Сергей Огольцов – The Algorithm of Chaos (страница 3)

I always keep it straight. When I start speaking, I speak the truth, without equivocation or frills borrowed from Lingua GlobBureaucratica.

This line makes my life easier later, when I have to pay with my body's resources. Sticking to plain truth removes gnawing doubts. It keeps my health intact. Prevents sinking to the same level as the scum at the particularly streamlined society strata who fall over themselves to meet market demands and the dictates of political and sexual conformity.

I do not trade myself for trendy comforts and undeserved benefits. And most importantly, I do not allow myself to spawn imaginarities. The main threat to health roots in them, when, instead of ‘I want you!’ they say, ‘You could perform at La Scala with your contralto!’ and instead of ‘Lend me a tenner till the pay-day,’ they say, ‘What a cool tie you're wearing today!’

But otherwise, as already noted, everything is going great on the scientific front.

So what exactly saved science from great discoveries on my part? Discoveries whose magnitude neither Einstein nor Tesla never even dreamed of?

For all the talents I am gifted with, and those are literally created for boosting pure science with my priceless contributions, there’s a frustrating hitch on my part.

A single point in the otherwise flawless list of my unrivaled qualities. That seeming trifle has pushed the radiant science horizons away from me and, in the same breath, made me unreachable for the bereft science.

And this is (I announce with a bitter sign) is my intrinsic restlessness. Which bitchy feature manifests itself quite, dammit, selectively.

Say, I would sit for hours – forgetful of their flight alike to that of aloof seagulls over a buoy inedible and lonely – at the computer, or over a microscope, or under the Hubb telescope (although I don't own the last 2 of mentioned items, as yet, nor a bicycle).

However, being called to take part in a meeting of any kind – be it a gardening association, or even the UN assembly (the most hateful are briefings and/or trade union election meetings, although other ones also cause a sharp drop or rise in my blood pressure, while my urinary system lives thru the peak of its activity) – I evaporate at once making my excuses up about the need to get rid of the superfluity.

It was precisely this restlessness that served the stumbling block bigger than the boulder before the long-maned mare of the knight in the V. Vasnetsov's painting. The poor beast is at a loss which way to go around it: right or left? Same case in my relations with science which is unable to progress on without get-togethers. That circumstance brought our relations to absolute standstill.

Why, there are all those symposiums, conferences, meetings, and reports, not to mention colloquiums and face-to-face confrontations… Or whatchamacallit? Well, anyway…

Let's consider a perfectly plausible case: I arrive in Stockholm to collect my Nobel Prize for quantum mechanical achievements and – welcome in for a rude surprise! – it turns out I also have to sit through the awards ceremony!

But have you inquired about my restlessness? Would it stomach it?

Hence, the entirely predictable final: sorry, humanity. Too bad you’re left without ground-breaking discoveries, but even for the sake of your upcoming merge with Artificial Intelligence, self-raping is not my cup of tea.

I am what I am, and that's what I'll stay. Ass stubbornness? Call it to your personal liking. I am damned if it’ll fix it.

Sehrgueys are hard as nails critters. The funeral boat, supposed to take the body of one of them along with the flow, floated upstream, contrary to the mutual expectations. Although, at that time, science hadn't even considered the possibility of outboard motors.

(Note to new parents: choose your newborn's name carefully, lest you lament when it’s too late, ‘Oh! What an ungovernable kid!’ Biting your own elbows is a poor snack – I share that as a well-meaning professional.)

. . .

d). Find yourself and pass the steer wheel to the foundling

And if anyone has read this far and thought to themselves, with an experienced sleuth sneer, ‘Clear as day, here we’ll have crying shame upon the education system,’ then, with your foresight, you’d better forsake gambling, dear Dr. Whatson.

I won't grab with my wrathful hand the scruff of the system which formats us not because of its being flawless and chaste – far from that! That whore has been screwed by everyone in every possible form of positioning – but because I feel a poignant pity for her. And now, filled with compassion up to my neck, I have just one word to utter: ‘Ehh!’ And those that follow are just interjections, not utterly obscene, but full of overt passion. ‘Off with you! Go have a rest, you slut, until the next reform…‘

As a self-bred gentleman, I’ve got no intention of digging deeper in the subject, firmly stop at where my ramblings along the spiral-like net of roundabout paths of reasoning has finally led up to.

Yep, my dear, you are to enter! It’s your turn, sweetie – the dessert’s being saved for the end.

Hats off, gentlemen! This isn't a harlot of the demimonde, but the peerless Lady Fiction herself!

I foresee everything – the wry grin of anyone who happened to rub elbows with me (slightly, the luckiest of them): ‘What could the guy have in common with literary matters?’; the condescending: ‘The insolence of the lout! He dares call himself a writer!’ – from the chicken farm of haughty Laureate-Nominees; and the: ‘Nimble fellow!’ – from the conveyor line of slipslop caterers; and: ‘Fucking mother-fucking-fucker!’ – from the counter-culture shit-shovellers.

What kind of writer am I?

There's no point in evasive jinks – I simply have no idea! Sometimes I like myself, sometimes I don't, depending on the dose of impression from the lines and, perhaps, on the time of day.

Yes, I stay in the dark; no one has really told me who I resemble or where I'm heading to. But my firm belief is that writers aren't born, they're DIY products.

At the same time, I don't deny the possible grains of truth in the assessments by my (up to this day) absent critics, pampered in the dynastic shadow of their family trees, and likewise absent critics from noisy dives.

Anyone and everyone can both be right, if they're lucky enough to pop up in the right place at the right time. But what pathetic fools are those trying to stake out both their right and their place, for all upcoming terms. And there still are some so completely insane! Stop staking time, buddy!

But you, citizen, don't hiccup about here with your loyal spleen. My innocent gossip concerns Muammar Gaddafi. As of yet.

Although their fate is cloned from each other’s – a sewer hole comprising the former both czar and god, turned rat food. The sorry fool is done …

And secondly, what else can I do if my heart isn't in angling, either with a rod or a jig? And besides, I don't really root for Real, Manchester, or any of the local footballers. What can I do? (Damn, I think I've heard that phrase before. Are they plagiarising me?)

Here is the straightforward answer: you're destined for the literary world, my boy. Amen.

But then again a tricky question: ‘Why?’

‘You're asking “why”? Comrades! Here a citizen is asking “why!"’

(‘Couldn't resist it, huh? Stole a line from Dovlatov!’

‘Well, saint father! That's what the great are for, so that we, mean sinners, have someone’s shoulders to stand upon!’)

‘Why’ is, of course, a legit question.

Yes, I won't hide it, there was time for me to burn with envy of the demigods having the Writers' Union badges. I did dream of living off the proceeds from the sales of my books published somewhere, by someone.

However, I gave up on that hooey (it's impossible to describe how readily the nonsense died out!) and now I write for personal pleasure. The produced books are published online for everyone to enjoy for free.

True, the Litres stamps then with the arithmetic enigmatic mark of ‘18+’, while at abroad platforms they decipher it into ‘content for adults’.

So, good night, little ones! My books will never become tools for to Alzheimerize your grannies. I and my pen is not involved in production of formatting traps for younger generations.

Yes, I write for pleasure, especially since I have a gap in my biography – I haven't mastered self-masturbation, despite Italian cinema and Hollywood persistent recommendations and promoting efforts. Well, I don't know, maybe I'm just not the right person to fill my spare time with fashionable trends.

This is where we at long last, yet nonetheless arrive in for the final question in this here dissertation: How to write?

For a quick and dirty visual response view another painting, this time by I. Repin called – Barge Haulers on the Volga, full of tension, sweat and loud farts.

The verbal answer is pretty vast, I won't be able to outpour it before the power goes out (due to the blockade, electricity is supplied in spurts of 3-hour duration, to ensure a more harmonious way of life), so I hope to examine it under the next letter in this undercover preface, in the guise of Prologue.