Chapter 22.5: The child genius

"Technology is what it is.

Your imagination is what it is not.

As the color of your blue eyes cannot be in this town.

Blender is what it is and what it is, is that he won't keep his promise.

The blender is programmed to fulfill the only thing he wants to fulfill: a monotonous subsistence.

And what is the intersection between what is and what is not?"

The day before she went with her nanny to Margot's party, the father sent fruit he bought from an online store. These fruits were brought by a truck from the store. The mother was going to make banana juice with coconut milk and ground cocoa pieces for breakfast (the latter two she bought with what she stole from the father's car and what she saved from the 20 soles a day he gave her for cooking).

Luz found it impossible not to compare the blender (the only technology that was necessary, according to her father) with her father, both of whom did the same thing every day: work.

The blender was driven by food and the father by money.

The funny thing was that, according to the mother, the father worked so that they could have a better life. She wanted that too, so she carried the burden of shopping by herself and walked a long way to find the cheapest price in the market.

Luz did not understand what better life her mother was talking about, she told her the same thing for as long as she could remember and asked about her absent father.

The mother, listening to so many questions from her daughter regarding the blender she had not used until now, had told her that those who manufactured such artifact made it so that it would fulfill its mission of crushing food to make the rich juice.

"So, did someone make my dad so that he would work every day and receive money?

But how can you make someone or something to do what you want?"

The mother tried to be patient and explained that the blender was somehow instructed to turn and turn until all the fruits were crushed.

"Blenders don't know what they are doing, they have no conscience, but the one who made them does have a conscience and .... programmed it.

It's not the same with your father, he works so that we don't get sick from being malnourished.

No more questions for today, okay?"

Luz then thought that the objects they called technology had a part of the consciousness of who created them. Something like that must have happened to his dad, the ones who made it gave him a part of their consciousness.... but what part?

The little girl was left wanting to ask her mother who made her father. She had to distract herself by watching the food spin, as if there were no other movements, inside the blender. The nice thing was that, as it spun, a virtual reality formed from the shape of the food inside the appliance.

One could see through the glass of the blender's glass a coconut-white moon from which a rain of cocoa rained down and formed the earth.

The banana expanded all around like sunlight. In the end, a beautiful landscape made of fruits was seen. It was quite similar to the landscape on the wooden board on the floor of the cabin's library, with the difference that in the blender the mountains were brown.

That day, after several Moons, the mother decided to do karaoke with her daughter. Well, a karaoke without a microphone. Just singing the songs of the '70s and '80s that were played on the radio.

Luz noticed that her mother knew many of the lyrics of the songs of the so-called Disco music.

"Why do you only listen to music from the '80s if you also know the 70's?

What about the '90s? Or was it the same as the '80s?"

The mother asked herself the same question and she answered herself:

"The 80s was the time of my adolescence before I met your father, I lived many adventures and I was very happy until I met him at the end of 89... there it was over.

I had you at 30, but at 20 I was already living with your father and I was a private tutor in the apartment he rented for both of us.... well, you're right, the '70s and '90s are for singing too".

It would have turned out to be a beautiful day, had it not been for the strange looks she got at the new school. Luz supposed it was because she represented that blue-eyed minority descended from the Americans who enslaved the Jewish race for so long.

Nevertheless, her mother had made her day end like a fairy tale. At that moment he loved her too much.

Without her, who was going to talk or sing to make her happy, even if only a few times?

Her mother was also somewhat programmed with that 80's music thing. Her motivation, unlike her father, was the daring and adventurous adolescence she remembered.

That night her mother gave her daughter a little kiss on the forehead before they both slept in the same bed with her two other siblings.

It was that night that she had the auditory dream in which they told her what I narrated to you in quotation marks in the first stanza.

Why did I narrate it to you at the beginning?

Since the Light of 15 has a high fever, Lucifer is burning inside his dreams. However, he is not burning them; he either mutates them or changes their color, except for me. I am still a sound of hell that has not yet exploited its potential, or so the lord of the underworld has called me. Besides, it suits me to start my chapters with a dialogue, a part of it, or a speech. Words spoken by whomever inside Luz's mind are like general anesthesia. And since I am in the neck of the dark being, I need it more than ever.

I can't tell you much at this precise moment about the setting in the center of Luz's mind where the wings made of clouds in the shape of my animal friends are. I cannot see, I only hear what they think about what is happening to them. At least I have an active sense, they can only be aware that they are like statues made of clouds put together in such a way in two groups that they look like a pair of wings made of clouds in the shapes of various animals.

As well as various misinterpretations of the meaning of the riddle that the robotic voice proposed to her.

All the conclusions were driven by desperation and anxiety. The little girl had to clear her mind. She had to remove the clouds that clouded her sky.

But how to disentangle the outline of the silhouettes when they themselves fit so well into the puzzle of her heart?

Or perhaps the clouds can be disentangled without the impact being so brutal?

Even if the clouds do fit, they need something like oil so that they don't hurt Luz as much as the truths that are certainties (like her father's programming).

That oil is where Lucifer's fire is sliding through at this very moment: The transparent shadows. If shadows appear, whatever color they may be, it is a clear sign of mutation.

I knew something important about mutations, but the anesthesia only immobilizes me because the pain makes me forget how my hearing connects with the rest of my senses and how it draws them to its bosom, so to speak.

Just as, the disturbance of that auditory dream made her forget that she was not sleeping alone that night. But as it were, she started meowing in her sleep. Her mother woke up and woke her up with a start.

Mary thought it was a cat, and she hated cats because as a child they ate the chicks she had as a child.

She got up and checked the whole house, but found nothing but the dirty clothes that she had not finished washing because she had spent the day singing with Luz and her little brothers clapping their hands.

Luz got up and went through the house in less time than her mother and found her pouring herself a glass of water.

She drank the water, looking at the tub with clothes on one side of the sink as if she wanted to drown herself with it.

"If I didn't believe that committing suicide was a sin… I'd like someone to wash my soul and assure me a good stay in the afterlife. I don't care if I die. I have nothing left to live for. My life died in '91. You're absolutely right, but I don't like to admit it."

Luz tried to take her mother's hands and intertwine their fingers. She only succeeded for an instant because after a second the mother separated her fingers from Luz's fingers.

Then she placed her hand adjacent to her daughter's small hand.

"See, see my hands all calloused and wrinkled? They look like the hands of an old woman. The only thing they look like yours is the outline. All human beings have in different sizes the same outline of 5 fingers on the palm of the hand. All women resemble each other in the contour of the female figure, but we diverge in content. Only in outline do you look like me. In content, you are identical to him. You are the spitting image of your father."

The water clarified the panorama, the water held wisdom and memories. Perhaps it is because of the latter that it clears the panorama and clears the path of the throat (and that of other spaces) that releases the words to the wind.

Water was and is as transparent as tears, Luz thought that meant that from hardship and sadness great knowledge was inherited.

Because of sadness, her mother accepted how absurd and miserable her existence had felt since she stopped working as a teacher.

However, this reasoning no longer mattered because she already had two children. The mother did not say it, but Luz supposed that this was what was in her thoughts at that moment when the moonlight filtered through the window.

You will understand that I only said that day turned out like a fairy tale because I am a poor storyteller (the worst kind of storyteller, I know) and I am learning at the same time as you about the vicissitudes of this little girl.

She learned that sadness is a great source of lucubration. That's what she needed when it was just her and everything in the air at home.

Her mother raised her arm to the window, not looking at the moon. The blue of the night was what captured her attention and was the recipient of the pleading expression in her gaze. Sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously, Luz thinks about the dialogues that have marked her, relives the sadness, and waits for the right judgment that will help her to get out of trouble.

She touched the silhouette of the sun and the mountains, but nothing more than a brief glow that encouraged her to try to guess once again the key to open the wooden lid.

"As far as I can see, I know almost nothing about technology, but about books… there are books I haven't read yet. Maybe the coincidence between what is not and what is, is what I don't know. Even about what I do know, I don't know things. But of this landscape?"

Luz thinks about this, seeing the thousands of books in that library with titles unknown to her. And she was supposed to know about books.

For her, it was clear that this was the coincidence between what is and what is not.

Luz turned her eyes to the landscape and noticed that the only thing that had no outline (luminous or opaque) was the sunlight.

She wondered if the light had some form hidden from human eyes. She felt the yellow light inside the frame, and for a moment she seemed to sense a shape. Her fingers ran all around the outline that was hidden under the yellow paint (she thinks of it as paint).

That figure consisted of curves, straight lines, and a mixture of both types of lines. Luz had never seen such a shape in the short life she felt long.

"I don't know. I have no concept for this…"

Suddenly, she feels the pressure of that same outline on the back of her hand. Said figure pulls her hand forcefully inward. Luz cannot fight.

In the blink of an eye, she was teleported. Only darkness and inexplicable wheezing inhabited her.

Did something full of adrenaline happen while she was teleported?

If so, Luz did not remember.

She rose from the floor and the path was illuminated by torches attached to the wall. From the path to, the walls were polished stone.

The place looked like a cave.

The fire that sprang from each torch created a curve of flame that merged with the flame curve of the adjacent torch.

Thus, in succession, in both rows, a chain of half circles was formed. The flame curves of the last torch in each row joined their terminations. The same goes for the flaming curves of the first torches in each row.

Luz wobbles because the floor moves in a zigzagging, snake-like fashion. She falls and clings to the floor like a younger child to her mother.

She always wished her mother would go with her to school. Someone would at least talk to her. Simultaneously, she thought she wouldn't get through any of it if she obeyed what her father always tells her: "The world outside these four walls is dangerous. Only the clever survive. Remember, curiosity killed the cat. Why do you think that's such a famous saying?"

She could already feel the juice coming back down her throat when a hand reaches out from a hole in the wall and pulls her by the arm.

Luz jumps up in fright. There she sees the maid with huge wrinkles on her forehead. The same wrinkles that appear on her mother's forehead when she worries. The maid was in the same state.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Luz broke free from her grip and ran around the stone painting.

"Don't you remember? Did you forget about me?

I'm the girl the priest brought to be given an ointment. You know, so there wouldn't be even a little scar left.

What don't you remember that you went to call a lord?"

In the room, there was nothing but a carpet. This was the fixed point at which the maid looked. It was as if she was waiting for answers.

"It's just that I… I have, I've always had, trouble remembering. I always forget what I'm told when I walk alone, without speaking. What I do remember, most of the time is that I suffer from a kind of amnesia. Of course, also that if I can't remember on my own… something bad is going to happen. That boy genius will make me remember in an unfriendly way..."

Luz could not keep quiet.

"Boy genius?

Is the lady hiding a child genius here?"

The maid bit her lower lip and scrutinized Luz.

"You found the book I left under the table, didn't you?

That book I don't forget because I must learn all I can about child geniuses. I need the work."

Luz was fighting her innate curiosity. Her mother was very different from her father: "Curiosity helps you want to know more. In this world, knowledge is power, remember that".

"Aren't you going to ask me anything else?

Never mind, I'll tell you as an exercise in remembering. Mrs. Marisa has hired me because I suffer from this kind of amnesia. What I lack is to control what I forget. There is no written way, I must know myself well enough to control my mind. This book helps me to know how to deal with this child. I never imagined that forgetting to bring the order the lady placed at the store where I worked would make me the perfect candidate to be a babysitter. The nanny for that weird kid. He's the one who drew up the plans for the lady to build this underground.

What else?

What else!"

The maid shouts the question to Luz as if she knows the answer. Luz stuck her back against the wall. Her attitude reminded her of her mother getting upset: yelling, yelling, and more yelling.

"See?

Do you realize my problem?

I'm hopeless, and I'm going to lose my job."

Luz couldn't stand her curiosity any longer.

"I also don't have the memory of the year when it comes to history or geography exams. Teachers say we should use Nemo technics.

You must have some, right?

Something that makes you remember, a clue… whatever."

Already with some tranquility, Luz observed better the details of the gray cave. She found on the wall the picture with a photo that became recognizable to her.

"That picture, the one of the rainbow-skinned girl.

Where did you get it?"

The maid approached the framed picture and scrutinized it for a few seconds. She lifted the small string from the nail that held the picture. She flips the picture over and reads, "Smells like teen spirit."

"Yes, I know…almost. That's something important. I always write notes behind anything to remember."

The maid moves her feet like Luz does when she thinks of a song. This gives her an idea.

"Smells like teen spirit, will it be a song?

It's just that you move your feet like you're marking a rhythm. I do it too when a song comes to mind. Sometimes certain moments match the lyrics of a song. The body remembers it, but not the mind… or not…"

The maid interrupts Luz because she remembered that, yes, it was the title of a song.

"It's the title of a song from '91 that dad used to make me listen to all the time. He's a fan of rock in general." Luz saw in his gaze a certain gentle nostalgia. The same one that good memories give you. "My dad hates rock… pop, jazz…"

They both laughed at how unfunny Luz's father was. She walked over and hugged the maid.

"And that?"

Luz looks at the maid and knows she did the right thing.

"I needed a hug, and I think you did too."

The maid's panicked look vanished. The youth returned to the skin of her forehead. Her smile was sincere. Dimples never lie.

"Thank you. The truth is, yes, my colleagues work upstairs because they already know how to control what they remember. Like me…"

That detail would not escape Luz.

"Upstairs? There are secret rooms around the library where I was, aren't there?"

The maid knelt on the polished stone floor.

"Yes, but don't tell anyone. It's a secret that the bar the lady will be opening is just a facade. This is a secret laboratory."

Luz can't help but ask.

"Do they experiment on that boy genius?"

The maid shakes her head.

"No, not hastily. Mrs. Marisa wouldn't be able to do anything against her nephew."

The maid surprises herself at the memory.

"I am remembering."

She hugs Luz so tightly that she cannot reciprocate because she is immobilized by her arms.

"Just as well because my mom doesn't listen to much 90s music. I don't know the words to Smells Like Teen Spirit."

The maid gives Luz a kiss on the forehead. She reminds her of the good times with her mother.

"Now the nostalgic look is yours."

Luz snapped out of it because she didn't want the maid to stop reminiscing. So, she imagined that her sadness was carried by a blue butterfly and no longer by her.

"No, tell me more."

The maid noticed that change in her attitude and in her look. Although, she felt that that look was not Luz's.

"Now you have the same look as my boyfriend when he asks me for money. It's as if he was looking at me and not a girl."

The maid took Luz's wrist and scrutinized the lines of her hands.

"He has no past, and you have no future."

The eyes, again dazed, of the maid frightened Luz. Her father's gaze caused that same effect. So Luz often practiced how to hold her imagination. It didn't matter the time, the place, or the people. She would hold her imagination while still paying attention.

ALERT ALWAYS IMAGINING

By imagining, those feelings of hatred and frustration could be contained without shining outwardly. Her father did this so that people would not see her weakness. She saw it.

"Sorry, I don't understand you."

The maid became exasperated and shook Luz for an answer.

"Aren't you afraid of what I'm telling you? What I'm doing?"

Luz shook her head and the maid released her.

"How can I be scared of something I don't understand? It's your fault for…"

The maid throws the picture of the girl with colorful skin against the floor and screams.

"You talk just like him, he blames me for our poverty…. Are you possessed by him?"

Luz tries to approach, but the maid turns away with terror in her eyes. Her pupils dilate, her skin becomes a little more haggard, and the wrinkles under her dark circles become more pronounced. The strange thing is that her forehead is still lush, just as it was when he embraced her.

"He is The Sexiest Devil that exists in all this unjust land. The best part is that he's mine alone."

Luz listened, as she picked up the painting of The Girl with Colored Skin. She wanted to examine it.

"You talk just like my aunts for parts of my mom. They talk about them as if they were objects and they about them too. It's as if they were possessed by them, and they by them.

Men and women own each other.

What they call romance is the culprit.

Talking and looking similar. I've seen it and suffered it too."

Luz was talking, but her eyes were seeing butterflies. These were of different shades of blue, from the lightest and palest to the most intense of all.

After a few seconds, they arranged themselves in rows of seven and joined their wings together. Between each pair of wings a diamond-shaped space formed.

Through each rhombus, Luz saw on the maid's forehead a dark yellow liquid (similar to mustard) that chased away the air current.

The same draft that was intended to recreate the wrinkles on the maid's forehead.

"You really have the same thought as my boyfriend. Make no doubt about it, he has possessed your mind… that's impossible, you and he doesn't know each other or do you?"

The maid made a fist in one hand, with which she began to strike the palm of her other hand. She was afraid of losing her patience and being a savage before the girl, who at last wore a frightened expression.

"Y… what's your boyfriend like?"

Luz watched the viscous liquid trap the airstream within its goo. The stream struggled to get out, but only manages tiny waves as the maid massaged her forehead.

"Can you believe I'm forgetting about him too? The only thing I always remember is that he accuses me of all his ills. What I love about him is his poetic way of reproaching me for everything. One can never avoid fighting with one's partner, but only with his do the fights sound like a love song."

The maid kneels down and hugs herself. She leans her back against the rocky wall. Her eyes look older, but her forehead is still unscathed.

Luz wanted to see beyond those small, diamond-shaped spaces. It was the first time she saw a reality superimposed on the reality of human existence. The cluster of blue butterflies that covered her vision followed her every step.

She approached the maid and, as the distance shortened, her heart began to ache more. Before the sadness was just weight, now it was weight and chronic pain…. "Why?"

"Why? Do you want to ask me something? Try to make it something from the present because that's the only thing I can talk to you about with certainty. Well, maybe something from the past…"

Luz, mesmerized by his forehead, so he did what she wanted: "What do you mean I have no future, and he has no past?

Who is he?

You spoke in the present tense, you can't stop answering..... Or do you refuse?"

Luz squatted down in front of her and wished to have a complete picture of her forehead. That wall of butterflies was blocking her view. Although, if she got rid of this one, would the image of the liquid and captive currents disappear?

"I think he's my boyfriend and I just found out he has no past by reading the lines on your hands. The lines on your right hand, the hand of the future, are blurry and what little are visible looks like the strokes of a frightened child. That's why I think you have no future. In his case, he is ambidextrous, his left hand has the same characteristics as your future lines. If he were to put his lines together with yours, they would look like a jigsaw puzzle of the… um… what if I called him ..... The jigsaw puzzle of the invisible side of the Earth…. Or does Nature sound better?"

The meandering flames from outside enter overwhelmingly. They cover the entire cave with their orange light.

Luz hears the crackling of the flames like the meowing of many kittens calling to their compatriots. However, the distance between the tips of the flames is overwhelming. They wanted to learn by practicing how to live, but without guidance, fear only trains them to be a narrator of life.

The largest flaming tips with the darkest orange color completely cover Luz's body.

The smaller flaming tips (those of the kittens) stay in the same place. They just meow in a way that Luz recognized as a cry for existence.

BECAUSE THERE IS THE CHILD IN THEM

The fire finally wants to burn that image that it reflected for so long. That image is covered by the smoke of a demonic warmth.

The tips of the pussies ceased to be static and extended upwards. The small flames intertwined in such a way that they took the shape of a Christmas tree in flames. Only the colored spheres were missing.

Luz watched the painting burn as fast as she inhaled the smoke.

"If only I could see what the flames reflecting back at me…"

The outline of the girl with the colored skin disappeared, and the colors shot out of the painting. All that remained in the painting were the pink eyes with the light blue pupils.

Why haven't I described that part so far?

Suddenly, the lights are resting on the flaming branches in the shape of a circle. Then they go again on either side of the flaming tree.

"God, they won't wait for me anymore, they won't wait for me… this is my test."

Why did I say that in the maid's voice?

Luz heard me and thinks that the madness will finish with her mind.

She knows she is not the maid.

The maid became the smoke.

Luz listens to me and thinks that madness will kill her mind faster than fire will kill her body. The truth is that the reason for her madness is a cat: Me.