by Davi Cao
“You are too much in a hurry, aren’t you? Let’s play more, let’s create things! You’re good at this, you should—” OOOO said.
“Just let me go! I need to face it. I’ll show the Voice who’s the sad one,” Colin said.
Watching its target get impossibly far, Colin thought of a small airplane. He wished for it, and it materialized in front of them. It had simple controls, it had the capacity to roll over muddy terrain, it had rocket engines to fly in vacuum.
He made its frame from resistant material, always ready to negotiate with the sadness around it, a better world to be seen after death. OOOO and Bibi hopped into the machine, following Colin, both scared and thrilled to see him so dedicated into carving his own disappearance.
“Yes, create things, you like this, don’t you? Please don’t go to the World Voice, you’re too sad and won’t survive it, will you? Let’s fly around the world to see the ruins,” OOOO said.
“In his head, I see no turning back,” Bibi told OOOO.
The airplane flew slower than the great pillar, but their directions converged, as the World Voice changed its path and came towards the group of Creators. Its power grew stronger at every minute, taking its toll on the machine’s integrity.
One engine melted down, making them spin on the rocket's axis, and soon enough the whole chassis disintegrated, releasing its cargo on the empty void of space. The dominant world belonged to OOOO, a world whose rules included gravity, a force that affected all Creators who complied to it. Thus Colin, OOOO and Bibi fell from a mountain’s height, spinning uncontrollably in front of the glowing column that took a quarter of the sky.
∙ 20 ∙ The World Voice
Loud shrieks pervaded the impact ground, as Colin, OOOO and Bibi rolled on melted land, fallen from their disintegrated airplane. The World Voice irradiated its powerful sorrow through every pore of their mystical bodies, and each of them suffered its presence. Bearers of minds, creatures of mood swings, none of them lived safe from misery.
“Run! Run! You see, out of here, all of us!” OOOO shouted.
“Not one word ... Not one soul to greet me ... Who did this to me? Why ... Why ...”
“I have no chance against it, it’s too much! We have to get away! Take Colin! He’s not moving,” Bibi said.
“Life is meaningless ... An illusion ... When will I wake up ...”
“He won’t go, will he?” OOOO struggled against Colin. “Run, run, we can’t stay longer!”
“I’m never going to be happy ... There’s no winning ... There’s no way out ... It only gets worse ...”
“Let him be, that’s what he wants!” Bibi said.
Colin rose in front of the pillar, digesting the depressing bombardment taking over every cell in his body. OOOO and Bibi fled at high speed, hopping and hovering above the slime, until finding a big hill from where they could keep an eye on Colin, who stood in the middle of the World Voice’s roaming circles. It struck him with the full strength of its voice.
“I am a nobody ... A pitiful man, a useless human ... I am the only of my kind, the unlucky idiot who got the chance to see his beloved ones die twice ... They are gone, and I’m here forever ... No, I won’t be here forever, I have nothing to gain ... My parents disappeared in the first life, then got mad and killed themselves in the other ... Angeline melted down at first, and then exploded and melted down again ... I created them, I brought them to life, knowing that they could go wrong, knowing that I can’t do anything right ... And how could I get things right this time, of all others ... I can’t, I couldn’t, I could never ... My beloved ... Oh, the loved ones who didn’t really want me ... No, not my parents, not Angeline ... She didn’t wait for me ... I had to sacrifice for her, because she wouldn’t do the same for me ... She went to the beach, instead of spending her last moments with me, and she dared to say that she loved me ... Only because she was scared ... That’s when people remember me, when they have nothing else ... When everybody is gone, when I am the only one left, then I am worthy ... But I am not, not even being the only one of my kind, I can’t do things right, I can’t ...”
He fell on his knees, weakened from inside. Something in his guts collapsed, unable to hold him up longer. His knees plunged in the mud, but his spine held him straight. He looked down, blind from the intense pillar's shining, watching a festival of regrets screen in his mind.
“If I am near mountains and birds, I am still alone ... They all chose to desert me, to meltdown and escape the world, the world they shared with me ... Only because I was there they did so, because who wants to be with me anywhere ... I am just a scene prop in the backdrop, something that is always there and of which nobody takes notice ... Angeline loved me out of pity, she was only interested in being nice to others ... I could be anything, I could be the one everybody hated, the one everybody admired, the crazy one ... But no, I was the forgotten one, the one so bland and banal and disposable and replaceable that it was worse than being hated ... I was a nobody ... I am a nobody ...”
When Colin was thirteen, he still liked to play catch with his friends. They would go to the riverside and run after one another, touching the fleeing ones to pass the catcher’s burden. They often improvised with throwing balls or rubber bands, performing roles of police and thieves. In a group of nine boys and girls, Colin was the oldest and slowest one, entering his teenage years and not realizing it. He had no one to push him further in the expectations of his age, and so his still infant friends leveled him down.
Tensions appeared in the group as the young ones developed their bodies, finding in love a natural interest. From one day to the other, the group forgot about playing children’s games. Those who discovered the pleasures of going out with girls and boys soon dragged those who insisted on playing, finding a new realm of activities much more rewarding to their excited senses. Only Colin didn't get a warning or invitation, the weird fourteen-year-old who still liked children’s stuff, the creepy stooge. Nobody remembered to bring him up-to-date with adolescence.
In High School, he sat in the middle of the class, he had decent grades, he played sports according to the rules, he didn't amuse anybody, and also didn't annoy them. The world moved around him and he tried to be a part of it, always one step behind. In his second year, he had appendicitis. After a simple surgery, his scar got a minor infection and he had to stay a bit longer away from school.
Two weeks without classes, he squirmed with anxiety in his bed, worried about accumulated homework. Some classmate should tell him about the things he missed, or any school employee, so that he could get back on par with the rest. That’s what always happened to students who needed to catch up with the schedule because of unfortunate events.
Nobody contacted him or his parents, though. At the time of his return, the school supervisor greeted him with surprise. He didn’t even remember that Colin still studied there.
Love became a big motivation in High School. He dreamed little, attracted to beauty in the popular girls, yes, for his senses responded to ordinary impulses like any boy, but he dared approach only the ones away from the spotlight. Liliana, with the big nose and the double chin, who walked with elegance and told endless jokes, owned his teenage heart. She wore shiny red lipstick, the sole trace of vanity on her face, a detail that filled her image with charm. Her highlighted lips inspired in Colin a first urge to write a poem.
Consumer of popular prose, occasional reader of mandatory poetry, words had a flavor to him. Choosing combinations after a beautiful sentence, creating rhymes to make musical verses, for hours his attempt at literary craftsmanship amused him and gave him a taste of creative pleasure. His efforts bore no fruit, though, because he showed it to his mother Sarah before daring to give it to Liliana, and she laughed so sincerely at his text that he recoiled like a snail in his shell. Sarah tried to minimize her reaction, at the same time unable to lie, poking at his already injured feelings.
At least he had Clarice. Three months before graduating from H
igh School, he took the courage to talk to her more frequently, and they matched well. Colin never had many interesting things to say, which rendered him fit for being a good listener. In order to survive in the social world, he had to make people want his company, and letting others talk about themselves proved the best way to get that. He had his first kiss with Clarice, and he found love and happiness, knowing from the beginning that she would move to another city for her college studies.
They kept in touch by phone and on the internet, until classes took all their free time and, six months later, all communication ceased. He saw her pictures on his Facebook timeline, always curious about her new experiences and friends. Did she think about him as much as he did about her? He said hello, and she said, “Colin who?”
During college, he found in part-time jobs the best way to leave his mark. If he missed one day of work, he would be charged, and what a blessing to be remembered! He took a series of six-months contracts in countless companies during all those years, learning enough to be good at something in life: managing other people’s production.
With such an occupation, people talked to him actively and vice versa, and thus he became capable of having his one true friend in life, the one who remembered him when he missed an appointment, the one who did so without being his boss. Angeline. The one who called him to say that she loved him before melting down, the one he would never be able to have again if Terra didn’t come back, and, by the look of things, Terra would never come back. Doomed to eternal loneliness, he drowned in the unbearable sea of his regrets.
On his knees under the World Voice’s great pillar of light, his t-shirt melted down faster than his pants, flowing on his skin like spilled juice. His chest hair disappeared, and his eyebrows dripped on his eyelids, thickened by his melting hair. The film of his failed life looped inside his head, and as it did so, it took pieces of Colin's own matter away with it.
“You can reach him, can’t you?” OOOO said, on top of a hill, staring at Colin far away.
“I do. He’s retelling his life with a focus on misfortunes,” Bibi said.
“The World Voice blinded him, didn't it? You have to show him that he is more than that, you see?”
“It’s too loud. Even if I can talk to him, I’ll be a faint whisper against a giant speaker.”
“You have to try it! He’s melting already, isn’t he? Give him reasons to exist.”
Colin sunk deeper in the mud, bending his head down. He let go of his arms, becoming unaware of their connection with his body. They hung from his shoulders in the shape of long tails.
“You are a failure, yes, you are right,” Bibi said to Colin, entering his mind during a moment of pause from his sad thoughts. “You lost good opportunities, you never had a chance to develop your creative potential. By letting life slip by, you became a reactive force, a human against change, ready to defend until death the only space of peace you could find. Even that wasn’t enough to stop you from failure, because when the world ended, you lost the only thing you knew how to do, and all the rest scared you. That’s why you are a failure, alone, miserable, and pitiful. Does it make sense, Colin? I am talking to you. Do you hear me, Colin? Answer me, I need your voice.”
“That’s not ... that’s not very helpful, is it?” OOOO intercepted the message with its unlimited curiosity, closing its teeth in front of its mouth.
Far from their mound, under the sweeping pillar, Colin babbled an answer to the voice he assigned to the World Voice itself. He thought he'd entered a new stage of his progressive dissolution, rejoicing with his equally sad company.
“I hear you,” he said.
“Good. But you are a Creator now. You are blaming yourself for not being remembered, for not showing any particular talent, and now you have it. The supreme talent, that of creating whole new worlds. Wish for it, and it all becomes real. You have to agree with me, I urge you to do so: you can only be a failure now if you refuse to create. You have a power. Use it. If you don’t, then you can be miserable and worthless,” Bibi said.
“Tell him that creating doesn’t cost him anything! It’s free and easy, isn't it?” OOOO said.
“This world which you despise, this hellish place where beloved creations melt and disappear, this will also find its doom. Don’t you want to stay here to watch it go? Don’t you want to be the one to bring it down, to wait for its crumbling and say good bye to the World Voice's unending torment? It can all be yours, Colin. You have power. You are only a failure because you want to be, and that means you can choose not to be one right now,” Bibi said.
“So much power ... For so little imagination ... I want what I had, only that ...” Colin said.
“You can have a world in which you are the only useful one, in which you are king! Or one in which nobody is more important than anybody, where losers and winners don’t exist! Or one in which losers are the successful ones, and winners are the shame! If your life is such a failure, then why don’t you use this power to change it?” Bibi said.
“I want friends ... real friends ... that’s some worthy thing only if I don’t control them,” Colin said.
“I am your friend!” OOOO said.
“And I can be one too. We won’t forget you. That’s not a promise, that’s a fact. This is how Creators are,” Bibi said.
Those voices reaching out to Colin’s head mingled in the soup of his mind. Thoughts became tactile experiences to him, sounds that shook his body and tore pieces of his flesh. He saw colored waves vibrating after every word, infinite spirals swallowing the ground where he sunk his knees. Who were those that remembered him, that fought for him? Was it the World Voice? The one so sad and alone? Did it like him? Did it become his friend?
He had trustworthy company, after all. At that moment, he couldn’t even tell how many speakers soothed him, or figure out their identities, but they said pleasant things before terrible ones. For every, ‘I am worthless’, he heard an “I can create a different life.” So, the world gave him two sides from which to choose, and they both seemed right. Existing brought pain, and it also provided pleasure.
What if Angeline could come back in a better world? What if he himself learned a new craft and acquired confidence in it? What if he got his chance to become the dominant one, with his own Terra? What if? What if? The question opened paths of colors in front of his eyes, leading his focus from left to right, in straight lines, in curves, in zigzags. To create meant mastering possibilities, and if he could create his dream life, then sadness became just a way to count time.
One of his little fingers melted down, flowing on the soft ground, paraffin under fire. Colin, considering the potential of his powers, wished for a new finger, and so it materialized, brand new, giving his right hand another chance at life. He felt gloomy, of course he did, how could he not be? He'd lost everything.
“It is just a phase, isn’t it?” a voice told him.
“It is just a phase,” he agreed.
Alone, miserable, so far his attempts at success had all failed. Like the World Voice, he wandered on the land looking for who created him, for a way out of that hell. One day, though, as the friendly voice told him, even that terrible world would come to an end, and his sorrow would give place to joy. Pain had reason to exist, and he understood them all. His mind manifested its feelings in transient states, reacting to creation, to Creators, changing with the flow of reality. The World Voice did the same. They lived through a bad phase, just a phase.
Recognizing life's paths, he found no reason to meltdown. He listened to the voice inside his mind, to its endless lament, he patted it with kindness and set it to sleep after drying its tears, a soothing parent sympathizing with anguish. Everything would be alright in the end. He had hope. He was a Creator.
Colin smiled under the blinding light, which raced away from the area in its random sweep. He fainted, falling head down in the melted land in front of him.
∙ 21 ∙ Friends
Never in that universe had
the World Voice caused so much noise as it moved away from Colin’s unconscious body. Throughout the melted planet, ruins of buildings, nature and soil collapsed, overflowing the land with more of their saddened matter.
Creators who originated from places where feelings made sense shuddered at that sudden intensity of misery. It was the cry they grew used to since the new world's dawn, but one intensified by the near disappearance of one of their kind.
Agony faded when the great pillar of light abandoned Colin to his own fate, a human who had lost all hair and fur, who lay half naked on the ground, with rashes and ruptures chewing his skin. His mind activity ceased. He protected himself, now that he understood that suffering's temporary aspect, and shut himself down to allow for the World Voice to go on its way and leave him alone.
“He wants to live. Being a Creator entices him now,” Bibi told OOOO, reading his last thoughts before darkness.
“I knew it, didn’t I? He is going to try again!” OOOO said.
“Yes, he won’t rest until he finds someone to help him, or a way to replicate Terra by himself. Do you know of any case similar to his?”
“I guess not. Terra’s creations were famous for being slaves of the past, weren’t they? That makes him a very interesting Creator, right?”
“A rather unique one. But if we don’t do something fast, I don’t know how long his mind can remain closed without damaging itself.”
“We will help him, won’t we? I’ll hop there, and you come along.”
They departed while the World Voice swept the land on their right, making a trajectory that would take it farther from them. They listened to it in communion with all creatures on the planet, depressing cries penetrating every atom in existence. Faint whispers, however, compared to their mission's urgency.