STRING Magazine 11 – STRING Center

STRING 11 Magazine

Mircea Baduţ

LET'S NOT WASTE OUR TIME

(dystopia)

Time travel - or temporal translation - proves to inspire brave ideas, perhaps because the writer is often asked for an additional fantasy in describing the translation itself. But - in order to imagine the apparatus and the operating principle related to the time machine and to obtain an effect of "transcendental possibility" - the creator must show a very lenient, and at the same time elastic, scientific common sense. However, it sometimes happens that readers remain unsatisfied from this point of view, and this is due to the difficulty of diverting earthly common sense; that is, of the insufficiency in creating the illusion of the possibility of shaking or even cracking the monolith of existing scientific beliefs.

Without proposing a critical study of the synthesis of time travel, I will attempt a somewhat logical analysis of the time jump itself.

To make it possible to understand what I want to show, I will have to start from a certain initial data base. Thus: it is considered that temporal translation is possible both forward and backward in time; the starting time is defined as the original time, and the targeted time, the destination, as the second (or secondary) time.

The temponaut's name is All. He has parents, friends and acquaintances - that is, normal relations with the present. It also has the secret of time travel. But that's not what interests me now. We only want to follow what implications the jump can have.

All goes back several millennia. Arriving at the intended time, he - let's say involuntarily - comes into conflict with the environment. Conflict can be of any nature and is inevitable. That is, from the simple presence in the second time, to the intense and conscious involvement in a process that obviously changes the world (from moving a blade of grass that would otherwise have been consumed by an insect with its importance in a food chain , to destroy a civilization), the conflict exists and has the effect of changing the course of history discreetly or sharply. And All, aware of this involvement, returns to the original time being curious to see what changes his foray into the past produced.

Fortunately, he does not notice any change. An entire universe - with its own energy balance - cannot change suddenly (because for those who remained in the original time the change would be terribly sudden) because of a simple atom that messed up history. However, second time existed, and still exists, its disappearance also being impossible.

The only explanation would be the creation of a new, variant world, existing in another time (so to speak), whose formation was based on the original world, the evolution towards the variant being uniquely determined by All's incursion.

In other words, from the moment of the leap, history bifurcated into the original and the variant.

All starts a few years into the future. Very few in number. Having arrived here, the implication in the new environment is as safe and logically obvious. For the sake of the experiment All meets the future All, All second (All"). He explains the situation to him and returns to the original time.

Wait a few years. And on the target date in his last jump, he has the surprise of not meeting any All. Sure thing, because otherwise they'd both be All originals. Or, more understandable to all, "All" did not anticipate All's visit, while now All is waiting for it.

Since both tenses exist, it follows that even in the case of translation towards the future, a temporal variant is formed.

The first AXIOM can now be defined: If someone (something?!) visits a past or future time, a historical variant is instantly born that evolves - from the moment of the jump - independently of the evolution of the original history.

The fact that history or the original time is taken as temporal referential is justified both by the legal and logical existence of the world from which the temponaut starts, and by the fact that the variant is a derivative of the original time.

Consequence: The Temponaut can only move in the past and future of the original time.

Let's follow the thread carefully!

All takes a leap into the past. Well, once he reaches the secondary time, in the variant, this time becomes for him original time, being the very subjective time of All. And, if he wanted to go back - thus imposing a leap into the future - he would end up in the future of the variant, thus creating a new variant. Variant of the variant. All this because the jumps (into the past or into the future) refer to the subjective time of the temporal intruder.

Suppose All were to leave in the future. In the same way here, the secondary time would become for him the original time and thus the return would be made in the past of the variant.

So, more importantly for All, he will never be able to return to the time he left. And for those who remained in the original time, the only thing that could confirm the temponaut's jump would be its disappearance forever.

Second AXIOM: Temporal variants are independent from the moment of their creation.

Consequence: The Temponaut cannot return to the history and time from which he left.

That would be it.

And I think that anyone who will filter all these huge implications related to the creation of variants through their own common sense as an honorable citizen will agree - for now - with:

TIME AXIOM: Time travel is impossible, and time is unique and unrecoverable.

June 20, 1987, Rm. Vîlcea

MIRCEA BADUț

ONE WAY

I was telling myself that I had an almost perfect suit. For a week I had been advancing through a wasteland of mud of horrifying extent and monotony, and I did not feel the least bit dirty.

At first I told myself to count the steps, maybe that way the time would pass more easily. But I gave up after several attempts in which I inevitably exhausted the register of memorable numbers. An infinity of steps awaits us ahead, and - if there are chances - we will finally reach the oasis of life located somewhere in the opposite hemisphere of the planet.

The primary care was that Iria would not be left too far behind, and every eight hours I would inject her with the narcotic-nutritive substance and myself with the stimulatory-nutritive one. I thought - especially at the beginning, when I could do it lucidly - that it was the only solution to defeat hopelessness.

If the distance between us became more than five steps, I stopped, called her softly and held out my hand. Every time Iria squeezed my fingers lightly as if she was terrified. But when I pulled away he had no reaction.

In those moments - and not only then, because time, passing indifferently and monotonously, was no longer our declared opponent - I tried to imagine how a consciousness reacts under the effect of the narcotic...

The stops, every eight hours (I had probably exceeded thirty), had acquired a kind of ritual. Iria's eyes had a glint of intelligence, the wristwatch signaled my moment sonically and optically, and so I stopped suddenly. I took out a regenerating towel from my backpack and energetically wiped my hands and face. Then, once the medical kit was taken out, I fixed the narcotic tank in the syringe, gave it to Iria to hold and, looking into her indifferent eyes, I gave her the injection. It was my turn, I would pack everything, I would look at the beautiful Iria to see if her eyes regained their soft warmth and then, taking her hand in mine, I would invariably set off on my way.

Four centuries ago, due to the overcrowding of the Earth, the project of colonizing outer space was initiated. Humanity was completing several millennia and was forced to send its ships to find new places to live. Thus, a vanguard expedition had also reached Vanelia. This planet was slightly larger than the Earth, but it had a totally different relief: 99% of the surface was continuous deserts, and the smallest rest was made up of two vegetal oases. It was said "desert" not because there was a full correspondence with the classical definition, but because - not having a generic term - the analogy was made based on the features of expanse and desolation, which are the main defining features.

The atmosphere they found was stagnant in an unnaturally stable equilibrium, and the air was similar enough to that of our home world for the planet to be of interest. Especially the oasis area. The oases - even if they were not in perfectly opposite points of the planetoid - formed two biological poles, and surrounded the only sources of water.

Finding the existence of a biological "magnetism" with uncontrollable manifestations, the pilot colony would only be designed for one hundred or two earthlings, still entering the broad category of independent colonies of origin.

About four years after the installation, a group of researchers determined that the biological polarity changes - somewhat like the earth's magnetic one - but at short intervals and, at least apparently, irregularly. The law-equation of the change of polarity was also discovered, an equation whose only shortcoming was the fact that it required knowledge of the moment of a change in relation to the local astonomic time. When the hypothesis appeared that this change could also have harmful effects, a rescue system was developed, but like any solution to a problem without known parameters and with low probability, it was quite flimsy - measures were especially proposed to rescue eventual survivors.

The construction of the habitat had ended almost a decade ago and I was 16 years old at the time. Our dwellings - aesthetic and durable pinnacles of colonial architecture - had naturally filled with life and society had begun to pulsate. After a few years, upon graduating from the Advanced Course, when I was elected an auxiliary member of the Board of Directors, I also learned about the problem of polarity. But in the period of peaceful life that has passed since then, we all forgot about that threat.

I had noticed Iria from the beginning - a nice little girl, a little chubby, with a charm that I was immediately captivated by.

Because sometimes I felt the need for a change of scenery, I would go out with Iria to one end of the oasis, crossing seven or eight kilometers at a time, to look for hours over the deserted expanses. It often happened that we spent the night talking about simple things or not, but the bright nights on Vanelia are very beautiful.

On such an evening - nine years had passed since the colonization of the planet - the disaster occurred. The air heated up and began to vibrate strangely, a distant smell reached us and Iria suggested that we return immediately. I had to be a little brutal to be able to restrain her. Then I tried to explain to him that the phenomenon could signal a change in biological polarity and that it might be dangerous. Probably if I had kept quiet it would have been easier.

In the meantime, the smell intensified unbearably, forcing us to move another kilometer away. Staring blankly - in those diffuse moments of waiting - I began to imagine the possible disaster: familiar faces crossed my mind, and pessimistic thoughts terrified me. In order not to panic, I forced myself to recapitulate the instructions received in the council. Some seemed meaningless to me and I couldn't wait to consult the central computer.

The impatience took on unbearable proportions and, shortly before morning, assuming every risk, we started for the colony.

After almost two hours I arrived and had to see that a disaster had occurred. The streets were deserted, the warehouses the same, the traffic lights were waving uselessly and, very rarely, a lifeless body. That was about all I saw in the desperate run to the central building. I went inside and read the computer display, which had already been questioned by the service person. The yellow letters flashed:

BIOLOGICAL EMANATION OF 3.1 MRi.

UNDETERMINED NATURE.

EFFECT OF CHANGE OF BIOLOGICAL POLARITY.

LETHAL DOSE ON A QUASICIRCULAR SURFACE WITH A RADIUS OF 5 KM AROUND THE POLE.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: C 2156.

After catching his breath, Iria also read. She looked at me horrified and ran out. I wanted to follow her but I remembered the instructions. So I returned to the computer console and dialed the code 2156. I filled in the data required to initialize the program and that's how I found out everything.

For nearly twelve years this oasis will be uninhabitable due to the continuous emanations of poisonous gas, then the other pole will be uninhabitable for nearly fifteen years. I had to, in the next four hours, leave the colony together with the eventual survivors, and - to save it - reach the other habitable oasis.

Since the connection to Earth required a waiting time of several weeks, I had to move quickly to action: I switched all the intercoms and made a repeated call.

I had programmed the computer to communicate on Earth what had happened and had finished copying the map of the planiglob, when - almost unheard - Iria entered crying. She calmed down as soon as she felt me next to me and told me that her family had died; that they all died. And I had to believe it because the intercoms, amplified to the maximum, emitted only a slight background noise, and the signals confirmed everything. We were the only survivors.

After a while I managed to banish the images from my mind and collect my thoughts. I tried to explain the instructions to Iria. Logic understood it perfectly, but it didn't understand what's the point of us trying. I didn't explain my point either; whether it was the instinct of preservation or the instructions received in the council and assimilated as primary needs, but I knew we had to live and I later surprised myself that I didn't even struggle much to find the motivation. Iria's instinct of preservation had been annihilated by the pain and she told me that she did not want to hear about leaving, and I - if I am such a coward - will have no choice but to leave. Single!

He went out leaving me perplexed, but I was brought to my senses by the slam of the door and rushed to engage the outer door lock.

After some preparations, I called her and said:

- I care about you too much to leave you alone. But I still want to try something - we will make a vaccine and I hope it will have an effect!

Unable to read anything else in my preoccupied gaze, he let me approach and fix the syringe on his forearm. I made a little mistake when, for more security, I firmly shook her hand, and she began to suspect something.

- All, don't you...want to...take me...

Then his wince was dulled by the narcotic.

"From now on, my good Iria will follow me everywhere!" I communicated this to myself dryly, refusing for the moment any other implications.

I memorized the instructions given by the computer, took the medical kit with nutritional reserves, the computer radio terminal station, a mini technical kit and a miniature tent, and left without analyzing my feelings. All in a desperate and yet logical frenzy. And the fact that Iria confidently held my hand gave me the determination I needed to try to cross the planet in search of the only place where one could live.

I had left the oasis and looking back I told myself that in an hour a new emanation would be produced. I turned my eyes forward and started immediately, thinking that we had over twenty thousand kilometers to go and that there was no point in mounting the radio relay to find out what the computer thought about the new wave of emanations. Or about anything else.

After another week the watery mud had turned into a thicker one, which made the shoes pant, then even thicker, so that the tracks left were only three or four centimeters deep. It had never rained and I don't remember seeing a cloud. The nocturnal drop in temperature was insignificant and we walked unhindered under the strong light of the satellite.

The injections had turned out to be quite formidable: I covered almost a hundred kilometers in a day of continuous walking. Vanelian time being almost identical to terrestrial time, I didn't feel the need to get into precise calculations.

Anyway, apart from walking, I wasn't really able to do anything else. Only during the stops I thought lovingly of Iria, of the way she endures walking, of her reactions, sometimes trying to imagine their mechanism. Meanwhile, something happened that I almost knew would happen: I was gradually losing my lucidity. I was losing myself in the middle of this exceptional situation, letting my instincts rule me. It was a strange state; new sensations were slowly but surely replacing my logic and lucidity. Crossing the road was imprinted somewhere in my subconscious, becoming an overpowering reflex, a fundamental law of survival; and thus the goal seemed to free my mind, leaving my thoughts to churn in an organic disorder around the most beautiful subject - Iria.

Gradually and yet imperceptibly the mud had dried, cracking into irregular shapes that gained an incredible symmetry through infinite repetition. I had even begun to believe that the surface of the planet was flat, the horizon not seeming to end due to the radius of curvature. It was of course an aberration, but it often haunted my thoughts.

I was walking continuously, in a seemingly eternal rhythm, and I had come to fear a reaction of the organisms to the substances I was injecting.

The ground had become strewn with huge cracks. In these areas, where the water had been running for centuries, we managed to cover more than a hundred kilometers a day. I told myself that we still had a lot to learn about this planet, nothing we knew about the climate of Earth or other worlds did not explain the state of affairs here. But we knew that it also depends on our effort now if there will be a future for this as well.

In one of the rare moments of lucidity I realized that I was no longer following the passage of time. I lost count and I should have been angry and mobilized to make up for the loss. But I smiled telling myself that this shift of interest was protecting us. In the sense that we are too small, vulnerable and mortal to continue to fight against time.

And I also told myself that I'm starting to lose track of time because actually space is what stands between us and the oasis of life.

I was watching as closely as I could to detect the appearance of dust in the air so that I could take additional measures to isolate the equipment; but the soil was terribly compact—not a particle of dust could be detached in any way. From this perspective everything was in order.

Something curious seemed to me to be happening with Iria. Against the background of the same need for protection, in the moments before the stops, when the narcotic was starting to lose its effect, he called me softly, reached me from the three steps behind me, grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. He answered my surprised look with a beautiful smile. He had even started helping me inject the serums, and the looks we exchanged had multiplied.

Then I had moments of insecurity of thoughts. Thoughts that, on the one hand, accused me of proceeding with such a treatment with Iria, on the other hand, assured me that by protecting her from depression and fatigue, I had more chances.

I remember an awkward flash of lucidity as a bud of idea tried to reach the light; but from that inappropriate effort, only one sensation reached my conscious level – an insufficiently formulated question regarding thermodynamic equilibrium and its principles. Probably the amplitude of that idea was initially more substantial, but I had managed to force my memory to retain that much.

Then this simple reference would frequently break through to controllable thought without my being able to build more.

The dust also appeared, but it remained immovable on the hard ground. After about twenty more stops, we found ourselves - progressively - in the eternal sands. The ground was flat from horizon to horizon. The wind doesn't even blow, so it seems like a more earthy image. In that daunting monstrosity of the building we were the only ones moving, advancing alienatingly through the desert.

I don't know how and why, but I had come to hold Iria's hand continuously. And this thing would save us from a tragedy. One day, during a break, I injected both of them with a nutritional-narcotic serum.

I felt the effect of the annihilation of the conscious immediately after I had packed everything. With the last coherent thought I communicated to myself that I would now find out through my own senses how the narcotic works. I remember seeing images (or imagining them), hearing noises (or so it seemed), and being a total and timeless spectator of everything around me and happening to me. When I recovered from the nightmare of helplessness, I noticed that we had stopped and Iria was already cleaning her hands and face. I was too dizzy to marvel at her lucidity at the time. I had the strength to restore the injections and everything returned to normal, except that I had to correct the route - for the last eight hours I had been walking perpendicular to the proposed route. An unexpected compensation: I had the sensation of a relaxing vacation.

I couldn't stop thinking about what would have happened if I had lost Iria, but every time I was afraid of taking my thoughts too far...

The desert had become exasperating. The amazingly fine sand—probably created centuries ago by who knows what miracles, for the temperature differences were insignificant—raised behind our steps like an endless trail of dust.

The temperature had risen a lot and I could feel Iria's hand sweating. We anxiously followed the evolution of the temperature and the reaction of our bodies. When I had reached troublesome fits caused by the sting of the sweat entering my eyes, I had the joy of finding - at one of the stops - that the temperature had dropped by half a degree. I had once learned about the symmetry and uniformity of the Vanelian climate, and the fact told me that we were halfway there. At this memorable stop, gripped as if by fever, I spoke to Iria for a long time about the chance to reach the oasis. This despite the fact that she did not understand anything. But he was smiling and that was enough for me.

I don't remember when the dessert was finished; for several weeks I had been lucid only at breaks, and only long enough to wonder where I had the strength to observe the ceremonial.

I felt a continuous loss of lucidity and barely made the effort to follow the route on the map. The air was no longer so hot, but the sands reminded me that I still had a long way to go. And I was thinking that from the start I was only standing on my feet.

The stops were going normally and Iria seemed to like getting the injection - she started helping me and looking at me smiling.

For the rest, I looked at my legs, how they took one before the other and then the second before the first, and again... and when I wanted to drive away the state, I slowly squeezed Iria's hand, and she moaned slightly, reminding me that I had to do everything for successful.

I don't know how much time had passed and since when, but at a stop something special happened. After I wiped my hands, I opened the kit and handed Iria the serum tank. When I was about to load the syringe, Iria threw the dose on the floor. A fact that instantly restored my lucidity. I looked into her eyes hiding my surprise. He took a few deep breaths, and then looked hopefully at me and said:

- Have faith, All! I will be by your side.

Probably what I felt then is true happiness.

In these conditions, the way we had to go was nothing, the fact that we would be alone no longer mattered - we were determined to take life from the beginning.

Iria looked splendid and from then on we would use the same serum.

Two weeks after the unforgettable event, the ground had become covered with a very sticky mud. But the new unit helps us to cover over thirty kilometers in one cycle even in these conditions. And the stops were now unforgettable - after exchanging some technical impressions of the route and making future plans, we delved into tender looks that spoke of a unique love. At least on this planet.

* *

From a distance we saw the oasis and we really tried to hurry. Unsuspected reserves of reason brought me some ideas with survival valences. I then realized that in addition to fatigue, I had also accumulated a lot of information about this living planet. Information that - added to the data in the computer we were linked to - would help us explain and control even what had appeared to defy the principles of thermodynamics.

After a good few hours we stopped near a spring. I set up the tent and installed the radio connection to the computer.

I had been walking for seven months and eleven days and I knew that stopping the treatment would lead to terrible fatigue. We took a dose of homogenizing sleeping pills and went to bed in a hurry because, after the few days of sleep, the beginning of a new life was waiting for us.

May 17-18, 1986, Rm. Vâlcea

MIRCEA BADUț

ONE WAY

I was telling myself that I had an almost perfect suit. For a week I had been advancing through a wasteland of mud of horrifying extent and monotony, and I did not feel the least bit dirty.

I had noticed Iria from the beginning - a nice little girl, a little chubby, with a charm that I was immediately captivated by.

The impatience took on unbearable proportions and, shortly before morning, assuming every risk, we started for the colony.

BIOLOGICAL EMANATION OF 3.1 MRi.

UNDETERMINED NATURE.

EFFECT OF CHANGE OF BIOLOGICAL POLARITY.

LETHAL DOSE ON A QUASICIRCULAR SURFACE WITH A RADIUS OF 5 KM AROUND THE POLE.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: C 2156.

Since the connection to Earth required a waiting time of several weeks, I had to move quickly to action: I switched all the intercoms and made a repeated call.

He went out leaving me perplexed, but I was brought to my senses by the slam of the door and rushed to engage the outer door lock.

After some preparations, I called her and said:

- I care about you too much to leave you alone. But I still want to try something - we will make a vaccine and I hope it will have an effect!

- All, don't you...want to...take me...

Then his wince was dulled by the narcotic.

"From now on, my good Iria will follow me everywhere!" I communicated this to myself dryly, refusing for the moment any other implications.

I was walking continuously, in a seemingly eternal rhythm, and I had come to fear a reaction of the organisms to the substances I was injecting.

And I also told myself that I'm starting to lose track of time because actually space is what stands between us and the oasis of life.

Then this simple reference would frequently break through to controllable thought without my being able to build more.

I couldn't stop thinking about what would have happened if I had lost Iria, but every time I was afraid of taking my thoughts too far...

I don't remember when the dessert was finished; for several weeks I had been lucid only at breaks, and only long enough to wonder where I had the strength to observe the ceremonial.

The stops were going normally and Iria seemed to like getting the injection - she started helping me and looking at me smiling.

- Have faith, All! I will be by your side.

Probably what I felt then is true happiness.

In these conditions, the way we had to go was nothing, the fact that we would be alone no longer mattered - we were determined to take life from the beginning.

Iria looked splendid and from then on we would use the same serum.

* *

After a good few hours we stopped near a spring. I set up the tent and installed the radio connection to the computer.

May 17-18, 1986, Rm. Vâlcea

MIRCEA BADUț

A LAST CHANCE

A new crisis. He closed his eyes. He wanted to smile, and he did smile a little, happy that the intensity and frequency of these seizures had significantly decreased. A little later he looked around and analyzed.

The leaden sky had descended very close to the world.

He thought: "It should be spring... Maybe it is. But no one can say it anymore. Not counting on anyone."

Everything seemed sad and terribly still. In the station, who knows how long, there were two sets of goods whose wagons looked pitiful. The invasion of rust would have said that here too is an abandoned territory, but a small detail disproves the hypothesis: the rails of the main line were polished.

Then he looked at the platform. Fitting with ironic perfection into the gloomy landscape, several people waited almost motionless. Despite the wave of disgust, he reasons, as an excuse for his own species, that this desolate state seems normal to them.

He remembered that he had been waiting on his feet for almost four hours; no train had arrived and the bag strap looked like it had gone through her collarbone. As he put it over his other shoulder he saw a woman approaching him. He blames himself for not noticing her while waiting on the platform.

She was young, even younger than him, and relatively good looking. In addition - something that seemed special to him - he had that look, so rarely found in those around him, which preceded the so-called "practical alienation".

He clenched his jaw slightly, realizing that he liked it. Then he looked at her deeply and somewhat lost. She also enjoyed the game, even if she didn't understand anything anymore. He asked him:

- Are you an alien?

He continued to look into her eyes, still unable to answer her.

- Your costume so strange... And then this tired look of the master of the senses of the world...

It was decided to speak to him:

– Black leather jacket, with double shoulders, blue cotton pants, gray wool blouse, white sports shoes. Something from the fashion of the 20th century.

– What is that fashion? But century?

– Um. The century is a kind of time unit.

– And the 20th century means in our past, right?!

He confirms them by nodding his head and still looking at her penetratingly with the hope that she will still understand something.

- So you're not an alien!... But you look different from the others... Where are you going?

– At home.

- Where is home?

– Where childhood should have been. And the silence...

Realizing that he could not be understood, he stopped and studied her reaction.

– Why are you talking to me about this? she asked him. I'm going without knowing where, and you don't really know either!

He looked at her lovingly. As he had never done before. And with a lot of hope. Suddenly, and without needing any rational motivation, she found herself no longer willing to accept the fact that she could not understand and feel anything, that she could not resonate with anything.

He was glad when he caught a slight change in her gaze: it was not an opinion. It wasn't an opinion at all!

The young woman pressed her temples with her fingers and the gesture meant a lot to him. He saw her more confused, less apathetic than any other man.

- Do you want me to go with you?

He knew, he had learned to keep his knees straight. So he responded to her proposal with a wordless assent.

A passenger train arrived at the station. "It doesn't look like anything more than a freight line," he thought to himself and looked once more at the gray and sad station covered by the dirty afternoon sky.

He took her hand and climbed up. The train was free, completely empty. After occupying a compartment, he realized that he no longer knew in which direction he was going to go. He didn't bother to get his bearings - it didn't matter.

Almost immediately the train started moving with the whole range of shortcomings characteristic of the technical-social level at which the world has maintained itself since the beginning of the current millennium.

For a long time they looked into each other's eyes as if, he thought, waiting for a real beginning. She was afraid he would do it, and she couldn't do it.

He got hungry. He also asked her if she wanted something to eat and then looked in her bag for the nutritional tablets. After she swallowed, one asked him in wonder:

– What kind of guy is this? I haven't seen it before!

– Complex D 23. I have a reserve here for several months.

- From where?

- Um... From an abandoned warehouse.

She stood up intrigued to check his bag. What attracted her most was a pair of handcuffs.

– Were you in the war?

He agrees to them with a very economical sign.

- Put them on me too!

- No! I'm the only one who wore them.

- Please!

The pleading in her voice seemed like a shocking rush. No, he couldn't believe it. He asked himself in his mind, rhetorically, tired and almost defeated: "Can any man beg anymore?!"

For a while he was lost in her eyes, now warm and candid. When he came back he unlocked his handcuffs and put them tightly on her wrists.

She breathed a sigh of relief, looking at him with childlike gratitude. And he felt lost, slipping out of lucidity. He approaches to kiss her happily following her gestures: she tries to hug him, then - realizing that her hands are tied - she surrenders herself ecstatically to the kiss.

She withdrew in a moment of silence, moving away and keeping her eyes closed, while he looked at her, unable to believe what he had experienced.

But he was surprised when she opened her eyes and saw his expressionless gaze, and the surprise turned into shock when he heard her tired voice:

- Get these things off me!

He should have been offended, but he had lived too long among humans. He knew their possibilities.

He takes his "bracelets" and continues to follow her. He had closed his eyes again and was breathing forcefully, as if forcing himself to recover from a crisis. When she calmed down, she opened her eyes and asked him somewhat alarmed:

- What happened to me? what did you do to me

He looked at her confused, unable to answer her.

- I know you did something bad to me, but why didn't I feel it, why didn't I react normally?!

He witnessed her despair even more confusedly, being afraid to help the fight in any way.

He then saw her wiping her tears and smiling.

- You have supernatural powers. And, what is much worse, now I want to continue your spells on me. I know it's not good, but it was something more beautiful than the effect of a narcotic, it was like a descent into my privacy, like living through a primitive self... Or I don't know how! But dangerous…

Can you do something like this with me?

He finally answered and the answer made him happier, reviving his hopes. Buried hopes with a great sense of responsibility for the state of affairs.

- Yes. And even more beautiful. More real.

But, because your understanding and conscious participation is needed, I will begin by telling you the story of the handcuffs.

"A few hours after the conflagration had become general, that is, after the war had suddenly penetrated to all corners of the world, I - as well as all over 80% of the involved inhabitants of the planet - set out convinced that I was doing exactly the right thing.

Alarmed by this nonsense, because essentially the whole world had declared war, the Organization for the Preservation of Humanity - or the Fanatics, as they were also called - began to do their duty of conscience. Thus the conflagration would turn on her, it being natural for all of them to fight against the only organization that did not let them fight. It was the so-called vectorial reorientation of the war. And the arguments seemed to originate from ourselves.

Seeing themselves facing each other, isolated in a few points of the globe, the remaining Fanatics did something whose meaning I did not find at all questionable at the time: using a few dozen computer recorders, they started to record, so to speak, History.

You will understand later what I mean by this.

Frightened by this secret project, the warring parties had sent important forces destined to destroy the recording centers and, later, commandos specially trained to locate and destroy the ordinaplexes.

The Ordinaplex is an information storage device, as small as it is difficult to destroy with ordinary means.

I was also part of such a commando. We received the coordinates of six ordinaplexes and set out determined to annihilate them. But our speed was fiercely and furiously opposed by the Fanatics, so that - after we had destroyed four ordinaplexes - from thirty-four, the team had ended up consisting of only three combatants. And my last comrades perished almost stupidly while I was destroying the penultimate device.

I set off alone towards the last one. I found it utterly undefended, abandoned as nothingness, and something happened in my mind—I refused to destroy it, thinking it foolish to achieve such a victory. I carried it with me and hid it, not knowing what I was doing either.

Then - when it was found out that there was a nedistrys device left - I was arrested. I had the honor of having the first box of handcuffs unsealed to put them on me.

I carried them for several good days, during which terribly unnatural treaties were concluded between the powers. Their losses in this conflagration had not been too significant and now the treaties were trying to cover the stupidity of what had happened. And the losses of the pacifist organization were not talked about at all.

Of course, I didn't think so then. Everything seemed natural to me like any other man - mere mortal dazed by events - so I was not surprised the morning they released me."

He took a break to tell his thoughts, getting lost in the past.

– And what did you do with the ordinaplex?

- I recovered it and read it.

– Can it be read?!

– It's a way of saying. I submitted to the transfer of information. Since then I always carry it around with me.

She looked questioningly at his shoulder bag. It indeed contained an apparatus of appreciable size.

– Yes, that is it. And there was the supernatural you were talking about.

I submitted to the transference and found out everything that has been until some time ago, everything that people have done throughout evolution; I found out how they lived and felt. And I also learned about the evolution of nihilism.

He had said the last sentence as a comment to himself.

- Why did you emphasize "they lived and felt"? What could they have had differently than us in terms of living and exchanging information with the environment?

– Um. Their relationship with the environment was not as extrinsic as it is with us; and there is respect for the interior.

– Somehow… similar to what I just experienced?!

He saw her smiling enigmatically and, interpreting her thought, said:

- By submitting to the transfer, you risk becoming someone else!

– If you assure me that feelings can rise to that level, I accept the risk!

He agreed and gave her eight nutritional tablets to swallow. He fixed several independent electrodes on his forehead and temples, then switched on the ordinaplex without taking it out of the bag.

After making sure that she entered the totally-passive state, she moved towards the window of the compartment to look at the shapes that could still be distinguished unfolding in the late evening.

Regardless of fatigue and dark circles, there was an expression of hope on her face. His gaze was lost in the distance and he rarely blinked, in harmony with the silence in his soul.

She woke up in a clearing behind a train station no higher than the one from which they had left, and he was sleeping next to her. She smiled when she felt her left wrist handcuffed by his right hand.

She looked at him and told herself that he didn't look bad at all, and that he didn't look like he was in his early twenties. He was sleeping with his head on the bag and had a happy expression on his face.

She felt her temple, remembered everything and remained still, wanting to analyze. To be analyzed.

Very soon he also woke up and looked at her curiously, and then joy lit up his whole face. I know that the experience was successful.

She asked him thoughtfully, pointing to the electrodes:

- How long did it last?

- Almost two weeks.

A feeling that he had never experienced before crossed his viscera and he realized that under other conditions he would not have given any importance to the fact that he had watched over her for so long.

Then he thought of something else, telling himself that from now on he would always have something special to think about. Like a restless hope.

And he did it out loud, making many efforts:

- ...Nihilism asserted itself in the 21st century, imposing itself quite quickly.

Why did people accept it?… Ah yes! I remembered: the subconscious exploitation of convenience and hubris... And that would actually mean blocking all of humanity at a certain level... And capping naturally involved the denial of certain values... And the circuit closed to continually accentuate the reaction.

I can't believe it! I can't accept it! Understand me!…

He controlled his tears and continued:

- However, it is true. The proof is the recording, the authenticity of which I cannot doubt.

Then, much more convincing, is the fact that I found hidden somewhere, very deep in my being, the potential resources and calls that made me resonate with all these human values.

For a while he didn't say anything and didn't even think anything. Then he looked at his left hand. He picked it up and watched, filled with meaning, as his hand rose with it, totally relaxed, abandoned with confidence.

He supported them like this until he could no longer bear the pressure of the handcuffs. He looked at the metal with affection, thinking that this toy had bound him, and he owed this rediscovery of his soul to him...

The soul that suddenly felt so full. And so much next to the other.

I know he's looking at her. I know he had looked at her with love the whole time. She turned almost suddenly to him and said:

– I want to make love!

They had boarded another train, but much more determined.

The handcuff that had tied her to him was no longer on her wrist, but she felt it there and knew that he felt the same way - they both believed in this connection.

And they felt as if they had set out to reconquer the world.

Craiova, April 24-25, 1988