Watching Merkel leave, Anna and Victor, who were in Anna's office, poked their heads out and glanced in the direction of Shiller's office.
"Why did Merkel leave?"
No sooner had the words fallen than the sound of a vacuum cleaner erupted from Shiller's office, startling Victor as he exclaimed, "What's going on? It can't be Shiller cleaning up himself, can it?"
"I find it hard to imagine him getting any work done in a full suit." Anna shook her head, withdrew her gaze, and went back into the office, Victor following her. He pulled out his phone, looked at it, and said, "Nora will come by later to bring us lunch; she packed something from that seafood restaurant we went to before."
"It looks like your financial situation isn't so bad after all, being able to afford a meal at that kind of restaurant."
"Because that restaurant is about to go out of business." With a sense of resignation, Victor said, "They had a huge sale due to their reduced prices; seeing as the food quality was still decent, we went there a few more times."
Having said that, he glanced outside the door and added, "Don't you think our Professor Shearer has changed a lot? Do you think he would have accepted moving so easily before?"
Anna shook her head. The answer was, of course, no, for Shiller had shown great discomfort when moving from the shared office to his own office previously.
For instance, every morning upon arrival at school, he felt compelled to visit his old desk in the shared office, just as he had done countless mornings before: he would neatly fold any paper left on the desk from the previous day, put the pen back in the holder, turn around to punch in his time card, and then come back to sit down in his chair.
Only afterward did he have to get up again and return to his own office; the only items left on his original desk were the piece of paper, pen, and chair that he needed to carry out his ritual.
To accommodate his obsessive-compulsive behavior, everyone refrained from touching his desk, resulting in an unused space in the office and a professor who moved in later still having to crowd with other colleagues due to not wanting to sit with his original office mates.
It wasn't that no one had thought of persuading Shiller, but since he seemed completely oblivious, out of consideration for their colleague, no one broached the subject.
Before officially carrying out this move, many professors had been worried. Previously, Shiller could deal with the inconvenience of running between two offices because they were only separated by a corridor; but now the two universities were over an hour's drive apart.
"And then there's 'money,' when have you heard Shiller ever willingly discuss money matters?" Anna opened her mouth wide and made an exaggerated expression of shock saying, "He's even thinking of making money on his own now!"
"If it wasn't so cold, I'd think it was April Fool's Day." Victor was clearly just as surprised and said, "He really does seem a bit better, looks less agitated, which suggests his obsessive behavior has lessened, and him cleaning with the vacuum cleaner indicates his mysophobia has also diminished."
"And the fact that he's even considering starting a psychological clinic, even if he's still only willing to accept a limited number of patients, for someone with autism, isn't that nothing short of a miracle?"
"But I think he still needs help." Anna rubbed her chin and said, "He will soon realize that the ordinary life he's been seeking isn't that great after all, full of trivial matters that are a headache to deal with."
"But it's still a good attempt. If it fails this time, it will be even harder in the future." Victor wiped the dust off the sofa and sat down, then said, "Why do we establish connections with others? Isn't it to help each other out when we're in trouble? If we don't do that, being a loner wouldn't matter anyway."
"If he's willing to reach out to others, then he should understand this point, and the way to do it is for the people he once connected with to help him out when he's in trouble. That's how he'll come to understand the nature of connections between ordinary people."
"Maybe it's because we're too weak," Anna said as she sat across from Victor. "We can't handle certain things on our own, like now, not having time to clean the office or go for lunch, so we have to rely on your wife to bring us food. That's the simplest example of making connections with others for mutual assistance."
"Right, so connections are more than just interactions; it's not about socializing for a specific purpose but that the socializing is beneficial to oneself."
"But is interacting with those patients, or with us for that matter, truly beneficial for Shiller? He seems to be able to handle everything on his own."
"In fact, he can't." Victor countered, "On a macro level, sure, he can deal with all the big issues, but in this world, anyone, or even non-human things, like perhaps angels or something, as long as they live on Earth, can't solve all their problems on their own because the entire Earth is one big problem."
"Oh... damn it!"
The yell came from Shiller's office, and the two of them immediately stood up and rushed out, bursting into Shiller's office only to find that his trouser leg had gotten sucked into the vacuum cleaner.
Those who have used a vacuum cleaner should know that the handle at the front and the vacuum cleaner itself are connected by a flexible hose, designed to afford the ease of extending the handle and cleaning head to various places. Some hoses can be adjusted for length.