After swapping inner voices with me, all you say is, “Everything is so much softer.”

Which I take to mean quieter and gentler—the kind of change you were hoping for.

Then, all smiles and bright eyes, you thank me and head off to take care of other Saturday plans. I linger on the park bench, to get Aeterna’s take on the new arrangement.

“Thanks for helping out,” I think to her, using her voice as we agreed I would. “How does it feel so far?”

“Like I’m hearing myself or who I once was,” she answers in my mind with your inner voice. “How do I sound?”

“Firm,” I answer. “Like bark—tough and furrowed.”

“I hope it’s just bark and no bite,” she quips—though only half successfully with your inner voice dampening her usual levity to a low-key seriousness.

“Speaking of bite,” she goes on. “We should go to Zinoulimar’s while we’re in this part of the city and get a cookie or scone.”

Minutes later, I’m getting both a ginger molasses cookie and blueberry cream scone at this hippest of bakery cafés. At a corner table, I dig in. The sugary treats exhilarate my palate, like my tastebuds are strolling in a luscious, fragrant meadow with rich, delectable soil made spongy and all the more sumptuous by nectar-laced rainfall. I can feel Aeterna’s imaginary eyes rolling back in their imaginary sockets.

“This is so much better than anything in your imagination,” Aeterna says.

The remark could almost be a putdown, but I know she means it as a compliment to Zinoulimar’s.

When all that’s left are crumbs on the yellow plate before me, Aeterna murmurs, “Amazing.”

Prompting me to reply, “Yeah, amazing that I just ate the caloric equivalent of what? Three meals?”

“Time to burn off the calories with a bicycle ride then?” Aeterna suggests.

Why not? The weather is perfect for that. So I cycle around the city, taking a route that brings us to the sights Aeterna asks to visit: the river overlook, butterfly grove, aviary and reservoir ruins.

The rest of the weekend continues on in this vein. By bike, foot, and tram, we go from one neighborhood to another, enjoying what each has to offer—an art gallery and sandwich shop here, a juice bar and sculpture garden there.

I follow Aeterna’s impromptu directions, getting off at the tram stops she picks, then turning down the streets that exert their atmospheric charm upon her. Taking concrete stairways nestled between houses, we end up in a half-acre hillside park with a panoramic view of the city’s river. When we happen upon a bonsai tree festival, one of the organizers there asks me to cast a vote for “Crowd Favorite,” and the single space on the ballot leaves me torn between an adorably tiny maple and a regal, miniature ginkgo—lost in ambivalence until Aeterna observes that the maple has better-proportioned foliage. Later, I amble into a cobblestone plaza where we join the group that’s tightly gathered around a pop-up puppet show, a charming little production put on by a local theater troupe.

Come Sunday evening, my body is heavy with a pleasant fatigue as I ride the train home.

“What a fun couple of days,” I think to Aeterna in the mostly empty train car. “We’ve never checked out so many places in one weekend before.”

“That’s because you’ve never treated me this way before,” she says in my mind.

“What way?” I ask.

“With so much receptivity to my ideas,” she answers, then appears in the seat to my left.

I turn to face her, and she adds, “I think you take this voice more seriously.”

Now I hear it in retrospect—that certain weight your inner voice has given her words throughout the weekend, making them akin to objective truth. Certainly how things are said matters, but ideally not like this. It’s tone that should be important, not pitch.

“Sorry I didn’t take you as seriously before,” I say—these words all I can offer her right now.

Aeterna blinks over to the seat opposite me. Across the swaying train car, the twilight landscape outside the wide window slowly slides to the right behind her long, nutmeg hair.

“Well, what matters is we’ve learned something,” she answers, the words thick with generosity.

Aeterna holds my gaze with hers, and I want to know what else we can learn. The hint of a smile on her lips encourages me to take a sick day tomorrow.

– Soramimi Hanarejima