主妇丈夫倡导的户外生活

Harker didn't know what came over him. But he ended up listening to this madman's stories in the middle of the night, out in the cold winter where monsters were lurking every corner.

Blank was finished, and gestured that they sit together since this would be a long one. Harker agreed wordlessly, his eyes tired and heavy. They managed to twist around on the ropes until they were side by side instead of back to back as Blank told his teacher's tale.

"He became a teacher at my school when I was 14 years old. One year before I left."

Blank began, smiling fondly at the memory. "He taught us different sciences. Science of the human body, science of the animals and plants, science of the planets and stars..."

"I was very much fascinated with the subject. It was completely different from what we were taught in the Christian studies, or even what the elders taught us in the tribe. How man came from apes, and how an explosion brought the world into existence." Blank gestured as he spoke, which seemed to be a natural habit.

"Theory of Evolution and Big Bang." Harker muttered.

The native man smiled. "That's right. All very fascinating stuff, and I enjoyed reading books about them all day and all night because of how he taught the subject. There was something different about him among the rest. Something….."

He smiled. "The word may be strange, but I think it's something divine. Something very much like the way the Christians referred to their angels and saints, to their God. Yes, to me, it was what I imagined talking to the Creator would feel like."

Harker scoffed. "Great, you even see this man that you fantasize about murdering you as your 'God'."

Blank laughed heartily. "Haha! I didn't want him to take me right away. I felt he was divine since we met, and it stayed that way for a long while. He was simply someone I admire for his overflowing wisdom, and that glint in his eyes that made me feel like this world is beautiful. And so was he."

"He sees the world in such a warm and bright way, as one would to the best of summers." He told him. "He treated us as equals, and was very patient with us at the start. He never raised his voice unless necessary, and when he did, a few words were enough. He would even give us candy that he slipped from the stash that was supposed to be for the teachers."

Harker looked down on the snow, imagining this guy in his head. Someone so good that he can't hurt a fly, suddenly turning into a monster. Now he can see why he was being compared to this teacher.

"What happened?" He asked.

Blank took a while to respond to this. He then said:

"One day, he received a letter from his wife who was working at an Indian girls' school a few hundred miles away. It was in the middle of a lecture about caterpillars, and how they turn into butterflies. His face when he read that letter…. I had never seen him make that face before. It was so twisted, so raw and I…."

Blank rubbed his forehead. "Before that change, his metamorphosis…. I wanted to be like him. I looked up to him like I never looked up to anyone before. I thought of him as the father I never had, my mentor, my greatest friend and…. The one I love the most in this world before Ahanu was even born."

"Your beloved." Harker's lips became a thin line.

Blank nodded, the swirls of the snowfall reflected in his wistful eyes.

Harker hesitated a bit, then said. "But Blank, there's different kinds of love. He's not really your 'beloved' in a usual sense. See, there's idolizing love since you said you admire him. There's familial love like a parental figure or maybe even a friend, and there's—"

"Beloved means someone who is loved, isn't it? So he is my beloved. Why does it matter to you how I loved him, why must you differentiate it?"

Harker closed his mouth, unable to say anything back.

"Anyway, about the letter. I never learned the contents of that letter." Blank changed the subject, almost in a frivolous manner. "I even asked him, but he would not answer. What I do know was that after he hanged himself, I attended his funeral and saw his wife. She had a child in her hands. The child must have been born by the time he received the letter, and before that, they have not met for a whole year."

Harker sighed. "Was that the reason why he did it?"

"I think so. But the oddest thing is…. The baby looked exactly like him. It had his eyes." Blank said.

Harker thought so as well, for some reason. "Prolonged pregnancies can happen. There was a case where a woman only gave birth after 375 days. He should have at least waited for the DNA test before going insane."

Blank shrugged. "Well, I am not aware of this 'DNA' thing, but perhaps my Science teacher was. I only know what separation can do to a man. You can imagine the wildest things happening to the other person. Like one time I dreamt that my mother had suddenly been eaten by thunderbirds, or that she became the Queen of France that got her head chopped off."

"The switch was so fast, it was not like a slow downward spiral. I had the feeling that he was already wrapped in the cocoon of hatred and agony for a long time before. This was simply what they call 'the final straw that broke the camel's back'." Blank smiled. "Or maybe…."

He turned to Harker. "He was simply born this way. That was his fate, and he finally met with it. Like how that one scientist screams 'Eureka' while naked after receiving the revelation to the question he has been pondering with."

"Archimedes." Harker recalled. "He was bathing when he realized the displacement of water matches the volume of his body parts submerged in it."

Blank gave a surprisingly genuine smile at this. "Isn't that a rather simple observation? I find it silly that it came as such a surprise, but that's how most revelations are. It has always been there, you just fail to see it. Or perhaps you have been living your whole life trying to push the truth away, and would rather remain bathing in ignorance."

He then placed his hand on Harker's chest.

"A monster who had lived all his life as a human would think he has a human heart. But that monstrous, vile heart continues to beat with its black and brackish blood.... Waiting until the mind frees itself from denial and realizes what it truly was."

Harker tried to move away, but since he was linked to this devil, he couldn't escape his grasp.

"I wonder…. When did your Eureka moment happen? When did you finally find yourself, Harker Jones? Or have you always known, and simply would not accept the truth?"

Harker looked at him coldly. There was no escape, and so he could only hide his fear by wearing the face of an unfazed man.

"And what exactly is that truth?"

Blank chuckled, whispering to him.

"Do you still believe that you are a 'good' man?"