Mario Schmunck has brought a copy of the Book of the Dead with him, just in case. Far be it from me to be the one to reproach him for it, mind you. I do the same thing too when I travel. I keep it in my bag. The Bardo Thödol. It’s useful reading, an investment for the worst days. He flips through it.
“At every step,” says Mario Schmunck, “before and during every trial, and also after, someone exhorts the dead to detach from the illusions of existence. You want to convince them to refuse reincarnation, pushing them toward permanent dissolution. You can’t accept the notion that someone would want to live again as a conscious individual, that someone would desire to be reborn once more. . to try their luck one more time. . It’s fine so long as you don’t insult them. . You get sarcastic because they keep trying to be reincarnated. .” (A beat.) “In fact, I don’t know if I’d be able to renounce that kind of prospect. . Diluting yourself into nothingness doesn’t seem all that appealing. . And do you know how you yourself would react? In this situation, in the dark, in fear. . What would you choose? Dissolution, or reincarnation? Nothing forever more, or a new life of suffering? For example in a frightening and despicable body? As a baboon, a chicken? A powerful mafioso?”
Strong audio feedback cuts through the space separating the inside of Mario Schmunck’s mouth from the inside of his ear.
“That’s true, I shouldn’t have done that,” the journalist admits as an aside. “Yes, I know, you’ve already warned me once. Yes. No subjective evaluations. It slipped out. Okay. No negative opinions about the system. . No, I don’t have any excuse. Okay. Won’t happen again. Yes? A review for those who’ve just tuned in? No problem, I’m on it.”
A beat.
“Off-Shore-Info, do you copy? Ladies and gentlemen, dear listeners, Mario Schmunck here. I’m back on air after a technical issue. For the people just now tuning in, I’m going to briefly list the steps of the journey the deceased follows, as they are written in the Bardo Thödol. Day one, blue light. Day two, white light. Day three, yellow light. Four, five, red, green.” (Gong.) “Then, encounters with forty-two organized into groups of five pairs. . The number is lopsided, yes, but since I’m not here to give my own personal opinions on the system, I. . Fine. So. Day seven, encounter with the deities of Knowledge, armed with curved blades, brandishing skulls full of blood, drums and trumpets made of human femurs, flags of human skin.” (Gong.) “From day eight to day fourteen, confrontation with the irritated, bloodthirsty divinities. . And then, from day fifteen to forty-nine, wretched wandering in deep shadow, in great agony, through gusts of wind, hailstorms, and wailing mobs. .”
Silence.
“At least,” Mario Schmunck says, “such a scenario unfolds when the deceased makes his way through the Bardo, not when he sleeps soundly. Glouchenko’s case is peculiar, I think. . For him, it’s already day. . Pfff! Day forty-three of his nap. .”
Silence.
Gong.
A not very strong strike of the gong, in reality, but, for some reason, this is the one that wakes Glouchenko. The soldier stirs. He yawns. He stretches.
“Wow,” says Glouchenko. “I wonder how long I was asleep. Something like an hour or two. Or maybe just five minutes. Who knows!” (A pause.) “It’s pretty quiet around here! Quiet, dark. . No one else around. . Although. . Sometimes it’s like someone’s whispering in the dark. Must be coming from another building. . Or maybe it’s just a feeling. .”
He stands back up. He stumbles as his feet find the telephone cord. The phone jingles for half a second and Glouchenko, by reflex, sits down and picks it up.
“Hello, Babloïev?” he says.
He rests the receiver on the cradle and starts muttering.
“Dammit,” he mutters. “What’s going on with me? Here I am talking to Babloïev, poor guy. . Hardly disembarked, and already sent home in a plastic bag. No time to get used to the climate, to fight the enemy. It was our own weapons that exploded in his face. . Talk about a waste! Those arsenal bastards, they’ll pack things up any which way!” (A pause.) “Wait a second, what am I doing talking to a dead man? The darkness is getting into my head. . The darkness, the stillness. . I’ve got to move. .”
He trips over metallic objects. Once again, he is walking into the inky night, his footsteps small and cautious.
“Nothing’s changed at all,” he says. “I have to go. I have to get out of here. I’m going to end up falling into a hole.” (A pause.) “The room has to have a door, no one’ll tell me different. I’ll go straight ahead.” (A pause.) “Go on, Glouchenko, you’re going to get out of here. It’s just a matter of minutes.”
“Oh noble son,” the officiant’s voice suddenly says. “Six weeks have passed, and at no moment have you concentrated your mind on the means of your liberation.” (Gong.) “You have roamed the shadows like a fearful beast, you have not taken advantage of the thousand opportunities before you to become Buddha. .” (Gong.) “Now, it is too late, Glouchenko. You are going to live again.” (Gong.) “Alas, Glouchenko, I am warning you, you are going to live again. Now, you are growing inexorably closer to your rebirth. You are going to be sucked up by a womb, you are going to be inserted into a fetus.” (Gong.) “Listen to me, Glouchenko.” (Gong.) “Try at least to have the intelligence not to enter the first womb you see, not to throw yourself into any available envelope, in order to avoid becoming an animal in your next existence.” (Gong.) “Listen to me, noble son. I am going to guide you so that you choose a womb with discernment. A human womb.”
“Hey, talker!” Glouchenko calls out. “Where are you?”
Glouchenko advances. His feet land heavily on the ground. The sound he makes, reminds us that he doesn’t have to wear shoes.
“I’m sure there was a guy whispering somewhere. .” (A pause.) “Hey! Whispering guy! Where are you hiding? Come on, greenhorn, show yourself, the jig is up!” (A pause.) “That you, Babloïev? That you, boys?”
He again advances two or three steps.
He has stubbed his toe on an iron mess kit or a grenade. He sends it rolling away. It bounces twice then wavers a moment, with an increasingly quick pendular movement, then settles.
“Listen to me well, Glouchenko,” the officiant says.
Glouchenko has stopped. He listens to the sole moving object, which then subsides. Something in the air quality suddenly catches his attention.
“Huh,” he remarks. “That’s weird.”
He sniffs.
“There’s a smell now,” he says. “That’s new.”
He’s completely still so he can inhale better.
“Smells like cat piss,” he says. “No, wait, not a cat. . Or maybe a cougar. .”
“Focus your attention, Glouchenko,” says the officiant.
“It’s wild animal piss,” says Glouchenko.
He sniffs again.
“Damn!” he exclaims. “That’s strong! That’s really fucking strong!”
“Listen to me with all your strength, noble son,” the officiant says.” (Gong.) “Soon you will have been walking for seven weeks. You are going to reach the journey’s end.” (Gong.) “Soon you will see males and females in union. You will feel a deep sympathy for them, a violent sympathy. You will be attracted to the notion of quickly entering a seed.” (Gong.) “You will want to be created by a father and a mother.” (Gong.) “Now focus your attention on what I am saying, Glouchenko.” (Gong.) “Do not let yourself be placed in any random embryo. Act with discernment. If you give yourself over to your sympathies or random chance, you risk being reincarnated as a miserable beast. You might wake up as a cockroach or a snake, or even a yak, constantly soiled by its own dung. That would be foolish, Glouchenko.” (Gong.) “But all the same, you were a human being in your past existence.”