Giacomo Sartori - I Am God

I then passed near one of those elderly stars on which humans have slapped a name that might better suit a discotheque out in the sticks. Supernova. The light coming off that colossal explosion was so blinding I almost regretted not having my sunglasses (truth is, I never wear them, so New Age). Even an amateur stargazer knows that these old boilers host deadly fission explosions compared to which the nuclear weapons that humans are so afraid of are harmless firecrackers.

It was quite hot, although I don’t suffer from the heat, and I don’t sweat either. The stellar storm was so devastating it would have ripped out my hair, if I had hair. Immateriality does have some advantages. The chemical scents—roasted manganese, and especially sulfuric acid, with underlying notes of methylcyanoacetylene—were nice, admittedly, but truly very strong.

It does make you think: that immense ball of light brighter than hundreds of millions of their Suns, apparently the quintessence of life, was actually in its death throes. A blazing and utterly splendid demise, but still a last hurrah. Why things appeared this way to me, why it made me so uneasy to think of death, I couldn’t say. Maybe all this expressing myself in the human mode had contaminated me? It distressed me (and I’m the first to be amazed here) to think that Daphne would very soon be deceased.

Now don’t let yourself succumb to melancholy thoughts, I told myself: the dust spat out by that fearsome Roman candle will give birth to other stars, maybe even more beautiful, and those will bring forth others. Oh, and check out the cheerful happening involving that group of black dwarfs to my right—in front of the ravenous mouth of a black hole—pulsing, spinning, shrinking, extending their arms and shaking their hips like great dancers. One of them had psychedelic concentric halos, like a phosphorescent onion wearing fifty brightly colored windbreakers one on top of the other; another with huge owl eyes, great reflecting mandalas; a third like an hourglass full of neon tubes of all colors. It was like, correcting for proportion, being at the Carnival in Rio, or one of the Gay Prides.

Just look at all the gorgeous galaxies I’ve created! I thundered, thrilled with what I saw and very proud to be God. I am God , I said, enjoying that feeling you get contemplating something you’ve made with your own hands, the satisfaction of a job well done, of time well spent. Of course the euphoria of a god has nothing in common with human pride; it’s steeped in perfection, it’s perfection itself. However, the immediate sensation was in some ways similar, and a whirl of great ideas spun through my head, a myriad of plans for the future. [32] Before I began this diary, I’d never been aware of having highs and lows, or maybe I was simply always in the same gelid mood. Talking and thinking, one ends up getting confused.

Wandering about, nowhere in particular, I came upon two spiral galaxies of about the same size, engaged in that step back they take after they’ve completed the courtesies of the first approach, a step that portends actual fusion. As often happens at this stage of the collision, they already had a tender brood of just-born stars between them, the little ones palpitating and bickering like chicks bursting with infant energy. Even the high-pitched crackling sounds they made from their nest, protected from the great stellar winds provoked by the embrace of the parents, sounded like the cries of famished infants. Later, one at a time, each would set out on its own solitary way, at times a fatal one even in the prime of life, but for now they were reveling in careless youth.

That family portrait, so joyous and tender, touched me deeply. For the very first time I felt an indescribable turbulence inside, something like a father’s yearning, or perhaps a great-grandfather’s. But when I examined the feeling, there was in my languor (I can’t think of a more suitable word I could pick from the lexicon’s shallow little cauldron) a sort of nostalgia for something I’d have liked to have and didn’t have. I don’t know, someone to chat with once in a while, a friend to talk to in despondent moments. If not actually a family, children. They weren’t very divine emotions, banal as they were. But they were such sweet sensations that I couldn’t shrug them off.

Apollo’s knocking at the door of the old fishmonger’s as expected, and improvident Daphne is now about to open it. She’s wearing a tunic down to her feet that shows off her nipples through the fabric, the side seam split nearly to the hip. This intangible veil is meant to disappear from circulation quickly, but even if it doesn’t it won’t get in anyone’s way. Vittorio, drenched with sweat, had been a little bit low, but seeing how she’s got herself up, he now feels better immediately. He can surmise—and I know for certain—that the bushy mound of her pubis is right beneath the gown. He tells her he was in the neighborhood by chance (at that time of day?) and thought he’d drop by and say hello. He doesn’t mention that the afternoon began with a flat tire, and he then had to walk the bike all the way over in the muggy, burning afternoon heat while he ruminated on the various woes afflicting him lately. Those inexplicable stomachaches that he just can’t get rid of, and sometimes the pain darts up his back and all the way down to his heels. It’s still preferable to being mutilated by a tractor trailer, but he doesn’t know about that or even suspect it. Gathering his courage, he advances, in high feline pelvic slouch, toward the amorphous sack filled with polystyrene chips that Daphne calls her sofa.

The beanpole, planted on legs not very powerful yet plumpish, regards him the way you do a handsome actor, with a certain deference that would like to be chaste but is helpless to defend against his charms. He senses her admiring gaze on his high Risorgimental brow and, eyes trained on the floor, seems to want to apologize and tell her there’s nothing he can do about it, this is the lot he’s been assigned. His white shirt is now open to the sternum, framing his wide, flat chest like a stage curtain. On his feet, beach flip-flops point to the precariousness of the light clothing he’s wearing, insubstantial as leaves that might flutter away at the first hint of autumn breezes.

The lights are low in the former fishmonger’s, and a large, stubborn candle sends out sensuous smells and tremulous glimmers, never mind its ecclesiastical provenance. There’s a comfortable tatami mat on the floor that if need be will deftly support two twined bodies, and near it—by chance?—a packet of tissues. Every little detail has its place: the blind cat cuts across the room with the lightest of footsteps. When the gong sounds, she’ll disappear, she promises.

The shameless girl lights a stick of incense that smells of tawdry sandalwood and oriental spices. If there’s one thing I can’t bear, it’s the fumes of burning Boswellia sacra resin. As she passes by, she taps the lamp clipped to the edge of the fish basin to dim the room’s lighting even further. Now, not letting herself be seen, she rolls her far-apart camel’s eyes about. In that neoclassical tunic she might be a high priestess checking that all is ready before she begins the ceremony. The victims chosen for the pyre are standing by the altar, the temple smells of balsam, spirals of smoke rise from the torches toward the sky, where the pagan gods are meant to reside.

The sly fox takes out the book he brought on the connections between climatic catastrophe and social revolution. (But didn’t he just stop in by chance?) He thinks he might grab her and pull her close with his good arm, seeing that she’s kneeling by his side, pleased that he’s brought her a present, blushing a little, pressing her long thigh against his knee. But her sparkling smile seems to say she’d prefer to follow the normal path prescribed in the amorous liturgy, no shortcuts, so he hands her his offering, an oblation to placate Aphrodite. She nods and presses the bible of revolutions sparked by climate change against her very small breasts, as if the book were a gift from the Magi. Thank you , she murmurs, her throat already swollen with desire. He narrows his eyes lazily, the way a cat does when scratched on the side of the neck.