Enanika: Anu Answering to Anna

Here’s the next section of Enanika, the visionary fiction I’m currently writing. But first, let’s take a look at the book so far.

Enanika follows Anu, a female from an advanced planet that resembles Earth. She comes here on a mission and must live within the density of our dimensions while maintaining her Nanik consciousness.

Alongside her is Enlan, also from Enanika. Unlike Anu, he adapts quickly to life on Earth. He works, relates, and lives as people do here. They were not meant to be on Earth at the same time — yet life had other plans.

Chapter 13: Taking a Train Ride

Naniks are used to time travel. They often play with it during their inter-dimensional ventures. However, as a general rule, they return to their “set” age — whatever technical age they currently hold on Enanika.

They do not experience time as a straight line. Past and future are not understood as places far behind or far ahead, even though Naniks sometimes speak about them that way for ease of communication. Time is viewed as something immediate and concurrent.

Like a train journey.

Imagine sitting on one of those old country trains — the kind with wooden seats and a gentle rocking motion. Outside the window, fields slide past. Small farms appear and disappear. A quiet town drifts into view, and for a moment, you glimpse a baker’s shop or a person standing in a garden. Some stations pass without stopping. At others, the train pauses briefly, just long enough to notice children waving, or someone waiting on the platform.

All of these scenes exist at once, stretched out across the land. The train doesn’t create them. It simply allows you to see them one by one. The one-by-one sequence gives the illusion of time passing.

Or imagine sitting in an old cinema theatre — the kind that once felt grand, but now survives (barely) on limited funding. The leather seats are worn and cracked, the floor slopes towards the screen, and at the back of the room, a small projector booth hums faintly. Inside it, a reel of film turns steadily, feeding frame after frame through the machine.

If the projectionist were to stop the film and lift the reel into the light, all the images would be there at once. Clark Kent arriving in the newsroom, careful, unnoticed. Lois Lane brushing past him, unaware of who he really is. The slow recognition, the glances that linger a little longer, the tension between secrecy and truth. Superman stepping forward when the moment demands it, and Lois finally seeing not just the hero, but the man behind him. Every moment of the love story is already present, side by side, held in a single strip of film.

When fed through the projector, it feels like discovery and development — life unfolding. But the ending is already there at the beginning. 

This is how Naniks understand time. All moments exist together. Movement is not about travelling from one moment to another, but about where awareness is placed. Nothing is truly left behind, and nothing waits in the distance. The whole landscape is already there. It is the view that changes.

For this reason, Anu was not at all disturbed by her generational leap. However, she now lived on a planet steeped in linear time, and she had to come up with a plausible explanation.

Chapter 14: In Anna’s Body

In Milkwood:

When Anu swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood, there was an unfamiliar gravity to her body and a slight unsteadiness in her stance. In the bathroom mirror, she paused and studied the face looking back at her.

Hmm, she thought. Still my mother.

The walk to the cafe felt different. She noticed her steps more. She seemed closer to the ground — less lift, more contact — as though her body preferred not to rise and fall unnecessarily. Gravity took a more personal interest in her movements.

The familiar hum of the cafe — cups clinking, the espresso machine hissing, voices overlapping — reached her as she opened the door. When she stepped up to the counter, the owner looked at her with polite confusion.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“Ahh, yes,” said Anu. “My name’s Anna. I’m Anu’s mother.”

“Oh,” the boss said, turning back to the bench. “Nice to meet you. We’re expecting Anu any minute for her shift.”

“I’m afraid she’s had to travel home urgently,” said Anu. “Pressing personal business. She asked if I could take over her shifts while she’s away.”

“Cafe work is fairly fast-paced,” said the boss hesitantly. Then she shrugged. “But we’re already short-staffed. Let’s give it a go.”

“I’ll pick things up quickly,” Anu replied.

The boss looked doubtful as she handed her an apron.

Anu did, indeed, pick it up quickly. Almost too quickly. Her hands reached instinctively for the right shelves. She moved without thinking toward the grinder, the cups, the cloth beneath the counter. She had to remind herself to look new.

As the morning wore on, Anna’s body complained to her more than her own thirty-three-year-old body ever had. Standing for long stretches took effort. Sitting down looked increasingly appealing. She couldn’t balance as many plates and couldn’t react as quickly.

Being a Nanik, Anu already possessed — even at thirty-three — highly evolved interpersonal skills. The listening, patience, and emotional steadiness people on Earth often associate with later ages were, on Enanika, normal for all, and far exceeded. 

What was new to her, as Anna, was the softness with which other people approached her. Customers spoke more gently and more openly. She found herself calling everyone dear, or love, or sweetheart, or honey, and realised with amusement that this saved an extraordinary amount of effort in remembering names — a freedom not afforded to women in their thirties. People were less competitive with her and more inclined to tell her things when she handed them their coffee or food. 

There was also another difference. Men no longer looked her up and down. The familiar assessing gaze — hormonal and unwelcome — had largely disappeared. Anna could move through the cafe in a way  Anu could not. The absence of that attention was not a loss. It was a freedom.

On Enanika, this dynamic does not exist at all. Self-worth is not built on the body, which, to Naniks, is an absurd and fragile foundation. Nor is worth something that can be granted or withdrawn by another’s opinion. Even if someone were to think poorly of them — about their appearance, their nature, or anything else — it is only seen as a limitation in the other person’s perception. 

On Earth, humans are deeply identified with their bodies, mostly because their connection to their own soul is underdeveloped. The body takes on exaggerated importance. Further, self-worth is often low and easily influenced. Other people’s opinions — of appearance, ability, desirability, or value — often shape how humans feel about themselves.

What is peculiar from a Nanik perspective is pertinent to most humans.

Chapter 15: Out of Place

Enlan arrived for the afternoon shift and stopped short the moment he saw Anu. He knew it was Anu — the energy was unmistakable — but the form was wrong. 

“Hi Enlan,” said the boss in passing, already halfway towards the kitchen. “This is Anna, Anu’s mother. She’s replacing Anu for a bit.”

Enlan turned towards Anu and rolled his eyes so that only she could see. He was annoyed.

When Anu finished her shift and stepped outside, Enlan followed. He waited until the door swung shut behind her.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“This,” he added, pointing to her body.

Anu didn’t answer. Naniks don’t explain themselves to someone who doesn’t want to listen.

“This is ridiculous,” he said, pacing a step, then another. “You don’t belong here.”

He stopped and looked back at her. “Not Anna. Not Anu.”

He turned and walked off down the street, leaving Anu standing alone on the footpath.

Chapter 16: Fat Cow Falls

Anu went home and sat with the disturbance of it, letting Enlan’s words move through her without trying to correct them. By morning, she had renewed faith in his ability to rebound. 

Neither had a shift that day, so she messaged him around 9:00 a.m.

Anu: Do you want to go for a walk? Before it gets too hot? 

Enlan: Okay.

Anu: Meet you at the entrance to Fat Cow Falls.

At the entrance track of Fat Cow Falls, the trees closed in. Summer had slowed the creek water, but it was still running. Sunlight filtered through leaves.

They walked in silence for a while. Enlan’s stride was restless, too fast for Anu, and way too fast for Anna. He kept stopping and waiting impatiently for her to catch up. The air cooled as they moved closer to the gorge, damp with shade and moss.

Eventually, the track ended at a low fence with a sign bolted to a post.

NO ACCESS
UNSTABLE CLIFFS
The track to the falls and pool below is closed.
Risk of serious injury.
DO NOT ENTER

Enlan glanced at it and, without comment, swung himself over the fence.

Anu stood on the other side and watched him disappear down what had once been a path. It was still there  — a narrow descent, overgrown with ferns and scrub — the ground uneven where rocks had slipped and settled. 

She climbed over carefully, testing her footing, steadying herself against tree trunks and rocks. Each step was negotiated rather than assumed.

Enlan came back muttering under his breath.

Nevertheless, he held out a hand. “Here. Watch out for the loose gravel.”

Anu took it, gladly.

At the bottom, the gorge opened into a sheltered basin. Dark basalt columns rose on either side, their surfaces worn smooth in places and sharply fractured in others. Water seeped from cracks and seams, feeding moss and ferns that clung wherever they could. 

The falls dropped cleanly into the pool below, sending a fine mist outward that softened the edges of everything it touched. The ground underfoot was uneven — rock, leaf litter, and damp earth.

No one else was there. No one would be. It was supposed to be inaccessible.

Enlan kicked off his shoes, peeled off his shirt, and stepped into the water in his shorts. The cold made him gasp, then laugh once, sharply, before he waded deeper and ducked under completely.

Anu stayed back near the rocks, where she could see the track and the distant fence above. 

When Enlan surfaced, he floated on his back for a moment, arms spread, eyes closed. The tension in him eased visibly, shoulders dropping, breath slowing.

Suddenly, he stood up and announced, “I’m just so far from home. And… and unlike you… I can’t get back.”

The falls kept falling. The creek kept moving.

Enlan took a deep breath, lay back again, and let himself sink to the bottom of the rock pool.

The water closed over him. He exhaled slowly, fully, the cold pressing in, the sound of the falls dimming into a distant, steady thrum.

In the space of a single breath, something vast opened. A sense of being where he belonged — Enanika.

When he surfaced, he stayed still for a moment, water streaming from his hair, his face entirely changed.

“You went home,” Anu said.

He nodded.

“How long was I under?” he asked.

“About a minute.”

“A minute of Earth time,” he said. “An eternity of Enanika time.”

He stretched out on the warm rocks, letting the sun dry him. 

A moment later, he sprang up enthusiastically and reached out his hand.

“Come on,” he said. “You look like you could use a little help getting back up the cliff.”

Read More of Enanika