It happened that dark afternoon, a misty November 2014. The orange lights of the local library were welcoming all sorts of ghosts. The smell of silence and paper calmed down the few of us who decided to escape the fog. I wasn’t looking for a specific book. Just jumped across the narratives: the ancient, the old, the new, straight through history in five big steps, and on the left you have religions, on the right comic books. And then, straight ahead, a massive wall: essayistic tomes that try to explain the world. Like a broken pixel on a white monitor, a small blue booklet stood out and drew me close enough to read its title. But the moment the first letter became recognisable, a hand touched my shoulder. So I froze and suddenly turned around. The man looked at me deeply in the eyes, but his frightened sight just went through my skull. His blue eyes were flickering beyond, before and after me. His Brit-pop mandala t-shirt was pumping out sweat. And he stuttered. He said something like: “hey, do you have a moment?” “Sure,” I said. “Are you alright?” He replied with a gesture as if to suggest going outside. So I followed him through the doors made of old wood and yellow glass. We sat under a porch but couldn’t see any further. The fog became wet, dark. He looked really distressed, you’d say sad and frightened, but without any trace of panic. His red face was still, his hands were shaking. I could have thought he was just crazy, you know? Would you blindly follow everyone in the dark? His eyes reassured me the moment I saw them. They gave me hope that someone wise used them to see something terrible. And then his encrusted lips opened once again. His voice felt like mist. He said: “This hyperobjectivity, it doesn’t come to mind It touches everything you have, you thought that you could hide It crosses ages from day one, since God was just a kid It passes through the Universe, from Pluto to Madrid You talk about it in your sleep, you read that it’s a lie You wonder when, how could it be? You’ll see it when you die Now brace yourself for what I’ll say, go home and tell your friends: All life will disappear again the world’s about to end” Na, nanana, na - na, nanana, na. La, lalala la, lalai, lalai, lala. Oh Timothy, Timothy spiegami perchè Il mondo sta morendo, io seduto ascolto te Mi spieghi della fine e canti di strane melodie Chiudendo gli occhi piangi e balli techno litanie. [Oh Timothy, Timothy, explain me why The world is dying and i’m sitting here listening to you You talk about the End and sing of strange melodies Closing your eyes you cry and dance techno lithanies]

We rang the bell A white gazelle She came to tell us That we’ve done well We asked five whys Addressed the skies She closed her eyes shut We grew up wise She thought we could (For sure we should) Have taken care of Her holy womb She trusted us kind For she was blind She’d never think that We’d fall behind Just look at such a lovely beast I wonder how good it could taste Her skin as soft as mothers’ breasts Give us a sip and leave the rest Just look at such a lovely beast I wonder how good it could taste Her skin as soft as mothers’ breasts Give us a sip and leave the rest, come here! So down we went The miasmic scent Our thirst and hunger For all things bent We tried to bite She stood upright A blast of light stroke Our eyes went white Don’t run away you stupid beast Why won’t you just give us a taste Your skin and blood won’t be a waste Don’t run away you stupid beast Why won’t you just give us a taste Your skin and blood won’t be a waste! She waved goodbye We yelled and cried The youngest whispered “You won’t survive” She kissed farewell Our nations fell And through the ashes Another bell She waved goodbye We yelled and cried The youngest whispered “You won’t survive” She kissed farewell Our nations fell And through the ashes Another bell

Here’s a quote from Slaughterhouse n°5, a book about the present, a book I really like. “Why me? Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?” Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, Trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why, there is no problem Lingering on this endless process. With lots of doubts, and lots of promises Here we are again Like a young trilobite whose fossil won’t tell If it truly was made to sustain all that hell Like a dinosaur skull who thinks of itself Suspended between lime and mud and dirty clam shells Like Ötzi the iceman, whose expression won't change Like a badly stuffed saber-toothed, so frozen in rage Like hand silhouettes who slap the bare rock You growl and you swear to wear out the shock Like rules made of clay in the British museum Each cut is an action that stretches through eons Like paintings and jewels, aligned for devotion A glass case constrains their spellbinding potion Like capitals and columns, wood thresholds and bricks Like tourist resort islands, that float upon sticks Like anything that neatly piles up derelicts You’re part of a giant mega hyper structure but probably just a quick fix Why me, why you, why anything, that’s true Why me, why you, why anything, that’s true Why me, why you, why anything, that’s true Why me, why you, why anything, no clue That’s true Like photos of players all perfectly aligned In albums of stickers whose blanks are to find Each pack of new faces sealed up undefined Its complete collection belongs to a mastermind Like queens in a deck that hope to hold hands Like domino tiles that aim to push back Like a pawn in its black square, all proud in defence You cheer and rejoy for what could come next Like Heisenberg said, he wasn’t that sure, The moment you look at it, you make it impure Position, momentum, will hide and endure Your intrinsic qualities are something obscure Like atoms and bosons so fast but quite still They don’t have a clue their host’s mentally ill As part of a giant slug without living will His memories are looping like a water mill Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, Trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why, there is no problem Lingering on this endless process. With lots of doubts, and lots of promises Here we are again.

And the space-ship hits full speed smoke free All the pines wave gently through the breeze And the neighbours switch to channel twenty-ninety-three When she leaves her pretty garden Richtung Pleiades And the vultures croak songs for our Lynn As she feels the light that slowly dims When she falls into a black hole that goes on repeat And the Earth resets its bones, its nerves, its pale old skin

In the beginning, They said it was as big as a washing machine, With a big blue star on it. Lots of lines, lots of angles. In the beginning that machine fell where your great great great grandmothers would then build their golf club, but you can’t remember that. In the beginning that fall didn’t do any damage, you know? Well, back then that crush couldn’t harm anyone really. Even if it crashed hard and loud. There was no fire. There was no sound. Only a big grey cloud of dust. Nobody saw or heard anything. Back then we couldn’t see or hear or even breathe. The story of the falling machine became then an old chant your great great great grandmother taught us. More or less it goes like this: In the beginning there was no air We weren’t there That big grey cloud of dust that grew for days, well A silent fanfare In the beginning there was no sound Grey slopes, caved mounds And that little thing that crawled out without a scratch, hell Had us spellbound Well, many of them actually. “Hundreds and hundreds” they taught us. And they crawled together, they ate together, they ate each other. Until their hunger devoured the horizon. At the end of the beginning they became the horizon. When your great great great grandparents first touched the ground, they didn’t notice anything special. After all, we had been there only once, ages ago and no one remembers much about it. Long story short we really don’t know how it all started. Anyways, in the beginning when your great great great grandparents arrived, a silver smooth surface covered their entire view. The machine that crashed was still there. It looked like an altar. Still as big as a washing machine. And then the surface started to breathe. Those creatures swallowed your great great great grandparents. They swallowed them through their mouths as big as craters. Inside their bodies there was air and water and plenty of living excrement. You might feel horrified by the idea. But they said that it was the moment we found our place. And your great great great grandmother used to sing: It’s been a very long time since something ate us A long long time since something ate us A very long time since something ate us A long long time since something ate us And it felt good, it felt safe. Those beasts didn’t do it on purpose of course. We became part of their life-preserving routine. We were part of their biological process, without the need to be swiftly decomposed for their survival. We never understood why there was no catastrophe. We needed a catastrophe. We always do. Your great great great grandparents had no clue inside of those enormous beings; as they witnessed their own lives simply moving on in linear, unspectacular mediocrity, meaningful interpretations became obsolete. We might blatantly say they just accepted being shit. They had time to sing: It’s been a very long time since something ate us a long long time since something ate us a very long time since something ate us a long long time since something ate us It’s been a very long time since something ate us a long long time since something ate us a very very long time something ate us And hell, it just feels great [Undistinguishable voices complimenting each other] And inside those indifferent giants the old generations indifferently thrived. There came the bars, the dance clubs, the golf clubs, the swinger clubs, the moon clubs. Our clubs floated with their matter and we wanted to homage those creatures. We really wanted them to acknowledge our presence. We’re here! Hear us clubbing and thank you! Their enormous indifference towards what was inside them made us think they possessed a superior form of kindness: godly, other-wordly. We thought they were gentle. We thought they were smiling at us. But they wouldn’t care ‘Cause they couldn’t care, oh They couldn’t care ‘Cause they wouldn’t care, yeah It’s been a very very long time since something ate us, we should say that. The last time must have been at least 3000 years ago, maybe a little longer, maybe a little shorter.