"The physical pain or the body itself cannot be shared among several. But the mind, it can resonate, 'vibrate with,' build bridges."
Ushio Amagatsu
I had seen him enter from behind, through the artists' door. Dirty rat! He must have seen that I was also waiting for him. He must have heard me shout his name. He must have recognized me, for sure! But he ignored me. He walked a few steps away from me without even looking at me. His face remained impassive, but I felt a shiver run down his spine.
Dirty rat! You know I'm here, waiting for you. But I embarrass you too much; you're too ashamed to know me. You can't accept what I've become. What have I become? What you've made me! You've become someone else, a recycled waste, someone important, is that it! But it makes me sick to see you flail on giant screens, to see your dirty face in magazines, talking about your success, your story of a delinquent who made it! But at what cost? That you don't say! You can't say. You pose as a role model, but it's nothing but a lie rotting in your mouth. Your handsome face is just a mask, but I know the rot behind it. You're ugly and putrid!
And the securely closed black door shut between his world and mine, the outside. My tense nerves give way, and I smash the already well-used gin bottle against the closed door. The crash of glass shards resonates in my alcohol-dazed head. My hand is full of blood, but I feel nothing. My fist violently crashes against the wall. The already fetid smell of the alley now mixes sewer and urine stench with gin fumes spreading on the ground, mingling with my warm blood.
I want to scream, to smash the walls. A scream so loud that it would destroy the entire city. A powerful wave of all my misery, all my despair, all my unhappiness. I will create a black hole with my hatred. I will engulf the universe. If I could. But I'm miserable, dirty, and miserable. I'm ridiculous and full of alcohol. I piss against the wall, insulting it with all my strength, my voice broken, hoarse.
I take a few unsteady steps; my legs are trembling. I'm going to have a fit. My head is heavy, and my foggy senses perceive only a distorted version of the world outside myself. I collapse panting against a concrete block. I feel my heart beating in my painful chest. It resonates in my head, in my eardrums, with the crash of a lead mass destroying a dilapidated building. I feel the blood vibrating in my swollen veins, in my neck, my hands; my injured hand seems to have detached from my body. It beats like a heart, and I feel it detached from me.
But this repeated rhythm also seems to come from elsewhere. It's the entire universe beating. I feel the waves through the ground, which also becomes alive. I'm just a part of this great body. A bacterium, a parasite clinging to live with all its might. I'm nothing but a particle subject to physical laws that inevitably lead me toward an unknown end. I can only let myself be carried away. My body starts to tremble. I breathe heavily. Shivers run down my back from the nape and spread into my hips to the end of my legs.
Distant, violent music reaches me through the wall. Yes, it's another world, far from me. The vibration of the bass, the audience's screams, align with the beats of my heart, yet they are not part of me. My mind begins to decline. The screams assault me, the sounds are violent to me. The outside world opens the wounds of my battered body, my sick mind. Shapes and colors pass behind my heavy and painful eyelids, burning with fever. I hurt, I must hurt, I don't know, I don't know anything anymore. The black hole is sucking me into its depths. I hear voices, but I don't know if they are real or not. I don't perceive the words. Only sounds, as if from inside a cotton-filled box. Laughter, breaths, cries, whispers. I want to scream, to get out of all this. Nausea becomes stronger, and it takes over my body, agitated with shivers. I scream. Let me go! Leave me alone! At least, I think I scream. Did the words really come out of my mouth? I feel like I screamed.
My head gets even heavier, and then I feel nothing. I sink into oblivion; I fall; I'm not there anymore. I try to hold on, to scream again. The rat's grimacing face is in front of me; I want to grab it, strangle it, but I can't move my arms. He smiles at me, laughs, and turns away from me. Everything blurs, and I lose consciousness.
A man with a plastic gun. He wears a mask. I don't know who he is. The smiling mask of a cartoon character horribly clashes with the ambient atmosphere. I look around. I'm lying in the middle of a dark and dusty parking lot. A neon flickers and crackles on the ceiling, intermittently illuminating the walls dilapidated. The masked man faces me. Silent, immobile, he points his fake gun at me. You can hear the sound of an electric guitar muffled by the walls, as if someone were rehearsing on the floor above.
I feel buried very deep in the Earth. I don't know how many meters one can scientifically consider being very deep, but every cell in my body feels it instinctively. A chilled instinct oppressed by the weight of matter weighing on its head, by the distance that separates it from the daylight. I shudder; my muscles twitch. My right hand...
I realize it hurts a lot. It's horrible to look at: blue, swollen, but there's not a trace of blood on it. The wounds are gaping, and you can even see the reddish and swollen flesh, but there's not a trace of blood, not even dried. I try to move my fingers; they seem detached from my body. I can't move them, not even a millimeter.
I struggle to comprehend the surreal scene before me. The masked man remains eerily still, his plastic gun pointed directly at me. The distant echoes of an electric guitar blend with the dim light flickering from the faulty neon sign. The atmosphere feels thick with uncertainty.
As I attempt to move, the pain in my right hand intensifies. It throbs in time with the distant guitar riffs, a disconcerting symphony of discomfort. The air hangs heavy with a sense of foreboding, as if the surroundings themselves are waiting for something to unfold.
With a sudden jolt, the masked man lowers his fake gun and gestures toward a hidden doorway in the dilapidated walls. It creaks open, revealing a dimly lit passage. The scent of dampness and decay permeates the air as I hesitantly crawl toward the unknown. The distant music becomes more pronounced, guiding my disoriented journey through this bizarre underworld. The masked man follows silently, his presence casting long shadows on the uneven floor. As I navigate the narrow corridor, a mix of fear and curiosity envelops me, intensifying the surreal nature of this strange, hidden realm.