The Universe is Indifferent

“Did you know in Iceland there was a woman on a tour bus presumed missing who later joined her own search party for several hours?” Anais snorted and cackled as she scrolled through funny blog posts on her phone while laying down in her pajamas and oversized shirt.  

  A shirtless Jorge laid on the bed besides her crossing his arms behind his head. He folded his shirt and tossed it on a chair across the room. “You’re kidding me”. He leaned against the bed frame and flipped through the channels on the TV remote, searching for the evening's baseball game. “That’s something you would totally do.” he smirked.

  Anais kept chuckling for every post she read out loud. “Can you turn it down and enjoy these hilarious stories with me?”.

  “Oh c’mon, if we beat the Red Sox, we might actually have a chance”.

  Anais emphasized a loud sigh in dramatic fashion. She reached for her mug of hot mint tea on the nightstand but clumsily knocked down one of the candles instead.

  “Dammit!” she looked over to Jorge for a reaction.

  Jorge watched the end of the play and turned over for a moment before locking eyes back to the TV screen. “You klutz, clean it up".

  “I’m not cleaning that up!” Anais quickly snapped. She took a quick sip of her Tea and slammed the porcelain cup on the nightstand. 

“What do you mean?! You dropped it." Jorge looked back at her pouting her lips. "You’re so lazy”.

  Anais sighed and grabbed a paper towel. She proceeded to wipe up the glass fragments from the floor. “It’s this clutter, Jorge. It’s too much sometimes. You know, before you moved in with me, I lived a totally minimalist lifestyle”.

  “Ha! Yeah okay, Marie Kondo.” Jorge got up and grabbed one of the many throw-pillows Anais owned in an effort to support his argument. He tossed it towards her head playfully.

“Like owning a hundred of these? Do these “spark joy”? he laughed.

  “Oh, shut up” Anais smiled. “I’m talking about the stupid antiques you keep buying. The candles, the random crap. It’s really interesting, but maybe better off as an Instagram post on your phone. You don’t need to own absolutely everything".

  “Oh my god, here we go again.” Jorge rolled his eyes, still glued to the TV. He looked at Anais who had a grumpy expression on her face and pulled her over to him.

"I'm serious." Anais pointed to the corner of the room to the stacks of baseball cards, sport's memorabilia and antiques that had piled up. “Like, do you really need that creepy ass wooden doll?”, she shook her head. The wooden doll had been meticulously sculpted in the shape of a horned-devil-like figure. It stood about 8 inches tall, its eyeholes carved in the wood with small red gems glued in its place.

  “Ok that’s called art, alright?”, Jorge rubbed her shoulders.

  “Yeah, yeah, right”. Anais sighed pulling out her phone again to browse her blogs. “If you see me hovering over the bed in the middle of the night, that’s on you”.

  *****

The next morning Jorge had woken up to a brand-new room. A lot of his books and movies had been put away, except the wooden figure he purchased. His candles were gone as well. Everything had been packed neatly, almost like the way he remembered from when him and Anais first started dating. Jorge figured she wanted to rearrange the room and finally let him use the space in the guest room they had spared. He did notice some small fragments of glass on the floor again by the window. He figured Anais had cleaned up the broken candle from last night but, must have missed a spot. He grabbed a towel to clean it up instead and placed it in the empty trash bin. 

  Jorge had taken a shower the night before and had prepared his clothing by the bed. He put on his casual office attire, brushed his teeth and rushed over to his work a few blocks away.

  After a few minutes, he was in front of the business park entrance and headed towards the access room where the elevator was located. He dialed the codes on the keypad on the door, and it unlocked. He then made his way up to the third story hall where his office space was located. Once he was confronted by the cubicle he worked in, Jorge discovered it filled with items and belongings of another person. The photos of his girlfriend were no longer posed on the walls like before, instead there were photos of unfamiliar children and pets.

               “What’s going on here?” Jorge stood in front of stranger sitting on his chair using the computer. “Am I being relocated?”

The person on the chair looked a bit puzzled and stared at Jorge. “Uh yeah. Who are you again?” he laughed nervously.

  “Oh sorry, are you new here?” Jorge rubbed the side of his face up and down anxiously. “I’m sorry I just didn’t get the notification and someone moved all my stuff without telling me. I didn’t mean to take it out on you”.

  The person had already dialed the phone to call someone else. "We have a situation here". Jorge looked around the room to find his other coworkers who had been staring at him like they would a stranger. Another man Jorge recognized walked over to him with indifference.   

“Hey Ted. What’s going on here dude? Am I getting fired?” said Jorge.

  “I’ve never seen you in my life, man. How did you get up here anyways?”

  "Is this about the line of code I accidentally deleted a few days ago? I can rebuild it. I'm going to talk to Steve about this. It's not right!".

  Two men wearing white uniformed shirts and badges on their arms, walked into the office room. Jorge identified them as the security officers for the building.

  “Is there a problem here?” one of them asks firmly.

  The man in the cubicle explained the situation to the security guards. They tried to amicably guide Jorge to exit the building, but he resisted. Jorge stormed over to find Steve, his manager in his office but it had been empty. The guards eventually grabbed Jorge by the arms and escorted him outside of the building. Jorge threw a tantrum, raising his voice but the uncomfortable stares and whispers only served to humiliate and embarrass him. He shamefully walked out after they threatened to call the police. 

  Jorge then rushed back to his home, his heart beating faster as he arrived panicking. He wanted to find his possessions again. He ransacked the dressers and pulled the drawers out leaving the room a disorderly mess. He went into the attic and garage but found nothing of his belongings anywhere in the home.

  “What is going on here?” he ran to the kitchen sink until he couldn't take it anymore, he paused and ran to the kitchen sink while his stomach regurgitated his dinner from last night. It spilled on his shirt and ricochet on the kitchen floors. Jorge began to sweat profusely and felt dizzy, so he headed to his bedroom to lay for a moment but quickly drifted to sleep.   

  The rotating doorknob woke him up, followed by foot steps and grocery bags slamming on the wooden dining room table.

  “Anais!” Jorge yelled and walked over to the kitchen. 

  “Ahh!!!” Anais jumped. She reached for the nearest item, a small house plant and launched it over to Jorge's direction before stumbling down backwards.

  “Anais, what’s going on with you!?” Jorge yelled. "Why are you pretending you don't know me?"

  “Who the hell are you. I’m calling the cops if you don’t get the hell out of here. NOW!” Anais quickly dialed the 9-1-1 Operator while keeping her distance. “Hi. I have an intruder in my house. Please send help!”

“Why are you acting this way?” Jorge walked over and grabbed his girlfriend’s phone and to hang up the phone. He wrestled her down against the couch while she tried to squirm and run away.

  “Just listen! Please!” He pleaded. “Anais, I’m your fiancé. We’ve been together for 4 years. I’m scared. Please just… tell me what’s going on here.”

  Anais tried to calm him down as the tears started to form in her glossy eyes and her face warmed up red.  

  “Ok, Ok. Let me just. I get it, you’re my boyfriend”. She whimpered.

  Jorge stood her up and eased his grip on her shoulders. She quickly slammed her knees into his crotch. Jorge fell down to the ground and held onto the painful area while groaning loudly.

  Anais ran out of the house crying and called out for help. Jorge picked her phone up and ran out to her but found the neighbors had already been peaking out to witness the commotion. He hastily makes his way to a restaurant diner instead which was located a short walk away. He laid low for a moment and He quickly flips through the photo gallery of Anais's phone. There he finds she has photos of herself doing miscellaneous activities but none of the ones they took together. He goes through his own phone and finds random unfamiliar photos as well, but she isn't in them either. There is only one candid photo of her in the antique marketplace. His most recent photo is one of the wooden devil figure he purchased from a vendor there the other day. 

“it’s… Is that it?” he whispered. Jorge quickly logged onto his Uber app and orders a ride. Police vehicles hastily speed pass his Uber with their sirens on.

  When Jorge arrived in the antique market, he runs desperately in search of the familiar merchant. The saleswoman was elderly, Jorge frequently bought antiques from. The woman was always forgetful though, and seemed to love sharing imaginative stories about her life that Jorge frequently dismissed but ultimately enjoyed.

The older woman had a reputation for not being in the healthiest mental state, but she was always a friendly person despite this.

“Hey! Jorge. Back again so soon?. “

  “Mrs. Fischer, I…bought a figure from you yesterday and I-. It was a horned demon figure.”

  “Oh no. Was it the wooden devil with red eyes?”

  “Yes!” he jumped up eager to find an answer to his misfortune.

  “I wasn’t aware it was in the box of things I sold you, Jorge. I’m sorry. That antique was not for sale. It's been a curse in my life for years...". 

  “Nobody seems to remember me anymore…” Jorge said in a disheartened tone. 

The old woman looked at Jorge. “Jorge, I tried to destroy that thing... but it hasn't- It hasn't. Nothings changed with your normal life. This figure is cursed, but it doesn’t allow the universe to forget you. It's the memories it gives you. The life you remembered and longed for never existed, Jorge.

  Jorge slammed his fists on the table besides him, looking down from the corner of his eyes. “But it. It felt so real… I remembered the years we spent together. The little moments. My proposal to her. I remember my job. I remembered how hard I worked throughout the years to get it. I remember it all so vividly", he whispered.

  “Oh Jorge…” the old woman walked over to him and placed her hand on his shoulder to console him. “I’m sorry, Jorge”.