About a certain return

Part 14

What does push a writer to write, a journalist to look for the news, for the year's sensations? To look continuously for the best, to offer a dream to everybody, a small thought for every little creature on earth? We are more and more numerous and, paradoxical, lonelier, more isolated...

I couldn't get to the Library so I pedalled towards the city centre, I was already late. I was rapidly getting closer to the red wall on top of which there was a huge poster with the athlete flying through the air, with one foot over the bar and the other bended, looking down towards me. Did he jump over without touching it? I got to "Carutza" pub, tied the bike to a post, took the book... "How is it entitled?" It was a manuscript, but written at a typing machine, with thick covers, a bit dusty...

– Hey, hello!

Marcel who was sitting at a coffee table, between two women, stood up and waved at me. He introduced me to the ladies, Gina and Melissa nicknamed the Machine-gun, two blonds that got bored waiting.

– Excuse me for being late, I had a crazy day... Ah! I'm coming to my senses with difficulty, excuse me! What are we celebrating?

– You! You foolish! You're buying the drinks, you have been published, did you forget, old chap?

– You mean, I have been published...?

Gina looked straight into my eyes and then looked down bashfully. "Where do I know her from?"

– This girl admires you, whispered Marcel in my ear. She read your story, the one with... the bud... and told me you have a special... talent, did you know?

Ah, I really wrote something... a stupidity... taken from someone else, the viruses are in circulation, and we process to make them indestructible... Actually I was processing them, not to talk on someone else's behalf. Any sexual hint is relaxing me. I forget the problems of the monster in my skull, its disgusting algorithms, all the wallowing that comes with it, and other senses come to life. These senses are always associated with dancing. Stepping together, the clutching of hands, the rhythm... I had written as I said... But it wasn't my idea, I nicked it, so to say, but took advantage of it, as nobody accused of plagiarizing. Let them go to hell! They all take advantage of someone else's ideas. Actually that's what I did my whole life; I imitated the others, why should I hide my head into... You tell me?! A wreck, yes, but what can I do? The "creator" seems not as clever as his follower. And there's no way he can be. He's busy with the channel, the connection that opened between him and the Demiurge, the Whatever. The fine work is done by the translators, by the commentators. Do you know the poem about the imperfections of the demiurge? He's not only imperfect, but also vindictive... Oh, his mother...! The mother of all what... what... was I talking about? About Gina's bottom. What a pleasure to see it moving... and soft juke-box music was swinging me in the rhythm of the motion... The girls were going to the toilet to powder their little noses and I stood there with Marcel to sip slowly my bar-cocktail. I liked to make it myself, with alcohol, and some other ingredients: mint, a little bit of soda, sugar, ice... to mix it in an intense but absent way, with my silly mind drifting...

– The girls invited us to a show, said Marcel, right across the street, at the theatre.

– I'm married enough, unlike you... and I'm not properly dressed for a show, I also have my bike with me and this book that I don't know who to dispatch...

So many reasons...

– I believe it came out of a parcel.

– Is it a forbidden book? Didn't you look at it?

– I don't want any trouble, I'm even afraid to look at its covers. This idea doesn't tempt me at all.

– Give it to me to have a look! Doesn't it have a title? "The Memories of a Man Touched by the True Light"! What sort of book is this?