2. What it means to be happy
The whispered question didn't surprise me for its incongruous point of origin, nor for having been asked so quietly that no human would have been able to hear it, but because of my certainty that the undefined purring beyond the limits of hearing came forth from this same mysterious questioner.
But it don't matter none. I'm sure that wherever there is one of them, there are several others. It's always like that: they are like some kind of infection, like a rash under humanity's diapers.
Barely focusing on the sewer grate, feeling that presence there like a bruise in my mind, I say what I always say every time I come across them again:
"Burn."
A red flash can be seen through the grate, and a small puff of blue smoke rises slowly, stinking of sewage and putrefaction. It always happens the same way: there's a sensation in my mind that they feel surprised for an instant, and then I feel a great uproar of memories, pain, and incredulity, all together at once, like a passing gust of wind. They are so ridiculous, thinking that they are invulnerable, but without understanding the actual monstrosity of true immortality…
Another uproar in my mind: the skinny guy has disappeared from the store, wrapped up in feelings of amazement and awe. He left in such a rush, tumbling out, that the store's doors got bumped out of their frames and landed on the floor several yards away. The store clerk is astonished, and I'm sure that not even his security cameras were able to picture the very fast movements of the skinny guy, that can move at the speed of thought, apparently.
Damn, another one of those who walk under the Sun. I also thought I was the only one doing that.
It's going to be an interesting day.
* * *
All these things had kept me away from this damned shoddy town for the last twenty years, or so. As a matter of fact, they kept me away from wherever there were people.
The moment that I discovered that the blood was desire and not necessity, I let go of that impulse and took off to all those remote places that are talked about so hysterically in all those green documentaries. It was such a relief to realize that humans, even though they swarm like flies on an oozing sore, require so very many things from nature that their populations actually have quite a limited reach.
So, for twenty years I wandered through stifling jungles, climbing on trees and playing pat-a-cake with orangutans, and poking the bony crown of mountain gorillas in the most inaccessible locales. It was quite a relief to cross the Himalayas on foot, without finding but a few humans among so many goats and geese. It was an almost infinite calmness to take to the air and cross whole oceans without seeing a sign of men or women.
There is more world than people, how lucky. How comforting.
The whispered question didn't surprise me for its incongruous point of origin, nor for having been asked so quietly that no human would have been able to hear it, but because of my certainty that the undefined purring beyond the limits of hearing came forth from this same mysterious questioner.
But it don't matter none. I'm sure that wherever there is one of them, there are several others. It's always like that: they are like some kind of infection, like a rash under humanity's diapers.
Barely focusing on the sewer grate, feeling that presence there like a bruise in my mind, I say what I always say every time I come across them again:
"Burn."
A red flash can be seen through the grate, and a small puff of blue smoke rises slowly, stinking of sewage and putrefaction. It always happens the same way: there's a sensation in my mind that they feel surprised for an instant, and then I feel a great uproar of memories, pain, and incredulity, all together at once, like a passing gust of wind. They are so ridiculous, thinking that they are invulnerable, but without understanding the actual monstrosity of true immortality…
Another uproar in my mind: the skinny guy has disappeared from the store, wrapped up in feelings of amazement and awe. He left in such a rush, tumbling out, that the store's doors got bumped out of their frames and landed on the floor several yards away. The store clerk is astonished, and I'm sure that not even his security cameras were able to picture the very fast movements of the skinny guy, that can move at the speed of thought, apparently.
Damn, another one of those who walk under the Sun. I also thought I was the only one doing that.
It's going to be an interesting day.
All these things had kept me away from this damned shoddy town for the last twenty years, or so. As a matter of fact, they kept me away from wherever there were people.
The moment that I discovered that the blood was desire and not necessity, I let go of that impulse and took off to all those remote places that are talked about so hysterically in all those green documentaries. It was such a relief to realize that humans, even though they swarm like flies on an oozing sore, require so very many things from nature that their populations actually have quite a limited reach.
So, for twenty years I wandered through stifling jungles, climbing on trees and playing pat-a-cake with orangutans, and poking the bony crown of mountain gorillas in the most inaccessible locales. It was quite a relief to cross the Himalayas on foot, without finding but a few humans among so many goats and geese. It was an almost infinite calmness to take to the air and cross whole oceans without seeing a sign of men or women.
There is more world than people, how lucky. How comforting.
To Be Continued…
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