Tomorrow

Prologue

Material flash. The separation of earth and sky roaring with a gaping maw on the horizon. A glowing white hole swallowing the real and metaphysical volume of the whole or the entire part. Part of me in it, and part of it in me. All of it in me, and all of it.

A heavenly earthquake and a magical transformation. Something great into a vast nothing, which might have no beginning for you. Our sons will come to this place and see nothing without a past. And yet here I stood once. Here, and I was the past of nothing, to which I then offered my future. Trusting it.

Flash. The fastest surgical removal. The painless amputation of the most important, the erroneous elimination of meaning. The transplantation of a thorny thorn in place of a healthy heart beating toward something, error. Error!

The passage of an invisible column of an eternal army under the command of four cloned horsemen, at the behest and call of stupidity and pride. At the sign and command to attack, just like that. The earth trembles with the pounding of a million hooves, in a clamor of thunder you won't hear, a deathly noise that rages in the silence. You close your eyes, and when you open them, you're already somewhere else. And as if nothing had happened, hadn't had a chance, hadn't had time. And yet it has, they've already come, ruined everything, and gone, and you can close your eyes because your eyes can't bear to see what you see. But if you close them, you'll see further, so you'll probably gouge your eyes out. But it won't do any good, because you'll feel everything you've seen, and then you'll rip your heart out.

And Today.

What is tomorrow? Don't hesitate, just answer immediately. You must think that tomorrow is tomorrow, simply tomorrow. When today passes midnight, tomorrow will come. Of course, you're right. Of course, but what is today? Isn't it tomorrow for yesterday?

Tomorrow is near, after all, it's already tomorrow. But that's not true! Someone's satanic charade. Tomorrow doesn't exist. The only tomorrow is today, always and forever. If someone says they'll do something tomorrow, they never will. Tomorrow is a carrot on a stick. A hare puppet racing ahead of the racing dogs. All we have is today.

***

The train moved slowly, laboriously pushing through fleeting time, like a small child lost in the crowds of a supermarket. But even if it had raced, plowed forward, splitting long hours into sparkling seconds, it would still have been too slow for him. He wanted to be there. He passed houses twinned to his own, as if cast from a single mold, trees, streets, cars, passersby. But he wanted to be there, the place that would welcome him with outstretched arms, with glints in the windows and laughter in the treetops. He mentally urged this train, which was already racing at the limit of its mechanical capabilities. He felt anxiety. That subcutaneous, invisible to others, strangest kind of anxiety. A causeless trembling. As if he'd drunk two strong coffees in a row. He wanted to be there.

Four in the morning had always greeted her in the same place lately. And God knows, if I ever wanted to be anything, I wanted to be four in the morning. I would see the priestess of life in her temple. Amid the candles casting flickering reflections on the walls studded with paintings. Amid the sweet exhalations of this holy place, the scent of her and hot coffee. Amid the words she read, taking on the form of a material cloud around her. A halo of peace, wisdom, and divine naiveté. Four in the morning, looking at her, she knew everything, and she had no fear at all that annihilation awaited her in an hour. She knew she was here for this, and only for this, to see what her eyes had been created for, for one single hour, and she desired nothing more.

She. She felt perfectly at home alone in the world. At that moment, when the sleepy monuments of the apartment blocks stood outside the window, seemingly huddled together. With dark eyes, holding within her the warmth of hundreds of sleeping beings, cradled in concrete arms.

This was what she was thinking as butterflies rose from her stomach to her face, a gentle smile. The memory of someone who proudly called herself a child of the apartment blocks.

He looked at the faces of the people riding in his compartment. At the sad stories locked forever deep within their dull eyes. He saw their thoughts like swarms of ravens perched on rotten carrion, matters mundane yet existential, for them. And he suffered for his happiness, which had changed him forever, freed his eyes and allowed him to see. He wanted to return to life, to show them the truth he knew, the only truth, and change them just as he had been changed. His naive soul struggled to escape from his earthy body, heaped into a mound of past efforts, struggles, and sacrifices. Sadness filled his lungs with stale air, and he had to hold back the coming snort of tears. For them and for himself. For the world and for himself. And he knew that if he didn't return now, if he fled again, tears would fill his eyes, mouth, heart, and hands. He would cry unreconciled, converting those whose eyes had dried in a sign of consent. He would convert the lost, those who knew their way.

He turned his head toward the window and closed his eyes. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled the old clots of regret, the congestion of helplessness, and everything that had weighed so heavily upon him. He recalled her face, her voice, and finally her warmth, which slowly spread inside him like a shot of vodka after a long walk on a frosty day. His blood came alive within him like a river, instinctively rushing toward the ocean, a journey encoded in every atom of matter, an eternal journey toward fulfillment.

The fluid journey of a tiny needle along the vinyl tracks of a shiny record. From the crackle of the beginning to the grind of the end, tirelessly playing the message encapsulated in a piece of artificial material. The music of mornings spent together. With the polyphony of dawn in the background.

She once said that life is meaning in itself. I begin to believe it when I look at her inspired face, turned toward the window, beyond which the world awakens with a thousand voices praising the light, captivated by a world pulsating with color.

And I wouldn't have noticed that flash on her face if I hadn't known it was there. A grimace of pain when she thought the sun might not rise. Tomorrow.

II Yesterday.

Prewar columns held up the ceiling against which the sky had fallen with the disaster of separation. A spasm of energy shook the train, steel arms straightened in anticipation of the signal. A whistle blew, and the colossus moved, unfazed by the salty gaze that held it in place.

Her head fell haphazardly to her chest, and the sky, in a final sigh of regret, crashed with an avalanche of rain. She remembered how recently she had dreamed of this—if we parted, it would only be in the rain, just like now, when the world weeps with you. But back then, she hadn't suspected it could happen. That it could be the end. The end of what seemed the only constant, the only certainty. The end.

He buried his head in the seat, as far away as possible from the train window, behind which he was leaving this whole old world. He felt elation; he had finally done it, he had decided, he was gone. He had left behind the happiness that had limited him, the peace that had extinguished his fire. Live now, live. Thousands of things that must be felt to be understood. Thousands of temptations to which one could succumb, without wounded hearts or disappointed glances. Alone in the tangle of arteries, in the epicenter of the city pulsating with fatty life. Absorbing the fluids of concrete fueled by constant muscular work, in a life pulsating with energy. In the haze of alcohol, in a narcotic trance entwined in the ivy of sweaty bodies. He had to try this, so he would never regret it. Never regret anything.

What are you missing, reader? Because you definitely are. What do you think about on empty evenings, taking stock of your life? What do you regret, why aren't you happy? Have you found your meaning? Are you searching for it, or perhaps you try not to think about it? What is life, what is important in it and what isn't? Are we wasting the time given to us, or are we using it as it should be? In fact, how should it be used? How do we know what matters and what has no meaning at all? How do we recognize the happiness we cling to, abandoning further search? You'll find the answers to all these questions tomorrow, dear reader, right?

A certain Eastern sage once theorized that life is meant to be lived, to understand that it truly has no meaning. Once we possess this knowledge, we must commit suicide, make a sacrifice of ourselves, and then we will reach paradise.

What's more interesting, this same sage, in his old age, after spending so much time on earth that this time itself is a eulogy of life, with a blissful smile on his face said to his disciple, who was awaiting some brilliant advice from him: "You know, son, I have nothing to say to you, live!" Then he laughed blissfully and departed peacefully.

***

She walked home through the park, passing empty benches. Familiar places still warm with memories. The rain had subsided, and a few rays of sunlight began to penetrate the shroud of clouds. She calmed down.

The park was getting ready to leave. Any day now, he would return to earth for months to come. Did he know he would return to the light? He didn't know, just as we don't. Each of the leaves, stripped by the wind from the treetops and laid on their backs among others like him, thought it was the end. In terms of time, maybe. In terms of life, never.

And she knew they would see each other again someday. They would return to each other, like the leaves that greet the waiting branches of trees in spring. They would return with the inevitable cycle of life. If this was love, it couldn't be otherwise. And she knew. This was love.

All that was left was to wait, in the warm shell of the apartment, for spring. When the rivers reached the sea, the leaves returned to the trees, and Odysseus would return to Ithaca.

Running through the station. In a mad dash, through underground passages, crowded waiting rooms, through a labyrinth of tunnels and halls.

With a superhuman muscular effort, crossing the barrier of time, when the heart no longer beats but madly pumps blood to the rhythm of movements imperceptible to the eye. Running almost like flying, when the feet cease to touch the ground and the body instinctively finds its way through obstacles. The whistle screamed.

He made it.

He found an empty compartment and slumped haphazardly into the seat. His head rolled to the side, his gaze directed at the smudged windowpane, reflecting his face. His face with the polychrome of dusk in the background.

He didn't want to understand anything. He didn't want to wonder. He desired none of the things that made him doubt. And he didn't regret withdrawing his hand from the branch where lurked the juicy venom, the black flesh of the cursed fruit. He didn't desire it. He only wanted to return. Return to her. Flow into her world, merge with it, mingle with it. Find himself in her and give her a place within himself, a place long destined, carried in the unconscious, waiting persistently for the most essential element of the whole. The essential ingredient of true unity sprouting from the two.

***

It's as if understanding anything relied on something trivial, insignificant, something almost no one ever does. It's like lying down on the grass, listening, hearing the voice of the earth, and feeling an eternal belonging. And that changes us forever, unless we never do it. Why do we think there's no voice of the earth, when it exists and speaks? Why do we manage to deny something that is true more and more thoroughly and carefully, constantly discovering new advantages of lies? We have far more than forty days in the desert. A desert that, like mold, constantly grows in all directions of time and space. In our defense, we have a thousand blessings of light and the choices we can make. However, the incredible gift of moving mountains is not enough when they can be swept away in chains. In frenzied chains of reactions.

III Today,

the sun returned alone. Unnoticed by anyone, it slowly emerged from behind the horizon, spreading rays that illuminated only one face, gazing adoringly at the serene visage of its forefather. I had the impression that if it weren't for her, old Helios would have long ago abandoned his fiery chariot and sunk into oblivion like so many of his old companions. For now, he returned, perhaps only to see her, fearing that tomorrow she might not be here. His last, faithful priestess. Tomorrow.

She watched him pull himself up from the edge of the earth. Smiling, wonderfully calm, a peace that emanated from all sides with fluids of harmony, the inaudible stretching of trees, and the rustle of dew dripping from the stretching leaves.

It was almost sunrise when the flash went off.

And even Helios himself had to squint.

A chilly morning chill woke him. A sense of foreboding gripped him, and he glanced nervously around. The train was stationary. The noise of footsteps and muffled voices drifted from the corridor.

He froze, waiting for something. He didn't know what, but he knew something was wrong. Somewhere deep inside, he felt the held breath of dozens of passengers and a shiver of uncertainty gently vibrating in the air. He was afraid to get up, he didn't know why, but he was terrified when a pale, grotesque face appeared in the compartment door, its features cruelly contorted in a grimace of some inexplicable terror. The gaping black mouth moved in time to the words that torturously forced their way into his ears. Something terrible, evil, unimaginable had happened. It had happened.

***

At dawn, one day, one week, some country launched a nuclear attack on another country. The explosion killed many of us.

Many of us.