Unnatural Compression

Strange: the barometer is falling, but there is still no wind. Quiet Somewhere above, the storm that is still inaudible to us has started. Clouds are rushing madly. They are still few—separate jagged fragments. And it seems as if a city has already been overthrown up above, and pieces of walls and towers are tumbling down, growing before our eyes with terrifying speed—nearer and nearer; but they will still fly through blue infinity before they drop to the very bottom, where we are.

And here, below, there is silence. In the air-thin, incomprehensible, almost invisible threads. Every autumn they are carried here from outside, from beyond the Wall. Slowly, they float—and suddenly you feel something alien, Invisible on your face; you want to brush it off, but no, you cannot; you cannot rid yourself of it.

There are especially many of these threads along the Green Wall, where I walked this morning. I-330 asked me to meet her in the Ancient House-in our old “apartment” I was approaching the opaque mass of the Ancient House when I heard behind me someone’s short, rapid steps and hurried breathing. I glanced back: O was trying to catch up with me.

All of her was firmly rounded in some special, somehow complete way. Her arms, the cups of her breasts, her entire body, so familiar to me, filled out, rounded, stretched her unif; in a moment, it seemed, they would break the thin doth and burst into the sunlight. And I thought: Out there, in the green jungles, the sprouts push as stubbornly through the earth in spring—hurrying to send out branches, leaves, to bloom.

For several seconds she was silent, her blue eyes looking radiantly into my face.

“I saw you on Unanimity Day.”

“I saw you too…” And I remembered instantly how she had stood below, in the narrow passageway, pressing herself to the wall and shielding her stomach with her arms. Involuntarily, I glanced at it, round under the unif.

She evidently caught my glance. All of her turned roundly pink. A pink smile: “I am so happy, so happy… I am full—you know, to the brim. I walk about and hear nothing around me, listening all the time within, inside me…”

I was silent. There was something foreign on my face, disturbing, but I could not rid myself of it. Then suddenly, still glowing with blue radiance, she seized my hand—and I felt her lips on it… It was the first time in my life this happened to me. Some unknown, ancient caress—causing me such shame and pain that I (too roughly, perhaps) pulled away my hand.

’You’ve lost your mind! No, that isn’t… I mean, you… Why such happiness? Have you forgotten what awaits you? If not now, in a month, in two months…”

The light went out of her; all her roundness crumpled, shriveled at once. And in my heart—an unpleasant, a painful compression, connected with a sense of pity. (But the heart is nothing but an ideal pump; compression, shrinkage, the sucking in of fluid by a pump are technical absurdities. It is clear, then, how essentially preposterous, unnatural, and morbid are the “loves,” “pities,” and all the other nonsense that causes such compressions!)

Silence. On the left, the foggy green glass of the Wall. Ahead, the dark red massive house. And these two colors, adding up, produced within me what I thought a brilliant idea.

“Wait! I know how to save you. I’ll free you of the need to die after seeing your child. You will be able to nurse it—you understand—you’ll watch it grow in your arms, round out, fill up, and ripen like a fruit…”

She trembled violently and clutched at me.

“Do you remember that woman… that time, long ago, during our walk? Well, she is here now, in the Ancient House. Come with me to her; I promise, everything will be arranged at once.”

I saw already in my mind’s eye how, together with I-330, we led her through the corridors—I saw her there, among the flowers, grasses, leaves… But she recoiled from me; the horns of her rosy crescent quivered and bent down.

“It’s that one,” she said.

“I mean…” I was embarrassed for some reason. “Well, yes, it is.”

“And you want me to go to her—to ask her—to… Don’t even dare to speak to me about it again!”

Stooping, she walked rapidly away. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, she turned and cried, “So I will die—I don’t care! And it doesn’t concern you—what does it matter to you?”

Silence. Pieces of blue walls and towers tumble from above, grow larger with terrifying speed, but they must still fly hours—perhaps days—through infinity. The invisible threads float slowly, settle on my face, and it’s impossible to shake them off, to rid myself of them.

I slowly walk to the Ancient House. In my heart, an absurd, agonizing compression…

Thirtieth Entry

TOPICS:

The Final Number

Galileo’s Mistake