I was slowly vanishing within the mundanity of days. Until that sound—the sound of a tiny dot left upon a faintly soft paper.

I searched for my face, often at a killer’s desk. Detectives in black kalpaks caught me with trumpets in their mouths.

With elephants in their arms, I passed beneath the golden arch of the sky.

 

A baby cried in the heart of a hurricane. It spoke, foam spewing from its mouth:

 

— To cry, human. Crying hurls the solid fists of pain into our stomachs. And you, and those around you, transform into old witches.

“What is life?” “What is death?”

I asked God. He pulled an imaginary handkerchief from his pocket. Put your eyes inside and fold it! Son of the devil, he screamed at me! I fell silent, so silent that I found myself as a snake in a forest. I spat my own venom upon myself. Alien heads roamed within my body. I narrowed my gaze, I narrowed my voice.

 

The first thing I saw was Hitler’s head. Ah, he was grinning so much that I felt his tooth in my throat. His teeth were made of solid gold and pearls. They were shimmering brilliantly. Countries were dangling from the corners of his lips.

I tried to count each country in order.

The countries folded and multiplied even more. I heard whispers coming from far away. The whispers were in the silhouette of a bird spreading in waves.

 

The heat around my head… Lava from a volcanic flame passed over me. I trembled. My trembling reached the heavens. Fair-haired children passed by me with their flags.

Inside the hair of one of them, I saw my heart:

 

— Forget! Forgetting is the greatest sigh, child. Forgetting is the shroud of unshakable faiths.

Unless you solve the riddle in your mind, you will always be a prisoner of your wars. Every newborn baby will scream your name upon the funeral stone! You must leave the pride called “exhaustion.” Pride is the most well-equipped soldier of the rapidly growing darkness. Forget child, swallow all your exhaustions!