Foreword by the author
My first article “About psychologists and keys” was voiced by the guys from “What is Good” project and it immediately encouraged me to write a sequel; it means that it is interesting not only for me and the topic is broad. I began to think how to do it better. At first I wanted to follow the previous scenario and to take such movie genres as action, detective fiction and historical period drama.
“The more keys the better!” But while working I realised that to spell information out and cram people with ready-made thoughts is a bad idea. I reread comments one more time. Some liked everything, others wrote “you’re lying” and almost nobody responded by involving in the game. So I decided to act in another way.
I started to study the roots of such a phenomenon as “PSYCHOOLOGIST” and principles of work of such a phenomenon as “KEYS”. The article was turning more and more into a story. I named it “On the other side of the screen”.
It is necessary to note that it is an enough unusual story, its originality is that it happens inside the first part of that very article, between the line “you sit in a comfortable chair, the lights go out, you are bewitched by the picture, and your psyche at that time is in the hands of dangerous manipulators”and “methods of propaganda are so primitive and simple that their elementary nature can only surpass their effectiveness.
I would call the genre of what I have written “NONfiction”. Here you find both action and detective fiction and also historical period drama. I would really like you to save today’s image and take it out from your memory every time when you watch something in the cinema or on TV-set. As for “KEYS” that, of course, will be here, so you have to find them yourselves. Right now I offer to travel into the text and to see with your own eyes what happens behind the closed doors of human mind during a very ordinary movie session.
Sit in a comfortable chair, put 3D glasses on your imagination, take popcorn out. It is beginning.
“On the other side of the screen”
The lights turn out. The audience is full of anticipation. Somewhere in the darkness on the other side of the screen a nurse carefully is laying out instruments on the table, an experienced psychoologist is slowly turning on gloves and a mask. At this time DOCTOR himself is going to work. Get ready, now he is dissecting your mind.
“What do we have today?” a psychoologist asked with a cold and even voice of a deadman.
The moviemaker’s image appears, solemn music sounds. The dark basement of the operating room is slightly lit by the screen, the light is falling on a surgery table acting as an operational lamp.
“An action,” said the nurse not distracting attention from her work.
“How much time do we have?”
“About two hours.”
“Excellent.” In the psychoologist’s glass, not blinking eyes appeared barely noticeable lights. He groped a bunch of keys in a pocket of his oversized gown. “Establish a connection. Ten CC’s of abomination.”
“Why so quickly? They haven’t been warmed up yet.”
A beastly, hypnotic look from under the surgery mask with any words ordered the nurse not to argue. A syringe with dark liquid slowly injected its contents into the patient’s head. The first reactions began.
When at the second minute of the movie the third murder was committed, the viewer’s mind started to suspect something.
“He looked at the exit. Anaesthesia, immediately! We are losing him!”
“I told you,” the nurse muttered. “I’ll settled it now.”
A sister in the image of a gorgeous blonde appears on the screen. The viewer smiles and leans back. It is a good sign.
“Five CC’s of vulgarity!”
A dirty joke, a murder and again a dirty joke.
“An excellent combination. From this time be careful, kill at ease and with humour. How is he?”
“Laughing like a madman,” contemptuously answered the nurse. “The guy is ready”
“We should ensure this,” frowned the doctor.
There was a long burst of machine gun fire in the cinema.
“Acceptance has been gained, connection has been established. The interest is shown, mind’s reactions do not exist. One more head shot and we can continue.”
On the screen another poor guy is being finished off at close range. The viewer’s hand is reaching for popcorn.
“How do you do it, Doc?” responded the third person who attended the surgery from a dark corner of the room. It was a intern.
“What exactly?” the doctor did not understand.
“Well, about a hundred people have just witnessed so many murders and NOBODY has blinked an eye. In former times people ran out from the cinema in panic and THESE sit as if nothing has happened and obviously even enjoy it.
“My friend,” smiled the doctor through a gauze mask, “do you want a trick? Describe me ANY killed guy on your choice.”
“Well…” hesitated the intern.
The doctor smiled wider stretching his unnaturally big mouth under the gauze mask.
“You see..”
“How have you done that?!” the intern was amazed.
“Once I have created a whole system of psychological tricks. For example, to turn off compassion and empathy we use “effect of depersonalisation”. The method is old but it is still fail-safe. Nurse, voice the statistics.”
“For tonight 380935 tele-murders have been committed all over the world.”
“Audience, without knowing it, do not consider all these killed extras as people. We have trained them to do this in a way that absence of compassion will go to the reflex level. Since every extra does not have PERSONALITY. We have deleted it on purpose. Neither character nor fate and the past. Neither love, nor sadness and pity. Hocus-pocus! And you can kill millions of people and no one will think of it as a murder. We have already done that… on practice.”
“Amazing!” the intern stared wide-eyed.
“Nurse,” the doctor again turned to the screen and busily looked at it as if it was a plane control panel and he was the only person who knew what to do with it, “How is our patient doing?”
“Critical thinking is absent, pulse and ignorance are normal. Amputation of conscience is normal.”
“Excellent. Increase the frame rate and connect patterns of behaviour.”
The nurse carefully took iron snake-like hoses out from a round box. At the sight of the patient steel tentacles stirred excitedly.
“Introduce the viewer to PROTOTYPE,” ordered the psychoologist.
A main character, tough cop with a hard life, appears on the screen. He has just saved a woman from robbers, having killed and injured a dozen more people. Epic music is playing, a close-up is being made and the audience automatically understands that he is that guy who should be cheered for. Cop slowly takes out a cigarette and spectacularly lights it on the background of a bright explosion which, of course, he does not look back at.
One of the snakes, shining with its metal scales, crawled on the surgery table towards dreaming patient and stuck directly into his head with its sharp suckers.
“The first went,” commented the doctor, “change the frame.”
After a hard working day the main character stands at the bar and holds a sipped glass in his hand. There is pain and sadness in his eyes, he remembers something.
The second snake attached to the patient. Pip, a new device is connected.
“The patterns of behaviour are connected. Virus applications are being activated. Thinking is clip.
“What does that mean?” asked the intern.
“From this moment, having got into a similar situation, the patient instinctively will act in a certain way. The main thing is that he doesn’t notice anything now. We programme the audience in a such way, including to self-destruct by different kinds of drugs.”
“Relations are predictable, a set of thoughts is standard, a sense of distinction is absent,” continued the nurse.
“Splendid,” the doctor rubbed his hands. “It’s time to use keys.”
“Which one will we use?”
“My favourite one”
The psychoologist took the biggest key from the bunch and put it near the patient’s head.
“What’s that?” asked the student.
“It is..,” the master looked at the key with obvious adoration. “It is HATRED,” he said with some special pleasure, “now I am planting it into our viewer. Hocus-pocus! Attentively watch my hands, now you will see that any verbal logic is NOTHING in the comparison with sensual images. Nurse, instruments! Start a story!”
The speakers play sad music, the screen becomes black and white, frames are slightly slowed. Now the audience will be told the main character’s tragic past. Here he is in love walking with his wife around a park, here they are on a romantic sea shore, and here the happy family celebrates their little daughter’s birthday.
“Quicker, quicker!” hurried the doctor. “Enough that lyrics.”
The happy father carries his baby girl on his hands and she unsuccessfully blows onto candles on a big cake. They never go out. Everybody laughs. The music becomes more disturbing.
“Kill’em!!!” sharply shouted the psychoologist. “All, except father. Injure the main character seriously, but not deadly. We’ll need him again.
“The girl too?” trembled the intern.
“Kill the girl last. Show her scared face in close-up and better slow this moment two… no, three times.
Bandits break into the house. There is the noise of people going up the stairs.
“Let it be a Russian mafia. Now they will take revenge on this policeman for something… It’s not important. For busting their drug business.
“That have already been,” interrupted the nurse.
“How many?”
“1984 movies”
“Let the 1985 be. Trust my practice, the more often we show it, the better.
Screams and shots are heard.
“How is the patient?”
“The pupils are dilated, pulse is accelerated, senses are sharpened. CODE is found.”
“A dog looks at the stick and a lion looks at a person who threw it,” the doctor quoted with satisfaction. “My friend, we have just hacked our patient.”
“What does that mean?” the intern did not understand.
“We have got what we wanted. The viewer has begun to HATE and we have proved to him that he is right in his hatred. Because they are bandits and children killers!”
“What’s the trick? How could it be otherwise?”
“That’s the point that there is no way. Everything was preordained from the beginning. I told you: watch my hands carefully. What if I tell you that in all works, in all books and movies there is always ONE and the same main villain?” the doctor paused significantly. “It’s the author. It was he who send main characters all challenges, it was he who continuously plotted against them. And a negative character is just his obedient fiction. But the audience will hate it. Do you understand? Ha-ha-ha. A doll for distraction. And it doesn’t matter that the whole story was made up in five minutes and out of thin air by an unknown loony. Hey, you, detective amateurs,” told the psychoologist as if he was speaking to an invisible audience. “Where is your vaunted deductive method?! Wherever Mrs Marple goes, there ALWAYS will be a murder, isn’t it suspicious? If there is a superhero then the world is ALWAYS on the verge of destruction, isn’t it a regularity? Aren’t these different scales of ones and the same scenarios?”
“But everyone is so obsessed with logical assumptions about who killed Sir Christian that night. And over the years has at least one detective amateur suspected that widespread lies and total degradation of society are created by US, authors and directors of your highly artistic public opinions, approved by all ministries, from culture to health? Has at least one fan of science fiction guessed that the world should be saved from US, true supervillains of this planet. Has at least one fan of actions challenged US, owners of all mafias of the world. Has one fan of historical movies come up with a way to stop the endless wars unleashed by US. Has any movie about luv taught you to really LOVE?”
“Now tell me, honestly, what have all these movies TAUGHT you? Why did you spend one-tenth of your life on them? What was their multibillion-dollar budget spent on? What is the result of all this pointless staring?”
“Yes, my efforts were not in vain. The only thing you can do perfectly now is look and not see. Look carefully in the direction that my finger points at and do not notice THE PERSON who this finger belongs to. Fascinated by watching, you do not think about the fact that on the OTHER SIDE OF THE SCREEN there is a round-the-clock work. You have stopped noticing that every day we serve you, you fall into the power of justified hatred and lies. Believe me, there is nothing better than directed and justified HATRED. This is pure poison. How is our patient?”
“The pulse has slowed, thoughts and reactions are predictable, emotions are controlled, transplantation of hatred has been successful.”
“The main thing is that it takes root.”
The nurse took out a thick magazine.
“What does the statistics say?”
“For today the patient has unconsciously hated 32 times, this is 7 times more than yesterday.”
“Mmm, unconscious hatred. My favourite one.”
“Doc, can I ask you a question?” said the intern.
“Of course, my friend, ask,” said imposingly Doc pleased with himself.
“Why do you hate the Russians so much?”
The important smile immediately disappeared from psychoologist’s face, he exchanged glances with the nurse.
“What does make you think so, Intern? I hate everyone equally, without exception.”
“No, Doc. I’ve been following you closely for a long time, and I’ve learned something. Asian mafia that you often use in your movies, Italian, Mexican… Even Bushman’s one: all of them are red rags, which the audience’s enraged hatred throws at. But the Russians… There is something else. It’s hard not to notice that you have some personal scores with them.
“I don’t have time for your wild speculations,” muttered the psychoologist.
“Don’t distract the doctor,” the pale nurse grabbed the intern by the shoulder, “he needs to concentrate, he will open the doors.”
“What doors? For whom?”
The nurse looked at the psychoologist questioningly.
“Bring this young man up to speed,” he said approvingly, and closed his eyes. By touch he found the patient’s forehead and with a sharp movement penetrated his thin fingers directly into the patient’s head.
“He’s going to release THEM now,” the nurse whispered admiringly.
“Who are they?”
“Hush! He releases images. Once upon a time,” she continued in a conspiratorial tone, “the doctor studied the human subconscious and made a lot of discoveries in this area. His work literally changed the world. But then,” she looked down for a moment, dark memories ran across her face, “well, all the diaries were stolen and kept secret. They thought they could use the doctor for their own purposes, but the doctor is always ahead of everyone! They let the gin out of the bottle…”
The psychoologist’s face tightened, and the veins on his forehead bulged like worms. In the background the movie continued, the audience were chewing inaudibly.
“The doctor considered the model of human psyche,” the nurse continued,” as a single complex of multilevel corridors, with many obvious and secret rooms. All these rooms were locked with their own key – a secret code. The levels were carefully guarded. Nobody knew what was behind the doors. But Doc learned to lulled “the guard” to sleep and pick locks.”
“And what was there?”
“I’m telling you – IMAGES.”
The intern was at a loss staring at the nurse.
“Mostly what we see and hear, less often what we think. Information that has taken on an IMAGE freely enters human brain through eyes and ears and settles their forever. For security reasons subconscious mind instantly sorts information and distributes it in specially designated places. This is a formative moment. Information forms a person. A brain is like a computer. It is a huge base of data sorted by different disks, folders and files. We call them DOORS.
Some doors are opened by subconscious mind itself. Memory works so, for example. And some,” the nurse was speaking very quietly, “are at the very bottom, in a deep and dark basement and are a real maximum security prison.”
“Information can not be deleted but it can be blocked. Accept to dangerous materials is closed even for MIND itself, it is carefully guarded by CONSCIOUSNESS and different security programs that are able to DETERMINE evil.”
“As you understand, not all images can be kept free,” the nurse nodded in the direction of the hall.
Someone was being raped in a full-screen in the cinema. The audience concentratedly were chewing popcorn.
“Maniacs, perverts, alien vs. predator and hundreds of murders, that’s what a modern human consumes through mass media everyday. But again and again the mind locks all these horrors in its prison. Can you imagine what monsters are kept in this prison for life? You can’t just get there. But as I’ve already said Doc has found loopholes.”
“Sometimes a person collects so many negative images in one cell that they manage to knout a door and capture the mind. How do you think they become psychos?”
“Then in court the accused say that they lost control or about voices in their heads. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen as often as we wish and such psychopaths can’t be controlled yet. It’s not so easy to hack psyche but if you find the right code the door will open itself. Doctor has made a huge bunch of different keys and pick locks as well as a whole arsenal of virus programs for selection of passwords. Now WE help “prisoners” to leave on freedom. By this movie we have managed to remove the protection, put “guard” to sleep and right now the doctor is opening cells.
“And these images…” the intern was approaching to the most exciting question, “do they have their own intellect?”
“No, and this is one of the doctor’s main discoveries. Every piece of information has its own OWNER. And every piece of information serves his owner and has his owner’s piece of intellect. It continues to serve him or her even if the owner is no longer alive.”
“Why do you do all this?!” the intern could not stand it.
The nurse looked at the intern with indignation having doubts about his future.
“It is a WAR,” the doctor opened his eyes. “An this,” the psychoologist pointed to the patient’s HEAD which was studded with wires and suckers and looked like a set-top box because of cables sticking out, “is a battlefield.”
Despite anabiosis the viewer’s face was ecstatic, his eyes were moving behind closed eyes and saliva was flowing from his mouth.
“We gather an army. Nobody knows what kind of a struggle is going on inside a person while making certain decisions. Choice is like scales. And the more our “soldiers” will stand on one side the stronger arguments in favour of its adoption will be.”
“In fact it’s very simple. Choice determines actions, control over choice is nothing more than remote control over a person in a structureless way.”
“I have a lot of tricks with pseudo-choice. As a rule we generally offer people to choose only from deliberately incorrect options, it’s very democratic. But even when some crank manages to discern single well-hidden TRUTH out of thousands of fakes, our liberated army begins to tip the scales in the right direction.”
“And a person will have GREAT doubts “there CANNOT be such a thing!” Hocus-pocus! Black becomes white. Nobody likes TRUTH anymore. As it is not prestigious, it is cruel, you should constantly search for it and struggle for it. It is not invited for advertised talk shows about acute social problems. It is not published in glossy magazines and there is no its image on bright boxes in supermarket. It is not handed out near a metro station. It is not posted on busy avenues. There are no seasonal sales and Sunday discounts on it. Spielberg does not make movies about it. There is no word about it in mass media. They do not sing about it at Eurovision, it does not dance naked in Madonna’s music videos, it does not bring multimillion profit for bankers. And it contradicts such right and unanimous social opinion. It has been out of fashion for a long time, it has unpleasant bitter taste. Who needs it in a happy world of ignorance?”
“Truth conceals FORCE that’s why it’s hard nut to crack for wusses as it’s so easy to go with the flow… And many already squirm obese bellies on the very bottom.”
The psychoologist turned to the audience and waved his hands as he conducted an orchestra.
“Do you hear this music?”
Rustle of cellophane was accompanying scratching of coca-cola, mouths filled with popcorn were moving exactly in time, here and there were ringing notes of laughter, somebody was being tortured with a screwdriver on the screen.
“I’ve just opened several doors,” said the doctor humming under his breath ‘Ride of the Valkiries’, “the thing that has got outside will hide in the corridor of the patient’s psyche and will patiently wait for its time. Instructions of our invisible team. When it is necessary ‘hacked people’ will do everything that is required of them: rallies, revolutions, square jumps, concentration camps and unconditional faith.- we’ve done all this before… On practice.”
“Start the final stage. The audience are getting tired, it’s time to cheer them a little bit. It’s necessary that every head will take out of here as much garbage as possible. How is our patient?”
“He is satisfactory. Substitution of concepts is being committed successfully, virus applications have been launched, false beliefs have been made, but the head is overloaded and starts buzzing.”
“It means that we have done all correctly. Go to dessert, it’s time of happy end as the most interesting things are always at the end, something that the audience will not notice as always.
The fearless police officer, rescuing a partner who had been taken hostage, finally came out on the trail of the hated gang. Saving the life of his friend, he took the lives of so many people in an hour of the film that Chikatilo himself would have been the first to shake his bloody hands.
But in the crooked mirrors of movie cameras he is not a maniac – he is a saviour. Sounds of heroic music increase, the audience stops chewing reflexes. They froze, as if paused, staring at the new gate of the 3D screen. Something is about to happen!
And here it is the climax – the main character comes face to face with the main villain. As it should be in such moments the main character has all the attributes of the climactic scenes: a naked, pumped-up torso, a wound in the shoulder and leg, a dirty face with traces of neat abrasions and bruises, a proud confident look. Playing with his cheekbones, he utters some epic phrase through his teeth.
“So we have met, Fyodor, today you’ll go to sleep earlier.”
The main villain also has a whole set of climactic scenes: slicked-back hair, a beard cut around his mouth, a deep scar on his cheek, a thick gold chain worn out, a disgusting Russian accent, a bright sports jacket under which he probably has tattoos with the image of a hammer and a sickle against the background of domes, and the inscription “I will not forget my mother” written with two mistakes. Behind the back of the bandit, of course, hides a gun.
“Images!” exclaimed the psychoologist with satisfaction. “That’s stuff that’s crammed into the cells of the unfortunate psyche of modern people. But once they had bright thoughts in their heads! Once they read good, kind books.”
“Negative, vulgarity, meanness, stupidity, cruelty, ugliness, envy… With it,” the doctor knocked at the screen, “we do very great work: it implements this ‘cute’ characters. And I grant them freedom. What will happen when all this comes outside? Nurse, one last double prick of stupidity.”
Events develop rapidly – a desperate police officer rushes to meet the offender, gets three or four more injuries, all of them are not fatal. Further, the villain having felt the entire moment of impunity and complete control over the situation holds the main character at gunpoint. And before the last time to shoot, according to tradition, as if in confession, he tells all his secrets of life, confesses to all the crimes of the world, explains in detail where he hides the stolen money (drugs, hostages), reveals insidious plans for the future and calls his passwords from Facebook and Twitter in a fit of volubility. Then he laughs like a man possessed, pulls the trigger. There is a click. Naturally, he has run out of ammo. The psychoologist without taking his eyes off the screen strokes the patient’s tense head with a bony hand as caring owners stroke their pets. The main character pulls a knife out of a bloody leg and throws it at the bandit. Loud wheezing sounds are heard, the death cry echoes sharply and deafeningly through the empty, cold walls of the operating room. Blood from the neck fills the screen to the brim and spills through it into the surgical ward, spattering everyone in it. Most of it goes to the sleeping patient.
“Bravo,” the psychoologist said, clapping his hands. “Bravo!”
Evil is defeated. The lights turn on in the cinema. The audience begin to get up lazily. The doctor and nurse are in a hurry, their movements fast, precise and practiced.
“Condition of patients?”
“Condition is stable. Common sense is disabled. Emotions are probably predetermined. The integrity of consciousness is split. There is no freedom of choice. Conscience doesn’t respond.”
“We have to keep the patients unconscious as long as possible,” explained the teacher, ” it’s a good thing that almost all of them are running to their TV sets. Nurse, a shot of amnesia.”
“Already done,” said the assistant, ” the memory is partially blocked.”
“Now they will quickly start to forget both this plot and these characters. All events will be mixed into a homogeneous mess. This is necessary so that the consumer does not suddenly remember this movie when he consumes another product that looks like two drops. Somewhere in the operated consciousness there will remain a slight feeling of déjà vu, a small scar, and that’s it. This drug has a wonderful side effect – it is addictive. All our patients are sick, drug-addicted showmaniacs. Voice statistics, how many times has the viewer already seen such a surrogate?”
“An uncounted number,” the nurse spread her hands.
“I bet he won’t remember 5% of all this junk. Short memory is the jeweller’s work of my sharpened scalpel, and “forgetfulness” is second in importance. Someone will forget the history of this film, someone will go further and forget the history of their people, and I am not exaggerating at all.
Sister, let the PROTOTYPE be an American special forces officer in the next session. Kill his best friend, and let the whole movie take revenge on the mercenaries … er, “the doctor looked slyly at the intern,” … let’s say from Russia. Mix all the models and go ahead. Let them watch, let them cram. I always wonder if patients really think they’re just entertained here!” the psychologist clutched his head. “No matter how much slops we put in them, they still come for more. We don’t even come up with scenarios for a long time – we openly clone them.”
“These are not movies, they are degenerates from a test tube, mutated due to endless experiments, crosses and manipulations into ugly not viable freaks.”
“This is no longer creativity, but an industrial conveyor of genetically identical film organisms!”
“A waste-free spectacle machine, completely devoid of soul. How much more of this dead stuff should they take to make their minds sick?”
“Is it possible that when they come home they do not feel disgusting from an overdose of this psychotropic cocktail consisting of violence, sadism, rudeness, arrogance, betrayal, lies, hatred…”
“And if one of them tells me that THIS is just a funny movie, and he does not notice all this monstrous widespread DEGRADATION, I will answer: “my friend, it is not noticeable only for its direct, active participants.” Yes, I am a monster, but I am NOTHING compared to this omnivorous monster called the AUDIENCE, with millions of eyes and one gyrus. Tomorrow at the same time (you can check your watch) they will, as always, come for another dose of our stinking stew. They always come back, these moral colourblind people who can’t tell black from white… And our doors are always open.”
“See you soon, my dear loyal friends!” the psychoologist watched his patient going away.
The operation has been successful.
…And again you leave the cinema with a sense of deception and falseness, and even with the addition of some incomprehensible feelings. You cannot describe them – something unpleasant, as if you were a witness or an accomplice to something vile, bad. There are processes running in your head that you feel, but do not understand or control…
The dark basement, which looks like a bunker, is covered with purple spots. There is a sharp, disturbing smell of blood. The psychoologist still walks limping excitedly around the room, thinking hard about something and counting the keys on a huge bunch. The impassive nurse wipes the blood from her face. The struck intern stood on the sidelines, unable to say a word.
“It’s enough for today,” the surgeon attracts his attention. “You are somehow gloomy. Next time it will be funnier. Come to a comedy. We will laugh heartily…”
White as a ghost, the intern goes out of the operating room.
“I don’t like this guy,” the nurse says thoughtfully, alone with the doctor. – What do you think about him?”
“I don’t make exceptions, I don’t like anybody. Have you seen how skilfully I hacked the patient today? It gets easier every time.”
The psychoologist removes the bloody mask.
“It’s been a long time since my ashes were scattered to the wind, and I’m still in great shape.”
“I see,” the nurse nods, putting the sharp tools in boxes.
The doctor lies. For the first time in recent years he has not managed to open any door. Many keys no longer work. Someone was on his trail.
“So much work lately!” the crooked figure sits wearily on the edge of the table. The psychoologist bows his disproportionately big head, which makes his shadow on the grey wall look very much like a giant embryo. The blue face with all the signs of degeneracy plunges into thoughts, mentally going to the near past. Snatches of silent music come from the speakers, and the end credits float slowly across the screen with an endless list of uninteresting names and surnames.
“Do you remember how many people wanted to get even with me – to hang me, shoot me and dance boogie on my bones? Ha-ha. Desperate heroes of naïve actions. Here I have also outrun you. I’m always one step ahead. Everybody thought that I was dead but it’s not so! I have moved into a different, more comprehensive state. It is not for nothing that they say that a man is alive as long as his deeds live. All these heroes of action were absolutely helpless against the new INVISIBLE enemy.
Somewhere beyond the walls of the bunker came the faint sounds of explosions, gunfire, the hum of planes. The music in the cinema smoothly turns into a military-patriotic march, and the black screen with the credits turns into a black obelisk with an endless list of the dead and missing. Late. The audience went away.
The doctor’s pointed face is transformed into a blind fanatical rage, and the old excitement flares up in his eyes like hellfire. The sunken, blue cheekbones turn purple. He jumps up, stretching to his full small height. He is alive.
“Do you want a TOTAL war?!!” he shouts directly at the screen, as if speaking from a high podium.
The nurse quietly approaches the doctor and puts her arms around his shoulders.
“I’m in great shape, Magda, nothing has changed, everything is the same. The more monstrous the lie, the more readily it is believed, give me the media, and I will turn any people into a herd of pigs…
Tokha Ha
Translated by Xenia Shmonina