This house stood at the very end of a quiet street in the suburbs.
Cars rarely passed here, birds nested in the bushes and old trees. None of the locals knew what the owner of this house was doing. He appeared in the city recently, rarely communicated with neighbors and fed stray cats.
He was a middle-aged man in a brown suit, one of those people you don't notice in a crowd. There were several old oak and apple trees in front of his house; local children loved to climb these trees.
The man never scolded them or forbade them to play in front of his house.
Townspeople love to make up stories about people they consider strange and mysterious.
They said that recently, the old and almost withered apple trees that grew in front of this house suddenly began to bear fruit again, and the stunted oak tree became green and strong again. Birds and squirrels took a fancy to his garden, although they had never been found here in such numbers before.
The man decorated his garden with lanterns.
The children believed that magic was involved in this, but children always come up with something like that.
They also said that there was always a light on in one of the rooms of this house. And if the talk about trees was just rumors, then anyone could see the always lit window.
The man came home when it was still light outside. He opened the windows and poured grain into the feeders.
Then, he would turn on the lights in the room and sit for a long time by the window, reading books or talking to someone on the phone.
The phone was also quite unusual. Few people saw this device up close, but those who did claimed that it was the first time they had seen such an unusual thing, something like a mobile phone, but the way it would have been made in the sixties of the last century.
“Hi, Bee,” said the man, settling down as usual by the window.
A female voice responded from a strange phone:
“Hello, Mobius. How are you?”
The birds were rustling in the feeder, the sun was already setting. Mobius turned on the lamp.
“I’m fine... I’m always fine.”
“Don’t you want to come back?” The woman asked.
He paused before answering.
“You know I can’t.”
“Do you still leave the light on at night?” She asked quietly.
"I want him to see me. I want him to know that I'm waiting for him, that he has a home to return to. He can't see TVA, you know. But I believe, that he sees me here."
"And your lamp serves as a beacon?" She asked softly. “A beacon for a god... For a god who controls the timelines? Obi still cannot understand how this is possible and what power this being, this god must have.”
Mobius snorted.
“This is still my Loki,” the man answered. “And yes, he may be holding branches of timelines in his hands, but this is the same Loki who slept on my table and from whom you took the daggers. He is out there somewhere, Bee. But he is not alone while I am here. I light the lamp and candles so he can see this room day and night. His daggers and tie are here. And I always have a carton of grape juice in the refrigerator."
“And how long are you willing to wait?” The woman asked.
“I’m still not aging. And he is generally the God of Stories, responsible for the very essence of time. I think we can wait for each other, right?”
“Yes, Moby...”
Dusk was falling on the street. Flashlights were flickering in the garden, there was a lamp on the windowsill and its soft light fell on the grass under the window. Moths were circling around the lamp.
This light never went out at night, like a beacon showing the way to sailors. A weak light. It was not visible even from the next street. But, at the same time, these lights were visible to God, who was millions of light years away, outside of space and time. God saw the light and the man at the window. And the timelines in his hands shone brighter than ever when he smiled.
They had all the time in the universe at their disposal. God knew that someday these lights would lead him home and Mobius would be waiting for him there.