CHAPTER 22. A GENIUS SCRIPT

April 22, 2021.

“So, tell me, Michel, how did a genius director of his time end up here, within the confines of a psychiatric hospital, and stoop to such actions... and deeds?” said an authentic servant of the cult of Hippocrates, dressed in a doctor's attire, with genuine interest. He was currently in the common room of a capital psychiatric hospital, facing a certain elderly man, who, in turn, was sitting at one of the tables before the aforementioned curiosity of the twenty-seven-year-old doctor: the elderly man's sparse gray hair was at that moment chaotically fluttering in all directions, even though the windows in this room were closed, unlike his equally gray, unkempt beard, whose substance was now in a state of stasis.

“Do you really want to know this, my dear Andrea?”

“I hope to hear something new this time: last time you told me that the employees of our hospital, as well as the police officers, were bribed by your enemies and rivals shortly before your arrival within our walls—bribed to confine your mind and your feelings in a straitjacket, because here you cannot create your best masterpieces... supposedly here your scripts will never see an Oscar... The therapeutic drugs that we administer to you forcibly, you did not wish to take voluntarily, because you believed that they were intentionally prescribed to you to destroy your genius and talent: moreover, you said that they deprive you of dreams and grant you darkness instead of dreams... In dreams, you were everything and no one... You regretted that dreams do not repeat themselves and do not have a continuation—in dreams you cannot rule forever and be poor forever: a dream is a small life... After these stories, you constantly convinced me that you are healthy and want to leave this medical institution... you convinced me to believe you and no longer feed you pills...”

“Enough words! I no longer need to lead you by the nose! I will die today—I feel it: my words are not another prank and you will now be convinced of it! Before death, I have nothing more to hide, and therefore I will open my soul to you, as if before a priest... I have sinned much in this world, by action or inaction, but I also did not sin quite a bit... How much I wanted to sob when I realized my thoughts and how exactly I sinned with them before the Lord God—I continuously asked the Almighty for forgiveness for all my thoughts and feelings that contradicted His natural, but not material, right and law... Throughout my life, in many things I acted as society wanted—I did not strive for the eternal, but for the temporary, because I was afraid of what people would think and say about me... that I would be despised if I did not have a family, a spouse, and children, that I would not ensure the continuation of my lineage... that I would not fit into this stereotype... you will lose all of this anyway and it will leave you sooner or later... no!.. not that a person doesn't need a family... it is needed!.. but if you yourself do not find the one who will sincerely agree to be with you, then... then that's how it should be... without the consent of the other side, all your desires are an empty sound!.. There are girls and women in this world... yes, they are beautiful, but what determines the degree of their beauty? Why does their beauty alone play a huge role? But the world is vast and beauty in its multiplicity is diverse... however, it often awakens by no means love, but passion, which has nothing in common with love and almost always leads to rash actions and vulgarity...

“The world is like this now... yes, I am not ashamed to say this, because before death it is not shameful to speak the truth: no one will punish you anymore, and if they do, what's the point?... Now the world is such that all processes in it, related to people and not only, are interpreted as is convenient for someone, while completely despising objective realities... Take even my love of youth... Alexandra... she rejected me then, but later, when she lost me, lost my presence and attention, she came to me with words that she was thus testing the strength of my feelings, testing me! You see what she turned a refusal to a poor and talented person into—a test of the feelings of a no less talented, but now rich, person! Nowadays the world is insincere, but still, true—before, in other eras, a human word meant something, it had a price: before, for an incorrectly spoken word, people were challenged to a duel and killed, executed, quartered, and now they utter words that are many times worse and do not bear any responsibility—to utter the word 'devil' before meant to find inevitable death, but now songs are composed about him, where they often glorify his deeds and nature... however, be that as it may, the past can never be returned to anyone—such attempts are a path to nowhere... You know, my dear Andrea, there, in the past, although there were no various technological amenities, toilets, and sinks, but there were the most genuine people—there, every person was a personality, dependent or not, that's another question... musketeers proved their bravery and strength with actions, not words, and won the favor of women not with the presence of palaces and horses, but with the beauty of their thoughts and feelings!.. back then people's words meant something... back then the word 'purity' was not associated in people's minds with the invention of soap—this word was associated with the word 'soul'... And as for soap... how are we to know, despite the fact that history is an exact science, whether they really didn't wash for days, or even months... we cannot claim that before the invention of soap, all people were dirty for millennia and only with its invention did they have the right to be called clean... perhaps they used herbs in their bathing that we know nothing about, but which were many times more effective than soap, and we think... as if they were dirty!.. History is an exact science! I am convinced of this! And you know why, Andrea? Not because I am saying this exactly on the day of the fiftieth anniversary of the presidential elections in Haiti—although, as a director, I can tell you that there was a truly brilliant script there—but because when you are alive, you know with accuracy to the second what you were doing at this or that time: sleeping, eating, doing nothing... Alexandra! Before I die, I will open my soul to you, Andrea! I was dependent on her! In this world, the one who comes first with a proposal or feels something is always dependent, because the right to choose a response always belongs to the other side... In the situation with Alexandra, she acted towards me from a position of power, but her mother, who was perfectly aware of the objective reality of the existing situation, was interested in me being with her daughter—in this situation, power was on my side! This is how complex everything is! But back then I was poor, destitute—Alexandra did not want to see me next to her, but I was talented—her mother wanted to see me next to her! Not being anyone special, she, at the same time, became special in my life—perhaps because, inspired by my feelings for her, I created my masterpiece 'Kaikos'? I became a great director, I shot a large number of immortal films, but not a single woman inspired and inspires me as she did... Alexandra! All her worldview was built on the material... she was not from nature, she was unnatural, because nature is indifferent to the material, it is interested only in sincere thoughts and feelings—a lioness does not care whether the lion has caves and food: she trusts his strength and knows that having nothing today, tomorrow he will get everything for her—she believes in him, in his instincts and in his strength! She does not call him poor—she sees today, tomorrow, and her whole life with him! She does not overestimate her value—she does not tell the lion that she is a queen and did not find herself on the street... This is how everything is in nature! And man... man spoils everything! He easily shows off what is sacred and sacral, personal relationships—what should exist exclusively for two out of eight billion... what should be closed from prying eyes... All this is now devalued—today's dialogue between a man and a woman sounds approximately like this: 'Well, let's do it?!' - 'Why not?! Let's go!'... Alexandra! I could introduce her, thanks to my fame and talent, to the best royal houses in this world, make a whole world bow at her feet, and sing her praises everywhere... and what about her? She said, after a while, that she would love me and we would bathe in love! Yes, she is charming, but there are millions of beautiful women like her who can easily say the exact same words to me. She is capable of nothing but empty, unsupported words and relatively maintaining her own beauty!.. Oh, what a world! In it, the price of a fashionable bag can be equivalent to the price of a dam that can save millions of lives in Africa—technologically, a dam is many times more effective and better thought out than that bag: in fact—they have the same price!.. They claim that they sell ideas: but why are some ideas valued at millions, while others are not worth a penny? Where do they come from? As a director, I will tell you, Andrea... Ideas do not always come through open doors of consciousness—they often knock for a long, languid time! The ability to open the door at the right time and place—that is the most important thing in creativity...”