119
There she is – standing on the wall in her black-tinted armour, defying the world trying to erase us, the mathematical error. They will bring the heavy cannons, but the cannoballs will merely make a dent; they will have to scale the walls. They are shooting at her as if she were a target practice, something otherworldly. The bullets bend her head, but they bounce off the armour. She stands there, tall and all, just to defy them.
120
“Now that everything is clear, I was thinking of employing a number of my golem-like servitors as arquebusiers, so as to cover every side of the Redoubt, however … no one is attacking me right now, and Julija is gone, so here I am, wandering about the flatness surrounding the lake. I’m so bored! Boredom will be my undoing.” I snap my fingers, and a meter tall golem-like spear carrier appears between me and you. “Please escort this tall, shadowy gentleman back to his camp. He is one of the invaders.” I roll my eyes and say, “Yes, I know: I was dragged into your realm by a ghost girl.” The servitor quickly points its spear at your head, and gestures you should move. Suddenly, from an almost unnoticeable hole in the ground a rodent minion emerges, and charges at my golem. The thin, long weapon is elegantly thrust into its neck, and blood is violently sprinkling all over the spear carrier’s grey exterior. I make a surprised face, looking in your eyes: “So, the void angel’s creatures are still here.” I smile lightly while anticipating your reaction. The golem steps on its head and pulls back its spear with such brutality, it almost cuts the rodent’s head off. It swiftly moves back to you, pointing the blood-soaked tip at your head again. The ground shakes: from every hole and crack the void angel’s footmen are fleeing towards the camp.
Senčna postava opaža, da bo očividno vsako, četudi še tako neznatno nadlegovanje v tej deželi srečalo čezmerno silo, in pristavi, da ve, da Neznano Osebo zanima, koliko se lahko približa horizontu, ne da bi se spustila zanj. ‘To je en od razlogov za tvoje vztrajanje pri življenju.’
121
“You understand certain corners of my mind well.” I gesture with my right hand, and the golem lowers its spear, its grey, stony eyes remaining fixated on the shadowy figure’s form. Suddenly, another rodent minion jumps from a hole, and throws my servant on the ground. The spear carrier, facing the grass, quickly rolls over and rises to its feet with such otherworldly speed, the rodent gasps in amazement while the golem plunges its dagger in its mouth, pushing its hand up so violently, it splits open the rodent’s face and skull. I’m shrieking: “Gaaah! Who will clean this mess?! I walk here!!!” I’m processing the scene that has just transpired in disbelief.
The shadowy figure: “Perhap…”
Me: “Shut up!” Making a tormented face, I hold my heart with both hands. “It doesn’t matter. I think my end is drawing near. I sense something wrong in the air. Death by a thousand cuts? Maybe there’s no need for one big event at all – just enough amount of everyday annoyance. I’ll just … go. I’ll grow wings and fly away!
Senčna postava opaža, da sluge angela praznine z njim niso zapustile prizorišča, očitno čakajoč na ugoden trenutek za napad, in vpraša, ali ga naj pozove.
Moje vprašanje: “What happened to the void angel, though? Did you have him dismissed?”
Senčna postava odvrne, da ga je odpoklicala in kot oblegovalno napravo vrnila na njegovo mesto, potem ko se je izkazalo, da ne more prodreti v trdnjavo.
Me: “Summon him.” After having gestured with both hands, I clap five times and five falchion-wielding golem-like servitors appear in front of me, forming a line of loose dots. I cover my mouth with my right hand, as if trying to hide what my lips are saying, and the formation starts marching towards the void angel with unnatural haste. He is surrounded. The silver blades start hacking away at his limbs – and after making him collapse on the ground, slowly turning his extremities into tiny pitch black fragments, I walk up to his torso, sword in hand, and say, “I know it’s sad, but … you’re just a thiiiiiiiiiiiiing!” plunging the gold in his trunk’s centremost point, shattering it, spilling crystal-like bits, some of which land on my dress. “I can’t predict anything right! I’m not touching that.”
Senčna postava me vpraša, ali tipam zidove svojega gledališkega odra, in iz ostankov angela praznine splete krvavobarvni rebrni steber, ga dvigne ter pusti viseti v zraku.
I point my right forefinger at you, the shadowy figure, and say in a somewhat loud voice, “Tell me what this is, right now!”
Senčna postava: “Neznana Oseba je zlomila angela praznine in s tem končala njegove igre, toda čuvar, ta reč, se ne igra.” Rebra se nenadoma razmaknejo in v praznini med njimi se razkrije svetlikajoča se nit. “Ko bo zgorela, se bodo rebra zaprla, in vse, kar bodo zajela, kar bo ostalo za njimi, ne bo več ugledano. Vprašanje je, ali bo Neznana Oseba v tistem trenutku stala na njihovi zunanji ali notranji strani.
Tam ne bo več nobenega hrepenenja ali volje do upiranja. Neznana Oseba bo zgolj obstajala – ne zlomljena, temveč izpraznjena.”
122
I think that I will fight for as long as I am aware of the world’s hostility against me and its intention to flatten me. And because I will fight, the Redoubt will remain. It will not decay – it will only become more fortified. Right now, I am orbiting the black hole, knowing all too well what it’s trying to do to me. Perhaps this proximity and awareness are preventing me from becoming a machine in the truest sense, even if I lose the ability to summon Julija. But if something changes the shape of my orbit; if my trajectory is suddenly leading right into it, and if it’s unchangeable, then …
If the three scourges start to work in unison – the boredom, the constant fear of a catastrophic lowering of the orbit, the everyday annoyance – they might finally set us free.
123
Sometimes I wonder what will happen to the land I intend to leave behind. What if people who will find it will regard it as cursed and commit it to the fire, so as to prevent harm to others? I intend to live here as a ghost. But to live here as a ghost, I need visitors.
This place’s purpose is to provide a home for us after we are gone. I want to prove Julija wrong: my suffering was not in vain. We won’t be confined to a little grave. We won’t be homeless: we will live in the Redoubt and Flatlands for all eternity!
…
My face becomes serious, and, remembering the violent scenes, I show my teeth, as if in defiance: “When I finished writing Lake Redoubt last year, I asked myself, after having been slightly horrified by it, ‘What if this document contains concentrated evil intended, unconsciously, to hurt the world itself after I’m gone?’”
124
It was calm here last summer. Now strange things are scurrying and lying about the meadows. No matter; the area is vast. I’ll just carve myself a new, unspoiled path! Now that I’ve become bored of feeling sorry for myself, and now that Julija’s afterglow is gone, I’ll be wandering here in silence, knowing she’s not coming back any time soon; she was completely absent during the last winter, and I’ll be wondering when will the next hurricane appear on the horizon, and whether it will be evadable. I sit down on a bench, after having it brought to me on a small white cloud, and relax my legs, looking bored.
125
I’m whispering something now; a strange melody is leaving my mouth, and after five seconds I abruptly stop. A ninety centimeters tall, ridiculously stocky creature that could only be described as a court jester appears three meters in front of me, starting to bow in my direction frantically. I make slow, dismissive movements with my right hand, half-lying on that cushioned wood:
“Mister Flaps.”
The creature stops its movement, and says, “Yorra gras. Youya beezt vis[-à-vis] samanna mi? Diesa beezt vis uteromosta honoras. Pales, leta mi vis mina goratituda shovs.”
The creature starts moving slowly towards my legs, making me lift one of them, so as to demonstrate he should stop where he is. I stand up, point with my finger, and speak: “Take the command of my golems, and execute the following orders: eradicate that camp, kill everything you can kill.”
Mr. Flaps: “Diesa beezt vis comfirmada.”
…
The language he speaks is spectacularly broken English. It’s as if he is mocking it deliberately, wanting to desecrate it. And we all understand him: diesa = this, pales = please, and so on. (‘Yorra gras. Youya beezt vis[-à-vis] samanna mi?’ = ‘Your grace. You have summoned me?’)
Senčna postava meni, da me g. Flaps na ta način ponižuje in opaža, da njegovo pačenje besed ni povsem dosledno.
Moj odgovor: “No, he is not mocking me. He knows I like the way he speaks. And there is no need for consistency.
… Mister Flaps!”
He: “Di languagos be natta vis logisticiens.”
Me: “See? No language is logical.”
Flaps is funny because when he talks like that, his serious, smart facial expression is always the same.
…
Me: “Burn everything; bring me no trophies.”
Mister Flaps nods and begins to inspect his troops.
Mr. Flaps: “Diesa sperrs beezt natta vis perfectemond alignada.” The golem does not flinch. His spear, after all, rests on its shoulder as it should. “DIESA SPERRS BEEZT NATTA VIS PERFECTEMOND ALIGNADA!” Mister Flaps touches its spear with both hands as if trying to correct its position himself, however it refuses to move even a single millimetre. “Goods.” The rodents are no match for them; their resistance is not worthy to be recorded. Mr. Flaps, waving his rapier, screams at his arquebusiers, “Fersto ligna, beezt vis fayora nows! Secundo ligna, beezt vis fayora nows! Sperrs and falshonas! Attacks!!”
Me: “That skeleton floating in the air … – it’s getting on my nerves. Let me wrap it into a blanket of white clouds. There we are! Only you remain, shadowy figure, you who cannot be pierced.”
…
It goes like this: I give the order, Flaps receives my troops under his command, inspects them, gives the order to attack the camp, directing the fire. The camp is gone, the rodents are finished, that annoying rib thing you forced into my world is now wrapped in a cloud blanket; everything went back to normal, save for you and the militarization.
Senčna postava opaža, da ima Dežela Ravnin sedaj stalno in izurjeno vojsko.
I know that, in reality, similar warfare had always been messy and mostly imprecise; people got their ears, noses cut off and suffered broken bones. It was slow and painful. But in the Flatlands, everything is sterile; the combatants move mechanically, almost as if they were cogs in a machine. Even Julija’s fully enclosed armour gives her ability to move the way the golem-like servitors move. One swing, one thrust, and it’s over – at least in most cases.
126
I’m still half-lying on the bench, still looking bored, watching the fire in the distance, with Mister Flaps rapidly approaching my person. He stops seven meters in front of the bench, looks me in the eyes, and presses his rapier-holding hand against his heart. I nod: “You are dismissed.” I feel the murmur of melancholy pressing against my head yet again. Tell me something, shadowy figure.
…
Aren’t you going to make fun of Mister Flaps?
127
Someday, perhaps, a knight in shining armour will appear, and he will say, “I’ve come to set you free.”
Me: “Mister Flaps!”
The knight looks around and sees that we are surrounded by the golems: “I get it. Those are you captors. En garde!” Mister Flaps politely requests he makes himself scarce. The knight replies, “Huh? Is that Italian?” but after realizing I’m their friend, and after me asking him, “You think you are better than Flaps?” he screams, “Monster! You are a witch!” and lunge at me. The golems simply and swiftly chop him into pieces, even though he is still wearing his armour.
Senčna postava opaža, da logika Julijinega nasilja ne popušča, tudi vtem ko je ona sama odsotna.
128
There are two sides to Julija: one is the admiration of violence and its sacredness, the acknowledgment of its necessity, and the other is the screeching in the face of everyday horror: the I-hide-and-scream-at-the-world’s-violent-ways side. I prefer the latter.