The screenwriter dined at a restaurant on the island before making his way to the sidewalk café, where he now sits, trying to get down to some writing. The scene he’s working on is set just before dawn. The girl and her mother are getting out of a limousine in front of the hotel with the English name. A doorman with an admiral’s uniform holds the front door open for them. They go through without responding to his greeting. Next, we see the two of them talking in the large living area separating their bedrooms. The mother is standing at the window admiring the city lights, which appear to her to be emerging from under her feet and extending toward the horizon. They’re talking about the neighboring country’s capital. It reminds the girl of her native city, except it’s perhaps ten times bigger. In front of the mirror, she sees a scratch on her face. Her mother goes over to examine it up close. It’s nothing, says the girl dismissively. We then see a shot from outside of the building of the mother returning to the window. All cities have something in common, she says. The camera closes in on her face, her eyes, looking out at the world, or perhaps within, at herself. She’s beautiful, photogenic, and could’ve played the lead role in any other film; that much will have been made clear after the first scene. As with her father, the girl doesn’t know exactly what it is her mother does professionally. She knows only that she has a good job at an international company, that she’s well connected, and that she has friends even in the remotest parts of the world. The girl’s success as a pianist may in part be due to her mother’s connections. A quick phone call or two may have been sufficient to arrange the Little Sinfonietta’s performance at the church, for example. Such beneficence is perhaps typical for a woman of her station: helping to further the careers of talented kids whose families haven’t the means of doing so. The girl has never met any of her mother’s friends. But she presumes she has lovers, it’s only that she’s careful about not being seen with them. Her greatest love is definitely herself, though; and her greatest passion, being the one in charge. She only has an occasional and transitory interest in her daughter’s professional life, which is usually disrupted when they have an argument and stop communicating — except, that is, by telephone, through the cleaning lady, or on the chalkboard in the kitchen. The girl again faces the mirror, watches her mother’s reflection looking down at the city. How’s it going with the young conductor? she asks in a blasé tone, her eyes meandering with the river.
The following morning, the girl is in a bad mood. She’s just finished a phone call with the brilliant composer, who suggested they go jogging in the park. She dismissed the offer out of hand, and asked after the young conductor. He’s with his latest conquest, more than likely, replies the brilliant composer in disgust. The girl finds it harder every day to concentrate, and she therefore keeps increasing the number of pills she takes. It’s going to be a long day, she thinks. Earlier, she visited a children’s hospital. Her mother was annoyed there were so few photographers there. After she got back, she practiced the 5 Pieces for piano, and then went for a workout in the gym. Finally, after catching up on some reading in the hotel, she decided to go for a walk, and perhaps continue her reading outside. It’s Wednesday, and the sunny weather is at variance with her mood. She’s not hungry and doesn’t intend to eat anytime soon, so she remains where she lies, reading on the riverbank. She can’t grasp how this dramatist of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries could’ve been so prolific and wide-ranging, how he could have written so much about so many subjects, created so many different characters. Maybe she lacks the intelligence to understand him, the talent to emulate him. Maybe she has nothing to say anyway. Maybe she’s striving in vain to be a writer. She decides she must persist, that she should perhaps sit down and write for a few hours. She doesn’t do so however, because she needs to do more thinking about her work. Although she knows it’s easy to find excuses, to pass the time staring at reflections in the water, at the buildings on the opposite bank. The sun tickles her skin, and she closes her eyes to fantasize about becoming a prolific and wide-ranging author. It seems impossible, though. Even her fantasies don’t stretch that far. And if she can’t even finish a single chapter, how can she hope to emulate the famous dramatist? She walks to the other side of the island in the river, doing some window-shopping along the way. There’s a little girl sitting in a garden, chewing on some flower petals. Her father hurries over to put a stop to it. She doesn’t know why, but this reminds the girl of a conversation she overheard in a café. When she gets back to the hotel, she takes out her notebook and writes in a direct and unambiguous tone, “1. The No World is everything that is the case. 1.1 We are beings from another world. 1.2 The No World is falling to pieces. Its inhabitants are not from planet Earth.” She believes such precepts would only be adopted by a rather singular character. One who hunts aliens. An alien that hunts aliens. An idea that’s been exploited ad nauseam, she thinks, although in quite different storylines. The girl is trying to make her character unique: a guy who escapes to the City in Outer Space. The idea doesn’t strike her as either good or bad; she just doesn’t know what to do with it. But what if all the inhabitants of Earth actually came from another world? Yes, she feels her narrative could proceed along this line. It wouldn’t be the main plot, but something running parallel to it: the story of a renegade alien hunter. The girl truly believes the Earth is just a colony occupied by beings from another planet, but whether it’s true or not, it’s still not an original idea. She’s read some stuff about it before, although she doesn’t remember reading any stories in which the Earth is a refuge for interplanetary immigrants — beings from another world, as she overheard in the café. She does remember similar stories depicted in the movies, in which aliens assume human form and commingle with us, but she can’t think of any in which absolutely everyone on Earth is an alien. The girl realizes there’s something interesting in this idea of people being unaware of their origins. Some may hear strange voices in their heads, believing they’re being called by a higher power. The way she hears her name pronounced with a “ka.” When she writes, perhaps she’s being actuated by some strange radiation emanating from a distant planet; perhaps it’s her own home planet. But if this is the case, why does she have writer’s block? The screenwriter smiles. He can’t help thinking that such stories are ten a penny for most science-fiction writers. But the young must be allowed to discover the world for themselves. We mustn’t forget that everyone’s been young, that everyone’s made mistakes. For better or worse, the girl must continue working on her No World — with its extraterrestrial voices, its alien hunter who doesn’t know he’s an alien himself — to distract her and help mitigate her jealousy and hatred of the young conductor, her growing hostility toward the brilliant composer — although, when she thinks about it, the brilliant composer isn’t important enough to hate.