- Chapter 2 -
The Fly on His Nose
Embedded Files
The first thing Chi Chi Wang Tang learned about the afterlife was that it had excellent grass.
Not good grass.
Not decent grass.
Excellent grass.
Cool, soft, bright-green grass pressed against his back like the world had decided to apologize with upholstery. Each blade held a tiny bead of silver water. Each bead reflected a different version of the sky. One bead showed dawn. One showed night. One showed a thunderstorm full of glowing frogs playing trumpets. One showed Chi Chi’s own face, round and stunned and very much not dead enough for his liking.
He blinked.
The fly on his nose blinked back.
That was the second thing Chi Chi learned about the afterlife.
Flies still existed.
The fly was small, glossy, and rude-looking. It stood right between his eyes, rubbing its hands together with the slow confidence of someone inspecting rental property.
Chi Chi did not move.
His tongue did.
Only a little.
A tiny twitch.
The fly froze.
Chi Chi froze harder.
Beside him, the bottle of apple juice sat upright in the grass.
Cold.
Golden.
Waiting.
The plastic was dewy. The green cap gleamed. The label showed a smiling red apple giving a thumbs-up, though, as Lint had once pointed out, the apple had no arms and therefore should not have been capable of encouragement.
Chi Chi stared at it.
The bottle stared back in a bottle-like manner, which somehow felt more judgmental than usual.
Somewhere above him, from the branches of an impossible tree, Elder Hoo’s voice echoed through the leaves.
“Begin.”
Chi Chi slowly turned his one good eye upward.
“Begin what?”
No answer.
The tree above him was enormous. Its trunk twisted like old wisdom braided with newer confusion. Its bark shimmered between brown, gold, and a strange soft blue that made Chi Chi think of moonlight poured into wood. Lanterns hung from the branches, but they were not made of glass. Some were apple blossoms glowing from within. Some were fly wings folded around tiny flames. Some were little tear-shaped lights that pulsed whenever Chi Chi felt guilty, which was often and inconvenient.
Beyond the tree, the Promised Oasis unfolded forever.
Water curved in silver loops through grass and flowers. Streams crossed over streams without spilling. Palm shadows bent into circles. Bright insects hummed in the air like tiny golden engines. In the distance, dunes rose and curled back into themselves, becoming paths, then bridges, then doors, then dunes again.
The whole place was beautiful.
Too beautiful.
Suspiciously beautiful.
Chi Chi narrowed his eye.
“I do not trust pretty places,” he said. “Pretty places usually have rules.”
The fly rubbed its hands faster.
Chi Chi whispered, “Do you know the rules?”
The fly lifted one leg.
Chi Chi gasped.
“You do?”
The fly lowered the leg and cleaned its face.
Chi Chi frowned.
“Mixed signals.”
He tried to sit up.
This was when he discovered the third thing about the afterlife.
Having died did not mean having dignity.
Chi Chi rolled sideways, overcorrected, bumped the bottle, startled the fly, slapped at his own face, missed the fly, smacked his cheek, bounced once, and slid down a little grassy slope into a shallow stream with a sound like a wet dumpling being dropped into holy water.
The fly buzzed into the air.
The bottle rolled after him.
“No!” Chi Chi cried.
He grabbed for it.
The bottle bobbed in the stream, spinning slowly.
The current carried it toward a cluster of glowing water lilies.
Chi Chi lunged.
The fly landed on his head.
Chi Chi’s tongue fired.
He missed the fly, hit the bottle, and yanked it toward himself so hard that the bottle struck him in the forehead.
Thunk.
The Promised Oasis went silent.
A nearby frog-shaped flower closed its petals out of secondhand embarrassment.
Chi Chi floated on his back in the stream, bottle hugged to his chest, fly sitting between his horns.
“I meant to do that,” he whispered.
From the tree above, Elder Hoo descended without a sound.
The Great Horned Owl landed on a mossy stone beside the stream. His amber eyes were bright and severe. His feathered horns rose like two questions Chi Chi did not want to answer.
“You began poorly,” Elder Hoo said.
Chi Chi spat out a tiny fountain of water.
“I was attacked by current.”
“The stream is three inches deep.”
“It had ambition.”
Elder Hoo looked at the bottle in Chi Chi’s arms.
“So did you.”
Chi Chi tightened his grip.
“This was floating away.”
“Yes.”
“I saved it.”
“Yes.”
“So really, I began heroically.”
“You began exactly as you ended.”
That sentence landed harder than the bottle.
Chi Chi looked away.
The fly buzzed from his head to the bottle cap and began walking in circles.
Chi Chi’s eye followed it.
Elder Hoo watched him follow it.
The silence grew feathers.
Finally Chi Chi said, “Is this the part where you explain what is happening in a way that sounds important but mostly makes me feel shorter?”
“Yes.”
“I feared as much.”
Elder Hoo lifted one wing toward the endless water, the glowing tree, the lantern blossoms, the curved paths that seemed to move when Chi Chi was not looking.
“This is the Promised Oasis. Not a reward. Not a vacation. Not a juice-friendly retreat.”
Chi Chi opened his mouth.
Elder Hoo said, “Especially not that.”
Chi Chi closed his mouth.
“The Oasis is a Looping Place,” Elder Hoo continued. “A creature arrives here when the life behind them has ended, but the pattern inside them has not.”
Chi Chi looked down at his belly.
“My pattern is mostly round.”
“Your pattern is hunger pretending to be love.”
Chi Chi made a tiny offended noise.
“I loved my family.”
“Yes.”
“I loved my house.”
“Yes.”
“I loved my flies.”
“Briefly.”
“I loved apple juice.”
“Too completely.”
Chi Chi looked at the bottle.
The apple on the label smiled.
He turned the label away.
Elder Hoo stepped closer.
“To Render is to reveal what was true. To Perfect is to practice what could become true. To Vitalize is to move on when the Loop no longer has to drag you by the tail.”
Chi Chi blinked.
“That was almost smaller prophecy.”
“I am improving.”
“So what do I do?”
Elder Hoo looked at the fly.
The fly looked at Elder Hoo.
The fly looked at Chi Chi.
The fly rubbed its hands.
Chi Chi’s tongue twitched again.
Elder Hoo’s eyes narrowed.
Chi Chi’s tongue slowly retreated into his mouth like a guilty worm.
“This,” said Elder Hoo, “is your first Render.”
The fly buzzed once.
Chi Chi stared at it.
“My first Render is a snack?”
“No.”
“A test snack?”
“No.”
“A symbolic snack?”
“Chi Chi.”
He sighed.
“Fine. What is the fly?”
“The fly is a fly.”
“That seems spiritually underwritten.”
“The Loop often begins with small things. A creature who cannot be trusted with a fly cannot be trusted with a family.”
Chi Chi flinched.
He pretended the stream had splashed him in the feelings.
Elder Hoo continued, “Before you is hunger. Beside you is sweetness. Behind you is memory. You will walk until the Loop shows you what you keep choosing.”
Chi Chi looked around.
“Walk where?”
A path appeared.
It had not been there a moment before.
It rose out of the grass as if the earth had remembered it. Pale stones curved away from the stream and beneath arching branches covered in glowing blossoms. Beyond the arch, Chi Chi saw a long table set in the shade.
His chest tightened.
A little grass basket sat on the table.
Three beetle crackers.
A thimble of water.
A folded note.
Chi Chi’s mouth went dry.
“Tula,” he whispered.
The fly lifted from the bottle and buzzed toward the path.
Chi Chi watched it go.
Then he looked down at the apple juice.
The bottle was cold in his arms. So cold. So perfectly cold. Droplets ran down the side like it had been waiting in a cooler maintained by angels with a strong commitment to customer satisfaction.
Chi Chi hugged it.
Elder Hoo said nothing.
That was worse than speaking.
Chi Chi frowned at him.
“Can I bring it?”
“You may bring what you refuse to leave.”
“That sounds like permission.”
“It is a mirror.”
“I prefer permission.”
“Most do.”
Chi Chi climbed out of the stream. Water ran off his round body in little rivulets. He shook himself, which took longer than he expected and achieved less than he hoped. Then he tucked the bottle under one arm and stepped onto the pale stone path.
The first stone lit beneath his foot.
A soft chime rang.
The fly buzzed ahead.
Chi Chi followed.
The Promised Oasis shifted around him. The stream behind him curved upward into the air, became a ribbon of water, and flowed between the branches above. Flowers opened as he passed, each one whispering a sound from his old life.
A door creaking.
A child laughing.
A bottle cap cracking open.
Tula sighing.
Chi Chi walked faster.
The path stretched.
The long table came closer.
At first it was only a table.
Then it was the table.
The little one from his house before the roof disappeared.
The legs were uneven. One corner had been propped up with a flat stone. Mimi had drawn a crooked sun on the side in berry juice. Bong Bong had carved his name into the top with a thorn and then denied it even though he had spelled it backward.
Chi Chi stopped.
His heart, or whatever afterlife substitute he had been issued, gave a painful thump.
Three figures sat at the table.
Tula Wang Tang sat with her back straight and her hands folded around a thimble of water. Her eyes were tired. Not angry. That was worse. Anger had heat. Tiredness was what came after fire had already spent itself.
Mimi sat beside her, small and bright-eyed, swinging her tiny legs under the chair.
Bong Bong sat on the other side, serious as a judge, nibbling a beetle cracker with the intensity of a child who had seen too many adults make snack-related mistakes.
Chi Chi’s bottle slipped a little in his grip.
“Tula?”
No one looked at him.
“Mimi?”
Mimi laughed at something Bong Bong had said.
“Bong Bong?”
Bong Bong held up his cracker and said, “This one looks like Papa’s head.”
Mimi giggled.
Tula smiled faintly, then looked toward the empty fourth seat.
The smile faded.
Chi Chi stepped forward.
“I’m here,” he said. “I’m right here.”
The fly landed on the empty chair.
Chi Chi looked at it.
It rubbed its hands.
“You are not helping,” Chi Chi whispered.
The air shimmered.
The scene began to move.
Tula lifted the folded note and placed it on the table.
“I should leave it where he can find it,” she said.
Mimi’s mouth trembled.
“Will Papa come after us?”
Chi Chi stopped breathing.
Tula looked at the doorway that was not there, because this memory had brought only the table and not the house around it.
“I don’t know,” Tula said.
Bong Bong looked down.
“He loves the bottle.”
Chi Chi hugged the apple juice tighter without meaning to.
Mimi’s eyes filled with tears.
“Does he love it more than us?”
Tula closed her eyes.
Chi Chi’s throat squeezed shut.
“No,” he said. “No, no, no. I didn’t. I don’t. I mean I did, but not like that. Not more. Not really more. It was just—”
He looked at the bottle.
The apple smiled up at him.
“It was just sweet,” he whispered.
The memory did not answer.
Tula opened her eyes.
“I think your father is lost inside something small,” she said. “And until he wants to come out, we cannot live in there with him.”
Chi Chi’s knees wobbled.
The fly buzzed from the empty chair to the folded note.
It landed on the paper.
Chi Chi stared at it.
Then his stomach growled.
Loudly.
The entire Promised Oasis seemed to hear it.
A blossom above him shut with a scandalized pop.
Chi Chi put one hand over his belly.
“Not now,” he muttered.
The fly lifted one tiny leg.
Chi Chi’s tongue twitched.
“No,” he told himself.
The fly crawled over the note.
Chi Chi watched it.
“No.”
The fly rubbed its hands.
Chi Chi leaned forward.
“No.”
The fly turned in a tiny circle and presented itself like fate with wings.
Chi Chi’s tongue shot out.
Thwap.
He missed the fly.
He hit the note.
The folded paper snapped into his mouth.
The memory vanished.
The table was gone.
Tula was gone.
Mimi was gone.
Bong Bong was gone.
The path was gone.
Chi Chi stood alone in a field of glowing flowers with a folded note hanging from his lips.
The fly hovered in front of his face.
Elder Hoo appeared on a branch above him.
Chi Chi slowly removed the note from his mouth.
It was damp.
He tried to unfold it.
The ink had blurred.
The words ran together into one dark stain.
Chi Chi stared at it.
The apple juice bottle slipped from under his arm and landed in the grass.
For once, he did not grab it.
Elder Hoo’s voice was low.
“You ate the message.”
Chi Chi’s eye stung.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“You rarely did.”
“That makes it worse, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
The fly landed on the ruined note.
Chi Chi did not try to eat it this time.
He sat down very slowly.
The grass was still soft.
That felt rude.
“I wanted to read it,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I think I really did.”
“Yes.”
“But I saw the fly and my mouth moved before my heart did.”
Elder Hoo nodded.
“That is the beginning of Rendering.”
Chi Chi looked up.
“I failed.”
“You saw.”
“That feels like failing.”
“Seeing often does.”
The bottle rolled slightly in the grass until it touched Chi Chi’s foot.
He looked down.
The golden juice caught the light.
His sadness and thirst walked toward each other inside him like two neighbors who had always pretended not to know one another.
He picked up the bottle.
Elder Hoo watched.
Chi Chi unscrewed the cap.
The crisp scent rose.
Apple.
Sugar.
Cold.
Memory.
He lifted it.
His lip trembled.
“Just one drink,” he whispered.
The fly buzzed.
Elder Hoo said nothing.
Chi Chi drank.
The Oasis disappeared.
Not all at once.
First the flowers folded into darkness.
Then the stream turned to a silver line.
Then the tree above him bent backward through the sky like a curtain being pulled.
The apple juice in his mouth became sunlight, then sand, then wind, then nothing.
A chorus of tiny voices sang from very far away.
Hop to it! Hop to it!
Chi Chi Wang Tang, we love you!
Hop to it! Hop to it!
Round again until you choose you!
Chi Chi fell upward.
Then sideways.
Then inward.
Then he woke beneath the impossible tree.
Cool grass pressed against his back.
Water whispered nearby.
A fly landed on his nose.
A bottle of apple juice sat beside him.
Cold.
Golden.
Waiting.
Chi Chi stared at the sky.
“No,” he said.
The fly rubbed its hands.
Chi Chi sat up carefully this time.
He did not roll into the stream.
Progress.
Elder Hoo watched from a branch.
“Again,” said the owl.
Chi Chi pointed at him.
“You knew that was going to happen.”
“I knew what you were likely to choose.”
“That is owl cheating.”
“That is pattern recognition.”
“I do not care for either.”
Chi Chi stood.
The path appeared again.
The fly lifted off his nose and buzzed toward it.
The bottle gleamed in the grass.
Chi Chi stared at the bottle.
Then he grabbed it.
Elder Hoo closed his eyes.
“Again,” Chi Chi muttered. “Fine. I will do it better with supplies.”
The path lit beneath his feet.
This time, he walked faster.
The table appeared.
Tula sat with Mimi and Bong Bong.
The folded note rested beside the thimble of water.
Chi Chi held the bottle behind his back.
“I am ready,” he said.
No one heard him.
The memory began.
Mimi asked, “Will Papa come after us?”
Chi Chi clenched his jaw.
Tula said, “I don’t know.”
Bong Bong said, “He loves the bottle.”
Chi Chi shook his head.
“No. I’m holding it behind me. That’s different.”
The fly landed on the folded note.
Chi Chi’s tongue twitched.
He slapped his own mouth shut with one hand.
“Absolutely not.”
The fly crawled.
Chi Chi’s belly growled.
He gripped his mouth harder.
The fly stopped.
It turned toward him.
It made a tiny buzzing sound that somehow felt like laughter.
Chi Chi narrowed his eye.
“You think you’re cute?”
The fly rubbed its hands.
“You think you can just dance around on my family’s pain with your little feet?”
The fly lifted one leg.
Chi Chi leaned closer.
“I am stronger than you.”
His tongue pressed against his palm.
“I am deeper than craving.”
His tongue pushed harder.
“I am a changed toad.”
His mouth burst open.
His tongue fired.
The fly zipped away.
Chi Chi’s tongue wrapped around the thimble of water, yanked it off the table, and swallowed it.
The memory vanished.
Chi Chi stood alone again.
This time, he held an empty thimble in his mouth.
Elder Hoo appeared on the same branch.
Chi Chi spat out the thimble.
“It was not the note,” he said quickly.
“No.”
“So that is improvement.”
“You consumed their water.”
Chi Chi looked at the thimble.
“Oh.”
The bottle touched his foot.
He drank before Elder Hoo could even raise one eyebrow.
The Oasis folded away.
The song returned.
Hop to it! Hop to it!
Chi Chi Wang Tang, please review!
Hop to it! Hop to it!
That was not a breakthrough!
He woke beneath the tree.
Fly on nose.
Bottle beside him.
Elder Hoo above him.
Chi Chi screamed.
It was not a brave scream.
It was the scream of a creature who had discovered that consequences had customer service and unlimited patience.
The fly flew off his nose and landed on a blade of grass.
Chi Chi rolled over and glared at it.
“You,” he said, “are not food. You are administration.”
The fly rubbed its hands.
Chi Chi pointed to the bottle.
“And you are not love. You are a shiny trap with apple perfume.”
The apple on the label smiled.
Chi Chi looked up at Elder Hoo.
“And you are not helping.”
“I am witnessing.”
“That is the laziest form of helping.”
“It is also the oldest.”
Chi Chi sat cross-legged in the grass.
His belly rested between his knees like a disappointed council member.
He did not pick up the bottle.
He did not chase the fly.
He just sat.
The Oasis hummed.
The stream whispered.
The impossible tree glowed above him.
After a long while, Chi Chi said, “I don’t know how to do this.”
Elder Hoo’s feathers softened.
“That is the first honest thing you have said here.”
Chi Chi looked offended for half a second, then too tired to maintain it.
“I thought if I got another chance, I’d be different immediately.”
“No.”
“That seems unfair.”
“It is mercy, not magic.”
“What is the difference?”
“Mercy gives you the space to choose. Magic chooses for you.”
Chi Chi looked at the fly.
It was walking along a blade of grass, very proud of having legs.
“I am hungry,” Chi Chi said.
“Yes.”
“I am thirsty.”
“Yes.”
“I miss them.”
“Yes.”
“I miss them more than I thought I would.”
Elder Hoo said nothing.
Chi Chi picked at the grass.
A little silver bead of water rolled down one blade and onto his finger. He stared at it. Inside the bead, he saw Tula’s hand placing the folded note on the table.
He swallowed.
“What did the note say?”
Elder Hoo looked toward the path.
“That is not something I can give you.”
“Because I have to earn it?”
“Because you have to stop destroying it long enough to receive it.”
Chi Chi nodded slowly.
The fly buzzed closer.
It landed on the ground in front of him.
Chi Chi’s tongue twitched.
He closed his mouth.
The fly walked near his foot.
Chi Chi trembled.
He looked at the bottle.
His hand twitched.
He folded both hands in his lap.
The fly climbed onto his toe.
Chi Chi made a squeaking sound.
Elder Hoo leaned forward.
Chi Chi whispered, “This is rude.”
“Yes.”
“It knows what it is doing.”
“Perhaps.”
“It has the soul of a banker.”
“Do not insult the fly.”
The fly rubbed its hands.
Chi Chi shook with effort.
He could feel the old movement inside him. The snap. The grab. The swallow. The tiny moment of victory followed by the large silence afterward.
He closed his eye.
He saw Tula at the table.
He saw Mimi waiting.
He saw Bong Bong pretending not to cry because he was old enough to know words like protein and young enough to think that would save them.
Chi Chi opened his eye.
The fly was still there.
Tiny.
Available.
Not his.
He leaned down.
The fly froze.
Chi Chi whispered, “You may go.”
The fly did not move.
“I said you may go.”
The fly rubbed its hands.
Chi Chi frowned.
“Do not make this emotionally complicated.”
The fly lifted off his toe and buzzed in a little circle around his head.
Then it landed on the apple juice bottle.
Chi Chi’s entire body stiffened.
“No,” he said.
The fly walked across the cap.
“No, no, no.”
The fly crawled down the side of the bottle, over the smiling apple label.
Chi Chi shook.
“That is my weakness area.”
Elder Hoo’s eyes narrowed, but he remained silent.
Chi Chi reached for the bottle.
Stopped.
Reached again.
Stopped again.
His hand hovered in the air.
The fly sat on the apple’s smiling face.
Chi Chi’s eye filled with tears.
“I hate this place,” he whispered.
The fly buzzed.
Chi Chi slowly lowered his hand.
Then, with great effort, he pushed the bottle away from himself.
Not far.
Only a few inches.
But the grass between him and the bottle looked like a canyon.
The path appeared.
The fly lifted from the bottle and flew toward the pale stones.
Chi Chi stood.
He left the bottle in the grass.
He took one step.
Then another.
Then another.
The bottle remained behind him.
Cold.
Golden.
Waiting.
Chi Chi did not look back.
He looked back.
Immediately.
The bottle was still there.
He groaned.
“I looked back, but I did not go back.”
Elder Hoo flew from the branch and landed beside the path.
“That counts.”
“It does?”
“It counts as seeing.”
Chi Chi wiped his eye.
“I will accept partial credit.”
He walked.
The pale stones lit beneath his feet.
This time the path did not stretch as much. The flowers did not whisper as cruelly. The stream overhead flowed quietly.
The long table appeared.
Tula sat with Mimi and Bong Bong.
The folded note rested near the thimble of water.
The empty fourth chair waited.
Chi Chi approached slowly.
No bottle under his arm.
No bottle behind his back.
No bottle pressing cold promises against his belly.
He felt naked.
He felt thirsty.
He felt more himself than he wanted.
The memory began.
Mimi asked, “Will Papa come after us?”
Chi Chi stopped beside the empty chair.
Tula said, “I don’t know.”
Bong Bong said, “He loves the bottle.”
Chi Chi whispered, “I did.”
Tula looked toward the empty seat.
“I think your father is lost inside something small,” she said. “And until he wants to come out, we cannot live in there with him.”
The fly landed on the folded note.
Chi Chi’s mouth watered.
He clenched his jaw.
The fly crawled over the paper.
It paused near the folded edge.
Chi Chi’s tongue pressed against his teeth.
He gripped the side of the chair.
The wood felt real.
The carvings felt real.
Bong Bong’s backward name was there under his fingers.
BONGNOB.
Chi Chi almost laughed.
Then he almost cried.
The fly walked away from the note and onto the table.
Chi Chi did not move.
It buzzed once.
Then it lifted into the air and vanished.
The folded note remained.
Whole.
Dry.
Waiting.
The memory froze.
Tula, Mimi, and Bong Bong became still as painted figures. Their eyes did not see him. Their faces held the exact ache of leaving.
Chi Chi reached for the note.
His hand shook.
He unfolded it.
The paper opened like a little door.
The words were written in Tula’s careful hand.
Chi Chi read them slowly.
Dear Chi Chi,
I am not leaving because I stopped loving you.
I am leaving because love cannot live where it is always second.
The children need water. Food. Rest. Safety. A father who comes when called. A home that is not full of bottles and promises waiting to be broken.
I do not know if you will come after us.
I do not know if you can.
But if the day ever comes when you can love us without asking us to compete with your thirst, then find us.
Not with speeches.
Not with apologies wrapped around excuses.
Find us with a life that has room for us in it.
Tula.
Chi Chi read the letter once.
Then again.
Then a third time, because the first two times were mostly tears.
The table blurred.
The chair blurred.
The whole Promised Oasis blurred.
He pressed the letter against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
The memory did not answer.
“I know that is not enough.”
The memory still did not answer.
“I want it to be enough because enough would be easier.”
A tear fell onto the note.
The ink did not run.
Instead, the tear brightened.
The letter folded itself gently and floated from his hands.
It rose into the air, glowing softly, then became a tiny lantern shaped like a tear. It drifted upward and joined the branches of the impossible tree far behind him.
A chime rang through the Oasis.
Not loud.
Not triumphant.
Small.
True.
Elder Hoo stood at the edge of the path.
“You Rendered.”
Chi Chi wiped his face.
“That hurt.”
“Yes.”
“I thought Rendering would make me feel shiny.”
“No.”
“Do I get a certificate?”
“No.”
“A snack?”
“No.”
“A less judgmental fly?”
“No.”
Chi Chi nodded.
“That tracks.”
The table faded.
Tula, Mimi, and Bong Bong faded with it.
But for one breath, just before they disappeared, Mimi turned her head.
Chi Chi froze.
Her eyes did not fully find him.
Not yet.
But they moved.
Just a little.
As if somewhere, in some loop, in some future chance, she had heard a sound.
“Papa?” she whispered.
Then she was gone.
Chi Chi fell to his knees.
The path dissolved beneath him.
He was back beneath the impossible tree.
The bottle sat in the grass.
The fly landed beside it.
Elder Hoo perched above.
Chi Chi did not rush for the bottle.
He sat still, breathing hard.
The apple juice remained cold.
Golden.
Waiting.
He looked at it for a long time.
Then he looked at the fly.
The fly looked at him.
Chi Chi lifted one hand and gently shooed it away.
The fly buzzed off.
Chi Chi picked up the bottle.
Elder Hoo watched closely.
Chi Chi held it in both hands.
His throat ached.
His belly growled.
His memories burned.
He unscrewed the cap.
The smell rose.
Apple.
Sugar.
Cold.
Old comfort.
He lifted the bottle.
Stopped.
Then poured one small drop into the grass.
The grass shimmered.
A tiny apple blossom grew where the drop fell.
Chi Chi stared.
“That was wasteful,” he said.
Elder Hoo said, “That was offering.”
Chi Chi poured another drop.
Another blossom opened.
Then another.
The fly returned, landed on one of the blossoms, and drank from the dew at its center.
Chi Chi watched it feed.
Not from his mouth.
Not from his hunger.
From something he had let go.
His face crumpled.
“I don’t know who I am if I don’t take everything I want.”
Elder Hoo’s voice was gentle.
“That is why you are here.”
The bottle shook in Chi Chi’s hands.
He poured one more drop.
This blossom glowed brighter than the rest.
Inside its petals, Chi Chi saw the old desert house.
Not broken.
Not perfect.
Just small and warm.
Tula at the table.
Mimi laughing.
Bong Bong holding up a beetle cracker shaped like Chi Chi’s head.
And Chi Chi himself standing in the doorway, empty-handed.
He reached toward the vision.
It vanished.
The blossom closed.
Chi Chi sat quietly.
The Oasis sang around him, not with words this time, but with water, wings, leaves, and tiny things being allowed to live.
After a while, Chi Chi put the cap back on the bottle.
He set it beside him.
Not in his arms.
Beside him.
The distance was only a few inches.
But it was a real distance.
Elder Hoo spread his wings.
“The first Render is complete.”
Chi Chi looked up.
“What happens now?”
“The Loop deepens.”
“Of course it does.”
“The Oasis will show you what you loved wrongly, what you feared truly, and what you must learn to release.”
Chi Chi rubbed his belly.
“Will there be lunch?”
“There will be lessons.”
“That is not lunch.”
“Sometimes it is.”
“You owls have terrible menus.”
A sound came from across the water.
Not the chorus.
Not the stream.
A bell.
Tiny and bright.
Ding.
Chi Chi turned.
On the far side of the Oasis, a narrow bridge had appeared over the water. It was made of pale roots and glowing stones. Beyond it stood a little booth with a leaf roof, a hanging lantern, and a sign Chi Chi could not read because the letters kept rearranging themselves.
A figure sat inside the booth.
Small.
Armored.
Wearing cracked goggles and a striped scarf.
Chi Chi’s eye widened.
“Lint?”
The figure looked up.
The velvet ant adjusted her goggles.
She stared at Chi Chi.
Chi Chi stared at her.
Then she pointed one tiny leg at him.
“You died holding the bottle, didn’t you?”
Chi Chi clutched his chest.
“I am being spiritually processed and would appreciate sensitivity.”
Lint climbed onto the booth counter.
Behind her, the shifting sign finally settled into readable words.
WELCOME TO THE LOOP OFFICE.
PLEASE TAKE A NUMBER.
PLEASE DO NOT EAT YOUR NUMBER.
Chi Chi looked at Elder Hoo.
Elder Hoo looked at Chi Chi.
Chi Chi looked at the bottle.
The bottle looked innocent.
The fly landed on the sign.
Lint sighed.
“Oh no,” she said. “They gave me your case.”
The bell rang again.
Ding.
The bridge lit stone by stone.
Elder Hoo’s amber eyes glowed.
“Go, Chi Chi Wang Tang.”
Chi Chi stood slowly.
He picked up the bottle.
Elder Hoo’s eyes narrowed.
Chi Chi hesitated.
Then he set the bottle back down beneath the impossible tree.
His hands felt empty.
His heart felt worse.
He took one step toward the bridge.
Then another.
The fly buzzed beside him.
Lint watched from the booth with the expression of a creature who had survived life, death, and now paperwork.
Chi Chi looked back once.
The bottle remained in the grass.
Cold.
Golden.
Waiting.
This time, he did not go back.
The Loop smiled.
And somewhere deep in the Promised Oasis, something old turned a page.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse