Chapter 3 — Resort
And thus begins Chapter Three.
Now, children.
There we stood.
Malpe.
Ocean breeze.
Salt in the air.
Beach ahead.
Carlos behind us.
And for a little while
we simply looked.
The council nods.
Beautiful.
Now.
Present Nuo?
Present Nuo would probably just let the place happen.
No accommodation booked?
Fine.
Walk.
See dog?
Follow dog.
See suspicious staircase?
Climb it.
Smell weed from somewhere uphill?
Apparently that counts as navigation.
The council sighs.
Maybe eventually a hostel would appear.
Maybe a stranger would point somewhere.
Maybe the road itself would decide.
Children.
Past Nuo might have done exactly the same.
I have not received that many patch updates since birth.
The operating system remains largely unchanged.
The council checks version history.
CURIOSITY:
UNCHANGED.
SURVIVAL INSTINCTS:
MINOR IMPROVEMENTS.
DOG PROTOCOL:
PERMANENT.
But this time
I was not alone.
Axe.
The council turns.
Children.
Axe is also a dumbass.
Let history preserve that truth.
But
slightly more competent.
Not dramatically.
Do not imagine some hyper functional adult guiding an incompetent child through life.
No.
We were both idiots.
She simply possessed approximately
the council calculates
seven percent more operational capacity.
Enough to occasionally remember things like:
We need somewhere to sleep.
The council applauds.
Axe looked around.
Then raised the obvious question.
“Accommodation?”
I blinked.
Ah.
Yes.
That.
Children.
It had not occurred to me.
I had arrived at Malpe.
Therefore objective one:
Malpe.
Completed.
Everything after that remained unrendered.
Axe, however,
understood that our two day romantic anniversary getaway required a place where two human beings could sleep.
The council nods.
So
hostel?
I suggested.
Or perhaps merely looked in the direction of cheap accommodation with hopeful intent.
Axe looked at me.
Children.
The look.
Not anger.
Not confusion.
Judgment.
Pure economic judgment.
The kind of expression that says:
Do you think I crossed all the way here to sleep in a bunk bed beside twelve strangers named Rahul?
The council laughs.
Hostel?
Absolutely not.
We were not peasants.
The council gasps.
And here,
children,
you need to understand something about Axe.
Axe was rich.
Not:
Had twenty rupees more than me.
Not:
Occasionally ordered the expensive coffee.
No.
Rich.
Very rich.
The sort of rich where certain standards are not considered luxury.
They are simply
normal.
The council looks toward University Nuo.
And you?
Children.
I considered a mattress on a floor accommodation.
Remember Bangalore.
My standards were:
Can I become horizontal?
Excellent.
So when Axe pointed toward
a resort
I looked at her.
Then at resort.
Then back at her.
The council pauses.
A resort?
Yes.
Children.
Resort.
Actual resort.
One of those places I had previously understood only as locations in advertisements where suspiciously happy couples drink juice beside infinity pools.
Axe had no hesitation.
This.
The council nods.
And because my anniversary philosophy remained:
Anywhere you want
fine.
Resort.
Why not?
I had no idea what such places cost.
This was perhaps useful.
The council laughs.
Ignorance protects the soul.
We walked in.
And Axe checked us in.
The council looks toward me.
What were you doing?
Children.
Idle mode.
I stood nearby.
Existing.
Axe spoke to the nice person behind the desk.
Names.
Details.
Booking.
Payment.
Adult words.
Perhaps identification.
All the things functional humans understand.
And I hovered beside her,
occasionally looking around the lobby like a child brought into a bank.
The council writes:
AXE:
LOGISTICS.
NUO:
DECORATIVE COMPANION.
Accurate.
Eventually,
everything was arranged.
A staff member appeared.
“Right this way.”
The council leans forward.
And we followed.
Hallway.
Doors.
Resort noises.
That particular quiet expensive places seem to possess,
where even the walls look like they know they cost money.
Then
our room.
The door opened.
Children.
Holy shit.
The council goes silent.
Now.
I had never been in a resort before.
Not prior.
And somehow
not since.
This remains the beginning and end of Nuo’s luxury resort expertise.
Which means I had no calibration.
No:
Oh, this is a standard suite.
No:
The room is a little smaller than the photographs.
Children.
To me,
this was a palace.
Massive.
Unnecessarily massive.
The kind of room where you could shout from one side
and perhaps require echo location to communicate with someone at the other.
The council looks around.
A small town could shelter here.
Exactly.
Families could establish districts.
Local governance could form.
Maybe a small market near the bathroom.
Children.
This was not a room.
This was territory.
I walked around,
staring.
Furniture.
Space.
Actual pleasant lighting.
No mattresses piled on a floor.
No cursed toilet smell drifting from another dimension.
No dead air conditioner pretending to be architecture.
The council remembers Bangalore and becomes emotional.
Civilization.
Luxury civilization.
Then
the bed.
The council grows reverent.
Children.
The bed.
Until this moment,
my understanding of beds was simple.
Semi hard surface.
Lie down.
Body complains slightly.
Sleep occurs.
Wake up with perhaps one shoulder reporting betrayal.
The council nods.
Standard.
This?
No.
I sat.
The mattress surrendered beneath me.
I lay down.
And children
cloud.
The council erupts.
CLOUD TECHNOLOGY.
I sank.
Not dangerously.
Beautifully.
My spine,
which had spent years assuming sleep required negotiation,
suddenly received diplomacy.
Soft.
Warm.
Absurd.
I moved slightly.
Still cloud.
I pressed my hand into the mattress like a primitive human discovering foam for the first time.
The council laughs.
Axe watched me.
Probably thinking:
This man has never experienced thread count.
Correct.
Children.
I was floating.
I could have ended the entire anniversary there.
Objective:
Bed.
Success.
Never leave room.
But then Axe lay down beside me.
The council quiets.
Side by side.
Both exhausted from the three hour Dog Pilgrimage.
Road dust.
Travel.
Arrival.
The excitement of finally being somewhere else.
We turned our heads.
Toward each other.
Close.
Very close.
Foreheads touched.
The council smiles.
And there
in that absurdly soft bed,
inside a resort Axe had chosen because apparently hostels were beneath the dignity of our anniversary
I looked at her.
One year.
Karkala behind us.
All the nonsense in between.
And now Malpe.
Just us.
No classmates.
No assignments.
No Sharky operating weather systems in the background.
No Stitch secretly photographing us.
No university faculty.
Two days.
Ours.
I smiled.
And said:
“Let the anniversary begin.”
The council sighs dreamily.
Finally.
A normal romantic sentence.
Children.
Do not become comfortable.
The Archive does not reward optimism.
Because unbeknownst to the two idiots lying forehead to forehead on the Cloud
the romantic anniversary getaway was about to become
a shit show.
The council freezes.
How bad?
Patience.
At that moment,
we knew nothing.
The room was perfect.
The bed was perfect.
Axe was beside me.
The ocean existed somewhere outside.
We had two days.
No obligations.
No reason to rush.
From our perspective
everything had gone exactly right.
The council nods.
Carlos delivered us.
Dogs had been loved.
Resort acquired.
Cloud discovered.
Girlfriend present.
Nuo happy.
Simple man.
And perhaps that is exactly why the next part became so memorable.
Because disaster has excellent timing.
It rarely arrives when the room already looks doomed.
No.
It waits until you lie down on the softest bed you have ever touched,
touch foreheads with the woman you love,
and confidently announce:
Let the anniversary begin.
The council looks toward the next page.
Then history cracks its knuckles.
Children.
Thus concludes Chapter Three.
The Accommodation Problem.
The Peasant Hostel Rejection.
The Axe Luxury Standard.
The Idle Mode Check In.
The Resort Kingdom.
The Cloud.
And The Most Dangerous Sentence Of The Wandering:
“Let the anniversary begin.”
The council grows quiet.
At that moment,
we thought we had arrived at romance.
We had actually arrived
at the opening scene of the shit show.
