The Living by Anna Starobinets Read Free Book Online Page A

He wants to swap roles: not be the torturer, but the victim. He wants to feel what it’s like for me, sick bastard.
    Subject: chain letter
You want a dog. A real, living dog in first layer. Follow Zero, and animals will love you like they love him

!warning! this may be spam
mark this message as spam?
yes no
    I form the Wastes – I don’t manage to reproduce it absolutely accurately, I can see myself that certain details are missing, but overall it’s the same. He looks around with interest, he likes his new role. I say ‘wait’ and leave him there for a thousand days.
    Where does he normally go when he leaves me here alone? I don’t know; personally, I
create
a fantastic little house for myself with a swimming pool on the roof. And there on the roof I install a telescope pointed at the Wastes of Solitude… I lie in the water, my arms and legs thrown out like a starfish. Hundreds of ticklish streams envelop me like cold, restless tentacles. I enjoy the touch of these tentacles. I enjoy the sensation of weightlessness. And I like the fact that I have a hostage. From time to time I get out of the water and observe him through the telescope.
    He’s sitting on the ground, his head in his hands, rocking slightly from side to side. He looks despondent. He doesn’t try to change anything, or cancel it or reconfigure it… I enjoy the feeling of power. I like keeping him there. I say to myself: it’s not like I’ve got a cruel streak. Far from it. I’m full of mercy, like any part of the Living. It’s just that
luxury
is designed to excite my pleasure centres.
    On day three I get bored and I just wind forward a couple of weeks – just for me – hoping to discover some interesting shifts in the Wastes. I look through the telescope: what I see exceeds my expectations. The Wastes are not there anymore; in their place is a river with muddy banks overgrown with brown shrubs. Ef is sitting by the river, leaning back on some sort of dark formless heap which I can’t make out. He holds his face in his hands, something about it has changed, but for the first few seconds I can’t figure out what. Then I realise – his pale skin is showing through his fingers. He’s taken off his mask. For the first time in all this time he’s taken off his bloody mask.
    I cancel my little house with the swimming pool and the telescope. I delete the thousand-day waiting period. I can’t missthis. I go up to him, squat down next him, and carefully take his hands from his face.
    He doesn’t resist. His face is the face of a child, but it’s changing constantly. He seems like a twelve-year-old boy, then an eighteen-year-old girl, then a complete baby. He has full, disconsolate lips and eyes the colour of bitter chocolate. He’s crying.
    I suddenly see what the shapeless heap he’s leaning against is. The body of an elephant. The elephant is not alive. The beads of tears have frozen in his dull amber eyes.
    You get the feeling that Ef is weeping for this unliving elephant. You get the feeling that he can’t control his metamorphoses . The only thing which doesn’t change in his face is the expression of grief. He’s whimpering quietly and inconsolably , almost to the point of tears. His shoulders are shaking. They’re so broad, they don’t fit at all with his swollen, fluctuating child’s face.
    Something’s wrong with
luxury
. I don’t feel any pleasure anymore. I feel like I’m hurting a child’s feelings.
    I say to him,
    cleo:
ef, what is it, ef, calm down!
    His chocolate eyes open wide, and he looks at me in shock: it seems like he’s only just noticed that he’s not alone anymore. His face freezes – somewhere between eight and twelve, then rapidly starts to mature, simultaneously becoming overgrown with that familiar mirrored encrustation.
    ef:
you left me here on my own
cleo:
you’ve done that to me lots of times
ef:
awful feelings. i was scared like when i was a kid.
like i was of the five seconds of