After the incident with the bees, moments later, Homero stood on the balcony at the rear of the house known as "The House of The Gaze." It was a place he had shared with his mother throughout his entire life, from the very moment of his existence. Now, on the brink of his sixtieth year, and having seen his mother's life reach its end at the age of seventy-seven, he gazed fondly upon the garden she had cherished.

Homero had never married nor engaged in any romantic affairs, a fact that had led more than a few to label him as "eccentric," to put it mildly. Yet, they were utterly mistaken, for his tastes and preferences were crystal clear to him, even if some might find them controversial and unconfessable, not to mention contrary to the prevailing moral standards in certain social circles.

Homero took immense pride in his Mexican nationality and culture and had a deep love for the Spanish language. However, he considered himself a cosmopolitan, forever fascinated by the opportunity to draw from diverse cultural wellsprings—a penchant perhaps influenced by the trends of his era.

The family residence, which Homero later christened in his literary works as "Casa de la Mirada" (The House of The Gaze) or "Haus des Blicks" because he found the sound of German appealing, occupied the plot marked with the number 329 on Retorno de los Girasoles Street, nearly at the corner of Paseo de la Primavera Avenue, nestled between Paseo del Verano Avenue and Retorno de las Buganvillas Street. This proximity to the streets and avenues inspired him to envision his fictional tales within a fantastical village named "Sonnenblumendorf," where the seasons had a purpose far grander than mere urban nomenclature.

Despite the evident aging of the house, which had stood for fifty-four years, and the gradual decline of both objects and surviving neighbors, Homero remained resolute in his determination to fulfill the dream he had shared with his mother—the dream of establishing himself as a writer. It was a dream that demanded significant material sacrifices, one that he had postponed due to those very demands.

This dream, though public in its pursuit, entailed a superlative intimacy, akin to the secrets mothers share with their unborn children in the solitude of the womb. Or the secrets that shatter in one's face, like a mirror breaking, when they gaze upon their own reflection—a moment that had, on occasion, visited Homero during his prolonged hermit-like isolation, as he conversed with his loyal feline companion, King Rorick.

* * *

House of The Gaze, a day before today.

"Do you know, Rorick," Homero said as he shaved by moon's looking glass, "today I heard one of those rhymes that claim to be motivational: ‛If you like what you see in the mirror, don't try to change the reflection.' I happen to like the way I am. Ever since I was a child, many would tell me things like ‛never change.' But paradoxically, throughout my life, my mannerisms and the way I express myself, which I haven't changed and perhaps have even refined, now seem to displease others, both known and strangers. They find it imposing, they say, especially women. They prefer to keep their distance, treat me with reservation, leave me alone, have only a little bit of me, as if the good I have to offer is reduced to what they can expect in their selfishness. These others claim to admire me, either for my knowledge and culture or for my character, yet they repel me. Perhaps out of fear. I'm like those monsters from tales and legends who, despite their seductive allure, or perhaps because of it, end up being labeled by others as harmful to society—sociopaths incapable of fitting in, no matter how hard they try. Their most intimate and genuine desires are treated as twisted perversions of what others experience or possess, which they'd rather keep buried in their consciences, occasionally showing it in safe ways, perhaps as harmless fantasies, of which they are still ashamed.

Being a feline, Rorick remained indifferent to the writer's words. With his half-closed eyes and a serene demeanor, he occasionally glanced at Homero, perhaps thinking, ‛Oh, he's started with his speeches again. And then he wonders why people keep their distance from him. If I weren't a human! I'd run away. But who would give me the food I like, who would cuddle with me when I ask, what roof would shelter me? It's good to have a monster enslaved.' Then, he would close his eyes and, like a sphinx, remain immovable until sleep relaxed him to the point where he'd stretch out unabashedly on his back. Meanwhile, Homero would continue pondering, and minutes later, he would read aloud his thoughts already inscribed on the screen, resembling a sheet of paper in the word processor."

* * *

House of The Gaze, back in the days we once walked.

"Monsters exist due to biology, but monsters like me, Homero Nuñez ‛Cuentero', transcend any natural norm, the Van Helsing monster hunters say. Chimeras, griffins, hydras, dragons, gorgons, lamias, sphinxes, and an entire monumental metaphorical bestiary dwell in the hidden rooms, kitchens, dungeons, caves, and dungeons of a labyrinth where only heroes like...".

Homero paused in his writing. It was merely a loose jotting of some ideas. The names he had once dreamed of came to mind, and he decided to incorporate them to complete the thought.

"...where only heroes like Konstantinos, a modern-day Theseus, and heroines like Mármara, enchanting sorceresses, brave counterparts to Ariadne, are willing to venture. They are willing to risk their lives, to kill or to love with a wild passion, all for the right reasons".

Homero leaned back and withdrew his hands from the keyboard, crossing them over his head. His mind briefly wandered away from literary work, fixating on a nagging doubt that troubled his ego. He looked at his feline companion, Ying, comfortably nestled beside him, and across the room, Blue groomed himself as always.

"I don't know if you understand love", he said, addressing his cats. Blue jumped from one seat to another, approaching the writer and rubbing his head against his side. Blue placed a paw on Cuentero's leg, never taking his eyes off him, eagerly anticipating either food or a caress on his smooth fur.

"I am deeply grateful to you both", Homero continued. "Your presence fills my days. This solitude can be draining and exhausting at times. Oh, if only you could speak! It's clear I must refer to you as I would to the walls when I need to confront my ideas, discuss my reality, or contrast my point of view. I miss my mother for many reasons, and one of them was her role as the only reflective interlocutor. With her, I could engage in open, frank dialogue, debate, and contrast my feelings and thoughts without my arguments being considered a crude attempt to assert my authority or give a pompous lecture. She knew me inside and out since I was in her womb, and she knew well that I am nothing like the labels others have hung around my neck like a millstone. It seems that my greatest virtues are also my greatest flaws. Yes, my friends, I know that's how others perceive me, those who don't take the time to delve into my heart and soul, my skin and dreams. Even those who call themselves my friends or family haven't allowed themselves, or me, to explain who I am beyond the mask of a storyteller, a debater, an irredeemable fool, a conceited know-it-all. Or perhaps I haven't been able to explain myself. To explain that I adopted this mask from a very young age, along with all the props with which I tried to fit my character, with all its nobility, into society's theater. Not so much to be accepted but to allow it (allow myself) to navigate the waves of others' judgments on this uneven stage called life. Or maybe others see something I don't. Perhaps my mother saw it too and never told me, being tolerant of me, a mother after all. But if she did, she did me no favors because the sad truth is that, with or without a mask, with or without a costume, with or without lines in the script of existence, whether I enter as the fleeting messenger with a letter in hand for the protagonist or make a discreet exit, I never quite fit into the scene, no matter how much depth, care, respect, and art I put into playing my assigned role under one circumstance or another. Why do I speak in this manner? Why do I have certain experiences? Is it because I'm curious, questioning, with a desire to contrast what I know with what I don't? Or is it because my critical and constructive observations are seen as the droning of a proofreader, making others feel like ignorant brutes, obtuse dimwits? The fact remains that when I open my mouth and speak, others fall silent, few listen, and most sooner or later pretend to pay attention, if they don't leave, labeling me a chatterbox, or worse, a talker, a word monopolizer. And while others, that monster with a thousand heads known as the public, comprised of friends and strangers alike, can spontaneously burst into applause and cheers for my performance, declaring themselves admirers of my few or many talents, I don't feel those displays of esteem genuinely directed at me. Sooner or later, I end up in the dressing room with only my solitude for company. And I, this mask, end up discarded in a corner among the remnants of the show, transformed into a fleeting memory, perhaps one that the resentful will barely remember tomorrow. Yes, it's a bitter irony when they demand my attention, when they need it; I'm always ready, and, oh, woe is me, should I dare to voice an objective opinion that doesn't align with their expectations. Because then, everything mentioned earlier is reinforced as the image by which they have defined me".

Homero finished his monologue. Street noises came and went. The cats slept soundly. Perhaps one, accustomed to the sounds of the surroundings, with the writer's voice now just another sound, feigned disinterest by grooming himself, keeping one eye on the cat and the other on the scribbles.

On that balcony of the House of the Gaze, lost in his thoughts, Homero wandered through his memories and paused at the numbers. He pondered his fifty-nine years. According to numerology, he added the digits of his name and date of birth to unveil his primary personality and destiny, his celestial and secondary influences: nineteen and four, one and seven. He wondered what purpose this knowledge served and its meanings, when the essential truth was that thirteen years had passed since his mother's passing. What use was this knowledge, if not to reinforce the fact that his nature seemed to be the cause of his solitude, and the only path to counter it was to become like others, even with the timidity that characterized them. But it turns out that the number thirteen, like the biography of his family, was surrounded by legends, myths, superstitions, philosophy, and magic. Being a prime number, it appeared as a special mystery within an infinite rosary whose prayers spoke of forgiveness and glory but also of purgatory and curses. Aware and clear of his uniqueness, Homero wondered if, rather than being human, he was a kind of whole divisible only by himself and one.

Homero began to recollect how that garden down below was when, at the age of five, he moved into the new house with his family, consisting of four more members: dad, mom, and two sisters. It would have been three, if Picolina, the second sister in the natural count, would not passed away at the age of ten months, long before he came into the world.

* * *

The apartment in the city on the third floor where he was born, where the bee stung him, on the corner of two streets with names of rivers, Amur and Villalongín, was left behind as they moved to what were then suburbs, now part of the Anáhuac Megalopolis, the largest in the world. Further back, too, was the maternal grandmother's bed in that apartment, where she had allowed him to bounce on the mattress, the same one where, shortly before the move, death would grant the lean and sweet old woman with a stern face eternal rest. This happened back in nineteen sixty-seven, on the third day of the sixth month of the year.

* * *

House of The Gaze, 1969.

Homero gazed upon the image of that natural nook before him, juxtaposing it with the bygone vision where honeysuckle vines adorned the garden walls, surrounded by calla lilies, rose bushes, and the imposing coral tree in the southern corner. However, now that space was immersed in a melancholic stillness, occupied only by a lush poinsettia. In his memory, the discreet ivy that softly padded the back walls resurfaced, and amid all these elements, the antics and jumps of Pingo, the little amber-eyed police dog puppy. Pingo was his first pet and playmate for a brief period until, due to a slip-up by his father returning home from work later than usual, the untrained puppy felt excited and rushed and ended up urinating on a curtain in the living room, right at the entrance to the garden. Homero's impatient father decided to punish him and chose to give Pingo up for adoption. That scene of detachment bewildered the child, steeped in his innocent naivety. And so, amid the nostalgia that permeated his being, the present reality melded with echoes of the past, where the genuine happiness of yesteryears intertwined with the joy subdued by the passage of time. The back wall, now chipped and marked by the passing days, was a silent witness to that contrast. Like a mirror that reflects the blended image, the encounter of yesterday's vitality with today's natural decay played out in Homero's mind. It was not a source of sorrow but rather, like the reflection of two facets of the same existence, a reminder of the fleeting and ephemeral beauty of life.

* * *

House of The Gaze, back to the present.

The ivy that once broke the discretion to colonize every nook and cranny of the garden walls with its roots now resembled a rather withered vine, with wide gaps that exposed the peeling plaster. The unfinished gazebo, with its own unique history, served as shelter for fallen leaves and some odds and ends, their dusty tranquility inviting violin spiders and other critters to seek refuge from where they could venture out to hunt. For these reasons and more, Homero had set out to transform this garden into an orchard, a place where those shared and inherited dreams could flourish once again to nourish the soul. That, he believed, was a fitting way to honor the memory of his father, his mother, and his own youth.

From the beginning of his life in this house, his parents were always symbolized by the two bougainvillea plants, one red and one purple, whose branches, as they grew, intertwined luxuriantly, their thorns weaving against the sky as a backdrop. The red one represented his father, José Antonio or Toño, who passed away in 2013 (again, the number thirteen), four years after his mother, María Teresa or Tere, whose favorite color was, in contrast, purple. They were so much like them even in height that, with the father being short, the red bougainvillea never grew taller than five meters, even though it was abundant in the roundness of its copious clusters, emerging, much like the consequences of Toño's character, from intricate crosses and complexities of the foliage, where hummingbirds found suitable spaces to build their nests. The purple one, on the other hand, extended gracefully to seven meters and beyond, with branches so long that the wind made them wave like cheerful pennants, perhaps bent by the weight of the clusters of flowers that recalled Tere's remarkable, genuine, and transparent melodic joy. These bougainvillea plants were always in bloom, and since the passing of Homero's parents, they had become majestic, partly due to neglect, partly due to their nature, and perhaps one more than the other, dividing the year into two: the red one took charge of spring and summer, the purple one ruled over autumn and winter, and in the middle, both brushed against each other, blending their petals like lovers with eager lips.

The day progressed. As evening approached on the terrace, Homero reluctantly reviewed some of his notes on the small table beside him. Weariness overcame him as the first stars blinked into existence amid the emerging darkness of the night. It was then that dreamlike images would seize the opportunity, however brief, to find lodging in the mind of the writer.