“So… Portals, right?“
“Yeah,“
“All around you? Even now?”
“No, not now. They're gone… thanks goodness they're gone, but, erm, yes, they were all around me. Always. Constantly.”
“Aha. Well, seems to me a bit unreal, if you ask me.”
“I know,”
“I still… like, for example, you were walking in the street and then, suddenly, you saw a … portal?”
“No, I mean, yes. They had always been there, in front of my eyes, somehow hidden as if made with glass. I didn't see them. Or I did, but never realized. And then, suddenly, I saw them all. “
“So, they're here, even now, but we can't see them, right?”
“Exactly, actually, yeah”
“Where is one?”
“What?”
“Some Portal, where is one?”
“I told ya, I can't see them now. But they are moving all the time, they never stop, they keep moving, you know, connected with the people who came through them. In the centre, there are countless dozens of them, mingling around like ants."
“In the centre of what?”
“Of the city, the more people, the more portals,”
“You want to tell me that for every single person there is a portal?”
“Hmm, something like that. Some don't have them at all.”
“Let's put it this way, we know each other for a long time…”
“For a long time, yeah, that's why I've fuckin' come to you,”
“…and since I know you well, you are not a complete madman… your judgement is highly rational... I don't know what the hell am I supposed to think of what you've just told me.”
“Man, don't ask me! But at least, I'm out. I'm out of it! Never believed I'd get out of there,”
“Get out of…wait a moment, could we, excuse me, yes, could we get two cappuccinos, please? Thank you. Well, where did we, yeah, get out of where?”
“It's… how to put it…the most easily explainable feeling I've got about all that is that I was somehow present in two realities at the same time. As if they were blending or overlapping. Never was there one reality without even the slightest indications that the other was around the corner.”
“What were the indications?”
“Hmm, objects and visions in space, levitating in mid-air, stuff like that,”
“Like a lamp-post, for instance,”
“Like a lamp-post, yeah, in a swamp. Didn't belong there, was just obvious,”
“A swamp?”
“I am afraid this is going to be a long conversation and I'm not really satisfied with the setting here... I'd rather be... somewhere else, more private, if you know what I mean. I feel like am insane or something... but I'm not, I'm perfectly allright. It's just, nobody will believe me. But the proof that I'm not crazy is that I could see many things from the other perspective. Ordinary things from this reality seemed to have other meanings there. Deeper meanings...so to speak”
“This is either a well-made up story, a real prank, should I say, or something very serious,”
“It is indeed serious,”
The waitress came, holding a plate with two coffees on it and laid them in front of us.
“Here you are, two cappuccinos,” she said with a soft voice and was off to the bar.
I stared at the coffee, watched bubbles of the foam and smelled the aroma.
“You look brain-washed,” said Aren.
“I am,”
“Well, drink on it, it'll never harm,”
“Yeah,”
“You know, the thing with the swamp, could you... could you bring more light into it? What did it mean?”
“It was the most dreary place you could possibly imagine. Everything was grey, every direction seemed the same, every step was a struggle for moving on. But those steps were small and I took them slowly, so slowly... damn, don't know what it meant.”
“The kind of place where there is no future, everything seems to be in avail, so useless, every single tree and gravestone tells you you'll fail?”
“Exactly. Hey what did you, what is this?”
“What is what?”
“You were speaking about some trees and gravestones just a second ago!”
“So, what?”
“I did not mention them,”
“Kinda thought there must've been something like gravestones, taken portals were there...”
I stared at Aren's face. It seemed unfamiliar, as if he was a stranger. As if he knew more than I.
“How come you know so exactly what I'm talking about. Just like that. They were there! You did not believe me and now you are exactly describing the place. How come!”
“Well, let's ask someone else for an advice,”
“What? What the fuck are you...”
“Miss? Could you please come over here? Thank you,”
“Hey, hey! What are you doing? Stop it! Are you listen...”
“Yes, I am, just think an insight of someone else wouldn't do any harm,”
“What?!”
“What was it, gentlemen?” the soothing voice of the waitress made me abruptly stop. It was only then when I realized how pretty she was. Her eyes were so deep, deeper than I would find convenient.
“Here Gered would love to go through his Portal,” said Aren in such a tone that a shiver came down my spine.
You could not describe the expression of my face at that moment. It was a manifest of absolute horror.
“No, I mean, it's just a...erm it's... a silly joke, my friend here doesn't have a very sophisticated sense of....”
“I do possess a sophisticated sense of humour. Gered means it, he really needs to go...”
“Shut the fuck up Aren! I've been through my Portal anyway!” I shouted, at which point the whole room was filled with deadly silence. Everyone was staring at me in a surprised way. I wouldn't have minded the many looks, but it was the content of my words that made me feel really, really uncomfortable. I was standing in front of them all, absolutely not knowing what to do, so I didn't do anything.
“Well, let's see what we can do about it,” said the woman. Her hair was silver. Not silver with some artificial toner; it was like the Moon. I couldn't get rid of feeling that she had came from there.
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