“Welcome to the house of imagination!” Vince greeted us.

When we entered the house, I saw that Kyran was already waiting for us. Vince’s house looked more like a studio than a residence. From the main entrance onwards, there were rows of cabinets and shelves stacked with many tools, drawing equipment, and finished paintings, taking up every space on the three walls. The other side of the room opened up onto the terrace and gave a nice view of a small canal. In the middle of the room stood a big wooden desk that Vince used for his artwork, and I could see a dining table on the terrace. The room looked quite spacious even though it was filled with lots of stuff, which was a stark contrast to Uma’s house where the room was so small that two people couldn’t even walk past each other.

“Today, we have to celebrate the occasion of someone who is about to become a new great-grandfather, ha ha ha!” Vince belted out cheerfully, obviously in a good mood, and nodding to Kyran, who was standing in front of him with a big smile.

“My granddaughter is so beautiful. I’m really happy that a new being will be born by you,” Kyran went to hug Koharu.

“Thanks a lot, Grandpa,” she replied coyly.

“This dress is perfect for a beautiful bride like you,” said Vince.

“I took it from Cher’s shop and Uma gave me this necklace and these earrings,” Koharu said happily.

“I think one can hardly have any fun in this world; we can’t surprise anyone at all because you already know everything, even the baby in Koharu’s womb,” I said, joining the conversation.

“Well … right. You must then have a lot of fun in your world,” Vince seemed excited to talk about this topic.

“Well, if we don’t want to inform anyone anything, then no one will know,” I said.

“That is very hilarious indeed, ha ha ha!” he continued to laugh.

“But it can also be a problem because information can also be concealed for a purpose,” I explained.

“Oh heavens! That’s very naughty!” said Vince.

“Be that as it may, shall we enjoy our dinner together?” Vince invited everyone to sit down and brought a big pot of soup to the table.

Dinner consisted of a thick broth and a large tray of fruits so beautifully and daintily arranged that it looked like a sculpture.

“I may not be able to eat much because I’m still full. Incidentally, who prepared this fruit tray? It looks so exquisite,” I remarked.

“I made that. No one else lives here other than me alone,” replied Vince.

“Don’t you have a wife and children?” I asked.

“I’m still waiting for them to join me, ha ha ha!”

“Join you from where? Who are they?”

“Well ….” Vince looked thoughtful, as if he hadn’t heard these questions before.

“They are from your planet, actually, my wife was my lover when I was living there,” he answered.

“When did you live on my planet? And please forgive me if I have intruded upon your personal affairs,” I told him.

“Oh, never mind, I’m a curious person, too. Well, let me think … it must have been around 500 years ago,” he replied.

“It is all coming back now, and thank you for bringing this subject up because I had hardly given it much thought,” said Vince.

“And where is your wife now?” I continued to press on.

“So … she had had two reincarnations after we had parted. Now, in her current life, she is an art historian and a museum curator, and she’s also the most knowledgeable expert on all of my artworks,” Vince said.

“Who is she? And why are you still waiting for her when there are so many women on this planet?” I continued asking.

“Good question, let’s see…” he left the sentence unfinished. It looked like he trying to find the answer by touching his temples with his index and middle fingers.

“At that time when we first met, she wasn’t my legitimate wife,” he went on, after a short while. “She was the wife of a wealthy seafarer who had traveled to faraway lands and never came back. She was in a pitiable state and her eyes were always sad. Our relationship started when I was hired to draw her portrait. We were so much head over heels and we promised to love each other forever. Although the relationship ended shortly after, it was very meaningful to me.” The story emerged little by little.

“So, who is she?” I insisted.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked ominously.

“Well …” I hesitated, caught a bit off guard by his question. “Yes, I do want to know.”

“Until today, she still doesn’t even know that she’s looking at her own portrait every single day. The painting that I did of her in her previous life is currently exhibited in the museum where she works. Therefore, it is not surprising why she felt she has so strong a bond with the woman in that painting. Throughout her whole life she has remained stuck in her past, trapped in the cycle of reincarnation in that world, and unable to free herself,” Vince explained.

I noticed that while he was telling his story, his eyes, which had been shining with joy before, had turned into sadness.

“I’m sorry I brought this up, I didn’t intend to make you sad,” I said.

“Oh, please don’t feel sorry,” Vince said with slightly teary eyes, “I have to thank you for asking me, instead. If you hadn’t asked these questions, I wouldn’t have focused my thoughts on searching for answers. It’s better this way, but I feel sad because I realised that the other person in our relationship is stuck in her ignorance which has caused her to repeat the cycle of death and rebirth over and over again for so long, and I can’t do anything at all to help her,” he explained.

“So, how long do you still have to wait for her?” I asked.

“That depends entirely on her alone, and whether she wishes to be free,” Kyran jumped in to explain, “And when the day comes for her to choose, only she alone will know if she can even fulfill her expectations. At this stage, she doesn’t even know that she has the choice to be free from living a life dominated by fear.”

“In our previous life when we were in a relationship, her name was Lisa, but now her name is Alisa.” Vince went on.

“Eureka! Now I know the answer!” Vince exclaimed, jumping up suddenly.

“It has just dawned on me why I have always loved drawing pictures of a man and woman hugging each other; their gestures of their embrace and the poses of their muscular and beautiful body give me enjoyment. I’ve now learned that this recurring motif represents my hope and desire to meet my destined soulmate,” gushed Vince.

I turned to look at Vince’s paintings, some were hanging on different walls, while others were either placed upright on the floor or leaned against the wall. Every picture showed a man and a woman either embracing each other, holding hands, snuggling, or striking similar poses, as he had claimed. The differences between these various pictures were their compositions like the poses, the colours, or the details in the background.

“This is the latest painting that I’ve started today after getting an inspiration while watching you and Koharu,” Vince said and turned to remove a sheet that covered an unfinished painting.

It was a pencil sketch that had to be refined, but it was enough to visualise what it would look like when completed. It showed a young woman, in a long dress that seemed to be blowing in the wind, holding the hand of a young man and both seemed to be running, but I couldn’t see her face as she had her back turned towards him. It seemed that she was taking him somewhere to show him something special, and it was quite evident that the picture was inspired by Vince’s latest fashion models, Koharu and me, as the dress that the woman in the sketch was wearing looked very similar to the one that Koharu had just got.

“So, you always paint the same motif …” I commented, more to myself than to Vince.

“Kyran, can I ask you something?” I said, turning to him.

“Of course, what do you want to know?” he replied.

“Well … Vince was born on this planet because he had successfully raised the level of his consciousness and had gotten rid of all his burdens before, right? So, if he doesn’t have any unresolved issues, why then does he still have this strong bonding commitment to his former lover?” I asked.

“Let me try and explain,” Kyran answered, “it’s not about a commitment that needs to be repaid, it’s a matter of waiting for each other to return to the location of their origin together. Actually, Tuengra is like an exit door to Sunyata, or, as we also call it, the land of emptiness. But in order to go back, everyone must wait for the other members to reunite as a soul group, before they can leave and go back to the source.”

“The whole group? Do you mean that there are more people?” I asked.

“Yes, this depends on the number of people who made the plan and aligned it together when they left Sunyata. They have to come back in the exact same number of people as when they left.”