About a certain return

Part 2

The alarm clock buzzed ferocious. Oh, how I hate this aggressive tool! An existence traumatized by time and crazy needs that I cannot ignore. "Ahhhhh!" And the long row of people that got into it. In my existence ... Did I say ''my ex...''? Well, mine, ours, the devil's... I have no claim that anything belongs to me, in this matter.

– Darling... Wake up, darling, the clock rung! I told my wife and shock her.

– Yes, yes. What is it, the clock already rang? Ahhhhhoa! Damn this life! I don't have enough time to sleep!

And this woman really sleeps! She has a terribly deep and noisy sleep. I suffer of sleeplessness.

I put on my gown and got down to collect my newspaper. That was one week old. It became somehow a habit to skim through old-news while I made my toast and boiled the water for my tea. I could catch the twitches that tormented our world. After all, I was a news correspondent. I really wrote articles, as this one: '' Clerk working for an undertaking firm savagely killed his ward''. It's lifting; I'm tickled pink to read my story in the newspaper... The clerk is me, and the ward is my step daughter, my wife's daughter. It's true that the story is totally fabricated, but who cares whether it's true or not. I don't believe there had been anything real in that newspaper. But, taken as a whole, it caught the spirit of the mob. Really! No matter how hard would try the young ones of the editorial office, to get through something more refined, it didn't work. It didn't really work. Not a buffalo would read anymore. What, to hell, must be this ''buffalo''? Some extinct animal... Buffalo...!?

Vanda wakes up as well. She still goes to school, being in the terminal year. I wasn't allowed to talk about school. She would make faces and not speak anymore. It would upset her, that's it. What is this school good for!? She really grew up...

– Can't you see it's the last's week newspaper?

– Really? I pretended to be surprised... It's for my collection.

– You started to collect even newspapers? There's nothing eatable in this house! You didn't buy anything to eat. Stingy!

I left. I was walking to work as my belly was covered in cellulite and wanted to get rid of it. It was a long way up to the centre; I had to walk fast and always sweated. I walked along this way twice a day, for so much time that I started to hate it, I wished it would collapse or other thing happen to it. I was really in a hurry! Well, I got to the office, and great boss was on the line.

– Ish good you're here, ish you that I need!

– He called me... I said to the woman that protects him from unwanted disturbances.

– Stop! The advocate is in.

The advocate was a small, old and ugly creature, of an unspeakable arrogance. Well, an ex-parliamentary! He was still seeking for some profit wherever possible. In the middle of the anteroom, Mr Nero, the employer's dog, was stretching.

Not long ago we were familiar with the stupid mongrel. We could call him "you", pull his tail or his ears, this until, Mr "Stiffy" (as some of the staff call him), the employer, astonished us by saying : "From now on you should addressh politely to Nero, with "Mr Nero" becaushe I got him en identity card, he hash now my name and ish part of the family".

We hate the employers, these parasites believing themselves to be merciful gods. This is the riddle of the rich: Supposing he meets a beggar in the street (at the company, these are called "employees"). He would say: if I give something to this person, then I should give to all that are as poor as him, because they all are in dire straits and deserve the same. But I'm not wealthy enough to feed everybody, and if I went bankrupt, this won't solve the problem of the poor, so there's no point in giving him anything". Let's go on with our supposition, for the sake of the theory, let's say the rich man decides to give him something. How much should he give him? Everything? Most unlikely! He will give the beggar a little and save the rest. This is, as the scholars said, the feature of a god, who, like the rich man, gives a little and saves a lot for himself. And why has the beggar so little? The beggar has so little because, there had been created, arbitrary, the property laws. The procedures of property transfer are well defined and work is one of them. If the beggar doesn't fit with the work, then he must take what the chance gives him, or must live outside the law. To hell, with the compassion!

His wife came up from somewhere. She behaved like the "universal mother". She was gently mewing something about how many good things she did in her life, she would help any idiot and what did she get out of it? IN-GRA-TI-TUDE. That was, in a plain word! Oh, why are men so wicked? Look how much Nero loves her! He obeys her. Nero is perfect for her. "See how he shows his love? Stay here, stay, be a good boy! Stay there! Down, down! Stay here with mum!"...

The undertaking business was profitable. Specially now when there's a greater request for mummification than for cremation. It's true that not many could afford it, but it became already a fashion. You can keep the dead body in the house, it doesn't stink and it's not upsetting. Moreover, it has all the organs inside it, plus the cancer that destroyed him! It wasn't me who did the drying, the conservation, the reconstruction. The reconstruction is really an art. Really! To recreate the face of the deceased using pictures... I admired those who worked in the reconstruction workshop. They made a puppet on the deceased's charred skeleton. I only handled the papers, the documents. But my work had also a spectacular side. I knew almost all my employer's illegalities performed to increase his fortune. All his clients, the undeclared values, the corrupt men, the blackmails...

Wellish good you're here, repeated my boss, after his fat and disgusting secretarylet me in his office. You know that every week I musht make shomebody redundantash I musht change thingsh a little bit. And... I shaid to myshelf: Look, today Iwould shack the twenty sheventh of them. And shtarted to count: one, two... twentysheven... and, what do you think? The twenty sheventh it wash you! Ish notgood, I shaid to myshelf. Let me count from the bottom of the lisht. But thetwenty sheventh it wash you again! No, I thought, I like thish man! I shtartedto count from the middle of the lisht, but the twenty sheventh it wash youagain. What can I do?! There'sh nothing I can do, undershtand?