human interests
by Johan Smits
One time you overheard a spirited account of a violent volcano eruption, portrayed to your Master by a woman who had witnessed the incident first-hand. It appeared that on the day the mountain spewed its petrified guts, the woman had forgotten her camera at the hotel, so the only way to convey what she had witnessed was through words. That handicap of hers was a stroke of luck to you, for you were still blind when she and your Master met. Instead of pointing at photographs saying, “Now, look at that!”, she had to delve deep into her vocabulary to do justice to the vividness of her memory. “A chthonic blast of color, of graceful fury,” she attempted. “A ferocious, lethal chaos that strangely felt as if it had been orchestrated with precision and poetry. How shall I put it? It had some sort of... yes, a single-mindedness to it, as if it had all been carefully planned out well in advance. Like a masterpiece.” She often employed words like “awe-stricken” and “humbling,” and claimed that the prodigious event had branded her with a life-long impression, comparing it to a first kiss or to death touching a loved one. That woman’s romantic portrayal is exactly how you hope you too will be remembered after you smash yourself headfirst through the stained-glass window of this medieval European city hall—at any given moment now.
*****
But first you allow yourself to reminisce a little about Time, that most intangible of all intangible things. Elusive, brutal, and pitiless to some; a great redeemer to others. To you personally? Time has rarely been anything more than an abstract theory; another human construct to inveigle the self into nourishing illusions. Mayhap in the future… Food for fools. On occasions, you even convinced yourself that you and Time were one. For you had been waiting forever. Waiting for the end. Waiting for Godot. Waiting.
Until the day you were sold to your present Master—1,330 Francs. Overnight, the towering potential of becoming his confidant lifted your pitiful status of a commodity, and a seed of hope germinated inside of you. Henceforth, Time became measurable and gave birth to a new reality that was unlike the one you had known. And with the flowing of Time, confidence grew that one blessed day your Master would offer you a chance to add meaning to your lowly existence. Even if that chance would last no longer than a fraction of a second, that was all you could ever strive for.
*****
A gunshot had rung out. “Man down, man down!”
It took you a while to work out your Master’s craft, even when all the signs had been there from the beginning: the discretion with which he went about his business, his travels to exotic places… It permitted you to learn so much of the world, just by listening. To his discussions with others, to his nightmares, to voices on radio and TV. And since your Master had the habit of talking aloud to himself, you feel you got to know him rather well. You even began conversing directly with him. All internalized in your dark, anonymous muteness of course.
“Isn’t it so, Master, that, in fact, you are as dependent on me as I am on you?” It was a daring question you’ve oftentimes contemplated.
“In some way,” he might concede. Though usually you’d imagine him to reply something along the lines of, “You’re expendable—there’s so many of you!”
“But you trust me, don’t you, Master?” you’d continue, thirsty for reassurance.
However, whenever the question of trust arose, he’d grunt out something unintelligible. Trust, you then realized, had to be earned.
*****
Only one thing more abstract than Time is Love. That foggy ideal, unable to transcend its own myth. Lauded in a myriad of ways, and yet never understood. Like an ancient, fragile bridge veiled in a cloud of brume, it is said to be beguiling as well as dangerous.
To you however, Love is nothing but a faraway fantasy. That’s the ineluctable fate you share with your kindred who, like yourself, are always shunned. Often hated, mostly feared and sometimes respected—but never loved. You know this because you’ve heard stories. Still, now that your destiny has borne a glimpse of itself to you, the fantasy has, against all odds, crawled the breadth of a unicorn’s hair closer to reality. Since it’s claimed that Love is beauty, beauty is what you shall look out for then. And if you fail to receive Love, then perhaps you’ll succeed in dispensing it. Like the volcano in the woman’s tale. Spewing up beauty. Vomiting Love. Indiscriminately.
*****
Well then. This precise moment in time. At long last it has arrived.
It began the very instant your sister missed her target and smashed violently into the wooden mantelpiece that dominates the Room of Honor in the city hall. Early Renaissance, probably. From where you are, inside the steeple of a fourteenth-century Gothic cathedral, it seems like a toy house. To the sound of a fast “click-clack” you’re locked firmly into the rifle’s bullet chamber, ready to exit the barrel at your Master’s command. Finally, you know with certainty: you’re a chosen one, and this is your unique opportunity to serve his interests. There you go!
*****
Like a dueling knight, fearless and with no hesitation, you charge head-on towards your target. Spinning around your axis, you’re reveling in the divinest of views. Even the Devil himself would shed a tear of joy at the sight of these endless heavens. Exquisite streaks of amaranthine are expertly painted over a watercolor blue. And over there a subtle shade heralds the inevitable dismissal of the afternoon like that of an aging mistress; all the while courting the arrival of a dark, young and sultry evening. If you’re not careful, you too might shed a tear!
*****
You spin round and round and there you spot seagulls mewing above the glistening river that carves this city into two; a river resembling a giant serpent slithering along its meandering path towards the cold North Sea. As you advance, you admire the age-old cobblestones that lie below like a fallen magic carpet. There are dogs chasing pigeons, mothers pushing prams, students brandishing beer cans, and a young beggar competing with a violin-playing busker for tourist coins. The canorous sounds are carried high up by the wind and reach you for a nanosecond. You’ve heard music before, but combined with this inexhaustible bounty of light, form and space, you’re lost for words.
For the first time in your existence, you are solitary in a world that you had merely heard of; of which the colors and textures and scents you could only imagine. And you ask yourself: does one then have to wait until one’s very end to be truly born?
*****
As you whizz through the void, memories ricochet around you, rotund and polished like pebbles. Memories of all those people who have helped you make this dream come true. Of the Creator who designed you and how he must have endured sleepless nights pondering over your aerodynamics and body materials, your weight and density, your effectiveness upon impact. You’re not boasting—you overheard your Master.
“It needs to make a large wound channel.”
“This one’s perfect—tumbles within two inches on soft tissue.”
“Noise?”
“Mil-spec of 117dB. The ultimate in quiet shooting.”
You feel honorable being the product of so much human ingenuity, and neither do you forget your Creator’s own masters—Investors, Board Members and Shareholders—all united in their interest in your success.
*****
Racing through the sky, you count the dead autumn leaves that lie scattered across the old market square; a square hardened by battles and mellowed by ancient memories; a square parting the city hall from the cathedral like a grey sea that so well suits the Low Countries. Your Master’s interest must be waiting for you behind that stained-glass window.
*****
“Weronika, toilet break!”
You allow yourself to indulge in a little more reminiscing for it’s all you have left. This one is an early memory, of an ammunition factory worker. How you passed through her slender fingers with the carefully trimmed nails and skin still moist with hand cream. The same hands that earlier that day, you imagine, had caressed the thin hair of her baby girl. How you moved from those hands onto the rumbling production line and into the packaging section, where you were united with countless brothers and sisters, ordered in groups of fifty, wrapped tightly in paper the color of desert sand, then cheap plastic, then cardboard. That’s when the long darkness began.
*****
Unchallenged you continue your one-way pilgrimage in search of your own essence. As you shoot towards the city hall, centuries-old guilt houses swoop past you, their ornate, palatial facades darkened by history and crowned with sandstone sculptures competing against each other over form and human craftsmanship. You absorb every millionth of a second that separates you from your fate.
*****
“We’re going to need your vote on this, Robert, don’t let us down.”
Eventually the vote made it through. You were there too, with your Master, listening to the parliamentarian’s televised speech. When the moratorium on ammunition exports was eventually lifted, it was hailed as a triumph—for the economy, for democracy and, you imagined not without pride, for you! Nothing would stop you and your brothers from serving human interests all over the world; from Syria to Mozambique and from Afghanistan to Myanmar, free from discrimination by race, gender or age. Imagine that. A global partnership par excellence.
*****
You rotate once again and this time you enjoy the close-up view of the city hall’s window. Unashamedly, you peer inside and marvel at the spectacle of designer dresses, eye-blinding necklaces, and exclusive watches. Dressed to kill, just like yourself. People are smiling, chatting, nodding, sipping champagne and nibbling delicate canapés whilst uniformed waiters whirl through the majestic room like Dervishes on a high. Soon you’ll join the party.
Then you notice how a respectful attention is oriented towards a man on a rostrum, and finally you know: it is he who is your one and only stop.
*****
Romeo and Juliet. When it comes to romance, your Master has a soft spot. From all the plays you accompanied him to, that’s the one you favored. You memorized every line.
“With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls,
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do, that dares love attempt:
Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.”
You heard people claim it is the world’s greatest love story. If it is, then you shall re-enact it. The man on the rostrum is your Juliet, and in death only will your love immortalize. His kinsmen are no stop to you, nor are any stony limits. Stone? you scoff. No, mere stained glass. Hah!
*****
Invigorated by this last thought, you smash yourself into the stained glass with an iron determination you have never experienced before. The windowpane explodes into a firework of innumerable see-through diamonds that spread recklessly through the air like the innards of a cluster bomb. Some are plain red and brown, some are a more subtle African violet, and others are a bright electric green. The woman’s volcano comes back to mind and you imagine you must be giving her a run for her money. You search for words. It’s absolutely magnificent, and at last you discover how it feels to be the creator of a work of art. And yet, this was foreplay—your pièce de résistance is still to come.
*****
“Pleasure doing business with you,” said the middleman who sold you to your Master; the last link in the chain of events that now nears its end.
From within your dark enclosure, you had heard him counting the banknotes; those charismatic symbols that nourish a human’s imagination and feeds it with excitement and resourcefulness; the magic glue that keeps the world together; the ultimate totem humankind obeys and that itself obeys no-one. At times benevolent, ruthless to anyone who dares to resist. Inspiring its worshippers to kill in its name and to defer blindly to its universal dogma. Omnipresent. Almighty. Worshipped to death.
An ideal god.
*****
One final rotation as you kiss your lover’s forehead. To the sound of his skull’s crack, you spin around your axis like a ballerina on ice and without further delay you enter the cerebrum, that most mysterious, complex and wondrous of human organs; that sublime piece of engineering. The holy sanctuary where intelligence is determined, where personality is forged, where planning and organization take place—yes, where love and regret are born. You admire its delicate maze of narrow alleyways and winding roads, dark tunnels and short flyovers, crisscrossing with seeming aimlessness over one another. Millions of years of evolution, you heard. God’s most precious work of art, others whispered. You, however, cut right through it, like a Lilliputian Samson granting yourself unrestricted access for such is your worldly mandate.
*****
You prepare yourself now for your ultimate performance. After the efforts of all the devoted individuals who’ve guided you along your path, this will be your way of saying, “Thank you.”
Mere picoseconds before you reach the back-end of your lover’s skull, a large bulge appears, indicating the area where you will make your triumphant exit. Then the balloon bursts and a massive army of red blood cells spring out in a perfect circle like synchronized parachute jumpers in mid-air. Re-emerging, you imagine your Creator, the shareholders, the young factory worker, the parliamentarian and his constituents, the dealer who sold you—you hear their cheers, their vigorous hand-clapping and their loud finger whistling.
A modest bow.
Your Master, he too, will now unreservedly approve of you.
*****
Bidding adieu to your slain Juliet, excitement is giving way to an increasing sense of nostalgia. The erasure of his existence has filled yours with meaning. The ultimate sacrifice. Surely, you wonder, this must be Love?
Millionths of a second are left before you’ll slam into the wooden mantelpiece where you will join your failed sister. A strange lethargy takes hold of you and soon you’ll be no more.
With your dying thoughts you speculate over whether your Master and you shall ever meet again. Will someone recover your remains? Will a new Creator recycle you into an even more powerful you? Reincarnation! Wouldn’t that be truly marvelous? Which, then, of the eight billion humans on this resplendent planet will you be dispatched to next time? For each and every one of them, for every single man, woman and child, of every possible age, color and creed, you’ll be competing with sixty-nine of your kin, for you are legion. But you know you’ll have an advantage: experience. You can’t wait.
Eager to serve.
Photo of Johan Smits
BIO: Johan Smits hails from Belgium (where waffles come from) and lives currently in China (where noodles come from). He’s a writer of fiction who likes to explore ordinary people navigating through the no-man’s-land between the commonplace and the bizarre, and how it affects them. He also writes non-fiction in the form of literary travel stories and contributes to news and human-interest magazines. Johan can often be caught worshipping inside the pantheon of Belgian and French graphic novels.