They’re rather touching, these two lunatics, one too short, one too tall, each with her own personal code of purity—not yet faith in yours truly, but still something. They might be some engaged couple visiting the place they’ll live in when they’re married. I’d almost like to reassure them about the owners of the house—three of them—they’re all in agreement to rent it out. Well, one of them isn’t yet, she even blocked earlier negotiations with a would-be tenant, but by tonight she’ll have come around. I know all the right arguments. And even the rent will be reasonable, the way it can happen when you have a number of heirs. But I’ll leave the two of them in doubt because that way, they’ll be even happier later. When things are gained with difficulty, humans appreciate them more.
That afternoon they walk back up the creek, admiring the great blaze of the woods pressed down by the inky sky. As usual Aphra tells her a great many interesting things about the plants and animals that inhabit these parts. She darts forward and crouches down, grabbing some beastie. Daphne’s feeling somewhat better; it reassures her to think that maybe they’ll soon live here and take walks in these woods. She feels as if she’s just emerged from a grave illness, still in need of a long convalescence. When they get back to her stepfather’s they make a risotto with nettles and other strange herbs they’ve collected. Aphra shows off her gums and Francesco slaps a hand on the table, punctuating each of his remarks. Daphne decides she can’t be annoyed at him; he did what he could. She feels good, and thinks for the first time that maybe she has a family. They had planned to go back to town on the last coach, but decide to sleep there and leave in the morning.
First Aphra insists on sleeping on the floor with her in the disastrous guest room that is home to the washing machine and the honey extractor, but Daphne won’t hear of it. So they lie down together on a single bed, thinking they will deal with the sleeping arrangements later. For a while they just lie there, arms laced around one another, glued together, actually, saying nothing. Then the little one begins to stroke one of Daphne’s hips, very gently. And then the other. And then she strokes her flat stomach, and then, with her palms, her adolescent breasts. And then she kisses her, first on the chin, and then on the mouth. Daphne, a bit surprised, does however kiss her back. And then, using her tongue and pressing her lips tightly, she rouses Aphra to even more passionate moves. Now they kiss at length, touching each other all over. Then Aphra places a hand on Daphne’s pubis and she touches her there too, and musses up her bush of hair. The situation is degenerating from second to second; I can’t believe my eyes. Never did I expect something like this. Never. Before you know it, they are busy having sex, with loud heavy breathing and positions worthy of a porno film. I’ll spare you the details, but here’s the final score: an eloquent three–three. When they fall asleep, dawn is breaking.
Men Are Irredeemable
Only a good sport like myself could have believed that the human race would improve with time. Truth is, it’s been a catastrophe from Day One, and will continue to be so until the end of the End Times. Man’s first thought was to steal an apple, his second to steal another by working as little as possible, his third to use the stolen apple to take sexual advantage of an innocent, and so on down to the present day. Matters that start out this badly can never be fixed; I should have guessed that back in the days of the McIntosh in the Garden. Instead I kept thinking that sooner or later they would wise up. I kept trusting in what seemed to be tiny steps forward. Progress my backside: by now pornography and homosexuality flourish unchallenged. Look what just happened before my very eyes!
Their problem is that they’re utterly immoral. Always pontificating about honesty and goodness—ever since the day they learned to emit sounds with their vocal chords—and always inventing the most repellent perversions. They blather on about their good intentions and nice theories, write mountains of edifying books—and then commit the most atrocious acts. They love evil, they’ve always loved it and they always will: it’s inscribed in their DNA. No ape has ever written a thousand-page tome on ethics, but neither has any slaughtered his companion and eaten her heart. No hippopotamus ever turned serial killer, no polar bear insisted his race was superior to that of the browns, no cow ever proposed to gas and burn all his colleagues with different noses. Men, however, yes. Just open a history book.
This is not pique, to be sure: I am and I remain imperturbable. Imagine, a god that has fits of rage or suffers, that’s all we need! I’m disappointed, very disappointed, but disappointment has nothing to do with being hurt. Humans have disappointed me, that’s all. Once, twice, ten billion billion times, and finally I’ve had it. Whatever some cretin might think, one of those halfwits who think human beings are essential to me, that I’d be nobody without them, the deplorable depravity of that girl was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back. Truth is, I had come to the conclusion that (wo)men were irredeemable long before her.
Of course they’re taking care of it all by themselves, but I can also give them a push. The way you drop a lit cigarette butt in a dry forest, or plant a kick on a door that’s already closing. I could provoke the ire of some dictator so he blasts off missiles left and right; I could simply blow up a couple of nuclear power stations, or design some deadly new epidemic disease. The dreadful wars and famines and disasters on disasters would arrive all on their own, no need to wear myself out. And of course I have great expectations of climate change, bête noire of Vittorio, down there in Australia.* And if I should get impatient because it’s all taking too long, there’s always the giant asteroid option. A beautiful big blossom, and that’s that. It might be the cleanest way out, esthetically the most modern.
* However, reader, I don’t intend to bore you with his adventures among the marsupials and the descendants of British colonial thieves. When a character leaves the stage he’s gone and it would be crazy to put the klieg lights on him again. Is he still involved with the Tyrolean push-up girl from the plane? That’s his business! He can do as he likes in Australia, nobody cares anymore.
Everything Seems to Get Set Right
Daphne climbs the stairs at police headquarters, the condemned on her way to the execution chamber. The last straw, she thinks. She sensed it from the moment her neighbor of the Indian prayer-hands gave her the convocation letter: they were going to put her on trial and send her to prison. The fat harpy behind the front desk not very cordially points to a couple of broken-down seats in a tiny, windowless waiting area. In her eyes Daphne’s a convicted criminal. The other cops passing by assess her in the same way; they all know who she is and what she’s done. They’re going to make her pay.
After a considerable wait, a fellow with a feathery halo of white hair tells her to come with him. She sits in front of his desk, her heart thumping wildly, while he seraphically flips through his files. We’ve located your missing property, he says, with a smile like a sad clown. She looks at the photo in his hand, hardly able to believe her eyes. It’s a motorcycle, her twin-cylinder, and it seems to be in fine shape. So it’s not about the files she hacked from the Vatican website? Something’s exploding inside her chest, and without intending to she lunges forward to embrace the little old cop who looks like a good angel. He dodges ably to one side, his reflexes those of an excellent goalie. You’re very lucky; we recover only about one in ten, he says, more uncle than cop. You can pick it up now down at the city car pound; oh, and my colleagues are on their way over there and they’ll give you a lift, he adds. I don’t have my helmet, she says, silent tears coursing down her cheeks. Well then, we’ll drive you home to get it, he replies, a pale cherub’s finger pointing to her address on the file.
I am merciful. I did not vent my fury as an angry god would do; I didn’t have those two bad-girl sodomites run over by a drunk driver, or install a couple of those evil carcinomas that manifest themselves only when it’s far too late to operate. I even took care of the rental contract for the bucolic cottage; they’ve already signed it, happy as clams.
They’ll live in depravity, wallowing in three–threes every night; it’s useless to try to stop them when things have already gone this far. Let them conjure up ten test-tube babies, or clone themselves, whatever they like, it’s neither hot nor cold to me. They’ll pay for it when the time comes, as they all must.*
* I might well opt for judgment by sin categories, like the plan outlined by Mr. Dante Alighieri, rather than take up an infinite number of individual cases one by one. I mean, who says I have to?
The lab director had called asking to see her, but Daphne had decided not to go. But now, as she recovers her bike and mounts it, she sees it’s just the time the appointment was scheduled, and thinks maybe she’ll show up after all. Now that she’s got her bike back she’d like to; in fact she feels she must. Who knows what bunkum the dapper dickhead will have to offer, what outrageous crap he’ll come up with to launder his Catholic conscience, but if he wants to see her, she’s not backing out. That way she can say goodbye with dignity to the place that meant so much to her for a large part of her life.
But when she arrives at the Institute she feels a great pincer grab her by the throat. Nostalgia for the test tubes, the smell of ammonia and sulfuric acid, the howl of the centrifuge and the burble of the coffee machine in the hallway. Even for that lamebrain with the purple acne. No need for regrets though, her future now promises pesticide-free carrots and beans—much healthier, she thinks. She turns around to go: no, she’s not strong enough to face this trial. Then she thinks (well, she hears a voice telling her) that she must be strong. She swings around again and begins to climb the stairs.
The director invites her to sit in his perfectly intact office, rubbing his hands together as if warm water were running over them. He’s like a man who’s just emerging from a long hot shower, even more pleased with himself than usual. Here comes a hurricane of total bullshit, she thinks: and yes, he immediately begins emitting the usual snippets of phrases that run together senselessly like a mad dictionary. In the end he manages to complete a few of his sentences, telling her that the regional government has come up with some unexpected funding, and that in an enormous stroke of good luck, their lab was chosen. And there’s nobody who could take charge of this project better than she. She looks at him, as always thinking she doesn’t get it. This time she does get it, though; she just can’t bring herself to believe it. Believe it, a sumptuous, deeply trustworthy baritone repeats in her ear. This is step one, quite soon they’ll give you a permanent contract. The lab director speaks up again. This a temporary solution, of course. Afterward we’ll hire you full-time with tenure, he says, waving his mole’s hand around by his ear. She hates to cry in front of the big dickhead, but she starts to cry. Now he too is moved, his eyes fill for an instant. He seems to have forgotten that he was the one who cheated her out of a job.
Now you might think it was I who took care of this matter, too, but no, I didn’t lift a finger. The dying bishop did it. Somehow he figured out why she was there, and summoning his strength for the last time, he put through a call to a certain senator, who then called the director of the Institute (a man appointed by the senator’s own political party), and by 9 p.m. that evening, all was settled. The powerful senator and fierce opponent of gay marriage sent word to the pedophile bishop that the beanpole would be given a permanent job in a few months, because one had opened up. The bishop could no longer speak, he already had more than a foot in the tomb, but he shook his head ever so slightly. Then he shook it again to request extreme unction.
Unfortunately something very sad has happened, the director tells her as he walks her to the stairs, beating both arms in the air as if chasing away Mendelian fruit flies. The candidate to whom we offered the job was knocked down by a truck at a zebra crossing, he goes on, marshaling the usual stumps of phrases, limbs lopped off by an overzealous gardener. The doctors couldn’t say whether she would come out of the coma (yes, she will) and whether, if she did, there would be any brain injury (impossible to rule out some aftereffects), in any case she wouldn’t be returning to the job. Dreadful bad luck, the truck was actually going extremely slowly, he says, getting slightly teary again thinking how easily it could have happened to him, who’s always so distracted. God disposes, in his infinite wisdom, he sighs. I can only confirm that.
Ms. Einstein is sorry that the stupid showgirl’s in a coma, but she’s practically flying as she leaves the Institute. The force of gravity has diminished and her lungs seem full of nitrous oxide, that funny gas that pulls her lips to the sides of her mouth, making her smile. The threadbare estate which houses the institute looks beautiful today, and the blackbirds are winking at her. She’ll return to work tomorrow, she thinks. Then she reconsiders. Next Monday morning will do fine. Now that she knows she’ll have some kind of salary, even if modest, she can look for a studio apartment (she’ll find one, trust me). She certainly means to live with Aphra (man of my life, she thinks), but right now she’d prefer to have a base in the city so that she doesn’t have to commute to and from work every day, among other things. She mounts her bike and as she rides home she’s floating on air, an archangel on the ceiling of some damn church.
Extinction
Up until now, my infinite goodness has prevailed. But the time has come to extinguish them, men. Humans. As I did with dinosaurs, with mammoths, each time sweeping a goodly number of creatures off the planet. And I have no regrets. After a while you can get fed up with a species, like everything else. You want to see new faces, you need fresh air. Not to mention the fact that (wo)men are wiping out a stratospheric number of plants and animals at an ever-crazier rate. Extinguishing them will be a genuine ecological good deed. If you think about it, they are merely a single species among ten million in the animal kingdom (I disregard their unreliable estimates). The difference between 9,999,999 and 10 million changes little, I think you’ll agree. Very soon now, perhaps even as I write the final syllable of this fatal diary, I’ll pull the switch, and they’ll get what they deserve.
Yes, it will be some time before all the traces of their misdeeds disappear, but it’s important to begin. The rivers will begin to run where they desire to run, properly flooding the plains. Highways and cities will disappear under a tangle of vegetation. First moss and lichens will spread, then grasses, then mighty oaks. Trees will no longer fear being lopped off at the base, or even pruned; they’ll tower undisturbed again. In short, I trust in the vegetable world to repair things. At the most I might spread a little fertilizer—organic, of course; we’ve had enough chemistry. The skyscrapers will begin to lean like the Leaning Tower of Pisa (Pizza?), then they’ll all topple over like bowling pins. Farewell paved parking lots, high-tension lines, shopping centers, airports: the forests will rule everywhere. Above all, no more churches, those dangerous dens of hypocrisy. I can’t wait to be free of them again.
How peaceful it will be without (wo)men; I can already taste the deep serenity. No more airplanes deafening the atmosphere—and covering the sky with those unsightly trails—no more smelly industries and exhaust pipes, no more carloads of carbon dioxide. Fish will be free to tear around the sea without fear of ending up in a can, or as fish meal in a pigpen. Birds will fly where they wish, cows will stop producing that poor-quality milk and slowly relearn how to be less tame. Dogs will shed that intolerable servile air, cats will scratch and hiss again. Free competition among the species will be re-established, minus those tricks and cheap shots human beings have always imposed to their own advantage.
The only thing that could go wrong would be if a few cunning survivors were to remain hidden away in some cave or swamp. There they’d be, quiet as mice, gnawing on wild berries and lizards, awaiting better times, until they could carry out one of their demographic explosions, a skill they’re unequaled at, lying low the way a half-forgotten epidemic disease does, and then suddenly multiplying aggressively, like a bomb going off. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if in less than no time they’d have reinvented fire, iron blades, gunpow
der, and so forth down to cell phones. So I’ll be keeping an eye trained to be sure not even the tiniest pocket of resistance survives. If necessary, I’ll employ a powerful volcano, one of those emitting cinders of lava that darken the sky for several years, a Pompeii 2.0. I have no intention of repeating this foolish comedy.
Come to think of it, the best solution might be to give Andromeda a push, like you do a child on a swing, to speed her up. The apocalyptic collision is predicted in two billion years? How about if I make that two minutes? Bye-bye Milky Way, no more pointless constellation-gazing. One must never hesitate to think big. Or should I decide something subtler is in order, I could revive the appetite of Sagittarius A* so that stars gravitating nearby, such as the Sun, are drawn inside. I can see that hideous mouth of his sucking in the various stars, a celestial Polyphemus gobbling down Ulysses’ men. But this time there’ll be no Ulysses to outwit him, no more cunning, no more (human) words. I’ll think about it, and then I’ll decide. Or rather, I won’t think, the right choice will simply impose itself. I am God, as I said. And that’s it from me.
About the Author
The novelist, poet, and dramatist Giacomo Sartori was born in 1958 in Trento in the Alpine northeast of Italy near the Austrian border. An agronomist, he is a soil specialist whose unusual day job (unusual for a writer) has shaped a distinctive concrete and poetic literary style. He has worked abroad with international development agencies in a number of countries, and has taught at the University of Trento. He was over 30 when he began writing, and has since published seven novels and four collections of stories as well as poetry and texts for the stage. He is an editor of the literary collective Nazione Indiana and contributes to the blog www.nazioneindiana.com.
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