He slept longer than he intended, and when he woke up, he waited, as if he had nothing better to do, and now that she’s finally with him, he just looks at her, stares at her from his little nook beside the window, as if the fact that she’s now there justified all the waiting. Blindfolded, kneeling on the bed, the girl plays with herself, rubs herself through her panties, pushing them into herself, her body writhing slowly, trembling, her other arm softly grazing a nipple, as she continues masturbating, doubled over with pleasure, manipulating the fine silk between her legs, each movement of her hand eliciting a spasm. She bites her lip. Her blindfold prevents her from seeing the screenwriter, who’s looking through a crack in the curtains at the darkness of his neighbor’s window. How grateful he would be, grateful to God and all the angels in heaven, if the woman suddenly appeared. He’d fling open the curtains, as if to reveal a stage, on which the girl lies naked on his bed, masturbating for his own private delectation, and perhaps that of his neighbor, as long as she consented to play the voyeur. But the darkness in the window doesn’t change, so he goes over to the girl, who senses his approach, and the screenwriter, unable to bridle his lust, tears off her panties and buries his face in them. Before long, come the tremors, the earthquakes, and then the world collapsing beneath them.
The only true paradises are the ones we lose. Or perhaps they’re the ones we imagine. Time and space don’t exist outside the mind, and after all, nothingness is the girl’s favorite topic of discussion, if only during those brief intervals when she feels at ease — safe from her extraterrestrial stalkers. There’s an infinitesimally small point, a point so small we’d probably need a magnifying glass, or something more powerful like an electron microscope to see it, and even then it would probably be undetectable. This is the point from which everything begins. But being undetectable, perhaps we have to trust in its existence by a leap of faith. What really matters though is not the object in itself, whether it exists objectively, so to speak, but the fact we can perceive it at all, and perception, being subjective, is as multifarious as the number of people that comprise the human race. So external reality, as any one of us perceives it, must be considered only one among many realities. Only the girl can hear the difference between “ka” and “k”; only she knows the world isn’t real, that it’s only a projection from a single point, the thoughtlet of a single mind, or — as she calls it — the big bang. In his world, the screenwriter finds it difficult to understand nothingness, whether it’s true to say “nothing” exists, or that “nothing” does not exist. He’s read something about it before. There is no difference, the girl explains, because neither is real, neither the infinitesimally small point before the big bang, nor the big bang itself. The truth is they’re a fabrication — a metaphor conceived by the mind to account for and makes sense of its own existence. The screenwriter seems to be thinking about something else she’s said. The official version, the one you read in the textbooks, is just as hard to accept, she declares: that nothingness is a miniscule point of departure loaded with matter, and that from this point the whole universe arose. If there really was nothing there, wouldn’t it be just as plausible to say this miniscule point was loaded with thought? The discussion ends. A minute passes, perhaps an hour. Every now and then, the screenwriter looks into the girl’s eyes, focusing on some point in space reflected there. The girl eventually rouses herself from semi-consciousness, as if returning from some distant region in space, climbs out of the bed, and gets dressed. Do you know my father’s been to the church? she asks, half-yawning. She draws open the curtains and looks out the window, scanning the streets for the shadow that persistently stalks her. He doesn’t come to hear me play, she says while lighting a joint. People change, he says while reaching to partake of a drag. Well, maybe, she says while proffering him one.
She’s going to be late. She spent most of the day writing before going for a long walk in the city, wandering here and there, not sticking to a specified route, because the only thing on her mind was writing. As always, she’s going to be late for rehearsals. With the church closed to the public, the young conductor’s going over some final details with the other musicians, reviewing some tricky passages they haven’t been performing very well the past few days. Then the girl’s mother arrives and reads some reviews to them from the city’s major newspapers to them. She glosses over any negative comments and gushes about the critics’ unanimous praise, about the length of the queues outside the church, which she says exceeded everyone’s expectations. The girl’s surprised her mother kept this news from them until now. There will be even more coverage because of this, she predicts, more critical acclaim, and many more lucrative offers. This is a turning point in all your careers. The girl’s mother is always talking business. Even when she seems to be discussing music, she’s thinking business. The girl peeks out to watch the people taking their seats. Although they don’t say it, the girl knows perfectly well what the young orchestra conductor and brilliant composer want in life: an opportunity to triumph on the stage, to alter the course of modern music, to be thought revolutionaries by future generations who’ll speak of their influence in terms what came before and what came after them: ambition is as old as life itself — as old as desire. And the girl’s desire is to be a writer. She turns from the audience toward her two colleagues. Perhaps it’s an innocent question, perhaps it’s a part of the game, but she wants to know what she should do about her literary ambitions. Nothing, they say. Just focus on the music, play the piano, maybe you could write librettos for the brilliant composer. The girl believes they should be the ones writing librettos for her. She’s the only star among them. But she shouldn’t be worrying about this now, all this squabbling and pointless rivalry, when there’s a concert to perform. The young conductor says accidental elements should be included in the music, for, although submerged, they form part of a unity in which each decision, each act, has intended and unintended repercussions, but the unintended shouldn’t be eliminated because they’re accidental, because everything works together toward the same end, which is to evoke the one meaning, one image, one thought that encapsulates the work. Just like in the game. The girl believes this can be accomplished only in two things: fiction or insanity. She wonders if this kind of thinking will prevent their ever playing foosball together again, or being happy the way they used to be: used to be, she can barely remember it now. Maybe he’s just being sensational, has all her mother’s talk of marketing and promotion on the brain. All the girl wants to do is go back to her hotel room and write. About what she doesn’t know, she just wants to write. She peeks out at the audience again. There are people of all ages. Some are fans, others came to see what the fuss is about, but they all want to be wowed by the precocious young musicians, and by the girl, the starlet. Children whose parents hope they will emulate her sit upright in their seats, waiting excitedly, and the girl smiles sardonically at the prospect of one of them succeeding her. She recognizes a couple of familiar faces in the first row, including the young conductor’s latest conquest. The brilliant composer remarks on the Little Sinfonietta’s popularity. Maybe they didn’t come just to see the clown’s nose, he sneers, but are actually interested in the music.