II

This rickety old house on stilts is what I call home.

It’s on stilts because my parents wanted to have a better view of the ocean, even though the house is already on a good vantage point on a hill. Even though View-of-Few is notorious for gloomy weather. That’s why the city is called that. On the astronomically rare clear days, the view of the world-famed “Distance”—the ocean stretching to the horizon—is absolutely gorgeous.  

Way back when, only a few ever got to see it. Hence, View-of-Few. 

Though, the internet has made it easy to aggregate every time that view has been seen. Some people joke that it’s View-of-Many now. But that doesn’t really matter now.

Maybe my parents were greedy. Maybe they would have deserved the ending we’re going to get in six months. Maybe I deserved to have lived with my Aunt just long enough until she decided to scar me by abandoning me here, alone. 

All deserved, just like Touma said. God, I hate her faith—or should I say, concerning lack of it now that Sieve’s going to explode. 

I throw the unlocked door open.

“I’m home.”

“Okay…” Weakly, sickly.

A response. Better than nothing. 

Coltello is sobbing upstairs. 

I step into the kitchen, and I look at the mess of receipts that I have organized in the past few days on the dinner table. In six months, I’ve eaten at only maybe half of all of the restaurants in View-of-Few. Sandwiches, soups, wraps. Salads, beast-steaks, cakes. Appetizers, entrees, desserts. The full course each and every single time.

Then I ran out of money, so I asked my Aunt for more, but she declined, because of course she’s doing the exact same thing that I was doing where she lives.

All this thinking of the past brings that day on an unpleasant silver platter before my eyes.

……

Snacking on a stick of my favorite string cheese. Listening to my Professor Escomo talk about Coyrean literature. Tapping my foot, sitting in the very back of the classroom. I flip the pages of this book to the spot we’re talking about. Words that the likes of you wouldn’t understand fly out of Professor’s mouth, and he’s passionate about what he’s explaining.

Bite.

The cheese is rubbery and lightly salted. I have to chew it a bit, and I accidentally bite my tongue. 

Bitter.

I yelp in pain. 

“Eori, was that you?”

“Yeth, thorry…”

Professor came up to me and handed me a candy. He liked to give them out when we gave satisfactory answers, almost like we were high school students. But he had some sort of pity for me, I could tell, because he tended to give me more candies than the rest of the midsize seminar style class. 

He resumes his enthusiastic lecture, and asks some other students their opinions on the assigned reading. I prefer to talk to him in private when he’s in his office; he understands why I do, but he still wishes that I speak during class.

“Eori Agada. You’ve been to Den Coyre, yes?”

“Yeth.”

“You recognize the figure that’s referenced in this chapter, yes?”

“Maybe?”

I wink at him, because I know exactly what he’s talking about. I continue–

“It’s the-”

Another student jerks straight up onto their feet. They’re looking at their phone, and they laugh so loud that Escomo puts on his disciplinary voice.

“What is this ruckus?”

“Dear Soarus, that’s hilarious!” They sneak in a Coyrean phrase of astonishment before catching their breath. Escomo tosses them a candy. “Aliens, aliens from another world who tell us that our world is going to blow up.”

…

I’ll admit. I laughed too. What a perfect joke leading up to the height of the summer solstice, a time when people take themselves less seriously and make merry to celebrate the new year. Such televised pranks are so common that it’s difficult to make one stand out from the other. 

This one, this one was really well done.

Escomo takes a look at the video and chuckles to himself. Solstice season is not much of a thing for Coyreans, but he too appreciates our culture as we do his.

He laughs, but I’ve forgotten his voice already.

…

It was a clear day then. View-of-Few has not had a clear day since. Not literally, not figuratively, not mentally, not physically, least of all spiritually. 

No. No more. Out of the sad place. Breathe.

……

Actually, I can’t stop remembering. These receipts in front of me keep on reminding me of what I did with my time. After maybe three months, the aliens kept on coming back and making preparations to preserve this world’s fauna and flora. Several lucky people from each country, two lucky animals from each identifiable habitat. What a kick one must get when their role in life is to continue their species... 

Must be nice.

Anyways, this whole thing started looking less and less like a joke, and before long, people started to freak out. People like me, who have no sense of self preservation or dignity and as such, when the world ends, there’s nothing more than to lead the hedonistic life even hedonists would have a bit of disdain for.

So there I was. I kept on buying more and more lavish meals and I didn’t even realize that I had already run out of money by the end of the month. I quit school. I quit my part time job. I quit everything, and now I live on the money that Coltello’s parents send because that’s all they can do in this wretched situation.

I can hear him upstairs on the phone with his parents. “I miss you,” he says. “I wish this wasn’t true,” but I don’t share this wish because if it were all a hoax, then I would be the dumbass who spent all her money on a stupid goal to eat everywhere in View-of-Few when I didn’t even have enough money to buy everything at the grocery at least once.

So, all in all, living right around the corner of Sieve’s Fates is certainly not as glorious as I thought it would be. The receipts crinkle under the weight of the food in the bag of groceries.

Damn my frivolous spending habits.