The Creature and the Spy

13: The Festival

The taxi driver adviced that it would be best if we don't try to squeeze into the university party blocking the road. The students of Universite de Geneve thought their school yard is not big enough for a festival. I have no idea what festival this is, though in my opinion, it doesn't look like a random rave party. Students have colors on their faces and ribbons on their chests. As they dance to the modern pop music of this time, they wave different colors of sashes. Some machine from the campus' top floor throw colorful translucent confettis; the kind of newly invented confettis that evaporate within 12 hours.

It's colorful and festive. The taxi driver even suggested that I visit the festival for kicks. He added that this festival is very widely known throughout Europe. It is called the 'Human Rights Festival'. A festival established back in 2025 followed by the allegations of illegal human experimentations inside the university, conducted by doctors and professors. Also, the university is situated in the same city as CERN, which has been romanticized by conspiracy theorists as 'the doom of humanity' with their 'dangerous' atom collider. The taxi driver cleared that they were mere conspiracies, and the student body probably used that as an excuse to have an elaborate univeristy party.

I paid the taxi driver and went out of the taxi stucked in the street. The students are kind enough not to bump me, or maybe that's really their nature. I hear the Swiss are really particular about personal spaces unlike the French.

I dived into the crowd, trying my best to get to a place to sit and eat. It
took some time to get in the middle since the place is packed. Students are all-over the place, though not as wild as to shout around with their shirts off. This is still a place of standard education and people are still decent.

At the covered path way beside the campus, I saw a group of people in laboratory gowns, men and women alike, talking about something as they walk out of the university building. They are way too serious-looking to fit in the crowd of partying students, and way too old-looking to be a part of the student body. They look like professors and doctors in different races, wearing slacks or pajamas, button down or simple blouses and tees, and they have intellectual deportment. Right in the middle of the group is a tall asian man who has an exotic mix of any race. He can tell you he's Russian, you would believe him. He can tell you he's American, Swiss, Mediterrenian, East Asian, South East Asian, South Asian, you would believe him. His probable human gene pool is all over the place, perhaps because he's not even human.

The afternoon is beginning to lose its yellow sun glow. The sun is retreating to the horizon, making itself a color of wonderful orange, bathing everything with it. The sun hit his face, reminding me of the time when the same color hit his face while we walk on the paddy fields. His tall human form is way too unforgettable.

"Araki..." I finally whispered to myself. I don't know what to feel. I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm excited. It's my first time seeing him after a year. Somehow, my emotions are way too mixed. I want to slap him, I want to hug him, I want to cry to his chest, I want to hit his manhood, and most of all, I want to know what he's up to.

I squeezed through the crowd. They easily let me pass as I flail my arms without even saying 'excuse me'.

"Araki!" I shouted. Some of the students heard me, so they easily gave me a path. (Such nice people. Europe sure is different). I began to walk faster across.

"Araki!" I shouted again. This time, he glanced at my direction.

Everything muted. His human eyes stare at me as if seeing a ghost. He excused himself from the people he is with, and began walking towards my direction. The confettis are still falling from the sky, the colored sashes are being waved around, but those things did not successfully block our vision from each other.