Aboard the interplanetary shuttle Magallanes-HS001A, in some remote corner of the universe.

Amidst the jolts that shook the spacecraft, my eyes wandered among the stars through the translucent fuselage, desperately seeking a reason, but the buzzing silence of the universe had rendered me deaf, leaving me without apparent purpose. It felt as if I were witnessing the beginning of an ending that didn't unfold as per my expectations or imagination. Everything seemed so different, in an overwhelmingly distinct way.

The ship, without a defined course, drifted, carried by natural inertia, propelled towards the event horizon around the black hole that had suddenly ensnared us. The abrupt and erratic motion had rendered the entire crew unconscious, but for some strange reason, I remained strapped to my seat, experiencing the effects of acceleration. I felt as though I would be crushed by gravitational force at any moment, turned into a particle fused with light, transformed into mere radiation or cosmic dust.

In this trance, I envied the inert condition of my fellow explorers. I pictured them reliving their archeoastronomical adventures, exploring mysterious ruins like the ones we hoped to find on planet CA001, although they now seemed beyond our reach. After all, we were being pulled into the dark heart of an ominous reality, into the core of a bewildering whirlwind. If we considered theoretical assumptions, what happens to matter and energy in any of their forms when swallowed by a black hole should be worse than death itself. No one knows for certain, at least I believed so, for I had never met anyone who had returned from beyond to share more than mere words about their experience.

I felt guilty, irresponsible, negligent. I had made promises I hadn't kept. I had allowed myself to be consumed by a confusing depression and creative block. If, somehow, I survived this emergency, perhaps I would have a new chance to face my fears, rectify my mistakes, and find greater clarity in my quest for meaningful topics to write about. Though no tears welled up in my eyes, in the depths of my dry heart, I wept, regretful of having been so cowardly in living my own life.

To my surprise, as the ship entered the singularity and crossed the event horizon, an unprecedented calm enveloped everything. Could it be hopeful? I thought, "This is it, it's over." The long anguish of doubt, the endless agony of knowing I was close to the inevitable, gave way, at least from my perspective, to a new form of eschatological certainty. Perhaps this extraordinary experience revealed something science had never accepted due to its lack of cognitive humility, and both death and life were not as we had always imagined or assumed. "Perhaps this is what it means to cease to exist," I concluded, prepared to face whatever came next.

* * *

Haus des Blicks, in Sonnenblumendorf, Sunset.

A chilly breeze and the ringing of the cellphone awakened Homero, who, half-asleep and groggy, glanced at the unknown number; surely one of those promotional calls, he ignored it. In his mind, there was only space for now to attend to the remnants of his most recent dream.

There is no doubt that, even when undeniably ominous, the value of reality always depends on the interpretation made by contemplative eyes, those capable of seeing in it an inevitable hell or almost paradise. When it comes to numbers or dreams as signs that enclose and encode messages from nature, the subconscious, or something else, something similar happens, regardless of whether these dreams, visions, premonitions, or hallucinations may present themselves with more or less regular consistency or order.

It is known that the process of sleeping involves several stages of sleep, but it is only in some of them that dream visions occur, which vary depending on the stage and the physiological process involved in the body's restoration. These visions, sometimes recurring, are not always remembered due to various factors upon waking up, and even when awake, the dreamer does not always recall with precision what was dreamt, which may remain in their consciousness as a film of fragmented sequences or disjointed and surreal propositions.

It is also true that dreams occur in wakefulness, although in this case, they are more confused by consciousness with thoughts or images derived from desires. The well-worn phrase used by motivational coaches encouraging people to pursue their dreams focuses more on this latter type, seen as a probable driving force capable of propelling individual development towards achieving excellence.

Then there are dreams rooted in faith, as irrational as all the others, as easily twisted in their prophetic significance as the rest, but whose projecting and miraculous power can bring about a transformation of personality and its effects on tangible worldly matters, to the point of alienation. Sometimes, Homero wondered to which category his dreams belonged; perhaps not the pragmatic ones about consolidating himself in a specific profession like that of a writer, but those originating in the unconsciousness, the night, or introspection, some of which he found to be premonitory.

Soothed by the warmth of his embrace, he rubbed his arms, rose, and stepped into the house to seek solace. As was his custom, he left the door ajar, allowing his seven feline companions, now highly active as twilight creatures, to come and go freely between the garden and the rooftop. They accessed the latter either by scaling the spiral staircase in the service courtyard or by navigating the lattice fence that separated his "Haus des Blicks" from the neighboring "Casa Santera," a title bestowed upon it due to its occupants' affiliation with Santería practices. This abode sat to the left, in stark contrast to the "Casa del Ángel" on the right, which had been inhabited for years by a lawyer, painter, and angelologist.

In times long past, the "Casa Santera" had been part of his family's homestead, a kind of consolation prize for his father who had initially coveted the corner lot where the "Casa del Ángel" stood, right at the intersection of Paseo Primavera, the town's main avenue adorned with majestic pear trees, beneath one of which a municipal sanitation worker had once fallen victim to a swarm of bees. However, when he couldn't make a timely offer, he opted for the larger plot to the left of their family home. Here, his father constructed a garaje, underneath which he fashioned a toolshed. Young Homero stored his bicycle and accumulated various games over the years, including a billiards table, balls, and an assortment of other items. It was also within these walls that he acquired the tools to master the art of photographic development, a shared passion that brought him closer to his father.

The property was designed with grand festivities in mind, boasting a central kiosk flanked by towering trees —ash, thunderhead, jacaranda, rubber, Indian laurel— and at the far end, a barbecue pit and amenities. A wrought-iron gate on the side connected the new property to the original backyard, while a window in the living room and another on the second floor bridged the gap between the house and this newfound expanse. Once, a wasp nest had formed outside one of those windows, a memory that resurfaced as Homero's mind drifted back in time.

This reminiscence took him further into the past, to a family debate during his childhood about whether to install a swimming pool on the property. In the end, it remained an unrealized dream. His parents, particularly his devoutly Catholic mother, had never envisioned that this land would one day be sold and inhabited by practitioners of Santería, a circumstance that had, whether justifiably or not, borne the weight of many prejudices. However, by the year 2005, his father's financial struggles, compounded by his involvement with a mistress, necessitated the sale of the land to another family of different yet respectable beliefs. After the sale, in an effort to preserve a few material mementos of the past, Homero halved the iconic kiosk and reconstructed it in the remaining backyard, shaded by bougainvillea. The family inaugurated this new space with a picnic, coinciding with the day when one of his nephews announced his plan to move to Barcelona to study at a writing school, following in the footsteps of their grandmother Tere, uncle Homero, and other ancestors dedicated to the arts and literature.

Returning to the present moment, Homero, a communicator and writer by profession and passion, possessing knowledge in engineering, various sciences, arts, and skills, had been struggling to string words together for days. He couldn't find a starting point, and every time he believed he had unraveled a simple sentence or an opening paragraph, a single word, a space, or a punctuation mark would cast doubt upon the entire idea. He'd strike it all out, tear the page from his notebook, and slump back in his chair, frustration coursing through him. Without fail, after a few moments, he'd rise and wander aimlessly around the room. Filled with emptiness, he'd stand before the window or sit on the terrace, gazing at the horizon or what little remained visible beyond the buildings that, with their advancing age, had encroached upon the mountain peaks, obscuring the countryside vista he had cherished in his youth.

In those days, he had dared to climb to the roof's summit, perching atop the water tanks as if they were a violinist resting on a rooftop. From that vantage point, he had savored the panoramic view. Occasionally, he'd fix his gaze on a distant window and attempt to imagine what might be transpiring behind his neighbors' curtains. Sometimes, the voices or shouts from afar would beckon him, but everything he could conjure seemed to be more of the same, too commonplace to serve as a source of inspiration. He felt worn out, much like his increasingly impoverished finances, to the point that the weathered iron gate displayed the telltale signs of decay, marked by municipal seals of foreclosure and water service restrictions, tools of intimidation employed by the local government to compel delinquent payments, regardless of the fairness of their demands. By then, expenses had outstripped the income of nearly everyone in the community, especially in the wake of the pandemic and the global recession.

Even before this latest attempt to write, when he ventured out into the streets, it felt like people were looking at him expectantly, their brows furrowed with a question: "When will I read your next novel, Homero Núñez ‛Cuentero'?" Or perhaps they were silently critiquing him, thinking, "When will you find a job that will lift you out of poverty and allow you to rejuvenate your home?" For this reason, during his walks or errands to the market or in his quest to improve his income, he kept his head down, avoiding what he interpreted as the reproachful gaze of avid or potential readers. And he also tried to convince himself that his fame, at times tiresome, perhaps undeserved, wasn't so great that he would be recognizable among the millions of faces.

Returning home, the mere sight of his desk, the pen resting on the notebook, waiting to be wielded, and the old computer also awaiting the rough caress of his typing to capture his thoughts, sent shivers down his spine. He couldn't understand what was causing his creative block. If everything around him, apart from the sensational news always filling the airwaves, was as beautiful as if he were living in an idyllic paradise, he couldn't fathom why nothing fulfilled him enough to craft at least the decent opening sentence he had promised, years ago, to his editor Orestes Crisomallón.

There were days when he exchanged the balcony and the garden view for one of the benches in the circular atrium park of the nearby Parish of the Lord of the Flowery Field. There, the chirping of birds sometimes blended with the thud of soccer balls from the kids playing on the courts behind, or was drowned out by the raucous engines of public transport trucks racing on the main avenue just a few meters uphill. But when the ash, elderberry, eucalyptus, cypress, and jacaranda trees, both in that atrium and the surrounding area, began to show signs of the disease that threatened to deforest the town and much of the forested areas in the center of the country, Homero chose to seclude himself. He was burdened by the erroneous belief that the combined infestations of mistletoe and powdery mildew were nothing more than the parasitic and extensive manifestation of his melancholy, spreading and taking root in the foliage. It added his nostalgia to the shadow of the standing dead trees around that temple, a misunderstood masterpiece of modernist architecture by the hand of architect Félix Candela Uteriño, which, when viewed from the sky, stood out amidst urbanization due to its chrysanthemum-like shape.

At night, Homero would look at himself in the mirror, reproaching himself, and wondering if he was unhappy. He also didn't know how to answer that question. It seemed he was not only impoverished in words but also lacking in ideas and solutions. He justified it all with a vague "perhaps," a vagueness that matched the mediocre "Well, God will decide" characteristic of his maternal uncle, old Uncle Alfonso. This contrasted only with the ominous concreteness of his solitude.

This current state was extremely unusual because he couldn't even remember his dreams as he used to. Upon waking, he only recalled blurry, undefined fragments. Pieces that, in his opinion, didn't even fit into a puzzle, and were therefore worthless as sources from which to draw useful concepts to construct something moderately intelligible, appealing to any reader, starting with himself. Had those notes he took of his dreams, a catalog of story fragments, become a thing of the past? Some he had transformed into poems that he had resolved to compile on a blog on the Internet months before, while others remained mere descriptions or vague narratives. That notebook with a collection of insights was now just another volume among the half-cataloged books in his library. Its contents were the first layer of dust beneath the dust of dreams upon dreams upon dreams, some recounted in the first person, others like encounters in some other dimension. Like the one where he described walking somewhat hurriedly down one of the hallways in a certain shopping mall when...

* * *

... when suddenly I encountered a woman who seemed tailor-made to my taste, the woman of my dreams: athletic, slender, slightly tall, graceful, with a simple yet elegant demeanor. She had a short waist, a regular bust, wide hips, rounded and firm buttocks, sculpted muscles from the gym, an oval face, and skin that ranged from pale to honey-toned (the surrounding light made it hard to determine the exact shade). Her eyes were a mesmerizing shade of green with brown flecks, and her hair, just below her shoulders, had a wavy, dark chestnut hue with gleaming mahogany highlights. She was dressed in a short, airy skirt, a fitted midriff-baring blouse with a modest neckline that boldly highlighted her nipples, and pastel-colored shoes, possibly pistachio green. Green, always green with me; everything was green.

Both of us halted our steps, and the following dialogue ensued after I apologized:

"Oops! I almost ran into you. But you suddenly stepped into my path without looking," I said.

"Are you sure I didn't look at you?" She questioned with a smile and an intriguing gleam in her eyes. I smiled back, understanding her flirtation. I'm not a fool. I stroked my salt-and-pepper beard, neatly trimmed and without tangles, a gesture she followed with her eyes.

"Well then, continue on your way. I apologize once again," I said, gesturing with a wave of my hand.

"Are we perhaps on different paths?"

Throughout our encounter, she stood in a three-quarter profile position in front of me, and I faced her directly. After my gesture, she took a step forward and positioned herself to my left, very close, so close that we spoke the next words in hushed tones, like co-conspirators.

"Honestly, I wouldn't know what to tell you. What do you think?" I asked, locking my gaze with hers.

"Perhaps you should get married," she said with an ironic tone. I estimated her age to be around thirty, more or less, as per an Arab proverb: the ideal age for a woman to be with a man should be half his age plus seven, which made her just right for me, although moralists might be scandalized by the age difference, as if she could be my daughter.

"Ha! If only it were that simple..." I replied with a smirk.

"It's up to you," she affirmed, smiling and seductively biting her lower lip, tilting her head slightly so that her cascading hair covered her left shoulder like an enticing waterfall. We both shared a moment of silence in which my heartbeats quickened. I looked at her full, luscious mouth, and I stole a kiss that she savored immediately.

"Could we perhaps be on the same path?" I asked, turning my body to match her orientation and placing my hand on her smooth waist.

"Have you taken the first step already?" She challenged knowingly, aware that responding to a question with another question isn't an answer in itself unless the accompanying meta-language makes the underlying intent quite clear.

I drew her closer with my arm, and we walked together as if we had known each other forever, chatting about everything and nothing in particular. Yet, I couldn't help but think about what I had been told some time ago, coincidentally by two different individuals who had predicted my future at separate times: Don Vicencio, the fortune-teller, and a Gypsy. They both said, "There are three women in your life. One will leave a deep mark on you, shaping your tastes and desires for all the others, to the point that you'll wait for her replication. The second, following this pattern, named Alejandra, will also leave her mark but will hurt you deeply, not as the cause, but as the catalyst. And then there's a third, the last and definitive one. You'll recognize her because she follows the described pattern, and she will impose herself on your psyche, whether you like it or not, because both of you are the crossroads for each other. Just promise me one thing," Don Vicencio added at the time, "When that happens, bring her to me to introduce her before anyone else."

And now, the woman of my dreams, my Lady X, and I disappeared into the crowd, becoming one with the people.