The
Romans, according to the great Beermuschmer, in his book Civilization and Love, published in 2406 A.T. by Vägen Pubs.,
Lucerne, with a Portuguese translation in the same year by Editora Gamanço
S.A., when they arrived at an unknown part of the world, with the aim of
conquering it, were surprised by the fact that the local inhabitants -- in the
majority, of course, as there have always been dissidents -- had already
assimilated the habits and customs of the City of Rome. They would get to Spain Germany
In the
conclusion to his brilliant book, the professor relates this aspect with the
(my translation) “desire to monkeyfy” that a lower people has in relation to a
superior people, principally in the commercial and financial aspects, which at
that time still dominated the relations between men.
In my
Ph. D. thesis, I quote the same arguments of a “lower people” and “superior
people” to explain the bizarre events which took place during our colonization
of the planet Barcelona, thirty-odd years ago. But now that I have been retired
and have a maximum of two more years of life according to the law, and even
though I trust in the powers of my lawyer to obtain a prorogation for a further
five years after my foreseen euthanization, I would like to record for history
a new, and different, version of what took place during the first lunar cycles
of our stay on Barcelona.
After
the obvious devastation of the planet and destruction of the organs of
sovereignty and civil organization by our military forces during the conquest
(Vide Faxfax.wwuu.pp.barc.massdestr:fuc), motivated, according to the experts
in these matters, by the fact that the Barceloians were constantly watching
Channel 54 and would not tune into the Broadcast 4U, aimed at these far-off
zones of the universe, I participated, as a researcher and doctor, in the peace
mission.
We
arrived at the City of Ian-tchá-tidel Aipó on the 70th day of the year 2479. We
found -- I, ears-nose-and-throat doctor, Lalac Schindel, psychologist, Naris
Naris, dermatologist, and Vondar Chia, pediatrician -- a very strange
civilization. The Barceloians measured, on average, a third of the average
height of an earthling. But they all wore clothes which came from earth, mainly
connected to sport and leisure. There were Barceloians going round with
sweat-shirts around their feet, and with sports shoes of sizes that clearly
went beyond the range of their trunks and members.
At the
beginning we thought this was slightly funny, especially in relation to the
hats, which were far too big for them, forcing them to wear hats which, on
earth, were for children, with sayings like “I eat my food all up”, or “I love
my grandma”. It was rather funny to interview a lawyer about the conquest when
he was chewing gum, wearing a sweat-shirt which seemed more like a badly-made
dress, and with a hat that said “Bert & Ernie”. Or carrying a baseball bat
-- all this in an irregular atmosphere where objects thrown do not describe
arcs, but travel through the air in zigzags.
Except
this stopped being so funny when I started to investigate the inhabitants’
health. As a rule, they suffered from illnesses which hadn’t existed on earth
for at least a hundred years, such as complexes, nervous conditions and
identity crises. And also, they had some diseases that had never managed to
become a threat on earth. Examples: there was still AIDS, tuberculosis and
fever. I even witnessed cases of the cold! (which I didn’t dare include in my
initial report as the authorities on earth would have thought I’d gone mad).
Within
the field of my mandate, I busied myself in trying to discover the reasons for
these illnesses. I made, as was asked of me, a report, published in the Index
Faxfax.wwuu. Barcmedoc:Aiainono. What here follows are excerpts from my
personal diary, never publicly revealed, although some things may have been
included in a modified form for the purposes of the official report.
Day 1
These people are so small. I don’t
understand how they can go around dressed this way. This morning a patient came
into my office and almost banged his head against my desk because he couldn’t
see a thing because of his cap. He had laryngitis.
Day 2
Two more cases of laryngitis. Three of
bronchiolitis. Another of asthmatic fever. How can this be? And why do they go
around with these caps covering their eyes? Don’t these people care about their
health? Didn’t they have Ministers to look after them? And why can’t anyone
read? And why do they all go about chewing gum?
Day 3
Today I felt like writing a song. I had
no patience whatsoever to put up with the capped loonies who come in to fill my
surgery with their stink, always farting while I was talking to them, and coughing
and spitting. And I still haven’t received my pay from earth! Fuck this! And I
wrote this song:
Don’t
give me crap! Don’t give me crap! I’m a general practitioner!
Don’t
give me crap, don’t fuck me about! Or I’ll become an anal examiner!
Day 4
Today I spent the whole day singing my
new song. I’m going to put the lyrics on the door to my surgery, at 80
centimeters high. I’ve added a few more lines:
Don’t
fuck me, don’t give me crap, you great big abnormality
Don’t
consult me, get lost, you great big abnormality!
Day 9
This morning I had the chance to look
over what I’ve been writing in my diary the past few days, and I confess that
I’m becoming a little concerned about the influence of this climate on my
mental health. Although I have a certain reticence, due to my ethical
principles as a chronicler on this mission, I thought it best to remove and
destroy the pages referring to days 5, 6 and 8, as they may be a motive for
conflict between our two governments, who for the moment are both ours, but one
never knows. I wrote another song:
Hey,
hi, hoh, I’m a doctor-oh
Hey,
hi, hoh, I’m a doctor-oh
Outa,
outa, outa my sight-is
You’ve
got laryngitis!
Hey-hey-hoh-hey-huh
I’ll
live longer than you!
But I don’t know if it is as strong as
the first one...
Day 11
Today Naris Naris, the dermatologist,
came visiting. She wanted to talk to me about a very personal matter; she
thought I shouldn’t include it in the official report. She said that after the
third or fourth day on Barcelona
When Naris suggested that I could dress
up as a woman, I ordered her to leave: let’s have some decency! I only dress up
as a woman with my partner. Imagine with a person I hardly know! And a white
woman at that! But it provided the inspiration for a new song:
Lick
me over, lick me over!
Don’t
leave me here alone!
‘Skiddoo,
skiddoo, let’s skiddoo,
Because
I’ve got the strawberries here and we can have a picnic.
I think that this song, although within
the “line” of the others, represents a certain change in terms of style, but I
don’t know if this is what I’m aiming at. I am slightly worried about the
“slang” use of the word “skiddoo”, and I must confess that I am beginning to
regret the fact that I destroyed pages 5, 6 and 8.
Day 12
Today I examined two more cases of
asthmatic fever. A judge dressed as a bicycle racer, and a young teacher from
the University of Ian-tchá, discreetly dressed in a matching two-piece suit
with a silk blouse, carrying a briefcase with her initials engraved in gold. Bizarre!
I gave the judge a blackberry syrup, and sent the teacher to see Naris.
I feel a bit guilty, sometimes: I know
that these people are going to die, and they come to me for help. Is this my
true vocation? Shouldn’t I have followed my father’s idea, and become a
carpenter like him? No, I had to do what my mother wanted, as always, and now
here I am, in this ridiculous surgery!
Day 13
Today my wages arrived from earth. It
arrived in the shape of small colored papers with numbers and other
inscriptions. I went shopping with Naris. We went into one of those enormous
structures, with five or six floors, and with each floor dedicated to a “line”
of products, where people choose the articles and then go to see someone to put
them in a bag. Then the person goes out, and the people from the building
receive some of our pieces of paper, which they put into a metal box, which
makes a noise something like the sound of Windows 67549 when it closes. Is
there anything more bizarre on this planet!
Naris bought a baseball bat and some
knee pads, and I bought, on another floor, an ancient and very rare copy of the
Complete Comic Strips of Bill Watterson, perhaps the most famous American
intellectual, including Calvin & Hobbes, which I enjoyed so much in my
classes in the History of Literature.
Day 14
Today is my day off. I spent the
morning reading Calvin & Hobbes. “The transmutation of Calvin into Spiff
the Astronaut is perhaps one of the highest moments in post-modern writing”, my
teacher used to say, without ever explaining, however, what post-modern writing
was.
Lalac Schindel came to visit. Drunk, in
accordance with the rules of his profession. (Once on earth Lalac was the
subject of a disciplinary hearing when he turned up at his psychology clinic
almost completely sober. A real scandal. What would become of our civilization
if psychologists could go around sober? We would end up like the Jews! He
claimed to the inspector that he had no whisky at home on the night before the
day in question. As if it were possible. At least he could have smoked a couple
of joints!) I explained to him that I didn’t feel very good on this mission,
and was feeling remorse. “Tellsch me about your childshoodhood”, he said. I
said I had had a normal childhood, without any problems. “A caish,” he went on,
“a caish of repression. This is a shign of paranoia.” We didn’t talk about the
matter any more, spending the rest of the afternoon listening to music. Then I
wrote a new song, to be sung to the tune of Spring from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons:
I am a good otorhino, otorhino
I
am a good otorhino, and I live happily.
I
deal with diseases of the throat, the throat,
nose
and the ears.
I think that this song captures my
spirit: the song “is” what I am. Now I need to write some forty minutes more of
lines about my “self” and I might have a publishable opera.
Day 15
Today I discovered that someone has
been reading what I’ve been writing. It can’t be Xulfi, my secretary, because
she only knows how to do two things. One is chewing gum, and the other isn’t
far off. And she even manages to do the two things at the same time, the slut!
But I will find out who the bastard is who’s reading this. From now on I’m
going to start to leave traps for him. (I say “him” because Naris has run off
into the deserted area, outside the city, having kidnapped Vondar, and it’s not
even worth sending a search party to bring them back, and so there are only men
on our team -- and the Barceloians can’t read, except the university
professors, some of whom even manage, when they have a little time to practice,
to write their own names.)
Day 16
Today I treated a patient with a
partitutarial fracture of the lower tinguia of the toraxisistic lobussiliae. I
had to apply a solution of tri-doxomicuniossalina dissolved in bio-grangolic.
After three hours of Ione-Ione treatment, invented in the 34-2 period by the
Swiss-German bio-chemist Ernst Ichbingeil, who was born in Munich on the 33rd
of Robal in the 25-8 period, and studied in the famous Goforite Clinic in New
Yugoslavia, run by the Maestro Karma Sonovabic, simultaneously a surgeon and
renowned musician (an inspiration for all of us) whose only defect was to have
given in to the fatal effects of orange juice (he went yellow before he died),
I applied a dose of bi-tri-deo-pentatilioroximusico, which, in theory should
cure him within a week. This patient, 54 earth-years old, complained of pains
in the kitchen, typical of men who suffer from these illnesses. The man feels
fine in the living room, preferably on the settee, great in bed (at least for
the first ten or fifteen minutes), but when he goes into the kitchen he starts
feeling nausea, lethargy, and sometimes shortness of breath and respiratory
problems. The most common treatment on earth, before it became illegal, was
called “marriage”, or, to give it its medical name “Contractus filiae parvae”,
but the Barceloian women had long stopped falling into this trap, preferring to
watch television. Are you still there, you bastard? Oh, yes? Well you’ll soon
see.
Day 17
Nothing happened. It was an extremely
dull day. I even nodded off, it was such an uninteresting day. Gray sky, Xulfi
didn’t come to work, so, a complete bore, the type of day that makes a person
stop reading other people’s diaries.
Day 18
I didn’t do anything. Really. Nothing.
I only received a report from Lalac about my state of health. An interesting
report which I am not going to write here. And no one else is going to read.
It’s mine!
Day 19
Nothing interesting happened. I am
telling the truth. No one even came to the surgery. Nothing.
Day 20
Nothing happened. What a dull life! You
bet!
Day 21
Today there was nothing worth writing
down.
Day 22
I didn’t even go to the surgery today.
I stayed in my room. A very boring place.
Day 23
But the son of a bitch is still reading
my diary! What about that? What can I do to make the guy stop?
Day 24
I know.
THE END
And
thus ended my personal diary on the events on that planet. It is obvious that I
didn’t wish to reveal this data to the Commission here on earth. We said that
Naris and Vondar had decided to remain on Barcelona, we came back, we presented
our reports, the Commission sent a nuclear bomb to blow the planet to pieces
and it was over, done. A planet more, a planet less.
But
what worries me so much, now, thirty-odd years later, are the things which
stick in my memory. Logically I have some remorse about having participated in
the annihilation of a civilization, but that’s the least of it... And it is
obvious that we can’t allow the continuation of a planet whose atmosphere
drives people mad... I understand all this. I even liked Xulfi, and I think
about her a lot since my wife committed suicide, but what is most strange for
me is this sensation, I don’t know how to explain it, that the person who was
reading my diary when I was on Barcelona is still reading this. So strange! But
if it is true, I’m going to put an end to the matter.
THE
END
(First published in "Non-Events on the Edge of the Empire", Ed. André Vilares Morgado, Cascais Municipal Council, 1996)
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