I
The first floor of an apartment building on a residential street in a major metropolis: such was my place of residence. The edifice, squeezed between other buildings on either side, had nothing remarkable about it, apart perhaps from its narrowness. The apartment looked out onto the street and the courtyard, like all the others, for that matter. Chicken coops, in short. A stack of bricks; the cliché. The things we inflict on ourselves for ambition.
In the single room—living room, kitchen, dormitory—one could smell solder, despite the ventilation. My own mustiness. In one of the corners of the square room, partitioned off by a sheet of kraft paper as thin as a forefinger, was nestled a minuscule shower-and-toilet room. Barely enough space to turn around.
But mind you, the idea of complaining is far from me; on the contrary. I was, in this cube of damp patches, like a dog frantically wagging its tail.
Here, on a table I had assembled myself from odds and ends, taking up a quarter of the room’s surface area, sat my laboratory. This element, of a holistic essentiality, was the most important thing in this restricted living space.
On the shelf beside it, all my tools were lined up: headlamp, crowbar, every screwdriver imaginable, a number of machines—which would take too long to explain—batteries, generators, adhesive tapes, soldering iron, staple gun, aluminium cutter… the list goes on, and includes the very best.
On this workbench rested all my creations. In my arsenal featured: a potato fertiliser-incubator, a logarithmic deciphering screen for ancient texts, a compression-powered bottle opener, a miniature version of an engine that ran on tap water, a spider sewing machine—for its eight cables that tangled with every rotation—and, finally, my masterpiece, the one that kept me from sleep: the prototype of a self-sufficient bionic hand.
This future chef-d'œuvre was accompanied by a synthetic voice. The hardest part was getting everything in order. Because of the numerous programme chips crammed under its lithium fingernails, it could only manage to produce a childish babble. Its iron fingers sometimes managed to move forward in coordination, before collapsing pitifully on the workbench. In short, it was not yet ready.
Then, enthroned on the wall, was the only picture I had taken the trouble to hang in my abode. This stunning portrait looked down on me with its centuries of heritage. My master, my guide, my unconditional genius. The idol of idols! The paramount figure of my microscopic life. Hidden beneath his beret, the Florentine master’s eyes spoke to me from between the endless strands of his white hair and beard. Yes, the worthiest of all time.
When moments of laziness came, a single one of his reproving glances prevented any form of procrastination. To disappoint him? Impossible. And, through him, I persevered like a madman, so as not to end up like all those inspired only on their day of rest. I constantly forced myself to break the rule of fates that are like smoke in the air or foam on the water.
In my concrete treehouse, I had almost achieved total independence. Latent, my works kept to themselves for the time being. O, my cherished innovations! What wild declarations I could sing during those tormented evenings, rendering them into marvels…
As for them, no patents had been filed: the fact is, I spent my days entirely alone. Patience was the watchword. Rubbing my ingenious palms together, I awaited the opportune moment to make them shine before the face of the universe. The spattering of my atoms! Was that not it—the ontological culmination? The natural extension of one’s person? The only legacy receivable for our fellow men.
My lair was accessed by a spiral staircase. In this decrepit wooden cage, no matter the season, a good number of insects found a cosy chimney corner. Thousands of tiny termite holes riddled the spaces between the steps. The timer for the lights, if one was not quick enough, would plunge us into a bunker-tight darkness. And, like a frolicking piano, each step under our feet brought forth its own shrill melody. Suffice it to say that such a space was a veritable playground for minds inclined to imagination.
In front of my door was a minuscule landing on which my doormat lay, then followed those steps, each as high as it was short. The almost vertical handrail—I assure you—saved me more than once. Several weeks after moving in, I distinctly recalled an attempt to go up beyond the first floor. Simple curiosity: to meet my neighbours. After a certain effort, looking down into the central well by mistake, a terrible vertigo rooted me to the spot. The climb came to an abrupt halt. Completely impeded, I took three steps, then slithered back to square one.
“Gravity is my haven. You can’t change a man who’s down to earth.”
On the ground floor, there was a shop. A certain Daniel, a middle-aged man, ran it. I knew him quite well, well… just by sight. He was an independent bookseller, an erudite character, permanently surrounded by pages of knowledge. It so happened, on the rare occasions I set foot outside to buy some missing equipment, that we would greet each other with a frank gesture. But, aside from the formal introductory questions: “What do you do for a living?”, “Why did you settle here, specifically?”, the conversation never found a conclusive follow-up.
There was that one time he invited me for a drink. I declined. The fear of not being up to snuff. The regrets… The affliction of dwelling on it. Let’s move on.
On the second floor lived a couple with young children—a lot of kids, four or five probably. How did I know? By distinguishing the different cadences of creaks on my ceiling, and I counted a fair few of them. They made a racket at the end of the week. But did I hold it against them? Never. In a way, the rejoicing of this vitality won me over. Ah, my foolish smiles! So, the idea of going to disturb them—by banging on the walls with a sledgehammer, for example—rarely presented itself. In any case, during the week, I had a disconcerting tranquillity. My equilibrium was in balance.
As for the other floors, it was hard to say. Even from the outside, I did not like to scan the skies. Once my work objectives were accomplished and the squeaking of the old stairs began, I would prick up my ears. Beyond my door, the desire to cheat would manifest, but my entryway had no peephole.
I know this is the point in the story where some of you will ask: “But why on earth does he care so much about others?”, “Good heavens, he’s nothing but a damn gossip!”
Well, ladies and gentlemen, to those others, I would simply reply: “One, the sum of what we can learn by observing others is immeasurable. Two, you are undoubtedly—not to say cruelly—lacking in curiosity. And three, please be patient; let me develop my story, I’m getting to it!”
For yes, one evening when my thoughts were wandering, while I was harnessed to a complex task, my reflections tangled in endless cables, I felt a shattering crash. My floor began to tremble. The walls swayed. My poor furniture, caught in the storm, stirred, like a frenzied farandole. Out of control, my large lamp came unhooked from the ceiling and scattered into a thousand pieces.
With a leap, when everything stopped moving, I opened my back window. The courtyard seemed calm, too calm. Reaching the other end of the apartment in five necessary strides, I repeated my action. But, on the street side, the same scenario. Surveying my room, I saw that my things were topsy-turvy. Instinctively, throwing myself towards my front door, I tried again to dismiss the hallucination. And, upon opening it, my breath caught in my throat… The entire stairwell had disappeared. Well, not vanished, but rather collapsed! A pile of debris. A heap of nothingness. Impossible to clear a path to get down. A silence as deafening as it was incapacitating reached me from it.
Cogitating, a number of hypotheses became riveted to my body. A landslide? Tectonic plates? Premeditated demolition? Perforation due to a water leak?
Once the stage of stupefaction had passed, the return of my senses became implacable. Instantly, I knew. Oh no. Good grief! Like a shadow springing from an insane depth, they had me trapped! Seized with a fury, expressing myself as if bewitched by a sordid hex, I cried out:
"They're after my works, and I am ready. Let them come for me, the Russkies!"
My discoveries were placed in safekeeping in the bathroom safe. Yes; foresight. In my haste, I broke one or two. Time was against us, and I couldn't find my bionic hand anywhere. As for the tools, they ended up under the sofa. The knowledge amassed in my brain, on the other hand, had nothing to fear. That, they could not seize! A drop of sweat ran down my temple at the thought. The thing was, the Popovs' reputation preceded them...
In the midst of an adrenaline crash, preparing myself for the next attack, I sized up the window-to-pavement distance in a single glance. That distance… sickening. It must have been around five and a half metres. But my concern was that the façade had no railing or handhold whatsoever.
It had never occurred to me to buy a rappelling rope. Idiot! Such a lack of realism. Could jumping be an option? Breaking my limbs would be the inevitable outcome. And as quadriplegia seemed like a messy solution, I grabbed my crowbar and went to work on the parquet floor.
In the least-used corner of my flat, the nails popped out one by one. With the floorboards removed, I scratched away at the cob wall. Once the dust had settled, the perforation became clear.
Feet first, I slipped through a gap just wide enough for my hips to pass. Held up by my elbows, my legs dangled in the void, gesticulating like worms surprised beneath a lifted stone. And, with one of my toes, I reached one of the shelves. Squeezing through, equipped with my headlamp, I entered Daniel’s place. On the ground floor...
II
The shelf gave way pitifully. Now sprawled on the tiled floor, surrounded by old books, I noted that they had cushioned my fall.
"Just goes to show you, books save lives. Reading is important!"
Having established that, my stress became exponential as I searched for an exit. Once I found the front door in all this chaos, it proved to be a dead end. Even if I broke it down, a thick exterior security grille blocked my path. Try to cut through it? A possibility. But I preferred to explore, not wanting to cause any further damage to my downstairs flatmate. I hoped to discover some kind of opening mechanism inside the shop.
Stepping over the surrounding books, a frame with a familiar face appeared before me. As I moved closer, the dear portrait of our supreme leader revealed itself: "The Regent of the France Province"—Jean Trahisoble-Pecknard, JTP for his intimates. Below said official portrait, in which the man was striking a pose, his pale head resting on his limp wrists, was a letter:
Admirable Regent of the France Province, how radiant you are. Your generosity toward the rest of us is my primary inspiration. You constantly defy all expectations. Your courage transcends; you shine wherever your presence is felt, comparable to those men who came to deliver us. You are at once a man of integrity, gifted, intelligent and a purveyor of hope.
The insults concerning you have no concrete foundation. Never, ever have you been condescending, contemptible or the fruit of a corrupt system. You have risen by your simple and numerous qualities. You are the living proof of our ripoublicanium-meritocratia, and I acknowledge it here, in my humble literary refectory.
Incomparable man of letters, I will support you to the end, despite all the sayings of backward folk. All these slanders simply slide off minds such as ours. I have long understood that the little people wish us ill. How I wish I could be more like you.
Your greatest admirer,
Daniel F.
Thus ended the letter. These lines oozed fanaticism—and to think I believed such individuals were an extinct species... A piercing testimony! The truth was, Jean Trahisoble-Pecknard left me cold. But oh well, let's not judge. To each his own.
The clock was ticking and I had to get out—what am I saying? Escape! And despite my frantic efforts to turn the whole shop upside down, still nothing.
Daniel was going to be mad at me. But if he had been here with me, he would have understood the urgency.
Rummaging through his desk, I sifted through administrative paperwork—the kind that makes you want to tear your hair out. And, during this rummage, a number of astonishing objects appeared: several pairs of sturdy hiking boots, custom-made leather suspenders, dozens of pairs of round, colourful glasses, posters glorifying a student revolution from the last century, old bottles of wine—grand cru, if you please—and a most interesting document.
I deciphered it, with all the hair-raising effect that type of legal phrasing elicits: Daniel was the owner. Not just of his shop, but of the entire building! Daniel; my landlord. Well, I'll be... A rentier with a lot of zeros to his name, if the document was to be believed. Good for him, after all.
Returning to my troubles, almost at my wits' end, I fell back on the only thing in abundance: pages of knowledge. Scanning the volumes in search of some help in written form, I scoured the library with autistic rigour. Travel, romance novels, self-help, biographical tomes on JTP, philosophical tales, photography... and one work caught my eye more than the others: a book on the evolution of animal anecdotes.
"Did you know that female grasshoppers devour their partners during mating? Or, wait, listen to this one: an elephant's trunk contains about 125,000 muscles. Or that penguins are the most aerodynamic animals on Earth? Their chubby little bodies are veritable torpedoes of the sea!"
Apart from feeding my insatiable curiosity, none of this information seemed immediately applicable. The dead end became a prison.
While I was tidying the messy books, my ear rang. Between the bars of the bay window, I partially illuminated some individuals with my headlamp. Seeing the beam pointed at them, I noticed their cries, straight out of the Neolithic, redoubling. All hooded, they banged on the grille, attempting the passing of the verbal torch. I could literally transcribe the bellowing as: "Euhla," "Taeu," "Wolo," "Latow," "Aven," "Hovre," "Solbotar," "Wolo." The communicative conviction, between them, came across very well. For my part, deciphering it seemed an impossible task.
One of the agitated ones, with red eyes and broken teeth, kept spitting against the window pane in the manner of a degenerate llama. These young men gave me material for some ideas. It came to me in a flash! An automatic language translator—let’s say, a rudimentary one for onomatopoeias—as well as lozenges to stop them from drooling. If the market for such profiles proved to be substantial, I would unearth a diamond mine. But still, this was neither the time nor the place to be thinking about that. I was going off on a complete tangent!
All my options exhausted, regaining an ounce of critical thinking, I climbed back up through the fissure, leaving those noble folk to their acclamations.
“True, I could call for help.”
But if anyone were to discover my lair and the jewels held within, I would have been sick to my stomach. They could very well come disguised to trick me, those Slavs!
“Fall into such an easy trap? Who do they take me for?”
Once back in my cube, the plausibility of one of my own remarks became clearer. It was a judicious one, and I hastened to put it into action: to go up.
III
Much faster this time, it did not take me long to get through the ceiling and a green carpet. Poking my head through the opening, muffled sounds of weaponry reached me, like those you hear in historical dramas. My face, at that precise moment, must have frozen.
The characteristic sound effects were coming from a man, past forty and physically plumpish, who was wriggling on a plush rolling chair. Controller in hand, a headset covering his entire face, he swivelled on the spot, alternating between expressions of childish contentment and grim belligerence. The whole gamut of emotions flashed past in the snap of a finger!
Finishing his game, the man with the patchy beard took off his headset. And, before I could bring myself to explain the whys and wherefores, he toppled backwards, holding his controller up like a shield.
“Shit! Who the hell are you?”
This sudden racket once again made the whole building tremble. Bursting from a wall that partitioned the room where we stood, a woman, half-asleep, arrived like a detonation. She was so fleshy that the good lady had to pass through sideways. Her belly and her posterior, like oozing glue, forced a path for themselves through the doorframe. A gaggle of balls followed her; eight in total. The complete billiard set.
On one side, in this pitiful spaghetti western, the man remained entrenched behind his chair. And on the other, the floor of panicked protons and neutrons wondered about the presence of this uninvited guest. As I observed their shambling states, a first question took shape within me:
“Why had they woken up so suddenly, and not when the stairwell had collapsed?”
Was I dreaming? This acute shame, like the feeling of a straitjacket, came over me. I took deep breaths and, just as I was about to offer an explanation meant to reassure them, the man beat me to it:
“Are you the repairman?”
“No, no, he’s the assistant to the care assistant, I think,” the lady added.
“Master Polovito from the cartoon?” one of the balls piped up.
“No, he’s the magician I ordered for Kelly’s birthday!” yelled another.
A Dantesque gibberish took over. Cutting each other off, they all put forward their own little theories. In vain, I tried to explain; my raised voice was lost in the hubbub… But then again, why shatter their newfound smiles?
Visibly happy and relaxed, they welcomed me as if I were providence itself. The man took it upon himself to make the introductions:
“Mister, this is my darling wife, Kelly, and my kids! So, in order, there’s: Brandon, Stacy, Babar the 1st, Kilian, Barbie, Babar the 2nd, Nutella and Babar the 3rd.”
It was comical to think that they all cohabited in a space similar to my own. Curiously though, despite the flagrant disorder, the place was filled with high-end furnishings. The furniture oozed quality: a large corner sofa, a huge American-style refrigerator—one of those that opens on both sides—a gargantuan flat-screen TV. And, judging by their builds—if I may say so; please, no lawsuits or judgments—let’s just say these people didn’t let themselves go hungry. They were swimming in opulence!
And so, the desire to know more took hold of me. I had no doubt about the admirable nature of their professional careers. I made an inquiry on this subject. To which the man retorted that not a single one of them had worked a day in their blessed lives.
“I’m sorry. Wh… What was that? Could you be more specific?” I asked, half-stuttering.
“I don’t understand, Mister.”
“Can you explain it to me?”
“Oh, right. We take very good care of ourselves, Mister. Thanks to the public allowance, we can live with dignity. Uh, yeah, we have a fair amount of earnings.”
“And… roughly how much is that? As a ballpark figure?” I asked. “If it’s not indiscreet, of course.”
“I don’t understand, Mister.”
“The figure for your earnings?”
“Ah, okay! It’s a number with a one and five zeros after it. Plenty enough to live comfortably.”
To receive such a cushy remuneration without producing anything: stunning, to say the least. I even dared to think: extraordinary. This complex theorem escaped me.
“It just goes to show, you always find people superior to you.”
All at once, the children started running in every direction, and their cries, already loud, intensified. On one of the walls, an iron clicking scurried about. Galloping with dexterity, there ran my bionic hand! By what miracle had it climbed up there to start ambling about like that? Not a single damn clue. It jumped from wall to wall, like a tick on steroids. Pointing its inquisitorial index finger, it hurled the following choppy words at the others:
“Wh—ale,” “Wha—le—calf,” “Cow,” “E—le—phant,” “Hi—ppo—po—ta—mus,” “Swi—ne.”
The scene turned to magic. Laughter, insults, and objects thrown in its direction all intermingled. My metallic hand was reawakening in them that jolt of life I knew so well. I analysed this entertainment with my mouth half-open—it’s just that I’m not one to be foolishly distracted. It was executing an animal-mimicry learning program. The hand was, normally, supposed to use it to reproduce shadow puppets. But one has to believe it found a whole other use for it… In the end, after skilfully dodging all the utensils in the now-frenzied shack, it left through a half-open window.
Without pressing the point, in this moment of apotheosis, I proposed my departure. Who would have predicted, in the history of humanity, that simple hollows in walls could represent so many sources of laughter?
At last, with the ceiling as the only solution, they quickly agreed to let me break it—an insurance matter, they told me without batting an eye. Thanking them warmly, our paths diverged.
IV
A miniature spotlight blinded me instantly. Almost choking behind a whitish blur, a piercing exclamation like a hyena’s laugh reached me:
“Incredible! Look, my Maltese bichons, a guy coming in through the floor! Oh my God, I don’t believe it, incredible!”
In my eardrums, I thought I felt a viscous trickle of blood. The flash died out. And, hunched over, a man obsessed by his screen, which was grafted between his palms, bustled about. He exclaimed again:
“This is gonna go viral, incredible!”
In stark contrast, his get-up consisted of parachute pants and a form-fitting, heat-sealed sweater of some kind—as its name suggests. Spiky tufts of hair were also enthroned on his oval head, giving his appearance the image of urban headwear from across the Atlantic.
As he continued to guffaw at his footage, all while using his catch-all adjective, I awkwardly scanned the surroundings. The overpowering scent of new plastic overflowed: an electric scooter, heat-sealed T-shirts—more of them—creams from an alluring brand, a multitude of mirrors, round lamps, myriad neons, and filming accessories of every kind. In the background, against one of the walls, a video projector epileptically displayed the man’s creations.
“Oh no! My Maltese bichons,” he addressed his phone again, “only 40% of you have liked my last post; don’t let me down, we can do this, the team. Let’s go! This is incredible!”
Like an endless spatio-temporal rift, he received hundreds of sound effects. On a dopamine drip, his red eyes vied with the pressure of a pressure cooker. In anarchic rivers, the veins on his forehead swelled up like party balloons about to pop. The tapping of his thumbs made him a moth drawn to a flame, possessed by Beelzebub!
“As promised, my bichons, we’re launching the twenty-third live of the day, but this one, watch out! No more lies, no more staging, no excuses… I have for you an ex-clu-si-ve!” Then, turning to me, the pipsqueak continued: “Here is my guest of honour for the evening!”
Not knowing what to do in front of his screen, I remained frozen. How long did it last? A shrug. Me, my body halfway into his apartment, and him, his expression crumbling as he forced a smile for his virtual family. He was waiting in a Pavlovian posture for the next move to react. He was paralysed, before a whisper, like a trickle of desert air, came to break the now-heavy silence:
"Do... some... thing..."
The number displayed in the corner of his phone climbed exponentially. Comments scrolled by with such a frenzy that he began to tremble. Scarlet patches started to appear on his greasy skin. A bodily odour spread. His stomach rumbled like an echo from a dark cellar and, convulsively, flatulences were extradited from within. I held my nose. Seeing my reflection in his phone, he quickened his pace in his apartment. Running, he slammed his bathroom door behind him. Then, the next moment, a detonation resounded, straight from the bowels of the Mariana Trench! He continued to scream:
"Ah! My Maltese dogs!"
The resulting virality became unparalleled. The weakling achieved his goal. His dream came true! I could only bow before such ingenuity. He thus acquired recognition for his undeniable talent.
Not lingering to take it out on the ceiling, he emerged once his business was concluded. And, calling out into the room, still glued to his pixels:
"Oh, I'm hungry! I hope they still have the special on the shepherd's-pie-couscous-cheddar-fries-Afghan-sauce wrap from Super-Yum. Like, I'm seriously crazy about it at the moment! I'll get you a combo, my friend? Unless you want..."
Leaving him to his reflection, I didn't listen to the end of his sentence. Not a minute to lose. My mission had to continue.
To be continued…