The next morning there were six chairs.
Tersake counted five.
That was on his form and forms only make mistakes when there is a separate form for that.
There was a bird on the sixth chair.
Pink-brown plumage. Black mustache stripe. And on each wing a bright blue piece of the future, neatly trimmed with black.
“Name?” Tersake asked.
'Eurasian jay.'
Tersake wrote:
THE FLEMISH GAY
The bird looked at the form.
Then to Tersake.
Then he pecked the pen once and added an i.
“Jay,” he said.
“That's one letter off,” Tersake said.
“And a completely wrong story.”
Tersake started again.
'Origin?'
“The future.”
'I mean geographically.'
'You mean administratively.'
Tersake didn't think that was an answer, but it was a correct observation.
“Destination?”
The jay looked at the five others. To the Tower of Enlightenment. To the keyhole through which more visitors had now entered than through the front door.
“Here.”
“Reason for visit?”
The jay placed an acorn on the table.
'Forest.'
'This is a tower.'
'Yet.'
Notsnol prepared a second cup of coffee.
The Followling moved his chair slightly.
De Nose-Itcher said bless you.
No one sneezed, but dust fluttered from a future ceiling somewhere above them.
“What exactly are you bringing?” asked Tersake.
“What you guys need later.”
“And that is an acorn?”
“That's a forest that doesn't know it exists yet.”
The duck with the eclipse glasses quacked.
“She asks if the future will be better,” said Kwartsoog.
The jay smoothed its blue wing feathers.
“The future doesn't happen by itself.”
“Then what should we do?”
“Leaving something behind in a place where it can grow.”
Tersake looked for the growth box on his form.
There wasn't.
However, there was a line at the bottom that he had not seen before:
What comes from the future doesn't have to look human.
Tersake looked at the jay.
“Did you really come straight from the future?”
“Straight from the future,” said the jay.
This time Tersake wrote it right.
The jay flew to the keyhole and left the acorn behind.
Where it touched the table, a small green crack appeared in the wood.
No crack.
A germ.
The sixth chair remained standing.
Just in case the future came back.
Or just a bird.
On the other side of the table, another chair remained empty.
There was only one word on the railing.
RESERVED
For whom, it was not stated.
In Sursirai the difference is sometimes only one letter.