Leaves from the Futile Streets

The first time I stepped onto Peruvian soil, I could feel its heartbeat beneath my feet—an unfamiliar rhythm that hummed with a vitality I couldn’t yet understand. The journey to Nazca was grueling, two miles of dust and heat that clung to me like a second skin. My body resisted the strain, but I pressed on.

When I reached the city, I encountered the humans for the first time. Their movements were deliberate, their voices a melody of dialects I struggled to parse. I felt the weight of their gaze on me, the silent judgment of an outsider. Cash was crude in my hands, but it bought food—sustenance I could tolerate, if not savor. The strangeness of their customs pressed on me, yet amidst it all, the landscape offered comfort: the endless sky, the sweeping lines of the desert.

It was there I met Carlos Biltong, an Peruvian whose wealth and influence radiated like the sun’s glare. My formal speech and the precision of my demeanor unsettled him, yet his curiosity won over. Over drinks in a dimly lit room, I offered him a proposition: wealth beyond his wildest imagination in exchange for his commitment. He hesitated, his skepticism tangible, but the intrigue was stronger. I unveiled schematics and formulas—innovations from realms he couldn’t fathom. He didn’t fully understand, but he saw the potential.

The business we planned was a façade for my mission. I played the role of the enigmatic benefactor, calculating every move with care. The process I introduced was revolutionary, a wind-driven machine with an unknown purpose. My demands were clear: honesty and minimal contact with others. Biltong agreed, though his doubts lingered like smoke in the air.

As we finished the deal, I retreated to an hotel where the heat clawed at me, my body incapable of sweating, and I marveled at the irony of air-conditioning powered by wind, of which I, Kon, was the god. In that room, I reflected on my home in the mountains, from where water fell and cascaded down to the valleys and the abyss separating me from it. Nazca was vibrant yet shallow, a juxtaposition that gnawed at my purpose.

Hector Mares, too, felt the weight of his existence. His apartment was a shrine to chaos, the clutter mirroring his disillusionment. He buried himself in lab reports and nostalgia, finding fleeting solace in trivialities—a library of grammar books. The monotony drove him to cheap novels which thrilled him somewhat. The tawdry plots consumed his thoughts, their origins in American culture palpable.

In the shadows of Nazca, our paths converged subtly. I watched humans with detachment, their flaws magnified through my perspective. They were fleeting, fragile. Yet, in Mares’s obsession and Biltong’s ambition, I saw reflections of something deeper—a connection I could neither embrace nor escape.

Flora Moxie was an anomaly. She dragged me back from the brink when I was injured by a misplaced public drain cover, her concern laced with curiosity. Her life, marred by dependency and longing, fascinated and repelled me. She represented a layer of humanity I had only glimpsed—those caught in the cracks of their own civilization.

Time stretched, and my mission began to form real-world extensions. Mares, with his curiosity and methodical mind, was brought into my confidence. The time machine project I confided in him consumed him, the work a lifeline in his otherwise mundane existence. His discoveries—especially as an armourer bent on extreme suit design for frontier applications—only deepened his need for me. He suspected I was a god, but understanding eluded him.

In my solitude, I reflected on my exile, the weight of the Eternal’s dying legacy pressing on me. The Eternals were in a sense my makers, almost omnipotent and capable of creating awe in primitive species, the preceding generations. My physical form, my intricate mind, and the technology I wielded all felt like tools in a game they could barely comprehend. I was godlike among them, yet bound by the confines of their world. A contradiction, like everything else in this strange place.

Mares' fascination with the project fueled my own sense of purpose, though his unease about me—my quirks, my methods, and the secrecy of my work—was palpable. I saw it in his furrowed brow, the questions he didn’t ask, and the way he lingered over the strange mathematical patterns I sketched in his presence. Perhaps he sensed that what I worked on was not bound by ordinary rules. It amused me to see him toe the line between admiration and suspicion.

In autumn, the leaves fell, and the air carried the crisp scent of the lake, and the mountains glowed with vibrant reds and golds. I watched him one afternoon, pacing along the water’s edge, his mind clearly restless. I had chosen this setting deliberately. Nature had a way of making humans reflect, exposing the cracks in their certainties. When I joined him with a book I found about the Frankenstein monster walking by the lake, I played the part of the enigmatic host, teasing him with cryptic remarks about the future and the machine we were building together.

The book intrigued him, and soon he was joking about my origins. “Peru, maybe?” he laughed, his words slightly edged with Gothic romanticism. He didn’t mean it seriously, but I couldn’t help but smile that he could be so naïve as to imagine such beings as I only existed in fiction. If only he knew. I dropped a veiled warning about saving humanity by altering timelines—a critical point in my argument of making a time machine—but I offered no specifics. Humans never handle direct truths well.

As we walked back to my hotel, the conversation turned darker even than Shelley’s original. He wanted to know if the timeline was fixed, if anything could be changed. I saw the unease in his eyes when I suggested it wasn’t entirely fixed. Humans cling to the illusion of control; they don’t like to know how precarious their existence is.

That night, back in my solitude, I pondered what Mares must think of me. Did he see me as a genius? A madman? Or worse. All those identities fitted, in some way. I stared into the mirror and felt the weight of my contradictions. I was supposed to be beyond humanity, yet here I was, drowning in isolation, even struggling in companionship—Flora Moxie was a puzzle I couldn’t solve. She grounded me, yes, but also weakened me. She made me feel that even a god could lust after women, whose ideal form must pervade the universe (I felt). I was dragged back to more rational thoughts when I wondered if I was like Suq’a, the ancient figure from folklore who straddled worlds, never truly belonging to either. Was I becoming more human, or was I simply losing myself? The thought chilled me. The gods sent me here with a mission, but each passing day muddied the clarity of that purpose. The music from the Cusco hotel Tunupa  mocked me with its Zampona pipes, chimes and guitar, its refusal to be pinned down.

Flora once told me that I was a nine as a lover. She wasn’t wrong. My nights were spent in lovemaking, trying to escape the god being which actually precluded me functioning normally. And now, the Canadian Spacetime Agency had taken an interest in me. Their scrutiny was inevitable; humans can’t resist poking at the unknown. I found their paranoia both tedious and oddly comforting—proof that I was still out of reach, even under their microscope.

Mares was another story. He had set a trap for me in his lab, trying to uncover my secrets It was laughable, really, for a god. He thought he was hunting me, but in truth, I was always the one in control. When he saw the inhuman figure through his magnetic resonance machine, the time machine made it look like a primitive toy, I knew his curiosity would lead him to uncover me.

When we arrived in Lima one day, the atmosphere shifted. I stayed distant, letting him flounder in his own thoughts. At a cocktail party given by the embassy which he got us invited to, I felt the weight of eyes on me—some curious, some wary. Humans are predictable that way. Mares tried to bridge the gap between us, but I wasn’t in the mood to play along. The revelations would come in their own time. I buttered up a couple of dignitaries and showed politeness to the host and that was it.

Mares had his suspicions, of course, but his moral dilemmas amused me. He questioned whether my interventions were salvation or tyranny, whether we the gods had the right to steer humanity’s course. It was almost endearing, his clinging to the idea of free will. I could have told him the truth—that his species had long since forfeited their claim to autonomy through their self-destructive ways—but I didn’t.

Instead, I gave him just enough to chew on: our dwindling numbers, our need for refuge, our desire to prevent Earth’s annihilation. I painted it as altruism, though even I wasn’t sure how much of it was true. In the end, I was just as trapped as Mares, caught between worlds, uncertain of where I truly belonged.

The Canadian Spacetime Agency handled my case with what they called "care." They saw me as a threat but also a resource—my knowledge of wind-powered engines made me valuable, especially to the Peruvian government, which had been analyzing my work. The Agency explained that the timing of my arrest was politically charged, with a presidential election looming, and mishandling me could have disastrous consequences.

Eventually, they told me I would be released, though the process was carefully orchestrated to avoid political backlash. They claimed their goal was always to understand me before acting decisively. My "freakish" behavior and psychological resilience had made traditional interrogation methods useless. Even when I bribed them by offering to improve their aquifers they were unrelenting.

I had changed, though. Over the years, I had lost sight of my mission, even my feelings. The edges of my humanity had sharpened painfully, carving out parts of me I didn’t recognize. When they finally let me go, it felt surreal. I didn’t know how to process it. My past and future blurred into uncertainty.

In a clinical room, CSA agents subjected me to a barrage of tests—blood samples, EEGs, retina scans. When they insisted on taking X-rays of the ridges inside my skull through my eyes, I protested. They didn’t understand how I “see” differently. They dismissed me. When the procedure began, my panic surged. The contact membranes they placed over my eyes burned with light, overwhelming me. Finally I offered them a deal, a place in the First World economy.

I spent weeks in a hospital recovering. The doctors couldn’t help me. I thought about my life—my past as the god of wind and water. The government spun my injury into political fodder, yet I felt no anger. I saw it all as an accident, the Eternals, some of them, hadn’t learned chemistry or calculus, essential to get me into Peruvian human society and out again.

One day, Flora Moxie visited. She explained that the government had erased any evidence of my abilities, afraid no one would believe it anyway. They offered me a return to work in Lima, though it was clear I would be under constant surveillance. When I left the hospital, reporters swarmed me. A nurse guided me through the chaos, and I exchanged tired, detached words with Biltong and a CSA interviewer. My new reality was blinding—leaves swept down the streets of Lima.

Sometime later, I found myself in a bar in Lima. Dark glasses concealed my apprehension. A nurse lingered nearby. Hector Mares, my old partner in the time machine project, walked in. He looked at me, and I saw the shock in his face. We used to dream big—saving humanity by rewriting the past. Now, I was a shadow of that dream. The government had hijacked my work, and I was powerless to help Nazca or Peru.

Mares and I shared a drink, the air heavy with unspoken failures. He asked about my descent, my despair, but I dodged his questions with vague remarks. I had lost faith—not just in my mission, but in everything. "Peru is doomed," I told him, though I wasn’t sure if I believed it or needed to.

We reminisced briefly. I joked about having "a redirect order from the powers-that-be" and offered him six million dollars to keep quiet and he laughed as prodded him, but the laughter didn’t linger. My health felt hollow, a lingering trace of humanity. When Mares asked if my vision for saving the world still had a chance, my cryptic reply left him uneasy. The truth was, I didn’t know anymore. I told him to believe in hard science, genetics, and leave the rest for politics.

Then I broke down. The effort of the past few years had been too much. Years of anguish flooded out. Mares knelt beside me, hesitant but kind, offering to patch up the differences presented by our long separation. Mares suggested I needed help. I shook my head. I was no longer the god I once thought I was. I was, or felt I had, still enough energy to retreat to the Andes and live there for a few thousand years more—caught between past and future, hope and despair, and I would choose the future and hope.