About a certain return

Part 8

– I've finished... to write a book, said to me the old man, I didn't even have time to close the door, that day which was supposed to change my habits and to alter everything I knew since then. "The Book"... the substance of a life time experience, my unique masterpiece. It's somehow a book of memories... In my young days I have been... one of the leaders of the revolutionary movement The Empty Skull... I practiced The Dead Beauty Cult... Maybe you've heard something... No? ... This movement is still alive, though it has been sold by its leaders. By me, by others... Here is everything... and he showed me a pile of paper sheets. To my belated great sorrow. Our aim was to reach the Sun light. To cross the Life's Maze, to pass the filters, to overcome The Great Barrier... If they succeeded, I don't know... I don't know...

He turned and pointed something with his finger... I didn't understand what he was showing me.

– Look! One Prince of the Light is already passing through, said he, and I immediately made a connection, either he's twisted (which I was sure of) or he was putting me to the test, or maybe he wanted to change the conversation, or, finally he might have senses that I lacked, and for this matter...

There might be an explanation, let's call it logical, but less scientific, that all the human senses are limited, some of them even ineffective, others being "offered" only to some privileged people, so we must be rather poor in a domain hardly known. Therefore, Mr Crow, in his madness or his wisdom, and who knows if there's a connection between these two features, managed to see what was out of my sight.

– What does "beautiful" mean? It is a convention about harmony, symmetry, rhythm, perfection. Really? The Empty Skull, a movement, a revolution aiming to invert the actual order – the ugliness cult, the disdain for life... Obviously, we die, obviously we cannot understand why we exist, we live fearing death, that all the research directions are closed, that our existence is confined in caves. To worship the harmony is nonsense and a lie. The truth is that there is no salvation for us, that we are damned, that we will be tortured for our disobedience, that "the beauty" has died...

Why was he telling me all this?

– Mr Crow... sir! Please, take a break! You might have a stroke, or something! Calm down, sir! Why are you telling me all this? Why don't you speak to Mr Black? Are you not talking to each other anymore?

– The book, said the man, short of breath, the book...

– So what...

– Black is repudiating it. He says he doesn't accept my vision, more precisely, that we'll both be killed... But we're already dead! To die a second time means a continuous death, a dissociation of the spirit, do you follow me?

I didn't understand anything, but I nodded affirmatively.

– It is, continued Mr Crow, history, my boy. It's history here. The Downfall's history, the Numbers' history, tyranny and democracy, the Wound history, young man! The human civilization flourished alongside with the growing to perfection of the illness detection methods. Since our first era, when the Barbu Gold method has been discovered, in the years 240, which could annihilate their anarchist shouting, killing them from the distance, since them the entire scientific research flourished. But, unfortunately, the first signs, the first embryos of tyranny, appeared. And it was then, also, when the theory asserting that the Cosmos doesn't exist, was launched....

What kind of nonsense was Mr Crow speaking? The Wound? It was probably in connection with his "memoreme" and his empty skull. "I'd better scuttle away" I said to myself, "I've got more work to do".

I had to deliver two more parcels to other "twisted chaps", so I excused myself... "I'll come another time, maybe having more time to spare, and maybe you'll be kind enough to..." To, what? To pop in to Marcel, as I needed to see him. Marcel was usual at the restaurant Carutza, on Cosor Road, and invited me for a drink, a Cocktail Bar. It was a flavored drink, with alcohol, somehow inducing hallucinations, illegally sold but tolerated by the agents. They drink it too. It's not that bad. I rushed to deliver the parcels to the recipients and to find this friend – the pub is uphill on the large paved street, and the area is a bit crowded, it's a central area. On my way I was dreaming with open eyes, I was writing in my mind an article for the Newspaper which went like this: "What makes a writer to write, a journalist to look out for news, for the breaking news of the year? To be endlessly looking of what's good, to offer a dream to everyone, a little thought for every living creature on Earth? We are more and more numerous and, paradoxically, fell more lonely. And accidentally, even more, solitaires. "It sounds well, doesn't it? Not too! Oh, look what's Marcel doing! He was chatting some of the girls from the pub's staff.