1 Sudden changes

Just past 20 o'clock when Tetsuya Renrike was admitted to the hospital. With very deep marks and injuries the doctors immediately communicated to the family the reduced chances of survival that their loved one had. But well, starting at the beginning, to explain to you how it all happened.

Little past 5:00 p.m. when Tetsuya left home for rehearsals for his theater group, he was the playwright of the company to which he belonged. Given that this position occupied him much of his free time, Renrike had usually come home only around dinner time. This time it was no different, the clock was ticking at 7:30 a.m. when his mother Tetsuya Fujida received a call from his son informing her that he was already on his way home.

When watching the time pass and no sign of his son Fujida decides to call all friends, to confirm if he could eventually be in someone's house, which was not confirmed. Apprehensive decides to call the police stations and hospitals in the area, but again no luck in the search. It is then that around nineteen hours and fifty minutes, when a neighbor calls her informing her that Renrike was among the injured in a road accident.

Fujida runs out of the house to see her son's health, coming up against a scenario that no mother deserves to see.

Renrike had been hit by a truck that was lost due to the rain that was felt, while trying to stop the handman abruptly, the driver also lost himself in serious condition with deep injuries, in turn Renrike had his right arm trapped under the heavy wheels that made him. With his body covered in blood and his clothes soaked by a small sea of blood around him.

-My son, someone who helps my son.- was screaming, his desperate mother to see the pitiful state her son was in.

The people around them looked incredulously at the young man's condition and his mother's fateful despair.

- Ma'am, we're sorry, but you're going to have to walk away. It will only get in the way of our work.- warned the firefighter clearly apprehensive.

- No, let me be with my son.- she was crying his mother in tears.

- Get this lady away from here, so we can start the rescue operation.- ordered the fireman.

Two men lift Fujida away from that catastrophic scenario and trying to calm her down.

After a few minutes, Renrike's body was pulled from under that truck and transported urgently to the hospital. And that's how it all happened so far.

-By the way, I haven't even introduced myself yet. My name is Renrike Tetsuya, I am a character, writer and creator of this work. The truth is, I don't really remember what happened in the moments after the accident, but I vaguely remember waking up in an operating room and being transported to the recovery room. My mom's crying and snotting right now thinking I'm dead, and maybe she's even right, and I've been seeing my body down there for a few good hours. Throughout my life I have always been a great believer in the theories of soul eternity, but I never expected to be able to feel them in my own skin. Honestly, it's a strange feeling like a soul that wanders the world, and you see your body lying in a hospital bed connected to machines for all that is in place. Well anyway, I think it's best to get back to my body. You see the man in white who just came into the room and is talking to my mother's weeping? Well, he's the doctor who was responsible for me. I heard the nurses say that he was one of the best in Japan and that few were the lives he couldn't save.

- Mrs Fujita, I'm sorry to inform you, but your son is unlikely to recover from this accident.

-How so? -What do you mean? What do you mean doctor?

- Well, to begin with, the damage he suffered was extremely severe and if he does eventually wake up, it's unlikely he'll regain the full motor skills he had before. The nerves in his right arm and leg were completely crushed, and I suspect that not even with a prosthesis could he recover his basic autonomy.

- But is there a chance he'll wake up again then?

- Yes there are, but they are almost nil.

- How much more precisely, Doctor?

- Right now with the tests that have been done on him, post-operation, I would say the chances of him surviving this are less than 2%.- says the doctor lowering his head.

He had known the impact these words have on a mother, devastated to see her son in such a complicated situation like this.

Fujida could hardly believe what she had just heard. Those last words that came out of the doctor's mouth, were like big punches in her stomach, it was bad enough for a mother to see her son in a coma in a hospital bed, connected to several wires that were keeping him alive, even worse was the situation when she heard the doctor say that he would hardly wake up again.

- It pains me a lot, standing here watching my mother's pain and not being able to do anything to ease it...

At that moment a large beam of light went on, blinding Renrike's vision.

Not knowing exactly how much time had passed, the young man opened his eyes again, to his astonishment, he was no longer a mere soul wandering the world, his spiritual body and his physical body were connected again.

- I think I hit my head!" exclaimed Renrike, not understanding what was happening - what a strange dream, I saw myself lying on a hospital bed, hooked up to machines and out of nowhere, I seem to have gone back to my body, but in a place that looks nothing like a hospital - he exclaimed, intrigued by the succession of events that had just occurred.

Renrike looks around and finds himself lying on a long leather-lined sofa, inside something that looked immensely like a small wooden hut. In front of him was a small wooden table placed on an arraiolos rug of red and cream tones, there was also a small fireplace in a small corner of what at first glance looked like a living room. He got up and started walking around the small wooden house looking for a clue that would tell him where he was. Approaching a small square window at the back of the room, he started to peek around looking for something familiar that could serve as a reference point.

-How strange," commented Renrike, intrigued by the whole situation, "I could almost swear that the last time I remember I was in the hospital bed, but this is absolutely nothing like Tokyo, have I died and gone to heaven?

Suddenly, many voices appeared from outside, it was a party sound, very similar to the ones Renrike had studied in the old works of Dumas and Camões. He decided to go out to the street to see where all the commotion was coming from. When he left the small house, Renrike went down some stairs that led him to the door of the building where his house was located. The streets were dirty and nauseous, but extremely lively and crowded, everywhere there were people dressed strictly in costumes from past centuries, and some in more current costumes, he then arrived at a large square overlooking a small river, at first sight those could well be the streets of Lisbon before the city was shaken by the earthquake of 1755, but on the other hand, the costumes, the small river, reminded Renrike of the description made by Alexandre Dumas in "The Three Musketeers".

Renrike remembered the description in detail because it was one of the last plays he had rewritten and reinvented for his theatre company.

He then approached a man with beards, dressed in a grey overcoat. The physical image of that man for some reason reminded him of some author who had already researched for his works.

With a half-confused and clumsy air, Renrike asked him:

- Good morning, sir, can you tell me where we are?

The man looked from above to below with an intrigued air and then answered him:

- You're not from here, are you young?

Renrike nods to him saying no.

I can't remember how I got here, or where I am.

Passing your hand through your dense beard.

- Tell me something young, have you recently been in a situation that could endanger your life?

- Well, now that you mention it, I remember having an accident, and being in a coma in a hospital bed, I remember seeing my body lying on it while my mother cried rivers and rivers of tears.

- I understand...- said the thoughtful man - what do you call yourself young?

- Tetsuya Renrike, and you?- questioned.

- Antero de Quental.

Renrike takes his hand to his chin trying to remember where he had heard that name, and it is then that he gives him a memory of his literary research through his mind.- Sorry you are the famous poet and philosopher Portuguese responsible for the creation of the literary work "Modern Odes"?- questioned Renrike incredulous.

- Very famous I'm not sure if I am, now the creator and writer of "Modern Odes" , yes, it's me.

Pensive Renrike draws a theory in his mind.

- Mr. Antero, can you tell me about how long you've been here in this town?

Putting your hand on your dense beard.

- Well, i don't know how to tell you, young man, but I remember seeing an intense ray of light the moment I committed suicide, since then I've been in this town.

- A ray of light?- shut up for a few seconds with a very concentrated air-- - That's it!- exclaimed.

- Is everything all right, young man?- questioned Antero worried about Renrike's euphoric reaction.

- Everything's great, Mr. Antero, this town is heaven.

- What you say young people, there's no way these dirty, filthy streets are heaven.

- Think of me, sir- - he went on - the moment he committed suicide and his soul broke free from his body appeared a ray of incandescent light that made him fall asleep, and when he woke up he was in a city never before seen, with people with whom he had never crossed before.

- Well, now that you mention it, I remembered another very important point. A few years ago a beautiful lady of her name, Sophian Andresen, came to town, with exactly the same theory you have had now. According to her, this place was the sky of literature. And that all the authors would gather here after his death.

- And where is this beautiful lady now?

- Well precisely I do not know, but today is the day of the book fair in the market of Saint-Germain so we could assume that very important figures of the city there will be marking their presence.

So what do we wait for? Let's not waste any more time and we're going to Saint-Germain, Renrike exclaimed enthusiastically about the idea of going along with big names in world literature.

- But young warning, if I were you, I wouldn't have raised high expectations of the veracity of your theory.

Renrike stopped a few steps ahead, and turned again in the direction of Antero.

-So what if my theory is right or wrong, just thinking about being able to share the same space that some of my greatest inspirations already get up my blood through my body, I already feel the tip of my hair smoking.- renrike said sketching a wide, contagious smile that ran all over his face.

He then began to rush through the crowd, completely forgetting Antero.

- Just imagining myself with people like Shakespeare, Dumas, Camões and so many, my heart is already pounding at five hundred an hour. This is like a dream come true, this is the paradise of culture, that is... SPECTACULAR!- cried Renrike in the crowd and sea of people who filled the narrow streets of the marble stone sidewalk.