Onward, the Maltese Falcon says to Charles.
Attack on the left flank. It was my chance to turn into Humphrey Bogart. Troops ready. Acugêlê banzai!
Crazy Nerd and Silver Alky were playing Battleship. What do I know about war? Guerrilla tactics. Silence. Who’s afraid? Surging adrenaline and the smell of manure attack me as I blink. Strobe light. Black light. Spots. Thunderclaps. Lightning and rain. It’s raining now. It always rains when I want it to. Rain? There’s no rain falling … So how do I feel one day when the sound of rain attracts my useless agony? Where does it rain, where is it sad? Tell me, clear sky. I make it rain. I’m strong enough. But I’m fragile and delicate like anyone who feels life. Not everybody knows what they want out of life. If you do know, you live life. If you don’t, you feel life.
I miss Rimbaud. I guess I’m going to lose a friend. He’s not been around. Baudelaire never was much for having a chat. I think he really does think I’m Charles Laughton, Hunchback of Notre-Dame.
I never knew when he was close by.
The stars are up there, Baudelaire.
They’ve gone now.
I hope that when the Big Bang happens, a spaceship full of earthlings will be shot into outer space, taking at least one Van Gogh painting with it.
He chewed on his ear until the end of his days. He’d been through hell. He was born to be wild and a hero.
From white to black. Let’s be realistic.
The things we invent are all Carnival costumes. Some costumes might be better than others. Sometimes they might even be tragic. Being tragic is worse than being crazy. Only Fearsome Madman is both tragic and crazy. Could I have been the one who killed Fearsome?
I want to be promoted to someone’s hallucination, please!
To fly in a helicopter. I’m going to be a pilot, Dad. Being delicate cost me my life.
[From Greek epilogos]
Everything goes out. The candles go out. The matches go out. I don’t even know if it’s sunny outside. I smoke a cigarette that doesn’t go out. I drink a smoothie from back when they didn’t make me fat. She tells me I’m cute. I leave myself behind two hundred times a day and I come back. Each time I go out a little bit less. Countdown. Five, four, three, two, one. I went from infinity to infamy. From infamy to infinity. There was the smell of Mum’s orange cake in the air. Friday.
When I got home I’d never heard so much silence in my room. I’d been released just a few hours earlier. This time no one had tailed our car. I hadn’t seen Rimbaud or Baudelaire for a few days. When you have such strong ties and you shared a life together, you miss your friends. My blue dog was there, grubby with age, with lots of stories to tell.
I walked around my house and felt free. Freedom was in the small things: reading emails, opening the fridge. Now I needed to get healthier. Open things. I opened the box of matches. I opened the gas valve and lit the flame. I opened the box of incense. I went along opening, opening, opening, as if I were opening up and discovering things for the first time. It felt like I’d spent a century away from home. Everything was the same, but different.
I was a butterfly butterflying around the minefield, the power zone, the place where all my scandals had played out. I was back to my life.
I put a pizza in the oven. Finally I could eat something that appealed to me. I devoured the pizza like a Viking eating roast quail. Then I lay down to sleep.
The meds made me shiver and drool.
Night came quickly. I put away a plate of veg and salad, for a snack. I went to my room and slept.
Men with manes, bird manes, were speaking a language I didn’t understand. I had a strange theory: every animal on earth has a planet where its intelligence is equal to that of humans and they survive like us. So, beetles had Beetleland; ducks, Duckland. Maybe I was just dreaming about Disneyland? There was a league that brought together all the beings in the universe. But each one spoke its own language. K d pocua besourfez biologic Todog.
I woke up suddenly, the word Todog echoing in my ears. I wrote down the code and stuck it on the corkboard. The dream would recur, but always with a new word. I felt special, receiving those messages. I thought I was a clairvoyant, all-seeing. Someone who’d have answers for the cosmos. I placed an ad in the newspaper, looking for other people who had the same powers, who were working in the same field.
Ten people appeared. We decided to hold meetings called Todog. We were tasked with creating a new language that different beings would use to communicate with one another.
The meetings were delightful, each of us talking about our life with extraterrestrials. Some had had chips implanted, so we needed to join together as a congregation. We ate wind. We drank air. We fed on sunlight. I lost thirty kilos. We started to set aside some money for our photocopying expenses and supplies.
Out of the Todog meetings came the Todog religion. I was consecrated Magma I. And each one of the other ten members had a specific role. It was a small step from my consecration as Magma I to being First Todog.
Rising over other people is a funny thing. Having the power to speak and make others do exactly what you’ve asked. But I didn’t abuse my status as First Todog.
I was the First Todog, the one everyone had to respect. I was a kind of god to those people. I was responsible for making sense of the laws of the universe and turning them into a language that could be understood by the other beings in the universe.
For my father this was pure insanity.
You want me to call you Todog. Like a kind of dog?
No, not dog. It’s Todog.
How ridiculous can you be. Look at you, wearing a robe. You don’t even put on trousers any more.
They’re Todog robes.
And the flowers?
Todog flowers.
Everything is Todog?
Yes, I’m part of everything. Anhamambé arlicouse proto bumba Todog.
Stop saying that nonsense.
To cantilya chamtipa cur
Tuereriçaau mandique puss
Pos polacossidrometáuio.
Todog.
My father slapped me across the face. The other members of my religion laid into my father.
They really beat me up. I’m calling the police.
We have religious freedom.
Your religion is lynching an old man.
When they attack our god Todog we’re defending ourselves from their hell.
My hell is all of you and this idiot son of mine.
Todog. We are one another’s hell.
I’m kicking you out. Go live in some other shithole.
Todog. Absentam. Clux.
Todog.
I left and went to the streets preaching the Todog. First we had to grow and multiply the number of the faithful.
We got into a fight on the corner of Miguel Lemos with some punks who were passing by. Todog is strong and imposes itself by force. Two punks converted. The power of the word renewed the lives of those who took on the teachings.
We went to sleep in a nearby shelter. I had to name a Todog 2 to take my place. So I chose the fattest one. I called him Xuma Quizombe. Xuma consecrated himself grand master. Bencotuzaac maarrienovic gossstumaan. Xuma Todog 2. He was my secretary on all our works. Kicked out of the shelter, we went to an abandoned campground.