Georgi Gospodinov - The Physics of Sorrow

In short, you don’t do a damn thing, you loaf around all day and take home a paycheck in the end. Just like back then. But I’m merciless if someone breaks the rules, my gendarmes are like the ones back in the day. You got a first-hand taste of that, incidentally. People are happy. Do you have any idea how bad unemployment in the neighboring towns is? Rich clients come here and order themselves a demonstration or a party meeting. Everyone wants to go back in time. I’ve built the ultimate time machine. I even have visitors from abroad. Come on now, cheers, and welcome back!”

“Cheers. So what about the whiskey?”

“From Corecom, the hard-currency store. Like I said, we’ve thought of everything.”

“And why are you doing it? If it’s for the money, there are more conventional ways of making a buck.”

“I’ve got money, although I never turn it down. That’s not the reason, though. Let me be frank with you,” he refilled our glasses, “I don’t feel like living in modern times. Nothing but shit. ”

“There was plenty of shit back then, too.”

“Maybe, but to me it smelled good. The world is already bugging out big time, there’s no way you haven’t noticed. I want to invite you to join in. I want you to come up with. days, everyday life. I know that’s a tall order. The holidays are easy, those I can manage. But these folks need a script for daily life. I’ve already got some clients interested in that.” He went over to the bookshelf and pulled out a few of my books. “I’ve got them all. You gave me the idea to a certain extent, I’m indebted to you.”

“Oh no,” I try to protest. “I never gave you the idea of bloodying up my brow.”

“That whole inventory of socialism was a brilliant idea, along with the stories from back then, too. I use them as a handbook, we recreate a lot of those things. People drink Altai soda and cider, we brought back those old bottles of Vero dish soap. We’ve already got a few manufacturing workshops up and running here in town.”

“This is a nightmare, okay, I’m going to wake up now. ” I have the worrisome feeling that I can’t control the plot of the story or even my own lines.

“No, this is a story that you just think you’re writing, but actually, you’re inside it. I’ve known you since childhood, you’ve always been a space cadet, it’s not hard for you to flit off somewhere.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Let’s just say you’ve been invited to join in your own project. Don’t forget that it’s your idea, I’m only the manager.”

He takes a sip from the glass, I barely touch my lips to mine.

“We’ve got some more serious plans as well. The Doctor will arrive shortly, I’ve given him the Yellow House, we’ve fixed it up. He’ll be doing experiments there. Regression therapy. regeneration of cell memory. a sanatorium for the past, gentle electroshock stimulation. He’ll explain it to you better himself. But we urgently need fabricators of the past.”

For a moment it crosses my mind that some Anti-Gaustine has implanted himself in Baby Cakes. And my every thought occurs to him sinisterly turned upside-down. For the first time, I want to stop, to give up, to jump ahead in time. Turning back is not always innocent. The past can be a dangerous place.

“Quite dangerous,” Anti-Gaustine’s voice adds. “Incidentally, the Yellow House is not far from here at all and if we open the window, we’ll hear a very familiar. ”

I didn’t hear whether he said “voice” or “howl,” because I got up and hurled myself through the window headfirst. That always helps with nightmares.

THE MINOTAUR’S DIARY

I have no idea how much time has passed since I’ve been here. I don’t remember whether I came in by myself or whether someone locked me in. The darkness is so thick that time has gotten lost. Only in darkness is there no time. I don’t know how old I am. I’ve been forgotten. I feel like pounding on the door until they hear me and open up. There’s only one unsolvable problem and therein lies the whole horror. There is no door.

Here’s what I’ve discovered. It’s so obvious that it’s almost impossible to see. The deoxyribonucleic acid of every living creature with its double helix is structured like a labyrinth. A vertical labyrinth that unwinds in a spiral. The genetic instructions for all forms of life are written in a labyrinth. So that means it’s the perfect form for preserving and transmitting information. That’s why DNA has remained encrypted for so long. We are made of labyrinths.

DE

OX

Y

RI

BO

NU

CL

E

IC

AC

ID

Deoxyribonucleic acid. Deoxy. An ox plods through the primordial soup of the world. I write it out over and over again until I lose myself in the labyrinth of that name.

Except that there’s some mistake there, some bug, some hitch. Which automatically turns me into a Minotaur. I walk through the whole labyrinth of my own deoxyribonucleic acid to find that mistake. I am locked up in one, the other is locked up inside me. The labyrinth in the Minotaur.

Things that resemble a labyrinth

The human brain. The cranial folds of all mammals.

A body’s nervous system or a nerve taken individually with all of its branches, nerve fibers, axons, and so on.

The serpentine of the small intestine and the internal organs.

DNA

Banitsi, burek, saralias . All the winding, phyllo-dough sweets of the Orient.

The flight of bees, the language they use to communicate with one another, the interwoven figures. The language of bees is a labyrinth.

A forest.

The root systems of annual and perennial plants.

The structure of the inner ear with its membranous and bony labyrinth.

A city without a river that you find yourself in for the first time. The absence of a river is important. Otherwise the Ariadne’s thread of its course easily shows you the way.

Secret routes taken on a walk with a mistress you are keeping hidden.

Doodles on a scrap of paper while having a boring phone conversation.

The pubis of a young woman. Here the labyrinth comes before the cave.

A ball of yarn.

The labyrinth sketched out by the reader’s eyes.

If you look closely at a rose for a long time, you will see the labyrinth within it. And the horns of a beetle-Minotaur.

Good thing this darkness is here, this basement, so I can stay here, turning back time, running through its corridors, shouting, mooing. The darkness helps me get used to it. When the one who is coming comes, I’ll be ready. The transition will be truly smooth, from one darkness to another.

I remember, or I imagine that I remember, strange things. I remember afternoon, towns baking in the sun, deserted streets that grow crowded toward evening. I remember, and this is my earliest memory, my mother hiding behind a curtain and waving to me, I’m laughing, because I get the game, I head toward the curtain, I’ve just learned to walk, but she’s not there. Sometimes I see rooms with high ceilings, a girl from behind, a cart disappearing into a field, an injured man in a strange city, a book in which I read my own story, full of mistakes.

I remember that I was once happy. It lasted about six minutes. It happened in the Kensington Gardens in West London, early in the morning. I can’t find a reason for that happiness, which is proof positive of its authenticity. Any other kind of happiness is a conditioned reflex, like in Pavlov’s dog. The stimulus comes and happiness is secreted, like gastric juices.