[Survey] Riqu’s Universe

Riqu pushed through the library door and slipped out fast, as if he was worried he might not make it all the way out, and hurried down the steps with his head down. He pressed a paw to his forehead, anxiously wrapping up his hair in his fingers and intermittently squeezing his eyes closed, as if against a bright light, as he walked. It was difficult and exhausting business, walking in public when you don’t want to look at anything and can’t bear to be looked at.

He wasn’t entirely sure how he made it all the way to the familiar cafe without running into someone and embarrassing himself further. Head still down, he marched past the counter and beelined to the restroom without ordering anything. The baristas looked at him and then each other with mild concern; the little cobalt Xero was a regular, though a withdrawn one, and they’d never seen him upset.

When he was finally hidden away, he dropped his backpack on the ground with a thud, sank down next to it against the wall, and wrapped an arm around it as if the bag was a friend that needed his consoling, weeping quietly.

He had messed up again. A stranger had pulled one of his favorite books off the shelf and was scanning its inner cover. It was a sci-fi/fantasy novel about a planet where people have true genetic “soul mates”, which they must search for among thousands if they want to successfully reproduce. He was feeling good and warm, and an unusual desire to connect to others had seized him. He approached the stranger and started to talk about the book he was holding. It was a complicated work, impactful and moving, but also riddled with flaws, which only increased his appreciation, for they were so representative of the time it was written - etc, etc..

The other Xero had looked up at him and smiled politely, trying to be neighborly. Their gaze eventually shifted away, uncomfortably, and their smile tightened into a confused wince, which Riqu finally noticed. He realized he was speaking too loud.

“Oh! My apologies,” he whispered, and almost continued his description, when he looked around and noticed that while his conversation partner was avoiding eye contact, several others around the room were staring pointedly. A girl met his gaze briefly and then looked down and hurried away, blushing with secondhand embarrassment.

When he finished his gaze around room, he realized that his conversation “partner” was actually a hostage. They had set the book down face down, without shelving it, and were trying to edge away.

Riqu may have been slow to gather details from his surroundings sometimes, but he was no idiot, and knew immediately that this capricious bout of friendliness had been executed poorly. He had probably messed up this poor xero’s morning. He had disturbed several others. A powerful and irrational feeling of having caused irrevocable harm washed over him, followed by a wave of nausea. He did not attempt to apologize further. He just shakily set the stack of books he had already gathered down on the shelf, and left.

He processed all this on the cold ground of the bathroom for several minutes. As he tried to steady his breathing, he focused on gratitude. It’s hard to hate yourself if you feel grateful to another entity. Being beholden to another person’s care makes self-hatred seem disrespectful to their choices. If a person could not be found responsible for something he was grateful for, he thanked the Universe, just in case its vast systems and cycles of cause and effect, order and chaos, could hear. If it could hear it would certainly want its work acknowledged.

He started by thanking the Universe that nobody else had walked into restroom yet.

Then he thought about how much he loved libraries, and that book. He winced upon realizing that he would probably associate the book with this uncomfortable incident for a long time. This terrible thought almost brought him back to tears, but then he thought about its author, and how the foibles of his life meant so little when held up against all the work she had put into this story, and the sociopolitical circumstances that informed it. He thanked her for giving him something to feel so passionate about (it wasn’t her fault that passion made him so soft in the head), and thanked whomever invented the library for giving him access to it.

He thought about the victim of his rambling. He thought, with another wave of sick shame, about how he would have been genuinely kind of scared if a stranger had approached him like that. They had been so polite. They clearly didn’t want to hurt his feelings. They could have been much meaner. He thanked them for their grace.

He thought about the pretty girl who seemed to have momentarily taken on the burden of his shame as well. How beautiful, that we are such an empathetic species, even from far away, even when there are no avenues for either party to benefit from the connection. Thank you, universe, for making us like this. Thank you, pretty girl, for braving this world where strangers can affect your feelings for no reason, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Thinking about the cold stares of those less-than-empathetic library patrons, he thanked himself for braving that world too.

By now his breath was slower. His paws still shook, and he found it difficult to stop tearing up, but he was alright, and his thoughts were quieter. He stood and looked into the mirror. His bioluminescence was only just brighter than the gloom of the restroom. Straightening his hair and brushing off his fur, he started working out how to get a sense of resolution from this incident. This kind of thing happened so often. It left him feeling isolated, as if this wasn’t even his home planet. He knew this was fear exaggerating his perceptions though. He knew he wasn’t all bad. There was no way he could somehow make it up to the strangers he affected, but as they were, he was a member of the Universe, and there were other ways he could influence its cycles, and make things better. He’d find a way to pay it forward. He decided this was best considered at home, and that he was pushing his luck with how long he’d been occupying the restroom. He gathered his bag to leave.

He found a note attached to the outside of the bathroom door as he left it. “Out of Order.” The baristas had protected him. Before he could reach the front door, one of them approached him, smiling brightly.

“Riqu!”

He was holding a cardboard box. The plastic viewing window on its top revealed it was full of ru berry muffins.

“Somebody ordered these and never showed up. Would you mind taking them for us?” He offered the gift as if he would be doing him a favor by accepting it, so Riqu took it and said “S-sure…”

The barista, confusingly, said “Thanks a bunch!” before Riqu could thank him first. “Hadn’t seen you in a while,” the energetic barista continued. “We love seeing you around, man. Always coming in with your books. It’s such a vibe. Come by more often, ok?” He heartily thumped Riqu on the back. The contact was more reassuring than he could have imagined.

“Of course. I couldn’t stay away long.”

When he made it out the front door, he couldn’t stop the tears from flowing freely once more. These warm gestures had evaporated any sense of isolation that remained. It seemed he didn’t even need to do anything to deserve this connection; the barista felt he deserved it just by showing up often enough.

He decided almost immediately that the best possible recipients for these muffins were the librarians. Close enough. Wiping his cheeks, he set off back to his previous destination. He hoped the books he had left on the shelf were still waiting for him.