The sight of a trickle of blood flowing eagerly down her back, interspersed with Nicole's quiet sobs, convinced me that I shouldn't water poppy flowers with my brow furrowed.
I instinctively threw the knife toward the red armchair; I really hadn't planned on harming the female's psyche. I stood on the carpet for a moment, not even moving my dick, trying to recall the moment the idiots' game had begun. Tears dripping into the mysterious drink burned my hands and dug into my stomach with sharp, vinegar-soaked spikes.
I sat down next to her, trying not to touch the aquamarine nail polish I'd used on my left hand yesterday. I don't know why only one, why the thought of my right hand triggered gag reflexes. Maybe I wanted to compensate for the fact that the left is always worse and can't shoot lasers with my fingers (who said there had to be any contrast to the right), or maybe I was trying to bribe the failing heart that was much closer.
She recoiled instinctively when I touched her body, clearly afraid the punishment would continue. I felt her whole body tremble, trying not to irritate me any further.
"I love you, Nicole."
She looked at me with childish submissiveness, as if not understanding the absurdity of this matter a dozen or so seconds after my action.
"I love you, Nicole, remember."
She didn't even try to hold back the tears that adorned the pillow, tears describing the injustice of the world's watchmaker, who unequally bestowed gifts upon the actors of his puppet theater.
Why are some born mistresses, others slaves?
My fingers began a delicate journey up the back of that rag's neck. Once again, I read the deepest fears in her dark eyes, fueled by the fear of her father returning too late from work. Of his terrifying face shaped like butcher's boots, and of the cruel, challenging voice of radio announcers. Naive are the inspired eulogists of childhood, of that supposed period of happiness when the creaking sound of a bearded neighbor's door can fill days and nights with dread.
I didn't want to cause Nicole any suffering. You know, in some inscrutable way, her well-being was as close to me as the humor of the colored glass on my desk, or the scissors hanging from the window. The darkest recesses of the psyche, considered fairy-tale remnants of prenatal life, were becoming increasingly accessible to her. She already knew things that, to others, were a desert mystery.
"The boundary between pain and pleasure lies in your mind, Nicole."
She understood.
She revealed her secrets to me, always revealing her deepest wells to me. She gripped the purple pillow between her teeth, unwilling to lose her tongue in an orgasmic trance like her predecessor, Cartegeltte. Her willingness didn't surprise me; dripping candle fragments sometimes bit her back, alternating with the Argentine tango stroking her hair. She had not the slightest prejudice; her degree of liberation from the whirlwind of emotions placed her in the first category, among people for whom the concept of reality is extremely loose, reduced to the moment being experienced. For whom all past experiences are merely pretexts and preludes to the limitless contemplation of the current moment, and future events are the dubious creations of a diseased imagination. Even a minute before she ascended the guillotine, Nicole would have admired the light of the Suaruffe night lamp, reflected on the wall of her renovated window.
I laid my body on her, quickly unbuttoning my trousers. Her eyes were closed, as she always did, wetting her hungry drawer and awaiting the next move. I so hate slipping off my pants, this prosaic, artisanal act, and then shyly shrugging them off my calves, casually, because you can't deny the atmosphere its peculiar vibrations.
When the action of two people inevitably leads to the beginning of copulation, it's accompanied by the unfailing creation of an aura of breeding, the colors of which even one-eyed boors can read. A semblance of mysticism can last even a butterfly hunter's lifetime when carefully cultivated. Most women, however, can only maintain this state during the contact of sweaty bodies. Regardless of any extenuating circumstances, even Nicole, who is capable of pleasure while ironing, shouldn't be distracted by focusing your mind on the conscious and conventional removal of panties. This is good for frustrated graphic designers. When our attention is distracted by the changing colors of the notebooks placed on the edge of the desk, the trembling bamboos purchased the day before yesterday in the furniture store, or even the disharmony in the quality of the carpet and walls, noticed in this solemn moment, she invariably envelops the room with a motherly smile, and then adds in a whisper:
- Let's keep dancing.
And we dance among the footsteps, winged children splashing in a sensual sandbox, undulating in a bathtub full of duvets that, even without dextromorphane, pushes our boundaries beyond sunny territory. We can't be stopped by bodily defects, the accidental slippage of a reed boat, or the abused muscles that disobediently urge us to rest. I'm constantly drowning in the river of her thighs, which she wraps around me, afraid I'll escape at the crucial moment. I absorb the most interesting thoughts, which, besides the awareness that I'm performing this very activity, the very thing that Boy Scouts dream of and drunks sing about, are also determined by this physical smearing of peanut butter on every phrase I compose in my head.
She always returns first. She's not brought here by a rational arrangement of concepts in her mind, nor by morality rearranging the order of tissues; she simply calculates the value of pleasure in various variants and chooses the most beneficial one.
"The body stinks, the body has its needs, but the most important thing now is your path to the temple." The sentence, uttered without emotion, snapped me out of my post-copulatory reflections.
It was the last item on my endless wish list (isn't that a contradiction in terms?), but I knew shamans were never wrong in sacred matters. In fields devoid of matter, our knowledge is a grain of sand against a woman's hair.
The clock ticked in rapid code, the murderous sun was slowly beginning to land with hot sounds, so if I wanted to make it before the Diagon Hot Dogs prowled the streets, I should start putting on my armor.
I smiled carelessly, baring my rotten teeth.
"The Most Holy Kaltara awaits your offering."
I didn't answer; I didn't want my voice to be read. Nicole sat down on the bed, pointlessly covering herself with the sheets. Her gaze wasn't directed at me; she was examining the nightstand, which she held a special fondness for.
"Why don't pens die?" "She asked with typical regret.
"Perhaps because their consciousness is as doubtful as your virginity."
To emphasize the value of my comparison, I wiped my genitals on the maid Tarcetine's binoculars. This argument, however, did not convince her; she continued to stare absently at the wooden artifact of a pedophile who earned his living by posing as a yoga instructor.
"Are you sure they're not conscious?
" "I'm sure I'm thinking.
It was a lie; dreams are so strange that I'm never sure of anything.
" "If pens were conscious, then, given the absolute lack of contact with their surroundings, their endless existence would be hell, as the Christians used to say."
"First of all, Nicole, on what basis do you assume they can't communicate with their surroundings?"
She grimaced, seeing me once again playing the role of the brilliant teacher, but I decided to continue.
"The fact that you can't see the pen move, the fact that you can't hear it chirp, the fact that it doesn't change colors or smells doesn't mean anything. Maybe the pen is the immobile master of the universe, concentrating all the knowledge of the cosmos within itself, maybe it can somehow influence people's brainwaves, maybe the fact that I'm saying these words is due to the pen's manipulation, a mocking one, because even though I realize it, I can't stop it.
" "Maybe," she replied, assessing with a single glance that this theory was impossible to refute.
"And even if you were right and the pen really is a closed consciousness, incapable of communication, that doesn't mean it's unlucky. Only humans need to communicate with others. Only humans are afraid to simply exist. Why do you smoke cigarettes?" Because it takes up your time, because whenever you don't know what to do, you might open a pack, take out a cigarette, play with it, light it, and then you're constantly holding something in your hand, your actions constantly subordinated to some purpose.
"I don't smoke," she whispered, defiantly tossing her hair back.
"Try sitting in a chair constantly and thinking. How long can you last?" I continued, ignoring her idiotic reply. "How long can you sit and think before boredom takes hold of you?"
"I don't believe in boredom. I've never seen it. But from what I've heard about it, my life is the exact opposite. Constant problems don't mix with it. I guess. I'm not an expert on boredom.
" "Or maybe a pen has constant problems? Maybe it's a walking problem, condensing all the problems of all the universes into itself? Maybe...
" "Then he would truly be unhappy, like I said." With a careless sentence, she briefly gained the upper hand. Briefly.
"So maybe he doesn't think about problems after all, but admires the world from the bright side. Maybe ecstasy fills his brain constantly, maybe the happiness hormone is at its peak.
" "According to your theory of an omniscient pen, he could admire the entire universe at once, mentally capturing everything happening within it?
" "Let's leave omniscience aside. What if the pen has such a developed imagination that it doesn't need stimuli from the outside world, but creates a completely new reality. So interesting that it doesn't need senses at all, but sees the most wonderful things in its mind? Eternal dreamlike hallucinations."
I'd struck a terrible blow; the concept of the ballpoint pen as the perfect artist, as the catalyst for creativity at the speed of light, would have brought any philosopher to his knees. However, an unpleasant surprise awaited me, something like a special cherry juice being poured over my report card.
"You're not concentrating enough, Alex," Nicole said, grinning like a viper. "What are you arguing with me about? Ballpoint pens die."
She got out of bed, then went to the bedside table to prove her point, grabbed the blue gift from Cartegeltte, and ostentatiously tossed it into the fireplace. The brief sizzle of the ballpoint pen in the hellfire was unbroken by any other sound. I mentally digested my defeat, wondering if I should take a whip from the drawer, which would probably restore balance to the game.
But a whip wouldn't be any good; its blows are too short, too lingering, and too powerful a departure from reality. Nicole had always been able to close her eyes under the iron's rope and derive pleasure from it, savoring the bomb thrashing her head. Unable to find a more suitable torture device in those few seconds, I decided to leave her in her fragile peace. After all, even scissors are rewarded for their hard work. Besides, anger doesn't produce the most interesting ideas (the evidence was constantly dripping onto my sheets); it affects you like excessive ethanol, reducing every desire to an animalistic level, to a field where only biological reflexes exist.
Dulling her senses, I approached her and fed her chocolate. She closed her eyes again; she probably spends half her life with them closed, listening to sounds and savoring tactile sensations. I always wonder if she imagines her mother, killed by a millstone in her early childhood, or a candy-like image of a knight. No, she definitely sees something completely different, a cocktail that defies my imagination.
The darkness outside meant the path to the Temple of Kaltara would be fraught with constant danger. Nicole was already asleep; her mental flexibility could sometimes be shocking. A dozen or so seconds after the chocolatey slash of her pen, she decided, quite naturally, to lie down on the Persian rug. She would never reveal the contents of her dream hells to me anyway. How much water is in the number 7? Maybe 7? Would that be too easy?
Slamming the door behind me, I couldn't help but notice the ominous glint of light reflecting off the banister. It wasn't the workers' fault; the banister had been carefully painted; she was telling me to come back. Besides, I'm no natural philosopher; every nearsighted person knows that the banister tells them what awaits them after they leave the stairwell. The thieving tendencies of the workers visiting my properties were betrayed to me in precisely this way.
What to do? The journey to the Temple of Kaltara was an absolute necessity, according to Commandment 143 (whoever makes a female bleed...), and despite the grim signs, the several thousand steps had to be accomplished. I slammed the door to the mansion with great force, hoping to attract the attention of the fruit seller, whose two oranges occasionally flashed beneath her cleavage. It was strange that she always remained at her post until so late. After all, Diagon Hot Dogs...
I didn't want to think about them. I knew that thoughts can, in ways still unknown to us, draw their objects to the place of thought. I once knew a boy with blond hair... I knew a boy with blond hair who was so afraid of lightning that when he heard the sound of a storm, he froze, listening to his surroundings with the expression of a deer in the tundra wilderness hearing the howling of a pack of wolves. He transformed into another child then, practically transcending the boundaries of humanity, a hunted animal with fear in his eyes.
I'll never forget that afternoon when he said, stuttering and sipping the gallons of orange juice he always drank on his way home from preschool, that during every storm, he thought his fear might attract lightning. Of course, he spoke in his simple, childish language, so that the other kids laughed at him, and even that whore preschool teacher told him to be quiet, but I understood that somehow, telepathically, through some hidden electrical potentials in his brain, he could subconsciously attract lightning, just like telephone calls and televisions do.
I didn't quite believe it at the time, but as I threw a handful of dirt on his coffin, I wondered how long he must have been thinking about the lightning that had taken his life. Had he fallen into an irreversible panic, a kind of lightning psychosis, on his way home during the storm? Perhaps he felt electrified in his imagination—Master Junteshomme wrote in his works that magic relies on clear imaginations—perhaps he felt struck by lightning, and reality merely reduced his thoughts to the dimension of space-time? Or perhaps he wasn't thinking about it at all, perhaps he was imagining his daily fun on the old, rusty carousel, and then...?
I'm a proponent of the former theory, which is why I tried at all costs not to think about the grim guardians of the night town. After all, we're not entirely certain about the source of the Diagon Hot Dogs' thoughts; I can't rule out the possibility that they haven't developed human telepathic potential much more intelligently than we have.
I passed a cozy garden with a wooden figurine of the Volcano Nurse, which surprised me more than yesterday's compilation of the sounds of a baroque violin and the hoarse shrieks of a fourth-floor policewoman reenacting the crimes of the degenerate students she had arrested in the bathroom, clearly disturbing her dusty, postmenopausal psyche. And suddenly, one of those frequent moments in human life began when we are suddenly struck by reflection.
Reflection on the strange mathematical combinations that make me walk to my destination along this street and not a parallel one, that Nicole, and not another woman, is waiting for me at home. That I am walking, and not a boy with blond hair. That in a moment, precisely what will happen to me will happen, and only because of my own limitations can I not guess it. All the charm of Destiny, all the charm of mechanics and mathematics.
A mustachioed sponsor I passed popped a doughnut into his mouth while watching the cars fry. He probably wasn't considering my problems at that moment, probably just savoring the flavor of that piece of marmalade in the dough. Although...
Apparently, every second, at least two people in the world are thinking the same thing. At least two people in the world have the exact same words on their minds. A mathematical combination—I hate that word, but it's true. After all, several billion throws must achieve the same result at least once. The chance of such people passing each other on the street is smaller than a piece of penis carelessly inserted into a juicer. Despite this, I was getting closer and closer to the feeling that during those few seconds, our thoughts were remarkably similar. Something that couldn't be grasped by normal rationality, yet was utterly obvious. And that very moment was further proof of the uselessness of philosophy in life, for, caught up in the whirlwind of my reflections, I only noticed the danger at the corner of 47574 and 34222 Streets at the last moment.
Emerging from a dark alley, Diagon Hotdog smiled with the image of a shark lowered into a butcher's pool, a shark with the prospect of a gigantic meal. A predatory instinct filled his empty glass with water, wetting its walls rhythmically, though leisurely. I no longer wondered at my chemistry teacher, who, on her way home on a November evening, at the sight of the nightlife guard, spilled pentavalent nitric acid on her fingers, completely destroying their delicate structure and staining the building with the force of her scream. I no longer wondered at the flight attendant, Justine, who cried all night, telling Nicole of her fear, the panic at the sight of him, that had made her forget everything.
The sight of the Diagon Hot Dog made my sweat-drenched, acidic shirt instantly stick to my back, sending a wave of uneven shivers down my spine. The unreality of the situation became increasingly compelling. Relax, it's just a dream, I'm not going to die. Amidst the rush of thoughts reassuring me of the less fictional surrounding me, the impulse to flee was the strongest vector. The tense muscles of my legs shot out after a moment, propelling the rest of my body toward the Market Gate.
The gate was raised, and I slipped through it as deftly as any of the pedestrians who passed it each morning on their way to the cheap hookers who served us all sorts of items. The grim screech of the Diagon Hot Dog flying from behind drenched me with the sweat of a fountain; increasing the speed of my limbs didn't seem to improve my situation. He's behind you, he's behind you, these could be your last thoughts before you're paralyzed by the ejected liters of corrosive mayonnaise, penetrating your clothes and skin, seeping into your bones. You can't even imagine how painful it will be.
Dortolense flashed through my mind, good old Dortolense with the red braids, whose marriage stories always reminded me of a mud-dwelling amphibian crossed with an evil sorcerer. I don't know why I thought of her; they'll never find her body. I turned my head back, trying not to lose speed; the street was empty, but laughing wasn't the appropriate reaction. He'll be here soon; we have to figure out what could be a hiding place, after all, Diagon Alley Hot Dogs don't have a sense of smell.
Blessed be the creator of the container, may his name be praised until tomorrow, this is where he decided to save my existence and prolong it for a few moments by placing a tin can of waste near a bush. I jumped in with more gusto than I'd ever tried on my first pair of panties at a high school dance.
Lying on a pile of useless junk, I felt like I was the object of attention from all sorts of trash. All the trash was talking about me; I could hear frantic whispers all around me.
"Are you a glamluk?" a broken hairbrush asked me, and seeing my terrified expression, untainted by any desire to react, it began whispering to my companions.
"It's a glamluk. It's a glamluk." The murmur emanating from a dozen or so strange objects seemed to fill the entire container; all the lively creatures instantly perked up, pointing at me.
"He looks a lot like his father," added a squeaky female voice, emerging from a Chinese soup container.
Silence. Silence. Silence.
And again, the uncertainty of whether this situation had actually happened, like at school, when students murdered small dogs during recess.
I'll never know, but I know that once my body leaves the dumpster, I'll think it's all a result of neurosis, mixed with schizophrenia. Yes, my mother had neurosis, she always said that the stabbing pains around my heart were just a result of mental problems. Ever since I was a child, I'd seen birds on the bench, even when I stole small coins from my sister while vacuuming.
Swallowing small bites of tuna salad, I crawled out, paying far less attention to the alley than it deserved. But I'd rather be swallowed by Diagon Hot Dog than question the existence of my brain while listening to the trashcan people's conversations. Besides, the nightlife guard was probably gone by now; he'd dozed off, as the amount of energy he'd expended today must have been weighing heavily on him. So I continued walking along Kramer Bay, pondering my frail condition, my childhood fear of losing my life. Can we somehow tame fear? To overcome it would mean not fearing death. And at my current level of initiation, I wasn't capable of that; I don't know if anything will come afterward. I settled for a narcotic intoxication, dulling my senses in a way that insulted my intelligence, yet so reliable; it's not just an opium for the common folk.
So I slowly entered the Temple of Kaltara, passing a Spanish conquistador in a leather backpack standing in the doorway. Mysterious legends circulated that he was one of the priests who kept order in the temple. He supposedly ensured that no inappropriate sound angered the Holy One of Kaltara.
But these were just rumors from the porters; I knew he was drawn by the same motive. He enjoyed striking women in the face while holding their hair; the sight gave him unearthly satisfaction, stimulating the entire reward system with the same force that accompanies the birth of an offspring in ordinary people. The kind who talk about their studies while mindlessly smoking cigarettes and flicking ash into beer cans.
My eyes met his in a gesture of understanding.
"They're so annoying. You understand?" I explained my presence at the Temple of Kaltara at such an unseasonable hour.
A nod of his head meant he understood.
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