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]