Ranko Marinkovic - Cyclops

You can see the driver. Not slowing down. Thinking, The fellow will move off on his own … Sitting there calmly. Not yet upset … Having no idea that what he’s up against is a thought on the rails, one stronger than fear of his hardware. Maestro would congratulate me. The tram. The stupid banal machine. The imagination again: arms severed, legs, skull crushed, a mess of brains and blood, the flesh, the bones … The Witnesses Of Horror. He did it on purpose, he meant to kill himself. Nah, he was a nut-case, is all. Drunk. Who is he, anyway? Can you gather anything from his papers? His pockets! Enka’s photo in the wallet. Enka on the beach: an erotic phenomenon! Everything that is feminine and nubile, soft, cuddly, beckoning … He had a flash of desire for the Enka in the photo …

The driver stepped hard on his bell-pedal. Melkior’s innards quaked inside him. Red alert in the entire body, “attention, danger!” in every cell. His blood shot down from the head into the legs (for they were now more important than the head). At any rate there was nothing left inside the head except: something huge and blue growing ever larger and advancing with a bellow. He closed all his sphincters tight, clamped shut the valves, passages, seams, tensed his will to painful rigidity — he was one superpotent, all-powerful, tearing erection. Come on, you stupid tram! The tram was indeed coming on, stupidly. Well, if that’s what you want … Twenty, ten, five meters! Clanging his bell in panic, appealing to him, pleading with him: step aside, man! Man! All right, you’re clever and I’m stupid, but get out of my way! See how big I am — I’ll crush you!

You big stupid hulk, my resolve’s greater than you are! I’m not committing suicide, you iron dolt! I’ve put my thought down in front of you, run it over if you can!

The tram gave a sudden sensible lurch. It let out a fearsome grunt (some dust flew up under its feet) and stopped short as though a huge force had struck it on the snout.

Ha-ha! leered Melkior in mad triumph upward, at the tram. Which was standing still before him, quiet, tired, sheepish. Defeated. Ha-ha, I’ve stopped you, you mammoth!

The driver had already dismounted and was swearing his way toward him.

“Listen, you … Are you off your damned …?” he swung an arm but stopped it in front of his forehead.

“… rocker? No. Why?” said Melkior in surprise. “I’m no suicide. I’m fine.”

“Oh, it’s all right to stop a tram like this, eh? What about my timetable? What do you think you’re doing?”

“All right, carry on then …” muttered Melkior. He now saw revealed the other, banal, city-transport side of the incident.

“I’ll give you carry on!” and the driver would have assaulted him, but the conductor spoke up with greater objectivity:

“Leave him alone, will you? Can’t you see he’s a bit …”

“A bit what? A bit nothing. The silly creep thinks he’s being funny.” The driver was already giving up on the idea of revenge. He was climbing back into the tram. “What about my nerves, damn it?” and he slammed angrily at his bell-pedal and set the car in motion.

Melkior was taken aback by the unexpected victory. How could I explain it to those tram men? I held my own! Eureka! He was crowing with Archimedean madness. I have discovered the biological law of upthrust! A body immersed in fear will lose as much of its mortality as the weight of the fear displaced. Eureka!

Noli turbare circulos meos! is what I should have said to the tram’s arrogant captain. Well, it’s too late now. Vivere …

Vivere senzaa malinconiiaaa … he broke into song hurrying back to town, and the black sky sprinkled him with a fine melancholy rain to make the song all the more absurd.

Could there be a price out on your head? An underground political conspiracy in a dark cellar dimly lit by an oil lamp. Three unshaven thugs discussing the ways and means of taking your life. Knives stuck into the table, sharp, shiny, with Rostfrei-Solingen inscribed on them. Running down the blades is a groove, like the kind on butcher’s knives. (First chance you get, ask a butcher what the groove on butcher’s knives is for.)

They will surprise you in a dark street, at night, as you walk by, tapping your fingers absentmindedly on a wall. … But why do they want your head in the first place? For reasons of politics, no less? It’s true, you do have convictions, but they are … well … convictions, nothing more.

“Look, gentlemen (what kind of gentlemen are these?), am I not allowed to have convictions of my own?” and already you fear that these people know all about your pathetic little convictions, that they have furthermore measured the strength of what you believe in using some sort of special device and that you’re done for. Because the dreams, these dreams that torment you …! No, you must have been spotted over there , your name must have been mentioned and indeed added to lists, to printed forms.

He stood with Ugo by the invalid’s weighing machine, waved his hands and insisted: “Mankind, my dear Parampion, mankind!”

An elegant gentleman in a raincoat who apparently had been waiting until then for his tram approached them and, pointing at Melkior with a pipe he had taken from his pocket, asked with terrible authority:

“You were shouting Mankind? ”

“No, I said Mankind, my dear brother , quite discreetly for no particular reason. Just like that, for the sake of humanity … and brotherhood.”

“Humanity? Brotherhood? Are you some sort of internationalist?” “Oh no, not at all! I believe we must defend ourselves, resist as a nation, to the last drop!”

“Resist?”

“Yes, take a firm stand, mustn’t we, my friend?”

But the friend had already made himself scarce, and the gentleman who had been waiting for the tram took Melkior’s arm amicably and took him for a stroll …

A knife fight, gun play in the dark, dashing to escape, a fall from great heights — this was the program on during a brief morning nap. After Vivere.

Wielding gleaming butcher’s knives they chase him around the University Library building. He climbs up to the green copper roof and ducks behind one of the four bronze owls, each perched on a book. But they now resort to flinging safety blades at him of all sizes and weights. The gleaming swarms drone and buzz in dense assault formations and swoop down on the bronze owl. They screech and sparkle on the owl’s pate, and the owl has its wings outstretched maternally to shield Melkior the fugitive from the lethal flying blades. Across the roof, behind another owl, appears Ugo’s derisive face: “Give up, ATMAN is in charge. Four Eyes is at HQ. Maestro has committed suicide and Viviana has taken the veil.”

He looks down, but out of their sockets drop his eyes, and, fraternally connected by a nerve as if holding hands, the two eyes float to the ground like twin soap bubbles, look at each other, each shedding a tear.

Dissolve to:

He is sitting on the barrel of a gun. Next to him sits a man-soldier, García (by rank), who speaks none of the known languages. Over there, behind some large crates, are the enemy positions. There is a lull at the front. García takes words out of his tunic pockets and arranges them on the palm of his hand. He then stuffs them into his rifle. He learns languages. Suddenly García is no longer there by the gun. García’s head shouts from the gun barrel: The Maccharones! The Maccharones! And the gun goes off with a frightening report. The words fly about, shouting and screaming: “Murderers!” Gunshots. Words die. Silence. Darkness. The sky is not visible.