Doctor, we’ve been monitoring the planet DULL WINTER EARTH for several centuries and we’ve established that there’s no one there but the six beings that the space observation cameras have detected. What’s striking is that the six haven’t left the confines of their village on the banks of the red river. This is, in fact, a frozen river but we still don’t know what it’s made of. It looks to us like a river of frozen blood. And from the results of our observations, it seems that one of the six beings is the leader of the group. His house is set apart on the bluff and is shaped like a cup, while the other houses are glass rooms like water bubbles. The houses are close together on a curved line. For years, all we’ve observed of their way of life is the strict routine they perform every day. The five stay at home all the time, while the sixth sits motionless on the edge of the red river. Then the five come out together and head towards the sixth. They surround him and present him with something we can’t see. When they move away to go back to their rooms, the sixth one goes back to his room too. He stays there some time, then goes out and throws something into the river, then goes back to where he sits. We finally decided to wipe them out with laser beams, and we didn’t risk getting in touch with them. I think the time for adventures is over. They belonged to that time that had caused the disappearance of our old Earth. What’s laughable is that among us there’s an old eccentric astronaut who still writes poetry. As you know, our early forefathers on Earth used to engage in this retarded behaviour. The astronaut would say, ‘Those six are God!’ Can you imagine! After so many aeons of existence, after mankind has achieved complete immortality in its triumph over death, there are still people who believe in God. The astronaut must be punished and subjected to prolonged psychiatric treatment. He’s suffering from the belief disease, which is otherwise extinct in this age of ours — the age of eternal voyaging, the second eternal age that lacks any purpose or direction.
But one beautiful calm night the astronaut left his room to go for a space walk. He put on his suit, jumped into space and began to swim slowly, looking at the distant stars. A while later all the astronaut did was rearrange the letters in the planet’s name in his mind and read them as DEATH WILL RETURN.
After this minor linguistic discovery, which some of his colleagues saw as pure hocus pocus, alarm spread among the inhabitants of the galaxy and many conferences were held to look into the possible dangers.
Doctor, that’s why the stories had to be rewritten. Because the word death had stirred up sensations again.
I don’t want to look on serenely and quietly. I’m tired. I want to scream. I’m like any one of you, a mass of schizoid monkeys living in one body. I’m a fish that burns in an oven while it’s pouring with rain outside. Yet another image, and yet more poisons pouring out of my mouth. Smile, Mother, so that the dates ripen. Good, I thought the world was just a coded dream and that I was a symbol hunter who needs a hunting net and a laboratory. The books tricked me before the encyclopaedia of human insects could trick me. And finally the dream for which I had wrecked my life collapsed. I now have two wrecks: my life and the dream. I love you, Mother, and I pray that God will stop tormenting you with vulgar black sadness and that the country will be ruled by an angel with a beautiful bottom. Before he set fire to the children’s bus, the doctor was treating my depression some of the time, and at other times my aggressive and trouble-making mentality. I can’t sleep, Mother. They want to force me to sleep. And you, my brothers, I tell you I’m one of those terrified patients, one of those Kafkaesque mice, a breed that’s chased forever. We eat fast and in fear, we sleep with eyes half-closed. The characters in our nightmares are evil cats and barbed wire traps. By the way, this disease isn’t contagious, but genetic. Before Kafka appeared they used to call our ancestors the sources of evil. They sent them to the temples to exorcise the demons from their heads. As for now, how can we describe our wretched political life?
My wife, my friends and the head of the Association for the Defence of the Unfortunate are all praying for me to sleep and to receive my due in life. They’re right when they feel they are privileged, because those who sleep are kings who are born by day, quietly and in good health, outside the hospital, and they do not know the screams of childbirth. I envy them this peace of mind and graciousness. As for me, you can label me ‘distrustful’, as well as ‘disreputable’, because I can’t submit my spirit to daybreak stealthily and without protection. I’m also faithless, and I intend to announce a new battle with the pharmacy. That’s why I won’t visit the doctor from now on. The trouble is that they stop you drinking alcohol when you’re taking their pills — those insecticides they offer you with a broad grin. The nurse also gave me the telephone number of a ‘suicide paramedic’. Do you think I’m joking? Haven’t you heard of this job? The nurse said, word for word: ‘You can call this number if you feel you’re about to do something dangerous. They’ll come straight away.’ I didn’t believe it when I heard there was an ambulance specially dedicated to the suicidal. But is it to rescue them, or just to satisfy their curiosity, to witness failed attempts at suicide? And what kind of loser would put his head in the noose and then take his mobile phone out of his pocket and call for an ambulance? Okay, okay, okay, I agree to visit the doctor, but on certain conditions: he has to come up with other answers, not the ones I already know. I want convincing answers about my crisis when I wander round the streets at dawn. I want to ask the doctor about that mysterious religious desire that jolts me at such an ungodly hour in the morning.
Thank you, madam. Give me the phone number of your association. Your eyes are beautiful, and this beautiful flower — I mean the earring — is it a daffodil?
Before the doctor was cut in half and burnt the children with his car, I said to him: ‘Doctor, did you know that when I leave the house and the cold air touches my face, I feel this desire? Warm water wells up into my head from unknown springs. I feel lighter and then it’s like I’ve turned into a Buddhist cloud. How can I explain it to you? Look, there’s a seagull snatching a small piece of bread from that group of sparrows and taking it up to the roof of the train station.’