Chapter 10 — Home
And thus begins Chapter Ten.
The final chapter.
Now, children.
There I was.
Outside the compound.
Outside the boss arena.
Outside the entire level.
The council watches the gate disappear behind me.
OPEN WORLD:
UNLOCKED.
Excellent.
No father.
No bedroom.
No balcony.
No immediate threat of being discovered in circumstances requiring explanations I was profoundly unqualified to provide.
Just
Kazhakootam.
Night.
Nuo.
And pain.
Children.
Approximately four in the morning.
How do I know?
Phone.
The council pauses.
At last.
Technology.
Yes.
I pulled it out.
Screen on.
Time.
Roughly
4:00 AM.
The council looks around.
Civilization status?
Mostly asleep.
Correct.
Now.
Objective:
Home.
Simple.
The council immediately distrusts the word.
Fair.
I opened Maps.
Children.
Unlike Kapu,
this time Google had not recently guided me toward the corpse of a building.
So faith remained intact.
Home.
Route.
Distance.
Loading.
And
fifteen kilometres.
Silence.
The council slowly looks at Nuo.
Fifteen?
Fifteen.
Children.
Not across India.
Not another district expedition.
Not a pilgrimage requiring trains and mountains.
But at four in the morning,
with no transport immediately visible,
a body that had recently been thrown from a first floor balcony,
and legs beginning to file increasingly aggressive complaints
fifteen kilometres becomes geography.
The council nods.
Fine.
Auto.
Obviously.
I looked around.
No auto.
Excellent.
Children.
Actually
good.
Because I had another minor logistical complication.
Wallet?
No.
The council sighs.
Of course not.
Remember how this night began.
I had not packed.
I had not prepared.
I had not thought:
Tonight I may be transported to a beach, emotionally bond with a stranger, travel to Kazhakootam, engage in recreational agriculture, flee a father, jump from a balcony, and require emergency transport home.
No.
Phone rang.
“Come out.”
And Story Nuo
came out.
Whatever happened to be in my pockets?
Inventory.
Phone
thankfully.
Wallet
apparently not.
The council opens finances.
Okay.
Uber?
Electronic payment.
Modern solution.
Excellent.
I checked the available resources.
Children.
Do you know how much being an unemployed writer with a failed single digit selling book pays?
The council nods solemnly.
Approximately
nothing.
Correct.
My financial ecosystem at the time was elegant.
Need money.
Step one:
“Daaaad, plssss.”
The council laughs.
Funding acquired?
Usually.
Sometimes one request.
Sometimes the economy required a second stimulus package.
“Daaaaad, plssss.”
Then
money.
Children.
A sophisticated patronage system.
Centuries ago,
artists had wealthy nobles.
I had Dad.
The council approves.
But there was a flaw.
Had I informed Father before leaving?
No.
Had I said:
Hey, I’m going out for a while, may I have emergency auto money?
No.
Because when I left,
I didn’t know I was going anywhere.
I thought I was stepping outside because an attractive voice told me to.
The council reminds us how sensible that was.
Yes.
We have covered the scholarship involved.
So now?
No cash.
No meaningful account balance.
No auto.
No ride.
Fifteen kilometres.
The council waits.
Solution?
Walk.
Children.
And thus began
the second two item itinerary of the night.
The first?
Joint.
Bonk.
Joint.
Bonk.
Highly enjoyable.
This one?
Walk.
Sit.
Walk.
Sit.
The council compares ratings.
Significantly worse.
Much.
I began.
One foot.
Then another.
Children.
Nothing heroic.
No dramatic soundtrack.
No immediate revelation about roads.
Remember
this was before I knew what roads could become for me.
Before Wandering as philosophy.
Before I learned that movement sometimes gives the mind enough space to rearrange itself.
At that moment?
Road was road.
Home was fifteen kilometres away.
And my feet had been assigned the contract.
So
walk.
Kazhakootam at four in the morning.
Road mostly quiet.
Occasional vehicle.
Streetlights.
Closed shutters.
Dark buildings.
The sort of city hour where everything familiar looks temporarily abandoned.
Children.
I walked.
For a while.
Then body:
No.
Sit.
Find somewhere.
Wall.
Step.
Whatever existed.
The Archive does not preserve each rest stop.
Just the rhythm.
Walk.
Sit.
Breathe.
Get up.
Continue.
The council opens the itinerary.
ACTIVITY ONE:
Walk.
ACTIVITY TWO:
Regret walking.
Then sit.
Close enough.
Children.
Unlike the earlier itinerary,
there was no reason to accelerate toward Activity Two.
And no enthusiasm returning to Activity One.
This was transportation through attrition.
Did side quests appear?
No.
The council looks disappointed.
Surely fifteen kilometres at night
Children.
No.
No mysterious stranger.
No forgotten shrine.
No unexplained vehicle rescue.
No cow powered transport.
No random party.
No woman emerging from darkness to alter my life again.
One Green Hair per night was sufficient.
The council agrees.
I simply walked.
Which is perhaps less narratively exciting
but historically accurate.
Road.
Feet.
Pain.
Rest.
Repeat.
Sometimes
dog.
The council immediately brightens.
Ah.
Yes.
Dog Protocol remains legally binding even during emergency evacuation.
A dog appeared?
Quest paused.
Children.
I could be exhausted.
Fifteen kilometres from home.
Possibly bruised.
Probably smelling like smoke,
ocean,
room freshener,
and poor decisions.
But dog?
Main quest can wait.
Approach.
Scratch.
Good boy.
Perhaps dog accepts.
Perhaps dog does not.
Then
back to road.
The council updates.
HOME:
Still far.
DOG:
Petted.
Morale:
Slightly improved.
Excellent.
And so the night passed.
Or rather
slowly became morning.
Children.
I do not remember how many hours the walk took.
Two?
Definitely more than that.
Three?
Possible.
More?
Could be.
The Archive refuses arithmetic it cannot defend.
All I know is
it took hours.
Enough for darkness to change.
Enough for the sleeping city to begin waking around me.
The council watches the horizon.
Black becomes blue.
Blue becomes grey.
Grey becomes morning.
Shutters begin lifting.
Lights come on.
Tea shops return to existence.
Vehicles multiply.
People begin appearing with the deeply offensive energy of humans who slept properly.
Children.
Life restarted.
While I
continued.
Walk.
Sit.
Walk.
The world around me becoming increasingly normal
as my own night became increasingly absurd in retrospect.
Someone opening a shop did not know that the man limping past had recently left a house through a balcony.
A bus passing me contained people beginning ordinary mornings.
Work.
College.
Errands.
Breakfast.
And Nuo?
Returning from an unknown number side quest.
The council laughs.
Eventually
familiar roads.
Closer.
Home radius re entered.
The strange nation of Kazhakootam receded into:
place I had apparently just walked from.
Buildings I knew.
Turns I knew.
And finally
house.
Children.
Home.
The council erupts.
QUEST COMPLETE.
I reached the compound.
Entered.
No fanfare.
No medal.
No emergency services.
No father asking why his son appeared to have walked across half the city at sunrise.
Instead
Mother.
The council braces.
She looked at me.
Asked the reasonable question.
“Where did you go?”
Pause.
Children.
Options.
Truth:
An unknown woman acquired my failed book as change at a bookstore, read it months later, called me because she was sad, picked me up on a scooter, took me to a beach, cried into my hoodie, listened to me cry, kissed me, took me to Kazhakootam because she had pot, sneaked me into her bedroom, we smoked, bonked, her father woke up, she pushed me naked onto a balcony, I jumped roughly four metres holding my clothes, escaped the compound, discovered I had no wallet, and walked fifteen kilometres home.
The council imagines Mother receiving this before breakfast.
No.
Instead
“Oh.
I went for a walk.”
Silence.
The council erupts.
Technically
true.
Children.
One hell of a walk.
Mother perhaps accepted this.
Perhaps looked at me.
Perhaps knew better than to excavate.
The Archive preserves only the exchange.
Where did you go?
For a walk.
Perfect.
Minimal disclosure.
Maximum technical accuracy.
I went to my room.
Children.
The room where this entire nonsense had begun.
Hours earlier:
Nuo sitting.
Phone ringing.
Unknown number.
Now:
sun outside.
Shops open.
City awake.
Nuo returns.
The loop closed.
I reached the bed.
And
collapse.
No graceful lie down.
No changing into comfortable clothes first.
No reflective journaling.
Body met mattress.
The council declares:
FAST TRAVEL unavailable.
SLEEP imminent.
But before that
phone.
I checked it.
Message.
Same unknown number.
The council goes quiet.
Anna.
“Are you okay?”
Then
“Did you get home safe?”
Or the message carried those two questions together.
The exact punctuation does not matter.
The concern does.
Children.
I smiled.
Gently.
Because somewhere behind that message was the house.
The balcony.
Her father.
Whatever explanation she had been forced to invent after I disappeared over the edge.
And despite that
she was checking whether I had made it home.
I replied.
The Archive need not invent the exact words.
Something simple.
Yes.
Safe.
Alive.
Whatever Story Nuo sent.
Enough.
Then
contact.
The council watches.
Save number.
Name?
Anna?
Children.
Please.
Government name had arrived too late.
The Ancient Naming System had already ruled.
GREEN HAIR.
Saved.
The council stamps the contact.
And that
was the beginning of a friendship.
Not ending.
Beginning.
Which is unusual for these temporary encounters.
Green Hair did not disappear into the road after one chapter.
We would speak again.
Meet again.
Dates would happen.
More memories.
Perhaps
The council raises a hand.
No spoilers.
Correct.
Children.
Perhaps some of those future meetings became Wanderings.
Perhaps they didn’t.
You will find out when the Archive decides you deserve it.
The council groans.
For now?
This one ends here.
Because this was the first road.
The call.
The improbable chain that placed my book in her hands.
The beach.
The tears.
The mutual:
I’m here for you.
The kiss.
The waves.
Kazhakootam.
The Final Boss.
The balcony.
The fifteen kilometre walk.
And finally
Green Hair,
saved into my phone.
Children.
Think about how this began.
My book had sold so poorly
that copies could gather dust unnoticed.
One of those copies was sitting in the only shop that carried it.
Green Hair went there for something completely unrelated.
The shopkeeper lacked change.
She lacked enough digital balance.
So instead of coins
my book.
She took it home.
Forgot it for months.
Got bored.
Read it.
Related.
Found my number because my father had apparently printed an author abduction dossier inside.
Called.
I answered:
“Who dis?”
The council laughs softly.
And from that
all this.
Children.
I am careful with words like destiny.
Because after enough life,
you realize unlikely things happen constantly.
Humans are pattern machines.
We connect dots.
Turn coincidences into constellations.
But still
sometimes you look at the chain and smile.
This one?
I smile.
Not because the universe definitely planned it.
I don’t know.
But because it feels like the sort of story the universe would tell if it had a sense of humour.
The council nods.
A failed book.
Used as spare change.
Creates friendship.
Not bad.
And perhaps the most important detail?
Green Hair had called because she felt alone.
She thought the sad idiot in the book might understand.
She found him.
And children
she was right.
But she could not have known the reversal.
That the sad idiot was lonely too.
That he needed somebody who could sit beside his weight.
That her search for a friend would hand him one.
The council grows quiet.
She found what she came looking for.
So did I.
Neither of us knew that when the phone rang.
Story Nuo especially.
He had no concept of a Wandering.
No belief that roads could heal.
No idea that getting out of a room could change anything inside him.
He had simply followed a hot woman with neon green hair because his survival instincts were decorative.
The council laughs.
And yet
movement happened.
A room became a scooter.
A scooter became a beach.
A beach became vulnerability.
Vulnerability became friendship.
Friendship became Kazhakootam.
Kazhakootam became a balcony.
The balcony became a road.
And the road
eventually
became home.
Children.
The Wandering had come looking for me.
That is the strange thing about this one.
I didn’t choose Kazhakootam.
Didn’t wake up thinking:
I should go somewhere.
Didn’t seek adventure.
Didn’t seek healing.
Didn’t seek a person.
A phone rang.
I answered.
And the rest happened.
The council closes the file.
Story Nuo would not have called it healing.
Probably still wouldn’t.
He was still sad when he got home.
Still carried Bongo.
Still carried heartbreak.
Still had the same life waiting.
But was he exactly as alone as he had been the previous evening?
No.
Children.
That matters.
Maybe not enough to cure anything.
Enough to alter the weight by one tiny measure.
And years later,
when the Archive finally learned the language for these strange roads,
Kazhakootam returned.
A Wandering.
The Fifteenth.
Not because of the distance.
Fifteen kilometres is nothing compared to trains across India.
Not because of the destination.
I barely experienced Kazhakootam as a place.
Not because I planned it.
Obviously.
But because somehow,
between answering that phone and reaching home at sunrise,
I had left one version of the night
and returned carrying another person in my life.
The council nods.
That qualifies.
For me.
And so ends
the Fifteenth Wandering of the Unbegun.
Kazhakootam.
The Failed Published Author.
The Single Digit Literary Empire.
The Public Phone Number.
The Public Address.
The Public Face.
The Unknown Call.
The Command:
“Come out.”
Green Hair.
The Potential Kidnapping.
The Beach.
The Dusty Book Used As Change.
The Sad Girl.
The Sad Boy.
The First:
“I’m here for you.”
The Uno Reverse:
“I’m here for you.”
The Kiss.
The Waves.
The Magical Words:
“I have pot at my place.”
Kazhakootam.
The Pink Sheets.
The Puppy Response.
The Bonk.
The Final Boss.
“Anna, are you awake?”
The Balcony.
The Yeet.
The Fifteen Kilometres.
The Second Two Item Itinerary.
Walk.
Sit.
Dog Protocol.
Sunrise.
And Mother asking:
“Where did you go?”
Children.
I went for a walk.
A very,
very elaborate walk.
Then
bed.
Phone.
Message.
“Are you okay?”
“Did you get home safe?”
I smiled.
Replied.
Saved the number.
Not Anna.
Green Hair.
Because the government had arrived late
and the Archive had already chosen.
The council closes the book.
Thus concludes Chapter Ten.
And thus concludes
the Fifteenth Wandering of the Unbegun.
Kazhakootam.
Children.
She called because she needed a friend.
I answered because she sounded hot.
A truly noble beginning.
But somewhere between the dark beach,
the tears,
the balcony,
and the long road home
we both got more than we came looking for.
She found a friend.
And so did I.
