I destroyed the surface of the Earth, allegorically and instantaneously, ( I could not stand   anything else) in order to create my own paradise. 

  I put the protoplasts in it; I put the tree of knowledge; but Fear, I left out.

 …And there was god!

                     25 century

Chapter 1 

Part 1 

     The PRESIDENT and founder of the research had only one passion, technology. Fifty-two scientists worked for him and they shared three things in common. They were top in their fields, they had passion with their work and they had no families, so they could be undistracted in their investigation. It was not just a research Center; it was a shelter too, huge and equipped with supplies and materials; in case of war, it could support them for a decade. They called it Oneiroupolis, (Dreamtown) because it was the ideal place for every researcher to pursue even his or her wildest vision, uninhibited from the reactions of society.

The President also funded the research in the field of the accelerators. He made friends that he took “care” of and made them promise that, one week before the first experiment, they would let him know so that he, too, could be present in this great moment. So he told them, but the truth was different.

The President asked his people at Oneiroupolis whether the accelerator experiments were dangerous. He got a negative answer and some ironic glances. But he was not appeased. Although a person with no limits or barriers, he though that this was not so with nature. What would happen to the accelerator in case of a mistake? The President feared it would be something bad.

Survival in the Center came in two scenarios

ONEIROUPOLIS 1: In this case the war was predicted to be short. Scientists and auxiliary personnel would remain and the President would have guests, personalities who later, would repay this hospitality in many ways.

ONEIROUPOLIS 2: Long-term war. Only the scientists, allotted also all functional works of the Center, would remain. The President would have no guests, since he did not care for anybody that much as wanting to save them. Together with the security foreman and the three armed bodyguards, there would remain 57 persons, among whom 12 women.

 Each year, the President ordered DRILL: Oneiroupolis 2 and the Center went out of its steady beat. When he came to inspect, he always found something to correct and the person responsible of the omission or the mistake did not have time either to rectify or to repeat the mistake. He or she would leave at once.

It was around noon in his group of companies which secured funds for Oneiroupolis, when he received a phone call from the director of the accelerator center announcing that on Thursday, the day before Christmas, at 10.00, the first experiment was to take place. The President said “thanks, I’ll try to be there”, hang up the receiver and took a deep breath. He nodded at the bodyguard, who was the best driver of his helicopter, to get it ready and then called the security foreman at the Center.

- ONEIROUPOLIS 2, he said.

- You said ONEIROUPOLIS 2, sir?

- Exactly.

- Sorry to insist, but is it not DRILL: ONEIROUPOLIS 2?

- No.

They remained silent for some seconds and the President hung up the receiver. He called his secretary, informed her that he was to leave and told her to transfer all his appointments after the holidays. He made his way to the elevator accompanied by his two bodyguards without casting a glance at the personnel working. They arrived at the Base almost before the fresh supplies and materials came in. This surprised the scientists, since he always gave them 12 hours’ start before making his appearance.

Until Monday, when he made his inspection, he hadn’t lost his temper once. Even when the sound of a fly disrupted the deadly silence in the kitchen, the President looked at the responsible veterinarian and did not say “you are fired’ but “fix it”. Everybody was pleasantly surprised with the President and thought he had become more human, except for the security foreman who understood there was no time for replacements.

On Wednesday morning he synchronized Oneiroupolis time with that of the accelerators center and asked if everything proceeded according to schedule. He told them he would try to come and went for a ride in town. Before they stepped into the limo to return, a gamin run to them trying to sell his merchandise. He looked at all of them and stopped in front of the President. His eyes betrayed his cleverness and his bones his hunger. Someone said that, if you save a human being you save humanity. With this, so rare for him, romantic thought, the President made a nod and the boy was hauled into the car.

-What is your name? He asked the boy when they took off.

- P.U., and tell this muscle to take his hands off me or… I will spit him

The President laughed and wondered how long it was since the last time he had a real laugh.

-What does P.U. stand for?

-Whatever suits me! Hey, don’t tell me you are some kind of perverts and….

- Oh no, don’t worry. Perverts go with perverts and it is obvious that you are a man.

-You bet…. glowed the boy and made himself more comfortable.

It was a good thing he had taken the boy with him; everybody has a faithful pet. He would have P.U.

They entered the concrete-reinforced garage and the door closed behind them. They left the luxurious car, climbed into the mini-bus and made their way to the elevator platform.

After a few meters of descent, there was a soft sound and it became darker. P.U. looked up from the window and saw a partition isolating them from the surface. Five more times there came the same sound and P.U. asked “but, where are we going?”

- You shall see… said the President.

And so he did. The prettiest woman he had ever seen, 25-year-old Psychologist, slightly built Miss Mary... The 12-year old boy fell instantly in love with her and vowed in his mind to marry her.

Oneiroupolis was sealed that night. The President stepped into the “capsule”, took pills and fell into a deep sleep. He was awakened at 10.05 in the morning by the Environmentalist who told him that a few minutes ago the instruments had detected radiation and high thermal activity. Since that moment, they had no contact, no information from the world overhead.

- How long did it last?

- Only some hundredths of a second. [1]

- And Oneiroupolis?

- Everything functions perfectly, said the security foreman.

- That’s good; he answered and turned the intercom off.

P.U. grew up to be a handsome youth. He ate like a wolf but his bones still showed because he was all dash and nerve. He was the only cheerful person in there because he had a place to stay, lots of food, the President’s protection and sympathy, a lot of friends - and Mary!

He was the boy for every job; he helped whoever asked him, receiving knowledge in return. He learned about plants, mathematics and physics, anatomy and pathology, he made experiments in the chemistry lab, he cooked for everybody and came to be the fastest on the computer. And, before dropping into a sleep resembling death, he studied history and art.

 Mary came to worry about his mental health and, in one of their weekly five-minute interviews; she asked him why he did all this.

 - I like learning new things; he answered, and guiltily looked away from her Spanish eyes, because he was not telling her the whole truth. He was 13 years younger than her, 20 than the youngest man. Some day, he might inherit humanity and its culture. He had to become worthy of it.

 He woke up with his left arm aching. The ice-cold water bottle touched his shoulder while he was asleep and now the muscles were giving him an acute pain. He thought he’d ask the General physician-apothecary for a muscle relaxant shot and, since he’d be going that way, to return the book about the life of Alexander the Great. In the library there was Konstantin, the Russian biologist and U.P.  felt a little nervous at his sight because Konstantin was very serious, about 45, respected even by the President and with no secondary duties. Mary did not interview him; on the contrary, it was she that confided in him her fears and nightmares because she felt that Konstantin was the impersonation of kindness, serenity and wisdom.

DIALOG 1.  BREATHING

- What are you reading? P.U asked

- Pythagoras, said Konstantin, with a voice you had to be careful to hear. You?

- The life of Alexander the Great, answered P.U little triumphantly.

- It’s clear you are thrilled about it; what did you like the most?

- Mmm…. The fact that he was daring and undefeatable!

With an imaginary sword, P.U distributed sword strikes around, killed invisible enemies and threw down some chairs, to Konstantin’s amusement. At the best of his performance he moaned and stood still.

- What’s the matter?

- My arm is aching, the muscles are cramped…. I hate shots but now I’ll have to…

- Come here; we may be able to avoid that.

P.U. sat next to the biologist and looked at him with interest.

- Do you know what mouth to mouth resuscitation is?

-Sure, we open up the mouth of someone who’s fainted and we breathe air in.

- What kind of air?

-We breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide

-Does it not impress you? Why does a person live by breathing oxygen but recovers with carbon dioxide?

-Well, now that you mention it, it does impress me. Why is that so? Asked P.U and his eyes glowed.

- I’ll tell you. Has it ever happened to you to take deep breaths and get dizzy?

-Mmm, yes, said the boy and blushed. At Miss Mary’s birthday I was blowing up balloons and got a little dizzy.

-OK! Now tell me, what is oxidation?

-Rusting of metals.

-And which gas is responsible for that?

-Oxygen!

-So? What do you make of all this?

P.U looked at him pensively.

-If oxygen is bad for metals, it should be worse for man, for every living thing… I find this hard and unfair… that we should live in an environment that kills us… and, after all, how did life develop in a hostile environment?

-That’s a reasonable thing to ask. But could it be that the environment, the atmosphere, were not like this when life appeared?

 P.U made his way to the encyclopedia shelves. He delved into the books for quite some time and came back smiling.

- It was not like today. Judging from the composition of rocks found in Swaziland, dating 3, 5 billion years, it appears and the atmosphere was very poor in oxygen but rich in carbon dioxide. Life appeared under different conditions than today. I know that plants were the first to appear, so large quantities of carbon dioxide were not hostile but the perfect environment for them.

- Exactly. Consuming carbon dioxide, the plants released oxygen, thus changing atmospheric composition. We ended up having so little CO2 and so much oxygen, leading to oxidation and sickness. Have you ever wondered what sickness is?

-Hmmm! It’s a condition in which our organism doesn’t function right.

- And why does it not function right? Why is your arm not functioning as it should be?

- Because I was foolish enough to let ice-cold water in contact with it and I got muscle soreness.

Konstantin smiled.

- If we substitute the word “foolish”, what would you say you did?

- Say…. I made a mistake.

- So, what does this make sickness?

- A mistake! We make mistakes and get sick.

- And what if we don’t make mistakes?

- If we don’t make mistakes, we don’t get sick.

- Right so! Said Konstantin emphatically.

P.U looked up, astonished.

- So, if we did no mistakes, we wouldn’t get sick… ever?

- It follows, doesn’t it?

-Then how would we die? Being healthy?

- Is death obligatory?

P.U looked at him dumfounded. He held his breath while what the biologist had said sank in.

- What do you mean? He muttered. We might not die? Remain immortal?

- Probably, but how can we know if we make mistakes and get sick!

 - But, has there never been a healthy human being?

- Has there ever been a piece of iron that remained rust free?

- Ah! So can’t we do anything about it?

- We can. We can control our breath. Take good notice, in order for the blood to be able to circulate in our organism, to reach all capillary vases, these but be open. Carbon dioxide is an insoluble gas; when it’s there in the right proportion, it keeps vases open and blood can circulate. Deep breaths expel carbon dioxide, so vases are restricted and we faint. That’s why you felt dizzy when blowing up the balloons. Let’s make an experiment.  After exhaling, a healthy person can resist for a minute before inhaling again. Let’s see how long you can resist.

- You mean, I inhale, exhale and then try to not take a breath again until I…. burst?

-Exactly

P.U. took a deep breath but the biologist stopped him.

 - Not a deep breath. You will inhale and exhale normally and you will use only your nose; you won’t take air through your mouth.

- Ok, I got it, said the boy cheerfully and looked at the clock on the opposite wall.

When the seconds hand reached 12 he clenched his nose. Before long his body twitched for lack of oxygen; he unclenched his nose and took a deep breath. He looked at Konstantin a little disillusioned.

- Very well. 42 seconds.

- But you said that a healthy person can hold the breath for a minute.

- Don’t worry, you’ll get better. Now try to repeat what you did before and, after the deep breath you will inhale and exhale normally four more times so breathing gets back to its normal rhythm. Then, you do the “pause” again. I want you to repeat the whole process of breathing in, breathing out and “pause” five times. You will close your eyes and concentrate in what you do; only at the fifth “pause” you can check the seconds and see if you got better. Now show me where it is that you feel pain.

- P.U. touched his arm to show the exact point.

- It’s here that the pain is concentrated.

- Good, I will be touching here and you concentrate yourself in the process. OK, if you are ready, off you go.

 P.U. Made himself more comfortable on his chair closed his eyes and concentrated himself. When he clenched his nose, the biologists touched his arm at the point he’d indicated. At the fifth “pause” P.U. opened his eyes and looked at the clock.

- 48 seconds, he announced out of breath. I got better but now I want to pee.

He went to the man’s room and when he stepped out he stood by the door. He moved his arm inquisitively and looked puzzled at Konstantin.

- The pain is gone.

- Good! You won’t have to have the shot.

- But… what was it? While you were touching me, I felt my arm hot, a burning sensation!

- That was a short version of Buteyko’s method [2], the first step towards healthiness, replied the scientist smiling.

U.P. took some steps pensively and then looked at the older man.

- The short version you said…. So what’s the full version like?

- Shallow breathing, that is taking shallow breaths for twenty minutes or more; don’t forget that every deep inhaling of oxygen oxidizes you. In the first ten minute span you‘ll have to take some deep breaths as well, but then you’ll realize that you can do fine with these shallow ones.

- And that’s the first step. Are there many more?

- The road is long… if you care to learn.

-I want to learn, said the boy with intensity. He sat on his chair and grasped his head nervously. I feel strange, as if I were to discover the world, as if I were born just now...

- Then you should choose your name, said Konstantin gently.    If you feel newly born, you have the right to choose a name for yourself.

 U.P. took the biologist’s glass of water and tipped it ceremoniously upon his head.

- In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, I name myself Alexander.

- Well, Alexander, what you just did is significant.

- That I named myself Alexander? He asked, rearranging his wet hair.

- Baptizing yourself with water.

- Why?

- Water has the property to hold information [3]. Let’s say we have a group of persons in a room, and they talk insensibly. And one more group of persons, in another room, have a logical conversation. In both rooms there is a bucket of water. If we freeze both buckets, the ice of the first group is irregular while the ice of the second one is uniform.

-You don’t say! said the boy impressed. He was looking right at Konstantin’s eyes and his brain was working. Can water hold a prayer too, as information?

-Bravo Alexander! Said the man gratified. Indeed, water can hold prayer, too, as information.

- We had a logical conversation, the water in your glass got the information and I threw it on myself. Water in a church also takes the information of prayer and becomes holy water. So when someone drinks it or sprinkles it on oneself, one gets the information, in other words the prayer itself.

-That’s right. Now think that our body is by 80% water. How positive thinking is healing! That’s enough, though, let’s stop here; we said so many things and it is better that you thought them over and let them “sink in”.

- Konstantin, that was the best conversation I had in my whole life; can we talk again tomorrow?

- We’ll talk…

- Can we talk every day?

Konstantin saw the boy’s thirst to learn in his eyes ….

- We can…. We’ll talk about a model that contains everything, every topic humans wonder about; sometimes we will give a solution, documenting it, and sometimes we’ll express an opinion, an opinion we can hold as long as it seems logical.

- But, Konstantin, how do you know all these things? How do you know it is so?

- How did Democritus know about the atom? How did he end up knowing that something he could not see existed? The road is one, Alexander, imagination and logic. Imagination is necessary for a question to be set and logic for the answer to be given. A Philosopher arrives to a conclusion and two thousand years later, science comes to prove that he was right.

DIALOG 2.  BEING, ROLES

The next afternoon, Alexander walked into the library and sat on the same chair. In a while Konstantin appeared, smiled and sat down facing him. Alexander noticed the man’s clothes, realizing that for three years now, since he first met him, he wore the same attire, his medical apron and a black flannel pair of pants. Temperature in Oneiroupolis was steady at 15 grades Celsius and Konstantin surely wore lighter clothes than anybody else.

- Konstantin, I’ve noticed you dress lighter than anybody else in Oneiroupolis. Don’t you feel cold?

 - No…. Alexander, have you noticed whether animals get colds?

The youth lowered his eyes on the table thinking about Konstantin’s question.

- No, I don’t know of any animal getting a cold. Maybe they are cold, but this mustn’t be so annoying for them as to make them sick. It is as if they are not cold. Why is that so? Why do humans get a cold while animals do not?

- Let’s consider a human and a dog. When a cub ceases to be a cub, can it survive by itself?

- Yes

- So the dog, from the moment it ceases to be a cub, “is” a dog; it is the expression of a complete program which can function perfectly and doesn’t need to get better. Now let’s consider a human. Does a child, from the moment it ceases to be a child become a human? Say, can it survive by itself?

- It can. I have been alone most of the time since I was 6.

- How did you manage to survive?

 - It wasn’t easy. I learned to protect myself and avoid tricky businesses. I understood there were times to remain invisible and times to vindicate things.

-You “understood”! This is what distinguished you from other boys your age so you survived; you understood more than they did. So here we have a boy beginning to understand on his way to becoming a Human being. But who is a Human being? What is a Human? It’s the spiritual entity that loves and cares about humanity and the planet. Civilization is not knowledge and technology. Civilization is to be good, useful and kind to fellow human beings. So every child that ceases to be a child should become such a Human being. Were people around you such human beings?

- Are you kidding? I was abandoned by my own parents. What do you think P.U. means? Parents Unknown.

He spoke with such anger and disgust that Konstantin instinctively moved away from him.  They remained silent for a while, then Konstantin leaned towards the youth again.

- Do you want us to discuss it?

-No, no! Konstantin, please go on with your discussion, just keep in mind that the people I knew were not Human with a capital H.

-So, here we have a difference. The dog, once it ceases to be a cub, “is” a dog. The child must become a Human, but iτ becomes a human with a small h instead, it’s like the child remains in a constant adolescence. An animal “is”, a human must “become”. Do you understand the difference?

-I understand it….

-So man simply doesn’t understand and, although he doesn’t have the necessary logic, he does not draw an example from the animal which “is”, which functions by the instinct nature gave it. Why doesn’t an animal be cold? Because it has mechanisms to cope with cold. Why does man get cold, Alexander? [4]

-Is it because he wears clothes? Asked Alexander startled.

-How can the fighting mechanism get activated if he wears clothes? Alexander, if clothes were necessary for his survival, he would have been born with them. He wasn’t born with clothes, but with a mechanism that makes him cope with weather conditions.

Alexander took off the jacket he was wearing over his T-shirt.

 -What should I do?

-You will throw cold water on your body, several times a day.

 Alexander remained silent for a while.

-But, Konstantin, if the animal is a complete program and does not need to get better, how have we arrived at the Human being? How is the man the evolution of an animal which does not evolve?

-What do you think?

-I think that Man is not the evolution of an animal, that he is something else, separate, different, doing different things than animals

-For example?

-Man can create a skyscraper…

-Have you ever seen a bird’s nest? Do you think they need anything else?

-I understand, animals do and have exactly what they need… Animals “are”

He stayed pensive for a while.

-Humans think while animals don’t.

- What’s the use of thinking when doing the right thing comes by instinct? An animal has all the thought it needs

- That’s right; we already said an animal “is” complete. In what does a human differ from an animal, Konstantin?

- In the pursued issue.     

- Meaning?

- The pursue for a man is not to die, for an animal it is to find food.

- Ah! This seems right, I like it….

- Be careful, though. An animal becomes food for another animal. It can be eaten at any time or it might suddenly die. Man, too, while not being in the food chain, could personally become food, say, to a bigger animal, or might also come to a sudden death. The issue for him is to determine his death. If he cannot control the area so that nothing bad happens to him, if he cannot personally control the time of his death, in other words if he is not successful in making his pursue come true, then he does not differ from the animal. And, since at any moment he might probably die, he is a living dead. And since he dies while wanting to live, he does not die but he is killed….

Alexander shuddered at the thought that a big animal might grasp him just out of the blue.

- Controlling its own death is not the issue for an animal?

- No, there is no sheep nervous with the thought of death. It does not imagine death. It smells the wolf and its instinct tells it to run away and save itself, but death does not preoccupy it.

- How can we tell that this is so?

- If death did preoccupy a sheep, it would have tried to exit from the food chain!

- Ah! Right…. Controlling death is the pursue for a man and that’s the difference between him and an animal…. Yes. It seems logical, right…. But, Konstantin, animals have developed! Scientists have seen this fact, it is clear from their skeletons…  If they are complete, why did they develop?

  -All animals are one animal [5] under different form; they express a role, the role of the animal. All plants, too, are one and they also have their role. Man has a specific role, too.

-I don’t grasp it.

-Pay attention, Alexander, this is important. There is nothing useless in nature. Whatever appears is useful in something, it does something, it has a role. The same thing cannot have two roles, since this would confound it; say, it would not know what to do first. Do you accept this?

-Yes, it seems logical.

-Everything around us is a frequency, it transmits a frequency; colors, sounds, rocks, you, everything are frequencies. Now what does a frequency do? Take for example television. The TV antenna receives a frequency, decodes it so that it’s transformed in image and sound. This frequency carries, has, thousands of pieces of information. So a frequency carries information. Do you understand that?

-Yes…

-When we observe something, a result, it is logical for us to think that something brought it about, that there must be a mechanism which enters into action so that this “something” occurs. For example, we notice high tide; this is the result of a Law, in other words we have the Law first and then the result. Understandable?

-Yes…

-Every Law, every Rule, is a frequency transporting information everywhere. Life is the result of a Law which expresses itself in a frequency and this frequency exists in all Universe. When it slows down somewhere, on a mountain of a planet, and encounters stable environmental conditions, proper conditions as magnetism, humidity, temperature, the information is decoded as it happens with the antenna, and life appears. Pay attention, Alexander. Life appeared, first came the plants and then, to clear plants up by eating them, there came animals. So we have the activation of the Law of Life and the appearance of the Plant. The need of the Plant triggered the role and the appearance of the Animal. Then some other need triggered the appearance of Man. What was that need? What is the role of Man? To speak more generically, what does Intellect do in the Universe?

Alexander, the Universe abounds with various frequencies. Some of them are beneficial for the cell and some are not, it cannot bear them. High frequency radiation of some billion Hz, due to the huge energy they transport, can break-up the DNA of the cells and cause cancers. They are disastrous for life.

 Carbon in the atmosphere, as a crystal, can reflect this dangerous cosmic radiation. However it began to wane, consequently there was need of someone who could filtrate cosmic radiation; there was need, so to speak, of someone to protect the planet…. Imagine now, particles of the dangerous radiation have a size A. What do you think could inhibit them, block them? Bigger particles or smaller ones?

- Mmm! Bigger ones…

- No, smaller particles are needed; bigger particles they can pass between, smaller inhibit them. Some researchers have said that the particle of thought is as small as 10 to the -43. They did not encounter it in the lab since they couldn’t build a machine to detect something so tiny; they arrived at it by mathematics.

So wherever life appears but there is not enough carbon or some other element to protect the planet from cosmic radiation, creatures with the capability to think appear. That’s how we arrive at the appearance of Man.

Those Men were Spheres of Intellect; spheres because this is the most energy-saving form; they wrapped the planet with the frequencies they emitted, creating a protective umbrella and covering it from dangerous radiation. Plants, however, continued consuming CO2; conditions changed and the spheres gradually changed too, materializing, taking forms and then bodies. Continuous reduction of carbon dioxide made the existence of more Men necessary. Instead of more Spheres coming down, it was more economic for the spheres to change.

In order to survive, every system needs a mechanism of defense. That’s how some Humans underwent a small hormone transformation, changed and women appeared. Women came in intercourse with Men, so boys and girls were born. We have two different roles. The role of the woman as defensive mechanism is to give birth to children, and the role of man is to do what he did when he was in the condition of Sphere, to protect the planet by thinking.  Based on this distinction, Alexander, when we’ll refer to “men” in our conversations, we’ll actually mean men and not generally humans; whenever we’ll refer to women, we’ll specify it. So, by arriving at simple conclusions, we make a protective umbrella. You have to think in order to get an apple. Nature gets the thought and you get the apple.

Let’s summarize then.

In the Universe there are Laws.

One such Law is the Law of Life.

The information of Life, as a frequency, expresses itself when found in the proper environment, and life appears.

Appearing forms of Life acquire a role.

Konstantin remained silent, giving Alexander time to think

-Did you get that?

-Yes, but…

-You need time to digest it! So let’s take a break.

Alexander went into the plant area and sat under the olive tree. It was something he often did when he wanted to be by himself. He liked Konstantin’s story. The existence of Life in the Universe was accepted as an idea by the whole scientific community and, independently of what they said, he could not imagine a Universe containing life and not being alive, consequently life must be a condition, must be a law…. Yes, Konstantin’s image, the Laws, the Roles, satisfied him more. He thought he might have found the person who’d answer satisfactorily the question he felt needed an answer more than anything else.

DIALOG 3.  GOD, CREATION OF THE WORLD

-Konstantin, does God exist?

-But you baptized yourself in the name of the Holy Trinity.

-I wanted to confer solemnity, I didn’t know what to say... I don’t know whether God exists or not, I don’t know what to believe….

-Then you need to understand whether he exists or not .

-Ah! Yes Konstantin, you said the right word, I want to understand, believing or not has no… sense; faith falters but, if I’m able to understand, I won’t wonder again! Konstantin, society may make thousands of mistakes, but children are not to blame, so shy doesn’t God help at least children, why should children have cancer? This confounds people preventing them from accepting the idea of God… “Since God doesn’t help children, God does not exist”, they say…

-Alexander, after the question “is there God”, we must wonder “what is God like?”

-Indeed

-If we give an answer that satisfies us logically, then shall we accept that God exists?

-I don’t see how it can satisfy us logically! We were told that god is omnipotent, omniscient, and so on and so forth, but this does not satisfy me… logically! Why should I accept it, maybe take your word for it? First you should prove to me that God exists!

-The answer that might satisfy you, could maybe have to do with the question “what is God”?

-What God is… Yes, this approach is different, it satisfies me more, completely I could say! What is God, Konstantin?

- Now pay attention Alexander. Energy does not disappear. Man, as an observer, observes around him the existence of motion, light and warmth, which is energy expressing itself as motion, light and warmth. It’s logical to say that these are a result, and somewhere else there must be energy expressing itself in lack of motion, darkness and cold. What energy has the properties of lack of motion? That, on which equal and opposite forces are exercised.

Konstantin     took a white sheet of paper, a pencil and an eraser;   made a gesture and showed it to Alexander.

-Yes, I get that.

-However, there is a possibility that parts of this motion escapes, so that we have a clockwise or anticlockwise spin free.

-Yes….

-Imagine many spins, turning to right or left, some of them attracting each other and forming particles. In other words we have the appearance of matter.

-Ah!

-Electric current is the motion of particles. People ignite fire by rubbing together two pieces of wood; it is the motion of particles. So, if motion is warmth what is immobility?

-Cold?

-Immobility practically means absence of particles. What is absence of particles?

-The vacuum?

-Let’s say we have an empty utensil. It looks empty, but there are particles moving in it. Say, a hundred particles. We can take away 80 of them, so 20 remain… But when we arrive at one particle, which is the absolute vacuum, absolute immobility and absolute cold, at -273 Celsius grades, we have the appearance of particles, a spontaneous appearance of sub-matter.

-Oh! You mean matter appears from nowhere, from nothing; in other words nothing doesn’t exist, there will always appear something…

-That’s right, Alexander, what people perceive as Nothing is Everything, is the Cold… Be careful now. We have the appearance of sub-matter. Two particles tend to unite or ran away from each other; what brings stability is the third one. Those 3 particles will be the closest to each other, and not the most remote. We have the appearance of two Laws. The Law of Attraction and the Law of Economy. The appearance of matter has triggered the appearance of Laws and Rules by which matter functions. A system was created, a chain of actions that had the capability to realize and resolve problems,

-But this is like an algorithm!

-Exactly. This algorithm is God…

The shocked look on the youth’s face made Konstantin stop short.

-I never imagined god as an old man with a white beard up on the clouds; my imagination went towards something airy, immaterial, that could all the same “see” and help children. Nothing as impersonal as this… God is an algorithm!? He repeated the phrase in a whisper, as if trying it out.

-God helps him who shall ask, not for himself but for others, and the help is expressed in difficulties. It is not enough that he be innocent, harmless. He must have done good. In the same way that a baby cannot imagine orgies, God cannot “see” anything different from Him. He cannot “see” children. Pay attention. Alexander, each Law is expressed in frequencies. There are thousands of Laws; every logical conclusion of man is subject to some Law. All these frequencies have, let’s say, a resultant, one Law. God is the Law of Laws.

Alexander stood silent for a while.

-You mean that, from the Cold, matter was created and matter organized itself giving rise to God…. Does this mean Cold is the father of God?

- Yes, you could put it like this. The space of God, Harmony, compared with Cold is, so to say, a drop in the ocean. When a move escapes, it has infinite speed and zero mass. As long as it slows down, something is created. These subatomic particles from the Cold are in chaotic motion; they enter Chaos if we care to put it so, existing there for some time. When they acquire enough mass, they are organized in Harmony. Like a comet that used to wander in a chaotic motion and then was organized, captured in a steady course.

 - I don’t like the idea of God-algorithm, but it has logic. Say, about comets, I could not understand how God allowed that a comet fell wiping out most of the life in the dinosaurs’ era. Now I understand that he could not control it, that it was not yet in His area, in Harmony as you call it. And why He doesn’t help children, because He cannot see…. I must rethink everything with this model…. How everything bonds together. It satisfies my logic but not my emotions.

He remained silent for a while and then smiled.

-God is the Law of Laws, this I liked best.

Konstantin smiled but said nothing. He gave the boy time to recover from the shock and assimilate things.

He suddenly burst out laughing.

- I remember a phrase of our Keeper. “If man is the image and similitude of God, then God must be a drinker and a gambler…”
Alexander leaned on the back of the chair and stretched himself.

-So, Konstantin, shall we go on with the next question, about the soul? These two make a pair: “does God exist?” “does the soul exist?”

-Don’t you want us to take a break?

-No! I want to understand.

DIALOG 4.  SOUL, JESUS

-What is the soul?

-What is the software in a computer?

-The software? Asked Alexander startled. It is an integrated and independent ensemble of commands that is used for the execution of a specific work… He repeated the phrase slowly in a whisper. That must be the soul! He said triumphantly. I like it, I understand it! How does the soul enter the body?

-The soul, the “software” of the soul, is a Law existing everywhere and the cell also is a Law existing everywhere. When they encounter appropriate conditions, they are decoded and expressed; thus soul and cell appear.

-I understand that the “software” of the cell must be expressed right when the sperm meets the ovule, but when is the “software” of the soul expressed? At conception?

-No, the “software” of the soul is a total of information with the characteristics of man. Let’s say that they begin “downloading” after it is certain that the specific embryo will survive, more or less from the sixth month onwards. When the child reaches 2 years of age, then it is complete and the scull on top of the head closes.

-What do you mean by characteristics of man?

-His potentialities becoming capabilities. Potentialities for emotions, for thought and reason; and conscience, too, a filter that protects him from big mistakes. A baby, say, picks up a rattle and is happy about it, so the potentiality for emotions he had is triggered; it sees little toys hanging over his bed and these become the cause that triggers the potentiality of thought, when the baby wonders “what is this”? May I ask you something, too?        

- Whatever you want, replied the boy cheerfully.

- When is a man born, Alexander?

 - You said that when the embryo exits its mothers’ body then we have the appearance of man. But to become Man, a man must “understand”, acquire Spirit. A Man is Born when he acquires Spirit.

- You need not say “you said” if you agree in something, if you accept it as logical. So which is this decisive moment? Which is the decisive “I understood” for Man’s Birth?

-I don’t know…. Which is it, Konstantin?

-How is the software in a computer activated? When you get a new computer, how do you start its function?

-I don’t know. All computers here were already functioning when I came.

-The company that created the initial software gives some code numbers, you write them on the computer and so recognition and activation takes place. It is the same with the Spirit.

-Meaning?

-The Spirit is born when man recognizes God.

Alexander stopped asking. He needed some time to think.

- Now I understand the difference between the Soul and the Spirit. Plants and animals, too, have Soul, that is a specific “software”. But only Man can have Spirit. This could explain why Christ, on the cross, said “I commit my Spirit”.

- Do you accept the existence of Christ?

- Now that I understand the existence of God… He suddenly stopped, his eyelids flattered. It’s amazing but I don’t wonder whether God exists, I understand that God exists.

He leaned his arms on the table, his head on them and slept.

Konstantin looked at him with tenderness and smiled, took his beloved Pythagoras and opened a page at random. After a while Alexander woke up, stretched himself and looked at Konstantin.

-Is there reincarnation?

-In order for a Law of Palingenesis to exist, a Law of Genesis must precede. Isn’t it superfluous, since Birth covers, so to say, the need?

-But, Konstantin, they say that, in a state of hypnosis, people remember previous lives. How can this happen?

-Alexander, imagine the Soul as a cd with specific software that can’t be written over, can’t be altered. People talk about psychological problems, they say this person has “psychological” problems. If psyche had psychological problems, then God would have them too. What happens is that man loses touch with his soul, or loses touch with his conscience; in effect there is no conscienceless person but rather one that has wounded their own relation with their conscience. The soul is released upon the death of a person and is like a drop returning to the ocean. The same drop could re-program, be reborn like a coin that enters a pocket, then exits and goes to someone else’s pocket. But this is all. Alexander, it is Life, not the life of each one that has value. Mind you, this is important. The brain is a tool that will either transmit thought or receive thought. If you don’t programme, others will programme you. During hypnosis you relax, you leave your brain to the disposal of the programmer; you can accept whatever he tells you.

People confuse this property of the brain and think they’ve lived other lives. It’s just that people’s thoughts exist, energy-wise, in space. A person with, say, a phobia about water, when in a condition of no-thought, can tune in with another phobia, with another thought of a person who lived thousand years before. So he thinks he lived then.

-Konstantin, isn’t it fair that people should have a second chance? Those who have not met and listened to the great masters, say Pythagoras or Jesus, isn’t it fair for them that they should have a second chance?

-They could love. If they did not hear the Right thus to be saved, they could have loved and through love reach givingness and salvation!

Alexander once again felt admiration for his teacher and kept silent for a while.

-Was Jesus like the Man, a sphere of Cognition?

-Man was a sphere of cognition with a specific goal, he descended as protector of the planet in order to transform. Jesus came to speak for the Right.

-Konstantin, if men understood and applied his teaching, the Right, shouldn’t they be healthy? Doesn’t illness prove that they didn’t understand?

-Well thought, Alexander! Indeed, if people understood and practiced his teaching, they should be healthy.

-Will he come down again?

-There is no need for it, his Word exists, the Right exists, it’s up to men to understand it…. Science investigates and finds the right, Alexander, what remains is for the pieces to unit

-Konstantin, sometimes it seems that Jesus gave somewhat conflicting answers. Why is that so?

-The teacher has the right not to answer to a question, but he is responsible for the answer, for how comprehensible it will be, how much the other person will be able to stand it.

-Ah! So it is! In other words, he addressed people of different mind-levels. Maybe he didn’t say everything either...

-Why should he have come if he were not to say everything? No, his teaching was complete. Pay attention, Alexander. In Nature there is only the Right, whatever is different from the Right is wrong. People often think as Right what’s wrong. They apply laws, adopt behaviors which sometimes are right and at other times wrong. What is socially right isn’t always the Right, on the contrary, the Right only seldom coincides with the socially right. For example, the idea that motion is beneficial, is both Right and socially right. Jesus said, “Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them”. This isn’t the Right, I mustn’t do whatever I desire for others to do to me, because I am not the measure of the world. But let me explain to you why he said that. At a time in which “an eye for an eye” was the established law, the Right “love your enemy” was unthinkable. So Jesus said the socially right thing, do what you desire others to do to you. This is already a huge progress from “an eye for an eye” that is still practiced toady. Even at our times, it is a great spiritual development to do whatever you desire others to do to you. The Right “love your enemy ” has still not become understood, let alone practiced.

-I understand what you say, about me not being the measure of the world; practically, just to make an example, I may like pepper but many others don’t, so when I cook I am careful with it so everybody can eat.

-Right, said Konstantin with a smile. Alexander, what does the phrase “love your enemy ” mean?

-Well, what it says, to love your enemy. Hmm! Maybe we should define the enemy…

-Jesus made a spiritual war, so the enemy in on a spiritual level; it has to do with contrasting points of view. The war is to prove what is right using logic, the arms are logical arguments. In this way you can have war, dissidence with somebody but love them, not seek their physical extermination. When people arrive at making war, at physical extermination, they are in a state of dementia, they are obsessed by the “spirit of wrong”… They had better leave…

-I see. And when Jesus took the whip, he did not kill, he did not seek physical extermination; and at the end he forgave them all. Konstantin, what is the value of forgiveness?

-Mmm! Alexander, when a man forgives a person that has harmed him, it’s the forgiver who feels good, feels peace. For the other person nothing changes, he doesn’t learn or rectify anything. But has the Spiritual Man, the one that has reached what we could call a higher level, has he the right to forgive an enemy when he sees one? Who then would fight the opposing spirit? God forgives all, and he does that because children are born all the time; that’s how Jesus could forgive. But the Spiritual Man who sees the opposite spirit has to fight it; there is no one else to do that, he hasn’t the right to forgive.

-Oh! Is this why “God loves the thief as well as the master of the house”, Konstantin? Because the thief, too, can give birth to a child, in other words someone else that can do the Right?

-Yes, for this reason too, but also because the thief, by thinking, takes part in the protective umbrella; he can arrive to logical conclusions as much as the master can.

-Ah! Then he might love the thief more, since, in his effort to steal, he thinks more, said the boy laughing.

Konstantin laughed and moved his finger meaningfully.

-Do you see how much the truth liberates? Could you have laughed with this before?

-No, indeed not…. Konstantin, is a prayer to God different than a prayer to Jesus?

-Imagine God as Light. A Light looking towards the earth. What does it see?

-Darkness, I guess?

-That’s right. The Light can see only light. Man must be spiritually bright for God to see. That’s why it’s better to address one’s prayer to Jesus. He will intervene to God.

-What should a man say in his prayer, Konstantin?

-Whatever he needs to say.

-I’ve come to realize we exist through others, so I can say that a prayer about the others will be more heard. What should we ask for others?

-What should a man ask in his prayers, Alexander, having in mind that the Law of Action and Reaction always functions, retorted the Biologist.

-Health and Peace?

-There will be war and everybody will be ill.

-If you ask for peace and health there will be war and illness? stammered Alexander confounded.

-Exactly.

His shock was big.

-But why?

-In order for peace to reign on earth, all contrasts, differences and hatred must first be relieved. There will be war in order for peace to follow.

-I cannot stomach it…. And what about the wish for health?

-A healthy man is not one who hasn’t fallen ill yet, but one who has been ill and managed to cure himself.

They remained silent for some time; at the end Alexander sighed.

- That’s why they say that Lord works in strange ways.

- Pay attention, Alexander. Since you appeared involuntarily, let’s say that Lord is obliged to help you if you asked for help. How much help would he give you? Can you express it in a percentage?

Alexander sank in thought.

-I believe he’d help me at least by 50%.

-No, you are not entitled to 50%.  You are entitled to 49%. It is necessary that you try a little more. Equal help gradually makes you end up in inertia and inertia in death. You’ll always take help that is a little less than the effort you yourself will make.

DIALOG 5. PARADISE , HELL, NEMESIS

-Konstantin, does Paradise exist?

-The Universe works by Laws and Rules. There is no point in investigating whether they are good or bad, just or unjust, since we don’t have the power to change them. Laws are Laws and it’s in our best interest to comprehend them and adjust to them. Comprehending them and harmonizing with them is good for us. On the contrary, ignorance or trespassing of the Laws will be bad for us. So Man, depending on whether he has comprehended the Laws or not, can think right and act right, can think wrong and make mistakes, or he can simply not think and not do anything. You understand that there must be some reaction, some result, for these three cases. What religion says is logical: if you do good, you deserve paradise. If you do evil, you must have corresponding consequences, let’s call them hell. And, if you don’t do anything, you are still entitled to paradise.

-Why so? Why be entitled to paradise if you do nothing? And how can one do nothing?

-Imagine a house on fire. You can do good by helping to extinguish the fire, you can do wrong by throwing gas but you can also not take part at all. Let’s say that God loves so much, that he rewards even the fact that you have not done evil although you could have.

-What is Paradise and Hell, Konstantin? I mean, what does the spirit experience there?

-Man has an energetic subsistence. He continues to exist as energy even after his death. He does not disappear easily, he may exist even for hundreds of years as a swirl that keeps revolving until it becomes a dot and disappears. When a man has not made mistakes, has not disturbed but tried to do right, he has positive thought, positive energy. This positive energy is compatible with the Laws, with universal Harmony, with the space of God. Wrong thought is incompatible, it’s negative. When an evil man dies and gets liberated into the positive Energy, his swirl undergoes an electrical storm; the more evil, the more wrong he has been, the stronger the storm will be. The bigger his “ego” in life, the longer the storm will last.

Pay attention, Alexander, in these situations, in paradise and hell, a man doesn’t have awareness of himself. He does not have his consciousness or, more simply, he doesn’t have his name because he has done nothing great to keep it. Only the man who manages to arrive to Immortality will take his name with him…. Imagine sleep. A sleeping person may laugh, feel euphoria, love, all these without self consciousness. Or he may feel agony, fear, stress, again without being self-conscious. Death resembles sleep, Alexander, one can feel eternal joy or eternal panic…

Alexander stood silent for a while.

-At least I’ll manage to avoid Hell…. He said, talking mostly to himself.

-It depends on you. It’s you who may draw away from the right, creating the intensity in the storm of your Hell.

-I don’t understand, Konstantin. How can we say that God is love and at the same time create hell?

-Your observation is right, logic can’t accept this. But pay attention, Alexander. The Law of Attraction and the Law of Economy are primary Laws in the Universe. Eros and Love, the two sovereign emotions of man, are expressions of the two laws. Eros stems from Attraction and Love from Economy, since with Love more persons become one.

-Oh! Said Alexander, impressed.

-So, comprehending the laws, you must behave accordingly. I will give you an example. You see a river flow. There are rules about how you can move over the river and, if you apply them, you will travel safely. There are no rules for you to go contrary to the flow; if you try it, you will either sink or not travel. You will bear the consequences, if you break the law. Can you understand this?

-Yes…

-God is Laws, he is not… anti-laws as well. In the example I made, God exists in the law which defines the motion in accordance with the flow of the river; there is no anti-law for motion contrary to the flow. If you go according to the river, according to the laws, this is good for you, if you go the opposite way, that will be bad for you. So God does not punish, he didn’t make hell, he hasn’t got anti-laws to go with your insanity, with your mistakes; it is you who draw away from the right; you punish yourself; you create your own hell.

-I get it, God didn’t create hell but, Konstantin, I don’t like this idea of paradise, the idea of people who loved each other not being together….

-Alexander, in order for them to be “together”, each one should perceive his or herself, which means that they should carry their memories with them. Do you imagine a mother who’s left her children behind, how calm she could be?

-You’re right… Konstantin, are your parents dead?

-Yes.

-Do you miss them?

-I try not to feel so.

-Why?

-Imagine a bird in a cage….

-I can imagine that. Alexander interrupted him with a grimace. The bird has wings and they put it in a cage… It has wings to fly,  so how  can one imprison it?

-The spirit is a bird in a cage. When the man dies, it is released. The pain of his dearest ones for his loss resembles a rope tied on the leg of the bird that shakes it impeding it to fly. Your pain keeps you tied with the spirit and since you cannot resurrect it, you follow it.

-If heavens would open and your mother would appear, what would you say to her, Konstantin?

- Nothing. I would run into her arms.

Alexander lowered his eyes; he was touched; he could not decide whether he was lucky not to ever have experienced this loss.

-But Konstantin, it is impossible not to think about your beloved dead…

-Think of them with gratitude, only gratitude can affect their spirit, give them good dreams…

-OK, God did not create hell, it is every man that creates their own hell, this I understand, I find it logical, but then who made the devil?

 -Man, by thinking, transmits waves. The more his certainty about what he “understands”, the longer the waves last. He may be sure about something right but also about something wrong. His wrong thoughts also have a duration and they coordinate, they acquire dynamics, become an algorithm. This is the evil, the adverse spirit, the devil.

-Oh! So man has created the devil, too…

-His mistakes, the wrong thoughts, became the wrong spirit that tries to erase whatever opposes it, in other words positive thinking, the right but also the source transmitting it, that is the man who thinks right.

-How can one oppose the devil?

- For the devil not to be able to “see” you, you must get better every day. Let’s say the devil has “seen” a person X. If X makes a logical conclusion, then it’s X+1, a different person, another man. Every conclusion gets you on a higher level, you find  yourself in another space, you break forth, you are at the front. Careful, Alexander. The whole manhood is in the space of devil, in the space of wrong. So, say, the devil does not have to hunt down anyone personally. If someone manages to exit, this doesn’t preoccupy the devil. His opposition appears if the liberated person tries to make an offer, to liberate someone else, too. Lower than the grass you must be, very humble, in order not to make a personal enemy of the devil.

- Konstantin, can the devil work miracles? They used to tell us he did supernatural things!

-First of all, there is no discrimination in natural, supernatural and metaphysical things, all are one. It is a totality but, the less one understands the Laws, the more subtotals one creates. Miracles are made by men, by the power of their thought; being the smallest part of matter, thought can intervene and produce a change. If man really believes in it, or understands how it works, the result is the same whether he tunes in with  god or with the devil. Everyone can work miracles, as Jesus did, so man shouldn’t be so impressed with them.

 - What was wonderful in Jesus were not his miracles, but his Word. “Love your enemy ”. This is a miracle to think of, a miracle to put into action.

-Even by this alone we can realize that Jesus was not a man; no man could think of loving his enemy .

-So, if he was not a man ?

-He was God… Konstantin, how can I earn paradise?

-You must realize the law of action – reaction. Each action entails a reaction of equal quantity and quality. Man does not belong to another sphere, he is also subjected to this law. If you do good, you will receive good.  But it is you who must act first; in order to get, you shall give first; first comes the action and then the reaction. Look how simple it is, Alexander. Mothers, in every part of the earth, at all times, when asked what kind of child they’d like to have, say “a good person”. No one ever said she wanted to give birth to a bad person. Nature, God, speaks through the mother. What does she want a good child for? So that it does good. Good is what really matters for a person to do. In reality, a man’s worth is his  worth for the others.

-Konstantin, I realize there is no “punishment” law, but what is that we call “nemesis”?

-There is a difference between making a mistake and being consciously evil. Let’s say that when a man does not know what the Right is, it is a natural consequence for him to make a mistake. But when he is being consciously evil, then this must stop.  This person stands in line for self-rejection, but for nature it’s not important if he “goes” now or in 5 years. The evil, however, must stop now. Look, Alexander. When someone kills, he is put to jail. But is this a punishment? His life goes on, it is probable he’ll exit jail and it is also probable that he kills again. If, instead of him, his child were to go to jail, the ache of his soul would be his punishment. After a while the child would become accustomed to the life in jail, but he would ache the whole time through and he should certainly not think of killing again. Nature works in a somewhat similar way. Man practices pieces of viciousness and mistakes but he is not consciously evil. He who consciously does evil, triggers the mechanism for the interruption of this action. God does not see him personally, but sees his relationship with his beloved, the source that nurtures him, that gives him liveliness, and this source is cut off. If the action is a murder, the reaction it will provoke will be centered on the source nurturing him: if he lives though his child then the rejection is centered there, causing his beloved to be punished.

- I find it hard, that someone else should get punished for something I do.

- You’ re looking at it emotionally, you should see it through logic.

- 

- 

- 

-ewHe

- Yes, I understand it, I understand that in this way someone might be stopped from doing evil again, provided of course he understands how the Law works. Hmm… Well, I guess it is perceived, since everybody knows the saying about the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children. But why do they say that God disciplines  those he loves?

-There may be someone you know, whom you believe to be a good man and hold in high esteem; seeing various sufferings befall him, you can’t explain how a good man is so harassed. So people say that “God sends sufferings to those he loves”, but does this seem logical to you? A man is born with a “yeast” of conscience. This “yeast”, this basic purity protects him from big mistakes; it controls him until he reaches a high level. A man who has succeeded in retaining the purity of his soul is a challenge for the devil. He tries to get him, to win him over, thus creating problems, adversities, punishing him.

Life is enough of a struggle. It doesn’t need the interference of God to make it more difficult, so it’s not logical to say that God harasses whom he loves. It is more fitting to say that God “punishes” a consciously evil person and Devil a good one…

DIALOG 6.   DEMONIC POSSESSION, SPIRITUAL MAN, OVERPOPULATIONΝ.

-Konstantin, what is a person possessed by demons? What happens in this condition, why does a man passes from being well to doing crazy things in a minute?

-In the Universe, Alexander, Laws are specific, absolute. A person that has certainty is likewise absolute; this certainty is transmitted from his brain to the space surrounding him.

Konstantin drew the paper  and sketched  a gesture.

-It does not spread indefinitely, it covers a space around him that’s a sphere. This is his energetic body and in order that nothing “intrudes” in it, he must be thinking; if you don’t program yourself someone else will program you.

When a man dies, he continues to exist energetically. So we might say that someone who was evil is still around somewhere. If a man has no certainty, no logic, he might receive such energy.

-Ah! Is that how he gets possessed?

-We could say he gets viruses.

-And how could be healed?

-By repenting. Sincere repentance, when he is in his right mind, of course, entails humiliation; the “ego” subsides, the energetic body opens up and thus the demon, the virus, can go. The way used by the church is also effective,  an exorcist’s certainty and prayer can clean him, and so can water; he should sleep by a river, near clean and running water; water can clean the energetic body.

-And rain?

-Rain too, but we have invented the umbrella.

-I want to be a good person, Konstantin, I want to become Man but I don’t know the Right and so I can’t do good. What is the good a Spiritual Man must do, how should he act?

Konstantin sketched a form.

  

-Man is born with feelings, emotions and capability of thought. If a child of, say, three years, touches something hot, it won’t touch it again. Through its mistakes, it begins to learn, to find the Right. Initially it might make 9 mistakes and get one thing right. Then 8 mistakes and 2 right things. It draws away from and then returns to the axis of the Right. First it must understand what health is,

so that it manages to hold its health in its hands but also in order to have a logical axis. The contrary would be like saying that one can provide the right solution to a problem of mankind without knowing what one should eat! If a man doesn’t complete the auto-therapy, he can’t understand more complicated things nor manage to put them into action. On a second level he carries on what he has understood, he helps other people cure themselves.

It’s here that he becomes a Man; it’s here that he is born. From then on he must understand the relations of human beings, all the problems that come from the fact that the roles of man and woman have not been comprehended yet. At the end he concerns himself with the problems of mankind.

-Konstantin, we don’t know what exactly is going on up on the surface; maybe our equipment simply broke down, so it might be that we are confined all this time here for nothing, or that there has been a small… or big disaster… We agreed not to talk about it and go out after five years have passed… but all the same I’d like to know your opinion about what may be going on…

-No, Alexander, let’s not talk about it.

-Ok, so let’s resume our talk as if nothing has changed out there, and talk about the problems of mankind.

-One of the biggest problems of mankind is overpopulation. We have arrived at 7 billion!!! Look, Alexander, the planet is determinate; it has determinate space, determinate ground and determinate sea. This means that the number of those it can feed is also determinate, meaning there must be a limit. Limits are there between the animals, since one eats the other. Between men, however, there is a very serious problem. Unemployment in the world is around 13% and it will go up. These people need to be fed.

If we admit that each person is allowed one euro per day for food and shelter, there’s need of 910 millions every day. What global economy, which global bank can stand a situation like this? Half of the world population is concentrated in towns. The rest must work, must produce food for themselves but also for the inhabitants of the towns. Food must be transported, put in warehouses, sold, and there must be a profit, too, since, with no profit, rural population will not embark upon the trouble to produce food for those living in towns but only for themselves. As the population goes higher, in order for the corresponding food and profit to exist, the quality of the food will drop.

This situation of overpopulation stems from the absence of intellectual pleasure. It shows a folly, craziness for sex.

-What you are saying is horrible, I hadn’t thought about it at all… Konstantin, is there a solution?

- There must be a strict control of births, high criteria in order for someone to have descendants. When deciding an adoption, a heap of formalities is needed, papers, credentials testifying that the couple is mentally sane, economically fit, and they have pieces of property to leave the child. Ten or fifteen couples apply and one of them adopts. Why shouldn’t the same apply for our own children?

- That’s how it should be done, agreed Alexander fervently. There wouldn’t be so many abandoned children if there was strict control…. Konstantin, what is the population limit, what determines it?

- The water, the circle of water on the surface of the earth. Where there is a river, a lake, a water source, there can be a community. But we don’t have the right to pierce the earth to get water; it does not belong to us, it belongs to future generations.

Alexander looked at the points of the triangle   Konstantin had sketched.  He thought with awe that Konstantin’s brain hovered over the problems of mankind and tried to find solutions… That he might help him! Maybe he’d help a little with his questions, compelling him  in documenting, thus seeing the problem and the solution more clearly.

-Konstantin, could we say that the Spiritual Man has need of an assistant?

-Yes, he needs the Rich Man.

-The rich man? Asked Alexander confounded.

-Each man is entitled to know what the Right is. Each man must “understand” and, if he “understands”, he’ll do the right thing. What the Spiritual Man can do for mankind is to awaken it, that’s why his word must be heard. That’s where the Rich Man will help. Now I’ll ask you in what way, Alexander.

The young man reflected for a while.

-If he builds hospitals health won’t improve because the mistakes will be repeated. In order for him to help so that the Spiritual Man be heard, he must build schools, say, Philosophical Schools where the Right will be taught.

-Exactly. He’ll save people but he himself will also be saved since he will receive the benefit of Philosophy.

-But will he do it, Konstantin? Why should he spend his beautiful money?

-He‘ll do it if he is Rich, say, Very rich If he is plain rich he won’t.

-Why?

-As a rich man, your concern is to cover your own needs. As Very Rich you don’t have needs, you want to cover other people’ needs. It is an inclination.  It’s a joy. You give a coin to a poor and you are glad all day long. That’s why wealth must be concentrated in the hands of few. Say, in the hands of 5 people. In order for the problems of mankind to be solved, nearly all the wealth is needed… Let me ask you one more thing. When will the Spiritual Man leave?

- Leave?

-Yes, when will he say “I am not needed here any more”.

Alexander looked at him pensively.

-The work of the Spiritual Man is to talk. So he’ll leave when he’ll cease talking, when he’ll have nothing more to say.

-And when would that be?

-…. When there will be no more questions?

-That’s right, said Konstantin smiling.

Alexander smiled too, satisfied.

-Ah! Konstantin, might this be why Jesus asked God to “let this cup pass” from him? As a teacher, he felt there were questions.

-Yes, that’s logical.

DIALOG 7. IMMORTALITY.

-What is immortality, Konstantin?

-Man cannot imagine Immortality. What happens is that he doesn’t want to die. Philosophy concerns the research of the Right; the philosopher formulates questions. He forms an image in his mind and tries to find the way to explain and fulfill what seems logical to him. You, then, as a philosopher, what question would you formulate about this matter?

-Konstantin, before starting our conversations, I wouldn’t have posed any question, because in my mind this was a closed matter. If you can see that “everything living dies” what further question would you ask?

-In fact, having in mind that everything living dies, people don’t make any question about it; they cannot imagine non-death and they can’t find a way to obtain it.

-Yes, that might be happening….

-Let’s start the questions that could carry us further. If we ask “must everything living also die” does this question open the road to investigation?

-To me it seems harmonious that something should have a beginning, a middle and an end. So, I would answer “yes, whatever lives must die”.

-And in this way you wouldn’t think of enquiring further. What if the question were “must that which gives life die”?

-Ah! To this question I would answer “no, that which gives life must not die, it must live”.

-So we made the right question. And the answer that satisfies us logically, opens the road to investigation. We won’t be thinking of immortality, but of non-death.

-OK.

-Have you understood what hell is?

-Yes, it’s the situation that corresponds to a man who did evil.

-Good! And paradise?

-It’s for the people who did no evil and who did good whenever they could.

-What is the maximum good that a person could do to another person?

-Give him immortality?

-But how could he give something that he can’t even imagine? Asked Konstantin smiling.

-How then? I said a silly thing!

-Think again, plainly and logically. I am asking you again. What is the maximum good that a person could do to another person?

-I’ll say what people usually mention or wish. “Health is foremost”.

-That’s right. It is the biggest good a person could do to another, give him health, show him how he can be healthy. If now he gives health to five people, to 100 people, to a thousand people, isn’t it fair that his rewards be bigger than if he helped one person?

-Yes, that’s fair.

-And what if he manages to give health to, say, the whole humankind, shouldn’t his rewards be still bigger?

-Certainly.

-Could you imagine a bigger good than this?

-Well, if he manages to give health to the whole mankind, there is no bigger good.

-Oh but there is. To create conditions of health for future generations.

-Oh! Right.

 -Could you think of a bigger good than this?

-No, certainly not. There is no bigger good than this.

-So this person who’s done the biggest good, who’s cared for the health, in other words the life of others, isn’t he entitled to the greatest good, to Live?

-Oh! Yes, he is entitled to Life!

-Then he dies, that is he changes state. His body changes form, releases its molecules, their binding, disappears. And after he has lived his life for others, he is now entitled to live for himself. He becomes, in a way, God’s collaborator. He can do as he pleases, be reborn as many times as he wants. He becomes god but not the God.

Alexander remained silent for a while, enjoying the idea of the man-god.

-What prevented man from reaching immortality, Konstantin?

-If a man can understand one thing, he can understand everything. However, this takes time. When he gets ill he cannot think, he is all absorbed in finding a solution to his problem. The right breathing was found recently and so, if he has assured his health, he’ll have the time to understand everything; it follows that now man can reach immortality.

-But, Konstantin, hasn’t there ever been a healthy man?

-Alexander, health is not the aim. One is healthy for oneself; giving to the others is the aim. When you are healthy you can have to time to understand this and practice giving.

-And how can health be obtained in practical terms for the whole human species and for future generations?

-It is very simple. By having the breathing method be taught at schools.

-It’s really simple.

DIALOG 8.  CHOICE, AXIS OF THE EARTH.

-Konstantin, why does the brain react in the same way towards the good and the evil? Wouldn’t it be safer if it were harder for someone to acquire a bad habit?

The biologist smiled

-If this were  the case, there would be no freedom of thought.

-Ah!

-However, the fact one can think freely does not mean one has free will.

-What do you mean?

-If we accept that man has a Role, then he has no choice, he must act according to his Role. Let’s say that man “appears” but as a child he has no choice, he obeys his parents. As his body grows, let’s say up to 30, he lives in a period of grace in which he begins to understand what is right, making 9 things wrong and 1 right, 8 things wrong and two right. From the age of 30 onwards he must do the right thing. If he does not, he enters into the process of rejection, his time begins to tick, that’s why time begins to show on him.

-Oh, I get that; it is like what happens with a doctor. As long as he is a student, we don’t put claims on him, but from the moment he declares himself  a doctor, the patient demands that he be a good one… But, Konstantin, since man must ultimately do what’s right, why isn’t he born having inherently, as a program, only the right?

-You mean that he should be wise. Alexander, for nature, a wise man is the most useless thing.

-Why, asked the young man shocked.

-Man must have freedom of thought. His thought is the frequency required by the planet in order for the protective umbrella to exist. For as many years as he thinks and finds the right, he is useful. If he arrives to understanding everything, that is if he becomes wise, he won’t enter the process of thinking; he’ll be the most useless being in nature!

-Konstantin, what are the consequences of wrong thoughts?

-Wrong thinking leaves holes in the umbrella; the earth could explode, or the axis of the earth could change?    

-What does that mean?

-Have you seen a top swirl?

-Sure!

-It swirls around itself and at the same time it makes a circle around an imaginary point.

-Yes….

-In its path around this imaginary point, its axis changes and while, say, it had been swirling with an inclination towards the center of the circle, it swirls with an inclination outwards.

-Indeed…

-Imagine the earth instead of the top. What consequences would this move have?

-Undoubtedly disastrous.

-Exactly, we would have large displacement of water. Only high mountaintops, over 6,000 meters would remain unscathed. Whatever were on them could be safe. Researchers have found that axis displacement has already occurred three times in the past. It is a natural phenomenon occurring every 24,000 years or so. However it can happen earlier if men do not act their role, which is if they don’ transform. Radiation which kills the cells is chaos, and chaos can’t be put under control, so for the earth to survive, those who are not needed for the process of survival will be destroyed in order for those remaining to do what it takes.

-I get it; it is as if the earth threw us off her back…and it wouldn’t be unfair, said Alexander and sighed. Konstantin, might cataclysms transmitted in narrations be due to this displacement of axis of the earth?

-Indeed they might.

-I’ve always wondered about this selective rescue offered by god to Deucalion, to Noah…

-Fossils of sea organisms found on mountains prove that the displacement of the axis of the earth has already occurred three times. If the axis starts to move slowly, here will be a critical point in which the volume of the water will abruptly force it to a larger movement. This would result in waves up to 3000 m high and in torrential rain. If we leave theological things out, could one foresee the forthcoming cataclysm? A good and clever observer could deduce it by logic. It is known that our ancestors built temples with specific points from where they could see for example the sunrise at solstices. Even the slightest displacement of the earth axis would make the sun and the stars appear at a different point. So the clever and attentive observer could deduce that the sun and the moon were coming down on his head and would build a shelter; or that something was wrong with the earth and he would build a ship.

-Ah! That seems logical…

DIALOG 9. ENLIGHTENMENT, ECSTASY.

-Konstantin, since man must think, and he must think right,  could we say that those who try to practice non-thought are kind of not liked by God?

-Alexander, what’s desired here is certainty, the waves our brains transmit in a state of certainty. One may be certain even about something wrong; those waves are equally useful. It’s just that something wrong will be proven wrong and be discarded, while the waves of right are forever. In oriental philosophies they use contemplation to arrive at non-thought so that, by not thinking, they manage not to make mistakes. By not thinking you avoid mistakes, you are saved from hell but you cannot reach immortality.

-I find it very strange, Konstantin, how and why they arrived at not thinking; what could the gain be? In order to resolve one’s own problem one must think…

-Meditation, logically, must have appeared in the first human societies. Imagine a group of primitives trying to survive. In the whole group one is more skilful; he is accepted and recognized as the leader. Now all the problems of the group are transferred to him, it’s he that must find their solution. It’s natural for a man who wants to think to isolate himself. So imagine this primitive chief somewhere on a mountain, alone, him, nature and his problem. You’ll have noticed that, when you think very hard about something, you lose yourself for a few seconds….

-Yes…

-You’ll have noticed that, sometimes, ideas come to you as if they were not yours, as if they came from somewhere else…

-Indeed, sometimes I’ve felt as if something arrived from above…  

-The same happened to the primitive chief. By thinking about his problem, he lost himself in non-thought and then the idea, the solution came. It happened by accident but, since it was successful, they started to practice it deliberately. Laws as frequencies are everywhere in space and carry all the information. By not thinking you open up your brain to accept the specific information you need. (15) You get enlightenment.

 - Konstantin, is non-thought related with fire-walking? I’ve read it’s a timeless and global phenomenon. How come that people walking on burning coal don’t get burnt?

- Indeed; it has also been observed that some people pierce their body and it seems they feel no pain nor bleed. Yes, it’s a result of non-thought. When in ecstasy, a person is in a state of non-thought, out of touch with the nervous system so the information of pain is not transmitted to and from the brain. It has likewise been observed that crazy people feel no pain, since they are not in touch with their own nervous system.

- I understand this, I mean I understand that there is no pain, but why is there no burn, no wound?

- Man is an expression of the Law of Life. When he manages to practice non-thought, the Law expresses itself faster. If, let’s say, a cell divides every two hours, in the state of non-thought we have a faster division, which means therapy.

- Ah! So… But, Konstantin, a crazy person bleeds, although also being in a state of non-thought. Why is that?

- Since he is spiritually dead, he is dead for nature; the Law of Life is not expressed in him. On the contrary,  the others arrived at non-thought by effort.

DIALOG 10.  WAR, PROGRAMMING, SHOCK.

-What is the meaning of fatherland, Konstantin?                         

-It’s the space covered by your thought. The broader you think, the larger your country is. If your thought extends out to a hundred meters, then it is these you feel like your space, it’s your neighborhood…

-How short thoughts did we have as boys! We formed gangs fighting with other neighborhoods… Maybe some day man will arrive at having the whole earth as his country. Is there any sense in reaching further?

-Further is a chaotic situation for the mind since it doesn’t really need to go that far, if not for curiosity.

-And what is civil war?

-Look, Alexander, how serious a conclusion can be drawn from civil war and revolutionaries. In civil war there is no matter of space, people fight for their ideas. When a brother kills a brother, when they arrive at killing their parents, where does love go? A revolutionary is inspired by an idea, he savvies it as right without it being the Right; in other words he sees a piece of the Right and this piece inspires him so strongly that he forgets love; he forgets, say, his wife, his children; he follows his dream, he may be killed but he doesn’t care; what matters to him is to see his idea transmitted and come true. All this proves that man is not his feelings but his thoughts.

-But, Konstantin, the revolutionary may have not grasped the Right but right he grasped. What should he have done?

-He is in a hurry, Alexander, he wants the right  to prevail at once, even by violence; he could lead to war in order for his thought to come true. Revolution is an act of violence and in society everything should be done slowly, as in nature, where changes come about slowly. The revolutionary seeds the sow but he must not hurry to see the tree, too. And since his spirit is restless, and he wants the result, to calm down, he indulges in “programming”.

-What is programming?

-The brain functions better when it has an image, that’s why he creates one. This image stays and is called “thought-form”. When someone wants something very badly, one thinks about it all the time, in detail, creating steady images; the more one thinks about them, the more one kindles them. This is how one programs a fact.

- So that’s why! Well, listen to this! Every Christmas we were allowed one and only leave. They made a draw with all our names,  and one of us would win it. There was this friend one year that used to tell us, “I’ll get the leave this year”. Whenever there was talk about the leave, he cried “I’ll get it this year”. And he did win it! I was so impressed by this and wondered how it came about.

 - He had certainty. The certainty of his thought switched on mechanisms and he maintained them every time he spoke about this leave. Man has the right to practice “programming”, that’s why it happens. He has no right, though, to “program” another human being. This works against him.

- There was a time when I wanted to win the lottery!

-You could have “programmed” it and made it happen. But you must be very careful with your “program”. If you had got the money, you would have realized at the end whether it had been good or bad for you.

-And how can I know beforehand if something will be for my good or not?

Konstantin nodded and smiled.

-You’ll know, if you know the source you tune in to; if you ask God, whatever you get will be good for you and, if you don’t get anything, then again this will be for your good.

-Konstantin, can it be that the prophets practised “programming”?

-Look, Alexander, this is serious. Prophecies, oracles that came true in history, as well as facts that are foreseen and then come true in everyday life, induce us to think about why and how they happened. There are many people who, trying to explain, arrive at the conclusion that there is the Future. Let’s say that the Future exists, that every possible deed of everyone is energetically registered in the universe and that at a certain moment someone “sees” a deed, expresses it and the Future collapses in it. This probability isn’t logical because the Universe functions with economy and this isn’t economical, in other words there is waste of energy with the deeds which shall not materialize.

The brain is a transmitter and a receiver, it transmits and receives frequencies. This means that it can program but also be programmed; it means that if you don’t program, others will program you. Nowadays this is known as mind control; secret experiments are going on and much is being said about this matter, which was already known in ancient times. Probably by chance someone thought of something, wanted it very much and then it happened. The fact gave him certainty, made him think that he could also bring about something else, and that’s how magicians came to be. In essence a magician “programs” for example a man so that he acts in a specific manner; the surer he is, the better “programming” he does. By extension, prophecies and oracles are also “programs” .Someone imagined, thought of something, expressed it and created a “thought-form”; as those who accept it grow more numerous, they build the thought-form up and make it happen.

In order to defend himself against the programming of others, a man must think, must try to think logically.

One should, however, also prevent oneself from programming other people. When someone says “I want this to happen”, “I’ll do it”, he makes a “program” and let’s say that the Universe follows up a couple of times or three. But he’s no God, can’t have it his own way and sooner or later he’ll fail. That’s why we Christians wisely use expressions like “God permitting” or “With the will of God”; in this way we don’t program, we let Harmony express itself.

- I understand…. Konstantin, during our conversations, I felt shocked many times. What is this shock?

-A mental whacking.

-Indeed, I often felt as if I had been whacked…. Konstantin, why do people clap their hands or bring them to their face when they hear something that shocks them?

- People indeed make these gestures…. Now look, Alexander. The biological and energetic body of a human  being are connected in the neurons of the brain. If someone has understood, say, 50 conclusions and suddenly receives a very serious piece of information or a conclusion worth of 40, this large difference makes for a big humiliation and the contact between the biological and energetic body is lost. To make an ugly example, if a mother suddenly hears that her child has been killed, she can faint or die…. These gestures, these clashes, entail pain. The pain tones up the instinct of life, gives the sensation of “self” of “existence”; transmitted to the neurons of the brain, it restores the connection of the biological and the energetic body.

Part 2

THROUGH THE SPEAKERS THERE CAME the voice of the Security responsible.

“Everybody please gather in the conference area in 10 minutes”

They could not tell day from night. Sure their calendars showed the date and clocks the time but the steady environmental conditions made each one function at their personal rhythm. So in the conference room it was evident that some of them had just waked up. They didn’t have the time to discuss anything; the President appeared with his escort, sat down and looked at them.

- Ladies and gentlemen get ready. We are going up.

They could not imagine the extend of the disaster, but they knew there would be things that had remained unchanged. The sun would embrace them again, the wind would dance them at its own rhythm, the sea would chisel their boyishness, the moon and the stars would make them philosophize and the night would teach them how to sleep and dream again. This remembrance of the world transported them, longing bloated their chests and, like in a state of shock, their minds and lips repeated the phrase “we are going up”, “… going up”, “… going up”…

The security men went first. Like astronauts they walked on the platform and, with the wishes of all, pushed the button that would take them 30 meters higher, on the earth they hadn’t seen for such a long time.

At every dividing panel they conquered, the scientists celebrated arriving closer to the surface. At the third panel the platform wobbled; before they had the time to worry, it started gliding again but, before the fourth panel, it stood still for good. After a while the men climbed out. Through their visors, their tense faces were eloquent.

- The fifth panel doesn’t move; there is a place where it seems deformed; the iron must have melted on the outside, said the security responsible. It’s a good thing though that our detectors haven’t shown any change up to that point.

Some disappointed exclamations were heard, but the Engineer-responsible for installations, water supply and oxygen generator raised his hands.

-No problem, I’ll bring the acetylene welder and with a little help I’ll cut it loose in ten minutes.

Never in his life had he collected so many handshakes and smiles and everybody wanted to help so that they would arrive on the surface a minute earlier. They knew what separated them from the world up there were the few centimeters of iron of the fifth panel and a few steel pins at the entrance.

 Although hampered by their suits, the Engineer and the security men worked with zeal and pushed the cutting edge along the stuck area. They took the Engineer down, had some rest for a while and came back. Grasping at the handles, they moved the panel aside. It glided into its base, freeing them from the next-to-last obstacle.

- It’s open! Cried the Security responsible between everybody’s cheers. People had gathered in the control room and, from the cameras integrated into their helmets, they could see almost as clearly as the other three.

The sixth dividing panel, that of the entrance, was deformed. It should be cut in its entire perimeter and removed. This would take a lot of work and time and no-one had the patience to wait. They had to see now, even if it would be just a glance outside, but right away. The President gave the order to open a small hole, large enough for one man and said to Alexander to get ready; he would be the one to step outside first. The steel door, deformed like a piece of old wood, made him uneasy. He liked the young man but he was disposable.

Alexander looked impressive in suit. He looked around him with serious countenance; his eyes stopped at Mary. She thought they were sending him as a lamb to his slaughter and made a move to protest. An imperceptible nod, a small uplifting of his brow stopped her. Suddenly it seemed to her that he was the most appropriate to go up first, brave and worthy as no-one else. Miss Mary blushed.

Before cutting the whole circle off the panel, they put supports underneath so that the piece would fall in a controlled way. Together there fell some soil. But first sunlight came in. In utter silence, in ecstasy, they saw the sunlight. The boy stood underneath and looked at the blue sky. No-one moved, no-one said anything. Finally the sky! How could they have lived so many years without seeing it!

He stepped carefully up the ladder and took a deep breath before the great moment. One centimeter after another his head came out of the earthy womb and he emerged like a new Adam out of the soil. His eyes searched for the sun and he thanked God that he was able to see it again. He stepped on the earth and looked around him. Everything was as he remembered it, but one thing was missing. As far as his eyes went, he couldn’t see green anywhere. Not a tree, not a little branch, not a blade of grass… His body quivered and his eyes looked for some sign of life. Not a bird, not an insect, nothing, nothing…

He tried to pull his helmet off but he heard a loud “no” from the Environmentalist. Detectors in the control room had not detected any dangerous radiation, except that atmospheric carbon dioxide had climbed at 5%.

Two days later they all managed to go out on the surface. The President with the mini-bus and Konstantin on his side inspected the surrounding area. Where five years earlier there had been a city, now there was nothing. Around them there was not a sign of life

and the sea had subsided. They didn’t exchange a word because the President did not want the others to hear. To his ears came disappointed interjections and phrase exchanges centering on one thing” we won’t ever live up here again”. The President felt likewise and waited till they returned to Oneiroupolis so he could speak with his wise Biologist.

The President, the mightiest man in there, was the first to bend. He was a man who used to thrive upon society, upon the power of authority and his ego. Now he felt empty, he didn’t care for anything and thought to give an end to his emptiness. He invited the security men and told them that, from this moment on, Konstantin was to take the command of Oneiroupolis. In their presence he handed him the keys to the arsenal and the list of  weapons and ammunition. Then he isolated himself in the “capsule”. Konstantin admeasured the weaponry, removing also the weapons of the men; then he made everything secure and hid the key.

People had gathered early in the conference room. They talked about the facts and sorrow was diffuse. They had endured the disaster because they hoped that some day they would return to the surface and they imagined that life and their life would go on, maybe difficult, maybe different but it would still continue on earth.

Most of them were gathered around the Engineer.

- We could use sand to construct globes of glass, and cultivate plants that will create the suitable atmosphere with time.

- Pyramids took less time to build, commented the Chemist.

- We could make small, easy-to-use masks and learn to live with these.

- Like poor Persephone, we’ll spend half of our day upon the earth and the other half underground, commented again the Chemist.

- Give us a break! Nothing suits you, what is it that you want anyway? Shouted the responsible Engineer.

- I want the Earth, and the life I knew…

Most sighed and walked away. They sat down and waited but, when the time came, the president did not appear. They found it strange, since he was punctual to the minute. Instead, Konstantin made his way and sat down on his seat.

The Biologist looked at them and started speaking softly, as always.

- We could do a lot of things in order to inhabit earth again, but we don’t have that right. We, as humanity, had our chance and ended in disaster. For our selves, we can only pray and ask forgiveness from God. But we have an obligation toward this planet. We have the obligation to carry the life existing in this underground arc to the surface. Plants, animals and humans. Not us; our children

There was a commotion upon these last words. Someone from security whispered something about the retreat of the President for Konstantin and this triggered one more wave of comments. Then, as one person, they turned and looked at the scientist with renewed interest.

PHOENIX PROJECT

The eight women who were able for procreation would give their ovules every month and all men should give sperm. When the conditions up on the surface would be appropriate, they would place the fertilized ovules in all women. In this way the children would be children of all.

They would modify the masks so that they’d be able to work wearing them; and they’d build rough shelters near the work areas.

Konstantin chose two areas divided by a river. One of them, at the foot of a hill, was to become the space for humans and the other, some kilometers away, would be the area for the animals. There was no easy access between the two areas; they were almost one day’s walk from one another. They’d have to dig until they found suitable soil for the plants.

In the humans area they would plant more trees and in the animals area more bulbs and vegetables. Konstantin pointed out to the Agriculturist that they should be planted with more space in between since they would grow more due to the elevated carbon dioxide. They would have to create a cave on the hill, where humans would live, and also create two creeks, one passing near the cave so that there would be easy access to water, and one in the animals area.

All constructions should look natural, as if they had not been made by human hands.

ALEXANDER MOVED near Konstantin’s room. They were together all the time, the Biologist explaining to the youth everything that should be done for PHOENIX.

Many departments collaborated to build the mask-transformer of the atmosphere. The respirator would lean on the back of their necks and it was light, but it worked on a battery which they had to recharge every 5 hours, and they also had to clean the filter. The Engineer constructed a portable booth out of transparent nylon and iron rods. In there, they would keep the dynamo which would charge the batteries while also creating a suitable atmosphere for them to disconnect and get some rest.

For the sake of economy, they had decided to work all together in the same area. They would begin with the animal area then they would move to the area for the humans and finally they would make the salt pits and the fishery.

The first thing they relocated were the eggs. When the first chick popped out, everybody present waited anxiously to see how it’d move. Half dazed, it took some steps and began pinching bread cramps and seeds. They all burst in applause and the Veterinary grabbed it and kissed it. In a few hours, the place near the entrance was bursting with the tweeting of the nestlings.

The Veterinary followed them closely and after a week he said that their health and growth were better than expected.

The importance given by the Biologist to every detail impressed most of the people; sometimes they did not understand some of his orders but they all trusted him and the Dentist woman said, jokingly “Konstantin is Noah and us his livestock”.

Alexander had matured and his whole posture carried a special seriousness that didn’t go unnoticed by the rest. They realized how important a role he would play in the new generation.

They felt an amazing vitality. They worked with so much enthusiasm from morning till night that they almost didn’t feel tired. And when they gathered in the room, they talked about the work that should be done in the morning; they felt anxious for the new day to come so they would go on creating…

One day they were working in the cave, removing rocks, when the Environmentalist exclaimed joyously “come see what I’ve discovered!” They gathered around him and the man showed them three rocks.

-Big deal! The Chemist mocked.

The Environmentalist walked in front of him and hit the stones together, sending a spark between the Chemist’s legs; he looked at him triumphantly. The others applauded but the Chemist threw up his arms.

-So what makes you so happy?

-They are firestones! They will be lighting fire with them, you fool!

-Just tell me, clever one, what they might be lighting with them. Toilet paper? No wood nor leaf can ignite this way.

Some said “he’s right” and only the Agriculturist started to laugh with the mocking face of the Chemist and the expression of the Environmentalist who was clearly searching for an answer.

-Why are you laughing? The Environmentalist asked the Agriculturist, annoyed.

- Because I have seeds of cotton!

- Have you got fava beans? Konstantin asked the Agriculturist a little later.

- Sure, they are my favorite dish, said the man proudly.

- Don’t plant them, he retorted and walked away accompanied by Alexander.

- Because of Pythagoras? Alexander asked the Biologist.

- Because of Favism, said the man.

- Ah! Do you think that Pythagoras had detected the connection?

 - He must have, judging by his insistence against them…

DIALOG 11. NUTRITION

- Can you imagine which was man’s first food, Alexander?

- I guess the one he managed to get his hands on first. Fruit, greens, worms…

- Would you be able to eat worms?

- If there were nothing else…. Konstantin, which is the ideal food for man?

- The most dynamic food is the seed. Inside it there is its “program”, the potential for the birth of life. This means you mustn’t prevent this potential from expressing itself. You must let the seed have germs and roots and then you can eat it. [6] The seed has primordial enzymes and the intestine is man’s first organ; this shows that it is most suitable for man. A handful of seeds has the potential of a forest. The body’s reaction should be the gauge for nutrition: the smell bringing saliva to your mouth shows a food is suitable for you to eat; when your mouth waters at the thought of food, it means you are really hungry and it is time for you to eat, but you should stop before feeling full. While you must be hungry before you eat, when you are thirsty it’s already late: you should drink water before you feel thirst. This is important, Alexander, the organism needs water. When too little water is available, it won’t get it from the organs, say the heart, but from the bones; that’s why people get shorter as years go by; they have chronic dehydration. In the morning, 2 – 3 glasses of water are the most necessary.

- I found impressive what you said about the seeds. Can man not eat at all?

- Yes, he can get nourishment from the air and the sun, as long as he doesn’t move.

- That’s awesome! Konstantin, some people refuse to eat meat, they say we don’t have the right to subtract a life…

- Look at the food chain. If all the animals were herbivorous, plants would be in danger. There is balance when carnivorous animals eat the herbivorous ones, the ones that eat plants. What difference does it make for a sheep whether it gets eaten by the wolf or by man? It’s food, Alexander, moving food; in a way, an animal that has not been eaten has not fulfilled its purpose.

- Konstantin, what should one do to avoid eating too much food; or cut out any bad habit in general?

-A fundamental rule in neurology is that nerves which get activated together, are also cabled together. If something happens once, a loose group of nerves will react forming a network but, if the same behaviour is not repeated, it won’t carve a route in the brain. When something happens repeatedly, these neuronic cells develop a connection that grows stronger and stronger, so activation of the specific network becomes easier. [7]

- So in order to stop a bad habit I should restrain myself, try hard not to indulge in it for a number of times.

- Exactly.

- And I should put some pressure on myself so that something which I find right does get started, creating a good habit.

-Exactly.

 Konstantin looked at Alexander’s body which resembled an ancient Greek statue.

- Do you think you eat too much?

-I sure do, and I also work a lot, but your remark about stopping before we feel full made me think. I ‘ve never stopped until I felt full… and then fell asleep like a boa.

- Alexander, the issue for a man is that he thinks. By applying this simple rule, he won’t get caught in the pleasure of food; he won’t live in order to eat. Food is energy, which means that, by eating, you should be able to recharge your batteries… The need for sleep means that you’ve lost energy and need a rest, it’s the result of too much eating.

 - Konstantin, since I cook most of the times, what are the rules for cooking?

- Not to cook!  Said Konstantin and laughed at the surprise on Alexander’s face. Hm! Well then, the rules. The more savory you cook, the more you’ll eat. The more entangled ingredients you put in, the more you make it difficult and tiresome for your organism to digest them. The digestion fluids for plants are produced in the mouth, that’s why it’s necessary to chew well; proteins are digested in the stomach and fats in the intestine. So you may eat 3 or 4 kinds of vegetables. Or 3 or 4 kinds of meat. If, however, you want to eat vegetables and meat, you must eat one kind of each.

- Say! How wrong have I been cooking! That’s why they say that God provides the food and devil the cook!

- Alexander, let me ask you something, too. Which is the food that God cooks?

- Does God cook?

- Yes, there is something that cooks itself naturally, as if God made it.

 Alexander stayed silent for a while.

- No! I cannot imagine it, he said moving his head.

- Pickles!

Alexander remembered all those vases which Konstantin prepared in the kitchen and the Chemist who told him one day: “Konstantin has never cooked but what the hell, he makes fantastic pickles!”

- Why pickles?

- If you put together vegetables and water, the fermentation goes on by itself and it’s ready after 4-5 days; God’s cooking.

Alexander found the phrase touching, let alone that pickles was a relish he didn’t want to have to do without; already at the thought his mouth watered.

- Konstantin, how can we have pickles up on the surface? How can we go about it?

- Pickles are an excellent food; the juice is full of enzymes, ideal for digestion; whoever has digestion problems can take 2-3 sips and digest. The way to prepare them is what I already told you; you put carrots, peppers, cabbage, garlic, then cover with water and leave it there.

- Don’t you put salt?

- No, it gets sour by itself. Hmmm…. He stopped for a moment and then nodded. Yes! We need a concave rock with an opening thought which remains can leave, and a schistolithic plate as a cover… But it should not be inside the cave; smell will tempt everybody to eat.

- Oh God! And how shall we transport water? Asked Alexander uneasily. I hadn’t thought of this problem, it dawned on me just now.

- By making cones out of leaves, said Konstantin laughing. For the beginning. Let the children find other ways.

- Such as?...

- Such as….

- Oh, don’t tell me, I got it. With a half shell of water melon!

When they got to working at the salt pits they brought with them the fish. In the aquarium they had lobsters and shrimps, breams, sardines and mussels. They moved some rocks and blocked two-thirds of a little bay in the shape of a horse-shoe. They threw in lots of food, half the fish of each kind and wished them luck. They hoped that  life had been preserved in deep sea.

Konstantin had gone out for the decisive inspection; if he deemed that PHOENIX was running fine up to this point, they would begin fertilization of the ovules.

Everybody followed by his heels, even the President who was feeling more positive by now. Near the entrance, there were the newborn animals. They were of three kinds only, hens, lamps and pigs. The chain had broken but the damage was not irreparable. Nature would find its way, the only thing it needed was time.

The animals grew fast, they were lively and very healthy. They would transport them in their area when the plants would have multiplied and there would be plenty of food. Konstantin said “fine” and some of the people following him applauded enthusiastically. They crowded in the vehicle, some climbing on its roof or simply around it and took off into the animals area .

The Agriculturist had ample provisions in plants and seeds. The greenhouse was full of little fruit-bearing trees; they were small, since artificial light didn’t help in their growth, but there was quite The Agriculturist had ample provisions in plants and seeds. The greenhouse was full of little fruit-bearing trees; they were small, since artificial light didn’t help in their growth, but there was quite a variety of them. All were cultivated traditionally, with water and manure because the President did not want pesticides and hybrids in his plate. When they had moved them on the surface, they had protected them for some days with dark colored shades, so that they could adapt to sunlight.

The animals area was surrounded by hills and one should come near it to see it. At the narrowest part of the river they had made a bridge with ropes and planks which they would remove when they would relocate the animals. The sown earth and the appropriate soil was about one kilometer wide; the plants would grow there thus keeping the animals around. The river constituted one more barrier.

- Konstantin, if the two areas were near each other, the children could get milk and eggs every day… now they must be quite grown up before they manage to reach this place. Why have you chosen the two areas to be so far apart? The Environmentalist had asked.

- Their benefit will be greater this way.

- In what sense?

- It’ll take them longer to discover fear.

They were once more impressed with his thinking but only Alexander realized that he didn’t mean the fear a child can feel for an animal it encounters for the first time; he meant the fear of death. Alexander was overwhelmed: the children wouldn’t know the fear of death for some years! They’d feel immortal!

Now the animals area resembled an oasis in the desert. The young plants made out clusters leaving an open space near the entrance. Various fruit trees, olive tree and others would secure food for every season of the year, and there were also the three fir trees they had adorned each Christmas in Oneiroupolis. Eatable bulbs and annual plants were placed in the inner part of the horseshoe shaped brook . Furrows crossed the ground and slate stones blocked the two ends. Alexander had only to lift one stone for a specific area to flood. He could water the area easily and in a controlled way, according to the needs of every group of plants. The Agriculturist had planted rosebushes, lilacs and jasmines, the plants he had carried in Oneiroupolis for his personal pleasure, next to the entrance of the cave.

- Fine, said Konstantin and made his way to the cave.

They had dug and blown up some rocks, creating a space which could host about 30 persons. They had deepened an area of about 4 square meters and then filled it up with sand. The children would sleep on it. There was a place where they had left a lot of planks which could be used for fire the first year; then the trees would be big enough for the children to get wood out of them and Konstantin hoped they’d forget the planks.

- Fine, said the Biologist, we can start.

- Just a moment, cried Mary interrupting the celebrations. Konstantin, I want to say some of my thoughts.

- Go ahead, he encouraged her kindly.

- Konstantin, I’d like to have my children near me, not lose them as soon as they reach six months of age, I want to be their mother, not just a… bottle that feeds them, but I realize they are first children of this earth and then ours. I understand why they must have nothing of our civilization, so they can create their own objects that respond to their own needs without having to ask what happened to whoever made them. But us, Konstantin? What shall we do in the remaining 20 or 30 years of our lives? It hurts to remember the past and we don’t have a future, so how shall we go on living every day? What will keep us off paranoia?

From the attitude of the others it was clear that they had made the same thoughts and felt the same way.

- Konstantin, I need to see them. I want us to place cameras up here.

 A few seconds were enough for them to imagine their children run, play, laugh, climb up the trees, swim, grow up and them being able to see them…

“Yes, cameras”, they shouted, some of them beseeching, others demanding.

- We’ll be able to see them but they won’t see us; observing them won’t be interfering, said the Dentist woman? ardently.

- Fine, said Konstantin.

WHEN MARY AS A GIRL talked to her dolls, she used to tell them that she’d be a doctor when she grew up, and have many children. What will become of us, they asked her. I’ll always keep you with me, she reassured them…

She had brought her dolls with her, along with her books, when she had come to Oneiroupolis, placing them mainly at her pillow head. She looked at them now and felt a desperate urge to fulfill the second part of her girlish dream. She wanted a child of her own. She couldn’t stand the idea that, inside her womb, there would grow a child with only one to eight probabilities to be hers, a child whose father would remain unkown.

She understood Konstantin’s logic. A chance sperm would fertilize a chance ovule. With in vitro fertilization, all women would give birth, maybe even to twins. The newly born would be at the jurisdiction of Konstantin and Alexander. In this way everybody would feel their involvement but they wouldn’t know which child they had fathered; the children would really be everybody’s children. Parting with them would also be easier, shone a thought in her. But no, she would give birth to a child that would be part of her and with a special father. She would remain pregnant first and she would hide her pregnancy. She would make her revolt, even if parting would then be more difficult. She could then see her child grow…

She took her bath with special care and put on a short red dress, wearing over it her unbuttoned doctor’s apron. She let her hair loose and looked at the perfume bottle. Konstantin had explained to them that perfumes are chemical smells whose frequencies the liver elaborates with difficulty; today, however, she would do the mistake. She put two drops of perfume at the root of her hair, behind the ears. She was ready to seduce the father of her child. She walked to his room and, since she knew his schedule, she was sure he would be sleeping at that moment. “I’ll catch him in his sleep”, she thought and smiled. She knocked on the door and, when he saw him in front of her she flustered...

- Mary? What a nice surprise!

- Hi, Alexander, I was passing by and thought of saying hello…

- Hello, said the young man surprised, making her blush with her silly lie.

- Hello, she answered embarrassed

- Hello, the voice of Konstantin came also from inside the room.

- Hello Konstantin, said Mary and was ready to run away.

Finally Alexander threw the door wide open.

 -Please come in…

The love and wisdom on the Biologist’s eyes made her feel guilty about her enterprise; when, however, having caught the perfume in the air and thrown a glance at her red dress, he discreetly left the room, the need that’d  brought her there prevailed. She avoided Alexander’s eyes, looking around instead. “Oh God, what do I do now?” she thought.

- Would you like some juice? He asked her warmly.

- Yes, please, I’ll have some.

Alexander opened the small fridge and took out a bowl with freshly cut fruit. He threw it in the juicer and pressed the button.

- It’s either juice therapy or chemo therapy, he joked.

He was wearing only the sweat pant she had given him. Manual labor had shaped his body and the back she was looking at as he was pouring the juice for her was the back of a strong man. The image of the young boy she had seen 7 years earlier came to her mind and tenderness overcame her embarrassment. He was her sweetheart boy. She approached him from behind and embraced him.

He was putting his face in the black torrent of her hair; he touched and kissed every pore of her body with an almost metaphysical eagerness, as if he wanted to imprint every detail of her in his mind; he made love to her as if the whole humanity was guiding him to it; he gave her all his soul, all his substance, but not his sperm…

She got up feeling tired and put her clothes back on. She didn’t tell him anything neither did he ask her. She understood he wasn’t her boy anymore. He had been won over by Konstantin… and logic. She left disappointed.

DIALOGUE 12.  LOVE, VIOLATION, RELATIONSHIPS

- Konstantin, can both man and woman arrive at deification?

- Yes, each one by his or her role. The role of the Woman is motherhood, she has to have children, many of them. Look, Alexander, how Nature takes care of a mother. When a woman is pregnant, there are cells from the embryo which go to every organ of the mother and which are able to survive up to a decade. What do we make of this? That with every pregnancy the woman gains in health and that nature secures her so that she’ll be able to raise her child until it can make it on its own. So when a woman has one child, she distinguishes it and her love is confined to it. But when she has 10 children, she learns to split her love between all ten, she has no obstacles towards loving even 15 or 20 children, provided she loves Children; she has possibilities to arrive at loving and offering to humanity. The role of man is to “understand”. The more “I understand” he can pronounce, the more he rises spiritually, having thus probabilities to arrive at givingness.

- I understand, said Alexander smiling. That’s why there haven’t been so many women philosophers: they don’t have to think; according to their role, every child they have is a corresponding, strong “I understand” of men.

 - Right, they need to think as much as to tell apart, say, milk from lime.

- But what if a woman doesn’t have any children? Or if she has a few.

- Then she can use the path of “I understand”.

- Are men and women also different in love?

- The audacity of men and the beauty of women are spiritual entities of equal status. A man falls in love with the beauty and the femininity in a woman. He only has to see and fall in love. A woman falls in love with the audacity, the daring in a man; she has to perceive in order to fall in love. Love makes a human happy, able to stand the biggest problems, even illness when in love. It can be compared to the happiness one experiences when “understanding”. The problem is that love for another person soon ends, while love for “I understand” is permanent.

- How is love lost?

- Alexander, there are research results which show that passion between a couple lasts two years at most [8]. Two years at most! Look how serious conclusions we can draw from this. First conclusion. Nature doesn’t need more for her job to be done. If there is no child in this time-span, it makes you want to end; another love may produce a child. And a second conclusion. Nature wants variety. If two people have had a child, that’s enough, Nature sends you on your way to another combination. Most marriages last 7 years, not because the couple is in love but in order that a child grows a little. This has been going on for thousands of years. The child stayed with its parents up to this age and then it belonged to the tribe. This is still present in our brain. Love is lost for various reasons. As long as the woman conserves her beauty and femininity, the man is in love with her. For a woman, though, things are different. Let’s say that she has fallen in love with a man who has level “A” of daring. She has fallen in love, she has known him, it’s over. Now this man must go a level up in daring; so she falls in love with him again at level “B”. When she has known him there, she wants him still more daring… and more daring…. She wants to fall in love with a God. It’s God she wants to reach.

Alexander wondered what dirty businesses of men might have to do with God. He, himself, had experienced a wonderful love only a little while before this conversation, but still…

- When I was there, a cook used to call us “children of love”. I guess she didn’t want to remind us that we had been abandoned, children of unknown parents or orphans and preferred to put it more poetically. All this unhappiness in and around me made me combine love with misfortune. In every man or woman that I saw I searched for similarities with me, hoping to find my parents. A friend, older than me, took me down to earth. “Don’t look at well-dressed and serious people, you fool, they do not abandon their children; look rather for some bump or drunken woman, your parents must be scum!” I couldn’t stand this version, so I tried to save at least one of my parents. “Maybe my mother was a good woman… and somehow she got raped”. “This still would make you scum”, he answered wryly. A scum, repeated Alexander in a low voice; his eyes filled with tears and he lowered his head.

Konstantin made a move to touch him but he stopped. He should rather speak to him.

 - When a man and a woman make love, Nature  expresses itself through them;  God. Can there be anything dirty in this?

Alexander sat up astonished in his chair. When he was in orphanage, although he didn’t want and neither liked it, he had convinced himself to combine carnal love with sin in his mind. Now Konstantin, with this simple phrase, had come to upset this.

- I guess not, he answered to Konstantin’s question. But sometimes people make it dirty; rape, for example, is a dirty action.

- Look, Alexander. Say that we have a couple falling in love, marrying and having a child according to all the norms of society. And say we also have another child, born after a rape. What difference is there for Nature between one child and the other?

- I can’t say for Nature, but it does make a difference for society.

- There is no difference for Nature; the result tells us about the beginning. And the result shows that Nature doesn’t see any mistake; she doesn’t see a “rape”.

- Doesn’t see a rape? But the woman has been really raped, uttered Alexander shocked… Ok, let’s say that a man can immediately function sexually since it is in his Nature to see and feel attracted. A woman, however, needs time; see needs, in a way, to hearken before being conquered so, according to her Nature, she is right to resist. If the way man functions is right, there is no rape. If, however, the way a woman functions is right, then there sure is a rape. Has God made a mistake?...  Cause something is wrong here… There is no right timing…. I don’t like it…

- Your observation is right. Since a woman does not want and the man does, there is no timing. But this is happening today. Look back in the era in which man was a hunter. Then a woman saw the audacity of a man, she recognized the bold hunter, she was in love with his image and she must always have been ready for love. Right timing was there. Pay attention. Alexander, this is serious. If men were wise, women would simply obey, they wouldn’t have a character of their own. By not succeeding to be savant, man has compelled women to think, which does not become their role. By thinking, woman has contested man, she has lost her respect towards his image and, inevitably, she has lost the happiness of love as a condition. Rape is not the best expression of Love, but it is an expression of Love. God is Life, he wants children, he wants Love; man wants the love and woman should want it as strongly as he does. If she does not, it’s of little consequence for nature; what’s important for nature is the existence of the Species. In reality Nature expresses itself, Love expresses itself through them. Nature does not see a rape and no woman is dirty after such an intercourse, because it isn’t even a personal matter.

Alexander remained silent for a while; he needed to digest what he had just heart.

- But, Konstantin, after a … “hasty” intercourse, a child could be born, most probably unwanted by its parents; is the unhappiness of this child of no importance to nature?

- Why should the child be unhappy?

Alexander looked at him surprised.

-But certainly, he has no reason to feel like scum, he said with a bright smile. He is not scum, he whispered relieved. But does nature not see how painful it is for him not to have been loved, to have been abandoned by its parents?

- What responsibility do they have?

- What responsibility they have? I don’t see what you mean.

- The matter is not personal. Love has been expressed, Nature is being expressed through them, they could only succumb to this fact, why should they be held responsible?

Alexander looked at him, shocked.

- Nature, God has been expressed, Alexander. Those two were simply the means that made the child appear in life. God is its parent. It is not by chance that no child can imagine its parents having sex, it loathes this thought. It’s like its being would say “why do you tell me that I come from that?” Indeed it comes from That which made those two succumb to it.

The loneliness, the hatred and the malice that for so many years he had felt about the parents who had abandoned him, were erased. Tears of relief shone in his eyes.

- Thanks, he whispered with gratitude.

Konstantin let him calm down before he spoke.

- Observe Nature. Animals raise their offspring for some time and then this relation is lost. The kid belongs to the pack, the pack is responsible for it. Men used to function likewise. The primitives lived in small societies, had open relationships and society undertook to make hunters and mothers out of their children. This went on for thousands of years, unlike marriage which exists for the last 2 or 3 thousand years. This is how we went on as species, with open relationships. However the population growth, the creation of cities, and wars, made the responsibility of the society disappear. In order to conserve itself, and to secure its children-“cogwheels”, society came up with marriage. Jesus blessed it. It’s like he said: “since you risk when you live freely, you can marry”. Faith kept the family ties; when the man loves God and the woman loves God, doesn’t it come natural that love should exist also between them? But faith has been lost, along with the family.

- But children look like their parents; why should this happen when parents have no responsibility?

- The relation is biological, Alexander; the Law of Economy operates here. Why should Nature look for a new form when she already has two of them?

- In other words a child owes its parents nothing!

- In nature there really is only the notion of the mother. A man can’t know how many children he has; a woman knows. The mother loves and cares for her child; if the father takes part in it, so much the better. What a child owes to its parents, has to do with the gratification it feels about them. If there is no gratification, if they don’t mean anything for the child, it does not owe them anything. But it can also be that the gratification about the parents is so great that a child feels that they deserve more than anything he or she is doing for them.

Alexander wanted to ask one more thing, but he was afraid it might offend his Teacher.

- Konstantin, does the Spiritual Man make love? He asked hesitantly.

- It is similarly easy for him to make love or not. But the more spiritual he is, the stronger he experiences love.

- Can a man feel sexual attraction for another man?

 -  He can feel spiritual attraction, appreciation, respect, inspiration but sexual attraction no. It is a mistake, an illness. Homosexuality doesn’t serve in anything in nature.

- But they don’t look ill, Konstantin. I used to know someone who was homosexual and he didn’t seem to be ill. Why is that so?

- The mistakes a human makes are expressed more directly the nearer he is to his role. When your mistake becomes an illness, it also becomes your chance to save yourself. It rings a bell, it says “Be careful”! When you are far away from your role, you don’t receive any warning.

- How can a homosexual be cured?

- As with all illnesses, Alexander. Respiration, right diet and motion secure 20% of your health. The remaining 80% is right thinking. Right conclusions.

- As much as that?

- As much as that. The body exists so that the brain can think.

- Konstantin, there have always been homosexual people but in our times they were more numerous; why did this happen?

- Feminine gender represents the conditions of birth. These conditions are the spectrum in which a child appears, for example between 500 grams and 4+ kilograms. So feminine is stronger than masculine; any problem, any illness which befalls humanity, first appears in men. Plastic and aluminum are extremely harmful for the organism, but most alimentary goods come in plastic or aluminum containers. The consequences are expressed upon hormones and the nervous system. Feminization of the population is the result of this specific invention of society.

- I understand… Konstantin, why is there love between people with a large difference of age?

- Alexander, beauty meets daring, and daring has no age. A man can fall in love with a young girl because his daring makes him see her femininity; his daring gives him the right to want a proportionate femininity. A young girl, too, may fall in love with the daring, confident, active man.

- But a woman, too, can fall in love with a man younger than her!

- It’s logical that this can happen too. When a woman looks around her but doesn’t see daring, doesn’t see a hero, she falls in love with motion and activity which are elements of liveliness.

- Konstantin, I understand that in nature there is no matrimony, so there shouldn’t be a question of infidelity. Still, society practices marriage; is infidelity perceived in a similar way by both men and women?

- For things we don’t encounter in nature but do exist in society, philosophy has to adapt. The nature of man’s need to conquer. To conquer material possessions, ideas and… women. A happy and healthy man will be him who will pass one day of the week in his family and the remaining 6 in conquest. It doesn’t matter whether the other women are prettier than his wife; it is enough that other women are pretty and he expresses his nature by conquering them. If his wife can understand this and not interfere in this need of his, then their relation will be good. The woman has the right to use any kind of cunning or tricks to secure his companionship, his preference. She can try to renew herself every day, being the new woman that has husband-hunter will be provoked to conquer, changing her dress every day, said Konstantin laughing.

 A woman has the right to do anything, except being unfaithful. A woman’s infidelity is a shock for a man because it shatters the image of a Woman in his mind. The loose of one recipient of his daring is like clipping his wings.

- After all, Konstantin, taking into consideration the feminization of the population, if men were not polygamous, redundant women would be condemned to remain undersexed and childless.

- That’s right.

Alexander remained motionless for a while; then a thought hit him.

- But, Konstantin, this isn’t logical. It isn’t logical for a man to become hero on one hand and die for a woman on the other. If his role is to arrive at givingness for the Species, one woman and one family is too little!

- Bravo, Alexander, said Konstantin with satisfaction. Your observation’s right. While man should have liberty of mind, he gets married. While he should be Man and father of Men, he becomes a father. Love may be death for a man; a love that keeps him in the frame of his family, stands in his way as far as development and offer are concerned, impeding him to reach immortality; so it means death for him.

- But, Konstantin, if the issue for a man is his ability to think, why has he feelings, too?

- Because he is entitled to joy. Since he appeared regardless of his wish, he is entitled to rejoice; it’s his reward for what he does. He shouldn’t however confine himself to feelings alone; his potential for thought shows that he should think.

- I understand; the feelings must be controlled so that they don’t impede a man from thinking, from developing…. I guess only a demented person cannot develop.

- That’s right. Pay attention, Alexander. They say that “out of the mouth of babes and the crazy comes the truth”.  (Translator’s note: Greek proverb). This doesn’t mean that a crazy person has some truth to tell but that, by observing him, you can understand a truth. What do you think, could men make love with a crazy woman?  

-Well, yes, said Alexander and he blushed feeling guilty.

- So it is; men don’t care about the spirituality of a woman, about how clever she is. It is enough for them that she be pretty. So men can go to bed with a crazy woman. Now, do you think that women could similarly go to bed with a crazy man?

- No, I don’t think so…

- In fact, women are attracted by persons who can give them certainty, who could protect them and their child; so women wouldn’t go to bed with a demented person. Pay attention to the conclusions, to the truths that we can draw from these observations. Nature speaks through men and women, she manifests what she wants. Through women’s behaviour she indicates that she demands thoughts from men, while through men’s behaviour she indicates that she has no such claim from women.

- Konstantin, why do problems appear in man-woman relationships? Why do some people manage to have long-term relationships and others don’t?

- Alexander, there is no notion of what we call a bond in nature. A bond ties people up; if living things had bonds, then when one of them were in peril, the other would be in peril too. You understand that this is very dangerous. What really is there in nature is

relationships, that is collaboration and a common course for mutual benefit. Thus, a man and a woman can have only relationships. When a relationship becomes a bond, then there sure will be problems. Problems can also arise because a man and a woman perceive the relationship differently.

- Meaning?

- Woman is “conditions of birth”; motherhood is love, so from her nature a woman is relationship, relationship with her child and with the man who has inspired her love so that this love materializes. So the woman has a relationship with the man. The nature of a man drives him to comprehend; this is the issue for him. Now look how subtle it is. Whatever averts, whatever impedes the man from comprehending is harmful for him. Love, as a software, secures nature; we can say it’s good for nature that people should fall in love, since in this way the protective umbrella will go on existing. However, love, on a personal level and personally for men, is an obstacle… So man, through love, is forced to create a relationship. Notice the subtle difference: a woman has a relationship, a man makes one.

- Oh! I understand… So the duration of a relationship depends more on how the woman will handle it. That’s why you said before that she fights so as to secure his preference.

- Exactly.

- Konstantin, are there taboos in love? If the issue for Nature is the child, then why is it that people are not attracted only, say,… by the genital parts?

- And would everything else be there in vain? Asked Konstantin smiling widely. Look, Alexander, Nature works by economy: every part of the woman, every inch of her body must become a cause, a chance for love to be there and, with love, for a child to be there. Thus whatever attracts is good, whatever a man and a woman do is good. But when we say that they make love we are not precise, in reality love occurs, they obey to love, they cannot but have intercourse, it’s beyond them. So in this act there are three players: the need for love, in other words God, the man and the woman. If this had stayed strictly this way, people wouldn’t have taboos. Love, however, has passed into common view becoming evident also to others; so differing opinions created taboos.

- I understand…. Konstantin, sometimes society is strict, especially with women; they say for example “this woman has a past” and they mean many love partners; is it bad for a woman to have had various partners? After all nature itself, hormones – wise, makes you stay in love for two years at most.

- Alexander, this is a subtle matter… Beauty is attracted by audacity. If we look at it from the point of view of the audacity, a man sees around him a lot of beauty; let’s say that there are a lot of beautiful women around. It’s natural for him to have been with many women, so a “past” is expected. For a woman it’s different. Beauty must meet audacity. The rule is strict and women apply it according to their conscience. It is probable that a conscientious woman, one with, let’s say, respect for herself, will never go to bed with a man; not if she hasn’t met audacity, if she hasn’t found her hero. If she does find her hero, then again she may be in love with him without ever making love with him. It’s a consequence of the Law. In society, audacity is expressed as action, so for a woman a daring man is an active man; a scoundrel, in a prison, may receive hundreds of letters from women who are in love with him. It seems crazy; they know they may never meet him and that his actions have been, say, negative, but they are in

love with him. Why is that? Because they have seen audacity in him. A revolutionary may also inspire millions of women who may fall in love with him. Why? Because they see audacity in him. You realize, then, that it’s of no consequence how many lovers a woman has had; what matters is whether these men have been the expression of her conscience.

- I understand. Konstantin, I am thinking about sexual intercourse in animals. Animals have periods of estrus... Salmons and other animal species travel thousands of kilometers to return where they were born and bear their offspring there… What does all this mean?

- Right observation. Animals have time and space while man can make love anywhere and anytime. This means that man is not determined by space nor time;  man is beyond space and time, which shows that he is not a child of this earth, that he has come from somewhere else.

- Ah! As a sphere!  But, Konstantin, I’ve read that dolphins and monkeys also have sex whenever they want to; does it mean that they are also independent of space and time?

- Alexander, we can say that something is the result of a Law and Rule even when it happens in a small percentage, say 3%. In lower percentages it is random, it occurs because there are probabilities of it occuring. What percentage do you think dolphins and monkeys represent in animal kingdom?

- Zero point zero zero… Ok, forget it….

KONSTANTIN WANTED the children to be born in spring, for better climatic adjustment, so they made the embryo transfer in August. Pregnancy was astonishingly normal in all women and three of them managed to carry twins.

- Good crop, said the Agriculturist; 15 children!

Since they were not very young, the women would deliver with a cesarean, but Alexander should practice helping in a normal delivery to gain experience for the future; Mary, being the youngest, was planned for a natural delivery.

When the day came, they carried everything necessary on the surface, near the entrance. They sat at a discreet distance around the surgical bed; they all wanted to be present at this moment and they also wanted to keep animals away. The Gynecologist would have the Anesthetist and Alexander as helpers. When all three of them were ready, the Microbiologist approached and sat on the bed.

- I hope to see you again in a while, she said a bit uneasily.

- We’ll be here waiting for you, answered Konstantin in a steady voice.

The woman felt better, smiled and lay down on the bed. The Anesthetist took her respirator off, and put the mask of light anesthesia on her face. He asked her to start counting and, when she stopped, he applied the anesthesia shot. A few minutes later

the Gynecologist took a little girl in his arms. He held it up, so that everybody could see it while the umbilical cord kept the two bodies united. There, amidst  the hoorah, the Environmentalist fainted, collapsing on the Chemist.

- You chicken! said the Chemist and slapped him for having scared him and ruined the big moment.

The Gynecologist cut and tied the umbilical cord. It was the most important moment; the baby would take its first, decisive breath which would make it a resident of the upper world. He took it by the feet, raised it, but it did not react; he slapped it lightly on its back but it didn’t cry; he looked alarmed at Konstantin who was approaching and laid the baby on its mother’s chest. He grasped his oxygen mask and was about to place it on the baby’s face but Konstantin stopped his hand.

- Look, he said pointing at the blood-covered little belly.

It was rising and falling imperceptibly. The baby was breathing.

- Fine, said Konstantin.

The Gynecologist put the mask back on his face and took a deep breath of oxygen and relief. Now he’d close the incision. He took the newly born and gave it to Konstantin. Looking at the happy faces of the others, Konstantin walked to the President and stood in front of him. After all, it was him who had saved them. He put the baby in his arms.

- We thank you, President… he said simply and sincerely.

 - Thanks, he whispered and for the first time in his life he shed tears of emotion.

 

They had a delivery every day. At the third pair of twins, they noticed with grief that one of the girls was too small and had a problem in one of her legs. Konstantin thought that she’d need special care and Alexander would not be able to cope, having 14 more kids.

- We’ll have a future, he said.

They looked at him in surprise.

- My replacement, cried Alexander. Here is the 58^th resident of Oneiroupolis, he said, pointing at her with both hands.

They looked at each other for some seconds and then broke out in a huge scream of triumph. A child would remain with them! They would have a future!

The Gynecologist approached the incubator to put the baby inside but Konstantin stopped him. He took the little girl and gave it to the Dentist, telling her to carry it down.

- Not in the incubator, he said to the surprised Gynecologist.

DIALOGUE 13 – HEALTH, CELL, CANCER

- Konstantin, why didn’t you let the Gynecologist put the little girl in the incubator?

- I’ll tell you the mistakes people made as far as the incubator is concerned. In the womb, in the amniotic fluid, the embryo has 7% of carbon dioxide and 2% of oxygen in its lungs. You understand what a shock it is when it comes out in the atmosphere, which has 0,03% of carbon dioxide and 21% of oxygen. Can you imagine, Alexander, how disastrous the incubator is for the organism, with 0,03% of carbon dioxide and 50-60% of oxygen?

- That much? An ideal  place to burn a candle.

- Exactly. Oxygen means combustion.

- Oh, I just remembered something! There was this mother dog at the orphanage, often giving birth in a quiet corner. I remember her litter, how the puppies were trying to snuggle under her body; I realize now that they wanted to cover their noses, they were trying to take lesser breath!

- In old times, mothers swaddled their babies and they immediately calmed down and slept because they were taking more shallow breaths. It’s for the same reason that children sleep in a prone position and cover one of their nostrils. They suffocate with too much oxygen and they try to breathe.

- It’s like when you walk into the wind that is blowing hard at you; you can’t breathe…

- Exactly.

- What would happen, Konstantin, if carbon dioxide would be still lower, say, if it dropped to 0,01%?

- There would be no life; plants would be destroyed first since they could not breathe and get nourishment, then animals would follow for lack of food and finally people.

 - And how did it climb to 5% all of a sudden?

- Surely because of volcanoes; volcanoes have large quantities of carbon dioxide and there must have been many eruptions.

- Why have humans done so many mistakes about the carbon dioxide and health issues?

- Is it logical to say that whatever is good for the “beast” is bad for humanity and what’s good for humanity is bad for the “beast”?

- Certainly, they have opposite interests.

- The “beast” wants humans to err, it lives by their mistakes. Mistakes have passed from generation to generation through the simplest way, hypnotism brought about by habit. However every now and then someone wakes up. Someone understands the value of carbon dioxide and the holding of breath, someone understands the value of cholesterol, [9] someone understands that vaccines are drops of death, [10] someone understands that milk [11] must be consumed by humans only when they are babies and only if it is mother’s milk.

- Don’t they observe that no animal in nature drinks milk when it grows up, or that its mother stops producing milk when it’s no longer needed? And in what do teeth serve? Αre they there only for looks?

 - Right. Someone wakes up and says that salt [12] is necessary…

- Especially about salt, Konstantin, men should have perceived its importance centuries ago, when Jesus said to his disciples “you are the salt of the earth”. He wouldn’t have used salt as an example if it were harmful.

- Right. Someone realizes that hypertension is lack of oxygen and, instead of having exercise, he takes medicines.

- And then medicines [13]. I hope new humanity doesn’t create pharmaceutical industries; they surely don’t want you dead, since dead people cease to be customers, but they neither want you healthy because you wouldn’t be a client either. So what they do? They give you a pill that makes the symptoms subside – since if it had no effect on you, you’d stop taking it – but they create a health problem somewhere else, ensuring their clientele.

- Right.

 - Konstantin, has a Doctor the right to cure?

- He can interfere in the rule of reward and rejection. He has not the right to cure, that’s why he cannot cure. Through the ages, doctors have never cured the cause of an illness, they simply have made symptoms subside. And this, Alexander, is bad. Let me make an example. When a man breaths in the right way, gets the right nourishment and engages in motion, he is healthy. When he doesn’t do so, he is bound to manifest a problem somewhere. Let’s say in blood vases. They should be clean and strong in order to stand the pressure of blood. With bad living, the risk that vases break is there; so the organism protects itself by using cholesterol to reinforce the vases walls. Now the doctor comes and gives pills to make cholesterol go away, which ends up ruining the defense of the organism. The symptom subsides, while he should have indicated to the patient what he could do to cure the cause. They say illness is the visit of God. Do you understand what this means?

Alexander thought for a while

- Man is born healthy. He makes mistakes as far as his body is concerned, he makes wrong thoughts and problems start. Man can make mistakes, but he has not the right to live by them. By heaping up problems, he gets ill. Illness becomes a good opportunity for him to think, consider his mistakes, humble himself. By thinking, it is probable that you find what’s right. And, when you find and apply what’s right, you have the chance to save yourself, to save your Spirit. That’s why illness is the visit of God, It’s your chance to save yourself.

- Right. So when your doctor gives you pills and the symptoms subside, what happens?

- A man stops worrying. He loses his chance to save himself; he is a living dead.

- Right. Think now about a sick person approaching death. He is given pain killers and sleeping pills and he is robed of his last chance for repentance and salvation.

- Can a man be saved at the last moment?

- Alexander, the biggest criminal, if truly repented, really becomes another person and, as another person, who hasn’t yet made mistakes, he has the right to be saved; he doesn’t go to hell. You said before that a man is born healthy. Does this always happen, Alexander?

- I think it does. There may be complications during pregnancy or delivery, creating problems for the baby, but they are not the baby’s fault…

- The only illness existing in nature is cancer and no baby is born with cancer. However, since thought makes up for 80% of health, whatever one may have, one can think, understand, follow what’s right and get cured.

 - But, Konstantin, how can a man in no position to think get cured? Can a man in a coma be cured? Well, you might tell me it falls into rare cases…

Konstantin nodded approvingly.

- Which are the states of the Intellect?

- To think right, to think wrongly or to not think at all.

- And what is the reward in each condition?

- Well, when one thinks right, the waves one emits are tuned in with Nature, with Harmony, so this person feels the Harmony, feels good, lives well.  When one thinks wrongly one disturbs Harmony and must be rejected. When a person does not think at all, he does not disturb, he can exist. He exists.

- That’s right. With non-thought you are entitled to exist because you don’t disturb. A person in coma is in a state of non-thought. He is entitled to exist. His body receives nourishment, so it must have motion. He cannot move, so others must offer him some movement. They must give him energetic massages. By non-thought, nourishment and the massage, a person will be cured. Other peoples’ prayers have a positive contribution, speeding up this process.

-I understand that sleep must have a beneficial effect in the same way. If you lie down for half an hour and make bad thoughts or are stressed, you get no rest. If you sleep for five minutes you do get a rest because you practice non-thought. Konstantin, there must be quite a punishment for what  a doctor does.

- No, he does not understand what he does. No-one gets punished if they don’t understand that what they do is bad, if they leave this life without remorse. They are good people and they mean well, but look at how many specialties there are, and each  one doctor believes that he masters his specialty well. But a person isn’t divided in heart, bile, veins, bones… He is a total and as a total he suffers. He is not independent of his environment. Nature is not divided in sectors. Why study it in segments? A doctor tries to unite a puzzle that he himself cuts up in smaller and smaller pieces. Only the philosopher can unite everything, making the Universe understood. Then science will become knowledge of God.

- What has a doctor the right to do?

- Prevention; he must show the patient what is right and let him cure himself. He can also cure fractures. A bone fracture is not a serious mistake, it is carelessness. The doctor has the right to cure it and that’s why he does cure in this case.

- Konstantin, you impress me, you always have something nice to say about people! I was sure you’d speak differently about doctors, but you are always nice! 

The Biologist smiled.

- Is there a question?

- No, no question here, answered Alexander and laughed. I would like a comment, though.

-Imagine an eight-storey building with a treasure in the loft. Someone is on the ground floor, another on the third floor and one more on the seventh. What is their difference if no-one has the treasure?

Alexander stood silent for a while.

- I am afraid, Konstantin, about what’ll happen to the children if I get ill…

- Have you not understood which is the best treatment for all this?

 - Breathing…

The man smiled.

- Breathing, right nourishment, motion, they are all good but not the best…

Alexander lowered his head and stayed silent for some time.

- I can’t think of what it might be…

- The Law of Action and Reaction is involved. By doing good, your action, in other words your offer to the others, will trigger the reaction and this reaction will naturally center where your problem will be, on your illness. Don’t be afraid, Alexander, you won’t be seriously ill….

 - What a fine Law this is! You do good to someone who may never be in a position to reciprocate but the good, your deed, your action, stays there; in a way God owes it to you and he repays you when you are in need.

- Exactly. Have you heard the expression “rescued out of the jaws of death”? It’s the reward for something good this person has done. And the Law doesn’t work only with actions but also with thoughts. Say, you see someone and think to yourself “may you keep well… keep well”; the result is that you, too, will be well. And if, say, you send someone to the devil, you make this contact first. Sending someone to hell, Alexander, is the worst thing you can do to yourself because you wish for this person to suffer the worst, to go to hell, to the devil.

- I understand. Konstantin, do ups and downs in illnesses correspond to our mistakes? I mean, small mistake to light illness, big mistake to cancer?

- Alexander, man should not die but, reaching the level of Man and thus securing Paradise, he should consciously leave his body. When he cannot reach this spiritual level, then the only illness which he should suffer is cancer. However he does so many mistakes, that he has created more illnesses, a host of illnesses that kill him before the onset of cancer.

- What is cancer?

- Alexander, in order to understand what cancer is, you should first understand what the cell is…

- What is the cell?

 The man remained silent for a while.

- Let’s take it from the beginning. We know that the Universe has an age of about 15 billion years. Such a duration means that Order does exist. The existence of Order, in turn, means that there are Laws at work. These Laws are waves. Every Law has a specific waveform. The Cell is a Law, too. Plants, animals, humans have cells and there are also free cells in the atmosphere. We understand that they are a building material, independent from the organism. This wave may slow down somewhere, say on the mountain of a planet, and break apart. This part finds itself in the specific conditions of the planet, that is specific gravity, magnetism, moisture; it attracts various inorganic materials from the environment and forms a cell. Careful now, the cell has life but not a role.  We have appearance of cells, multiplication of cells, we have appearance of biomass, forming of leaves, then grass appears. Plants appeared and what did they do? They took the cosmic energy, the solar energy and transformed it in glucose.

- Photosynthesis…

- Exactly. In order for the planet to be clean, there appeared the animals which ate plants and what did they do? They transformed glucose in protein. Then man appeared, who ate both plants and animals and, in trying to get his food, he was forced to think. So what did he do? He transformed glucose and protein into thought, that is in wave, in essence returning the cosmic energy back to Harmony…

- Oh! This means that, if we wanted to give a definition, Life is transformation of cosmic energy?

- Life is transformation of the keeping of Order; a Living being can reproduce itself, it transforms one kind of energy into another and contributes in the preservation of Order.

- Konstantin, since in order to become a cell the wave of the cell uses the conditions of various planets, it means that it can be different on every planet…

- Right. Let’s say that a planet has different gravity, for example lesser than ours; then, say, thin long needles would be formed and we would say that this planet has no life but it has: it has long thin needles but we couldn’t perceive life there. So as long as man, as carrier, lives well, the cell coexists. If he doesn’t fulfil his role, he doesn’t create the protective umbrella for the planet and for himself, he becomes a dangerous environment for this cell. The cell gets crazy, tries to save itself, to go. Be careful, Alexander. Nature does not have a knife, she doesn’t have another way to expel you. It’s with cells that she makes you appear, and with cells that she sends you away. So the person starts feeling exhausted and cancer organises itself but at this stage it is still curable. With motion, absolute fasting and inspiration, it retreats.

- What do you mean by absolute fasting?

- Cancerous cells eat more. So, when you practise absolute fast, those in bigger need for food will die first.

- Konstantin, if a person has cancer on earth, it means that he hasn’t fulfilled his role on Earth; but if he finds himself, say, on the moon, does it mean that his rejection is not valid there, does it mean that he will be cured from cancer?

- Alexander, people tried to pursue health, to defeat cancer, to avoid death, but they looked for the answers in the stars; it is irrational to have a problem here and look for answers elsewhere. No, Alexander, there is no cure on the moon since a man’s role is here…

- I understood. Konstantin, is man fulfilling his role by serving society? Is it his role to serve society?

- Can a slave have two masters?

- Can a slave have two masters? Muttered Alexander.

- Be careful, Alexander. Man is a slave of God. He cannot be slave of society too.

- You mean it would be better if there were no society?

- Exactly. The search for food obliged man to form a group. The person gave strength to the group and the group gave strength to the person. However, people multiplied to a large extend. They formed society and got encaged in it, controlled by it. They diverged from nature and natural laws, formed their own laws, determined ways of behavior; so the person became a prisoner of society instead of being servant of God. But pay attention, Alexander, although the idea of society is mistaken, from the moment it got

 formed, we shouldn’t in any way mock and provoke society. We must thank society thrice fold; for having given birth to us, for having raised us and one more time because we can learn out of its mistakes. The phrase “your death is my life” does not mean one can kill in order to live but that, out of the mistakes you have done which led you to your death, I can learn things so as to live.

- And what about givingness?

Through giving to the others man will reach salvation for himself; his job  is to serve the plants.

Alexander sat up surprised.

- Man servant of the plants?

- He serves what appeared first, by thinking. You can see it in another way; Alexander, imagine a tree. You can cut it, take its fruits, carve it, burn it, tear its roots out… it hasn’t the slightest ability to resist nor even protest, it’s at your mercy to make of it what you want. Being the most helpless and innocent, do-esn’t it deserve to have the strongest as a protector, as a servant?

There came in Alexander’s mind the image of a burning tree. It stood motionless and silent in the flames. And then he cried. He realized the disaster and cried for it. Nothing felt more defenseless and innocent than a tree.

NOBODY WANTED to assist to Mary’s delivery. Most out of discretion, some out of fear.

-Let me know where you want me to put your chair so you have a good view, the Chemist teased the Environmentalist.

 The woman was lying on the ground, panting and scared. At the beginning Alexander felt embarrassed but when the groans and cries started, he concentrated himself on his task with seriousness and responsibility for her and for forthcoming generations. With the Gynecologist’s guidance, Alexander completed his mission. “Thanks”, he told her when he put the baby boy in her arms. She smiled at him wearily and forgave him; she looked at the little face with worship, impressed it in her soul and said in a whisper “I will never forget you”.

They constructed two remotely controlled cameras that looked like olive leaves. They had chips  and crystals with a lifetime of 500 years. The Electronic noted that, if they moved a lot, their life-span would be shorter. “It’ll be longer than ours”, commented the Chemist wryly. They placed one in the cave and the other on top of the hill.

Alexander went to take leave of them but they surprised him. They had prepared a hearty dinner for his last free night in Oneiroupolis. They embraced him and hugged him again and again; now that they had learnt to love all children, they realized that he

was their first child. He was their  firstborn who would be going to restart life as both son and  patriarch.

They were crying and laughing, eating and drinking, and no-one noticed that Alexander ate nothing, as he hadn’t eaten anything during the previous day. When they started to leave, he took Mary by the hand and walked her to her room. There, in front of the door, he left her and looked at her.

-Every time your femininity urged you to pass your hand though your hair, I thought that I had to become better so that you’d like me. I had identified my life with yours and was imprinting in my mind your every moment as something precious. Now I have to forget.

Mary embraced him tenderly and kissed him softly on the lips.

- I will remember so as to be able to live…

EVERY EVENING they had used to talk, Alexander posing the questions and Konstantin answering. Evening upon evening Alexander understood the mistakes humanity had done to reach unhappiness, illness, madness, death and disaster.

He understood self therapy, God, Emptiness...

Now he was sure, he was ready.

He looked around him in the room for any pendencies. He had swapped the floor and dusted. The two pairs of pants, the coat and the two T-shirts the President had given him were washed and stacked in the closet, his shoes shiny next to his empty box. All merchandise he had given away during his first days in Oneiroupolis. He spread oil on his body, rubbed it in and took it off scraping his body with a knife. He threw cold water on himself and wiped himself. He felt clean externally and internally. He thanked God for what he had given him and for what he had experienced.

He lay down, cleaned his mind from every thought and slept.

Some hours later, he knocked on Konstantin’s door.

-I am ready, he told him.

They looked at each other with emotion. Konstantin reached out and tenderly touched Alexander’s cheek. The youth felt as if a saint had touched him. He took the hand, kissed it and soaked it with tears.

- You will be in my thoughts, my good child.

He wanted to tell him, you are the family I have never had, the proof that man can be wonderful, my teacher; he wanted to say thanks for all the things he had understood, tell him how difficult it was to part from him, tell him I will never forget you, I will always have you on my mind…

He didn’t say anything; what he was about to do, he would do as his pupil and this said everything.

He raised the booth from one side and stepped inside. The Mechanic had constructed it out of iron rods and see-through nylon sheets. Its proportions were one cubic meter and had three holes for three pipes, two for the supply of carbon dioxide and oxygen and one for urination.

He sat on the mattress and closed his eyes. He would stay in there for 72 hours, learning to breathe from the start. He closed his eyes and began to practice breath holding. He had to be concentrated in every inhalation, in every exhalation. He had to stress his lungs a lot, creating a condition of choking, breathing the carbon dioxide he had just exhaled…

Konstantin beside him kept watch on him him. Gradually, the oxygen would wane and he had to supply it. Every six hours he would supply more carbon dioxide, until the instruments would show that the new atmospheric conditions had been recreated in the booth. It was an extremely difficult enterprise; Alexander would need great spiritual and physical strength to impose to himself endurance in these near-death limits for 72 hours.

 Everybody came by to see him. They sat silent next to Konstantin, fixed their eyes on Alexander and thought he was paying a very dear price for the right to be Up on the surface. Mary, seeing him sit there as a yogi with his body contorting from the willful drowning, and reading the indications on the instruments, was stunned. She admired him for what he had the guts to do, she was jealous of him for doing it and she mourned for him as a living dead because she would lose him for ever.

72 hour on the limits of death! He had not opened his eyes, he had not moved…

- What a guy! He did it, said the Chemist.

Everybody gathered outside his door and along the path he had to follow to arrive at the elevator. They knew he couldn’t talk to them; it was better to arrive on the surface with the last breath he would take into the booth.  He had no breath  for talking.

- Alexander, said Konstantin in a low voice. You are ready my child, you can go.

He opened his eyes and looked at him. He slowly unfurled himself, raised the booth and came out. Konstantin opened the door for him.

- Farewell…

He started walking carefully because he shouldn’t pant. He headed for the elevator under the sound of clapping hands and wishes. He arrived up on the surface and breathed freely… His world! He had earned it.

 His joy was immediately lost.

Man can be liberated but he is not free; he is bound by his need to liberate the others, too.

The security responsible waited with the mini bus. They looked at each other and drove towards the cave. The mothers were there, had breastfed their children for the last time and were imprinting them in their minds as they were sleeping on the sand by the fire. At the sound of the vehicle, they felt like fainting. They sat up and, with tears in their eyes, they came out.

Mary embraced Alexander and immediately let go of him. All the women stepped into the vehicle and waited for the security responsible who would transport them in their under world for ever.

Alexander surveyed the area. There was fresh food for himself and the babies for quite a few days, since he should be careful about his moves until his organism would have adapted satisfactorily; there was smoked meat, planks and some branches, the “stones” and cotton. Everything was OK, he nodded to the Security responsible.

- Your clothes, whispered the man.

Alexander took his pants off and handed them to him.

- Good luck and what can I say? You’ve got big balls!

As he watched him go he thought with a smile that this phrase was the last he heard
from that civilization.

 Chapter 2

Alexander buried his hands in the sand and took out a stone. It was cold. He dug the rest of them up and put them to scorch  around the fire. He dug puddles in a circle upon the sand and, using two cold stones, moved the hot ones there. He covered them and looked at the children. He took them two by two and sat them down. He had noticed that lately they sat more and more seldom on the sand. On their feet, or crawling, they explored the cave and, when they wanted to rest, they sat on the ground. They never approached the fire.

“Are they warm?” he wondered. He gave them some oranges to play with and paused to observe them.  In a while the children took the oranges and left the sand. Alexander put his hands on it; it was warm.

“They are warm!” he thought with satisfaction. He would use the warm stones only for the night, when the children slept for many hours on end and the temperature dropped. If they bothered them, he’d stop using them.

Since they had been 40 days old, he had tried to excite their curiosity and interest. He rolled fruit on their little bodies, he touched them with vegetables, he put flowers underneath their noses, touched their tongues with various tastes, made colored groups of fruit, smiled and clapped his hands in sign of joy…. He didn’t speak to them though, he didn’t produce any sound. The language was to be their own creation.

To make sure he didn’t forget any child in whatever he had to do for them, he used the sequence in which they had been born. He started with girl ‘1’ and finished with boy ‘14’. Several times a day he took them to the creek to drink water, one by one; he made a cup out of his hand and they drank. Then he immersed them up to their necks, then used his hands to brush most water away and leaned then on his chest to dry. They weren’t annoyed; they made happy voices, moved their little legs and looked inquisitively around.

He used to grind their food on a wide rock with a stone. They said <taktak>; they understood they were going to eat and watched him with interest as he didn’t pump them up with food. Their teeth were his quantity indicator; he increased the dose at every new tooth. One day he’d feed them fruit and vegetables, and the other baked bulbs and smoked meat; then he added some salt too. At a certain point he noticed with surprise that they ate soil, too. Alexander didn’t stop them. He should give them some fresh meat shortly.

 
Boy ‘3’ was grumbling a lot today. Alexander noticed his saliva was dripping.

“Tooth”

He thought of rubbing his gums with salt. He‘d never given the children any plain salt and he was curious about his reaction. He wetted his finger with saliva and plunged it in the salt. He put his arm around the boy’s head and rubbed the swollen gum with his finger. The boy’s face contracted in a salty funny grimace and Alexander broke into hearty laughter! The children turned and looked at him surprised. Boy ‘3’ continued to lick his mouth and Alexander laughed again and kissed him.

Girl ‘9’ of the twins made a little laugh and the others looked at her.

Alexander walked before her, clapped his hands and laughed; the girl imitated him emitting a joyous laughing scream and it was not long before the cave echoed with similar sounds.

The sky had been lead-colored since the morning.

“it’s going to rain”.

The children had never seen the rain; they didn’t walk out of the cave by themselves, they always stopped before the entrance. If it rained, it would be a good chance to lure them out. In the afternoon it began to drizzle; the children heard the sound and looked at him. Alexander smiled at them, walked to the entrance and they followed him, crowding around him. He waited for a while so that they could see and feel the smell of the wet soil and then went to stand under the rain. He clapped his hands and laughed, he opened his mouth and, ostentatiously, drank the falling water. The children looked at him attentively; the stronger the rain became, the more he danced.

<Tso tso>, said boy ‘14’ imitating the sound of the rain. Then he followed him; he came walking carefully and stood beside him. Alexander lay down on the muddy ground and the boy came to his lap, both playing in the mud and laughing joyously. One by one, the children came over to do the same.

A lightning streaked the sky and they looked at him.  Alexander clapped his hands smiling, stood up and began washing the mud off. The children tried to imitate him; he cleaned them a little and noticed that no-one was shivering. He went to the entrance followed by them all, led them to the fire and began bouncing up and down around it; they imitated  him but, as they were getting dry, thunderbolts resonated again. Alexander took a torch, stood by the entrance and, at each thunderbolt, he laughed and waved the torch. The children looked at the two fires with interest.

Alexander knew they were watching them from Oneiroupolis  but, with time, he remembered it more and more seldom. Sometimes, startled by the remembrance of the camera, he looked up, over the cave entrance, and held his hand up in a salute, a move copied by the children.

Each morning, Alexander took the food they’d need for the day and the children learnt to eat only a little and only when they were really hungry. They learnt what their turn was, and waited patiently for whatever they’d get, but he didn’t hamper their initiatives for what they did in other occasions.

He had to get them meat, so he had to accustom them to his absence. In the morning he woke up early, went to the olive tree and cut off a branch which he fastened at the entrance. Then he climbed to the head of the hill, hid himself and waited. After a while

the children came out, went to the brook, drank water and started looking for him. They clapped their hands and shouted <Khakha>. Alexander smiled with his new name. The children went over to the tree and “fertilized” it. They did their “need” around a tree, and when this spot was full with manure they moved to another.

 

Girl ‘9’ took a cotton tuft and put it in her mouth; she chewed but did not relish the taste. She tried to take it out but it got entangled to her teeth and a long fiber was formed as she pulled it.

They cut tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, looked with craving at the branches of the apple tree which were loaded with apples but too high for them to reach; than they sat down to eat beneath the olive tree at the center of the plants area.

Their games were toneless and nervous.

Alexander appeared at the entrance a little before dark, took the branch and showed it to them. The children run to him shouting <Khakha>.

Two days later he woke up early and again put an olive branch at the entrance. He cut some fruit leaving it under the trees and climbed up the hill. Today he’d be gone for the night, the first night the children would remain by themselves.

The children reacted better.

Next morning, he walked into the cave with the olive branch and woke them up. Now they were ready to be left back a little longer; he was at peace about their safety.

Two days later he left back some food and the branch which he hoped they had combined with his absence at the entrance and took off early for the animals area. He arrived there in the afternoon and took some rest, enjoying the harmony. He looked around him for the potential victim. He walked near a lamb, grabbed it and held it between his legs, then shouted to scare the other animals away and concentrated himself. He raised a heavy stone and let it fall with vehemence on the animal’s head. He had to feed the children but, in that moment, he felt sorry for the life that was lost… At least he had offered an instant death.

He carried the pieces stuck in a withe upon his shoulders and the eggs into the lamb’s skin. When he arrived near the cave he left them down and hid the skin. He walked in waving the olive branch and the children run and put their arms around him. He took a charred torch and some wood and made a fire outside; he didn’t want the heavy smell of the meat to linger in the cave. The children looked attentively, especially at the eggs, Boy ‘8’grabbed one and tried to bite it, his teeth slid on the shell and he tried again, pressing harder. The egg broke in his mouth and he got smeared. They laughed at his face and he wiped his cheeks with the palm of his hand, wiping it in turn on the face of boy ‘14’ who stood next to him and also laughed. Alexander took the eggs carefully and put them near the fire. In a while the place was filled with the smell of burning meat; the children sat around waiting. He took some lemons, brought salt on a wide leaf, threw some salt on the meat, sprayed it with some drops of lemon and showed the ruby roast to the children. He ripped first at the roasted meat with his teeth and the children imitated

him. In a while they were moaning with pleasure. Alexander peeled an egg, threw some salt on it and gave it to girl ‘1’.

Boy ‘14’ had woken up early and, to surprise the rest, climbed up the trees, cut fruit and collected everything under the olive tree. He took a tangerine and walked into the creek to enjoy it in the freshness of the water. He cut off the short stem, threw it to the ground, then peeled the skin off the tangerine throwing the pieces to the ground so that he could use them later as manure and started to nipple on the sweet slivers. The pieces of the tangerine skin had fallen near the water and before long one of them was carried away and passed in front of him. He reached it, took it out, examined it and left it back on the water. Continuing to observe its course, he laid next to it a piece of the tangerine but this traveled half sunk in the water. He stood watching, then went near the concave skin and put a small tangerine slice on it. The piece of the skin, moved from side to side, regained equilibrium and continued moving.

 Boy ‘14’ said <Ohhh!> in amazement, stayed still for a while and then dashed out of the water. He cut off various branches and fruit, went into the creek and put them in water. He noticed that some floated and others went down. He experimented for quite some time and then looked eagerly towards the cave.

- <Eeey>… he shouted. <Eeey>…

 The twins appeared at the entrance. Boy ‘14’ jumped up and down and nodded inviting them to come quickly. Boy  ‘11’ looked inside the cave and hastily said <eeey, Boh>.

They came to the creek almost running.

- <Toh> said ‘14’ triumphantly and showed them the floating pieces of fruit. They looked at them with surprise and then rushed to embrace him, enthusiastic with his discovery. They turned and looked at Alexander. He smiled and applauded in reward.

Boy ‘14’ raised his palms indicating he wanted their attention. He cut four branches, then took four apples and, using the branches, he united the apples in a frame. He showed them to the others and then pushed them under the surface of the water. Buoyancy made them come up to the surface.

- <Ooo>! they admired and clapped their hands.

Boy ‘14’ raised his palms again and took one apple. He showed it to them smiling and then put it gently over the other four. They liked it like crazy, they clapped their hands and splashed in the water glancing and pointing at the five apples in admiration and then ‘14’ raised his palms again. They stopped and waited.

- <Toh>, he said and pointed towards the threes. <Toh>.

- <Ooo>! they admired and clapped their hands. 

Boy ‘14’ raised his palms again and took one apple. He showed it to them smiling and then put it gently over the other four. They liked it like crazy, they clapped their hands and splashed in the water glancing and pointing at the five apples in admiration and then ‘14’ raised his palms again. They stopped and waited.

- <Toh>, he said and pointed towards the threes. <Toh>.

He came out of the creek and nodded to the rest to follow him. He went to the trees and cut impatiently some long branches. When he had enough, he took them in his arms and run to the creek. They looked at him without understanding but they followed with enthusiasm. He deposited the branches, put some of them next to each other and tried to hold them together with some more branches, vertical to the first. He pushed the whole thing into the water; the branches stood on the surface for a while and then came apart. But it was enough for the others to understand what he wanted to do.

They clapped their hands but at the same time girl ‘9’ and boy ‘3’ left running. They came back almost immediately, ‘9’ holding a long fiber of cotton and ‘3’ a fig-tree branch. Girl ‘9’ walked into the creek, put the fiber around the two branches and showed this makeshift binding to the others. They applauded at her inventiveness and then looked at boy ‘3’; he peeled off some bark along the branch and showed it to them. They laughed and clapped their hands for his thought too.

They worked heartily all day and built a strong raft. Alexander watched them satisfied with their inventiveness in making knots and junctions. They took the raft, pushed it into the water and, as it glided they applauded enthusiastically. Boy ‘14’ walked into the water, grasped the edge of the raft and, lightly, jumped and lay upon it. They looked at him in admiration for a while and then they all ran and tried to climb on the raft. It broke apart and they all sank.

Pieces of fruit and bark had ran ashore in various niches of the creek. While taking some rest, girl ‘13’ noticed that one piece held water in it. She took it, emptied it, filled it again, then raised her hand and emptied it. Most of the others saw her and clapped their hands enthusiastically.

“That’s my girl!” thought Alexander.

Boy ‘8’, who had been musing, was curious to know and asked <Eee, eee?>

‘13’ approached him, filled the bark with water and splashed it over him.

The twins didn’t know they were twins. The boys could see the resemblance of the girls but they didn’t know that they, too, looked so alike. The two girls, on the other hand, could see that boys ‘11’ and ‘12’ looked the same but couldn’t imagine this held true for them, too. The others had tried to explain it but hadn’t made it. They went to Khakha, stood before him and put the twins in their middle. Girl ‘1’  leaned her palms first on the girls’ and then on the boys’ faces. Alexander understood what they wanted and nodded to them to follow him.

He went to the trees and cut some fruit, giving one piece to each child. He gave two apples to the twin boys and two oranges to the girls. The others grasped the meaning and clapped their hands in agreement. The four twins continued to look inquisitively. Alexander called for the attention of the girls, approached the boys and united the hands holding the apples, then gently pushed their heads near each other and raised their hands under their faces. . The twin girls and everybody else agreed but the boys did not understand. Alexander asked for their attention, approached the girls, united their heads and brought their hands with the oranges under their faces. The boys nodded consent and then looked at each other startled. Boy ‘11’ raised his hand and grabbed the nose of ‘12’ and then his own. The others agreed and encouraged him by clapping their hands. He took out his tongue in front of his brother’s face and he did the same. Girl ‘9’Inflated her cheeks and instantly girl ‘10’ did the same. They brought their heads next to each other and looked at the others. They were agreeing and smiling.

 Boy ’14’ raised his palms. He approached boy ‘3’ and pointed at his eyes, then went near girl ‘7; and did the same, then pointed at the sky. Everybody agreed and boy ‘8’ walked to him and indicated that his eye, too, were like those of boy ‘3’ and girl ‘7’ and like the sky. They all looked at other with interest, then sat under the olive tree showing their resemblances to each other.

They began their acquaintance with themselves through the others’ features. They imprinted these similarities in their minds and they often touched these common features on the others’ face. They had always enjoyed contact since they were babies; they never sat without somehow touching the child next to them and they slept almost embracing each other. But now, these similarities made them love each other so much that they did not understand if they loved their own lips, which they couldn’t see, or the mouth   of the other, which they saw and which they were told that was so resembled their own. They loved each other as if all were one.

They searched for similarities in their bodies, too. This was easier, since they could see the front of their body. Alexander noticed that their genitals didn’t impress them more than any other parts that were similar or dissimilar; anyway, both boys and girls urinated standing up. When, however, hair started to appear on boy ‘8’, it made an effect on them. They ran to Khakha and ‘8’ grasped the man’s thick hair showing the scant hair on his own pubic. Alexander nodded agreement and smiled.

“Adolescents”

They all kneeled before him and touched this hair that resembled Alexander’s. These caresses however aroused functions that made his penis start to harden. This surprised them and made them interested to touch it again. Boy’s ‘8’ penis went from hand to hand, hardening and erecting and everybody was amazed about it. Poor ‘8’, with a funny expression on his face and unable to walk, was pushed to Alexander so that he, too, could see. Alexander made an effort not to laugh but admired the boy’s nature. Then he realized that the “children” were almost as tall as he.

The penis started to shrink and the boy said <O, o, o> in disappointment. He went before the others moving his hips vehemently and his penis went from one side to the other bumping on his body with a soft whipping sound. They smiled kindly at him but nobody had the curiosity to touch him again.

Alexander told them almost nothing if someone didn’t have the curiosity to ask, but then everybody paid close attention because they realized that it was also their own question, a question they simply hadn’t thought of up to that moment.

Boy ‘11’ pointed at the setting sun, touched his head and nodded <Noo>. Girl ‘5’ also pointed towards east at the whitish moon, indicating that neither she could understand what it was. Everybody agreed and waited. Alexander nodded, inviting them to follow him; he led them into the cave and showed them the fire. The children were surprised. They pointed at the sky and at the fire and Alexander affirmed.

They stood by the entrance, looking at the sky and at the fire and seemed nervous because they could not understand.

A crucial question, something that haunts you and escapes your understanding for a long time, is a chaotic situation for the mind which strives to understand, to reach a conclusion, to create order. The body will suffer too. He had to provide a satisfactory answer.

Alexander asked for their attention by raising his palms.  He took branches out of the fire and gave each one a burning branch to hold. They  went outside and Alexander had half of the children go up the hill, to sit and wait there. He took the rest with him, indicating that they were to walk without looking back and that they had to hold the torches before their chest.

Every while he turned to look over his shoulder. At a certain point he saw a light go downhill, stand still for a while and then go uphill again. “Hm! Someone has visited the pickles”, he thought and smiled. When he liked the view of the hill, he nodded that they could turn. The children looked but didn’t understand anything. Alexander smiled, the fires up the hill looked like the stars. He made them stand further apart and indicated they should hold the torches up. He didn’t see any reaction from the hill. He nodded to the children to approach and they all united their torches in a big fire. He looked towards the hill and saw the little stars unite in a bigger one. They noticed this motion and stared fervidly. Alexander made the torches draw apart and, instantly, the big star broke apart in smaller ones. The children understood and stamped their feet exhilarated. They again united the branches and the children on the hill imitated them. The children pointed at the stars, then pointed at the fires, understood and shouted <Oh, oh> in enthusiasm. In a moment of quiet, they heard the others answer <Oh, oh>.

This lead to renewed celebrations and signals and they didn’t leave until their branches were burnt out.

They lay in the starlight and looked at the sky. A star fell and boy ‘8’ indicated it with enthusiasm. He ran into the cave, brought a torch and moved it replying to the signal. Satisfied, they cuddled each other and fell asleep.

Alexander smiled. How right they were!

Our galaxy is a grain between other galaxies, our planetary system is a grain in our galaxy, the Earth is a grain in our planetary system and man a grain onto the Earth. What should he try to find? The same laws apply everywhere, why should he look for other creatures? What would it matter if they’d differ a little in the form? What would be different if their technology would be a little more advanced? It doesn’t matter how comfortably you live but how happy you are. Embrace and love your neighbor, because it’s only with him that you may be happy.

They were under the olive tree eating fruit. Boy  ‘14’ kept staring at the tree so long that the others noticed it. He sat up and went around the olive tree, then looked at the other trees and again walked around the olive. He stood still for a while and then looked at the others with an intense expression on his face. He saw they were observing him attentively; he put his arms around the trunk and then pointed at the other trees. They nodded that they could not understand.  ‘14’  looked at the trees pensively and beckoned, inviting them to follow him.

He walked to the apple trees and cut a fruit from each one of them. He gave the apples to girl ‘1’ and then went to the orange trees. He cut an orange from each tree and gave them to girl ‘2’. He took lemons and nodded to the others to follow him. He returned under the olive tree and put the four apples in a row on the ground; over them he laid side by side the 3 oranges and under the apples, in one more parallel row, he put the two lemons. He looked at them; he liked them all lined up; then he got up, jumped into the air and grasped an olive branch. He cut an olive, showed it to them and put it underneath the lemons. He sat on the ground and invited the others to observe them.

They sat in a circle observing the fruits. They realized he was indicating something special but couldn’t understand what it was. They stayed there long and, every now and then, ‘14’ pointed at the olive. At some point, girl ‘9’ took the apples and carried them over the oranges; she smiled satisfied, she liked the form more in this way. The other liked it better, too, and clapped their hands. They looked at the right angle triangle they had formed with interest.

Girl ‘13’ rose to her feet and started collecting pebbles from around the place; one by one, she placed them over the apples, creating a new row and increasing it by one. Boy ‘11’ jumped up, ran to the roses, cut some buds and he, too, added a new row over the pebbles. The buds were not enough to increase the number by one, which made the rest of them laugh, and ‘11’ used a twig to draw what looked like a flower at the empty position. They laughed and clapped their hands with enthusiasm for his thought and boy ‘12’ took the twig and drew a new row over the rest. Then girl ‘12’ took the twig and created her row, too, but an apple tree stood in the way and didn’t let her finish it. She looked disappointed at the others but boy ‘14’ took the olive from the ground and nodded, inviting them to follow him.

He went to the clearing in front of the cave, solemnly placed the olive fruit upon the earth and drew two lines over it. Then he handed the twig over to ‘1’. She drew three lines and gave the twig to ‘2’. She also drew her lines and passed the twig to boy ‘3’. One after the other they made their rows and, when girl ‘13’ had finished, she gave the twig to boy ‘14’. He started a new circle of lines that lead them away from the entrance by length and width. It was getting dark and they went on with their lines nearing the trees that would again stand in their way; they looked at the entrance of the cave that had been their starting point and at the place where they were now and they understood that, if they would go on next day and had enough space, there would always be someone who could make a new row, adding one more line.

They went to the entrance and looked at the olive tree and then at the rows lying in front of them; then they climbed at the top of the hill and they imagined the lines filling the whole area and clapped their hands in wonder because, from that lonely olive tree, they understood the value of One. And from One, Infinity.

 

Girl ‘10’ was aching; it was the first time anyone was feeling pain since when they were growing teeth. She lay on the sand, surrounded by all the others, and grabbing her belly. They looked at her uneasily, they touched her, caressed her and looked at Alexander. He felt her swollen belly, realized that the pain was in the fallopian tubes and her waist and made a negative sign because there was not much he could do. He massaged her back and waist and went out of the cave.

He heard them calling him and saw most of them gathered at the entrance; they were visibly upset and beckoned that he should come quickly. Alexander ran to them and, entering the cave, saw the lying girl. Girl ‘9’ was holding her knees; she touched her sister’s vulva with her hand and showed him blood.

“The first woman”

Alexander went out and came back holding a rose in his hand. He showed it to everybody and then put it on the girl’s belly, smiled and clapped his hands. The red color of the flower, similar to that of the liquid they were seeing running out of the body for the first time, and Kha-Kha’s cool reaction, reassured them. Alexander brought some pieces of cotton; he softly wiped the blood and put some cotton on the girl. Later ‘10’ felt better, sat up and felt the liquid flowing out of her. She took the cotton, smelled it and threw it in the fire. Her fingers were covered in blood and she wiped them on her belly. These three red lines seemed nice to ‘9’ and she asked her for some blood, so they would look identical in that, too. Girl ‘10’  lay down and her sister extended her hand and took some blood on her fingertips. She drew three lines on her belly and showed them to the others.

Everybody liked the ornament and, one by one, they all took blood to put on themselves, one on the chest, the other on his face; boy ‘8’ put it along his penis because he wanted to stress that point. All this touching aroused girl ‘10’ who started to move her hips asking for more caresses. Boy ‘8’, who had felt something similar, obliged; he lay alongside her and put his hand between her legs. In a while, feeling grateful, the girl reciprocated the caress.

They embraced tightly and, while the boy was enjoying this contact, he entered her with vehemence. The girl moaned with pain, he stopped and looked at her but she drew him back to her. She felt something spreading inside her, filling her with saltiness; she felt this saltiness come up to her mouth, wanted to transmit it to him, so she grabbed his head and pressed her mouth on his.

Their moaning and movements attracted the interest of the others; they sat around the sand and watched them.

The girl felt tension and sweetness in every muscle; her nose captured the wonderful smell of their bodies; her body was captivated in the unprecedented sensation and her mind was anxiously watching what was happening, becoming more and more beautiful,  she didn’t know what to expect and what it would all end up to…

The shouts of their climax worried the other children; girl ‘9’ made a sign that they should separate them; they all agreed but, before they attempted anything, the two bodies drew away from each other panting and with a serene expression on their faces.

The tension in her body had subsided but her mind was upset; what she was feeling made her sit up; she looked around her and felt that the cave was crushing her and almost ran out. The others followed her with curiosity and saw her moving in an unusual way. She took some steps , then changed her mind and turned to another direction,  looking around her and crying <A…A….A….>

It was too big, what she was feeling, she almost could not stand it. She was overflowing with love for everything she saw around her, she opened her arms to hug them, she swirled, she raised her face up and, out of her very soul, came this <A> that she cried moaning because she did not know how else to express this happiness, where to direct her gratefulness and in her mind there flashed the idea that this wonderful and huge sentiment should be addressed to something Wonderful and Huge; to This she wanted to say “thanks”.

As Alexander was watching her, he sensed what was happening to her and remembered Konstantin’s words: “Man reaches God through logic but also through sentiments. Protect him from every fear and he will feel Him through gratefulness”.

They had never wandered away from their area. They used to walk to the top of the hill when the sunset colors were intense and, holding each other, they gazed around. The earth was a barren place and the nicest spot was under their feet.

Alexander woke them up one morning and nodded inviting them to follow him. He led them to the raft he had asked them to make; upon it, they put a dense layer of leaves and they loaded wood and food. He took the “stones” and some cotton and put them in the boat too; then he told the first four to hold the raft up and he set forth. The children followed him puzzled, since this was something they had never done before, but when they passed their creek they gamboled joyously.

They walked alongside the river, every now and then taking turns carrying the raft. Around noon they smelled the air, their sensitive nostrils catching a different smell and looked towards the yet invisible sea.  They felt that the sky had approached the earth.

 Alexander invited them to leave the raft down and they followed him on a small hill nearby. From there, they saw the sea for the first time.

He showed them the direction of the river reaching to the sea and they were amazed at the huge quantity of water.

- <Tso?> asked boy ‘14’ indicating the sky.

Alexander clapped his hands in approval of his thought.

They reached the sea and Alexander threw himself into the water and swam with joyous screams. They observed him for a while and then they followed him in the same manner. They had swam in the creek since they were babies but the buoyancy of the sea made swimming easier; they enjoyed diving and playing and they didn’t stop licking the saltiness on their lips.

Alexander took them to the salt pits, arranged the leaves on the raft so as to leave no openings, took a handful of salt and put it on the leaves. He nodded to the children to continue loading and returned to the sea. He swam to the reefs and there he dove looking for some kind of life. He was enthusiastic to see some small fish and mussels. He stepped on the rocks and began to fumble around carefully, taking out only the big ones.

The children finished loading the salt. He called them and, when they reached him, he showed them the mussels. They looked at them but didn’t show any interest; they seemed like stones to them. Alexander told them they were <Taktak> and boy ‘8’ took one and tried to bite it like an almond. Alexander managed just in time to stop him from breaking his teeth; he took it from him, gave all the mussels to girl ‘1’ and invited them with a nod to dive their heads and see. When they understood what they should do, they spread along the reefs and started collecting.  Girl ‘1’ returned the mussels to Alexander because she wanted to collect some of her own. KhaKha showed them his blackened palms and swam away on his back. They understood how many they had to collect and how they should leave the place.

He lit the fire and, until the wood would turn to embers, he returned near them.

The turmoil had attracted some small fishes; although the children’s glance fell on them, they didn’t see them. Alexander went round to the other side of the cliffs; there, to his surprise and enthusiasm, he discovered a lobster whose foot was caught between the stones and was desperately trying to break loose. He grabbed him and carried him on the surface. For a whole minute he considered what to do. He had decided to take the children to the animals so they would know there were other forms of life. His heart was aching because the years of innocence would be over. They would know the living food and death.

He showed them the lobster which they thought was similar to a carrot. They came out of the sea and approached the fire. Alexander let the lobster down; the animal began to walk towards the sea and this surprised them because it glided like an orange and had funny branches. They knelt around it and it stopped, moving its calipers menacingly.

- <Too>? asked boy ‘14’.

-<Noo>, said Alexander, it was not a plant. <Taktak>, he added hesitantly.

They were impressed by this kind of food that moved by itself without anybody touching it. Alexander took a twig and came up to the lobster which grabbed it with its calipers making the children scream. Then he threw some sand on it, took it carefully and put it on the embers. He put the mussels next to it, ripped a lemon apart and invited the children to sit down.

They loved the deliciousness of the mussels and then the lobster. That evening they played imitating the lobster’s movements and Alexander thought with relief that they had not understood.

They were at the rock where they kept the pickles when ‘9’  screamed holding her belly. She grasped the hands of those next to her and placed their palms there; showing no hurry the others imitated her and suddenly they felt the kick.

They run to Khakha and showed him her belly; ‘9’ reenacted the movement she had felt saying  <Bloh, bloh>. Then she touched her head and said <Noo>.

Alexander clapped his hands  and, while they were looking at him with interest, took a garlic and beckoned them to follow him. He led them to the annual plants near the creek. Whenever they took a garlic or an onion, they always planted a new one at its place, so there were little plants in various stages of development. He showed them one clove and put it in the earth. Then he pointed at a little green leaflet that had just broken the surface, then to a slightly bigger plant and he continued till he reached a fully grown plant. They all agreed, they knew that. Alexander showed the grown plant and placed his palms next to it, indicating its size. Then he approached a smaller one, shortening the distance between his palms. He arrived at the smallest tip, indicating its size with his fingers. Again they all agreed.  Then Alexander indicated the height of ‘9’.  Then he gradually shortened the distance until he reached the form which he indicated with his fingers and thus he touched her belly.

They remained speechless for a while and looked at one another to ascertain what they had understood.

- <Khakha>, said ‘14’ he indicated his height by bringing his palm by his head. With knife-like movements he shortened the distance from the ground, fell on all four and started crawling, then approached his hand to the ground, showed his two fingers and finally ended on his belly saying <Bloh?>

 Alexander smiled. He went in front of every woman and indicated her breasts, her genitals, her belly, saying  <Bloh>. Then he indicated the men’s genitals and their bellies and said  <Noo Bloh>.

They thought about it for a while, then ‘14’ took a clove; with it he touched the ground and said <Too>. He approached ‘9’, touched the clove on her mouth and lowered his arm up to her belly.

 - <Bloh?>

Alexander nodded negatively. He showed the garlic bulb and with it touched the bellies of the men. He knelt before ‘14’, held the bulb on his belly and with his finger indicated a direction up to the end of his penis. Boy ‘8’ approached him so that he could indicate the path to him, too, which raised some laughs. Alexander gently indicated the path, then indicated the vulva of ‘9’ and united his hands.

The first year they had lived in the cave, when the cherry trees had blossomed, he thought to carve a line on the wall and repeat it every spring so as to know the years that went by. He changed his mind immediately and wished that these humans would not become slaves of Time, that they would not discover calendars and clocks. If you know the years that go by, you also calculate the years to come, you mesmerize and cage yourself in some kind of age limits, a life-time that you take for granted and which you’ll probably program correctly – unfortunately.

All women, except ‘13’ had remained pregnant. Alexander often fondled their puffy bellies and clapped his hands joyously. The men watched with interest and compared belly sizes putting each woman next to the other.

It was cherry season again; Alexander saw they were red enough and beckoned to the children that they could eat. This roused their celebrations; they were crazy about cherries. They brought the long ladder they had built to climb up high trees and they cleared the way for girl ‘1’ to go first, but Alexander grabbed her by the wrist and stopped her. They looked at him surprised; Khakha pointed at her belly and shook his head in negation. He did the same for ‘2’ indicating her belly, so boy ‘3’ happily climbed and grabbed the first cherry; he threw it to Alexander who tasted it and made an affirmative nod.

They clapped their hands and beat their feet on the ground; girl ‘4’ approached the ladder but Alexander stopped her, laughing at her eagerness. He held her in his arms, mustered all women around him and let only ’13’  go.

She climbed elated , followed by boy ‘14’. The boys, disciplined, would eat one cherry and throw one down to the others. Lighter than the boys, ‘13’  climbed to the higher branches and teased the other girls, who nodded that she should throw them some cherries, by eating the cherries ostentatiously herself. She found a branch laden with fruit and thought to end their torture by throwing them the entire branch. She cut it and threw it to the girls who applauded enthusiastically. Happy with their joy, ‘13’ started frolicking on her branch.

Alexander saw the risk; he unconsciously cried “DON’T…” but there was no time. No branch prevented her fall and she kept laughing till she reached the ground. There was a smile on her face, an almost mischievous look in her eyes; only her neck was broken.

He closed her eyes before the approaching women could see them, repeating <Don’t, Don’t…>. They looked at her, beckoned to the men that she was sleeping and they all kept quiet. It did not seem strange to them, since they fell asleep quite easily; when they were sleepy they just lied down and fell asleep at once. Now they ate their cherries in silence and, every now and then, left some near her head.

Alexander lay near her feeling shattered. He covered his head so that they didn’t see his tears; through his arms he could see her motionless leg. He thought about the kilometers she wouldn’t walk, the jumps she wouldn’t dash into, the dances she wouldn’t swirl to, the sand she wouldn’t bury her feet in, the weight she wouldn’t carry…

“You left so early, my little one”.

He felt sorry she wouldn’t be with them anymore, sorry for what she had not had the time to do; but, most of all, he felt sorry for what she had not understood.

The hours passed and they kept coming by on their toes to see them, impressed that they still slept; they went away in silence. They didn’t want to disturb them, so they stayed in the cave. When their voices ceased, Alexander stood up; he put two olive branches in their places, took the girl in his arms and drew away to bury her; he could not stand showing death to the children then and there. When he came back, he threw one of the branches away, scattered the cherries around with aching heart and lay down.

He was waked up in the morning by their flustered shouting. He sat up and looked at them; they were on their knees and boy ‘14’ was holding the olive branch in his hand.

- <Boo?> he asked him.

- <Noo>, said Konstantin and indicated his eyes to show that he had not seen her.

- <Too>, said girl ‘9’ and pointed at the cherry tree to indicate the fruits that were no longer by its trunk.

They all agreed that she had eaten her cherries and gone somewhere.

They waited for her, sad and upset. They kept going to the hilltop to look around. Boy ‘14’ called them and he nodded that he would run to the place they had gone to swim and look for her. They all applauded and wanted to go with him, but Alexander beckoned to the women that they should not run.

The men set off; the women climbed the hill and watched them till they vanished from view but didn’t leave the place; the felt so lonely and they clustered together hugging each other. When the sun began to scorch, Alexander called them to come down. They obeyed but, every now and then, one of them went up the hill to look around. It was ‘10’s turn to check and, when she reached the top, she started shouting <Boh, Boh>.

They all went off running before Alexander had time to stop them; they climbed the hill and fervently looked towards the familiar direction that ‘1’ was indicating. It was a dot that came nearer. When the dot apart, girl ‘1’ put everybody in line; to her disappointment she realized that girl ‘13’ was missing. She looked at the others and ’10’ agreed, indicating the parallel lines they had carved when they had set off. She hadn’t added one at their return.

 They were eating under the olive tree and boy ‘14’ pointed at the meat, the eggs and the trees; for the first time a question dawned on them, what tree produced these cutlets, the chicken and the white fruit…

Alexander pointed at the creek and made the form of a horseshoe on the ground. They nodded they understood. He showed the hill with their cave and made a circle. Then he carved a line and pointed at the river. They all agreed that they understood. Alexander extended the river downwards, designed an X and imitated the moves of swimming. The children agreed smiling. Then he extended the line upwards and put another x. He pointed at it emphatically, then pointing at the eggs and the meat. Boy ‘14’ was the first to react manifesting his interest. He pointed at themselves and, with his fingers, he indicated walking along the river. Alexander agreed. He had to take them to the area of the animals. They had to get acquainted with moving food and death.

He woke them up early in the morning and nodded that they would walk up the river. They agreed gladly. As they walked, they felt more and more good-tempered with the idea of new things they’d learn. Their numb souls needed it; the absence of ‘13’ was a part missing out of everybody’s self.

They made frequent stops; Alexander did not want the women to get tired and men, who needed the exercise, run ahead and then returned. They arrived late in the afternoon; he walked into the river and beckoned them to follow. They climbed a small hill and they saw the animal area for the first time. They clapped their hands with enthusiasm and ran eagerly towards the trees.

There, in front of their surprised eyes, a hen jumped down from a branch and run away. They hardly had the time to exclaim when a flock of chickens jumped off the tree like ripe fruit and also rushed away chuckling.

They looked at Alexander with open mouths; they looked so surprised that he broke into a loud laugh, justifying one more time the name they had given him.

And then they saw the descent of the hogs. It was a good time for them to go to the creek, drink water and roll in the mud. They passed silently by the group of humans leaving them with an intense smell and wonder.

-<Eeehi>, said boy ‘3’ pointing. The sheep were lying down and looked like rocks; one of them stood up drawing his attention.

They did not know where to look and what to see first. They surrounded Alexander and he, putting  some hesitation in his voice, told them  it was <tactak>.

What strange food!

They followed the pigs and saw them drink water and splash around delighted. They approached the sheep; some of them were annoyed and drew away bleating. Boy ‘8’ grabbed a young one and held it in his arms. They all approached and examined it curiously. What kind of food is it that can see you? What kind of food is it that can like or dislike being held? What kind of food is it that, when left down, escapes running?

They knocked nervously on their heads, to indicate that they could not understand.

A rooster attacked a hen and climbed on her. They threw their eyes and mouths open when, noticing their movements, they realized what they were doing.

- <Ahah!> exclaimed boy ‘8’ pointing at them, almost scared.

But what kind of food is it that makes love?

‘8’ knelt down and walked on his hands and feet; he threw his hands up, opened and closed his fingers and imitated the movements of the lobster, then pointed at his mouth and stomach.

- <Tactac>, he said sadly.

Girl ‘1’, who especially loved chicken, recognized the hens.

- <Tactac>, she said, troubled.

They clustered together and looked at each other inquiringly. They looked at the living beings around them and found it hard to accept they were food. They threw glances at Alexander, who realized it was the first time they doubted him.

They were shocked. They needed to believe in Alexander. They needed to imagine that he knew everything and that whatever he did or said was right. They wanted him to be perfect so that they also could reach perfection.

- <Khakha>, said ‘14’. He pointed at the animals around them and added <Noo Tactac>.

- <Noo Tactac>, said the others in chorus.

It was the first time they separated themselves from him, first time they had their own opinion.

- <Noo Tacta>, he agreed with them.

- <Bohtach>, said girl ‘1’.

The word <Boh> had different meanings. It meant me, you, us… Now ‘1’ had found a new word.

- <Bohtac>, the others agreed with her.

- <Bohtac>, repeated Alexander and clapped his hands.

They run to him and hugged him, hoping the spark of doubt inside of them would soon burn out.

 He had to explain to them. He asked for their attention.

He indicated the area and drew a circle on the ground. He indicated the hens and drew two of them into the circle. He indicated the sheep and drew two shapes resembling sheep. He did the same with the pigs. He indicated the plants saying <Too> and drew 6 carrots repeating <Too>. They beckoned they understood the correspondence. He asked for their attention and pointed at one of the sheep. Using his fingers he walked up to the carrot, he said <Tactac>, pretended to chew, pointed at his stomach and erased the carrot. The children agreed. One by one, he erased all the carrots and then pointed at the animals. He mimicked anxiety, he pointed at his stomach pretending to be hungry and saying  <Tactac>. They looked at him puzzled.

 He again asked for their attention and reformed the carrots. He did the mimic of the sheep going to eat a carrot and then pointed at himself. He walked into the circle with his fingers, took one more sheep, erased it from the circle and mimicked themselves eating it. The children reacted with annoyance. He pointed at the pig, erased the carrot and then mimicked himself taking another pig, erasing it from the ground and again indicating themselves eating it.

 Then boy ‘14’ said<Oh>. He was the first to understand that, if they didn’t eat some of the <Bohtac>, there wouldn’t remain enough food for the others. And then his consideration extended into the next conclusion and into a horrifying question…

His feet bent and he sat on the ground. He closed his eyes and almost didn’t breathe. Then he took a lump of earth and looked at Alexander.

-<Khakha?> he asked. He pointed at the animal and then at the lump, he crumbled it into his hand and let the dirt fall on the ground.

Alexander nodded yes, in sadness.

‘14’ took one more lump and indicated themselves. He crumbled it  saying  and his eyes were enormous with the wish of the negation…

But he received an affirmative.

‘14’ felt terribly exhausted; he had to sleep. He lay on his side, shrunk by the thought of death. And then he realized that he was alive.

 Alexander woke upset; he felt there was something wrong. He saw them sleeping in the sweet dawn, all hugged, under the trees. He walked into the cave and saw the kids; they were also sleeping peacefully. No, they were not the cause of his unrest. Walking on his toes so as not to wake them up, he cut an olive branch and put it where he used to sleep; he wanted to be alone, to hark at this unrest he felt inside of him. He walked along the river and, when he had gone far enough, he sat by the water

He closed his eyes and let his mind flow into space.

He saw Konstantin’s image.

“Master”…

A bright light surrounded his body; he looked at him and smiled.

“I am leaving”…

“Shall I come with you, Master?”

 “You are needed here…”

“Until when?”

“You’ll know”

The light began to fade until it disappeared.

“Thank you, Master”…

He realized his mistake. He shouldn’t call him “Master”. His spirit has a name, and by that name he should refer to him.

“Thank you, Konstantin…”

Chapter 3

The KEYHOLDER opened the niche on the wall and took out the book. It was a tradition, once a year, to write the most important facts in the archive. She sat at the desk and threw a glance at the monitors. She opened the book, took a rooster feather and dipped it in the beetroot juice; 25-12-401 a.D. she wrote and then stopped.

- 25^th century, she whispered and her eyes wandered in the scant space of the capsule. 400 years of survival in the womb of the earth after the Disaster! She wondered whether those first men imagined they would go such a long way, but humans survive and adapt much better if they haven’t known other conditions.

Her gaze fell on the triptych with the photos of Konstantin, Alexander and Vesta and then she looked at the table with the Laws which hang in identical copies in every area of Oneiroupolis. They learnt them since childhood and, at the age of 15, they recited them and took the oath to abide by them

LAW 1. Any intervention on the Above  is forbidden.

LAW 2. Head of Oneiroupolis is the Keyholder and to Her I obey.

LAW 3. Euthanasia is allowed only when the training of the substitute is complete. It is imperative when  two active  Citizens and the Keyholder agree.

There was one and only law for the Keyholders. It wasn’t written on any table but on their mind, their  soul and their cells. “I will protect the Above even if I have to destroy Oneiroupolis”. It would suffice that she thought this phrase over 5 consecutive times and the chip implanted at the back of her neck would trigger a mechanism of suspension of the basic function of Oneiroupolis, causing narcosis and asphyxia to its inhabitants.

How was that rime? “Your thought is deadly when it must, turns everybody into dust”…  The little girl had talent, she stood out with her seriousness and her performance in study; she would probably be the next Keyholder after the next.

The day before, at the Dining Room, all five generations had assembled to celebrate the advent of the New Year and the new century. They had brought in even the two psycho patients of the first generation. It was a sad thing to witness but their eyes brightened up at moments and even showed some spark of interest.

It was a sad day, as always; they didn’t forget it was the anniversary of doom. How glad could they be with the survival of 58 humans out of all humanity! How proud could they be for the few plants and animals they had saved with them!

 She looked again at the page of recycled paper before her and started to fill the form started centuries ago by a charismatic Keyholder.

She put a dash corresponding to births. The 5^th generation had been born 10 years ago. They would have a new generation in 5 years.

Next to deaths she wrote, “One, by euthanasia, from the 1^st generation. Cause of death: schizophrenia”. The recurrence of mental diseases was the proof against the belief that the Underworld humans could adapt well. The “frequency booth” had no effect on them.

Next to population total she wrote 22. Each generation had 5 individuals, always 3 women and two men and had a difference of 15 years from each other. Thus, the first generation was 70 years old, the second was at 55, the third, where she belonged, at 40. This was the active one. The 2 men and the 2 women were responsible for the function of Oneiroupolis and also for the tuition of the 4^th generation which was now 25 years old. The 5^th generation was 10 years old.

Next to education she wrote “Fine”. The 5^th generation had 6 hours of tuition every day, with basic notions from Mathematics and Geometry, Physics and Chemistry, Philosophy and Othodoxy, Medicine and Theosophy. The 2^nd generation were their tutors.

She also wrote “Fine” regarding the education of the 4^th generation. Each Citizen educated his or her substitute in their respective specialty for 10 years, to then have as an assistant for the remaining five years. During those last years the three women bore children but the Keyholder remained pregnant only once. The female Citizen-Doctor knew human physiology and did whatever surgery was necessary. The male Citizen-Caterer was busy with the plants and the animals and took care of their multiplication and their good quality. The male Citizen-Engineer was responsible for the good function of the installations and the female Citizen-Psychologist took care of the mental health in Oneiroupolis and observed the Above.

Choosing the Keyholder was the most important thing. During the first years she attended the lessons of all Citizens, so as to be sure that the substitutes mastered their duties, but also to be able to intervene in case of emergency. No specialty could be lost, knowledge was of vital importance for Oneiroupolis. During the next 5 years, she was initiated in whatever piece of Konstantin’s philosophy had been rescued, and in breathing.

Every 15 years they celebrated the hand-over to the next generation; continuators took up their duties and the Medicine woman implanted the Key at the back of the neck of the Keyholder. It was then that she learned about the Sacred Book she had to keep and received the keys to the entrance and the arsenal.

This was their only happy anniversary.

They knew that in the old era people celebrated their birthdays or their name-days. These vanished around 50 a.D. They didn’t have names because they didn’t want them. The name is inferior to the specialty and when someone did or said something, he or she should have the responsibility that went with this stance.

Most of the first scientists were Christian but there also were 3 Muslims, 4 Buddhists and 2 Atheists. When the first children were old enough, the matter of religion and time measurement was addressed. The result of the dispute was a Hyper-religion which included references to God, Allah, Yahweh, Buddha… Oneiroupolis would not have stood fanaticism. The subject was taught by Konstantin who had concerned himself with all religions in his life, ending up where he had started from: Orthodoxy. Since they all trusted his logic and his judgment more than their own notions, Orthodoxy had prevailed. As commencement of time they considered the first day after the Disaster.

She threw a glance at the monitors and, instinctively, looked for her companion. His sensational beauty still surprised her, she hadn’t grown accustomed to it all those years.

“Since I was a little girl I liked to watch children’s movies and cartoons; there weren’t many of them but I was told they were the best because the President always wanted the best for his guests. I used to laugh with all those clouts and it was the only laugh to be heard in Oneiroupolis;  when Louis had grown up too, we made quite a fuss but no-one ever told us to keep quiet.

By watching movies and series we learnt how the world was of old, before the Disaster. What charmed me the most was the waves; it was the waves I would have liked to see most of all, a big blue wave with a white crest splashing upon the rocks. I had a CD with all the waves included in the movies and Louis, who adored the sun, had his, with sunrises and sunsets. One day he came running and I knew from his joyous look that he had something important to tell me.

- You won’t believe this! There was a king with my name, who also loved the sun and was named Roi Soleil! It’s from him I got my name. (Translator’s note: Louis 14^th, king of France, 1638-1715 )

- Wrong! When you were born, they asked me “Vesta darling, how shall we call the little boy?”    ‘Louis de Funes’, I said.

- Louis de Funès? He said, disappointed. I don’t like it, I prefer to think it comes from Roi Soleil.

- Well, now that I think of it again, it comes from Louis  de Brainless!

A terrible brawl started at that moment; the outcome was a reconciliation CD with big waves…. at sunset, a present of daddy-Electronics expert.      

During that time we laughed and teased whoever we met. We loved them all but we also had our preferences. We both agreed on mummy-Dentist, who was also our teacher; Louis liked especially daddy-Veterinarian because he let him play with piglets and I had a weakness for mummy-Psychologist, I guess because she played with us and talked to us more than the rest. One day, I grabbed Louis by the hand and run before her.

 

- I don’t understand; in the movies we see, in the old times a child could have two daddies but only one mum. How come we have more mums?

- It’ s because all mums helped; we took an oath that you would be children of all of us and never to disclose our secret. It was a heavy oath between the women who…

- Weren’t we both delivered by daddy-Gynecologist?

- Of course.

- Alright then, since you took an oath and can’t tell, I will go and ask him which mum gave birth to me, I said, irritated.

- And to me, cried Louis, stamping his foot on the floor.

- Calm down, she said and knelt before us. It doesn’t matter which mum gave birth to you because we all love you the same. As you said, in the old times it was different; now all mums cannot have many children because food wouldn’t be enough for everybody. We have you, you are children of all of us and…

- We already know that, I cut her short again, but we want to know which mum gave birth to us; let’s go, Louis…

- Stop, he won’t tell you, he doesn’t know; he hasn’t seen because… we had a blackout…

- Darn the luck!, said easy-to-convince Louis and the discussion ended there.

Personally, I found the coincidence of a blackout at both our births quite suspicious, but it suddenly dawned upon me that, if I finally got to know who my mother was, I might feel disappointed because I preferred mum-Psychologist.

Although we had the same parents we knew we were not brother and sister, so we understood that, when we would grow up we’d marry; we were ok with that but felt uneasy about sex because neither of us wanted it.

-Louis, do you like me?

- Sure, you have such a cute gait,   he repeated everybody’s favorite  phrase.

Sometimes we used to watch their rooms to find out who “was doing it” with whom but we didn’t see any move and calmed down somehow. That’s why we couldn’t understand their obsession with that serial. There was always someone there to watch it and although they must have seen it several times, since they were watching it for years, it kept their interest. Whenever we tried to enter the Control Room, they shouted “out, this is grown people’s stuff”. We saw there were naked people in the film, which means the story included sex, and this stressed us a little bit. We liked action films, “True Lies” couldn’t compare with the crap they were watching! We concluded that grown ups were “strange fruit” and left them alone.

One day, daddy-Agriculturist called us to show us how he fertilized citrus-trees. I immediately let Louis know that “fertilized” meant how plants had sex. Daddy-Agriculturist took pollen from the flower of one of the trees and put it into the flower of another tree. We fertilized some trees too, and Louis whispered to me “Well, I don’t think I am interested in sex at all”.

It was then that one of the lamps went out and daddy –Agriculturist was upset. He run to find the others in the Dining Room and we ran behind him because we loved turmoil and disorder. No matter how unpleasant for the grown-ups a situation was, it was fun to us because it livened up Oneiroupolis.

Those were special lamps that helped in something called “photosynthesis” for the plants. Now that one of them was fulminated, soon the others would follow and they could not get fixed, neither were more of them to be found.

- If there is no photosynthesis, plants will wither and we won’t have food, I whispered to Louis; no grown-up was talking at that moment though, and I was heard.

- We are lucky to have lots of pigs, said daddy-Chemist quite seriously and Louis ran away in tears.

I didn’t follow him because I wanted to know how things would develop, all the more because mummy-Psychologist, who did run after him, would handle it better than me. I was lucky to stay, because an amazing brawl broke out.

- Alright then, see what you managed! Did you like making the boy cry? Shouted daddy-Environmentalist.

- Did I say any lie? Answered daddy-Chemist.

- You didn’t, but you didn’t have to mention that; you know how much he adores pigs.

- So do I!

At that they came to blows but daddy-Konstantin raised his hands and they stopped.

- We’ll transform the lift and transport the plants there.

How strange! This phrase did not disturb them at all, on the contrary, they seemed to like it. Daddy-Konstantin was a wise man and whatever he said was right, but my hair stood on end with fear. Before the lift there was a door with a scull on it and a sign «ACCESS FORBIDDEN» «DANGER OF DEATH».

Behind this door, there was the elevator leading to the Upper World. They had gone out years ago and they had seen that the earth had been destroyed and we couldn’t live there because the place was full of enormous viruses and microbes! When they came back they closed the elevator but some small viruses managed to come inside and so whoever passed the “EXIT” would catch… death.

- But out there, there are viruses and microbes! I pointed out in a fainted voice.

- Oh! We’ve forgotten that, said mummy-Dentist alarmed, bringing her palms to her cheeks.

- We will put on our suits and place glasses so that light passes but microbes stay out… said daddy-Agriculturist.

-But, how is it possible that you forgot? I am so young and yet I remember it and you forgot?

- You were born and got accustomed to these conditions…. For us it is different. We grew up differently and no matter how many years will pass, there will always come moments in which we’ll forget, explained mummy-Dentist. Well, just this morning when I woke up I thought of taking my little car and go to the beach… swim in the waves and…

 Then daddy-Chemist, in a low voice, uttered a swear that made mummy-Dentist glare at him angrily and daddy-Environmentalist shout indignantly “shut up for once”… and they shoved me out of the room. But I had overheard the swear. He had said "Vamos a la playa".

I run all joy to Louis to tell him about the big fuss we would have and about the suits  that we’d finally get to see. They kept them safe in lockers and didn’t take them out but we knew they were like the ones in the film “Apollo 13”. Then I told him about the new swear I had heard; “Oh my”, said Louis disgusted.

Oneiroupolis was all abuzz in a few hours. Tools, iron and wooden parts, and quantities of soil were being prepared and we didn’t know where to go and what to see first. Then the voice of daddy-Security came out of the loudspeakers. “Oneiroupolis enters state of quarantine. Those with no special suits immediately go and stay in their rooms”. I grabbed Louis by the hand and we run to our room.

-What a pity, I said, we are the only ones without a suit…

The truth is there were 5 children suits; the President had been so thoughtful about the children of his guests, but we didn’t know it then.

Daddy-Electronic had created a music with the functions of my body. He had used drums for the sound of my heart, a soft sound of waves for my breath, a harp for the fluttering of my eyelids; he had included even the different sound of my feet, using a piccolo and holding one note a little longer. He loved me too much to change it. “Vesta” was heard regularly in most areas in Oneiroupolis. When he considered creating a “Louis” song, my sweet one cut him short saying “no, I want only “VESTA” to be heard”.

I turned the volume down and we stuck our ears to the door to hear what was going on outside, but we were disappointed. I was doing the exercises for my leg when mum-Psychologist walked in, with a tray of food, wearing her suit. We screamed ecstatically and hugged her.

- I must go, she said hastily; we have many things to do. You eat, get some sleep and have a good time. There is a quarantine, so I will lock your door in case someone forgets and opens it. She went out in a hurry and locked us in. Me and Louis looked at each other indecisively because we didn’t know whether we would like that, whether it was good or bad for us. Louis, scary of the worst, threw in his swear.

-Vamos a la playa!

Quarantine is not a nice thing. We stayed locked for days and we would have gone mad if they didn’t come to see us every now and then, in their suits. When we got out we noticed some changes. First of all they put us in a new room near the Dinning Room and daddy-Agriculturist moved to the other end, near the “EXIT” so as to be near hisplace of work. From now on, due to the viruses and microbes, we couldn’t go help him but we didn’t care since – and this was the best of it all – they gave us the plant area for some time. That enormous place would be ours! There was still soil, pots, withered flowers, broken tools, old stuff; what you’d call a first class assembly.

- This will be our office, I said joyously to Louis, here we can do whatever we want…

- And not let grown-ups disturb us!

I wrote with big letters on a piece of cardboard “ENTRANCE FORBIDDEN TO GROWN-UPS”. Louis read it, thought about it for a while and shook his head.

- Look what you’d do! You forbid the entrance to grown-ups. But you are older than I am, so does it mean that you forbid the entrance to yourself, too?

He was right, so I added “IT IS ALLOWED ONLY TO THOSE OF THE ABOVE WHO ARE 10 YEARS OLD”

- And what about me? said Louis putting on a sour face.

“EXCLUDING THOSE WHO ARE 6 YEARS OLD”, I added. The result pleased us, so we stuck the cardboard on the door, went in and screamed like mad.

As time went by the plants grew up better, our food became more savory and my body changed. One day mummy-Psychologist secluded me and told me I would soon become a woman. I was scared and asked her whether this meant I should have sex, but she reassured me that sex is not obligatory to no-one and you have it only if you want and with whom you want…

- Do you have sex?

- … and you talk about it IF you want, she said severely.

I let Louis know about all this; he was stressed and asked me when he’d become a man.

- When you grow a moustache, in about 4 years….

- We have time then, he said with a sigh of relief.

We were passing by the Control Room and we immediately realized something bad had happened. They were all gathered under the monitors and watched standing up; some were hugging, some crying. We stole in noiselessly and I was frozen to see the face on the monitor.

- But this is you! said Louis…

Mum-Psychologist looked at me; her sorrow was so great that she couldn’t lie to me at that moment.

- It’s your twin sister…

They looked at me; in their eyes there was more than sorrow, there was also guilt.

- Why? I addressed the question to all of them; they looked at each other in silence; I turned my back and hid into a closet to think.

None of their excuses was enough to erase from my mind the thought that they had been thinking only about themselves. We were meant to fill their bleak hours, to care for them in their old age.

- Instead of giving a brave end to your miserable life, you condemned me to become your gravedigger, without for a moment thinking I would prefer to be lame and paralyzed up on the surface instead of healthy here.

Their surprise was genuine. Unfortunately for me, they hadn’t thought of this possibility. I was stuck down here and Louis was born because of me.

Louis came to my bed and told me “I am sorry about your sister”. I opened my arms and we hugged tight.  I had a sister over my head and didn’t know it. I had a world, a life up there and I had lost it…

- Vesta, do you promise me that you’ll never leave me?

He also felt betrayed; all those lies had made us lose our confidence to the grown-ups. We were insecure because we didn’t know whether their actions were for our good or theirs.

-Do you want us to get married?

He understood and immediately said “yes”. I got up and pulled him by the hand.

- Like this? In pyjamas?

- Dress is not important, words are.

Hand in hand, we walked to the “EXIT”. I let go of his hand to put both my hands on the door.

- What are you doing? He asked uneasily, you haven’t got a suit…

- I am sure this, TOO, is a lie.

I opened the door and felt the light as a soft sheet upon me. For the first time in our lives, our eyes met with natural light. We stood at the center of the area and looked high up.

- Is that the sky? Asked Louis surprised.

- Let’s go and see…

I freed the lever and we started going up among the plants. We reached the surface, we set out feet on the ground, we looked at the earth and the sky and we got married.

- Louis, I promise that I will love and take care of you for ever. I stopped short to think and Louis repeated my words.

- Vesta, I promise that I will love and take care of you for ever.

- Louis, I will never betray you and I will be on your side as long as I live…

- Vesta, I will never betray you and I will be on your side as long as… you live.

We exchanged a tight handshake and sealed the occurrence.

Now that the truth had been revealed, they could do all the improvements needed in Oneiroupolis with calm. Our wells had water; we applied solar energy to the masks so we could get rid of the generators and, for one more time, the Under went out to the surface. We were a long way off from the area of the Above but, to be sure they wouldn’t appear suddenly before us, me and Louis stayed behind to watch them on the monitors. This is how we got to know and love them. They were our “opium”; we held out thanks to them…

The Environmentalist was the first to ‘go’ and the Chemist followed after some time. One by one, we buried them on the surface. Only for Konstantin who, although order, had lived more than the rest, I told Louis to keep him in Oneiroupolis. We built a space in our “office” and buried him there. He had however completed his booth.

During his last years, he did research on us. He‘d put cables all over us and give us problems to solve. Others were asked to read texts about love and, since in Oneiroupolis me and Louis were the only ones in love, he had us embrace and kiss each other. Konstantin found the frequencies the brain emits at the specific moment that one is arriving at a logical conclusion, as well as the frequencies when one feels love. He built a booth and Mummy-Dentist was the first to use it. Her waist was stiff after she had carried a cauldron in the dining room. She walked in the booth bent in two and came out almost upright. She was cured by the frequencies of love.

Konstantin initiated me into his philosophy since he believed that a Woman who becomes a mother finds herself nearer the Divine. I had given birth many times. I hadn’t the strength to do what I had blamed them for years: give a brave end to our misery. Deeply sympathetic to his last days, he found the suitable phrase to say in order to soothe me.

-“Life dreams of life…”

The Keyholder sighed. She always loved to read Vesta’s story and there was a phrase of hers, a phrase repeated twice, that left her particularly perplexed.

She turned the pages; she had to continue with her report. For “Provisions” she wrote “Satisfactory crop. Enough animals”. They had never eaten fish and seafood; centuries had passed since these species had gone extinct. For “Installations” she wrote “Fine”. Of course there had been problems but Citizen-Engineer was excellent and had given solutions, so there was no need to mention them. For “Notes” she hesitated; she thought whether she should write something but then she hastily penned only a dash.

Now that she was done with Oneiroupolis, she had to write about the Above. She lay back on her chair and looked at the three monitors. Her glance lingered on the one that hosted permanently the “Past”. It was a tremendous collective work of the first years of Oneiroupolis, by the people who had an experiential point of view about their past. They had tried to collect and save the more they could on CD. The musical background was classical music, songs of international success, voices of people, animal cries and sounds of nature. The images contained pictures they had transformed in 3-dimentional ones: buildings, works of art, paintings and sculptures, animals, birds and fishes, rivers, lakes and oceans, historical persons and events, images of everyday life. All came from movies and the library. Themes changed every 2 or 3 seconds and they could remain stuck for days on end to watch. The “Past” played permanently in the Dining Room, which was also an area of distraction.

Her eyes flew to the other monitors with the Above. She unconsciously looked for her companion. She saw him next to a group of children, taking part in their training. She had never liked this kind of arid reports about them. They didn’t reveal, they didn’t say anything. For Oneiroupolis there wasn’t need for anything more, but they were skimpy for the Above. Someone had to write in length about them, about their life and their achievements.

She felt something hovering in her heart; a craving came over her. She could do it, it was she that could write about them, she who had a companion up there, that wonderful man she had been told had been born on the same day as she. Citizen-Psychologist had mentioned it, when she was but a child, and it had been a decisive event for her life. She had begun to feel a personal interest for that boy, and love him. Those feelings were the reason the previous Keyholder had finally selected her. She had passed all the psychological tests with an unprecedented success. She hadn’t the slightest scruple to destroy Oneiroupolis if it meant that her favorite Above man would be saved.

“The sense of economy has been inherent in Oneiroupolis and it has passed also in our language. The first inhabitants were of different nationalities and talked to the children in their mother  tongues. So, as years went by, there remained in our language the shortest phrases from each tongue; for example the phrase “I don’t know” could have been saved in English, German, French, but it remained in Italian, for brevity.

Language is a basic tool with which humans express their disagreement and different views. When they agree, a nod or a glance is enough; they don’t have to speak. The Above never disagree, maybe that’s why their language is restricted to a few brief words, gestures and signs. Such is their harmony, their bond, their resemblance that one would think they are One Man, One Woman, One Child in different ages.

Their gestures and signs are clear and unambiguous, impossible to confuse. I admire them for saying so few things… We don’t stop talking but I don’t know how much we are feeling. What is the reason for saying “this hurts” if someone cannot feel exactly what you experience? There should be a magical “feelings button”; when you’d press it, the others could feel your words with the same intensity. The Above have invented this.

A typical day starts for them before sunrise. We don’t know exactly when; what we see, as soon as there is enough light, is that they have already woken up. They sit under the trees, resting their backs on the trunks, they keep their eyes closed and stay in this position without moving. What do they do? Meditation? Prayer? It certainly is some activity of the mind.

Then they go to the creek and drink water. A lot of it, so much that they don’t need to eat if not in the afternoon. The mothers in charge for the day, go to the caves to relieve the previous ones and take care of children up to 4 years of age. They have dug two more caves into the hill; we have optical contact only with the first one but we assume

that the same happens in all of them.

The rest of them, men and women, run. It’s amazing how they run! I remember a phrase I have read, “like race horses”. They head to the sea; we don’t know what they do there, but what our detectors show is that they cover about 60 kilometers in one hour! I found some old Olympic Games records and found out there were many who run 100 meters in 10 seconds. However, they wouldn’t have been able to run the next 100 meters at the same speed.  The Above go to the sea, about 20 kilometers away, and return, sometimes holding mussels, in about 40 minutes. They love motion and don’t run for competition but in order for each one of them to improve his or herself.

After that they go about their business. Those who have a turn at the plants get busy with the cultivations, others with handicrafts and the rest are busy with the training of the older children. Their training begins when they are able to run steadily. It starts off with a simple game. They sit one opposite the other, the grown up takes a pebble and shows it to the child, then puts his hands behind his back, hides the pebble in one hand and brings the hands forward again. The child tries to find the pebble. (14)Chances are 50% and it does not seem impressive. Soon, however, the child gets to find the pebble 8 times out of ten. Then they make the game more difficult by introducing a third possibility: that the pebble stays on the ground, behind the grown-up’s back. Little by little, the child becomes a good telepathic receiver. They start groping at the “button”.

They eat in the afternoon. Each one chooses his or her food and gets it by him or herself. Sometimes they bake bulbs but they usually eat raw food. They do not mix their food, they don’t try to combine and make their food tastier; they understand that the more savory a food is, the more one eats. They put salt even on the fruit and they eat characteristically small quantities. Their lunchtime does not resemble at all our ritual, our gatherings to eat and talk. Each one eats alone, as if shameful for this need. Food to them is only a combustible.

After taking a short rest under the trees, they assemble to play. It’s wonderful to see them compete. They form groups according to sex and ability and each group provides a winner. Then the winners compete until they arrive at the final winner. They play a different game every day and they look like Titans trying to surpass themselves. One game is reaching for the higher branch. They do astonishing jumps, in height as well as in length. My companion is the best athlete in longjump. He can jump to the opposite bank of the river, a distance of about 12 meters. In the river, they also compete in swimming upstream. The most popular kind of race is running. They run a specific distance in front of the caves; it’s 130 meters long and some of them run it in 5 seconds.

The final winners, man and woman, are cheered and have the honor to be the first to dance. The rest of them sit in the clearing in front of the cave; it looks like they

are singing, like they all say “aaa”. The two winners begin to swirl. One after the other, the rest of them stand up and take part in the dance; in a while, the whole tribe is swirling. At this point our image is lost. Every time they begin swirling, we get snow on our monitors and then nothing. We can’t see anything and, when the image returns, their dance is over.

Then they have another strange game. They stand in a circle, according to their stature and someone stands in the middle. He or she goes in front of everybody and gets spanked on the face and body! There are biffs and punches. Then the next one goes in the center and they go on until everyone is beaten up. Blows are not very strong, but they are substantial and in the next day they all seem a little puffed up. The Citizen-Psychologist says that they relieve their anger or that they don’t feel anger thanks to this method."

The Keyholder re-read what she had written and found it satisfactory. Now she had to describe their personal moments and themselves. She wondered how she should begin and decided to start with what one could primarily see when looking at them.

“The Above are giants. In their full development, men are over two and a half meters high and there are many who reach three meters. They have well developed muscles and dark skin. Men and women have dark shiny hair that is left free and reaches up to their waste. Men regularly scorch the hair on their cheeks with a burnt-out torch. It’s a process done by one to the other in the creek; they go there in groups and, when someone is burnt, he ducks his head in the water and the others laugh.

They are very handsome; everybody in Oneiroupolis say they look so much alike that they can’t be told apart. Maybe I’d say the same if I had not learnt to recognize first of all my companion. This persistence was the reason I found out an astonishing fact. They almost don’t grow old!  We are over 40 but he looks like my son. I have thousands of kilobytes in my archives, with images and videos that prove he has the same appearance for the last twenty years. Only his glance has changed. He looks around him more slowly, more sensually or as if he is thinking more.

Children are especially fond of their mothers, while these love all the children the same. This makes sense, because a child has one mother while a mother has many children. Women bear children over ten times. We have the exact number of births since they all give birth at the creek. There is a pool with water. They throw in some hot stones so that the water gets warm, suitable to welcome the new life; women sit in there and give birth. After the delivery, and for as long as it is needed so that the child is able to walk, they take care of it; then they get pregnant again.

They don’t use any special behavior for their own children: they love, breastfeed and care for all in the same way. Children, on the other hand, have a special caress for their mothers; they softly touch their belly with their palms, as a recognition that they have come out of that specific belly. When we were little children and my companion caressed his mother in this way, there was also another woman who administered the same caress to her although she herself had children older than us. I deduce that his mother today is over 80, but she looks as young as I do and, only a few days ago, she was the winner in her swimming team!

You cannot see an old person between the Above. It’s as if their age ceased to grow around 40. They don’t get seriously ill. If someone has a problem, it usually is over in 2 or 3 days. We haven’t seen anyone dying.

Anchorites leave before dawn, leaving at their favorite place two olive twigs. We can discern them making their way to the animal area and we believe that they go there to die.

Their movements are gracious and well aimed.  They have no problem when they are naked but their genitals are usually covered by the ropes twisted around their hips.  They carry them to break branches with, to move around on their huge trees but they also hang from them to do physical exercise. We don’t see them having sex, they probably make love during the night. There are no rivalries; how could there be rivalries when a man is with a woman but, when – say – he gets tired of her and covets the woman of someone else, this woman is exactly the same as his. There is no explanation as to how women have ended up being so alike. [16]”

Years ago, a strange thing had happened to her. She was calm, laying on her bed in the “capsule”. She suddenly felt her body tremble and, with wavy motions, slip out of herself. She hovered to the ceiling and could see it a few centimeters above her. As if her back was on an airy wave, she moved to the parlor. She saw a bulge in a corner of the ceiling; she had the sensation of seeing everything under her without moving her head. She hovered in this way for a while and flew back into her body. She sat up startled and wondered what had happened to her. She had read about Astral travel. Had anything similar happened to her? She remembered the bulge on the ceiling and eagerly run to find it. Nothing was there.

“It was a dream”, she thought. But it had been so real!

After some time, a similar thing occurred. She had the sensation of being asleep and at the same time she could watch herself. Her body trembled outwards like a flame; she could see her feet oscillate and a swirl pull her upwards, but her back and head were pulling her back. She felt she could let go but was afraid to.

And then, without any logical explanation, she adopted some characteristic features of the Above. She ate little and raw food. When she was alone in her room, she threw her clothes away and stayed naked. She often threw cold water on herself and, at night, she ran. She put a sign on her door saying “DON’T DISTURB” and did the unthinkable. She went up on the surface! As time went by she realized she felt better. So one night she timed her running performance. Six months later, timing herself again, she saw her improvement and almost cried.

She summoned the Citizens and the People and let them know about her experiment. She told them what they had to do and that, from that day on, they also would go on the Surface every night. They listened to her words almost delirious: it would be the first time in their lives they could go out on the surface. It was an unprecedented event that made them adore the Keyholder. In the last 3 years, Oneiroupolis ticked on by copying as much as possible the life of the Above.

She heard someone knocking on the door. She put on her white robe, made up from a bed sheet and said: “Come in”

The 4^th Psychologist came in with an expression of concern all over her face.

- The 1^st Engineer  is having a fit, she said and left.

The Keyholder hurried after her to the sanitarium; his screams could be heard outside. When she walked in, he saw her. The long-time respect to the image of the Keyholder had left a trace inside of him; her white tunic, a color only she wore, was reminiscent of something that made him stop and flush his eyelids. Then he started his woeful screams and spasmodic motions again.

The Keyholder nodded to the Citizen-Psychologist and she pulled a lever on the wall. A jet of cold water made him crouch in a corner. The Psychologist stopped the beneficial Water Shock and approached with her assistant to help the man.

Once again the Keyholder thought that phrase Vesta had repeated and wondered when someone would give a brave end to that misery. She went to Konstantin’s monument and sat beside it on a chair. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. That strange fragrance! How her soul felt soothed when she was there! She returned in the “capsule” and saw the snow on the monitors.

What is happening up there? She wondered once more.

In a while it would get dark; she took the mask and glided towards the EXIT.

The stones that absorbed solar energy lighted the place softly. She took a transformer, connected it to the mask, raised a bright stone and came up to the surface. She laid the stone on the ground, took off her clothes and looked at the stars in exultation. It was cold, so she started running, enjoying the fact she was alone.

She ran and kept in mind her bright mark; she didn’t want to stray too far and lose their green well. Then a thought rushed into her. To see where the snow came from.

Next evening she lay a mixture of beetroot juice and iodine on her face and body. When her glaring white complexion that might have betrayed her was concealed, she

fastened the transformer at the back of her neck. She let her hair loose, threw it over her breasts and thought that, with her stature, she looked like an Above girl in her teens. She summoned the 2nd Keyholder, stood naked in front of her and let her know about her enterprise.

- Go, she said to her in admiration. She trusted both her daring and her judgment. Whatever she would have done, would surely be for their good, without any consequences on the Above.

As soon as it was dark, she took off running for the river. She carried in her mind every detail of their ground, she knew almost everything about their habits; she believed she would reach the place before sunrise and that she would be able to hide.

She followed the river and discerned their familiar hill under the starlight. She drank lots of water since she didn’t know when she’d be able to drink again and, staying at a safe distance, went around the hill reaching the most distant area of the forest; there she lay down between the bushes and waited for the morning. Notwithstanding the cold she fell asleep and, when she woke up, the sun was already high in the sky. She listened carefully for some time and, hearing nothing, she raised her head with caution.

She chose an appropriate spot. She had a good view towards the area of their dance, in front of the cave, and could see their groups, far enough into the trees. Nearer to her she saw a handcraft team. Some grated pumpkins using pieces of wood and their hard nails. They took off the pith and let them dry so their skin would harden. Those utensils had many applications, they used them to carry water, make pickles or keep seeds and salt. Another group made cotton threads, which they used to make ropes for their various needs. With them they tied their ladders, which they needed to climb on the high trees, or they made swings and hammocks to enjoy in their leisure time, thick ropes they harnessed themselves with to ply the ground and, of course, the ropes around their waist.

What they needed to cut, they burned. They used controlled fire for cutting, and stones for smoothing. But the most useful tool they had, was their strength.

She wondered why these people had no curiosity. They had never seen them wander away from their area, their whole world were these few hundreds of meters in front of the cave and up to the sea. They didn’t even go to the animal area if not at the end of their lives. Why didn’t they want to know what lay beyond? Curiosity was a natural property of humans. Why didn’t the Above have it?

Someone came out of the trees and she immediately recognized her companion. She restrained her impulsive move to run to him, hug him and kiss him. She looked at him avidly and realized the most natural thing, that she was deeply in love with him. His stunting beauty was more intense now and she wondered why the Above didn’t wear any adornments. In the archives, she had seen ancient tribes wearing various materials upon them; why were they different in this? The truth was no ornament would be proper for them.

They had their incomparable beauty and grace but it was strange; they could have worn flowers or strings of little stones but…

She realized that, for them, the Earth was alive; they loved her and respected her! They wouldn’t destroy a flower to put in their hair. They wouldn’t move a stone to tie before their breast. A stone can be in a position of harmony with its surroundings for millennia. What right had they to move it, if this wasn’t necessary?

The man walked towards the cave and he suddenly stopped. He took some hesitant steps in the direction of the creek but then changed his mind and walked again to the direction of the cave. His behavior seemed strange to her. He then walked slowly towards the creek, then to the cave, stopped, put his hands on his waist and turned around. Six boys came out of the trees and run to him laughing. They grabbed him by the hands; three of them pulled him towards the cave and the other three towards to creek.

She understood their mischief at the same time as he, It was one of the telepathic games, with children as emitters and grown ups as receivers. The children gave opposite directions to confuse him and now they were amused for having made it. The man chased them, grabbed one of them and the others threw themselves on him. Their shouts and laughter caught the attention of the other groups but they weren’t disturbed; it was nice chance for joyous contact.  A crowd of little ones came out from various directions and the human hill grew in height and sound. The Keyholder lowered her head and cried. Never in her life had she felt sorry for the Under as much as she did now. An end should be given to their misery.

That day’s game was swimming; everybody went to the river and so she had the chance to stretch her legs and take two of the oranges that had fallen on the ground; as she quenched her thirst and hunger, she smiled at the thought of her love for her companion.

Love was a flower that seldom blossomed in Oneiroupolis. It didn’t matter to her that her feelings could not be reciprocated, she didn’t even want it. She admired him so much, she held him so high up that his existence touched deity; she didn’t want him hers because that would mean bringing him down to her level. Who wants to touch god? When you adore him, you find it impossible to desecrate him.

Immersed in her thoughts, she was startled to hear their song. She sat up and looked. The winners had begun swirling. As the minutes passed, more and more people entered the dance, the sound became softer and she felt more and more strange. She realized her hair was standing on end! She felt static electricity even on her eyelashes.

No sound reached her ears. The tribe was swirling…

 Nature seemed to wait…

She suddenly saw sparkles over their heads…

The sparkles became flames dancing wildly and uniting between them….

The flames became fires that covered their area…

The fires became a river of lighting flowing towards the area of the animals…

The river returned as an ocean and shone as far as her eyes could see.

Then it all stopped and she began to cry and cry and cry…

She could not understand how it had come about. She was sure she had flown over the trees. She couldn’t describe what she had felt. Serenity, tenderness, safety, completeness, love, submission, greatness, happiness…. She couldn’t imagine there were organs inside her that could have stood THIS. How could she go back to caring about her everyday life after THIS? She could be sure about one thing alone. She wanted to relive it.

As she watched them walk away a question came to her mind.

Why were men so many and women so few?

Through closed eyes she read the Book entries for the first time.

The 3^rd Keyholder, at the end of the first century, had recorded the largest population. About 200.000 people.

The 9^th Keyholder, at the end of the 2^nd century, had recorded a total of 80.000.

The 16^th Keyholder, at the end of the 3^rd century, had recorded a total of 16.000.

Herself, as the 22^nd Keyholder, had reported a little while ago the total for the 4^th century. Less than 4.000 people. From the time she had undertaken her duties up to now, that is in the last 9 years, 373 boys had been born but only 30 girls. The human species tended to become extinct. While women gave birth many times, they bore less and less girls. Why was that happening. It looked as if Nature didn’t want them.

When it got dark, she left for the area of the animals; she had to see what was there. She often stopped for water. Her pace was losing vigor, she felt more and more tired but she went on…

She normally should have returned this morning but she would be gone one more day. In Oneiroupolis they’d worry, but she had no means to let them know; she couldn’t do differently, she had to follow the course of the lighting river.

Then she froze, startled. She could not swim, how would she cross the river?

She immediately dropped any thought of turning back. She would go on. She would see whatever she could see and understand whatever she could understand.

She enjoyed the colors of the sunrise for the first time in her life and found out that she was walking on a path, a trail formed by the feet of the Anchorites over centuries. This made her all the more enthusiastic and she went on with renewed strength.

At a certain point the path ended. She realized it was from there that she should cross to the other bank. The river bed was shallow where she stood and she put her foot into the water. It was frozen; she kept going until the water reached her waist and she stooped to rub her frozen feet at the same time groping for spots she could thread on. When she straightened her body, she realized the color had washed off her and saw three people on the opposite bank of the river. They were two men and one woman, whom she recognized. She was the grandmother of her companion.

They showed no surprise, no fear, although it was impossible they hadn’t realized she didn’t belong to their tribe. Her complexion alone was enough…

The woman pointed at the two men and beckoned her to come.

It was inconceivable, but she thought that these people were expecting her.

She took two more steps and the water reached her chest. She felt her legs tied by fear and looked at them. The two men entered the water and approached her. They grabbed her by the arms and carried her to the other side. The water reached their necks; it would have drowned her.

With them at her flanks, they walked up the hill. They stood there and she heard hundreds of people applauding. These people had been waiting for her! They were under their trees, looking at her with smiles upon their faces; some approached and touched her lovingly. Then, they left her alone.

How was it possible that they had been waiting? How was it possible that they knew about the Undersurface people?

What a wonderful place for anyone to die! She thought. How much harmony among the animals, among the people, in nature… The only thing breaking the harmony was that trunk on a nearby hill, sticking out and dominating the landscape, a trunk the Above sometimes turned to look at. It was unnatural, arid among the green feast of nature, but it sure meant something to them.

She walked between them and yet no-one stared at her with curiosity. She could see love, compassion and acceptance on their wrinkled faces. Most of them kept their eyes closed and they were old, so very old that you could wonder how they still lived, what power kept them still alive…

“The slapping”! In her mind there shone the answer to a question she had had for years. “Why do they keep young?”

It was not natural for age not to be seen on their faces. The Keyholder suspected that it might have something to do with the increased carbon dioxide. However the aged faces of the people in the animals’ area were the proof that the reason lay elsewhere.

Physical exercise keeps the body in shape, and Surface people exercised a lot. But how could their face, too, stay young? As time goes by, muscles lose their tone and vigor, the face shrinks, becomes thinner, wrinkles appear. She saw this process on the aged faces in Oneiroupolis, she had started to notice it on her face too, but not on the Above. Why? Because of their slapping! They used this game so as to exercise their faces, too. Micro-injuries forced their muscles to heal and the whole process kept them strong. They repeated this process every four days, so their muscles could not lose their tone and sag.

Once again she fest admiration for them and she promised herself that, from now on, Oneiroupolis would copy them in this matter, too. The results would be beneficial to all ages, as exercise is beneficial no matter when you start it.

She sat under an orange tree, laid her back on the trunk, closed her eyes and fell asleep with a last thought in her mind: “What a wonderful place to live in!”

She woke up with a sense of expectation and felt the electricity on her body. Everybody had gathered around the trunk, sitting on the ground with eyes shut. Sparkles appeared, clustering over the old wood; then they became a fire and received the river of lightning. And when the fire became a protective umbrella covering the whole earth, a word entered her mind, a clear message she got from that trunk. “Come”.

She believed there was no bigger happiness than the happiness of giving; she loved humans so much! She wished she could embrace each one that ever walked on earth, tell them a nice word and kiss them! She didn’t know Hell, but she knew what hell was for her: wanting so much to help and not being able to.

She felt so lucky for everything she had been able to see, to hear and read. And she was sorry that the Above couldn’t know the achievements of their ancestors. She wished there were a way to make them see the “Past”…. But had it not always been this way?

How lucky were those who built, saw and walked in the Parthenon! But how much was missed by those who didn’t see the? Dom! (

Translator’s note: Roman Catholic cathedral in Cologne)   How many were those enraptured by the 9^th Symphony! But they were so unlucky for not being there in time to feel ecstatic with Mythodea! How rightly proud the generation of the wheel would have been! But might they have seen the moon-landing! How many had the happiness to have heard Pythagoras but might they have heard Jesus!           

She felt in pain for people and thought it was a glaring injustice. There should be archives with every fact, everything should be registered somewhere and people should be able to access it. “Enter” and experience it. This was right and therefore should be possible.

 She immediately realized her mistake. An inventor constructs something that doesn’t exist in nature. He has the responsibility to ask himself whether this will benefit men. Might it be harmful to nature? Even if he believes this invention of his is useful, how can he be sure that in the future it won’t be used for evil? He cannot know and so he cannot go ahead. He must contrast his cleverness, let his logic prevail. He wouldn’t have made anything, be it missile for space, arrow, wheel, nor plow. Man should have had the logic to not let his intelligence guide him.

The Surface people had not constructed anything new. They used pumpkins for bowls and the cotton for their ropes, natural materials in a slightly different form. They had made the Right their way of life. They lived loving and offering to one another. The absence of fear and stress had changed the chemistry of their brains, their perception had expanded, their thought covered the space. It was thanks to THIS that she saw all these things.

For a few seconds she had felt partaking in a sphere where people, animals, plants, water, mountains, all Earth was one. A tightly united ONE. She flew to the trees and let herself, confident. She traveled with them and saw the day alternate with the night, alternate with day…

She felt the need to see beyond… She was attacked by satyrs and dragons, chased by chained naked women and children… she cried for help and there appeared by her side someone she recognized…

“Alexander”

“Come and see”

 She saw a Black cloud and felt its Coldness. “It is the Cold and Nothing”

 

She approached; she couldn’t see clearly inside of it but she discerned twin serpents rotating in opposite directions.

Some escaped their twins and came out of the cloud.

“It is the motion and Something”

They united between them and formed a perfectly round diamond.

“It is Matter”

The diamonds were drawn together forming magnificent triangles.

“It is what has become, Harmony”

The triangles became more and more numerous and she saw the Universes.

“It is Creation”

“Why do they have different colors?”

“Because they have different life times”

“Every two of them have the same color”

 “It’s because they come from the same, but opposite, motion”

“Let’s move to ours”

  They moved across the Galaxies and she saw Earth. There, she felt secure and Alexander disappeared. She dove into the atmosphere and, as she approached the animal area, she saw him looking at her and inviting them. “Come”.

She was approaching Oneiroupolis and felt tired but relieved, happy and sad for what she was about to do. She discerned someone near their well; it was getting dark and she could not see who it was. She was away three days, everybody would be concerned. The ground started sloping and she lost him.

She had thought with every detail what would follow but now that she was reaching Oneiroupolis she needed some more minutes alone before the great change.

She sat on the ground and rubbed her feet. She admired her soles which in the last three years had become nearly as resistant as those of the Αbove. In this narrow visual field, there came two more feet. Two feet thrice as large as hers. The feet of a giant! Her glance rose slowly, her heart beating fast. She saw his face and started to cry. Her god! Her companion stood there in front of her and smiled. He knelt and looked deep into her soul. He reached out with his hand and softly brushed her tears away. Then he tenderly took her in his arms.

How can everything be told with one glance!

How can Love be complete in one embrace!

How can the taste of life be enclosed in one kiss!

He got up. The Keyholder imitated him.  She needed to stop looking at his eyes to be able to go. Her eyes glided down on his lips, on the dip of his neck, lined up with his navel, passed by his ropes and looked at his feet. She closed her eyes and, when she opened them again, he was not there. She saw him running and understood he knew about her, they knew about them. They “captured” their thoughts.

They planted all the plants and freed the animals. She thought her phrase over five times and Oneiroupolis was sealed for ever. She took some soil, threw it on the steel  door and the others did likewise. In a while the wind would finish their job and nothing could be seen.

An end had been given to their misery.

They carried with them only their masks and the transformers, nothing else.

The Above were not threatened by anything. They weren’t afraid of anything.

The Above had attained the unattainable. They lived right.

She had gone where few had been. She had seen things only a few had seen. She had seen Nothing, that which people say existed before God.

She understood why there were so few girls born.

She understood why they had been summoned up.

She understood.

There was no question in her mind. Nothing waited for an answer. The Universe became small. A dot inside her. She wasn’t sad, she wasn’t glad, she only sighed.

She placed herself ahead of them and thought that she was leading them to Paradise.

The lightning that sheared the sky lighted the sun. A black cloud appeared from nowhere, there, over the area of the animals. The wind and the clamor reached over to them.

-What’s happening? Asked the Citizen-Psychologist.

The Keyholder smiled and it was this smile that made them cluster around her, scared.

-It is the final temptation, the beast is fighting for his life with threats. Don’t be afraid, be glad, because today is humanity’s most glorious day.

He wας not needed here anymore. The man-tree, the one who changed name three times in his life, disappeared.

THE END

To Alexander

BIBLIOGRAPHY – COMMENTS

1. Thirteen hundredths of second is the time in which a beam of light would travel along the perimeter of the Earth.

2. Konstantin Buteyko. (1923-2003) His method for the prevention and cure of many diseases was officially recognized by the Soviet Union. Maybe no capitalistic state would have permited the dissemination of a method which cures without drugs, that is without cost.

3. Dr Masaru Emoto: “Messages from Water”

4. Ιvanov Porfiry. He was born in Russia, in 1898. When he was told he had cancer, he decided to die, so he went out naked and walked in the mountain. He felt better, so the following day he did the same. Since then, he lived naked in the snow. He was considered a saint and Gorbachev himself went to see him.

5. Alfred Rupert Sheldrake. (Born 1942) Rupert Sheldrake is a British biologist who has managed to “shake” the placid waters of modern biology and other scientific fields.

Morphic fields

Sheldrake generalizes the notion of  “morphic fields”, proposing, the existence of a new, for contemporary science, kind of fields which are responsible not only for defining the form but also behavior. Therefore, these  fields  organize every system as far as both the form and its function is concerned. Every system disposes of such a field which unites and coordinates its various parts so that it acts and behaves as a whole. Thus, a system is no more the simple sum of its parts but something more, which brings another integrated entity into life.

6. Galina Shatalova (1916-2011) was a neurosurgeon. She was the head of the medicine committee which selected Soviet Cosmonauts. In 1990, to prove a theory she had developed, she undertook a 311 miles (500 Km) hike in the desert, together with a team of patients, eating only seeds. She had also collaborated with Butyeko.

7. “What the Bleep Do We Know!?”, a 2004 film conceived and funded by William Arntz, who co-directed the film along with Betsy Chasse and Mark Vicente.

8. “Love has an expiration date, Italian scientists assert in a new research. Passion lasts two years at most. Researchers of Pisa University have studied the hormone levels in men and women who were at the beginning of a relationship. At the beginning of a relationship couples are elated having high levels of specific hormones which kindle the fire of passion. Two years later, when couples usually pass to the phase of a stable relationship, other hormones, which transform the sexual desire to a need for a simple embrace, take over”. Newspaper TO VIMA

9. Dr. Walter Hartenbach: Die Cholesterin-Lüge – das Märchen vom bösen Cholesterin. Verlag Herbig, 2002

10. E. Tsiringakis: The horrible experiment of vaccines. “Trito Mati” magazine

 11. “The milk conspiracy” . “Trito Mati” magazine,   126/2004

12. “Lack of Salt – Cause of Many Serious Diseases”, www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com.

 13. “ The criminal complaint to Le Hague International Court of Justice about Genocide and other crimes against humanity of the Drug Companies”. Protagoras, “Trito Mati” magazine.

14. 15 In the 1996 French film “La Belle Verte”, written and directed by Coline Serreau, there is the same description. Either a simple coincidence, or we have dawned on us (15) to the same question with the same idea – solution!

16. If man were wise, woman would simply obey. She wouldn’t have any character-characteristics.

  Translator S.F