Moreover, now that he thought about it, he probably didn’t confess everything he had done. The fact the had access to a copy of the keys, for example, made him suppose he was the one who had “mysteriously” turned the audio channel on in the middle of the night. At the time, Giovanni had blamed himself; but now, in the light of all those revelations, he started thinking it was an unconfessed incursion by Alex, rather than an unpleasant and isolated episode of sleep-walking.
Shadows, over shadows, over shadows…
He wanted to cry. It would help him. But tears evaporated inside his eyes even before falling.
Fears must be faced.
“I… am…” he started saying, trying to find some consolation in his mantra. But he lacked the strength to even talk.
We all have to, sooner or later.
He wished Alex, that poor devil, could rest in peace.
If only I could, too, he thought. And he immediately gave up to sleep, beyond any expectations.
20 – Before the Storm
August began with a Cleansing, the third. Thousands of liters of acid were injected in the Tank, as always, to melt as many corpses as possible.
Giovanni stolidly supervised the process . He was well aware that everything fell under unquestionable and proven schemes, and the sphere of emotions had to give up, disappear. In Camp 9 people died every day. The soil, the air, the sunlight, everything was full of death. But that wasn’t a good reason to give up to useless interior torments with the only result of suffering even when on the right side of the barricade. He had learnt his lesson long ago. And hundreds of melt bodies dispersed under his feet weren’t something appropriate to think about. That was just how things were.
Back in his apartment he ate an abundant breakfast, ignoring the trembling that created many concentrical circles on the surface of his latte in the cup he was holding with both his hands.
The month went on between some of hot days and others graced by the northern breeze.
He didn’t receive any other communications from the general and asked the EGs how things were going out there was as useful as asking his reflection in the mirror. He actually could get some answers from it from time to time. He knew that talking to oneself was a sign of instability, but he was of the mind that his condition justified that small deviancy. And who could hear him anyway? The amoeba? He grinned every time he thought about the mass of dying bodies that way.
One day, while staring at the Well, he fantasized about that green circle surrounded by black being his brain. Half-closing his eyes he could see it melt in a slimy, waved, spongy mass that could very well be the radiography of his cranium. The idea was intriguing. But he was clever enough to rapidly stray from the path that lead to such thoughts. There were weeds there, and sharp stones emerged from the ground. Better to proceed on the beaten path, the one paved with hard work, obedience and rigor leading him to…
Where? He wondered looking in the mirror. And with a peaceful smile he answered: “To your island, of course.”
For time to time he still thought about his life before the Tank. In the beginning nostalgia had been overwhelmed by enthusiasm, so he had little time think back to a not particularly brilliant or attractive past; not so much to make him regret his choice, at least. Now, after eight months inside that huge cylinder, he realized difficult it was for him to mentally rebuild the apartment he had left and where he had lived for many years. The topographical references of the outside world, which were once straight lines guiding him, had folded like the legs of a chair inside the trunk of a car, amassing inside his head.
There were lots of faces and names in the world of his past, the outside world. It was incredible how so many things inside him were fading away. His memories were hundreds of balloons attached to a thread, like those tied outside houses for a child’s birthday. But the birthday had already passed and in time the balloons were left there in their uselessness, bending their heads, getting smaller, withering…
He had promised to always look forward. And it was what he had managed to do. Of what was behind his back – all those things that couldn't keep up with him or couldn’t reach him – he could do without.
No, he was happy about being there. He was satisfied of his job. He didn’t want to go home early.
“I am the NMO, yes sir!” He showed his tongue to the mirror and, thinking back to Stevanich’s word, he added: “And whatever fear awaits him, I will face it.”
He would have to keep that promise a few weeks later, when the fires lit.
21 – Fires of Death
September 21, 6:43 P.M.
Giovanni was sitting in the kitchen in front of a cup of tea that had gotten out the microwave twenty minutes earlier, but was now almost cold now. The TV, muted. Some hunters were frantically building a bamboo cage inside which they hoped to put some animal, a gorilla, maybe, or a leopard…
Giovanni would have looked asleep if it weren’t for the wide open eyes. He was aware of himself and what surrounded him, and to some degree also of the content of the documentary about Africa managed to get in through a crack in his awareness; but for all intents and purposes his mind had imploded in a state of peaceful apathy. It happened often lately. The activities he used to fill the many empty spaces in his daily life – reading, listening to music, exercise with weights – had momentarily lost their appeal.
It’s the upcoming autumn, he had told himself.
Even when he was still studying, he remembered it well, the end of the summer was always accompanied by a lack of spirit, or to be more honest, laziness. So, when it seemed nothing could invigorate him, he found comfort in sitting there in front of a mute television, in a state of interior void he found extremely relaxing.
But in that late afternoon, suddenly an alarm in the center of his brain violently pulled him away from his mediation. He raised his wrist, looking at the clock with horror.
6:43!
He immediately stood up, almost kicking the chair over. How was that possible? He had had two deliveries in the morning, a third one in the afternoon at 4:15, and he was waiting for a fourth one… at 6:30.
Nobody in sight. It was inconceivable. Or had he misunderstood?
In the meanwhile the hunters in the TV were pushing some big feline inside a cage that looked inadequate to contain an animal that size. But Giovanni’s problem was way worse. He approached the window in the kitchen to see if he could get some information from there.
In the distance, the siren in the Center cried, a lament that expanded and shrieked hysterically alternating high and low pitched sounds. He had never heard it before and immediately got the goosebumps. The general alarm had gone off. In the same moment he realized it, a chain of rapid beeps came from the Control. The alert had been automatically forwarded to him, too.