Excerpts from “Nostos” – 260, 360

Excerpts from Nostos

260.

SNAIL IN A BOX

I saw a snail crawl inside a black box. The snail was a perfectly unique creature, perhaps the only one in existence with the same exact shape on its shell, which was lighter around its outer edge, with flowing streams of multiple colors, and it became distinctly darker and darker as the lines spiraled towards the center. Admiring the creature, I would follow its lines as if hypnotized, being led to an infinite point that only became more distant and more impossible. The horizon simultaneously became where I looked at and where I was. And the creature crawled along the surface, the ceiling, and the four walls of the black box, into which no light entered, though I could still see the snail's shell, its almost white, repulsive body, and its wandering bulging eyes. And though I followed the creature, as it was all that was visible inside that black box, I would also lose myself in the spiral of its shell and I'd forget on which side of the box it was crawling. I didn't quite know from where I was watching it, nor could I know how much time had elapsed after each trip down and down and down that spiral. I could never even tell if the snail's slimy body was leaving a trail along the surface it traveled. I could have sworn it did but to stare at any side of the box's perpetual surface was blinding. It was all so impossibly dark, with no light and no reflection, so my gaze avoided it and once again focused on the flowing lines of the docile creature's shell, and again and again and again, and I would feel nothing, no sense of time and no sense of place, I felt my eyes almost crawling along those lines until, spiraling into the dark center, it vanished. I could think of saying – I am here... and yet I could not know where I was. And I could think of doing something else but there was no urgency, as I could not know for how long I had been doing what I was doing. I just stayed there, unsure if I was even moving, if I even truly existed... All I had was a vague understanding of who I was. So there was nothing to do except to think of something to think about.

A black box is all that exists, and whatever might be contained within is its pet. Not a wanted pet nor unwanted, neither loved nor hated, neither created nor rejected. Simply a string of abandoned pets, left to their own devices. However, each creature is born into a set of circumstances it can't possibly know or choose. And whatever happens, happens. Some are born into what can be described as good or good luck, in the sense that they find nourishment, comfort and safety. Others are born into what can be described as bad or bad luck, in the sense that they find hunger, discomfort and danger. But these ideas can only be grasped by someone or something with a conscious mind that is capable of reasoning what happens and is subsequently capable of feeling empathy towards it. We can rejoice in good circumstances and attempt to fix the bad ones, in which case we can of course succeed or fail, or we can succeed with the situation at hand but fail with the subsequent ones we did not foresee, for we are simply incapable of seeing the whole plain of existence. To be of sound mind is to see a creature being forcibly born into an abject horror it cannot possibly control as we attempt to change it, or at the very least we feel pity for it... But does this black box even have such a mind, any mind at all? Why have we been thrown into this if even the most harmless of creatures is potentially capable of meeting such a violent death? What end could it possibly serve? And if it does serve an end, why must it be achieved in such a way?

Animals, seemingly capable of communication and affection amongst themselves, engage in the most brutal existence. Most are born in great numbers so that a select few will survive for long enough to perpetuate the cycle. It's a rational system whereby one can freely gamble high and abundantly, but how would the individual creature feel if it could, assuming it can't, have an awareness of its origin? To be born only to most likely die painfully a few minutes later?... They are martyrs to what could well be the great abstract lie of the greater good. It would seem they don't realize just what kind of rigged game they're playing. They submit themselves to their own biological composition and act according to the playbook of genetics, which is deeply engraved in their own being, and as such, they cannot possibly hope to ever escape from it. But for intelligent creatures, the only way to win may be to not play. And to make sense of this whenever able to, human beings created religion. Indeed, early on they found themselves in a strange situation they couldn't quite comprehend, it's as if they realized they lived as the animals did, that is to say, to kill a baby boar's mother for their own nourishment was a necessity, but the possibility of a child's mother being killed and eaten could occur as well. Then they'd become the hunted ones, and this person they once knew, this person they loved and cared for, became flesh. But why could it even occur? Why was existence itself made in such a way that actions of almost unspeakable horror are physically capable of occurring? Existence cannot have been built for us but it should have been. So with religion, human beings reasoned that beyond the ever-elusive black box was a supreme creature, a deity who created them and guided them, giving them all a role to play, a reason to exist, a higher purpose for their pain. This attempted to breathe meaning into each individual life but also enough existential sustainability to keep the stray minds from wandering in circles and ending their own lives out of despair. We were born into this life with a reason and we will always need one to live it, for afterwards there would be a paradise, a perfect life where pain has no place, and pleasure reigns supreme. Though details vary between religions, they all reached the conclusion that human beings need a more-than-human reason to exist. To suffer in this life is pointless without a dying reward of pleasure. The seed of the idea is thus to humanize the will of the universe itself and to then elevate it to something above humans. For the universe is so cold, distant and uncaring, and yet we are so special and so desperate... It had to be for us, or else it was all for nothing.

We tried to remain together but we were never meant to do that either, we just aren't built for it. Though we have the useful tool of empathy, we find ourselves doomed by our own bodies, which inevitably trap us in our own thoughts and our own perspectives. Every single one of us is a unique creature in the sense that we all possess a unique mind, although most of us are similar to the multiple offspring of wild animals, we are just inflated numbers struggling against bitter chance. But still we each have our own thoughts and inclinations, and in doing so we created tiny rigged systems inside the eternal rigged system of the black box. This was achieved when we realized that along with our effort came an unshakable feeling that our various creations had something we called value. It's quite the powerful notion but it is itself contained within a meaningless system, for value can only mean something when contained within one of the many rigged systems we create. Trying to justify the value of something when the universe itself appears to have no value is a game we only win by reducing the scope of our lives to the specific things in front of us, the same things that distract us from the big picture. But we often disagree on what to value and what to cherish, and by being incapable of truly understanding someone's mind, by being wholly doomed by the physical barrier that is our bodies, we are always separated. At times we may not truly despise one another but if our needs outweigh someone else's we act all too violently. To fully understand one another we would need absolute empathy towards one another, however we were never built to constantly neglect our own needs, nor were we built to live completely alone... Thus, human existence is a paradox. We can never be truly one and thus the greater good is forever an abstract because we do not think alike nor do we strive towards the same things. Our bodies separate us, and love, by virtue of being derived from empathy, is scarce. No man's heart is big enough to love all mankind.

It's as if in this moment, mankind is at an intermediate stage wherein we realize the seemingly absent and random way we are treated in this cold, dark place, but on the other hand we may not be evolved enough to understand it. Maybe it's not an absent place at all, I suppose we should at least consider that possibility. But what good evidence, aside from wishful thinking, do we have of that? Nothing of the sort is to be found, aside from our own desires. We wish to resurrect God to will the universe back into order and justice, but now we seem too far gone. All of us have witnessed brutal, destructive violence for no purpose, just wanton and casual evil, all these creatures, so capable of feeling pain, being born only to be destroyed in screaming agony moments later. For such an existence, since it can't even be called life, the best would simply be to never have been born. And in all this senseless violence that perpetually assaults living creatures who just happened to have been born from the wrong womb at the wrong time, the black box remains forever quiet and unfazed. A black star shines for them... How can one be happy living under a set of rules whereby any creature can be born only to suffer such pain with no meaning or sacrifice to it? We would turn to the universe and plead for him to at least give us a reason for this, any reason at all, and we would hear nothing but silence... Our habitation doesn't care about us, people existing far away don't care about us, our neighbors don't care about us, and sometimes we don't care about ourselves. We're just wandering along, trying to follow the past into the future, trying to alter the playbook of this rigged game, trying to cheat but always failing, even though our opponent is seemingly so blind and so deaf, and yet, so completely and absolutely impossible to beat.

As for me, I say to win is to not play. Resign with some dignity, neglect your biological programming. Some stray animals are put to death for being too many, so perhaps something similar should happen to us. But we are too many if we are not zero. Let us not trap any other soul in this black box, let us revolt against this ultimate tyranny. We may falter and flail when we imagine the future generation, but what is the future generation except an idea? It's nothing but a word with some sense of meaning in our minds but a big void to the world. I find myself unable to understand how a human being can gamble away their child's life with the universe since a miserable, painful death may only be avoided by never having been born. Human existence and human suffering are intertwined in the same hypnotic spiral, wandering along the dark void of the universe, on the back of a very slow but ever-moving force... The spiral will never break but we can stop feeding it. And then it stops.

360.

WHY THE SNAILS?

It is the right question, or one of them at least, and the only thing a man can do in life is ask the right questions. Still, that don't mean asking the right question will lead to any good kind of answer. No, it don't mean that at all... But this particular question is something that's been on my mind lately, so here's my no-good kind of answer.

I suppose I never did like snails. As a child I used to stay at my grandmother's house after school, sometimes until ten or so at night, and especially in winter, the snails would always wander away from the garden to cover the tile floor pathway, which was all slippery and damp with frost. Then they would become these oddly shaped holes that would twitch and glisten under a sliver of moonlight. I was always afraid to walk through the path, like I could almost hear the sound of their crushed shells as if they would appear right under each step. And even after crossing the gate, one or two of them would rush to my peripheral vision, just there glued to the wall, climbing or just sleeping inside their own spirals. They are just some slimy little creatures, made disgusting by their weird bodies and bulging eyes, and they can't even do much of anything except to helplessly hide in their shells and wait out the danger because they're harmless too, which I guess only serves to make them all the more pathetic. And yet, sometimes the thought of them gives me a strange nausea, one that I am beginning to feel, even now as I write this, one that assails me when I lie in bed and imagine my room covered with them, with all those nasty snails.

So why do I go on and on about them? One initial reason would be that I've always intended to write about things I dislike, or things I find sad or scary, perhaps even more so than about things I do like, which are few. My first book is filled with my fears, so in that sense I had no lack of inspiration. Is there a better way to understand horror than to write about our own fears? My whole life has been lived vicariously, and so there's no good reason to think my writing would be any different. I suppose my pages are just me... But that might all be surface-level analysis. I imagine a deeper reason why I chose snails is because, while they inspire great disgust, they also inspire great pity, don't they? They're these fragile creatures who get viciously killed by careless giants, most of whom don't notice the murder until well after the fact, or they do notice it only to become mildly annoyed at the mess it made. If there was any punishment for sinners in this world it would be to become a snail, and if there was any chance at redemption it would be to love a snail.

And one other thing occurs to me now, one I only briefly alluded to, and that would be the way in which these animals exist in the world. Why exist in the world at all if you're born to be both hideous and frail, both harmless and inconvenient? It's as if snails have no place in this world, no good place at least, and for that reason I don't know whether to admire their tenacity or to pity their existence... I would admire their tenacity if I could see it as something other than a biological instinct to survive and to procreate, and thus to prolong their suffering, because suffering is the only logical conclusion of existence... But it has been a long time now since I admired anything of the sort. And as for the pity their existence inspires, there's not much more to say, but something else is left behind that pity, something a bit sinister, namely this idea that whatever cruel things may happen to any random snail can also happen to any random person just as easily. The sheer brutality of life can crush a person's body with the same power and carelessness as when the world crushes a snail. And so if to us a snail's shell flattened on the sidewalk is an ugly inconvenience, then why wouldn't our own bodies crushed and mangled be an ugly inconvenience as well to someone bigger than us? Then again, some of them get crushed and their shells stay there for days, their slimy bodies dry up and the shells become almost absorbed into the ground itself, like a little fossil. It's quite as if the whole ground, the whole world, everywhere you walk, even your grandmother's house, it's all full of dead snails one way or another. In this world, a man can't even tread lightly without treading on death.

So then, why the snails? I think because I hate them, I pity them, and yet, I so completely feel like one... Snails are hopelessly human.

§

This has been a sample of two texts from Nostos. The book is a collection of four hundred texts, most of which are written in portuguese, while only twenty-one of which are written in english. As such they will be periodically published here, in full.

You can find out more about the book here.