Fantastic Metropolis

Important: The novel excerpted here is a work in progress. As such, the text in these pages is still subject to editing and rewriting, and may even be omitted from the finished novel. Please bear this in mind when reading the excerpt, and do not quote any part of it in reviews without first checking against a published copy.

I found the envelope wedged in the front door.

That was unusual. The mailman had never left me a letter like that before. Why hadn’t he dropped it into the mailbox with the others? I’d just taken the mail that he left, as I usually do when I come back from work. As the elevator took me up to the third floor, I gave it a cursory look. Nothing special: a bill and three advertisements. I put my briefcase on the floor, stuck the letters from the mailbox under my arm, took the envelope and inspected it on both sides. That settled one question but raised another. The mailman had nothing to do with this letter. He probably delivers mail without information about the sender, but not without anything about the receiver. Among other reasons, because he wouldn’t know whom to deliver it to. No writing disturbed the whiteness of the long envelope. But who had wedged it into the doorframe if not the mailman?

As I unlocked the door, it occurred to me what this might be. It was another advertisement, except they hadn’t sent it the usual way, through the mail, but distributed it door to door, and in addition wrapped everything in a veil of mysterious anonymity. They probably figured it would get more attention that way. I, for example, had already given it more attention than the three advertisements from my mailbox would get; they would end up in the garbage without being opened. Who knows, I might even open the letter. It was very light, as though there was nothing inside. Someone had put considerable effort into arousing the curiosity of possible customers.

The only thing I couldn’t figure out was how the deliverer had entered the building. The entrance is always locked and it’s highly unlikely that any of the tenants would let a stranger inside if he called on the intercom and said he wanted to wedge advertisements in everyone’s door. He must have tricked someone. Those people are cunning. How else could they succeed at their work? Before I entered my apartment I looked at the front door of the other apartment on my landing. There was no white envelope there. They must have taken it inside already.

I hung my coat and hat on the coat rack in the vestibule and went into the living room. I dropped my briefcase on a chair, put the letter on the coffee table and rushed to the aquarium. My tropical fish take precedence over everything else. I have to feed them at 5:30 sharp. First I checked the thermostat to make sure the water was the right temperature, then the air pump with its jet of bubbles streaming towards the surface. Then I took the plastic top off the can and started sprinkling mealy fish food onto the water. The fish immediately began a voracious hunt after the little lumps, fighting unnecessarily over some pieces while other bits of food slowly sank to the bottom.

I am not fond of animals and would never have a dog, cat or parakeet in my apartment, let alone any other species. It’s not because I don’t want their company–many people who live alone like I do solve the problem of loneliness this way, whether they admit it or not–but because I would then be confronted with obligations that I could not properly fulfill. Unlike larger animals, fish don’t require much care. It’s enough to feed them twice a day at a specific time. The tank’s simple equipment made sure the proper conditions were maintained in the aquarium.

Once, however, the heater broke. During the night water had somehow come in contact with the electric wires. In the morning I found the whole little school of fish floating lifelessly on the surface. I wasn’t too upset. The same day I bought a new heater and new fish–and everything was the same as before. Someone might conclude from this that I have no feelings, but this isn’t true. The death of the little tropical creatures would have been harder on me had I been on more intimate terms with them. But there had been nothing more than reciprocated indifference. The fish were only aware of my existence during the brief moments when I fed them, and then only as some impersonal force that acted kindly towards them for some unknown reason. In all other circumstances they didn’t pay me the slightest attention.

I paid quite a bit of attention to them, however, although not as recognizable individuals with any feelings of attachment. This is actually why I had bought them, spurred by an article in the newspaper that suggested different ways to relax. I would turn all the lights off in the living room except for the light above the aquarium, put on a CD, settle into the armchair nearby and let myself unwind as I watched them. Sometimes this lasted quite a while. It was never less than half an hour, and once I stayed there next to the fish for two hours and twenty-four minutes, only getting up to change the CD. The length of this aquarium therapy depended on how tense I was. But even the greatest tension would finally start to ease before the soundless, chaotic movement of colorful shapes that I stared at as though hypnotized.

During one of the first séances something curious crossed my mind. I thought about how the fish and I lived in two parallel worlds that had almost nothing to do with each other, and yet benefited from each other. What the fish received from my world was quite elementary: food and warmth. I, in return, received from theirs something immeasurably more complicated: inner tranquility. If I wanted to thank them for this gift, how could I possibly do it? How could I explain the concept of inner tranquility to beings without a soul? I couldn’t. Some things can pass through the membrane that divides parallel worlds and some things can’t.