A paper boat named Ima

The smell of gas woke him up. It wasn't the typical smell that they warn against, the one that should alarm you. That one was fruity. It had a sweet touch that caressed his nostrils and pulled him out of sleep gently like a mum would wake her children up in the morning.

But that was no morning.

Through the linen curtains, the darkness of the night outside had swallowed the entire city and, from the sofa where he had fallen asleep, his computer screen still shone bright - as it loaded the last bits of a file onto the server.

Eliott felt his way through the dim living room to his desk, following the curves of a scent he couldn't identify, except for its gas-like essence and its light touch of burnt. Something had burnt.

He sniffed around his desk as his numb hands browsed through his notebooks and pencils. His kneeled down to feel the carpet and stood back up, touching and flipping clips, notes and pins. The smell took over the space, took over his lungs but that wasn't what helped him locate its source. What helped was the heat that was coming from a corner of his desk.

Eliott approached the pile of untouched glossy comic strips and vinyl he had compiled over the years waiting for the right time to dive into them. He liked to take his time to uncover mysteries and this one was just another one to play with. It tickled his brain more than his nose and his half-asleep mind was conscious enough to be amused.

The heat was coming from a vinyl he had bought a year ago. Its plastic cover reflected the light of his computer screen with a gleam that was almost too appealing for him not to grab it but the mere touch of it burnt his fingers and he dropped its on the floor.

A flame rose, drawing a circle, on the carpet and died instantly, as if it had never existed. Eliott touched the floor with his bare foot cautiously, but he didn't need to - the carpet was tepid and mellow, as if nothing had happened.

The piece of plastic wrapped around the cover of the vinyl had been eroded on the side, eaten away by the fire seemingly, although despite the smell, the heat and its melting corners nothing could attest of it really happening.

Eliott pinched his arm to check he was awake and confirmed to himself he was. He waited a few more minutes and fetch the cover from the floor, opening it up with care to check the state of the vinyl inside.

Except there was none.

Inside the cover, instead of the old album of Enoch Light he thought he had acquired two years ago, a photograph laid - warm and fuming. Eliott dragged it with two fingers out of the box. It represented a paper boat floating over a sepia river. At the back of the photograph, one word - Ima.

*

Eliott hit the iron curtain of the vinyl shop a few more times. How could it be rolled down in the middle of a Saturday afternoon? He glanced through the curtain, hoping to see what was happening inside. Not a move, not a sound. Everything inside of the shop seemed still, as if dead.

"Hey!", Eliott shook the curtain strongly as he started to lose patience. "Open up!"

"The shop is closed." An old man said coming out of the neighbouring shop. "What do you want?"

"I need to talk to the guy who sold me this." Eliott said showing the vinyl to the man. "Something crazy happened yesterday. Do you know when he will be back?"

"It's been closed for more than a year."

"Do you know where I can find him?"

The old man shrugged and headed back nonchalantly towards his shop, where layers of books awaited him.

"Do you know his name?" Eliott said following the man into his shop.

The man grabbed a box from the floor and started to arrange postcards onto a rotating shelf by the counter where burgundy and silvery pens, cards and decorated notebooks laid quietly. He sorted through another box of goodies ignoring Eliott as he repeated his questions.

Encense was burning in a plant jar at the back of the bookshop, under clock that covered half of the wall and ticked like a metronome.

"Do you like postcards?" the old man finally said, adjusting his glasses down his thin nose, still without looking at Eliott. "I'll give you one if you stop talking."

Eliott sighed and came closer to the man.

"Do you know the guy?"

"What 'guy'? I only know gentlemen, no guys," the old man replied.

"The person who sold me this." Eliott pointed at the vinyl again. "This, you see, not only did not contained a vinyl but on top of that, it self-consumed by itself at night. Consumed with fire!"

The man walked over another shelf and unpacked a batch of books that smelt of old paper and leather.

"I could have died if I hadn't smelt it!" Eliott said flapping his sides with his arms.

"As far as I can tell you're not dead."

"You don't want to help me?"

The man turned around and removed his glasses slowly.

"What do you want from me? The person who owned the music shop left the neighbourhood a year ago, because she was pregnant and her family did not want to support her. Times are difficult for businesses like ours and we do not have time to waste. Can you understand that?"

"She was pregnant? But then who was the man -"

"I have no idea, gentleman, and quite frankly," the old man grabbed a postcard from the first shelf. "I do not care."

"Please, you don't -"

The old man handed the postcard to Eliott and pushed him towards the exit of the shop with an open palm, that falsely looked welcoming.

"Could you at least tell me what was her name?"

"Her name won't take you anywhere. She planned to call her baby Ima. That's all I know. Good night."

Before Eliott could answer a thing, the old man pushed him outside the door and the chime above his head tinkled.

*

Eliott grabbed the first bus to his place on the other side of the city by the canal. The sky above his head was already dark, enlightened only with the glowing red lanterns that decorated the city in autumn, and he couldn't believe he had spent his whole day on that story in vain. He couldn't believe either that he wasn't done with it.

But as he inspected the postcard the old man had gifted him a few more times, that thought became even clearer.

It was a hand-drawn postcard with a pale background decorated with flying lanterns casting their lights over another river and a tunnel, where a curtain of water and colours shimmered.

That was all certainly due to his lack of sleep, but every second a new element appeared on the postcard, as if it was being drawn as he watched it. Eliott closed his eyes and opened them again. New details appeared, not to complement the picture, only to make it more precise. Only redundant information, nothing new, nothing to answers his questions.

"If you stop asking questions I give you a postcard, duh." he said to himself with a face as he imitated that old fool. "We need support, duh. Can't help you, bah. Don't know guys only sir. Right you, mother - "

"Watch your language young man," a passenger said behind him as she covered the ears of her baby son.

Eliott rolled his eyes and dove deeper into his hoodie.

"Watch your language young man," he repeated to his reflection in the window bus with another face.

In the window, he watched the woman give a pacifier to her baby and lull from side to side. He wondered what it would have been like for him to be lulled by his mum. That did not matter, the question was what to do with the paper boat.

The bus halted and the woman grabbed her bags, ready to step off the bus when Eliott heard her baby pronounce the word Ima. He sprang from his seat and followed them off the bus.

"Wait!" he said following the woman on the street. "Sorry, did your ... daughter... son... say? What did they just say?"

The woman turned around with a frown ready to snap at him but her traits softened as she, perhaps, saw the confusion on his face.

"I didn't mean to be intrusive, I just - Did your baby say the word Ima?"

The woman nodded and answered simply that Imma means Mum in Hebrew. Eliott opened his mouth to reply with another question but closed it almost immediately as he understood that, either, would not take him anywhere.

"Are you okay?" the woman asked looking at him with a concerned face.

"I...Do you know this place? Any of these two places?" He showed her the picture and the postcard.

She looked attentively at both and shook her head to say she had never seen those places.

"Sorry, that was a bit random of me," Eliott added flattening the top of his hoodie with his palm. "I don't want to -"

"That's alright", the woman said waving her hand briefly before disappearing as raindrops started to fall.

*

"Come Marnie, come," Eliott said to his dog as he poured croquettes of lamb and rice into its metallic bowl. "There you go, that's for you."

While Marnie ate greedily, flapping its tail from side to side, Eliott laid down on his sofa, curling into a ball.

His last illustrations were being uploaded on the server and from that spot, his computer screen blinded him less than usual. Perhaps it was only the fatigue. He dove deeper into his blanket, and felt its warmth covering him until his neck.

What a story. What did that all mean? These things certainly have a name - when you hear something and then stumble upon again and then it connects with something you see, and then it all seems to click. And then nothing.

He yawned.

It certainly had a name yes. Perhaps even too. Deception and rubbish.

Eliott removed his socks under the blanket and rolled on his back, watching the ceiling of his living-room. What if that woman from the vinyl shop was his mother? He laughed at himself and shook his head against his pillow. No. His mum had died giving birth to him twenty years ago.

Who knows, maybe she too would have scolded a stranger on the bus because they pronounced a bad word in front of him. Perhaps she too would have protected his little ears.

Eliott pressed his palms against the soft curves of his ears and moved his head from side to side, smiling at his own imagination. There were things that were just too intense for you not to smile about. Any other reaction would be inappropriate.

Just like that smell of gas the day before, the smell of burn that could only manifest itself through a fruity scent - for it was too intense. What would it be like if it presented itself under its true colours?

Marnie barked far away, as she faced the red lanterns on the other side of the large window that overlooked the canal.

"Not now Marnie, I'm tired." Eliott rolled to the side facing the back of his sofa and adjusted his blanket.

Marnie barked some more, leaning its paws against the glass.

"Marnie, shhh. We'll go for a walk tomorrow morning as usual. Now be nice ... and let me - Marnie for f*cksake!"

But Marnie was hitting the glass with its paws stronger and stronger.

Eliott walked over the room to grab the dog from its collar and froze as his eyes met the canal, on the other side of the window.

A paper boat was floating on the water with a giant flame burning.

"Marnie, come!"

Eliott rushed out of his flat in his tee-shirt and underwear, followed by Marnie still barking and jumping.

By the time they reached the canal, the paper boat was already far and both accelerated in its pursuit.

The rain was now pouring and the lanterns covering the sky above them shimmered and shook along the thin strings that held them above the city.

Eliott and Marnie accelerated on the empty bank of the canal. The flame on the boat was bright and voluptuous far ahead, swirling and twirling on top of the paper that navigated the swelling waves of the stream.

"Run, Marnie! We'll see Ima, run!"

Marnie sprang higher and further leading the way for Eliott whose legs and lungs trembled and screamed.

"Run, Marnie! Catch it!"

The paper boat shivered as the stream in the canal intensified and the rain poured stronger. The flame grew brighter and hotter as if calling Eliott it, just like the night before in his living room.

Without thinking further, Eliott climbed the green guardrail that bordered the path and dove into the water.

He swam fast through the rising water that pushed against his chest and legs. Through the stream, the rain and the wind. He swam fast and kept pushing, choking without even noticing it, running out of breath without even realising.

As his fingers reached the paper boat, the flame just like in the evening the day before had died. If not for the warmth and smell of gas onto the paper nothing could have confirmed that a few seconds ago, a few quarters of seconds ago a gigantic flame was burning right there on that piece of paper.

But as his body stood panting in the stream, one thing was for sure.

In his hand, he held the paper boat.