CHAPTER 1: THE POISONOUS OUROBOROS

April 1, 2024

The Poisonous Ouroboros

"...Ninety years have passed since my mortal flesh, but not my imperishable spirit, first saw the vast spaces of this world. Like then, I was without hair, my body was constantly trembling, and I cried out with an extraordinary loudness. Then, my being produced such sounds with my tender lips; now, my being cried out with a soul deeply etched with wrinkles... Death had come for me—I felt it, I knew it, I accepted it. Along with death, the devil had also come for me—he came to take what was prepared for him according to the pact we had once made. Anticipating to gain what was not predetermined for him, but was gifted, he calculated the remaining earthly minutes not just of my flesh but of my soul with indescribable frenzy. I, like a sommelier, slowly savored the last grams, the last drops of the life that was given to me for some purpose, or rather, for what... City park, sunset. I gaze with special admiration at the lake and the willows. Beside me, with delight and a temporary, local victory of life, the loud laughter and cheer of children echo. I, heeding this ecstasy of life, await the moment of my own demise—the door is already open, I just need to exit... or enter? Does it matter? The children's laughter... Soon they will be in my place—time, like death, spares no one! I have truly lived an amazing and unique life. Much happened in it, but even more did not...

It seems like only recently I saw in the mirror the little, naive, and incredibly cheerful child who, in his loud manifestation of the voice of life, was extremely similar to the children who, in turn, are so sweetly playing beside me. This morning, I saw in the mirror a completely decrepit old man with a completely dried-out soul. Once, this soul also possessed a sensual moisture, but it, like the extraordinarily attractive French villages in their pastoral simplicity during medieval rebellions, was mercilessly burned by a more powerful and chaotic will that found its manifestation in all sorts of factors of existing reality... What a magnificent sunset! As if the departure of the sun is a personification of my own departure... The sun! But doesn't it leave to rise again?! The sun!... Its death throes at this very moment are extraordinarily blinding and, at the same time, fiercely draw my gaze. Such are the thoughts that dominate my mind now... For this sun to fade at this hour and in this way, to give this kind of warmth in this way, perhaps fifty years ago, there must have been rain in our world. Without this rain, perhaps fifty years later there would not be this light, and my last hour would accordingly be marked by physical darkness, not actual light. The spiritual darkness, due to a deed I once committed, my being will never overcome...

At the beginning of my life, I did not know where I would end up and what would become of me, just as we, upon waking at dawn, do not know where or how we will fall asleep at midnight, where and how we will spend this day. All that remains for us in this world is to make plans, but... but life always has its own plans for us, and often, its plans are in no way connected to ours... It's amazing! Now, at the end of my life's journey, I am thinking and reflecting on its beginning!... At the beginning of my life, I did not agree with the way of life and destiny that society, family, and prejudices deliberately imposed on me. I did not agree to my lot of knowing nothing, understanding nothing, and seeing nothing. I did not agree to become what everyone was, to become a grain of sand on the seashore or a tiny drop in the endless ocean—this fate was the fate of an intellectual commoner. No, of course, it had its own charms, but there was more tragedy in it. To become a spring that appeared out of nowhere in a lifeless desert is many times more honorable than to become part of the flow of a river—more honorable, first and foremost, for oneself...

Society! Prejudices! How laughable these words are in the face of death!... There is nothing society loves to create more than words that, in most cases, have a negative connotation towards the object they are given to... Words! Every day, society uses a countless number of words in its life—each time it invests new, different meanings into them. Given the possibilities of such a tool for achieving a result as a word, I, a ninety-year-old man, come to the conclusion that the word is humanity's best invention for all time, for with its help it is possible not only to create life, but, what is equally important, to destroy it, at least on the pages of books...

Books! They were the only passion in my life... they replaced everything else for me in this life—love, family... and life itself! On the pages of my books, I was everything and nothing—there I was the best orator in the world at the very moment when in reality I was not able to string two words together in society. However, I didn't need to... Throughout my life, I never consumed alcohol, and therefore it never trumpeted about love to girls in me. I lived my life alone. I am happy for this reason, because I was sincere not only with myself but also with other people—I deceived no one in their feelings and was not deceived myself. I did not scatter declarations of love and did not even give crumbs of them. While I was partly unhappy, I did not make other people unhappy, and that, in turn, is truly worth a lot...

But I wasn't always like this... I met many lovely women on my life's path, but none of them gave me a single chance to love them. They understood that I was too elevated for those feelings, and they were too mediocre. They did not allow me to love them because they considered me worse, but because they were well aware of my superiority over them. They did not allow me to love them so that I would not corrupt them, but so that they would not defile me... This was how it was in reality... But everything was completely different in my dreams... How many dreams I knew in this form of life—how many minutes of reality I laid on the altar of sleep. In this life, I was poisoned by dreams, and the most burdensome thing about this poisoning was the cure. After sleep, I was constantly in a state of intoxication, for my soul, having known true life outside the flesh, had a hard time reconciling with the sudden return to this pathetic and mortal human form...