The Scoop

café luminot. Ah yes. How I can remember that stylish institution on the west end of nilbmah citadel. Well, stylish if you are a bookworm. Nookish and narrow were, and hopefully still are, the essence of the café and a scattering of stain glass brimmed lamps accompanying lounge chairs and tiny tables compensated for the lack of daylight. Only the lost rays made it into café luminot. I don’t need to say it was a quiet crowd there. So isa and winfry’s conversation was practically a rock concert.

“So, I guess that’s all there is to it, really. Now that I’ve told someone it sounds even more out there. I really am a freak, winfry, a freak. Oh I’m so sorry for getting you caught up in this mess of mine. Please forgive me.”

By this time it was very nearly dark, which is to say completely dark in café luminot, and the lamp light splashed shadows across their faces, perfect for an aspiring artist’s profile picture. winfry smiled, took isa’s hand on the table and said, “There’s nothing to be sorry for… And, ah, I think they want us to leave. It’s 5 past closing.”

And with that they left café luminot into twisty old frambigue alley.

Wouldn’t it be hilarious if I stopped here?

Well, fortunately for you, I’m in a serious mood and have no time for such jokes. So here goes:

winfry ordered boring british breakfast, isa asked for a cup of jasmine tea with honey and they sat, winfry restrainingly expectant and isa awkwardly anxious, at a table tucked in a corner. They were both ¾’s of a cup through before conversation started.

“So…”

“So…”

Sips of tea.

At this isa was almost as uncomfortably self-aware as I am, almost. She looked down, she looked up, then down again; she opened her mouth, she closed her mouth, she bit her lip; she toyed with her hair, she toyed with her tea, she tore up her napkin. She began, “Ok. I might as well get started and then things should get easier, right?” She finished her tea. “Well, as you probably already suspected, all this has something to do with this,” she held up the little spoon that hung over her chest, “In fact, it has everything to do with this. It has been in the family for years. My family…” sigh “I guess that’s a good enough place to start as anywhere else. The first Englewoods came to nighline from Foggistan 200 years ago – for the college, of course. And the engelwoods have been professors ever since. Somewhere down the line my great-to-the-fifth grandmother or someone or other acquired this quilare and it made it down to me. Like most of the alleged quilaire scattered around the high society of nilbmah, it was nothing more than a fancy teaspoon. When my mother bequeathed it to me on my 18th birthday, I had nearly forgotten that it was said to be a quilaire; for me it was I sign of adulthood, maturity, coming into my own right. I wore the heirloom so much out of habit that I had practically forgotten about it on the day it happened…”

winfry didn’t dare disrupt, isa’s silent stare into the wall. Only the occasional changes in facial expression showed that she was still conscious.

Finally, she took a deep breath and turned to winfry. “I was twenty-four when it happened. I had been out of school for a few years and I was working at a café and doing research for professor gilderwill. I had finally decided to finish my studies abroad and fall in love with some foreigner. That was the plan. It was all so silly really. Isaac had been suffering from clinical depression for 2 years and it was only getting worse and all I could think about was fleeing nighline. Isaac was only 20. Isaac was my brother by the way. My only brother. What could have been so bad? Why couldn’t I have figured it out? I just closed myself off. God damn me! How could I have been such an idiot!”

isa’s sudden outburst almost made winfry fall out of his seat. When he regained stability, isa’s face was in her hands, catching her tears. winfry shuffled his chair closer to isa and tried to put his hand on her shoulder but second guessed himself two inches away.

Through her hands, isa murmured, “I found the note on his desk. I don’t remember why I even went into his room. It had been years since I even dared look at the door of his room let alone enter his room. The note said he was going to do it at the pier on walvine pond. I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t. But I did. I drove like a maniac. It was raining. I smashed into a tree and killed myself. Killed myself – doesn’t that sound sublime. walvine pond didn’t give Isaac the guts to kill himself. My death did. Neither of my parents lasted the year.”

A new series of sobs and second guessing.

Finally, isa raised her head and looked winfry in the eyes. “Yes, winfry, I’m dead. Or I should be. In the high before dying I latched on to my desire to help so tightly that I forgot about Isaac. I just knew I had to, absolutely had to help someone, anyone. I couldn’t die. I couldn’t. So I didn’t. But I did. I woke up in a void with the quilaire glowing around my neck. I somehow figured out how to swim back into reality in time to see my parents die in the hospital. When they saw me, they thought I was an angel guiding them to heaven. Maybe I was. Maybe I am. I don’t know. I try not to think aobut it. All I know is that after my return to reality, I have been controlled by an overwhelming desire to help people. The quilaire always finds them. People to help. It’s very peculiar; I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing but I know what to do and then, eventually, I find the person. I may not know anything about them but I know they need my help and even more than they need my help, I need theirs. You are the fifth person. Before you was a joanna delmin, a suicidal business lady, who now has a faithful husband taking care of her. But you’re different. Yes, very different. You… well, the main thing is… the quilaire never affected the others. That’s what’s been scaring me. I know the quilaire can control me. That’s ok. That’s fair. I owe my existence to it. But not you. You shouldn’t have to. Why can’t I control it anymore? Oh god, why!”

isa sunk back into her hands. This time she gave no signs of resurfacing anytime soon. After about 26th guessing himself, winfry guessed right and wrapped his around isa’s shaking shoulders.