About a certain return

Part 18

– Let's go, said Gen, there's nothing we can do here!

I looked at him, where did he come from, what did he mean? "There's nothing..." What did we do? And he dragged me after him outside the city, to a gorge close to the woods where I meet again my brothers. I was happy to see them again; we hugged one another... Somebody was missing, Mag...

– Mag didn't get back yet. He must finish his experience, said Gen. Although we cannot wait too long for him. It's time to get out of here. How was it, he asked me? What did you find out?

Where we looking for something?

– My brain is sluggish. I didn't understand much.

In fact, I didn't understand anything. Where was I and where did I get, which were my limitations, how much of me belonged to me and why wasn't I able to shake off the connections? I was a bit confused and they all laughed at me... Oh, it was a joke! Actually it was better not to know anything, to be spotless. Otherwise how can you fight until the victory?

– Mag is late, said Gen worried. I think we should go after him.

And we passed into a hall where some human bodies were leaning motionless upon a wall and Gen got within someone's head. I looked inside: "Are we safe here?" I followed the others and crept in the man's brain. Some small bags, containing a flabby mass, gathered inside the animal's upper knob. I got inside the complicated network of tubs and channels and then we've been staggering fast pushed towards a quarantine and purification point. We have been sucked in by the nucleus and then thrown into a zone where we supposed to be searched and labelled...

The whole city woke up suddenly, it was inhabited and the people going up and down looked at us in a suspicious way, so I understood we were different, a potential danger, some of them were frightened seeing us and the dogs barked at us. We were led to the place where we had the opportunity to show our good intentions and calm down the city's spirit so that harmony can be reinstated...

– These chaps seem to be dull, I whispered to Pea. Where we are and what are we looking for?

– This city is the devil's world in Mag's vision. Here we can still find him...

How come they were all so clever and me so stupid? Where could we find the lad apart from his own mind? How could we come across him into this mixture of neuronal guts? And we split. I didn't know how we can get together again; I had a vague knowledge of the place where I set off, a massive building: the Temple. Wherever they are, humans feed those who are able to handle the phenomenon they cannot overpower. And then, they give to the phenomenon a proper amplitude. A huge rock had been carved with thousands, tens of thousands, and I didn't go round, of human bodies, hugging one another, human bodies with strange animal heads.

– Where are you going, dear? To the Temple? Are you one of the priestesses?

What a joke! But a chap from the group pinched my bottom!

– Go to hell, you animals! I answered back to these yobs, and I noticed that my voice had considerably changed.

I instinctively checked my fly opening. The "spear" was still there so I calmed down. I looked at them in disdain. A gathering of drunken idiots ready to pick up on anybody. I was really heading towards the Temple. A lot of people were going that way and I thought that a men's meeting has been organized as only men were getting in through the great gate. Huge entrance! Getting closer and closer I had the impression that the naked men populating the outside of the building were moving, or maybe it was just an illusion caused by the flickering light...