Vincent Gallo - Tasya

Hugh stood up, thanked Masha for her time, and glanced around the room once more before leaving. Every book around the room was fiction, not only the ones closest to him. Hugh didn’t know what this said about Masha or her mystic abilities, but the sights of those spines written with fantasy names was a sight of both melancholy and comfort.

Hugh left the office and searched for Timmy behind the receptionist's desk. He wanted to pay for his visit and inquire how to book a follow-up appointment with Masha. However, once Hugh reached the desk, the receptionist was nowhere to be seen. Timmy's chair was empty, his desk lamp was off, and his laptop was folded shut.

Masha had said that someone was coming, so Hugh considered that Timmy would return to greet the next client. To kill time from now till Timmy’s return, Hugh went over to the coffee machine to brew himself a drink and make himself comfortable.

The coffee machine was unplugged, and not a single bean was stored within its glass tank. The water cooler was empty and devoid of cups. Even the countertop was still moist from an earlier cleaning.

Hugh strode past the still vacant receptionist desk and back to Masha's office. He gave the door a few knocks but got no answer in return.

Hugh tried to open the door but was greeted by locked resistance. The cracks at the bottom of the door shone back no light.

Hugh assumed that Masha had departed and switched off the lights.

Hugh returned to the receptionist's deck with a sneaking suspicion that no other client would arrive, and that Office M had closed for the day. He reached behind the desk for pen and paper and jotted down a message for Timmy to call and arrange a payment for today's meeting. Hugh didn't want to arouse the anger of a mystic because she thought that he had dodged paying her.

Hugh didn't take notice that the entrance door was unlocked and that the display case lights in the mini-exhibition area had been switched off.

He was too busy mulling over where Masha and Timmy had gone to, and whether Masha had lied about someone arriving soon.

Like many times before, Hugh entered the fortress.

‘Enter' is the wrong work. There were no sprawling gates, no keys needed for a gigantic lock, no secret password that must be passed to a guard, or even a door that needed to be opened. All Hugh did was pass through a tall and wide arch that connected the outside world to the courtyard within.

Hugh wished there were gates or doors that blocked others from wandering into the courtyard without impediment. Just as he strolled into the courtyard without resistance, so could others. Hugh did not mind when parents with children, dogs, or people seeking to spend a calm and relaxing afternoon came to the courtyard. In fact, he enjoyed it when they came, for it made the courtyard bream with energy, life, and a sense of community. Who he did mind entering were the boozers, the hooligans, the vandals, and contraband dealers. Once every few months someone would come and ruin the beauty of the courtyard. They would flip over the benches, scatter their rubbish into the flowerbed and grass, spray graffiti on the walls, and harass people walking through.

Like many times before, Hugh saw children on the playground, dogs sniffing through the grass, and people sitting on benches around the flowerbed with drinks in hand and conversation on their tongues.

Unlike many times before, but just like last time, Hugh saw the black-haired girl. She was exactly where Hugh had spotted her before, in the flowerbed. She was also still occupied with her task of digging holes.

This time her method for digging had evolved, but not in the most sophisticated manner. She was wielding a thick stick, driving it into the ground, and prying away soil. It was not the most efficient way of digging holes, but it was a lot cleaner than using her hands and nails.

Hugh stopped and watched how the black-haired girl brandished her stick and pierced the Earth with earnest seriousness and determination. To the people sitting on the benches, her efforts must have looked comedic. To Hugh, he read it as a heroic adventure. One day she had been striving to achieve her goal with nothing but her hands. The task had been difficult, but she preserved. She had returned the next day, this time with a stick as a companion, to pry loose the obstacles that barred her progress to her heroic objective.

Hugh approached the flowerbed, wanting to know what her heroic objective was, if it existed at all.

Sensing Hugh nearby, the black-haired girl’s attention snapped to him, like a branch in a biting wind.

Without ceasing her digging, she regarded him with eyes that were both absent and alert. A fleeting sensation of familiarity, that he had seen those eyes before, passed through Hugh. He had no time to process what that familiarity meant because it escaped him just as quickly as it had arrived.

“Hi, I saw you here yesterday.” Hugh said. “I’d like to know what you are doing here?”

The girl gripped the stick with both hands, jabbed it into the ground, pressed her bodyweight onto it, and wedged it into the Earth.

“Is it not obvious?” She asked and used the stick as a lever to fling soil to the side. “I’m trying to find the mole people who live underground. I heard they have their lair under this flowerbed.”

Hugh’s eyes grew twice in size with surprise. “Are you serious?”

“Is rain wet? Is snow cold? Of course, I am serious.” She replied and jabbed the stick back into the ground. “You may not believe me, but I will find those mole people, exterminate their population, slay their nefarious king and save humanity from a war of gigantic proportions.”

Hugh stood there stunned. He had expected a more fitting answer, that she had been planting flowers for her mom or that she was waiting for her father to return from work to help with the gardening. He would have accepted any reasoning and rationale other than an excavation to an unreal world with the objective of annihilating an unreal population. The heroic journey that he had perceived her to be on was more of an absurdist villainous venture.

“Well, I wish you good luck in your endeavors to the center of the Earth.” Hugh said and backed out of stick swinging range in case she mistook him as a double agent of the mole king. “I would love to stay and learn how you, the sole crusader against the mole people, will navigate the labyrinths of their subterranean cities, and single handedly put down their forces, but I have some work to get done at home.”

Hugh took his leave, but as soon as he took his first step towards home he heard sounds of suppressed laughter.

Pivoting on his heels, and back towards the girl, he saw her soil covered hands were pressed to her mouth, struggling to muffle her laugher.

She lifted her eyes to Hugh and his nonplussed expression set her off like a match to a powder keg. She freed her hands from her mouth, threw them above her head, and let her laugher ring free throughout the courtyard. The people sitting on the benches, who had paid her and Hugh no mind beforehand, stopped their conversations and unglued their eyes from their smartphones.

They all looked over at her and started to smile and giggle.

Even though it was only for a few seconds, her laughter had infected them with joy.

“Why are you laughing?” Hugh asked, noticing that he was the only one not merry in this moment. “Did one of the mole people tell you a joke?”

Hugh's question brought another series of laughs from the black-haired girl. She tried to answer Hugh's questions, but each time she opened her mouth fits of laugher stymied the passage of words.

Only after three attempts was she able to compose herself.

“I can't believe you thought I was really looking for mole people!” The black-haired girl cried out. “Do you think I am some gullible and oblivious child who could be duped by fiction? I was just teasing you!”

“It seems that I am the gullible one here,” Hugh cracked a smile, “but if you are not on a grand expedition to meet the mole people, then what are you doing?”

“I can see that in addition to being gullible, you are also oblivious.” The black-haired girl said. “Isn't it obvious? I'm digging holes to plant flowers.”

“That does seem quite obvious,” Hugh said, “but why are you digging with a stick and not with a spade or some other tool?”

The girl retrieved her stick from beside her and smoothed out the holes she had been making.

“I am attempting to pioneer a new and ecofriendly method of planting flowers.” She held the stick in one hand and waved it before Hugh, as if to show him the majesty of it. “Sticks are renewable, can be picked up from the ground and are not manufactured in waste producing factories.”

“That's very admirable, that you care so much for the environment.” Hugh commented. “Maybe if you plant flowers in other courtyards people will see you and the idea will catch on.”

The girl erupted with laugher and once again the courtyard inhabitants joined in.

“I see that my jokes fly over your head a bit.” She said after regaining herself. “Don't worry, you'll adjust. Soon you'll see that I'm the best comedian around and be belly laughing in no time.”

In an odd way, Hugh found the entire situation humorous. The black-haired girl set a pair of humorous traps and Hugh had been snagged in each one. This fact brought a smile to his face and a laugh of his own.

The girl's eyes had grown as wide as Hugh's had when he had heard about her journey to slaughter the mole people.

“So now you laugh?” She questioned. “When I didn’t even make a joke? You sure have an odd sense of humor”

“Your joke about being ecofriendly only just hit me now and I couldn't contain myself.” Hugh said and concentrated on withholding a smile as he laid his own trap.

“Really! You just got the joke now?!?”

It was Hugh's time to spring the trap, and he did so with a laugh of his own, albeit with too much gusto. Those on the benches looked up but did not join. They shot perturbed glances Hugh's way and then dove back into their screens.

“I see you have a touch of gullibility yourself.” Hugh said, ignoring the lack of laughs. “I was laughing at being the butt of all your jokes, you know, taking them in stride.”

The girl carefully put the stick down, as if she were handling an artifact.

“Well, a discovery has been made.” She said. “A true breakthrough! We have discovered that you have a sense of humor! Let us tell the wisest scholars in the most prestigious universities!”

“I'll be sure to tell them as soon as possible.” Hugh joked. “But what these scholars really want to know is why you are digging holes with a stick and not a spade”

“To tell you the truth,” she said looking down at the stick as if it her artifact had become a pitiful creature, “I don't have a spade. If I had one, I would use it.”

Hugh raised an eyebrow.

“You could have said that right from the start.” Hugh said. “My grandmother loved gardening and I have boxes of her old stuff. There should be a spade around somewhere.”

A look of excitement sparked in the girl's face, then died out. Hugh could read on the girl's face that she was reluctant to ask him to go and search for the spade.

“Wait here for a bit, and I'll go and check.” Hugh offered. “If I find it then you can use it.”

“Thank you,” the girl said, and Hugh could hear the embarrassment tinted on her words. “I'll be waiting here and continuing my journey to the center of the Earth.”