The Living by Anna Starobinets Read Free Book Online Page B

darkness
cleo:
why that elephant?
ef:
i don’t know. i wasn’t feeling well
    He hurriedly
cancels
the elephant.
    cleo:
tell me, how did Zero die?
    I can physically feel his mistrust.
    ef:
why do you want to know?
cleo:
everyone wants to know. natural curiosity
ef:
you’re lying
cleo:
you’re insulting me
ef:
i can see right through you
cleo:
and what do you see?
ef:
a ray
cleo:
?
ef:
the directed leo-lot ray
    From surprise, almost as a reflex, I become inviz. As if an invisibility cloak will protect me… He smiles. He reaches out his hand and calmly feels my invisible face. He kisses me politely on the forehead with his mirrored lips, and silently, without saying goodbye, leaves
luxury
. I’m left alone. I feel fear pouring down me in icy streams, all over my body, and it’s like it’s coming from the place on my forehead which he touched with his lips. The Leo-Lot ray… He’s figured it out. Of course he’s figured it out. He is going to destroy me. Lock me up in a House of Correction until the end of time.
    Only in
luxury
can fear be so thrilling. Somewhere by my solar plexus the streams of fear get warm and pour down past my stomach in thick, hot waves… I decide to stay on in
luxury
for a little while to enjoy this feeling of fear.
    It’s not like I’ll get any pleasure from it when I’m out of
luxury
.

The Scientist
    Document No. 23 (leaseholder’s private entry) – access through SPO guest entry
    3rd September 451
A.V.
    Yesterday I visited the regional Farm with a group.
    I don’t like going out to the Farm. Two trips a year would be, I know, an unrealisable dream for most people, but personally I prefer working in the lab. I’ve never asked Lot if he likes it at the Farm: we rarely discuss things that aren’t directly connected to our project, but a few times I’ve noticed something in his expression, something… like disgust. So I think that he’s also less than thrilled about these trips.
    It’s all about fear. You can sense it from a few kilometres away, in your nostrils, in the pores of your skin and in your hair; the air is saturated with fear, like an electric shock, and there are no words to describe its nightmarish essence. The closer you get to the Farm, the more the fear thickens, until, finally, it turns into a warm stench cloud which is very easy to describe – the evaporated fumes of animal urine, animal blood and sweat… We wait by the gate in the wall. It’s made of concrete, four metres high and half a metre thick. I can’t imagine that any of the animals here would suddenly take it on themselves to try to get over this barrier – but nevertheless , according to the Farmer, there have been incidents where their instincts stopped working, and, as they tried to escape, cows and goats hit the wall, ramming into it on the run, again and again, until… until it was all over. So now as well as the wall they’ve installed an electromagnetic barrier too.
    We wait for the Farmer to let us in, he turns off the electromagnetic barrier for a short time and opens the gates.
    And lets us onto the domain of death. The domain of the mortal.
    Lot and I always tell the correctees that these visits are part of their nature therapy. Studying nature, contact with living creatures unlike ourselves is an ancient form of relaxation. An extremely effective method for persons with destructively criminal incodes: it helps them develop empathy for the weak. Promotes kind thoughts. Creates a good constructive background … That’s what we always say.
    But it’s all lies.
    In actual fact we bring the correctees to the Farm to arouse entirely different emotions in them. Persons with DCIV are often inclined to perceive an animal as a potential victim (which can be explained by the fact that the animals fundamentally behave like victims), which is to say, an animal is, in this case, a PIA – a potential incitement to aggression. We test the correctees for cruelty. We want to know to what extent the