J. M. Le Clézio - Terra Amata

Little is known with certainty of the language spoken by Maldec man, and his writing has not so far been deciphered. It is generally supposed to have been an articulate and descriptive language. It must have been spoken all over Europe, and is sometimes called the Paleo-European language, though it must also have been used in other parts of the world. Some also maintain that the pre-desertic civilization was contemporary with the first inter-stellar flights, but it is more reasonable to suppose that these came in the post-desertic era.

The site where the Maldec skull was discovered is a characteristic one (sites typical of the last pre-desertic period are towns, roads, pyramids, aqueducts, buildings of concrete). It must not be forgotten that most of these sites were afterwards severely damaged in the drought and the atomic wars. Garraza’s machine, the paintings of Jong and the steel tower at Han Pringk are usually attributed to the Maldec civilization.

Bibliography:

— Z. Arkham: The Discovery of the Maldec Skull.

— Ostra: Man in the Upper Pre-desertic Era.

— Parsindom G.: Maldec Man — Witness of the Cataclysm?

— Sestemas: Paleo-European Civilization: Its Arts, Manners and Wars.

— Ramahot: Before, During and After the Desert.

That’s more or less what will be written in the catalogue of that museum, in ten or twenty thousand years. That’s all that will remain of Chancelade, his life, his thoughts, his love and his hate. Engulfed, worn, ground to dust, scattered in the wind and rain, buried in the mud, his brain, his soul, his body, his passions. Mingled with the earth, with the weathered rocks, with the roots of shrubs. And all these buildings, and all these houses of steel and concrete, and all these familiar objects near at hand, gas-lighters, sun-glasses, red and blue ball-points, cigarettes, handkerchiefs, coins and telephone discs; wrist-watches, keys, nail-files, cuff-links, imitation crocodile note-cases: all will have descended slowly into the dark ditch, forgotten, rejected, abandoned to the heedless elements. It was the long sacrifice of wearing away, which had never begun and which would never end, the mere passing from one bottomless abyss to another bottomless abyss.

Chancelade had always known this, even when he was nothing, even when he just performed every act in the sheer momentum of life. This was why he was in a hurry now, why he was struggling as hard as he could. This was the real cause of his intoxication, the main reason for his madness. He was walking on the beach at night holding Mina’s hand, and somewhere in the depths of his consciousness a queer mechanical voice was slowly reciting:

521, 522, 523, 524, 525, 526, 527, 528, 529.

A little further on he was sitting looking at the sea throwing stones at the waves and the voice went on counting:

586, 587, 588, 589, 590, 591, 592, 593, 594.

He breathed in the smell of grass from Mina’s hair, he touched the skin of her belly under the mauve dress, he kissed her lips, her ears, her brow, her nose, her neck, her bare arms:

599, 600, 601, 602, 603, 604, 605, 606, 607.

He lit a cigarette 740, he watched the blinking lights of an aircraft taking off 777, he shut his eyes 781, opened them again 782, he breathed in deeply 783, breathed out with a sigh 785, said a few words to Mina, ‘Pleasant, isn’t it?’ 797, ‘Yes, I don’t feel a bit tired’ 801. So each little thing had its figure, and each figure could be infinitely divided 853 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and so on). There was no end to it. However far back you went in time, however deep you dug and with whatever frenzy or haste, all you found was time and yet more time. You never arrived at peace, at the chill luminous zone, the chill black zone where nothing happens.

But this wasn’t a cause for despair; it was a sort of intoxication, a continual hallucination, a nightmare fiesta in which everything exploded simultaneously, everything sparkled and burned, and somewhere, untiring, the great magic wheel turned through the earsplitting noise of loudspeakers.

Chancelade advanced into the midst of the fair, jostling the crowd, his left hand holding the hand of the girl. There was so much noise and movement he couldn’t speak any more. Neon lights flashed on all sides, and loudspeakers on posts mouthed incomprehensible cries. The stalls all glittered in the darkness, blinking out their barbaric names:

CASSIDY CASSIDY CASSIDY

In places there arose the strong smell of frying or toffee, actual pink and grey clouds floating a few feet above the ground. The crowd advanced, withdrew, advanced again like a long tapeworm twitching mechanically. The faces kept changing, the masks appeared and disappeared in the livid avalanche of light. Eyes shone cruelly, open mouths uttered raucous cries. In dark corners men and women coupled in bestial postures. On platforms outside booths hairy men yelled into megaphones, or a fat woman with yellow skin danced in a whirl of red and green lights. The sound of shots skimmed the ground; you could smell the bitter smell of gunpowder. Chancelade staggered into the middle of the chaos, scarcely looking or listening. He was already lost, forgotten in the centre of the human sea, unknown, anonymous. The sweat was trickling down his back, and mingled on his hand with sweat from the hand of the woman. He’d been walking through the tumult for hours, hours, months, years perhaps. It was as if it would never be daylight again, as if there would never be another cold clear morning. Only this darkness shot through with flashes, this din, these crawling smells, these bodies crammed together and stifling. All the chaos of the universe had descended on this square in the centre of the town. Galactic vortices, solar storms, explosions of super-novae, impenetrable nebulae, falling stars, all had come together here in the darkness. There was little left to understand or to desire. Giant caterpillars whizzed round, sirens shrieking. Trucks rushed unaided up into the sky, then hurtled down with a noise like thunder. Planes went up and down, up and down, at the end of steel arms studded with lights. Hammers struck gongs, lottery wheels clicked round, rifleshots rang out. All was movement, pointless movement to kill and conquer and crush inertia. Neon suns rose everywhere, then set in blood-red twilights, and comets drew dazzling ellipses across the sky. The ground never stopped trembling underfoot, as though a herd of buffalo were charging. Monstrous faces of cardboard and plastic rolled their phosphorescent eyes. And everywhere broken mirrors reflected all this movement into other mirrors, and they into others again, endlessly. You were caught. You were shut up inside the furious labyrinth. You walked with the others, staggered with the others, laughed and cried with the others. You breathed in the smells of sweat and grease, you ate doughnuts and red toffee, you drank fruit drinks, you touched women’s flesh, you fought with crop-headed athletes. The thousand different voices of the music joined together and entered into you as one great unvarying cry, an inhuman and barbaric howl that vibrated in your chest, your innards, and the nape of your neck, and issued from your mouth as a cry. The light too was reduced to one, red, white and black, which spun round in a circle over heaven and earth, sweeping you along in its mad current. But what was worse and even stranger still was that there was no longer any Chancelade or any fair-haired girl called Mina; there was only a great living, palpitating mass, like a giant body sprawling on the ground and living its thousand blended lives. A body without head or belly or sex, an opaque and naked body wallowing on the ground and writhing there in the midst of a web of electric sparks. It trampled with its thousand legs, breathed through its open pores, sweated, devoured, vomited in all directions at once. There was no more thought. No more speech. There was only one huge strange desire burning in this body’s every cell: to people and cover the earth, to spread out and possess it, to snatch fire from heaven and engulf everything — time, space, the world, and itself. It coiled up voraciously and felt with its thousands of antennae, jaws, feet and suckers at the world that was set before it.