The Emperor

He had been building his Castle for endless years - he can no longer recall when it first started. There, he would be safe from the plague that was ravaging the whole empire. There, he would be protected from the outer world. And, for him, avoiding people was to decrease the risk of getting infected. So, the rules were simple : no one is allowed to enter. And, for him, this sounded even better : No malicious human voice would ever reach his earlobes. No inhuman action would ever affect him. No love would tear his heart apart. Nothing would have a chance to penetrate the stone walls of his mind.

And so the years passed... and the plague was still ravaging the country... and at first, the Emperor thought the Castle was all he needed to survive.

And the years kept passing... and the plague was still ravaging the country... and the Emperor started feeling lonely and desperate in his isolated Castle.

And the years kept passing... and the plague was still ravaging the country... and then She came... and the Emperor - although unexpectedly vulnerable - decided to let her in.

And the years kept passing... and the plague was over... but the Emperor had already been infected... and died.

And the years kept passing... and the plague was over... but I once heard the Emperor's ghost's voice wondering : was it Her or the isolation in the Castle that led to his Master's death?

The Glimpse

Then, he looked back to the android. But her eyes, amidst a pale façade, were like a bottomless well - too unrevealing of the potential presence of traces of water a few meters beneath the fraudulent surface. Probably, it was still her delayed reactions that did not confess much about her feelings - or, maybe, that her feelings did not confess much about her reactions. In any case, he was convinced : it was pointless and utterly meaningless to make her not to; but he was eager to sacrifice every single inch of his body to make her not want to. However, forcing one's will upon another is nothing but influencing the actions - that is the supposed expression of inner thoughts - and not the thoughts themselves. In that sense, her actions were far less meaningful than her needing to perform them - as much as her not wanting to, would automatically transform the actions into an inert mass...

He then smiled back to the android and tried not to keep thinking about it - justifying what is not trully justifiable is undeniably a way to survive. All he had to do was to believe that it was this tiny defect in her mechanism that caused him that turbulence in his mind. He kept saying to himself that it was all about her 'delayed reactions', over and over again - anyway, isn't it better to be self-deceived than hopeless?

Ο Πεσσόα - μετά από τον Καβάφη - συναντά τον Magritte, το μικρό πράσινο ερπετό αναζητά ψηλαφιστά την thin red line ανάμεσα στο οξύμωρο μιας... πίπας - qui, avant tout, n'est pas une pipe, uh? - και την self-delusion, κι εγώ, ο ταπεινός γραφεύς, μόλις διατύπωσα κάτι του οποίο το βαθύτερο νόημα παραπαίει ανάμεσα στο τίποτα και το τίποτα. { Άτιμη παλιο...cabeça! }