The streets were packed with traffic. A crowded bus traveled from the outskirts toward the city center, and there he was: Tycho, holding a backpack he could not put on his back. Inside were last night’s packed meal and an old loaf of bread split in half. On the bus, everyone was nervous; passengers shouted at the driver. It was only five in the morning.
Tycho still had another hour and a half before reaching Hephaestus’s electronics repair shop. He held tightly to the medal his brother had given him on Ceres, a reminder of a land that seemed like heaven on Earth. He had surrendered his autonomy in exchange for obedience to Mother Ceres. He was somewhat pale, losing weight, determined to sacrifice nutrition and comfort to earn a few coins in exchange for freedom.
He was discovering that freedom outside Ceres was paid for with crumbs. Money was the god of men who cried out for freedom. They paid to have it like an addictive drug—something that worked without nourishing them, like instant noodles.
A woman in front of him was holding a child in her arms. She looked worried; the child had a fever. It was incredible how, in that environment, any cold spread so quickly, infecting everyone. The smells mingled—citrus perfumes, watermelon, sweat. A stressful environment, a free sample of freedom. But there were citizens at the mercy of assistance, sick children, a sick society, sick jobs.
Tycho looked at the ceiling: “Mother Ceres was right.” He smiled. His mother was watching over him, or so he imagined, a hope greater than any promise of returning to Ceres. He had forged a false identity—or was it really false?—and, at that moment, he imagined a skull split in two. He was thirteen, almost fourteen. Tycho smiled at the image; inwardly, he thought: “That bastard deserved it!”
Looking at the horizon through the scribbled window, he read: “Mother Ceres, you bitch!” A drawing of a penis crossed the leader’s mask. Tycho smiled again, because he had lived in heaven and had been torn from it by the envy of others. He felt that envy was not wanting what someone else had, but subjugating someone who had something inferior.
Tycho was transforming. But all of this happened while the bus had not even left the stop.
Hours later, Tycho got off the bus. Another young man got off at the same time, and they bumped into each other. Tycho did not want a fight, but the other young man spoke while spitting. Instinctively, Tycho struck him in the head with his old backpack, the metal lunchbox inside it, punched him in the eye, and knocked him out on the spot. He muttered quietly:
— Mother Ceres, who feeds us, educates us, and punches you!
No one in the street stopped; everyone continued with their lives. After all, time is money. Tycho looked at the intact lunchbox inside his backpack and said:
— I work for this. Fighting for a durable metal lunchbox, for so little and almost nothing.
He walked through the streets. Shopkeepers were beginning to open their stores; dirty streets, the smell of steam and garbage mixed with the morning coffee. A man opened his shop and threw cold water on the homeless people in front of it. Freedom was there: the man wanted it to be something flammable, but it was only water. The homeless people, frightened, complained. Some cried and shouted:
— Why did you do that, man? I just wanted to sleep! I didn't hurt anyone!
Men like that hide their character within this system. But the truly cruel one is not the system—it is merely an algorithm of our mediocrity, our hopelessness. The system only ensures that you do not starve to death or get killed by someone who is hungrier than you.
That was why Tycho had knocked down the young man his own age. As he walked, he imagined the open skull, laughing with delight:
— The bastard deserved it.
On his route, Tycho walked past the side of an impressive piece of graffiti: Mother Ceres with her hands extended, painted on a wall three meters high and thirty meters wide. In the middle stood Tycho, alone, wishing that Mother would return him to her. Facing the graffiti was Hephaestus’s shop.
Tycho entered and climbed the stairs. It was a small shop in the corner, specializing in repairing radios and electronics in general. But Tycho was no longer Tycho. Here, he was Alter Nomen. He removed his badge and clocked in.
Hephaestus Alencastro, the shop owner, looked at him:
— Good morning, Alter.
— Good morning, Hephaestus! — he smiled, genuine in appearance, but rotten inside.
— The customer liked the repair on that old radio. It's his prized possession. He was impressed by the precision and the new parts you created.
— You're welcome. It was the best I could do. Those parts don't exist anymore.
— I knew your father long before he died, during that search to destroy Ceres. He was like you: creative, but he used it the wrong way. — Hephaestus paused. — There's coffee, if you want it, and fresh bread. Help yourself.
Alter was Tycho, and his stomach growled. He remembered the cakes his brother used to save for him to eat whenever he could. He refused the coffee, but said he would have some later if there was time. Piles upon piles of radios awaited repair, along with a blender that needed attention.
Hephaestus was an old man, seventy-five years old, blind in one eye. Fair, born from a rotten womb in Arcadia, he worked like a condemned man to pay his bills. The walls of the shop were covered with diplomas and qualifications—tombstones of a talent that had become a curse. The market has no place for old men.
There was a fish in the aquarium. Sometimes, Alter cleaned the tank. The aquarium was the rotten womb; the fish was Hephaestus. And the cleaning done by Alter was Ceres's ideology sweeping away the world's dirt: freedom without care, but still alive.
Hephaestus picked up a pencil. The sound of wood scratching against paper seemed to echo through the silent shop. He pointed, drew lines, and began doing calculations. Each figure seemed to carry the weight of time.
— I received quite a bit for the radio you repaired — he said, his voice firm but not harsh. — I gave you 25% for the work, plus another 5% bonus. This repair will keep the shop going for months. That radio had been here for years. It belonged to an old man's prized possession, something his father had given him during the wars.
Alter hesitated, instinctively stepped back, but eventually accepted. Hephaestus was too old for greed; the world had already made him pay its price. There was no one left—his children had joined the Arcadian army, consumed by this sick obsession with justice, against Ceres and against Mother Ceres.
Alter looked around. The smell of burnt metal from the radios, the dust on the shelves, the faint smell of the fish in the aquarium—all of it seemed to pulse like distant memories of Ceres. He asked, almost in a whisper:
— And you, Hephaestus, what do you think of Ceres?
The old man sighed. A deep breath, heavy with memories and regrets:
— A dream... a delusion. At least there, old people don't die abandoned. They have hobbies, pastimes. Here, in Arcadia... agony, despair. Every day is a struggle to support yourself and be humiliated by life.
Alter smiled. A shallow, almost theatrical smile, but inside he felt the same emptiness the old man described:
— Tomorrow will be another day.
Hephaestus looked at him, tired eyes reflecting the sunlight entering through the shop's dirty window, between stacks of radios and blenders waiting for repair:
— The closest thing I have to a son now is you, Alter. The rest... they are angry. For ten years, they have been dating death. Or rather, paying installments on a grave where they want to be buried. Even with health of iron, they want to be buried far from their children, and they don't even think of telling them.
Alter lowered his eyes. He touched the edge of the aquarium, cleaning the glass with precise movements. The fish swam slowly, indifferent. The aquarium was the rotten womb of the world, the fish was Hephaestus, and the cleaning Alter performed was Ceres's ideology passing through: clean freedom, but without care. Every radio, every part, every trace of dust seemed to carry echoes of the heaven he had lost.
And Alter, Tycho, felt deep inside that this shop, this old man, this harsh routine... were what remained of humanity in a world that, outside Ceres, charged for freedom in crumbs of metal and sweat.
Amid one soldering job and another, Alter asked:
— What is a grave?
Hephaestus raised an eyebrow.
— As a good Arcadian, you should know.
Alter dodged the question, regretting it:
— I don't know...
The old man laughed, shaking his head:
— It's a place we buy to be buried in, according to religion. It can be in the ground or in compartments, with room for three or more bodies, each in its own wooden coffin. We dress the dead in their best clothes, crowns of flowers...
Alter frowned, soldering a capacitor:
— What do you mean? A wooden coffin, a body inside waiting to decompose underground or in a compartment, dressed in clothes and surrounded by flowers? Wouldn't it be better for the person to receive those things while alive?
— Exactly! — Hephaestus said ironically. — And I paid thirty thousand for it.
They laughed together, the sound echoing among radios and blenders waiting for repair.
Alter asked:
— But after you die, who gets the grave?
— My children. It becomes an inheritance... they'll probably fight over that piece of land, while my decomposing body is still there. — They laughed again.
Hephaestus sighed, looking at the aquarium.
— As far as I know, on Ceres, bodies become compost. Children, young people, adults, old people—all transformed into fertilizer. A dead body is still useful. It's symbolic... Mother Ceres believes that even in death, one can still serve a purpose.
Alter remained silent, soldering capacitors, cleaning a radio circuit board and the blender waiting for repairs.
— I can see that Mother Ceres affects you — he finally said.
— Yes, my dear Alter. Certainly... Didn't you want that too?
The silence stretched on, amid the smell of metal, solder, and oil, while Alter pondered, immersed in his work, each precise movement like someone maintaining control over a world that Litus stubbornly insisted on throwing into disorder.
Hephaestus looked at Alter seriously:
— One more thing: take care of the money I gave you. Be smart. Treat it as you treat your oval-shaped medal. Don't walk around looking like a fool, thinking you're free from the world's evil. You should walk like this, but others don't think that way. Be careful. Don't make a fool of yourself thinking life is won. Thieves follow patterns; look around, be suspicious. There are police in the streets, but fools are the first ones to get robbed.
Alter nodded:
— I'll be careful, always.
— That's right. Don't be careless with your hard-earned money. You have bills and hunger to take care of.
Alter looked at the industrial blender waiting for repair. He saw his reflection in its black casing: sunken eyes, a thin body, marked by the world around him. He took a deep breath, opened the machine, and replaced the parts. Inside the casing, a plate read: “Made in Ceres.”
The pain of longing tightened around him. Beside it, the newly repaired radio carried the same plate: “Made in Ceres.” Alter swallowed his tears, feeling as though Mother were calling him, asking him to return. He exhaled through his nose, trying to regain his composure.
Hephaestus, attentive, said:
— Be careful. I have some cold medicine I made, a syrup I'll give you later. It's very good.
— Yes, I'll take it — Alter replied quietly, still absorbing the memory of what he had lost and the responsibility of what he still had to protect.
Alter finished repairing the blender and left it on the counter. The smell of solder and burnt iron filled the air of the small shop. The sound of tools, the ticking of an old clock, and the distant hum of the city blended into a muffled symphony—the rhythm of survival.
He washed his hands in the sink at the back. The water came out brown, running between his fingers as if carrying away a little of the city. Litus was everywhere—in the dust, in the cracks, in his breathing.
Hephaestus calmly wiped the counter. The slow movement of his wrinkled hands seemed like a prayer.
— You know, Alter — he said without raising his head — I think a lot about the usefulness of things. This radio, this blender... everything has a purpose until it breaks. Then they throw it away. — He paused. — I think we're the same.
Alter looked at him, surprised by his tone.
— You're not something that gets thrown away.
— Ah, boy... — Hephaestus gave a hoarse laugh. — We're all parts. When we stop being useful, the world replaces us. I only remain here because I don't know how to do anything besides repair what can still be repaired.
Alter lowered his eyes. Hephaestus's words pierced him. He thought of Mother Ceres, of how nothing was wasted there—not even bodies. There, even the end served a purpose. Here, the end was simply... the end.
Outside, a siren cut through the air. Hurried footsteps. Shouts. Someone had been caught stealing food—again.
Alter sighed.
— Hephaestus... have you ever thought about leaving this place?
— Where would I go, my boy? — The old man smiled sadly. — Escape is for those who have somewhere to go.
Alter dried his hands, placed the medal around his neck, and stared at the street through the shop window. The sun was rising, dirty and reflected in the cracked windows of the buildings.
For a moment, he imagined the green. The damp smell of the greenhouses, the sound of children laughing in the colonies, the hanging gardens of Ceres. Mother with her hands open over the people.
But the image shattered with the sound of a car horn.
Hephaestus approached, resting a hand on his shoulder.
— Going back, huh? — he asked, as if he could read his thoughts. — Be careful what you wish for, Alter. Sometimes the place we want to return to no longer exists.
Alter simply nodded, his eyes filled with tears.
Mother was still calling him—but now he did not know whether it was a real call or merely the echo of a fading memory.
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