“In addition to what you said, perhaps you feel that a first name basis is not appropriate? Perhaps you have started to respect me?”
“Respect you? Certainly not. But you leave such an impression on a person, that first name basis is not acceptable.”
“Tell me, Doctor, I’m certain that you thought everything through, what do you think why am I talking to you?”
“Because you are bored. Am I right?”
“You probably are. Also, I’ve been given this unexpected opportunity to talk to an intellectual, for the first time since I finished my education. I’m also probably interested in what my psychological profile would look like.”
“I’ve told you that I’m putting aside my method of work; that I have to have a completely different approach.”
“Different in what way? Do you already know that or do you need time to think? We can end this conversation now…”
“We will not interrupt it. I don’t want to think, because the usual patterns will prevail. I will ask you everything that I think of. And then I will see where it leads. If it leads anywhere at all.”
“Go ahead, ask.”
“OK… What would be the conclusion of your true, sincere doctoral thesis?”
“What do you think, Doctor?”
“The purpose of my life is the destruction of all living things.”
“I wouldn’t agree with that… entirely. First of all, Doctor, ‘destruction’ is not the right word. Non-living things are destroyed. Life is exterminated. I would put it like this ‘I would exterminate all life, if I had the opportunity.’”
Chapter 124
“Hey, Lucky, what’s with you? Why are you biting my thumb? You’re silly,” Sayash told Lucky, while they rested in the shade of an olive tree, on a knoll by the roadside. “I know why! Your mother didn’t breastfeed you as a baby. That’s alright… I don’t mind.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a truck engine.
“Let go of my thumb, Lucky. The movie’s started. Come sit in my lap so we can watch. A truck is coming down the road, Lucky. I’ve seen many such movies. An empty road, and a vehicle appears. This could be interesting, Lucky.”
Lucky let go of Sayash’s thumb and sat in his lap. Sayash stroked him between the ears.
“Look… the truck has stopped. Has it broken down? Another one will come now, and they will connect themselves with a giiiiaaaant shoelace, and the second one will pull it. I know, I’ve seen this movie… Wait, wait, Lucky, it’s not that movie… this is a different one… this truck is carrying some children. I haven’t seen this one. I really haven’t…”
The driver came out and lowered the side of the truck.
“Is the actor going to wake the children? Lucky? Do you see them; they’re asleep like angels.”
The driver returned to the cabin. A piston raised and tilted the trailer.
“What is this nonsense?” Sayash commented excitedly. “What does the truck think, that it’s an amusement park ride, or what? Hey truck, don’t you see that the children are asleep? They don’t want to play and be jerked around now!” Sayash was annoyed while the children’s bodies fell by the road. “Lucky, do you see how stupid this truck is?!”
Sayash looked at Lucky who shed tears incessantly.
“Hey, Lucky, it’s not you that should cry because the truck is stupid! What do we care about it! I guess you see that the children are still asleep… Hey, Lucky, stop!” Sayash ran after Lucky. “Don’t you wake them up now!”
The driver raised the side and returned to the cabin. The truck went on its way. To pick up some new load.
Chapter 125
“You’ve strived the entire time to find yourself in such a situation? I’ve concluded this from your biography,” Dr. Palladino said to the Grasshopper.
“That’s right.”
“When did you realize that the opportunity was that room that you are in and that command desk?”
“Very early on. As soon as I understood how the energy system was organized. Back in high school.”
“And at that same moment you wanted to sit at the command desk?”
“No. That developed within me over time. I cannot tell you the exact moment… Somewhere half way through university, I guess. That’s when I understood that the urge to kill would overpower sexual urge.”
“Eros and Thanatos?”
“Eros, yes, but only as libido. Everything around it is noise. As far as Thanatos is concerned, I agree that we can call it the primal instinct of death, but solely at the collective level.”
“What do you mean?”
“At the level of mankind. As humanity’s unique urge for self-destruction. At the individual level Thanatos is the drive to kill other people. It doesn’t represent man’s desire to return to inorganic matter, but to transform another living being into the non-living state. Our aggression does not appear because Eros has pushed Thanatos out of us and directed it towards other people. Our drive to kill is primal, seminal, basic. When we cannot satisfy it, when we are not in a situation to kill, that is when self-destruction emerges, the desire for one’s own death. As the just punishment for our incompetence, our failure.”
“This could be argued…”
“Certainly. But all that doesn’t matter, that was in the days when I was a student. It simply seemed to me that the urge to kill was so strong that it couldn’t be only the reflection of the urge for self-destruction. It was precisely then,” the Grasshopper continued, “as a young man, that I thought about the causes. But actually I haven’t been interested in them for a long time. I’m only dealing with the consequences. Just as you said, Dr. Palladino. You aren’t interested in whether the killer had an unhappy childhood.”
“I understand. Let’s go back to the beginning. You said that you understood that the urge to kill would overpower the libido.”
“Yes. The sexual act leads to the creation of new life. And killing represents the act of ending an existing life. People consider the satisfying of both urges to be immoral and sinful. The difference is that sex, unlike murder, is not persecuted and punished. This is why it took only one excuse for people to have sex: the birth of their progeny and survival of the species, so that…”
“Excuse me. I have to interrupt you…” said Dr. Palladino.
“Yes?”
“In your opinion, why is murder punished and sex isn’t?”
“Because of morals, ethics, God’s commandments…”
“And where did people get all that, if the killing instinct is so strong?”
“The Eros in people came up with that. It is that noise around the libido that I mentioned. It is the result of people’s fear that they will be killed. Fear for their own lives. And that fear was the only thing postponing the inevitable end of all life.”
Chapter 126
Lucky was jumping manically, spinning around, falling down and getting up, all over the children’s sleeping bodies. Until a tear of his fell on the face of each child. Brandon was the first to awake.
“Hey! It’s Lucky!” he shouted all glowing. “Wake up!” Brandon called out to his friends, shaking the one nearest to him. “Lucky’s here!”
“And Mr. Sayash!” said Melek, who was now also awake.
“Lucky! Lucky!” the other children shouted, while waking up.
“Do you see what you did, Lucky? You woke the children!” Sayash was worried.