The World of Multicellular - Oleg Seriy

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Seriy

      «Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital».

      Oscar Wilde

      «There are few people like me», – he said. As he told me, his name was Shaitan. Sometimes he appeared and sometimes he vanished. Nobody believed that he really existed but he was my friend. It is just that I didn’t believe it was his true name.

      And she, who was standing in front of me with her mouth full of water, didn’t believe in him, too. She had slim arms and I had her. Now she was standing twisting her finger at her temple and muttering without opening her mouth that he was insane. She meant Shaitan, of course. I personally was completely all right. So why was she looking at me like that?..

      Anyway, it was true. He had lost his grip long ago.

      He was fed up with his life and he was planning to leave this world, or rather to fly away on the Hercolubus. That is what he used to tell me. Sometimes I felt thatI shared his dreams. But then Shaitan met her and everything changed. A very strong emotion developed inside him and he couldn’t keep it out of his mind. He also couldn’t forget her curly hair and her beautiful eyes, her slim shape, the shine of her lips and her clear voice which touched so deeply the chords of his pure soul. They went to the theatre together. Just once. And that was enough for him to stop being able to sleep, to eat, to drink without thinking of her. That night he wasn’t asleep either. He just couldn’t fall asleep. He got up, sat at the table and began to write. Those lines of him. He wasn’t eager to die anymore. He wanted to live. She was his Muse. It was her who gave him the desire to live again and he turned his back to Death. It would be wrong though to say that he didn’t like death anymore or ceased thinking about it. He just decided to accept it but to live without Death. And for living with the one he loved he had to turn his backto Death and then just to go ahead – into Life…

      She picked up the phone at midnight because she didn’t master telepathy. She heard his merry voice.

      Today is your Birthday as the day you were born has just begun and I wish you to celebrate it happily.

      Well, it’s up to you…

      And I also wish you to eat every day like you eat on your Birthday, during all this year and your whole life and even during your life after death…

      But if I eat every day like I eat on my Birthday, I wouldn’t be able to force myself through the door.

      But I didn’t say you should spend every single day like this. I just wish you could afford it…

      And what are you going to give me as a Birthday present?

      I promised not to tell you.

      Tell me, please.

      I’ll give you invisible balloons and inaudible crackers. Here you are… I have to go now…

      I realized long ago that you and I are just holograms or systems. I tried to find the place where holograms didn’t exist anymore… Illusions – that was everything she had. And even that place, her Birthday and all the guests were mere projections. Only my present for her – invisible balloons and inaudible crackers – were not projections on her Birthday. And that is because my present was imaginary. Only imagination is not a hologram. I managed to find the place I was looking for so long. This place is my Imagination. It dwells inside my mind.

      Then her Birthday was over and nobody seemedto understand what I had given her for a present. She was not very glad either, so I took my invisible presents and shuffled home listening to the chink of the sands and the rustle of the wind. Or rather, it was not me walking home but the one who calls himself Shaitan. That day he was in the limelight.

      He walked home holding out his hand with imaginary balloons. They were three meters in diameter, round and so beautiful! How can people fail to notice them? «They are absolutely deprived of imagination», said Shaitan. He launched inaudible crackers. They didn’t let him get into a taxi with the balloons so we had to take an imaginary taxi to get home. Shaitan called it somehow in an odd manner… Let me remember… Ah yes, phaeton, that’s it. Indeed, his home was also imaginary. In fact, he was imagination himself. And imagination was him.

      That day I dissolved, I vanished, I died. I didn’t exist anymore in the form I used to have. It had been inhabited by someone else. Someone so different from the one who used to occupy my body before. And the problem is that I had a suspicion I would make neither head nor tail of this…

      But it was exciting! When I came home I realized that it was the best Birthday I had ever been to. And it turned out that I was just a bead. At first I wasn’t a bead but then one of the holograms was called so; I liked the word and everyone began to call me so. And I became a bead. When it happenedI got the opportunity to contemplate this world from another angle. And then I understood that all of you present here were not people. You are those who just dwell under these biophysiological covers, these dress-like bodies… You are just projections and that is the point. Get to know, wake up – that is the main idea. And the centreof all this is you. And at the same time you are not the most important thing. Both important and minor.

      I wanted to cover myself with a blanket with ducklings making those quack-quack noises but I didn’t happen to have such a blanket, you see? It was my mere imagination. In fact, I didn’t want to sleep; I was able to penetrate the dreams when I fell asleep in reality. That is why I inclined my head and glanced down, on the pavement on the dark surface of which I discerned enormous flashing letters highlighted from beneath. It was a huge inscription articulated in a sinister voice: «Everyone, old and young, should make a script of an animal or the number of its name. And now the same message for the obtuse Unicellular! Everybody of you appreciate only those symbols which lie in your wallets or on your account. You should transfer your money and your non-cash funds to your personal accounts or to point-of-sale terminals, paying only for our goods and services marked with EAN-13 bar code». I saw real Hell… Don’t get me wrong, I saw a Beast. And the main place it inhabited was my own mind.

      Then I lifted my head up to the sky and I saw Heavens. And when I glanced in front of me I found myself back on the Earth. And I saw the light…

      I was waddling down the street when I heard an announcement. It resounded in the air: «Everyone who breathes and also everyone who is born and who lives, that is exists, should pay Tribute every day at 13.13 p.m. sharp. Approach the nearest cash dispenser, join the queue and put your hand to a horizontal slit in the cash dispenser; there you should deliver your blood sample. We give you blood for your well-being and happiness and you should pay back in your own coin. The interest for blood use will be charged and washed off you automatically. You just need to put your hand toa slit. These are our financial mechanisms».

      This announcement was made every day but today it sounded something different, unusual… it sounded in a new fashion. And «financial mechanisms» were never mentioned before either. They used to speak only about «tribute» and «blood». Probably now that the World Governance was settled aliens didn’t want to conceal that we were their slaves anymore, I thought inwardly.

      Every system has its own secret, its mystery. You can learn it in two ways – either to ask someone who knows it or to find out yourself using your agility, brain, wisdom, cunning or combination of these and other qualities. This way is more difficult but more interesting and the soul gets the most valuable experience for it. The first way is easier but less interesting. If you want to learn the secret from someone who possesses it you should offer them something they lack but it is not that easy; you should not only give it to them but you should first find out what they need. The soul, however, gets less experience for that. Shaitan was the one who knew

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