J. M. Le Clézio - Terra Amata

But that’s enough of inventing. There is no Chancelade, there never was any Chancelade. All there ever was was me, writing these words and knowing they hid nothing. As the black scribble advances over the white page like manifold footprints, the only truth that motivated it escapes and is lost. And in the seething mass of untruth there appears the other truth, the one that covers everything, digests everything, celebrates everything, a sort of darkness.

The world is coming to an end, it is on its deathbed. Suddenly on the surface of the earth the great dome of light has exploded like a volcano. A colourless vortex has risen upwards, spreading a black cloud that gives off flashes of fire. The giant flame stood there a moment, as if it would never disappear. Then the rampart of the air fell away, rending all in its path. Time seemed to draw suddenly back, engulfing countless ages. A scorching wind passed over the earth, throwing shadows on the creeping desert. The circle grew larger and larger. And that was the last crime of my life, the greatest and most terrible of all. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t do anything. I was just there in the dazzling circle that spread out over the earth, the circle of my intelligence and my hatred. It was the last of my wars, the one I didn’t wage alone, the one that everyone waged with me. That day, some where, in some book or other, an anonymous voice relates the history of that war. And it is my voice, mine :

Ionic radiations are released during the explosion in various ways, including neutrons, gamma and beta rays. A small part of the explosion causes the rapid radiation of neutrons, which have a high penetrating power but lose their energy at once on passing through matter. More important is the gamma radiation, which also has high powers of penetration. Beta rays do not travel more than a few yards. When a nuclear explosion takes place in the air the products of the fission or fusion are dispersed and contamination takes place by fall-out. Surface or submarine explosions are more dangerous because of direct exposure and inhaling.

Symptoms : The principal effect of radiation is a cellular attack leading to necrosis of the tissues. Erythron and lymphoid tissues and the nuclei of growing cells are the most vulnerable. Haemorrhage may be produced as a result of vascular disturbance, thrombocytopenia, and perhaps the presence of an anticoagulant in the blood. Temporary or permanent sterility is frequent. Little is known about the carcinogenic or genetic effects of ionic radiation. Contamination by radioactive dust can cause cancer, and isotopes lodged in the bones remain active for a long period. An increased incidence of hereditary defects is to be feared in future generations.

In case of thermo-nuclear war , losses can be divided into four groups according to their seriousness. But the clinical picture must also take into account burns and wounds caused by the explosion:

Group 1. After exposure to intense radiation, nausea, vomiting, and shock appear in a few hours. There is increasing loss of weight, fever, diarrhoea, and death from toxaemia in two weeks.

Group 2. In the case of less severe exposure the symptoms take three weeks to appear. Loss of hair, aplastic anaemia, pneumonia, gastro-enteritis, and death at the end of six weeks.

Group 3. In those who survive the 6th week the anaemia becomes chronic and many die of pneumonia, enteritis, and other forms of secondary infection.

Group 4. In benign cases leucopenia, diarrhoea and loss of hair may be the only irregularities.

The dazzling halo has filled the whole sky, which now rises pear-shaped. A face appears in the patch of incandescent light, a mild sad face with indistinguishable features. The snow-white face has taken the place of the sun, and smiles down mysteriously on the world. Everything goes towards it, automatically attracted and absorbed by that powerless plenitude. The last gleam of light has set forth its round mirror. On it, in it, vision can at last submerge itself, and with it liberty. The world is coming to an end in this ball of fire. Beyond, there is nothing. After this futile moment in which one rather unimportant person is undone, it is the end of the universe made visible; the fated end of ages and ages of civilization, of hope, literature, love and faith.

The great sphere shines dully at the other end of infinity. This too had to happen. It was written. It was written in the very heart of the long adventure of men, this threat of dissociation and chaos. Already we are thousands of miles away. We have fled this place, this time, and we look out of the darkness of space at what is going on down there, far away, at the other end of the dark room. All wars have become one. For a second they all burn and pound together, then like a flare of straw die down, and night may begin again.

In the room full of dense shadow the projector has suddenly been switched on, and absolute light flows towards you in a spiral. Here is the last crime, the last anger of time with its trembling hour- and minute-hands. The moth, caught in the merciless beam, has begun its dance of death. It flies blindly towards the centre of the world that calls it. It goes towards the blazing hole, to force the door that separates it from eternity. The fire utters its continuous strident cry, which nobody can resist. It orders you to hurry, to rush to the gaping mouth, to melt into its laugh, to be crushed and burned so that nothing is left but that devouring furnace. Like the moth, like Chancelade, like him, you and I; all men return to the fire that conceived them. In the white light is the secret. In each nucleus of each atom is the secret that explodes and liberates. There are suns innumerable. There are nothing but volcanoes everywhere. It is towards them, towards all of them that the last consciousness turns its eyes. While in the distance but also near at hand there floats vaguely the powerless face whose soft sad smile means nothing; while seas evaporate, rocks flow in long gleaming rivers, and the universe explodes in a single but infinite conflagration; the spirit, free at last, no longer anything, plunges into matter, burns with it, performs strange arabesques with it, becomes a particle of light, an anonymous speck of real light. Total is the last word. Vanished, accepted. Dead, dead. Born into boundless life, into a life that is no longer inner nor outer, but at last, and for ever I hope, itself.

On the earth by chance

I was born

a living man

I grew up

inside the drawing

the days went by

and the nights

I played all those games

loved

happy

I spoke all those languages

gesticulating

saying incomprehensible words

or asking indiscreet questions

in a region that resembled hell

I peopled the earth

to conquer the silence

to tell the whole truth

I lived in the immensity of consciousness

I ran away

then I grew old

I died

and was buried

Under the inescapable sun the landscape is still the same. Nothing has changed, almost nothing. There have merely been a few landslides here and there, a few scratches, a few avalanches. What was flat expanse is still flat, the mountains still stand wearing out their hard summits against the steel of the sky. Below, the sea is still the same, curved, heavy, opaque, rolling its tiny waves one after the other. There are clouds, either smooth or ragged, from one end of the horizon to the other. All the trees stand motionless in the red earth, like silent lamp-posts with living leaves.

Everything is very quiet now; very rested. All seems purity and order; it’s as if there had never been anyone to destroy, or to hope. Words have re-entered into things and mingled with them. Nothing says anything. Nothing has a name, nothing has a cry. Or else each particle of matter has become its own cry, its own appeal launched with all the still strength of its mere presence. These cries are buried everywhere, and none is lost. They are nails, knives, rivets driven into space, and their meaning is plain, for no one needs to understand any more. Their words are short, concise, they don’t overflow any more, they can’t try to annex anything. What they say remains hidden, a secret inside a greater secret, an even cry with no more beginning or end, no more joy or pain, no more love or hate, but only the self, living and present: Tree! Beetle! Crystal! Bird! Bird! Flint! Metal! Water! Dust! Thus they speak, all together, with their dumb flesh and impenetrable scales.