Regardless of anything else, the peace of this house was unparalleled. I realized this when I sat in front of the aquarium on the ground floor and stared at the fish. The bubbling water, the slow drift of the colored fish, the small castle decoration—it was hypnotic.
"The house is really kind," a voice seemed to say. "First, it takes your pain, and then…"
Peace. The rest of the fish—the ones in the back of the tank—seemed to say with strange fear, "Peace!" and then they all suddenly scattered, each darting to a different corner of the aquarium. A strange uproar, as if each was trying to say, "It wasn't us. We don't know. We are simply forgetful, and everyone knows that."
The aquarium water, even though its pump was off, was restless. The surface rippled in patterns that didn't match the fish's movements. At first, I thought it was because of the fast movement of the fish, their panicked darting. But no. When I stared at the center of the tank, the water seemed to rise and fall. Like the chest of a sleeping creature.
The water was breathing.
Moments later, the fish weren't swimming at all. They all gathered at the side of the tank where Odin was sitting, their noses pressed to the glass. He stared back at them, motionless.
He sat like a TV screen, dazed and stunned, staring at the fish and the water and the small castle.
Loki jumped gently onto the armchair facing the aquarium, where I was sitting. He wrapped his tail around his paws and settled in.
"He always likes to review his bad memories," his eyes said, "and mourn for himself like a victim."
"Pay closer attention to the water," he added.
I rubbed my eyes, which were tired and dry, and stared again.
The reflection in the water was changing every moment. Shapes formed and dissolved. Colors shifted.
A man sat alone on a train station bench on a cold winter day. Beside him was a bouquet of white flowers. He was waiting for the train. His hands were in his pockets, his shoulders hunched against the cold. His breath formed small clouds in the air.
A little girl was arranging flowers in a bucket of water nearby, quietly calculating prices under her breath. Her fingers were red with cold. A woman approached her and started haggling.
"You always raise your prices when the train is about to come," the woman said. "Be a little fair. Let your money be blessed."
"With this cold weather and these wet flowers," the girl replied, "every dewdrop on them pierces my hands like a sharp icicle. This money feeds a family. How can you ask me for a discount? For once, you buy fairly."
The train finally arrived with a hiss of steam and a screech of brakes. The man stood for a moment, took his right hand out of his pocket, and warmed it with his breath. He sighed—a strange, bitter sigh from the depth of his chest—and put his hands back in his pockets. He walked along the train, looking carefully at each passenger as they stepped off. But his gaze was no longer waiting. It was searching, but without hope. He shook his head occasionally and looked behind him, as if the person he was waiting for might be hiding.
Meanwhile, the little girl tried to sell her flowers among the crowd. She moved quickly, holding up her bouquets, calling out her prices. She hoped that people happy to see their loved ones would get emotional and pay more. She quoted a different price to everyone.
"This red flower goes perfectly with your black clothes," she said to me.
I was real in that memory. I could feel the cold. I could smell the train's steam, the diesel, the wet wool of the passengers' coats. I couldn't believe the girl was talking to me.
"But I'm not waiting for anyone," I said.
"I noticed you watching that man," the girl said, nodding toward the bench where the man had been sitting. "He's one of my best customers. He always buys flowers from me. Every day, no haggling. He always sits on the last bench because he has a good view of the rails. He always buys his flower before the train arrives, and waits."
She paused, savoring whether to say more. Then she decided.
"He's not waiting for anyone."
She continued: "At first, I'd give him weird prices—more than the flowers were worth, you know? But later I got a strange feeling. Once I asked him directly, 'Is she ever coming?' His eyes filled up, and he said, 'I hope one day she comes, so I can prove to her that it was possible. If she had just waited a little longer, it was possible.' From that day on, I couldn't charge him high prices anymore. You know, when you see someone's real pain, you can't just use them anymore."
"They call it moral awakening," I said.
The girl smiled and shrugged. "I don't know. But if you want to help him, I'm willing to give you the bouquet you're going to give him for free."
"But you might lose a regular customer if he doesn't come here anymore?" I asked.
"You know," she said, "some wounds become bread for those around you. But that wound isn't supposed to stay open forever. Some people are worth saving from grief, even if part of your life depends on that grief."
"Are his flowers always white?" I asked.
"Always," she said.
"Give me the red one this time," I said, "the one that matches my clothes."
I walked toward the man. The platform was crowded, but the people seemed to part around me, making a path. I sat next to him on the bench. He didn't look at me, but he didn't move away. It was as if we knew each other well.
Without introduction, I started.
"You know better than anyone what the reality is," I said. "I just don't know why you repeat this suffering for yourself every day."
"Because if I don't come one day," he said, his voice rough, "it seems like it's really over."
"You know," he said to me , "she loved him, but not as much as she feared the future. I had nothing. A small room, a half-finished job, big promises, and unfulfilled vows."
"She was right," he said. "But it was so close. If only, just a little bit more, she had waited. It was so close." His eyes filled with tears. He kept repeating, "she really gave me a feeling of love."
I broke his chain of grief.
"What happened next?" I asked.
"I succeeded," he said.
But he said this sentence hollowly. I was waiting for him to tell me with a sense of victory, with pride, that he had succeeded. Instead, he said it sadly. He hadn't healed his wound.
"I built a company, made money, bought a house, got a boat," he said. "But you know, every day at 8 o'clock sharp, I was waiting at the train station."
"We have to believe," I said, "that someone who left with their own feet will one day return with their head. But the day you least expect it."
"But you know," I said, "you miss your own self from that time more. You are mourning your previous self."
I took the white flower bouquet from his hand. I handed him the red one.
"Return to the flow of life," I said. "Wait for only one person in life: yourself. You are the embodiment of all love."
He took the red bouquet. Not to wait this time, but to leave. He stood up, walked toward the exit of the platform, and didn't look back.
Suddenly, the water in the aquarium started shaking. The fish slammed into the glass walls, their bodies hitting the sides with soft thuds. A deep, resonant sound filled the house—not thunder, but something from inside the walls.
The water in the aquarium was still trembling. Not from the fish—they had frozen again, their bodies suspended in the greenish water like ornaments on a forgotten Christmas tree. The trembling came from somewhere deeper, from the glass itself, as if the tank was shivering.
I stared at the reflection. The train station platform was emptying now. The man with the red bouquet had disappeared through the exit. The little flower girl was packing up her buckets, her work done for the day. But something else was forming in the water—a new image, layered over the old one like tracing paper on a drawing.
A woman stood on the same platform. She was younger than me, maybe thirty, with dark hair pulled back in a tight bun. She wore a grey coat and held a small suitcase. Her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed. She was crying. Not sobbing, not making a sound—just tears streaming silently down her cheeks as she watched the train pull away.
She missed him, I realized. She came too late.
The train shrank into the distance, a speck of metal swallowed by the grey winter horizon. The woman on the platform didn't move. She stood there, suitcase in her hand, tears falling, until the platform was empty and the only sound was the wind rattling the departure board.
Then she turned. She looked directly at me—not at the reflection, not at the water, but at me. Her lips moved. She said something I couldn't hear.