Once you told me stars are truly blessed,
As their lights can carry on after death.
With despair and tears, I now scan the infinite
Wondering why yours no longer exists.

One day, a priest died after he committed a crime in the eyes of God. Yet, since all his life, he had been a virtuous person, upon his arrival at the gate of Hell, he was offered the possibility to choose his punishment between being burned alive or drowned into ice. He had three days to make his mind.

On the first day, the Devil brought him to the room of the fire punishment. He was forced to look at the other tormented souls passing on the pyre. He felt the scorching heat of the brazier piercing through him as the flame calcined every one of them. On the second day, he was sent to the drowning room. All day long, he watched demons plunging their prisoners into icing water. The coldness suffocated him. The view of the drowned souls was even more haunting than the burned ones.

On the third day, the man was left alone, to reflect and when the evening finally came, Satan appeared to hear his answer. But what a choice did he have? Between one horror and another. He thought: “Burning is more painful but it is quicker. Drowning doesn’t cause as much as pain, but it is never ending. If I can choose, I prefer a quick high pain to a continued suffocation.”

He was about to give his answer, when he suddenly remembered from his scriptures study: “Do not trust the devil. He will trick you, no matter what. So if I choose one punishment, he surely will give me the other one. Unless, he is expecting I will think that and is playing me to pick the opposite of what I want.”

He continued to think of a way to outsmart the Devil’s plan, but to no avail. At last, he replied: “I keep on thinking that you will trick me if I give you my answer. I want to be burned, but I can’t help believing that no matter what I reply, I will never get what I want... Because in fact, I do not have a choice, do I?”

On that, the Devil took his fire blade, with a grinning face: “No, poor soul, you never had.” With a fast, powerful strike, He sliced the man in half, and for the rest of eternity, the lower half of his body was burned down, over and over, while the upper part was drowned, continuously, feeling both the pain of each torment...

Morality: God is a prick.

Among the weird rare stuff Oracio told me, this story is at the top. I think he was trying to be spiritual but I didn’t listen to his ending. I had my own conclusion; one I couldn’t help but parallel to my own life. I do not know which crime we had committed to end up in this pit, but the truth is, we are like the priest in that story: We are never told what we have done, we just know we deserve to suffer, between ice and fire.

If you had asked me what I preferred between the burning summer and the reaping winter of Magdad City, I’d be like that man. Why bother? I don’t have a say in that regard because no matter what my preference is, I will still have to endure both equally. Ain’t it convenient?

Because of that, we learn to adapt. Good thing, it’s the best asset of a human being. We do with what we have. But what we had then was really not much.

The generator did not turn on at sun set, as expected. The afternoon was pretty advanced when my neighbors started to be concerned about it. I was in the middle of fighting another outbreak of fever, when Oracio made his round in the building to chat with them, gathering their opinions and checking their apartments. I watched him, going back and forth in the studio, or talking at the entrance threshold, the door half open. His whispering sounded like a lullaby, at times joined a cappella with whoever was in the corridor. I had the title all figured: “Popsicle Hustle.” A winter hit song, trust me.

Oracio. He seemed comfortable in the crowd, I noticed. His rapport with the neighbors had a good atmosphere. Sometimes, I would catch a glimpse of him, gossiping with them and laughing at their jokes. Casually, going from door to door, like a landlord checking on his tenants.

An unexpected sight.

Although Oracio shut down like a clam about his life, little details like that were gold scraps helping to paint his portrait, the same way his old room did. He was nice toward old people, from the warm smile he would give to the old lady downstairs. He was protective over youngsters, from the side gazes he gave them, while discussing to someone else, when they were playing in the corridor. Aside from that shared joint, he made sure to never smoke next me as long as my sickness was going. Out of concern? Or just an excuse to go check on the corpse outside. I never bothered to ask. He wouldn’t have replied anyway.

But the best discovery was his diet. Oracio was vegan. I think I unconsciously realized it early on, but it just hit me as we had to eat together. He frowned upon anything that could have meat or any animal origin. But we didn’t have much and as I said, humans learn to adapt. He turned green the morning he had to eat an egg.

He was entertaining, indubitably. I would probably have enjoyed it, maybe even teased him about it, if I hadn’t been fighting off my cold this whole time. The following night of the shutdown, he slept sitting under the window. I found him, wrapped up in a blanket, his phone placed next to him on the floor. The battery had died.

After that, he spent the next two days in the basement trying to get the generator to work again. Some rats had made their nest in the cables chamber. The result was a real mess. Even for them.

The basement was as dark as the butt hole of Satan. If I hadn’t been told a generator was there, I would never have spotted it, as it was in a corner behind a tone of thingummies people had dumped over the years. And I was pretty sure some of them belong to Oracio. At least, it’s not porcelain dogs... On the second day, when I finally emerged, I dragged myself downstairs to check on him, stuffed inside my duvet like a nem. He hid a smirk upon seeing me approaching with a penguin walk. I feigned to not notice it.

To Oracio’s patience, the repair wasn’t letting him have his way. He couldn’t figure out how to replace some of the parts the nasty rodents had shredded to pieces. But not without a payback. Served them right! We found their charred carcasses inside the hatch.

I knew nothing about solar generators, aside from the miniature one they made us build in my first year at school. Still, I tried to mentally shed light on how this larger system was working. Sitting like an anemone, with my hair sticking out of my blanket, I dozed off, watching Oracio struggling. My legs and hands were numb from the cold. My head was spinning. The color of the cables danced in my mind, like juggling ropes, all connecting to a part of the generator. But the colors didn’t match. The colors don’t match.

“What?” Oracio turned to me. The words had left my lips on their own. Bad words... I couldn’t clearly explain to him why, but something wasn’t adding up. Like a book collection that hadn’t been put in the right order. The logic of this setup wasn’t following the right pattern. It was obvious and yet… I wasn’t making much sense. So instead of conveying my thoughts, I just pointed out where I thought the anomalies were.

He listened. He nodded. Then he sent me back to bed because I was shivering like a leaf. I took off and flew back upstairs... If I trust my memory. But since I am not stupid enough to believe it actually happened, I am suspecting I received help at one point. Or I passed out on a teleportation device. Or stepped into a wormhole. For the sake of the story, I’ll go for the latter. Plus who knows what they had stored down there, under all that mess.

I got fever and nightmares for the next following days. Blacking out most of the time, I tripped about being a snake charmer. But instead of making my reptile dance, colorful cables were reacting to my music. My flute was a giant joint and I was traveling above Magdad, on a flying duvet. The sensation of freedom was exhilarating. I looked up to the open space thinking that if I was able to fly, maybe I could escape. But to go where?

I heard a familiar laughter. I looked down and saw Oracio sitting in the street, covered in snow, talking happily to an invisible person. A wave of drones was swirling in his direction. I turned around and rushed down to save him. I was too far. I shouted his name. He didn’t react. So I took my giant joint and threw it at the nearest drone.

Instantly, the flying toasters refocused their attention on me. Whoops.

Trailing me, I looped and whooshed in the air, stretching my hand to catch the mindless bastard. Finally I grabbed his hand and lifted him up. But his body, made of snow, sprinkled away as we flew up to the stratosphere. He had no eyes. He had no ears.

The drones were behind us but I had already reached a large altitude, when suddenly we hit the sky ceiling. It was made of ice. Covering the entire city. I fell off the carpet, looking at the impenetrable wall and what I believed was space. Thousands of black seagulls had crashed on it, their beak nailed into its surface, their black feathers spreading on it like ink. A sea of trapped souls that suddenly turned into butterflies.

I awoke in a jolt when my body reached the ground. An unpleasant feeling. The other one came from my clothes. I had drenched the bed with sweat. Gross. I changed then took notice of the hour. We were in the middle of the night. The bracero was lit on. Water melting. But no sign of Oracio. I searched for him. In the basement, then outside where the dead man was. It was covered in ice. Oracio wasn’t there. I deduced he might have gone for a chat with the old lady again, when I noticed a little ceiling trap being open on the top of our staircase. A ladder was down. I climbed it.

The rooftop was all white, the snow crunching under my feet. Another set of footsteps was trailing away. At its end, Oracio was sitting next to a solar panel, smoking. No scarf, no extra protection.

“Aren’t you freezing?”

“Cold doesn’t bother me.” He looked at me with a smile. His cigarette smoke was rising in elegant swirls like a calligraphic arabesque. “Feeling better? Looking better.”

“Aye, Aye. I think I sweat that fever out.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“No, it is not.” I sat on the low wall in front of him. “Why’ you’ here? It’s a bit late to test the solar panels.”

“Was enjoying the show.” He smiled. I frowned, not getting it. He lifted his finger, pointing at the sky. I followed then paused, in shock.

Stars. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. Shiny little diamonds forming a vault above our heads. Blues auras, some nebulae somewhere. And across it, the cloud of the Milky Way. Dark and bright. And the Sagittarius eyes. I stopped breathing, my jaw dropping, in awe. If it wasn’t for the cold, I wouldn’t have been able to explain the tears pearling at the corner of my eyes.

The feeling of submersion. Of inferiority and yet of belonging to something so grandiose. This was probably the first time I felt like losing feet in my own emotion.

“Outstanding right?” Oracio joined in the spectacle, like the commentator of some documentary. “Only when the power is down. Only when the town has no more light, can we see them so clearly. Call it the karmic reward of a shit show.” He laughed. I cleared my eyes and pretended he didn’t catch that.

“Ironic. Truly.” I muttered, taken by an intense shiver of joy. “When you know all this motion and life... all of it is generated by a black hole. It is really in the darkest place, that we can enjoy light.” I looked up again. Losing sight of the horizon. “Maybe that is why Hell exists.”

Space was so vast. Terrifying, suffocating. Overwhelmingly mind blowing. My first time seeing it. I refused to blink. I wanted to burn it in my memory. Every star, every color. Who knows when I’ll be able to see it again.

“Bastian. Do you believe in God?” Asked Oracio. I snorted. Not a chance. He nodded. I guessed he did but said nothing about it. He puffed one more time. “Do you want to leave this place?”

I turned to him, surprised. I could see his eyes on me, burning through the obscurity. “No, I don’t.”

Strangely I was honest. The answer seemed to intrigue him. “To go where? Outside? Isn’t it the same world that made this very place possible? At least here, you can see human kind in its purest form. Naked of all pretensions. It is ugly. But it is a truth that no one can deny.”

As I spoke, images passed through my head. Red damaged heels, pink fluffy slippers, some ripped lips and porcelain dogs. I saw a painted face disappearing in the sea, and a burning stage surrounded by red silhouettes.

I couldn’t understand the Blues. They were tapping in the most primal human emotion, to create panic and control us. They were beating a dead horse already rotting on the ground. For what. More power? More chaos? How does anarchy work when there is no system to destroy?

The Blues were the Sub-Zero heroes. Perfect representative of what the city had best to offer. Even Miller was not as true as them. Even that sickening cupcake lover couldn’t grasp the authenticity of their actions. Faceless souls, thrown in the crowd as cannon fodder, like sheep in a slaughterhouse. All bloody real.

“Fuck Tarramine, with their shinny home and their judgement.” I searched for the drones above us. In camouflage among the stars. They couldn’t care less about our rooftop conversation. “The outside world doesn’t get the beauty of misery.” I smiled. “Sometimes I just feel like we are their favorite freak show. I want a good laugh too. Don’t you think this whole place would look amazing covered in flames?”

Ah… So maybe that is why… Maybe they just wanted that. Pure and simple destruction. In the distance, I saw a red light plunging like a shooting star. Others followed. A resistant, undoubtedly.

“Hey Oracio… Make a wish. After all, the night is going to be long.”

The longest of the year. On the very day when thousand years ago, humanity annually believed the sun would not come back; on that day, when we learned to gather around lights, to ease our fear of darkness, I felt blessed by the obscurity surrounding us. Carrying on my head a crown of stars that no king could afford, I was sure that Tarramine, in its everlasting brightness, didn’t know the bliss of such a gift.

Five hundred years ago, our ancestors landed on this world. As they rebuild humankind, they might have known it. Then they forgot that only in darkness, can light exist. Only in shambles, can a population rise. Only in deep cold, can we enjoy warmth.

That night, Oracio slept next to me. His head resting against mine, I observed his eyelash. My mind was looping. Burning in hell or freezing to death. That man should have just flipped the finger at the Devil and punched him in the face.

Silently, I dived into Oracio’s heat and fell asleep, like a child.