Emmanuel's Last Journey.
Part III.
The Moon and the Donkey.
Light. Painful throbbing. Darkness.
No, I'm not dead: if I were dead I wouldn't feel this terrible pain in my head. I try to lift it, but I fall back. I cautiously feel every part of my body: nothing seems to be broken. I get out slowly, with difficulty, from the BMW: the front is a mass of sheet metal. Dad won't be happy tonight.
What happened? Suddenly the road rolled over and stopped in its tracks against the guardrail, throwing me against a tree. I realize that I have spent a few hours unconscious.
The watch is stuck at seven; I look up: the sun has disappeared behind the horizon, it must be at least nine. The road is deserted, no one passes by, there are no signs and the thick trees that line the road block my view. My cell phone is in pieces: I can't call for help. I'll walk until I find a town, a house; there must be someone in this fucking place.
I walk with a slight limp: my right ankle is swollen, my nose is starting to bleed; I advance with my head thrown back, holding the handkerchief pressed against my nostrils for about ten minutes, until the bleeding stops.
The air is unbreathable, oppressive, not at all refreshed by the late twilight: I take off my jacket, undo my tie and unbutton my blood-stained shirt, but despite everything I continue to sweat. I look at the sky: the wind has dragged the clouds down from the mountains, a black mattress; there is the stagnant mugginess that precedes summer storms, when night falls without bringing relief and not a breath of breeze blows in the sticky air. I am immersed in a gray ink that is about to become squid ink. There is not even a street lamp on this street and I am alone as a dog.
In the unnatural silence a rustling makes me jump: I turn with my heart in my throat, I don't see anyone. The veins in my neck begin to pulse. I formulate a fairly lucid thought: everything is still possible, but to fight you have to stay alive. I feel Michael's hands gripping my shoulders: courage, little brother.
I start walking again.
With relief I realize that I have reached the end of the climb, but it is almost dark and all I can see is a fork in the road; two roads open up in front of me: one, wider, continues downhill disappearing into the horizon, the other, little more than a dirt mule track, disappears into the gloom swallowed up by the woods. I feel a terrible déjà effect vu . Aching and exhausted, with shaking knees, I sit on a bollard without knowing where to go. The atmosphere becomes perfectly still, everything is silent in expectation: a diffuse and silent light strikes behind the compact clouds, followed by the dull roll of thunder. A gust of warm wind hits me: I hold out my hand to receive the first drop of the downpour. A hail of drops as big as hazelnuts begins to peck, raising an intense scent of wet dust. I don't seek shelter under a tree, I've always been terrified of lightning; I remain seated like an idiot in the pouring rain. I hear the whistle of a train in my ears, my head gives me stabbing pains. I begin to realize that I have demanded too much of my strength. I must find someone, ask for help. I will do it soon, later: now I'm too tired, I need to close my eyes, rest, sleep. I hear, far away, the regular tolling of a death knell. I slide to the ground with my face in the mud. The orchestra tunes its instruments and starts the Cold Song from King Arthur, a harpsichord improvises in my brain a flight of mad splinters, déjà you of the future.
Emmanuel. Someone behind me calls me, it's Arianna dressed as a bride: she smiles and holds out her hand, be careful you're creasing my skirt, I'm a gorgeous thirty-year-old, I laugh and talk about women with friends in the pool, she's eternally young thanks to her cosmetic surgeon uncle, she plays canasta with her friends, she watches me enter the cabin, she nods indulgently while I, high on coke, undo the bra of an occasional lover, my coldness close to impotence makes me violent and you know women like that, I cover her mouth, shut up they can hear us, I look at my watch, why is she so late, the snake comes out of the badly closed drain, hello little faggot and bites my veins, I squirt streams of purple on the blue tiles, I melt, I cling to an old life preserver in the shape of a cow, I scream without a voice but she goes away smiling, she takes a blond child to school, the drain sucks me in, I'm about to drown, a hand pulls me up by the scruff of the neck, I resurface spitting I grope my way through the sewer the water rises I walk faster but the level continues to rise, the corpse of a cockroach with its neck torn open comes alongside me, run away Emmanuel, run away as fast as you can, the sewage is up to my chin the stench is unbearable I hear a trumpet behind me, Duffy Duck overtakes me, hey hello handsome see you at the service station, watch out Emmanuel there's someone behind you, it's Ben Hur driving the wrong way, the black horse rears up the chariot overturns I suddenly realize I've forgotten something important and I ask the charioteer who, deaf and mad, whips a white nag to a pulp.
I open my eyes: how much time has passed?
The wind swept away the clouds and the opaque disk of the full moon appeared in the luminous alabaster. For a moment of suspended, ecstatic amazement, I no longer think of anything. Memories, shreds of words appear in my mind. Queen of the sky, by any name...
I get up from the ground and kneel. My soaked jacket falls to the ground, my silk tie slips into the mud. I take off my shirt with ritual slowness.
Give me peace and rest, make this hideous animal disappear, restore me to the self that I am; and if I am not allowed to live, let me at least be allowed to die!
The warm night wraps my bare shoulders like a cloak, reflecting the unreal whiteness of the moon. I raise my arms to the sky and breathe in its transparent light.
The mud smells of moss and snails, inviting me into its embrace. I see the forest waver, topple, the moon fall upon me.
I give thanks, then I feel nothing more.