There are seemingly ordinary encounters that end up leaving a mark that is difficult to explain. Distinguished Visitors was born from one of them: a bewildering experience, somewhere between the extraordinary and the deeply human, that would ultimately challenge the way I interpreted what we call reality. A couple of days later, around midday during the weekend, Milo, Armando and I decided it was finally time to get up and put an end to so much pointless chatter. By then, hunger was growling fiercely in our stomachs. I suggested finding somewhere nearby to eat. Before I could propose anything specific, the two of them spoke almost in unison: “Let’s go to a pizzeria a couple of streets from here.” “Is it good?” I asked. “Yes,” Milo replied, “although…” “What is it?” I said, slightly puzzled by his mysterious tone. “And you too?” I demanded of Armando, raising an eyebrow. “You’ll see,” Armando continued. “The pizza is exquisite, but the people who run the place are a little strange. Isn’t that right, Milo?” “Exactly,” he confirmed with a half-smile. “Will you two tell me what’s going on? This feels like a police interrogation. Why all the mystery? Is it really that serious?” I insisted, already growing impatient. “Yes,” Milo said seriously. “It’s just that… they’re really odd.” “You’ll see,” Armando added, suppressing a grin. “You’re making fun of me,” I replied. “You want to have a laugh at my expense and you’ve set all this up just to enjoy yourselves, haven’t you?” “No,” they both answered at once, with almost comical synchronisation. As we crossed the street, I could not stop thinking about what they had said with such conviction. The word strange kept echoing in my head. Intrigued and slightly uneasy, I pressed them again. “Come on, guys. Will you finally tell me what happened in that pizzeria to make you talk about the owners like that?” “Forget it,” one of them cut in. “We’re here already. Look, it’s right there.” “That one?” I asked, pointing towards the place. “Yes,” came the curt reply, without further explanation. They’re exaggerating, I muttered inwardly. They probably got too clever the last time and the owners put them in their place. As soon as we crossed the threshold, a middle-aged woman welcomed us. She must have been in her early forties. Her greeting caught me completely off guard. It was not so much the words—a conventional, courteous welcome—as the warmth of her voice, its unhurried cadence, the quiet pauses between each inflection. Something in it went straight to my chest. It was like reading between the lines, except through silence itself. In that brief exchange I sensed a subtle, beautiful energy surrounding every word she spoke. Suddenly, the armour I usually wore in public places cracked open; I was left defenceless. That brief exchange of formalities triggered an unexpected transformation in me. On the one hand, I immediately dismissed my friends’ opinion as unfounded: nothing they had said matched the woman standing before us. If anything, the opposite seemed true. On the other, her graciousness invited me to respond with the same refinement. I straightened my posture, my gestures became more measured, and I began projecting an elegance I did not normally display. When I realised what was happening, I could not help smiling. Her manner was elegant, subtle, almost familiar, yet it never lost that respectful distance. It bore no resemblance to the usual manner of an ordinary waitress, yet neither did it cross the boundaries of strict professionalism. How could I describe it simply? It was… different. Genuine. Classy. With a charming gesture of her hand, she invited us to sit wherever we wished. While my friends and I looked around for the ideal table, I turned towards her. Before I could say a word, she surprised me by saying: “Sit wherever you like.” She had anticipated my question. There was something special in the air. The restaurant had a light, serene, almost enveloping atmosphere, as though everything inside it were being rocked by invisible currents rising from the earth itself. I could find no logical explanation for the sensation, yet to me it felt absolutely certain. My curiosity grew slowly, nourished by every small detail, even though nothing extraordinary had happened so far… apart from the thoughts multiplying in my mind with every passing second. We chose the central table at the back, against the wall. I sat with my back to it, giving me an unobstructed view of the entire restaurant. Armando sat opposite me and Milo to my right. The woman, who had followed our movements attentively, approached with the menus as soon as we settled in. She placed them on the table and asked whether we would like a salad to start. We answered with a brief, unanimous yes. Then, looking directly into my eyes, she asked whether we would be having wine with the meal. I nodded, assuming my friends agreed. Before leaving, she looked at me again with that same serene intensity and assured me that the salads and wine would arrive immediately. This isn’t a coincidence, I thought. Her eyes conveyed a strange mixture of closeness and affection despite the fact that she was a complete stranger. I struggled to understand how I could perceive it with such clarity and, above all, how she seemed to grasp my thoughts before I had even managed to put them in order. On a couple of occasions, when our eyes met, I had the impression that my confusion almost amused her. It was as though she possessed knowledge that was being withheld from me. But what could she possibly know that I did not? I decided to set my thoughts aside and pay attention to my companions’ conversation. Nothing important: they were vaguely discussing a motorbike trip to some destination they could not quite decide upon; empty chatter, nothing more. Their trivial conversation came to an end when the woman returned with the salads, ready to be devoured. She turned gracefully and promised to bring the wine immediately; true to her word, she did exactly that. When she returned, she asked who would taste and approve the wine. I asked Armando to do it; Milo nodded silently in agreement. We toasted with a gentle clink of glasses and attacked the salads as though we had not eaten for days. We truly were starving. The moment I took the first bite, I was genuinely surprised. That salad—so simple, with lettuce, onion, tomato, olives and grated carrot—was extraordinary. How could something so basic taste so delicious? I could have sworn the ingredients had just been picked from the garden. The wine was the same: an ordinary red, nothing pretentious, yet its flavour far exceeded any expectation. The palate does not lie: something is either exquisite or it is not. Suddenly, I was startled to see the woman dart from behind the counter towards the entrance. Her posture combined urgency with an almost reverential deference as she greeted the new customers standing by the door. At that exact moment, my fork slipped from my fingers and bounced several times against the plate, producing a tremendous clatter that sounded to me like church bells. I felt clumsy, exposed, absurdly embarrassed. I looked up to see who had just arrived. When I saw them, my blood ran cold. This cannot be happening, I thought, completely paralysed. Milo snapped me out of my trance with a mocking smile. “What’s wrong? Is the wine already getting to you?” “No,” I replied curtly, without taking my eyes off the entrance. “I’ve only had a couple of sips. Don’t exaggerate.” I wanted to put an end to the subject and focus entirely on what was happening in front of me. Once again, I studied the three figures who had just entered. I let out a long breath and opened my eyes wide. My God, I exclaimed inwardly. The woman was lavishing attention upon those distinguished visitors with gestures of exaggerated courtesy while they, without looking directly at me, somehow made me feel as though I were the absolute centre of their attention. They seemed to be whispering about me. From our table, I could not hear what they were saying. And yet I knew they were talking about me while casting quick glances in my direction. Why? I had never seen them before. What the hell was going on? Everything was becoming increasingly strange, increasingly enigmatic. The atmosphere of the restaurant, which had previously seemed serene, was now filling with a subtle tension I could not decipher. It was not unpleasant. Quite the opposite: it crystallised into something like a delicate, bubbling excitement. Of the three—all apparently in their seventies—it was the woman who left me utterly fascinated, almost stunned. She wore a gown made from extraordinarily fine fabrics with a long train, its colours shifting between turquoise blue, sky blue and several shades of green, resembling a mosaic of some living natural landscape. The cut and craftsmanship were dazzling. No. They were prodigious, in the most literal sense of the word. It was a piece of haute couture that evoked medieval ceremonial dress, yet elevated into a dimension almost impossible to capture in precise language. There was nothing crude or excessively ornate about it. Delicate fabrics and magnificent designs came together with an absolute elegance that seemed completely anachronistic in that setting. And then there was the majestic presence of the woman wearing it. Never had I seen someone of her age so imposing, so distinguished and, at the same time, so beautiful. Her bearing was regal. Long silver hair fell halfway down her back, and she radiated a serene authority that commanded respect from several metres away. She looked as though she had stepped out of a fantasy tale or a period film. The two gentlemen accompanying her, by contrast, were deliberately understated: tailored trousers and immaculate white shirts. Everything about them was proper, but far more earthly. Almost intentionally nondescript, as though they wanted to disappear into the background and allow her to capture all the light. At one precise moment, all three turned towards our table. With a perfectly synchronised movement of their necks, they directed their gaze at me, deliberately seeking eye contact. When our pupils met, a shiver ran down my spine and left me dazed for several seconds. The instant they noticed my reaction, all three looked away in unison, with the same almost mechanical precision, and sat down. There was something strange about the way they moved, although nothing visually seemed openly abnormal. Their journey from the entrance to the table appeared to defy the laws of gravity. They walked, yes, but theirs was an ethereal, weightless kind of walking. They glided with such smoothness that the floor itself seemed unnecessary. It was impossible to rationalise: I watched them advancing with perfectly normal steps while simultaneously feeling that they were suspended in the restaurant air, as though gliding on skis across untouched snow. Another detail bewildered me. The waitress hurried to pull out the woman’s chair with almost ceremonial deference, as though she were assisting someone of noble birth. Watching the scene completely exceeded my capacity to take it all in. It was such a whirlwind of stimuli, so alien to the ordinary surroundings, that I became trapped in absolute astonishment and completely forgot about Milo and Armando. Trying to calm my senses, which were crackling like a New Year’s sparkler, I turned back towards our table in search of some sign on my friends’ faces that they had noticed it too. Nothing. Their attention remained fixed on the food. They ate voraciously, as though the outside world had ceased to exist. And what disturbed me most was that although one sat directly opposite me and the other beside me, they somehow felt far away, almost unreal. Whenever I looked at them directly, their figures seemed distant, absent, slightly blurred, as if they inhabited another dimension despite having shared the same physical space with me from the moment we entered. As Milo finished his plate, he began lifting his head more frequently, allowing his gaze to wander around the restaurant without truly focusing on anything. Eventually his eyes settled on me. “Bloody hell, Kiran. Sitting there like that, you look like a king.” I found it amusing because, in a way, he was right. I had stretched my arms out to either side and rested them comfortably along the back of the chair, as though the place had belonged to me forever. With my stomach satisfied and the warmth of the wine now beginning to rise into my cheeks, I decided to play along and threw him a question in the form of a quotation I remembered from a book. “Do you know, Milo, what the first thing is that you have to do if you want to be a king?” “No,” he answered after several seconds of silence, as though trying to catch a slippery thought disappearing into the haze of the wine. I could not tell whether he was seriously reflecting on the question or simply too dazed to organise his thoughts. When it became clear he was getting nowhere, I replied with a mischievous half-smile: “Well, if you aspire to be a king, the first thing you have to do is… look like one.” Milo froze, utterly bewildered, unable to make a sound, his lips seemingly stitched together by his inability to produce an answer that might save face. Armando, on the other hand, lifted his head, looked at him through glassy eyes, then at me, and burst into infectious laughter. I could not help joining him. What was incredible, however, was that from the table by the window—where the three distinguished visitors were seated—they seemed to catch my irony and responded with a faint, almost imperceptible smile that I sensed was the outward trace of some private amusement they were hiding. That might have been perfectly normal had we spoken the same language. But I was talking to my friends in Spanish, in a German-speaking region of multilingual Switzerland. And yet they seemed to enjoy the scene every bit as much as I did. The moment they noticed that I was openly watching them, they immediately disguised their reaction and elegantly turned their eyes away. Perhaps my curiosity had become too obvious, almost intrusive. Or perhaps there was another reason I still could not understand. I could not stop my eyes from returning to them again and again. Until something left me speechless once more—one of those things that are difficult to believe unless you witness them with your own eyes. I am not talking about some spectral phenomenon in an abandoned place. This was happening right there, inside an ordinary pizzeria in the city of Zurich. To observe it sceptically was almost inevitable. The images did not fit within the ordinary order of things and yet, somehow, they were part of it. Another jolt to my mind came when the waitress once again rushed towards the entrance, her body language betraying the excitement of someone greeting dearly loved relatives—or at least that was how I interpreted it. From where I sat, I once again detected murmuring among the newcomers. And although, just as before, I could not make out the words, I felt certain that I was—once again—the subject of their whispers. The situation awakened contradictory and confusing emotions in me. On the one hand, I felt strangely special—one chosen from the flock, some kind of star seed. On the other, I felt profoundly uncomfortable because I had absolutely no idea who these people were in relation to me. They, however, seemed to know. And at the same time, they appeared to have no intention whatsoever of revealing it. So far, not the slightest concession. This new group, different from yet strangely similar in behaviour to the three distinguished visitors, avoided looking directly at me. There were a few fleeting, almost furtive glances, but nothing more. I tried to provoke a reaction. I stared openly at them, holding my gaze with deliberate insistence, as though my eyes were shouting: I’m here. Look at me! Nothing. Not even a second of sustained eye contact. After wondering why they avoided my gaze and every form of interaction, I arrived at a hypothesis that, although extravagant, was beginning to feel increasingly plausible. On a philosophical—or perhaps spiritual—level, it might have something to do with free will. Perhaps, for some reason, they refused to interfere with mine. Perhaps their silence and their distance were precisely a form of respect for my freedom to discover everything for myself: to connect the dots, broaden my conceptual framework and dare to break through my own mental boundaries. Who knows? At first I thought that a simple exchange of glances could hardly affect me very much, but then I realised that it might unleash something far greater, something entirely beyond control. The idea was not so absurd. If the slightest opportunity presented itself, however small, I knew I would react without measuring the intensity. That was how strongly the excitement simmered inside me. But that was not all. Barely had they taken their seats near the entrance when, in a masterful twist of events, the restaurant filled within seconds. A wave of people streamed through the door at an astonishing pace: groups of three or four occupying the tables almost instantly, as though they had all been waiting for some invisible signal. What fascinated—and unsettled—me was that as the number of newcomers grew, the atmosphere became increasingly unreal. It was as though Dante’s Divine Comedy were taking shape before my eyes. Each group appeared not to know the others, and yet the more people arrived, the clearer it became that they all shared some profound connection: a guild, a family, an indefinable brotherhood. It was not a physical or visible bond. It was something intangible, a common essence that seemed to hover around each of them, an immaterial glue. They reminded me of a flock of sheep: every animal different, with its own coat and its own face, yet united by an unmistakable identity that anyone with attentive eyes could recognise immediately. I was amazed by how simple it was to perceive—and how devilishly difficult it was to put into words. What was all of this? A performance? So many people involved that it seemed…
About the author
Alfonso Corchero is the author of Between Asphalt and Incense, a work born from experience, observation, and an inner search. His writing explores the contradictions of human nature, the moments when everyday life fractures, and those experiences that compel us to look within. Rather than offering ready-made answers, his stories invite readers to recognise themselves in the journey, the doubts, and the transformations of someone learning to cross their own thresholds.