"My name's Ed, by the way."
"Pleased to meet you, Ed. I'm Karen."
Karen turned the lights off as Ed's lips kissed her neck. She breathed fast, her hands trembled. Ed, of course. She felt she'd known him all her life. Ed knows how to touch her better than her husband. His fingers move slowly through her belly, and his voice is deep and soft. His name is Ed, just like her husband's. She thought about that for a second.
Last week Karen had a terrible day at her job. She picked the phone, desperately searched for the name Ed, pressed the Call button and heard his husband say "Hi, darling". She said "I'll call you later" and cut the call. What she really wanted was to call Ed the man who knew everything about her, not Ed the man who she knew everything about. Then she realized she didn't have his number. She didn't know his last name, or where he lived. But she knew he knew her.
Meanwhile, at the park, the sun shone over the yellow treetops and over Ana's red beret. The night before, Ana hadn't asked the Big Tree, but the Big Tree had answered anyway. It wasn't the answer she wanted to hear, though. Ana wanted to ask if Ed was a dangerous man, because, as silly as it seems, she was scared of how well she felt when he was around. Ed was too good to be true. She also wanted to know if they would live happily ever after, but she didn't ask that because she would look like an idiot saying the words "happily ever after" aloud.
So when she was walking away, she heard the answer. She heard it in a voice that came from the top of the tree and was strikingly similar to her own voice. The answer was an invitation to find out by herself, and an address. But she was too scared to go to the place the Big Tree told her to go to. So she went back to the park to ask again. Or to ask for the first time.
But the Big Tree said nothing. This time, Ana didn't care how many people were there and what they would think and asked aloud. The tree, though, remained silent. So she asked again: "Is this man dangerous?". And asked again and again, but nothing happened. Well, maybe it just works at night, she thought, and went home, a bit sad, a bit disappointed and a bit scared.
That night, she left home to go to the park again, but on the way thought the address the Big Tree had given her wasn't very far and that, if she wished, she'd be there in fifteen minutes or so. She started walking north then, hoping she wouldn't regret it. It was late, and the Big Tree hadn't told her if the place she was going to was Ed's house or what.
As Ana approached Tusa Hill she realized she had forgotten the house number. Was it 432 or 342? Anyway, she had decided she wouldn't knock at the door. Not that night, at least. She would just take a look. It was dark and the moon was nowhere to be seen, and when she passed in front of a small house that seemed inhabited, she saw much more than she wanted to see.
There were no lights on and the grass was two feet high, or more. Suddenly a woman opened the door and went out with a huge smile all over face. It was a young woman, slim, very beautiful and way taller than Ana. They both looked at each other's eyes for a moment, and then kept walking. That moment seemed like an eternity for Ana, who saw in the girl's eyes something obscure, something as old as the world, something she felt she knew like anyone else, just as it knew her like anyone else.