.jfif "The Crumbs of a Dream")
His was a life of eviction notices served by the dawn. But then, a troubled head—a mind stormy with the first heartbreaks and existential dread—offered him not just a room, but a deed. A permanent address in the psyche. It was a sprawling, dilapidated manor known as the house of broken hearts. And within its chaotic, creaking halls, his borrowed existence truly began, a maelstrom of adventure and misery that would, for the first time, make him yearn to own his own heartbeat.
The storyteller was in his mid-nineties, a collection of wrinkles and wisdom held together by sheer force of will. He was the last of his kind, a man whose distinguished career in "astronautics and oneiromancy" (a fancy term for mind-reading he’d invented himself) was the stuff of legend. In his youth, he’d ridden rockets with his famous father, their contrails sketching question marks across the heavens. Now, he was a beloved sage to the village children, a fact that curdled the milk of his age-mates, particularly the insufferable King Rhombus.
King Rhombus, a man whose ego was a perfectly geometric, immovable solid, was a biblical literalist with a passion for parsecs. He could read from Genesis to Revelation in a single, caffeine-fuelled night, only to wake up the next day with a soul full of prophecy and a head full of dizzy spells. Desperate for cosmic gossip, he had summoned every witch, wizard, and charlatan in the kingdom to tell him about outer space. None had satisfied His Majesty. (The fate of the magicians? Let's just say the royal garden was blooming with unusually vibrant, talking tulips).
So, when the old man summoned his great-great-grandchildren for a story—the legend of the house of broken hearts—King Rhombus swallowed his pride, which had the consistency and taste of a rusty anchor, and paid a visit. He was met with a welcome so frosty it could have preserved a mammoth. Rebuffed, the king retreated to the neighbouring mansion’s pavilion, a monarch of a kingdom of one, determined to eavesdrop. He sat there, a statue of thwarted entitlement, swatting at giant mosquitoes with regal indignation, his ears straining to catch the tale.
The children, a rapt audience of jam-stained faces, fell silent. The old man yawned, a cavernous sound, and from his eyes leaked not tears, but a sort of historical moisture, tracing the dried riverbeds of his cheeks. Before him sat a tray of boiled sweet potatoes and a jug of condensed milk, a siren’s call to his "Orangutan’s belly," as he fondly called it. He surrendered to a sweeter bite first, the condensed milk, a ritual as sacred as it was sticky.
"About four hundred nautical miles from the Coast of Ghost Island," he began, his voice a low rumble, "far from the gaze of the blind, indifferent sun, lie the ruins of Nopinia." He painted a picture of a city-state so sublime it felt like a memory of a home the soul had never known. A place where rivers ran with milk and honey, and men took so long to die they had to schedule their funerals centuries in advance. It was the material world’s envy and the affirmative world’s pride.
Its main gate was not of iron or gold, but a colossal, leather-bound book. No living man could pass through its pages and return, for the price of entry was one's mortal coil. A day inside was a century outside; a child from Nopinia had the ancient eyes of a Pharaoh’s ghost. It was a land ruled by wizards of the first order, until the Reign of the Psychopaths wiped it from the map.
"This story," the old man whispered, leaning in, "is the only living map to the gate. And I must tell you… the city is in our hearts. It is the blueprint from which our everything was printed." He paused, realizing the only sound was the soft symphony of childish snores. He had been lecturing an empty hall. Unperturbed, he continued, talking to the sleeping as he had always been spoken through. “Words falling on deaf ears” was his native tongue.
The old man spoke of the city’s vibrant, chaotic energy, where tourists and intergalactic courtesans mingled under twin moons. He described the greedy spirits of the dead, who would rebel against their fate to haunt the living, pining for wives who had long since moved on to men with warmer hands and fuller wallets. "For a woman’s love is most fierce," he chuckled, "when she can still feel the touch of his muscular arms over her rhombus waist, all while her nimble fingers are busy lightening the lozenge-shaped pouch at his back. Wicked, wicked love!"
Then his tone darkened. "One day—one very stupid evening, in fact—a very stupid thought popped into my brain. It was the kind of idea that wears a dunce cap and sets your life on fire for the insurance money."
The idea was to sail to Nopinia. He and his "stupid friends" hired a "stupid boat" for the "stupidest voyage of all time." His mother, a sensible woman, begged him to take a Bible. He, a devotee of adventure novels, forgot it. "A big sin!" he confessed to the slumbering children.
Their journey was a montage of youthful excitement ending in horror. They arrived at the Ruins Gate Heritage Resort to find classmates dying of Falciparum malaria. By morning, their friends were dead, the boatman had vanished, and the resort itself dissolved before their eyes, revealing a giant stone inscribed: "He who wishes to live, must die for the sake of life."
Panic erupted. His friend Olympia screamed, her legs giving way. Onyango fell, foaming at the mouth like a poisoned caterpillar. And then, he was alone. The idyllic island became a gothic nightmare. The air grew cold, and "giant mosquitoes came out, so desperate for a meal they began donating blood to each other." As the sun hid its face in shame, a voice echoed around him, smooth as grave-silt. "Welcome to my planet, little human."
The voice directed him to a tribal feast of "giant, hybrid gods" who roasted humanoid animals and recited poems that curdled his blood. They tied him up with nylon ropes, preparing to add him to the menu. When he cried out, "Thank you, Jesus!" his captor sneered, "Which Jesus are you thanking, huh?" replacing the nylon with cruel metal wire. "Let now Jesus descend from Latin America and save you, pathetic!"
As the flames were stoked, the earth quaked. The dead clawed their way from graves, a grisly audience to his execution. And then He appeared. A skeleton in a Masonic suit, his face a cartography of scars, with horns emitting dark smoke and a moustache like an ancient banyan tree. The creature, the late President of Nopinia, accused him of murder. "You little devils are supposed to die by my hands!" it roared.
In a final, desperate act of defiance, the young man shouted, "You cannot kill me! You are dead, so go back to your grave! I command you to go to hell in Jesus’ name, Amen!"
The creature applauded, a dry, bone-on-bone clatter. "Bravo! So, you know how to summon the immortals, huh?" It grabbed his neck. "Die!" It was over. As simple as cutting warm butter.
But death was just a new chapter. Inside the creature’s coat of many colours, he found a book titled "The House of Broken Hearts". A hand shot from its pages, grabbed him, and pulled him in.
He awoke, disembodied, in the heart of Romata, outside a golden mansion. He was a ghost again, hunting for a "clean body" to inhabit. He found his vessel in a schoolboy, a tender spirit riding a bicycle toward a bookshop to buy, of all things, the very book he was now trapped in. He transmigrated into the boy, a silent passenger.
"And as the boy grew," the old man whispered, a sly grin spreading across his face, "I grew, too. When the boy met his first love, to me, she was my four hundredth girlfriend. Ha ha haaa!" The children, jolted awake by the ludicrous number, erupted in giggles. "Go back to your dreams!" the old man insisted, but they were hooked, their eyes wide.
"Tell us, Grandpa! What was her name?"
"Now, listen," he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "The first was Anita Martin. The second, Sophia Herman Tungi. The third was a Senorita, Maria Rodriguez, from Mexico."
The children howled with laughter. "Anything funny?" he asked, feigning offense.
"Everything is funny!" He continued, "The boy was hot, charming, handsome… He wanted to date all the girls in town. He even changed his name from 'Ferdinand' to mine—'Nicholas.' He became immortal, and yet he lived a mortal life."
"WOW!" the children applauded.
"Now, sleep. It's almost morning."
"We want to hear the end!" they chorused. "We'll fast until you finish!"
The old man's eyes grew serious, the twinkle replaced by an ancient gravity. "Now that you will be fasting, prepare to die. Five days remain in this story, and at its end, a price is always paid. It is either the narrator or the listener."
"Just tell us, Grandpa!" they pleaded. "We'd rather die knowing than live a long life ignorant!" The old man looked at their determined, foolish, beautiful faces and sighed a sigh that smelled of condensed milk and cosmic dust. In his mind, the rhythm of a forgotten hit, "So Different" by the late Jo Africa, began to play, and his old bones rocked to a reggae beat only he could hear.
"So be it," he said. And he continued.