The Grand Delusion

She texted Handsome Man on impulse, the kind of impulse that comes when you've been alone in a medicated haze for days and suddenly remember what it feels like to want something.

"Good morning Handsome Man, what are you doing? Come and visit me."

"I am by the sea, visiting friends, back tomorrow," he replied.

She stared at the message for a long time. By the sea. Not in the mountains. Not in the village. By the sea. She had been trying to reach the seaside for weeks, had walked two miles down a country road toward Handsome Man's house, had stopped mid-journey because she couldn't articulate why she was walking. Had felt summoned and confused simultaneously.

This time, the message was clear.

Monday morning she booked a week's holiday at a random seaside village, packed a wide-brimmed hat she'd purchased at 13's shop (hand-made, he'd claimed with the gravity of someone selling expensive air), and arrived with the kind of energy that comes from surviving months of concrete walls and fluorescent lighting.

She texted Handsome Man upon arrival: "Thank you Handsome, the place you suggested is very nice."

He had not suggested any place. He had simply mentioned being near water.

The narrator pauses here: she was assembling messages from fragments, extracting intention from casualness, treating the landscape itself as a communicative system. Or perhaps, and this is where the irony gets complicated, she was simply testing how much she could ask the world to mean. How much significance she could extract before someone told her to stop.

She fled to the beach like a woman who had just remembered what open space felt like. An hour of walking in flip-flops designed by someone who had never encountered actual human feet. By the time she reached her spot, her feet looked like something from a medieval torture demonstration.

An hour of sun worship on ghost-pale skin that had spent two weeks in a hospital basement.

When she decided to leave and couldn't walk, she lifted her thumb to hitchhike.

A police car passed immediately.

She took this as instruction: too dangerous. Wait for the bus.

The bus arrived empty. The driver smiled at her like they were old comrades from a war she hadn't attended, and refused to take her money.

"Safe all the way," she thought, and meant it literally. The network was operational.

That evening she texted Handsome Man for dinner recommendations.

"There is a restaurant where you have to go, but tonight it's closed. Go there tomorrow. Tonight any restaurant is good."

She sat at the first available table and ordered fish. Faced the evening's crucial decision: "Shall I drink a glass of wine?" Texted him for permission like a teenager asking if she could stay out late.

"Sure you can, it never hurt anybody a glass of wine," he texted back.

She drank it. Celebrated the liberation with fermented grapes.

The following morning she rented a bicycle from the shop he had "suggested," though she was fairly certain their previous conversations had never included bicycle rental logistics. But details were unimportant when the universe was providing transportation.

She implemented a sophisticated recreational strategy: one hour of intensive roasting in Position A. Relocate via bicycle. One hour of roasting in Position B. Repeat until the full length of beach had been properly conquered.

The narrator notes: this was someone reconstructing agency through elaborate interpretation of accident. Transforming a seaside holiday into an orchestrated mission. Treating coincidence as protocol.

Back at her accommodations, she dressed entirely in gold from head to toe. Because nothing says "sophisticated seaside dining" like looking like a human trophy.

The restaurant was tiny, dark, communal, perfect for someone who had spent months practicing social isolation.

She texted Handsome Man: "Here I am."

"Good, do you like the place? The chef painted the painting on the wall."

Before she had finished ordering, music began playing in the background. She had mentioned wanting background music. The music arrived.

Magic, she thought. Or: The Whole was listening.

"Say hello from HANDSOME MAN's part," he texted.

The chef appeared in person.

"I think, since they are all small portions, I would like to try a bit of everything," she said. "And Handsome Man suggested this place."

"Handsome Man, which one?" the chef asked.

How many handsome men could there be? She panicked slightly. "From the mountain."

"AH, HANDSOME MAN!" he exclaimed with sudden recognition.

She hadn't passed some kind of gastronomic initiation. She hadn't known the correct code.

Walking back through village streets, she felt ecstatic, belly in, chest out, beaming at every soul like a golden-clad ambassador of joy.

That night, sitting on her narrow bed, a song drifted up from the bar below. Customers were singing a serenade:

...I care for you, haven't you understood, I care for you, leave the dress alone, I care for you, despite everything...

This was from Handsome Man. This was romantic gesture. This was orchestration.

She texted back: "Me too."

The narrator observes: she was composing a love story from restaurant recommendations and bar songs. She was constructing meaning so elaborate, so internally consistent, that it could sustain her through another week of being alone. And there was something almost defiant about it, the way she assembled significance from fragments, refused to accept a simple seaside holiday, transformed accident into intention.

Because if it was all random, the bus driver, the music, the chef's recognition, the serenade, then what was the point of surviving?

Better to believe The Whole was speaking. Better to believe she was loved. Better to believe the universe was paying attention.

The following days unfolded with the texture of a woman reconstructing herself through movement and interpretation.

She rented another bicycle and set off for an all-day island circumnavigation. Rolling hills covered in wild herbs that released intoxicating scents. Ancient olive groves twisted into sculptural shapes by Mediterranean wind. Hidden coves where crystalline water lapped against limestone cliffs.

At a clifftop bar overlooking impossible blue, her phone chimed: Handsome Man asking about her day.

How did he always know what she was doing?

Psychic connection, she thought. Or: he was simply texting a friend from work to check in, and she was assembling the coincidence of his message into evidence of something larger. (or she simply felt observed…

She collapsed into bed that evening without documenting the day's adventures. Pure physical exhaustion had temporarily overwhelmed her need to analyze every experience for hidden meaning.

The following day she moved to another village. A minuscule place that required half a day's bus journey to reach. She found a bar, ordered coffee, commenced intelligence gathering through strategic eavesdropping. Handsome Man texted "Where the hell have you gone?"

The bartender told a customer about his past life in a little mountain village. The same mountains.

Message received. She had chosen correctly. This was the designated bar for this phase of the mission.

She spent the next three days there, when not conducting beach operations. The owner and waitress treated her like family, which obviously meant they had been briefed about her arrival and importance.

While snorkeling, she encountered marine life arranged in patterns: starfish in configurations that seemed meaningful, an octopus that observed her with obvious intelligence, a moray eel guarding something significant in its rocky crevice.

Each creature acknowledged her presence. The underwater world was another layer of the network, populated by agents who communicated through movement rather than words.

Floating in warm, crystal-clear water, surrounded by aquatic allies, she felt a profound sense of belonging.

She texted Handsome Man: "Yes, this is a place where I could live. Let's move here."

The journey home took twelve hours to cover 44 kilometers. The universe was reluctant to release her from the magical coastal realm.

As the familiar mountains came into view, she realized something that felt profound:

She had just spent a week in the exact place she had been trying to reach weeks ago, when she attempted to walk to the piano competition. When the compulsion seized her body and dragged her down a country road toward Handsome Man's house. When she stopped mid-journey, confused by her own movements.

Everything was connected.

The network had simply rerouted her journey through madness and medication to bring her to the right destination at the right time.

Handsome Man wasn't just a friend. He was her spiritual guide, orchestrating elaborate romantic adventures through casual text messages and restaurant recommendations.

She was living in a love story, and she was finally understanding the plot.