Chapter Nine — The Entity of Curiosity

The ship docked in the morning at a port city I did not know.

I had not planned an organized tour and had not prepared a list of must-see places.

I simply wanted to go out and walk.

There is something I especially love about foreign cities.

The feeling that every street can lead to a place I have not seen, that every turn can reveal a small shop, a hidden square, or an old house that tells something about the place.

I left the port and began to walk.

I passed cafés already full of people, shops opening their doors, and streets where I heard a language I did not know.

I was in no hurry.

At some point I reached a junction.

The road I had come by was familiar to me. I knew how to return from it to the port.

But from the other side began a narrow street that I did not know where it led.

I stood there for a moment.

I had no need to turn into it.

I was not looking for a particular address, had not arranged a meeting, and did not know whether there was anything interesting in it.

And yet I turned.

Only because I wanted to see what was beyond the corner.

⸻

The street was quiet.

It had small shop windows, balconies with plants, and laundry drying in the sun.

On a narrow sidewalk sat a cat and looked at me with a gaze that expressed no enthusiasm for the new guest.

I smiled at it.

It was not impressed.

I kept walking and reached a small square.

In its center stood a large tree, and around it a few benches. An elderly man sat on one of them and tossed breadcrumbs to birds.

There was nothing extraordinary there.

No famous structure, no spectacular view, nothing I would likely have found in a travel guide.

And yet I was glad I had come.

Only a few minutes earlier I had not known this square existed.

I thought of all the times I had turned onto a road I did not know, begun reading about a subject I had no knowledge of, or entered a conversation with a stranger only because something about them aroused my curiosity.

What makes us want to know things we do not need?

And why does the very discovery sometimes delight us, even when what we discovered changes nothing in our lives?

⸻

I tried to imagine Curiosity itself as an entity.

This time a girl appeared in my imagination.

Perhaps ten years old, with slightly disheveled hair, dusty shoes, and eyes that did not stop searching for something new.

She walked a few steps ahead of me, stopped by windows, peeked into alleyways, and turned around now and then to check that I was still behind her.

"Why are you hurrying so much?" I asked.

"I am not hurrying. You walk slowly."

"I like to look around."

"Then look while walking."

I laughed.

"And what is so urgent for you to see?"

"The next street."

"What is in it?"

"I do not know."

"So why do you want to reach it?"

She looked at me as if I had asked a particularly strange question.

"Because I do not know."

We kept walking.

"You know," I said, "not everything unfamiliar is necessarily interesting."

"True."

"So perhaps we will get there and discover there is nothing special."

"That could be."

"And that won't disappoint you?"

"A little. And then we can go somewhere else."

I liked the simplicity with which she said that.

⸻

"I think you have accompanied me since I was a girl," I said.

"Of course."

"But it seems to me I have changed a great deal since then."

"Your questions have also changed."

"What do you mean?"

"When you were little you wanted to know how things work, why people do certain things, and what is behind closed doors. Today you still ask questions, but some of them are more complex."

"For example?"

"Why we remember certain things and forget others. Why time feels different in different periods. What makes people love."

I smiled.

She reminded me of the imagined conversations I had already held along the way.

"So perhaps this whole book began because of you," I said.

"Perhaps. But you are the one who sat down to write it."

"True."

"And what would you have done if you were not curious to know what the entities you imagine would answer you?"

I thought about the question.

"I probably would not have written these conversations."

"So why do you ask me what I do in your life?"

I laughed.

"Because I am curious about you too."

⸻

We reached the edge of the square.

The imagined girl already wanted to go on, but I sat down on one of the benches.

"Wait a moment," I said. "I want to ask you something."

She sat beside me, though she looked as if she were doing me a great favor.

"What are you actually looking for?"

"Things I do not yet know."

"But there are infinite such things."

"True."

"So you will never finish?"

"I am not trying to finish."

I looked at her.

"That is interesting. Most things we do are aimed at some goal. We want to learn in order to know, to work in order to achieve something, to travel in order to arrive at a place. And you are not looking for an end at all."

"Why would I look for an end?"

"Because people love answers."

"I love answers too."

"But the moment you receive an answer, you are already looking for a new question."

"Sometimes the answer itself creates more questions."

I thought about that.

How many times had I begun reading about one subject, and discovered it was connected to ten other subjects I did not know?

Sometimes it seems to me that the more I learn, the more I understand how many things I still do not know.

"So knowledge does not necessarily reduce curiosity," I said.

"Sometimes it actually increases it."

⸻

The elderly man on the bench across from us went on feeding the birds.

I wondered whether he comes here every morning.

Perhaps he lives in one of the nearby buildings. Perhaps he knows every corner of this square.

And perhaps he too arrived here by chance, like me.

"I have a question about people," I said to the girl.

"Which one?"

"Why are we so curious about other people's lives?"

"Because they are different from ours."

"But sometimes this curiosity crosses boundaries."

"Which boundaries?"

"There are people who want to know things that do not belong to them. They ask overly personal questions, interfere in others' decisions, or look for information someone chose to keep to themselves."

"And do you think that is still curiosity?"

"Yes. But perhaps curiosity without enough consideration."

She was silent for a moment.

"So how do you know when it is permitted to ask?"

I thought about that.

"I do not always know. Perhaps one must pay attention to the person before you. Whether he wants to tell, whether he feels comfortable, and whether there is any reason for the question at all."

"And what if you very much want to know?"

"Just because I want to know does not mean someone must answer me."

The girl nodded.

"So there are things you will remain curious about without knowing the answer."

"Probably."

"And you can live with that?"

"I think so."

⸻

"I have a good example," I said.

"Of what?"

"Of a question I will probably never receive an answer to."

"Which question?"

"The jewelry box I bought in the antique shop."

I remembered the small wooden box, the old hinges, and the faded lining.

I still did not know whom it had belonged to.

Who kept jewelry in it, if at all? Was it a gift? Did it pass through a family for years?

"Would you like to know its story?" the girl asked.

"Very much."

"And if you discovered it had no special story? That it simply stood for years in a cupboard, until someone decided to sell it?"

I thought about that possibility.

"Perhaps I would be a little disappointed," I admitted. "I love imagining there are interesting stories behind old objects."

"But ordinary lives are also a story."

I looked at her.

"True," I said. "Perhaps I am simply used to looking for something extraordinary."

"And what if the interesting thing is precisely what you do not know?"

I smiled.

"You mean that the possibilities I imagine intrigue me no less than the true answer?"

"Perhaps."

I thought about the box.

If I knew exactly whom it had belonged to, perhaps I would stop imagining all the other possibilities.

But on the other hand, I would be very happy to know the true story.

"I think I want both," I said. "Both to imagine and to know."

"That sounds like you."

⸻

I rose from the bench and we began walking toward the main street.

"There is something else I want to understand," I said.

"What now?"

"Is curiosity always beneficial to us?"

"No."

"That is a surprising answer from you."

"Why?"

"Because I thought you would encourage me to explore everything."

"And if the thing you are exploring is dangerous?"

"Then one should be careful."

"And if the information you discover will hurt you?"

"That is already a more complex question."

I thought of the times I wanted to know something, but feared the answer.

Sometimes knowledge allows us to make a decision.

And sometimes it changes the way we see a person or a situation, without our being able to return to the feeling we had before.

"So perhaps there are questions it is better not to ask," I said.

"That could be."

"But how can one know in advance?"

"Not always possible."

She stopped by a shop window and looked inside.

"You are not giving me a particularly comfortable answer," I said.

"You did not ask for a comfortable answer. You asked to understand."

⸻

We kept walking.

Now and then she pointed at something she wanted to see, and I found myself stopping and looking.

An old sign above a door.

A window with blue shutters.

An alleyway that led to an inner courtyard.

Small things I would usually pass by without giving them a thought.

"Do you know what I love about you?" I asked.

"What?"

"That you make me notice things."

"You can notice without me too."

"Perhaps. But you remind me to look."

I thought about how sometimes we walk the same streets for years and almost no longer see them.

We know where every shop is, where one needs to turn, and when the junction arrives.

The road becomes so familiar that we stop noticing the details.

"Can one be curious also about things one already knows?" I asked.

"Certainly."

"How?"

"For example, you have known the people close to you for years. Are you sure you know everything about them?"

"No."

"So perhaps there are more things you could discover about them, if you asked."

I thought about that.

How many times do we assume we already know what another person thinks, because we have known them for a long time?

Perhaps sometimes it is precisely the familiarity that makes us stop asking.

⸻

I could already see the sea from afar.

"I have a question about myself," I said.

"I am listening."

"Does curiosity change with age?"

"What do you feel?"

"I think it does. Once I wanted to try many new things. Today I still want to learn and discover, but I choose differently."

"Why?"

"Because I know myself better. There are things I no longer need to test to know they do not suit me."

"And does that bother you?"

"No. But sometimes I fear I will stop being interested in new things."

"Why do you fear that?"

"Because I do not want to reach a state where it seems to me I have already seen everything, already heard everything, that there is nothing more to discover."

The girl looked at me.

"Do you really think you will see everything?"

I laughed.

"Of course not."

"So why do you worry?"

"Perhaps because one can stop being interested even when there is still much to see."

She did not answer at once.

"That is true," she said at last.

I was a little surprised by her seriousness.

"And how can one prevent that?" I asked.

"I do not know whether one can promise you will always feel curious. Sometimes you will be tired, busy, or simply not want to discover anything new."

"So that is all right too?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

I thought about that.

Perhaps one does not need to be curious at every moment.

Sometimes one can simply enjoy what one already knows.

⸻

We reached the wide street that led to the port.

The ship could be seen from afar, large and white, and around it moved people returning from the city.

"I want to ask you one last thing," I said to the girl.

"You say that a lot," she laughed.

"Probably because each time another question rises in me."

"Then ask."

"What do you think will happen if one day I stop asking questions?"

She thought for a moment.

"Perhaps you will be satisfied with what you already know."

"And perhaps I will simply be tired."

"That could be."

"But I think I would miss that feeling," I said. "The moment when something unfamiliar arouses in me a desire to come closer and discover."

"So perhaps you will remember it."

"And if I forget?"

The girl pointed toward the sea.

"Look how many things there are in the world that you have not yet seen."

I looked at the water.

I thought of all the places I have not yet been, of books I have not yet read, of people I have not met, and of thoughts I have not yet thought.

I had no idea which of them would arrive in my life.

But the very possibility aroused a slight excitement in me.

⸻

When I reached the last turn before the port, the imagined girl was no longer beside me.

She had disappeared from my thoughts as she had appeared in them, without my noticing the exact moment.

I continued walking alone.

I thought about the narrow street I had chosen at the beginning of the morning.

I had found nothing extraordinary in it.

Only a small square, a large tree, a few birds, and an elderly man sitting on a bench.

And yet, had I chosen the familiar road, I would not have known of its existence.

Perhaps that is one of the simplest pleasures there is in curiosity.

Not every discovery must change our lives.

Sometimes it is enough to discover there is something more in the world that we did not know.

I reached the port and looked back once more, toward the streets I had come from.

I wondered how many other corners in this city I had not managed to see.

I did not regret it.

After all, there will always remain something I do not know.

And that thought, instead of frustrating me, actually pleased me.

Continue to Chapter Ten: The Entity of Longing

© 2026 Nurit Rozenblat. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed without the author's prior written permission.