Soap Machine Soap machine “Thousands of people are dieing every moment. That’s what the statistics say. So what? But for the man who was dieing it was everything and was more important than the whole that world that was still alive”…”Man gets very important when he is dead; until he’s alive no one is interested in him...” “Arc de Triomphe” Erich Maria Remarque The old man was sitting at the table and slowly chewing his breakfast. He took a sip of his coffee and swallowed it like it was something painful. He was felling older than he actually was. Looking the same way. He was alone in the last few years, but felling like he has been alone all his life. Even the habits are getting lost with the years and become memories or black holes having the meaning of something like memories. The sun, the moon, the rain, the trees, the people you know or don’t know – everything is picture you’re looking from a side and admiring, admiring the thing you have been – part of it. You’re wondering if the others like the sun as much as you do and until you’re wondering you stop liking it. You want to say something?... better don’t, save it for yourself, because the others will spoil it. Even if it’s something bad. It’ll became worst if you give it to the people, if say it to them, if you show it to them. Even the sadness is only yours. Do you know exactly what other people’s sadness is? No. Of course not. Do you thing they’ll understand yours entirely? What do you thing?... Well, then why should you show it to them? Sadness is something you should understand entirely. This is not a song or a poem, or a picture. This is the god damned fucking sadness. That’s why the soldiers who have been together through something understand each other easily about what they’re thinking – what’s in their heads and souls and we… the rest of us... even if we watch movies or read books about it, we’re still strangers to this sadness…how long we have this “thrill” even from the best movie or whatever it is, showing some other’s emotion? An hour? A day? A week?... Still got something to say?... Why don’t you… shoot yourself?! Until now I’ve been writing about you. I’m always writing about you. Do you like yourself? Me personally… I can’t stand you. Go look yourself in the mirror. Do you like yourself? What about after twenty years? A human in his nature is a snotty bag of shits, and super-humans are super-bags of shits. Don’t get it personal. You’ve been thinking the same. So… have a nice… rest of your life… * * * A month ago the pain had became unbearable. He was suspecting it, but still hoping it’s not true. It was true. He had stomach cancer. From so long that it was spread over his whole stomach. From quite a lot time he had pains, but from the beginning he didn’t pay any attention, because he was used to it – he had ulcer and the pain was something normal every day. But it was becoming worst lately and at the end – unbearable. It was true. It was so late now he had only one thing to do – to wait. Well, at least there was variety of predictions – from a week to two months or even more if he wanted to be under treatment. He didn’t want. Why? To win a month of existing? It was better to get out, to leave all this behind. No, there wasn’t much to leave behind – lonely person with no kids, no wife, no normal… nothing. Nothing!!! From time to time he was spending some time with his still living pals – there weren’t many of them. But he wasn’t doing even this very often. His life has been turned into a shadow. He was already dead. Long time ago. His brain was automatically keeping some functions – only the primal ones – eating, sleeping, chaotic moving. Everything else was dead inside him. Years ago. This is one of the things no one can explain how happens. Just… he had enough of his life and had died inside, and when this happens… soon or later the body stops its functions. That’s what has happened. The disease appeared like a logical end of his “way on the earth”, although he hated to call it this way. He hasn’t gone anywhere. He was spinning in circle. Idiotic circle in which from the very beginning no one gives you a choice, no one asks you if you want to be borne, and no one warns you what a shit whole world is and how “unexpectedly wonderful” life is. You’re going through progress – they “progress” you. Everybody’s expecting you to join the society’s manufacture, which will smooth you, put some paint and perfume on you and pack you. Then some shit head who can afford it will buy you (it’s not that you’re very expensive) and wash his hands with you – with the new soap. At the end you’re finishing as dirt soap suds in the canal. Is there anyone who pays attention to the dirt soap suds? I don’t thing so. This is your first place for choices (and the last one) – to be living or existing. Although it’s not very clear which choice brings what. (sound of flashing water – another “normal” has lost his identity…) He had chosen to be a thorn into the truth of the “normal ones”. In every village there’s a madman. He was the madman of the world. He had just isolated himself from everybody else and live waiting – and finally he waited for it – the end. He was one of the few naives still believing that there’s a justice rising from the ruins of life. But all his life he’s been watching how from the ruins like little spring flowers there were raising little germs of the new chains. He believed and got him self caught in loop. He saw the truth. But it was all the same to him now. He had succeeded to see on the other side of the mirror. Beyond the surface. But there proved to be a wall. Go look what’s behind your mirror in the corridor – a wall. To spend a whole your life to find out that at the end… now that’s fucked up spending of your life!... And there at the surface of the mirror you’re living idyllic life – screw or get screwed. Isn’t it cool? You’re never bored, got choice, can make one or two kids, can put them in the competition, and pay back – no one asked you if you want to be born or not. This is you revenge – making kids and putting them on the manufacture line – let them take care of them selves (feel a little better now). Now that’s something else, isn’t it? You’re not the only screwed one. Well, he didn’t want that happiness. Other people wondered why. He wasn’t paying any attention to them. * * * He washed his hands. Stopped the water and watched how the suds were slowly going down to the canal. He smiled. Finished with his breakfast. * * * The decision he took few days ago. He wanted to die peacefully. But before that he wanted to do something he wasn’t been doing long time ago (except sex) – drive his old car. Not something big. Just a last wish. He loved his car. Although he hadn’t been driving it for long time, he’s been taking care of it and it was in good condition. Every day of the last week he imagined how he would be driving it for the last time, be once again away from the world and time – road doesn’t care who you are, what you are, it’s not showing you time – how much left, how much you got. There you can spend the happiest days of your life. There actually the time is not measured in days, because… … there… … is… … no… …time… there… the happiest… of your life. He dressed. Took the keys and went to the garage. Put the key into the keyhole and turned it. The door opened. He sat inside. The shit hole around suddenly disappeared. Only the road was there. Long line passing through everything which had to exist, leading up or down (hell is everywhere) and ending into the unknown. He turned on and went off. He got out of the garage and didn’t even stop to close it. Like he didn’t care what will happen with it, whit what he called “his property”. He has started his last journey and wasn’t thinking of coming back. Outside the city there was a long part of the road he loved to drive on. Now they were going to find him right there. He wanted to jump with his car in the abyss and say “goodbye” to the world the same way he had come to it – suddenly, without waiting predictions. With dignity. * * * -- Can I see your license and registration, please?!... * * * He had passed on red light and the officer found out about his old driving license past four years ago and as if for his intentions. The car was confiscated and he found himself in the station with no money for his bill. They were about to hold him there for a few hours and then let him go. There was young man sitting on the next bed. He was obviously drunk and was observing him with big interest. -- What are you in for? -- My license is old…and drinking. – he had a few sips before went out. When somebody is finishing with himself he is not thinking about the police and the troubles he might have with them. He needed a little “injection” against getting his legs stoned. – And what about you? -- Burglary. I needed the money for a chick. I wanted to entertain her a little, you know – ‘cause I love her. “What the hell you know about love you little shit” – the old man thought but didn’t tell anything. He didn’t care about anything now. He gave up. Even his last wish was killed by the great soap machine. He had no wish to say anything. The young man felt a sleep soon, and he was sitting without moving, staring at one point on the wall. He was thinking about what he found out or was found by – the end. How they are going to bury him? How they bury everybody? There will be people bustling around, they’ll stay, they’ll leave and it’ll appear that there wasn’t anybody at all (they had only found themselves there to take the breathless body). It is strange how a funeral looks like. It seams like they’re not burring you but they’re planting you into the ground. And they’re waiting for something new to grow up from you. But what? Nothing will grow, you’ll just rot there. About a half hour later the young man woke up and looked around. He needed a little time to find out where he was and who the man next to him was. Then he started to talk some drunken bullshits about life. How wonderful would it be if… how good is to… that the world is something about love and things like that. Then he stopped talking. The old man was silent for five minutes and wasn’t even thinking about what he had just heard form that unstoppable speaker. Then he just said: -- Your theory is nonsense. You’ll be very disappointed some day. – he turned and saw that the other one was sleeping. He smiled. The boy was about to find it out by himself. * * * Few hours later his thoughts just stopped. He didn’t understand how it happened. Obviously his body wasn’t able to live without the consciousness, and it was already sacrificed in the name of order. He didn’t feel anything. Just a relief. The humiliation was gone. The pain from the monotony and the habit was gone. It just finished. Or it was now beginning?... A police officer came close to the bars. He opened the door, looked at the sleeping young man and smiled sarcastic. Then he looked at the old man and said: -- It’s time to go. But he was already gone.
Copyright © 2005 Alexander Petrov |