About a certain return

Part 14

– How come, said Mr Kolar astonished? Oh, I know! I know! Don't tell me I know. He's the other Ego of Mr Crow. You must have noticed he has a double personality, haven't you? But, you've just said that nothing catches your attention.

What... double personality... was Kolar dreaming about? I've spoken so many times to Mr Black... It's true that in the absence of Mr Crow. And the books were sent on his name...! Oh, it makes me feel dizzy. I fell like quitting this bloody job. Just, that I needed to be made redundant, on reasons that didn't depend on my own will, otherwise I risk becoming undesirable and sent to work in a mine.

– Why do you think that Momalia puts on makeup and uses perfume? Because she's ugly and stinky? Ha, ha...

– Mrs Momalia? But also Mr Feroiu puts on makeup and perfumes himself...

– I don't know this chap...

Mr Kolar was playing with my nerves, that were about to give up... But before I got the chance to set free my anger, he said: OK, now give me the parcel and leave! Tomorrow come back and tell me the detailed story of your conversation with Momalia. I will give you a paper with true stories and a list with those you must pass on to. I'm waiting for your wholehearted collaboration, brother. Then, we'll make an amazing trip into our real world, no hideouts. It's worth going...

A no good cheater this Kolar, I was thinking and fearing that, somehow, CiSe was monitoring my thoughts...

That must be the reason, for a time I become abnormal... all sorts of peculiar things happen to me, I was telling myself, noticing that in the bike's basket there was a book with no destination left. "How did it get out of the parcel?"

I passed by the electrical power station, one of the twenty alike that used the rising air currents and made a loud and low sound that minced not only the hearing of those living nearby but also the flesh of humans and animals in the area. I was running to the Oddpost newspaper publishing office to see how is Mr Marton who was still in debt to me, not only on credit but also morally, because he kicked me in the ass the last time I had been there, and now, look, he cared for me – as Augustin was saying.

The headquarters of the back paper in cause was on my way, so I didn't have to divert away from my route to the city centre and I got, not too late, in front of the old building, I tied my bike on to the stand for such vehicles; I took the book and got upstairs to the publishing office. It wasn't the only newspaper published in that building, there were four more others, the editorial office was a few streets away, in a one store building, there it is also printed, but the journalists stay away of the machine splash with toxic print. They said you can die, but I never got in there. My job was only in the publishing office. I knew most of the journalists of "The Oddpost". It was a suitable surname for it. I didn't like anything about this newspaper, not the name, not its format of the editorials, the news, the page setting, the people... But I used to read it. It was the only newspaper I used to read. I could watch all the other news on Intervision (also called "metrovision"). Though I was in a hurry, I got slowly upstairs, greeted all the chaps on the staircase, on the hallway and was about to enter in the head editor's office. Marton was sitting at his desk, with his feet crossed, smoking his pipe, and the smoke was spreading throughout the room. Next to him were some of his usual workmates and it seemed they were in a daily meeting focused on the setting of the next day newspaper. This is why it's called "a journal", isn't it? Because it's daily published... or a sheet of paper with news on about yesterday-today-tomorrow. I could hear what they were talking about while I was still in the hallway. Coroianu was saying that it would be useless to pass the news that the General Council starts it is annual holiday, on the front page, as nobody knows where the high magistrates spend their holydays: "Who had ever seen them? You? You?", "The hound race: Humbug passed before Caro at the last moment!"