Ben Todică - The Journey

 

The Journey

Ben Todică

 

I was on vacation with my two nephews, Tintin and Dumbrăvioara. He was seven; she was two years younger. We were wandering along one of the narrow streets of an old neighborhood in Tokyo when we came upon an eccentric professor who claimed he had discovered teleportation and was testing his machine, inviting passersby to try it.

Dumbrăvioara slipped inside playfully, and Tintin, curious and resolute, pressed the activation button. The machine erupted in light and piercing sounds. When the door opened again, the little girl was gone. In her place stood a small, vividly colored bird—one of those rare creatures you encounter only in corners the world has forgotten.

“My Dumbrăvioara,” I cried, cupping her in my palms.

The bird seemed to laugh. Or perhaps I only imagined it. Then, in a child’s voice, she said:

“Look, Uncle. I can fly.”

She slipped from my hands, beat her wings wildly, and, lacking experience, fell into the drainage channel along the street. The water was thick and murky, the color of that in the uranium mines of Ciudanovița.

The current seized her at once.

“Uncle, help me!” she cried, lifting her tiny head above the surface.

I managed to grab her and pull her out. My palms were coated in fine sludge, mineral residue. I gently squeezed her like a sponge; water streamed from her feathers. When I heard her coughing, a dull fear settled in me. I searched around for something clean to wrap her in.

I handed her to Tintin and moved through the courtyards of nearby houses. The city felt abandoned. No gates, no fences—only old dog cages made of galvanized wire, rusted and long forsaken. At the first house: torn rags. At the second: filth. At the third, however, I found a woven mat made of cloth strips, rustic, roughly the size of a doormat.

“It will do,” I thought, and picked it up.

When I turned back, Tintin was gone.

I saw him on the far side of the channel. It was no longer a simple ditch but the bed of a dried river, five meters deep and nearly ten wide. The only option was to run alongside it, overtake him, and cut him off.

It was summer; the water had retreated into scattered pools. I passed him and threw myself into one where a few geese were bathing. I plunged right foot first and, in a painful slow motion, struck the hard bottom. An electric shock shot through my leg, from the tip of my big toe to my abdomen. A violent, blinding cramp seized me, and for a moment I thought I was losing my mind.

It was six in the morning in Melbourne.

I knew that if I didn’t get up immediately and move around the house, the pain would not ease. After my usual exercises and a banana, as my doctor had advised, I sat on the edge of the bed and wondered:

When was this dream written? What inspired it? Did my brain lead me to that impact simply to wake me? Or, in the instant of the shock, did it compose the story in reverse and deliver it whole—knowing that a dream, in truth, lasts only a fraction of a second?

Perhaps this is how, in the near future, a profession that takes five years to learn will be downloaded into the brain in five seconds.

Artificial intelligence merely shows us where we stand and guides us gently toward awakening, so that we do not fall straight into nonexistence.

The monkey was right. It was already too late to stop her brother—man—from marching toward tomorrow’s nuclear war. Had she known, when we parted, she would have slapped us across the mouth, just to force us to stand still.

Now even the crows laugh at us.

I closed my eyes for a moment. In the silence of the room, I thought I heard the faint flutter of wings. When I opened them, there was nothing. Only the unmoving morning, and a body that had once again been returned to reality.

The monkey was right. Her brother could no longer be turned from his path. Tomorrow he will press another button, in a far stronger light—and this time, there will be no awakening.

 

Translated from Romanian by ChatGPT, with the author’s approval.