Fancy Shop Page 6

  Who is he? This is the redeeming question? Some kind of a sign. Some kind of a name. It’s usual to start with that. Now everything will be fine. When you know who you are, you will align everything else. Why is he here? What else? Isn’t everything here somewhere inside his previous thoughts? Where are they? What happened to them? Is he here for real? Where is he actually? What does ‘here’ mean? Could it be that even that is not certain? Something must have remained. Some sort of mark. A distinguishable notion. He senses that he has to make an effort. It takes him over. He becomes the effort. All of a sudden, he understands what an effort is. And still, the decision to open his eyes remains. He shouldn’t miss it. He can’t. Time passes until he gets it. The effort disappears.

  The little that remains are thoughts. Not his thoughts. They fly over freely. Should it really be thought this way? Charming lightness. The lack of relation. Gentleness, sadness. Beach memories. Could he drift after them? In the beginning – amongst the faraway sounds. They come and go. Gleams and reflections. Drift over their flow! Now you are transparent. A voice that speaks somewhere. You listen, and the words don’t mean a thing. Or they aren’t there. Spoken, they disappear. The sense of monotony and harmony remains. The powerlessness to return them brings lightness. Did he give up? Time passes before he understands what he’s getting himself into. Continuities in structures without outlines. You don’t need eyes for those. Why does he resist? Is it possible? He is lurking in an immensity that embraces him. He can be both here and there, in that new awareness. He understands why now he doesn’t see anything. Because he’s no longer inside himself. Now he is in everything. He is everything.

  ‘Look!’ says the one who walks ahead. ‘And we thought that the bay was deserted.’

  ‘It had to be deserted,’ answers the second one.

  ‘Then, where did this skeleton come from?’

  ‘This we will never really understand.’

  ‘Justice demands he should be buried, right?’

  ‘Leave him like that! He has received justice. If he could choose, he would probably prefer to stay here forever, half-buried in the sand, with his empty eyes towards the desert sky.’

  МЕ

  Doubtless there is an explanation and a beginning for everything. Or it seems so. I remember a room of some sort. A cabinet. I see particles of dust. A ray of light on my way to the door. A window frame. Was it so? I am not sure. How much time has passed since then?

  The bell rings. Once, twice... now, really? ...three times. I had to open the door. It was the postman:

  ‘You have a letter.’

  I took the letter and I sat by the window.

  ‘Dear sir...’

  Am I a sir, indeed? Who says that? And why?

  ‘… since …’

  What will follow that? I am a sir, ‘since’.

  I didn’t give in to the temptation to continue. What if there is a meaning lurking behind the politeness? The handwriting seemed controlled. Then, between two letters, I found that abrupt transition. Nervousness? Or what? The wind blew lightly outside and the sheet trembled. The door opened up. Someone was coming down the stairs.

  The next letters began with the same: ‘Dear sir, since …’

  I stopped and looked for the meaning. I wasn’t making any progress, despite the changes in the scenery behind the glass, the incline of the beams and the type of light. After the next letter, I invited the postman to enter.

  At first he was reluctant, then he accepted. He sat in front of me. For a long time I corrected his positioning, the expression on his face, the distance from the window. He was posing patiently, without any seeming compliance with the beginning of the letter.

  The most ordinary day. Sunny outside, still dark inside the room. The postman rang and said:

  ‘The woman you couldn’t forget passed away.’

  I couldn’t believe it, but I had to check this statement.

  The house was in a small yard, under the dying tree. The ladder behind the door went down towards the flame of the candle. When my eyes became accustomed to the twilight, I could differentiate their faces at the bottom. It was a misunderstanding. I couldn’t link anything to the profile of the old, dry woman in the coffin. Could I remember something that according to somebody else I haven’t forgotten? So, I have still succeeded. Or they are deceiving me.

  Somebody coughed. I lifted my head. Behind the unknown figures, the postman’s cap moved.

  This is how I made my first discovery: The postman is death.

  The second one was: Death is a postman.

  It seems to be one and the same, but it’s not. The first is a trap, and the second one – a profession. If he had to fool me, why didn’t he make the necessary effort? Why did he catch my attention? Didn’t he want to keep his job in the post office? Did he feel undervalued? So he was working for somebody else. Now the only thing left was to find out who was writing the letters.

  When I stopped in front of the following ‘since’, the postman said:

  ‘Dear sir, since I am afraid that you don’t want to read this letter, it is my duty to leave you.’

  At least I was trying. Every day I took out the letters, hoping to get closer to the meaning of that ‘since’ but I didn’t succeed …

  One morning, I understood that something had happened. I took out my hand. It was the same one. I lifted the blanket. My feet looked the same; they even tingled from the cold. I got up, and they obediently led me to the mirror. Should I look into it? I hesitated for a moment. Then I saw the room, the cabinet with the books, the chair, the window. I wasn’t there but I understood: my reflection in the mirror was looking at the empty room.

  THE LAST DAY

  The time for a walk came, just like any other day that had passed. He has to continue walking down the street, over to the park, up to the start of the alley. Then, someone will divert him from his way. At present, nothing can be changed. He will look for a place that doesn’t limit his sight. Memory requires space. Wasn’t it then that the gesture of that hand came from afar? When did he come up with it? Was it an illusion? A dream. The word made him stop. He ought to forget her. Until the end of the day. Now she dreams with the others. ‘Wake up in your dreams!’ the opposite banner insists. There were times when dreaming was the skill of a few. Now it’s fate. Ever since that guy isolated the dream waves, everything changed. Now everyone creates their own world instead of living in the world of the other. The first volunteers insisted that the experiment continue. Nobody could turn them back to their previous life. Gradually, with increasing interest, the first chambers of dreams came. Now they are everywhere. Once, without knowing why, he entered one of them. The bodies laid down on loungers behind glass doors. Visitors were either standing around or passing each other. ‘Mother, I am here today again. Can you hear me? I know that what you feel is stronger than the memory of the time when you were at home. You deserve it. Someday, when I gather what’s needed, I would like them to put myself next to you. Then, maybe, we can meet in our dreams. Can you hear me? Give me a sign!’ The sight of a woman in the cage remains there: frozen upwards to a dome of bluish light, far away from words and sound. On top of the temples of the ones lying down, plates flash out, connected with cables. Through them, brain signals are received, from which are filtered the strongest dream waves and which are returned after amplification. The employees drop the curtain in front of one of the cages. ‘They should fix his attire,’ someone said from behind.

  He has heard that sometimes, when the hour came, with a quiet, gentle sound the cage would sink beneath the floor. On the next day, there was someone else. ‘Look: an elder!’ yells one of the children that approached him: a discrepancy between savings and age. All of his coevals are already there. With one exception: Lot. Wasn’t he the one who claimed that shutting yourself inside dreams is the end of reason and therefore inevitable death, common to all? Initia
lly, he spread that view through the net, but then, once he had lost patience and confidence, he began to stop random strangers. In the beginning, they rejected him with hostility. Afterwards, they got used to the pointlessness of such efforts. He isn’t Lot. He has no will. By the way, where is Lot? He disappeared. Nobody remembers him anymore. Could it be that he too gave up? What would he say now? What could be said? Why doesn’t he leave things to their logical conclusion? Everything has an end. He has to hurry. He runs back over the alley, careless and free like a child. The air stops in his chest. It’s time.

  In the reception room, where they filled out forms, there is silence. A prelude to infinite dreams. The girl from the desk greeted him with a smile: ‘Well, Mr Lot, we are glad that you, too, have finally come to us!’

  AWAKENING

  Broken structures of silence, slowly growing into each other. Noise. A shadow jumps over the wall and falls in the corner. A leg, see-through pink. The hands straighten the torso over the blanket. Sees the clothes – cold, waiting. Then a corridor, a door, a staircase, a door, a street. The steps fade someplace behind. Through a window, the palm of a hand opens. The sparrows peck at crumbs. He passes by a man with a turned-up collar:

  ‘Do you know where I’m walking to?’

  ‘You look like someone who’s heading to town.’

  ‘Am I not in town?’

  ‘Undoubtedly you are, but actually, town is over there.’

  Clouds in the puddles. Strangers, either sitting or in a hurry. Debris of ice.

  ‘We’ve seen off the cold times,’ stated the waiter.

  ‘Do you know me?’

  ‘Probably. If you’ve been here before.’

  The woman in cream colours hides her side view, turns around, and comes closer.

  ‘Hello! Is it free here?’

  Quietness drops from a lock of hair above the eye, towards the wrinkles of the fabric.

  ‘You have forgotten me.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says.

  ‘It’s so fitting, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says.

  Her going away is slow, through the light.

  Everyone knows it, but nobody goes there… Guidance follows. The smoothness of the pavement. Bricked-up windows. Blurred stony faces. All of a sudden, he stops. A boy comes out of the shadows. Slanting beams pierce through the back of a faraway building. A ball rolls after its sound…

  Twilight in the frame of a window. Steps behind the visible. A presentiment, a memory, a familiar voice:

  ‘They are waiting for you.’

  Blindly on the stairs. Thumps into a door:

  ‘Come in!’

  Touches the wall.

  ‘We won’t see him, it’s a pity,’ the voice continues.

  ‘But we can touch him, right?’ the other one, linked with the palm.

  The choking warmth of a lap.

  ‘My dear ones!’

  ‘Shhh! They will hear us. You have to go!’

  The man with the turned-up collar— still clearly distinguishable on his street:

  ‘Why are you coming back?’

  Lighted windows. A door, a staircase, a door, a hallway. The mourners are already there. He can run but he finds his bed. He sees them hanging over him and remains delighted how chorally they intertwine their voices:

  ‘Sleep! Tomorrow you will wake up again.’

  THE GREASY RAIN

  Nobody remembers when the greasy rain started. It’s considered to be a meteorological phenomenon. (Its drops leave stinking spots.) People of means use grease-protected cars and an appliance like a tunnel, through which they reach their shelters. The government provided the rest of the population with remaindered wetsuits, but due to their negligence they soon became completely greasy.

  In the evening, the city becomes quiet. From the streets, through the lashing rain, from time to time wails of desperation or hatred can be heard. For example: ‘White worms!’, ‘Shit!’, and so on.

  They say that there was a valley over which snow kept falling eternally. Those who reached it, would sink into the drifts. The cold would numb their bodies. The wind would stop their breathing. And there, a moment before they froze, with the last breath of air they accepted freedom. The freedom to be pure.

  THE INSIGHT

  From the Book of Cockroaches

  The world is darkness and light. Darkness is crawling, gnawing, security. Light is dead. From the light comes That, and Its shadow is the last mercy. Then the crawler becomes something wet and soft as food. The food comes from That. It feeds and punishes. Why? What does It require from us?

  Instead of an answer – a run to the nest or a slip into the proper crack – isn’t our fear an insult to It?

  In the beginning, I put my moustache outside a little. It seems calm. I get out through the hole. A life-giving darkness. The shell is a cover, but if I fall on my back wouldn’t the heaviness make it pointless to kick with my feet? I walk towards the nest of That. It’s motionless and still. Probably It also loves the dark. If It sees me now, not running but getting close, maybe I will see through everything. Who knows? In the last resort, I’ll feel the justice of the punishment. Something that the ones running in fear do not understand. The nest rises over four legs, each placed inside a tin can, like the ones we nibble our food from. These are empty. In order to reach the wooden legs, I have to leap over one of them. I jump off the edge, but instead of the bottom, I fall into the empty one5. It pours inside of me. Countless cool drops. The end. I am sinking away from Its will. Is that what It wants?

  DE PROFUNDIS

  The phantom field is an energetic substrate

  that transforms the products of the imagination

  in visual perceptions.

  А. N. Dod, New World6

  ‘This is a phantom,’ he heard, when his eyes rested on a man lying down.

  In agreement, the man grinned and turned his back. The sleeve of a dress was hanging from the armchair, followed by a shadow and a wall.

  ‘What do you want?’7

  The vision stepped back to the street from whence he had come.

  ‘What do you want?’ a voice came from the armchair.

  ‘You know why I’m here.’

  A cry echoed down the staircase, caught up with him outside and stopped:

  ‘Get away!’

  Further down, passers-by appeared. They stopped next to shop windows or sank into darkness. If he could get closer, he would hear their voices. Once, one of them said:

  ‘Dod is great, my friend. There are no more people in misery.’8

  There, the subject transfers images and conceptions.

  A. N. Dod, New World

  He sensed that the corridor led towards a light. The twilight made the silhouette in the back of the room distinguishable.

  ‘So?’9

  ‘Nothing,’ whispered the answer.

  The head was either bent or it had merged with the curtain.

  ‘Probably ...’

  Probably he will swap her with a phantom.

  ... soon ...

  Soon he will forget her.

  ‘... I’ll be done with you.’

  The silence pressed the last sound.

  ‘I’m keeping on,’ he said and heard his own voice.

  The phantom is a statue of the thought.

  A. N. Dod, New World

  The legs felt soil. The weeds lay under the footsteps and lifted after the waning trails. The first debris looked like rocks. Further down, the concrete was smooth. Someone was building here sometime. Now, devoid of heaviness, the columns supported the sky. Day after day, the wind was scratching the cracks. It sent soil, seeds. Waving up locks of grass... He continued, passing by the fence. There was no point in turning back. The figure was following him. The wall was turning by a heap of fragments.
‘Here’s a grave for you,’ he decided and stopped.

  The steel rod crossed the face of the other one and crashed on a concrete pillar. He moved away slowly. It was a phantom.10

  It’s a hollow in being.

  A. N. Dod, New World

  ‘You have been ordered to come back, right?’ The voice was coming from the bed. He came closer, stepping on the fallen dress. The hand was pointing at the floor. He picked up Dod’s book and flipped through it. On the last page, there was an address.

  ‘I should go.’

  In the corner the phantom’s cocoon was trembling.

  So, the subjective phenomenon

  becomes an objective reality.

  A. N. Dod, New World

  Silhouettes were coming down the road. They were gathering and losing form. Clear sounds were coming from the crowd. Then, next to the wall, he saw the tramp. His palms were hiding a reed as the last symbol of poverty.11

  For a small moment have I forsaken