About a certain return

Part 7

I was called "The Man with no Face". I could remember some shadows moving around, the squeaking of the bed, a large space, huge... The moaning had an echo and sometimes I moaned in such a way that it frightened me. Now and then, seldom, very rare, a man with a beard changed the fabric sheets. It was him also who gave me to eat some juices of... something. I couldn't even feel their taste... a while. And then he forgot me there. For how long did I keep to my bed? I don't know. Why, to hell, does man care so much for this life, no matter how disgusting it is? Isn't it more natural to refuse the devilish gift? Life! It's all a gambolling wrapped up into stranger spaces, covered by... an organic lie. Limitations, inabilities, banning, frustration and the illusion of power. To die, and then die again...Death after death, death inside death, a sliding slope towards the abyss. The downfall... A fire ball, a blood stain, a catastrophic shock. Farewell.

My eyes were covered with a cloth. I remember the moment when I touched my face and felt the terrible wounds. I shouted as loud as I could without opening my mouth. I was an acceptance of my new existence. I could see something through the cloth covering my eyes. I got out of the bed and went in front of a large window, with bars. I found a piece of glass, there were a lot on the floor, I even wounded my foot with them, and cut the cloth to be able to see...to see the bleak space where I have been abandoned. By whom? It was a large building, with high rooms, large corridors... I walked along the corridors, along its halls, a wondered around until I felt hunger growing inside me... Then I saw a man coming towards me, he stopped right in the door frame and then said:

– Oh, the way! Here, you can no longer heal. Go and atone for! Go to hell!

I followed him. Where am I going? The door closed and I got in front of the building amidst a total war between two rival local gangs.

They were exterminating one another with no mercy, using a whole collection of weapons; mine launchers, fire launchers and racket propellers and all around were fire and ruin. I sneaked, with the greatest care, between the machine guns' bursts of gunfire...the bullets were shrieking next to me putting down more or less implicated people. The massacre has been unleashed! You can escape such a disaster, where the number of killer molecules is greater than that of the harmless ones, but only in a miraculous way. All, with no exception that survived in extreme situations believed they were chosen by the Divinity, there is not another power to protect them, and therefore, they needed to accomplish a great mission. That got into my head, but deeply, as stupidity! Mother Goddess must have a plan for me, I must have been chosen...for something. I run as far as I could to celebrate my appointment as "Chosen One". I didn't know more about me. I didn't know who I am, didn't know where I was, didn't know what am I looking for, however, strange or not, I had some notions that enable me to think fluently and to understand the world that surrounded me. Really strange! I knew the environment but couldn't place it inside my memory. In front of me there was a monument, a statue...A chap very well dressed, ancient, looking high up, holding a mason's trowel, a pair of compasses used by the same craftsmen and in the other hand a wire from which a weight was pending, therefore there was a mason's monument. I could even read: "Ab..."! There were signs I couldn't understand. A man coming from a sloping side road stopped in front of me and kneeled down. "I must be some kind of god with head wrapped up in cloths!" Most unlikely! The man left, and then I saw another gasping...I stood aside. The man was kneeling in front of the mason. It must be a ritual of this guild, I said to myself and I shouldn't disturb them. But what else did I have to do? I followed them and went through narrow streets paved but with no lamp posts. However, advancing on the pilgrims' way, and I convinced myself they were pilgrims, I felt I could see the expression of the people's faces who were coming from everywhere.

On the hill has been erected a pyramid building or could be a remarkable hip of collapsed walls, behind the market or esplanade surrounded by countless ruins. It seems to spread a blue light which was the main source of lightning of that city. Although the square...I'd say...had its own light, whitish and plain. Something was wrong with my sight...There it was, as I said, a pilgrimage place, lots of people, shadows , were moving around, staggering and mumbling. One of the chaps split from his group and went to the imposing building that attracted the onlookers' curiosity... He was an old man, bold and with a beard, dressed in a mantel made out of a hemp cloth, with a hood covering his head. I later noticed he was bold, when he pulled off the hood and started to make a speech at loud voice:

– Where did you come, you miserable ones? Why are you afraid to look in the face the Very High One that rules from the Lions Throne of the Central Kingdom, spreading form there the light's grain? Was there nobody to teach you how to abandon yourselves to the Wisdom spread from every object of knowledge sphere? Did you live your lives in such a spiritual darkness, in wretchedness and self-oblivion? Wake up from your fears, shake off your miserable fate! How many existences do you need to understand the Truth of a single one?

Seen like this, in that blue light, blue it seemed, and I told you, I wasn't doubtless, the old man reflected the light and his head gained a transparent aura... A goat? And old billy goat with horns and beard.

– Join me to be your teacher, follow me to show you the Way... Come with me you that still carry The Future's Heart in you chests, don't listen to those who no longer have a future, I am your salvation...!

He must be twisted, the old man...

– Don't list to him! Where... Where did you study? You humbug! You do not exist...

– You don't exist, you miserable ones! You... indulging yourselves in this sweet ignorance, going on with your sinful but unreal lives. I know each one of you. I am an unerring god, you are some lost souls...

– Down with the pervert billy goats! We are free. The true freedom is ours. We are fed up with old wrecks, and windy dodderers! We must build a new world, ours and yours. Come to the white-yellow movement, the freedom's front, freedom's and fraternity's... The white-yellowish light... Be my brother, be with my movement!

A chap ruffled, untidy, with an angular face, has spoken, who, by the way he was looking, seemed to be blind. His acolytes presented the refrain:

– Crush his head, pull out his heart and make a hump on his chest!

– You madmen, shouted another chap climbed on a stand and backed my some other four chaps looking alike! You crazy men! You twisted! I am your King! You know the story of my life with all its versions...You should worship me! This is how you'll find your salvation. Prostrate yourselves before I wake you up! These words I say reverberate in me, the Voice that sent me here is the Voice you all listen to, it's the Voice itself. And the Voice says: gather your followers and come to join me through the Orient's Gate. Get into the Field of the Evercheated! You most unhappy ones! With me, the first of your most abused of viscounts...! Your King...! Do not listen to the voices unknown for you...

This chap, covered with a funny surplice, was green and had eyes expanded like a frog... There was a lot of orators. Another one gleamed from the stand of a collapsed statue.

– You with devout, you with pity for others, grand me with your attention, gather here for your own protection. Because I am your protector and nobody else. Your sins are not mortal if you are willing to forgive. But you won't be forgiven for your mercy. As I am the only one that can forgive the people, mercy is my attribute...

He was holding his right hand fingers in a peculiar way, as if he was holding a cup's handle.

– I am the Conqueror, I heard from another direction, The Winner of the great battles... Come to know the glory on the battlefield, let us bring offerings and pray in the Temple of the Knighthood Master...

– Come here you virgins, angelic beings, angels lost in a demonic world...

I saw another two or three of those speakers, but they must have been more as I saw in places, how groups of pilgrims were gathering, when... An object was launched from the pyramid building, straight from the blue light which seemed to be sent forth by a gigantic eye. And that object, almost spherical, exploded amidst the crowd. The horror broke up, the terror and the chaos... a total, disturbing, inscrutable sound... and the eye flashed again...

– Do not run! I found myself shouting, don't run! As I am Man with no Face and no Death...

Then the monsters came in. They seemed huge, covered in flaks or amours, with aerials, or horns similar to the images of alien heroes known from historical myths. Their stage entrance was magic. A discontinuous motion of energetic discharges that advanced towards the victims... They were decomposed without even being touched! Arms, legs, heads, were splitting apart as if they have never been bounded together! Oh, the physical body! A clog of mud and blood, so fragile and short-lived! Are we this body or it's the body who is us? And when it no longer exists... how can we still be?

– Don't run! I am your savior... Where are you going?...