When one faces a constant stream of the unknown and the unusual, then at a point they will lose the enthusiasm of being surprised, will turn numb to the sheer amount of unfamiliarity. Ruha would like to argue that was not the case with him, that he was simply too devoted to going through the script to truly appreciate the novelties of travelling in this future of an unknown number of billions of years, and with good reason too, since the script, even though it was only a partial piece and not the whole thing, was still of a length that Ruha could not have hoped to even finished reading all of it, much less remember everything, if not for the fact that he had multiple memory related neurological and psychological issues, that he had apparently brought over with himself even post-death. As it were, by the time he was to disembark from the… vehicle, because he did not know any similar contraption of earth that could correspond to this thing, Lephis called it dura, and Ruha was not sure if it was a nick name for this particular vehicle, or a common name for all vehicle of this nature, and by that he meant a three dimensional polygenic object that glided through air and had more room on the inside than was obvious from the outside – Ruha was so overwhelmed with the amount of information he had registered on this travel, and with the constant flow of data from his brain accompanying these large amount of stimuli – that he was past numbness, and facing the risk of passing out from another migraine attack if he could not silence his head.

“I will wait outside.” Lephis told him, nodding at what Ruha supposed was the entrance. It looked like a wall of water… or mercury, actually, flowing upwards. “Once you enter, you should see further instructions on your SPIRIT.”

Ruha nodded, then hesitated, before saying, “You don’t have to wait. I want to try going back by myself. This… er… it drives automatically, right?”

“Yes.” Lephis braught forward his own SPIRIT, a silver design embedded in his skin on the back of his left hand. “Then… here, scan the key. When returning you just need to select the destination you are going to, here, this is the address book, see?”

Ruha watched carefully, a bit wry at how easily Lephis agreed to let him handle this… dura, it really doesn’t look like a car and had it not been self-driven, I wouldn’t the first thing about driving this thing, despite his obvious awareness that Ruha had never driven before.

“If you feel confused about any part of handling the dura, or your SPIRIT, call me.” A six fingered palm patted Ruha’s head, brushing through his hair for a moment. Lephis had insisted of leaving his hair untied – the people at audition may want to give you a minor make-up or dress change, it is best to keep yourself in the most natural condition so that they know what they are working with – Ruha had not understood why tying his hair would take away from the natural condition, till he had seen other people while in the drive. The ones whose head embellishments could come close to what he considered hair often kept the said part of their body in shapes and forms that… Ruha decided he loved open hair, he absolutely adored keeping open hair. And the few, very few individuals whom he saw with recognisably humanoid structure, including hair, all kept their tresses long and open, similar to Ruha himself.

“My SPIRIT is marked as your emergency contact.” Lephis reminded him.

“I will call if needed.” Ruha smiled at his caretaker, whose tails had gone back to whipping back and forth in a quick movement, that Ruha supposed was a marker for both delight that Ruha was capable of being independent, and also a result of worry at leaving Ruha alone.

An authentic example of overprotective yet very capable parent. Just a few billion years after that particular species of parenthood existed in earth.

Nodding in farewell, Ruha breathed out a small sigh and neared the veil of uninterrupted liquid flowing upwards. As he neared it, a small beep came from his SPIRIT, and the veil rippled slightly, one area reversing the flow and starting to move downwards. Ruha stepped through that portion, half expecting to get wet, and was relieved when he emerged completely dry, in a large circular hall like structure where he could see a number of other… people sitting and walking around, very likely other participants for the audition, despite their varied specie, from the extensive types of bodies present, because Ruha could see, even from afar, his perceptions and sense organs had a greater range and accuracy now, something he had noticed as soon as waking up, a black metal with symbols, numbers, from his quickly spinning brain, attached to… well, everyone did not have a recognisable hand, so… better to call those forelimbs.

It was similar to the metal token hanging on his own wrist, that has appeared the moment he had come through the liquid veil… portal? door?

Ruha looked around, found an empty bench. Walking over to it, he found, to his great delight at the moment of sitting down, an automatic backrest rising up, and both the seat and the backrest were quite fluffy and squishy, though Ruha kept his brain firmly from talking about what kind of material it was.

He was finally getting control of his brain, though the progress was slow.

He sat there for a moment, looking around, and then got up again. Walking over to a round couch where two people with antlers were sitting with a bunch of electronic pages strewn over their laps, Ruha extended the black token, mimicking the action from another person who had just come in through the liquid veil.

“Twenty nine… Ruha, right?” One of the antler person ran their SPIRIT over his token, smiling slightly as they looked up.

“Yes.” Ruha smiled back, taking the token that they returned. The other antler person pulled out a page from their SPIRIT and handed it to Ruha.

“Its to keep a record of the attendees.” They explained, as Ruha blinked at the page hovering in his palm, before waving his SPIRIT over it. The page with gold luminescence blipped a blue light thrice in quick succession, before forming a copy of itself. Ruha watched as the new copy touched his SPIRIT and vanished… er, no, entered his SPIRIT… and the original was taken back by the antler person.

“When you go in for your turn remember to give only the token to Titi – ah, right, you wouldn’t know – that’s the strigati with the files in audition room.”

“The only one with any files, in fact.” The second antler person added helpfully, looking way too gleeful. “Poor bunbun, and he had a chance to get out of logistics too.”

“Well it can’t be helped.” The first one was more genuinely sympathetic for this absent… bunbun, rabbit? “Tulia asked for that spot, and Titi can’t refuse him anything, ever. Remember to give only the token, now, the receipt is for you to keep.”

Ruha nodded, and smiled again, faintly relieved at getting an opening for leaving the conversation around what increasingly seemed to be this Titi’s poor emotional choices. He returned to his previously chosen squishy chair, looking up as a part of the wall lighted up, someone with five tails exiting from it.

“Eighteen.” An androgynous voice sounded, the number appearing over that lit up area of the wall, and Ruha saw a person with hair like petals and tantacles for lower limbs getting up – he counted nine tentacles before that person disappeared through the walls.

Species, shape, form – none of them seemed to be a criteria for the audition. In his own time Ruha had been familiar with green screen acting that was a necessity for a multitude of non-humanoid forms in movies, particularly for works in speculative genres – he wondered if now some similar technology was used to change the actor’s visual shapes in to the desired form.

Or. He thought, lips twitching at the thought. The audience of this world and time doesn’t care about realistic representations – they only want to see the acting and can appreciate that irrespective of the varied visuals of the actors.

Leaning back against the soft cushion at this back, Ruha returned to the script. The tropes this story played with were not particularly different from what the stories of his past world – in fact, perhaps the greatest unusual factor for him was the span of the film. Though Ruha supposed, that had in it been in his old world – such a story would have been more common in a novel, and would have faced much criticism from the more mainstream readership, given that it was set in a world of shifters, the lead character was firmly in the grey zone of morality – Ruha thought it was leaning more towards darker grey, and that was being generous to this character – and the primary relationship focus was around a pair of half-brothers.

And even his partial script made the highly sexualised nature of most scenes very obvious, along with a large number of scenes showing a variety of penetrative and otherwise sexual interaction between characters. Coupled with the equal density of blood, gore and death present in the scenes – Ruha could guess that the censor board here likely had very different filtration and rating system, that was if a censor board existed at all.

If not for the complicated plot based around social and political hierarchy and the constant movement of character psychology that were the core of the story, based only on the scene descriptions, Ruha would have thought he came to act in a porn film.

As it were, he found himself wishing he could have access to the whole script. The character growth of the most characters were obvious even in this partial script, but naturally he could not appreciate the entirety of their psyche without knowing all the characters equally. And that was another part that he loved about this script – each character had to be understood from other characters’ perspective of theirs, what they themself felt was nearly always an amalgamation or a reflection, often both, of the other characters’ perception of them. Likely that was why even for a minor character’s audition the script was this long – the character Ruha was supposed to represent was meant to be a parallel of another major character in the lead character’s eyes, and so Ruha’s script, along with an overview of the part preceding his scenes, also included several scenes for the lead and this other major character.

Ruha could tell that these scenes were chosen carefully, meant to be the key for creating the parallel in his character depiction.

He really wanted to see the whole thing.

Perhaps, if he could successfully get in the crew, he could ask someone to help him get one. Minor roles like this did not have much chance to make such requests, but from the antler people he saw earlier, Ruha thought this crew is likely to be a friendly one, and may not mind his request. And if his acting was suitable enough for this world for him to pass the audition, he knew he would be good enough to satisfy the director.

It depended on taste, at this point. Ruha knew nothing of this world’s preference or demands for acting techniques. All he could present was what he had known in his old world – but given the story had enough familiar nature for him to consider where such a story would have found a market in his previous life, Ruha was reasonably confident that the aesthetics of this world was something he could grasp hold of.

He wondered, absentminded suddenly, who would be playing the lead. This was one of the more complex characters Ruha had ever come across – not a hero, for most of his actions could not be considered ethical or moral, irrespective of whether its in the context of the spectator’s world, or the world in the movie. But he was not an anti-hero either, certainly not a villain, for each of his actions had a long inheritance of injustice against himself, and was needed for him to exist as himself.

Ruha suddenly realised that in his hurry to get his new found life moving, and to avoid thinking about his present situation, he had completely neglected doing any research regarding the industry he was trying to enter. While he supposed that it would have to be an actor with proven capability, he knew nothing of the kind of saturation there was in this entertainment industry of this world.

Reminding himself to check up on at least a general overview of the situation after returning, Ruha looked down at the script again, sighed and closed his SPIRIT. He could barely focus on the written words now, firstly because he was too involved in fine-tuning the psyche of the character he would be presenting soon, and secondly because he did not need to look at it again. In fact, right after going over it once, Ruha could have recited the entirety of the piece of script he had, punctuations and footnotes included.

He had always thought this was more connected to his physical body, than with his mind, but since carrying that ability past death and rebirth, Ruha had had to reconsider.

He did not know the exact source of this. The doctors he had consulted had told him it was a combination of hyperthemesia and eidetic memory. A few had mentioned that it could be related to his synaesthesia. None had been able to give him a solution.

At least the doctors acknowledged that exceptional memory, irrespective of the exact nature of scientific name, was more trouble than it was worth, particularly in a case like his, where Ruha remembered, was incapable of forgetting or having the memory fade the slightest bit from the exact moment when it was forming in the first place, every infinitesimal fraction of any given second in his life.

Life in a literal sense. Ruha could not fall into deep sleep. Could not faint, could not be hypnotised – or rather, his body could be, but his senses would stay awake, and record everything for him in real time sans any control on any of his limbs and organs.

At times he had wondered that he was not insane. At other times he had been certain of being insane.

Ruha had not tried to fall asleep after coming here, but given the familiar capacity of his brain that only seemed to expand upon rebirth, he had little hope of finding any success here either.

“…known this, then we would not have tried at all.”

“True, true. With Lylan here, none of us have a chance at all.”

Ruha blinked, startled out of his reverie at the loud voices. In a couch diagonally to his left, five or six people surrounded one person who was laughing at the words spoken just now.

“Really now, Tianni.” The person in the centre – Ruha guessed that was the Lylan the prior speaker was touting, male humanoid, from his voice and shape, in fact Ruha could not identify his non-human characteristics from here, so he could be a future version of humankind for all he knew – spoke, voice clearly satisfied. “Winning an audition depends on the director’s taste, you know.”

“Anyone with eyes would know that you are best person for this.”

“Right? You don’t have to be so polite with us, we have also been in this field for a few years now, everyone can see for whom this role is.”

Ruha stared blankly at this conversation before looking away, lips twitching despite himself.

Apparently, foot licking to climb up existed here as much as it had on earth.

“You, are you a new one?”

Ruha wondered if he had stared at that group for too long to receive this attention, and reminded himself not to give in to his inner desire of rolling his eyes. Looking at the speaker’s irritated eyes – four eyes, two on each side of the nose, her nose, because this person’s figure was rather like a humanoid female’s – Ruha wondered if his face gave away his feelings.

“Can’t you talk?” This one had a tail and cat ears. Ruha could not figure out the gender.

“Who is your agent?” The first one seemed impatient now. Ruha sighed to himself.

“No agent.” He said.

Someone scoffed at the words. “Twenty nine, right?” The cat eared one glanced at the token on him, laughing. “Right after Lylan.”

Ruha looked at the said silent figure at the centre. “Wish you luck.”

“You!” Ruha could not figure out which one had made the snarl. “What do you mean?”

“Forget it.” Ruha watched as Lylan snorted, finally making a sound. “Its good for newbies to be confident.”

Ruha watched him standing up. The black token was gleaming, likely the signal that it was his turn now.

“Of course, overconfidence can be rather self-defeating.” He heard the drawl passing by him, the voice twisting for a moment, obviously irritated that Ruha wasn’t watching him. “You still have the chance to learn this lesson early in your career, though, so I will congratulate you beforehand.”

“You are too kind, a thing like this, why waste your breath?”

“Yeah, like he would know to be grateful.”

“What are you saying? Lylan is so kind, what can we do?”

Now I am sure these group have human genes. Ruha thought to himself, trying not to laugh. Perhaps some of them are even full humans.

Feeling quite cheerful at the familiarity, Ruha flicked at his SPIRIT, checking if it needed to be silenced, or if that was the default. He flipped through all the functions, mind mostly on the character he would present soon. By now he had a clear image of the role, could fall in to it at any moment.

After a while, he was not certain how long, Ruha saw his token lighting up. Getting up, he saw the group from before was watching him, and laughing to themselves, still huddled around their leader, who seemed to have returned just now.

They might have said something to him, though Ruha did not pay attention, walking through the lit up part of the wall – checking that his number was showing up on the top of it – he walked in, coming to stand in another circular room, divided halfway through with thick blue glass, and Ruha could see the silhouette of about five or six people through it, three sitting and others standing around.

On this side of the divider there was a desk where a person… this is Titi, right?

He, because the antler people said it’s a he, indeed had certain similarities with rabbit, in fact his body, though standing upright, was covered with white fluff like that of a rabbit and had the same glasslike eyes and the long ears of that small mammal from earth – though his ears was were three pairs instead of one, and his eyes were a bright electric blue rather than red. Also, he had wings, bird like, with feathers and all, also three pairs, that were significantly larger than his actual body size, though, Ruha thought, that wasn’t saying much, considering this bunbun is only upto the height of my waist.

“Token?”

His voice was like a child’s. Ruha went forward, handing him the token, watching as the rabbit scanned it quickly over a machine, and Ruha’s SPIRIT glowed once in response.

“Best of luck.” The rabbit, Titi, smiled at him, looking up. His teeth were not like rabbit’s though, if anything, it was like that of a feline. “Do you want to rub my head for luck?”

Ruha blinked, opened his mouth, closed it, looking at the eager look and the tilted forward head of the waist high rabbit person, Strigati, he reminded himself; bowing down, he rubbed the fluffy head gently, scratching behind the ears.

It was as soft as it looked, and from the pleased whine from the rabbit, the fluffball enjoyed it too.

“You are very good.” Titi grinned up. “Do your best, I hope you will join us in the crew.”

“Are you harassing this one too?”

Ruha turned around. The voice had come from behind the glass. Titi grumbled at the voice.

“I am not.” He called back, lowering his voice and muttering, “You are just jealous you didn’t get rubbed. Well, see you later.” The last bit was at Ruha.

Nodding and smiling in response, Ruha walked past the divider. He was already falling in his character’s skin, pushing away all straying thoughts. The room was wider on this side of the glass divider, more than Ruha had expected. The walls were all glass from floor to ceiling, with silent water gliding down constantly, the fountain likely set on the outer side. On the wall directly opposite to where Ruha was standing, several large chaises were set, and all three of its occupants were watching him.

Ruha knew he should be greeting them, should introduce himself. As it were, he could not move his eyes from where it first fell, dragged almost out of his own will as though captive to a magnetic force of the same magnitude that had kept his earth tilted on an unwavering axis.

This person was the closest to a human that Ruha had seen till now, somehow feeling it within himself that they were the same kind. Yet, he was the most alien, otherworldly among everything he has known as well, and not only for the strange attraction that was keeping Ruha’s attention bound. It was that familiarity. Ruha knew he could not have seen him in his previous life, or even anyone similar to him – for nothing and no one could come close to be compared to this man. And his brain and memories, that had not truly fell silent till he had come here, was finally empty of all thought, was blank of everything but a sense of connection to this complete stranger that seemed to vibrate within Ruha’s bone marrows.

 

 

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Thank you for reading, and you can read it from my blog, here, if you want to read ahead by 2-3 early chapters. I am also translating I Heard That I am Poor in the same blog, and there are other shorter works as well (like this) so do drop by if you are interested.

 

You can follow me at @Sphinxdroid. 

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