alive and in good physical and mental health to carry it out. When this feeling overwhelmed him, he turned his eyes to his plants, some in bloom, others just bearing fruit, and others in full development, and then, invariably, his grandfather's paternal advice about the benefits of patience came to his mind.

While sanding Golán's planks and repairing wood imperfections, preparing them for the chosen varnish by the young merchant, Homero occasionally drifted back to remember the teachings of his beloved father. He realized how the characters that, in some circles, seemed more like protagonists of great stories, in others, such as one's own modest life, barely played the role of an extra, without diminishing their ability to leave a mark in one's existence when included in the narrative, perhaps as coincidences. Each and every one of us enters someone else's life for some reason, with a purpose sometimes clear, sometimes obscure, Homero thought.

The sound of the sandpaper, the aroma of sawdust, the sensation of it sticking to his skin brought a train of seemingly unrelated scenes to the writer's memory, which converged when he remembered when he discovered his particular fondness for working with wood.

* * *

Mexico City, April, 1973.

It was a Saturday. In his efforts to introduce Homero to the world of outdoor advertising and share his entrepreneurial endeavors, Toño had brought his son with him to the billboard factory. Homero was ten years old at the time and already stood out from other children by always carrying a pen and a small notebook in his shirt pocket, where he jotted down ideas for stories, his early poems, or drawings.

The boy enjoyed accompanying his dad to the factory located on Lago Zirahuen Street and the adjacent building around the corner on Tamiahua Laguna Street, in the Anáhuac neighborhood of Mexico City, very close to the old Military College. While it didn't particularly excite him because he invariably ended up sitting in the boardroom or at a distant desk, letting his imagination run wild as a way to avoid boredom, or sometimes even dozing off.

On that Saturday, young Homero was about to embark on a peculiar adventure shortly after nodding off for a brief moment.

* * *

House of The Gaze, at an undefined moment.

In the dream, young Homero found himself walking through his seemingly barren garden. The bougainvilleas, which he associated with his mother and father, were pruned near the base of their thick trunks, their bark wrinkled and marked by cat scratches. A man of advanced age, wielding a machete, surveyed the disorder, branches strewn about, and leaves gathered in heaps. Satisfied but with a hidden sense of guilt, akin to what a novice killer might feel, the man skillfully hurled the sword, burying its tip in the ground. The steel vibrated like that of the mythical Arthurian sword in the prodigious stone. He muttered words to the wind, seeking forgiveness from the ancestors for truncating their post-mortem efforts. He argued that he had done it for the greater good. Remorseful, he recalled not a promise but an old and solemn oath: "They will carry me out of this house feet-first!"

Suddenly, a profound night engulfed the dream. The murmur of a gentle breeze through the nearby pear trees broke the nocturnal silence. The moonlight bathed the garden, and only the shadow of the gazebo crept through the dream.

It was a gloomy winter night in Sonnenblumendorf when the famous writer Edgar Allan Poe ventured into the neighboring labyrinthine Alley of Petunias. His dark cloak enveloped him like a blanket as he advanced slowly, without a specific destination in mind.

* * *

House of The Gaze, back to the present.

"Poe?" Homero wondered, halting his work in astonishment. What kind of wild digression had the writer just experienced? It's one thing to reminisce about one's childhood or to envision oneself divided. Such skills are a part of a writer's trade. It's another to seek reasons for writing one's novel, but it's quite another to ramble, forcing images into the narrative. He shook his head, as if trying to shoo away a persistent fly. He continued to brush the wood, but new digressions lay in wait, challenging him.

* * *

Planet Klimhá, Schloss Steppenwolfsee, a certain night in 1939.

Ana Gramma, the furry feline writer from the planet Klimhá, opened her yellow eyes and felt a shiver run through her furry body as she woke from a disquieting dream. In her mind, there were fragments of a dream that had transported her to a terrestrial garden where a man named Homero was pruning his parents' bougainvillea. But she knew it was all mere fiction in her imaginative world. In her novel, the main character was also named Homero, true, but instead of being a human, he was a ginger cat with green eyes like the jungle. The story unfolded on a distant planet, Earth, invented by her, where Homero faced his own inner demons while trying to save his community from total destruction.

Shaking her head, Ana would start writing, letting the pen flow on the paper as if it were a stream of ink. Perhaps this way, she would understand the meaning of what she had dreamed and how it related to her novel.

* * *

Petunias Alley, Baltimore, planet Earth, 1849.

Edgar Alan Poe entered the alley—Ana had written— and spotted a small shop with the sign "Tlalocan Mask" above its entrance. With a habitual gesture that he made automatically when intrigued, Poe tapped the tip of his raven beak with his right index finger, pointed ahead, and decided to enter. As he did, a strange sense of mystery overcame him. Inside the shop, the air was thick with the scent of copal. He passed through a curtain of strings adorned with hanging seashells. The sound of the shells reminded him that beneath his flesh, only fragile bones remained. A few steps ahead, he met a sinister old woman who watched him intently, challenging.

"What are you seeking, Mr. Poe?" the old woman asked in Nahuatl with a deep, raspy voice.

"I seek answers," Poe replied with confidence, although he felt tremulous inside and was surprised that he could speak Nahuatl, just as much as the old woman knew who he was.

The old woman led him to a back room with a table covered in dust and strange objects, and she handed him an ancient book.

"This book contains the answers you seek, but be careful about what you discover," she cautioned before disappearing into the darkness, transforming into a black butterfly.

Poe began to leaf through the book, which resembled more of a tome composed of manuscripts. Suddenly, everything around him faded. He found himself in a mysterious, medieval, barren garden where two bougainvillea plants, one red and one purplish, had been pruned nearly to the base. Branches, flowers, and leaves were strewn about. A man who appeared to be a druidic warrior walked alone. He had a dragon-hilted sword hanging from his waist. In his right hand, he held a staff made of white gold, topped with three thorn-like claws with embedded diamonds encasing a large star sapphire.

With a hidden sense of guilt, much like Poe imagined a novice killer might feel, the man thrust the sword into the ground, where it vibrated as if it had a life of its own. Murmuring words in an unknown language to the wind, the man sought forgiveness from his ancestors for thwarting their post-mortem endeavors. He prayed and argued that he had done it for the greater good. Finally, he exclaimed, "I, Suhur, swear to honor their memory until my last days! Nothing and no one shall disrupt this oasis unless it's over my lifeless body."

Poe shivered as he realized it was a dream, or so he thought at first. A dream that revealed a man's dark desires and his internal struggle to justify his actions. A dream that he was not having because he wasn't asleep, or so he believed. But who was this man, and what dark secrets did he hide? Was it Poe dreaming, or was Poe inside someone else's dream? The answer would remain a mystery, like many other things in Edgar Allan Poe's life and death.

* * *

Planet Klimhá, Schloss Steppenwolfsee, moments later.

As she wrote, Ana began to doubt the validity of her own creations. As the heroine of her own story, Ana Gramma faced challenges like creating a coherent and detailed world for her novel, developing compelling characters, and constructing an exciting and satisfying plot. Was Homero truly a hero worthy of being written about? Or was he just a cheap copy of the characters from her previous books? How could she, a simple furry feline writer from another planet, compete with the great Earth authors, if Earth even existed in reality? And why did she come up with that mysterious crow-like character entering a labyrinthine alley? What was the point?

In her dream, Ana had seen her Homero take a long, almost straight branch and, with the help of rose scissors, cut the huge thorns on the stick. He left only three at the tip. Three that closed around the center like forming a tiny cage. The other thorns, as he cut them, flew around until they fell into any corner on the ground, some piercing it. Then, Homero's gaze focused on a group of those thorns, and as if with a magnifying glass, he brought the image closer, noticing that the supposed spines were actually seeds that were sticking their tips into the dry ground, where they began to germinate, taking root, giving rise to a profuse and thorny vine that quickly ascended, robustly, creating a scalable wall up to the clouds where a dragon awaited the moment to perch on guard.

What relation did this dream have to her plan to write about a Homero facing the challenge of finding inspiration to continue writing his novel, overcoming his doubts and insecurities about his ability as a writer, age-related concerns, and facing any obstacles on his path to publishing his work, including maintaining his unique voice and authorial vision?

Ana's doubts abruptly halted her momentum, while, somewhere in the vast universe, a genuine Homero grappled with his internal struggles, trying to reconcile his creative desires with his need to respect his family legacy. And perhaps, at some point, the two stories would merge into one, forming a larger and more impactful narrative than any writer, human or furry, could imagine.

* * *

Mexico City, 1973, a few moments later.

Young Homero awoke, stretching himself, paying little heed to his dreamlike vision or the sensation of being ensnared in an inescapable labyrinth. His thoughts felt burdened, the boundary between reality and reverie blurred, but an irresistible force drew him outward, compelling him to depart from the factory office and explore what lay beyond, in the vast and vastly different expanse of the factory yard, a stark contrast to his home garden.

Within that factory, young Homero discovered a playground of sorts, though amidst the machinery and specialized chambers, it resembled a labyrinth. Whenever the opportunity arose to interact with the laborers and observe their craft, Homero approached them with inquiries. A select few exhibited patience and willingness to impart valuable lessons on their specific trades, even offering him mementos or toys fashioned from leftover materials or products. Thus, Homero began his education much like his father, as an autodidact, learning by observing the minutiae of various vocations, such as blacksmithing, carpentry, drafting, and masonry.

Several of the craftsmen within the factory, both Homero and his father, found admirable. Their incredible creative versatility and problem-solving ingenuity left an indelible mark. Homero could only recall their first names and perhaps the surname of one whom Toño even promoted to company manager: Manjarrez. There was another, a driver named Aldana,Occasionally, in a massive pickup truck, he fetched the young boy from school, from whom Homero acquired invaluable insights.

Luciano Hernández, in particular, was a polymath. If there wasn't a machine or tool for a specific task, Luciano would invent it. His prowess in design eventually earned him the role of overseeing the production of acrylic plastic signs and fiberglass roofs, newly added to the factory's repertoire. In due course, he even became Toño's business partner.

During his stint as a factory worker, Luciano faced legal troubles that led to his imprisonment. Toño visited him, bearing updates on his case and revealing that he had enlisted the services of Néstor de Buen Lozano, a prominent labor lawyer of Spanish origin who had come to Mexico with a group of exiled republicans. In one of these visits, Luciano gifted Toño a wooden table lamp resembling a cabin cruiser, painted red, with a crimson light inside. When illuminated at night, it cast a magical ambiance upon Homero's room.

"For your son, as I recall his birthday is approaching. Please accept this as a token of my gratitude," Luciano might have said to Toño, who received it with deep emotion but insisted on paying for the gift. He knew that Luciano, like other inmates, created such items in the penitentiary workshops to sell to visitors, earning a few cents to navigate the prison's shadowy economy, trading for goods or favors.

After Luciano's release, Toño rehired him, partly recognizing his value, and partly because no one else was willing to employ an ex-convict. However, Luciano had undergone a transformation. Toño proposed a partnership, having faith in his immense talent. They partnered briefly, but soon after, Luciano, whose demeanor had turned melancholic, chose to dissolve the association.

He worked just long enough to gather funds and embarked on a quest to find himself and other opportunities more aligned with his new life philosophy, forged through the harsh experiences of incarceration, however brief.

For a long time, Homero cherished these gifts: the cabin cruiser lamp from Luciano and a beautiful sailboat, a gift from a family friend, Óscar Leal, an advertiser and insurance promoter. He never dared to set the sailboat afloat, be it in the bathtub or during family outings to Chapultepec or the fountains named Espejos at Polanco, along with the Tovar family, friends of Tere from her youth. Yet, throughout his childhood, Homero used both vessels to envision accompanying miniature replicas of Disney and Hanna-Barbera characters, as well as lead soldiers made of lead or injected plastic, on an endless journey across the seven seas or through universes in far-off galaxies.

Years earlier, when Homero had his tonsils removed at the age of four, another of Toño's friends, Francisco Villavicencio, gifted him a similarly realistic, battery-operated submarine, an imported "fayuca" item that one day vanished as if by magic—stolen by a maid, in truth. These, along with other gifts, were the seeds of his profound affection for the sea, ships, models, trains, spaceships, and literature. Nurtured by the fertile creativity of Emilio Salgari, the author of "The City of the Leper King," the first novel Homero read at the age of fifteen, it led the young man to immerse himself in adventure stories, just as Gabriel García Márquez would aptly put it years later: "Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it to tell the tale."