To Be on the Other Side
"All these years fighting against myself. I feel so stupid." Mick tells me about his life as if it were a permanent job in a factory he attended to for decades, screwing together parts of something he never saw, never conceived of as part of himself. A ship, a fighter plane, deranged farm machinery. He tells me his time is up. “The time to maintain a human presence” he declares. I ask him what he means, his intentions. "I mean this morbid insistence on identity and its honors. That's not what we're here for. We're here for the opposite." I nod and remain silent. Mick keeps talking. "We're here to dismantle that puerile need to feel safe. Safe from what, you'll ask." I feel unable to ask him anything. “Safe from an imagination dominated by terror,” he proclaims.
We are in the storage room of his butcher shop, sitting at a bare table under the light of an exhausted bulb, surrounded by boxes, utensils, newspapers stacked in no order, dusty ceramic crockery. We drink hot tea laced with a dose of UVB-76, a new formulation he's acquired, named after a certain radio transmission. He stands solemnly and toasts to cold dawns, to old clothes that warm us without harboring resentment or disillusionment. His eyes are such a pale blue that it is disturbing to think there’s someone behind them who feels, who suffers with the full intention of turning his life into a spiritual battlefield. Someone knocks on the door from outside and timidly opens it. A young woman, her face bearing the look of someone defeated in a dream of adolescent love. She says they are almost done, that everything will soon be ready for the final inspection. Mick nods firmly and stares at me.
"Do you remember anything? You know what I mean."
"Vaguely. I've lost interest in too many things. My life runs like the projection of a future that never reveals its true intentions."
"Its intentions are to kill you. That's why I don't want to forget anything. The twisted faces, the threatening promises. People running in terror, cheap food, hope for a better world, announced in distorted letters. Sour perfumes, desolate landscapes, that laughter, in the background, of someone who ends up pleading for her own life, for the life of her tiny fetus conceived by force." Mick seems determined to transform the world into the kind of poetry that won't forgive you for having been an asshole.
"Are you following me?"
"No. I no longer follow that war or its voices." The echo of the last words fades. Seconds pass, soaked in a dense silence, the air heavy with something that doesn’t smell, doesn’t let itself be recognized.
"How are the rehearsals going?", Mick changes his tone.
"Slow. I need more capsules. I have actors to tend to, obligations, a house with plants."
"Your plants are plastic. What you need are more characters."
“More characters mean more capsules.”
"Unless it's on the other side. You need it to be on the other side."
"Someone like who?"
"I don't know, you're the artist."
"Is that a compliment or a condemnation?"
"You're missing someone."
"You're thinking of a character with power or influence."
"Agents are individual guides, everyone has their own, right?"
"That's right."
"You need someone to guide you all through that world. A woman, maybe."
"You get me the capsules and I'll think about it." I feel as if someone had planted the seed of torment in my head.
"Come, I want to show you something." We leave the storage room and descend several flights of stairs. We reach a strange vestibule, other doors, other directions. We keep going down as I hear serene voices, almost in a recitation, and I get the sweetly twisted smell of raw meat. A spacious room, its employees working diligently, grinding meat, crushing bones, packaging small portions. They look at me without fear or suspicion, all young, with that glint in their eyes that heralds a premature revolution. On the central table, a collection of small packages of vacuum-sealed meat. A redheaded boy approaches and hands Mick what appears to be the manifest of a crew committed to their own execution. Mick reviews it carefully. He smiles and speaks to me without taking his eye off the document.
"Each of these packets contains small doses of UVB-76. Tomorrow, they’ll be delivered punctually to our clients to fulfill their purpose." Mick smiles as if the secret he holds grants him a supernatural, slightly arrogant authority.
“My capsules,” I insist.
“All in due time, amigo.” No one speaks, it's all a conspiracy. Mick hands the manifest back to the boy and gestures for me to come with him. I follow him to the shop, flooded with intense red lights, filled with the dull hum of refrigerators, the unbarred windows overlooking a dimly lit street.
Mick wants to culminate his intervention, to let me know emphatically, to solidify all his positions on life and humanity. I barely listen. A woman watches us from the street. Black hair, dark eyes, slender arms crossed over her waist, a tattoo on her side I can't decipher. She seems to be speaking to someone inside her who listens with unbridled longing. Cars pass by and illuminate her thin figure, her fear of being discovered. She tilts her head, her hair hangs down and I see her slightly open mouth in a gesture that feels like the confession of an omen.
"Come back tomorrow at the same time. I'll have the capsules you need." Mick gives me a farewell hug and walks me to the door. "It's time for you to feel the effects of the substance. Wander aimlessly, let yourself be guided." The door closes and the cold wind hits my face. The woman has disappeared. I can’t stop feeling her intention to summon me, to pull me away from everything except her.