They woke up in the forest glade where the glass bleachers were and from where the rainbow was projected. Mirlo was confused and looked around trying to understand the place where they were. He somewhat recognized it, but at the same time he felt it was strange. He stepped out of the stands and into the trees. He felt the silk paper feel of the dry leaves at his feet and frowned, bending down to touch them. Alondra came after him and squatted next to him, watching him intently.
– Ou?
– La forêt.
– Non forêt – Mirlo replied confused, and even a little angry. He got up and continued walking through the virtual forest, trying to recognize something familiar. Certainly he seemed familiar with the main elements and shapes, but he kept himself in a state of unsympathetic vigilance.
– Pas d'animaux.
- I still have to work on it.
Alondra was quite disappointed that Mirlo did not recognize as real the sounds of larks and blackbirds singing everywhere. It was one of the elements she trusted the most, because of its simplicity.
– Odeur bizarre…
Mirlo then heard the sound of the river water and tried to identify where it came from. Alondra had been careful that this sound actually had a direction, and Mirlo ran towards it, only to verify that it was not possible to get close to it. No matter how much he ran, the sound was always at the same distance.
– La rivière?
Alondra felt as if she had betrayed him. Not that she was arrogant enough to believe that her forest would be exactly the same as the one Mirlo had lived in, but there was a growing uneasiness in him that broke her heart. Her goal hadn't been to make him miss his home, but to open up a new space for him, as much as she could. However, Mirlo was very uneasy.
– Un rêve?
– Oui. Un rêve.
Mirlo closed his eyes and leaned forward against the trunk of a tree. He felt the plush touch and began to caress it.
– Un rêve.
By accepting it as a dream, the situation changed for Mirlo. He stopped looking for the plausibility of what was happening around him. He simply let himself be delighted by the feel of things, by the apparent absence of real dangers in the environment, and he wondered what role Alondra played in his dream. She was waving for him to follow her. She entered the darkest part of the forest. He followed. They came to an area of fruit trees and bushes, pregnant with sumptuous colors, brilliant leaves and flowers, and an almost theatrical light that Mirlo couldn't quite recognize. Alondra plucked a fruit and extended her hand to him. Mirlo did not know the fruit. It was orange in color, small, and velvety to the touch. He touched it gently in Alondra's hand for a long time.
– Manger?
Alondra nodded.
He could not deny that it was a tempting fruit. But one of the things that Mirlo had learned from living in the forest was precisely that he should not eat fruits that he did not know, unless he knew that those who lived with him also ate them. Besides, he remembered the result of the occasion when he had blindly trusted what Alondra had offered him. And if this was his dream, he thought, then it was time to reverse the events that had already taken place, triggering a different outcome. He took the fruit, closed Alondra's fingers with his hand, approached her and said:
– Tu le manges.
He pried her mouth open with his fingers and shoved the medlar into it. Alondra was surprised but she let herself be done without putting up any resistance, because her body froze. Mirlo stared at her very fixedly. Alondra grabbed his wrists and began to chew, dropping the glistening seeds onto his hands. The truth is that the medlar was a masterpiece, and although Mirlo did not know this fruit, since it belongs to an imported garden tree that, Alondra reflected, had clearly never come to colonize the French forests, he could recognize that it was undoubtedly a fruit, and the seeds of a fruit.
Each medlar is pregnant with two or three smooth chestnut-shaped seeds that become extremely shiny on contact with human saliva. The skin of the medlar has the touch of a soft velvet that breaks and is easily torn by the teeth. Its orange flesh is sweet and melts easily, without being too soft or too crunchy. It is a watery and unctuous fruit that quenches thirst, and also its seeds are so attractive that they make you want to collect them and continue sucking them after finishing the fruit, because they keep a thick layer of glucose while they are wet that gives them their striking shimmering shine. Alondra had worked a lot on her medlar, following Liuben's instructions and reviewing a large number of files. She was very excited that Mirlo tried it out so that he could tell her if it looked like the real ones. She watched Mirlo looking at the bright loquat seeds in his hands with great curiosity. He started licking them.
– Tu le connais?
Blackbird shook his head.
– Jamais.
Alondra sighed. So he didn't know it. If he didn't know it, it was impossible for him to tell her if it tasted like the real ones, so she aborted the mission to feed Mirlo loquats. She felt that the visit to the forest was being a real fiasco. She dropped the seeds, turned, and went to sit in the bushes, sulking. Meanwhile, Mirlo was absorbed investigating the medlar seeds on the ground. Alondra sat down to listen to the sound of the river, which was deep, like the past. Because although Alondra did not know it, the file of the sound of the river corresponded to a microphone that would have been placed looking towards the source of the course of a river, and the rivers, like the rainbow, sound according to who listens to them. So pointing towards the place where the flow is coming from, a river sounds deeper and louder, while the flow of the river moving away from the listener is sharp and meandering, because it is in the future of water. And although Alondra was unaware of all this, the people who in their day had recorded the river and the computers that had preserved this sound for centuries, were not.
Before she could realize, almost an hour had passed, and the skin on her hands began to feel a little tougher than usual. Her torso had flattened and her shoulders had broadened. With all the mess of disillusionment with her set, she had almost forgotten the original purpose of the visit. Then Mirlo came to where she was, looking at the medlars that he had just collected and saying:
– C'est un vrai fruit!
When he raised his head to affirm it and saw Alondra, he was startled. He stopped short and dropped the loquats from his hands, taking a defensive stance. But he immediately paid more attention and in some way whose motive Alondra could not decipher, he felt that this person was the same as before, only with a slightly different appearance. He remembered what had happened shortly after arriving at Alondra's house and, within the logic of the dream, instead of it producing rejection on him, he felt a strange friendliness at this new appearance.
– Tu est beau.
Alondra's face could not reflect greater surprise at this reaction.
Mirlo knelt near Alondra's body and began to scrutinize him with his eyes. Alondra was also looking at his man's body and wondering what his face would look like. Mirlo grabbed one of the loquats from the ground. He reached out with his other hand to touch his cheek, which made Alondra feel extremely shy.
"Tu est beau," he repeated, his eyes widening. In a slow and delirious movement, while he stared at him, he brought the medlar closer to his face.
- Tu le manges - he told him, ecstatic.
Alondra opened his mouth a little and let Mirlo place the medlar on his tongue, feeling his fingertips tremble gently in contact with his lips. Mirlo watched him absolutely captivated, encouraging him to chew the medlar and eagerly waiting to see Alondra take the precious shiny seeds out of his mouth. He moved a little closer, almost brushing his knees with his, and placed the palm of his hand next to his mouth. Alondra handed the seeds over his mouth, leaning his head into his palm. He felt the heat of his own breath between his mouth and the skin of Mirlo’s hand. Only then did he become aware of the difference in detail in the design of bodies and things in her sets. Although it was easy to reproduce everything for which she had a clear model, such as the human body and the excrescences of its five senses, and everything that the human body could integrate directly, such as the fruits of trees, it was not easy to reproduce each substance of the earth, each smell of the forest, or the multiplicity of directions of the sound of the water. Mirlo's body, by contrast, was easy to reproduce. The touch of his skin felt absolutely real.
As Mirlo was in his dream, he decided to do what he wanted. He brought his face closer to Alondra's man's face and repeated once more:
– Tu est beau.
He grabbed another of the loquats he had thrown to the ground, put it between his front teeth, wrapped his arms around Alondra's shoulders, and shared the fruit with him, who bit into it from the opposite side. They were very careful not to break the seeds and dropped them between their bodies. The meat of the medlar and the meat of their lips melted. When they swallowed it they weren't sure if they hadn't hurt their lips, but when they looked at each other they were intact.
– Mirlo. I have brought you here because I have to tell you something. Something besides this. We have to leave the house. We probably won't be able to go back.
Mirlo did not understand very well what Alondra was saying. But he knew it was something that caused him sorrow.
– Je veux rester avec toi.