Victor Pelevin - Helmet of Horror

Romeo-y-Cohiba

Well, I’ve learned one lesson. Nice and easy does it.

IsoldA

Yes. Especially in your RR SUV.

Romeo-y-Cohiba

It’s your RR SUV.

IsoldA

Why?

Romeo-y-Cohiba

It’s on your side!

IsoldA

But you’re the one inside it. That means it’s yours.

Romeo-y-Cohiba

How can it be mine if I can’t see it?

IsoldA

And how can it be mine if I can’t even get into it? Apart from sticking my head in the window.

Romeo-y-Cohiba

Let’s say it’s ours then. Then we can’t be wrong.

IsoldA

Agreed.

Romeo-y-Cohiba

Isolde … I want to tell you something. It will probably sound stupid, but I want you to hear it anyway. Whatever I’m thinking about, I always come back to you. As if all the thoughts that aren’t connected with you are heavy weights and as soon as my mind tries to deal with them, the effort becomes too much. But everything to do with you is light and happy, like the bubbles in champagne. I just want to go on and on thinking about it.

IsoldA

Yes, Romeo, that really did sound stupid. But I could say the same thing to you.

Romeo-y-Cohiba

Why don’t we meet again at the same place? Say tomorrow afternoon? Calmly, without any fuss. Or any noise.

IsoldA

But what if we’re being followed? I mean there, inside.

Romeo-y-Cohiba

The light goes out when the window opens.

IsoldA

Haven’t you ever heard of infra-red cameras? They could do more than just watch us. They could shoot an entire movie.

Romeo-y-Cohiba

Then who would they show it to?

IsoldA

Your wife, for instance. Or Ariadne in a dream.

Romeo-y-Cohiba

I haven’t got a wife. And I couldn’t give a damn for Ariadne and her dreams. If we start worrying about spies, pretty soon the world will be full of them.

IsoldA

You’re right. The only way to be alone is to behave as though we are already alone.

Romeo-y-Cohiba

So it’s a date then?

IsoldA

Tomorrow at three, Romeo. I date your car.

Romeo-y-Cohiba

Our car. My green-eyed Lolita. My lovely Mona Lita.

IsoldA

And now to sleep, Cohiba. Be seeing you.

Nutscracker

Be seeing you, be seeing you. Monster, are you there?

Monstradamus

Yes. Where else could I be?

Nutscracker

Well, what do you make of that?

Monstradamus

No doubt our master shed a great big sentimental tear. The twilight of Ancient Greek thought in a nutshell. Zeno’s paradoxes. Achilles can’t go riding in his big beautiful car. Because when he’s riding in it, he can’t see it. The passers-by can see it, so they’re the ones riding in it. And Achilles only imagines he’s driving it, but in actual fact it’s driving him.

Nutscracker

I feel a bit jealous. How about you?

Monstradamus

Not particularly. I don’t like jeeps. You’re too high above the road when you sit in them. And anyway an RR SUV is a bit OTT. Cohiba ought to have an Alfa Romeo.

Nutscracker

I don’t mean the car. Alfa Romeo, Beta Romeo – all that sounds like the stud ranking in a herd of chimpanzees to me. I mean the feelings.

Monstradamus

But you have them too. They have love, you have envy. As comrade Ariadne teaches us, these are merely different states assumed by past within the helmet of horror.

Nutscracker

And on that optimistic note …

Monstradamus

Yes indeed. Good night.

:-))))

Organizm(-:

Who wants to chat?

Ariadne

I do.

Nutscracker

And I do.

Monstradamus

And I do I suppose.

Organizm(-:

An interesting team. Monstradamus, Ariadne, me and Nutcracker. Has anyone noticed that the four of us have something in common?

Nutscracker

It would be hard not to notice. We all use toilet paper with a little star on it.

Monstradamus

And we share a great passion for life.

Organizm(-:

That’s not all, though.

Nutscracker

We’ve all been fed garbage just recently as well. Did everyone get that putrid lasagne yesterday? And how did you like today’s vegetarian beefsteak, rare and bloody?

Organizm(-:

That’s not it either.

Monstradamus

I know what he means. None of us has said anything about our labyrinths.

Ariadne

Really? It’s just that no one’s asked me.

Nutscracker

And are you willing to tell us?

Ariadne

Of course.

Nutscracker

So what have you got outside your door?

Ariadne

A bedroom.

Nutscracker

What, just an ordinary bedroom?

Ariadne

No, not ordinary. If you ever leaf through those fashionable journals with all the chic interiors, you might have seen something of the kind. It’s a large room, and the bed takes up at least half of it. The mattress is so wonderful I don’t even know how to describe it. I should write more poems. When you lie down on it, it feels like you’re parachuting through the air, soaring along the pillows, the blankets and the sheets – everything is absolutely the very best. And there’s an air conditioner with heaps of different operating modes. You can set it so that a fresh breeze blows through the room as though it’s coming straight off the sea. And there are thick curtains on the window that …

Nutscracker

You’ve got a window? What does it look out on?

Ariadne

I don’t know. There’s some kind of garden, and the branches of trees. I can’t see anything else.

Nutscracker

Have you tried opening it?

Ariadne

The window doesn’t open. What else now? There’s a really elegant wall-lamp above the bed and a night-lamp in the corner. There’s a mini-bar too, only there aren’t any drinks in it, nothing but little boxes of sleeping pills. There are lots and lots of them, all beautiful kinds of colours, and inside each one there are instructions on how many pills you can take at once, which ones you can take with others, which ones you can’t, and so on. Only I don’t need any sleeping pills. I only have to lie down on the bed, and I’m gone. I just fly away.

Nutscracker

And is that all there is?

Ariadne

When I leave the bedroom for a long time – say an hour or more – someone changes the sheets and makes the bed. But I haven’t met anyone, not even once. And there aren’t any other doors in the bedroom, there’s only one way in.

Nutscracker

How do you explain that?

Ariadne

I don’t try. It’s less scary that way.

Nutscracker

A labyrinth like that could give you bedsores, Ariadne.

Ariadne

You weren’t listening to what I said, Nutcracker. The mattress I have is so wonderful I can’t even feel it. What bedsores? An angel could sleep on it without even creasing its wings.