August began with a Cleansing, the third. Thousands of liters of acid were injected in the Tank, as always, to melt as many corpses as possible.
Giovanni stolidly supervised the process . He was well aware that everything fell under unquestionable and proven schemes, and the sphere of emotions had to give up, disappear. In Camp 9 people died every day. The soil, the air, the sunlight, everything was full of death. But that wasn’t a good reason to give up to useless interior torments with the only result of suffering even when on the right side of the barricade. He had learnt his lesson long ago. And hundreds of melt bodies dispersed under his feet weren’t something appropriate to think about. That was just how things were.
Back in his apartment he ate an abundant breakfast, ignoring the trembling that created many concentrical circles on the surface of his latte in the cup he was holding with both his hands.
***
The month went on between some of hot days and others graced by the northern breeze.
He didn’t receive any other communications from the general and asked the EGs how things were going out there was as useful as asking his reflection in the mirror. He actually could get some answers from it from time to time. He knew that talking to oneself was a sign of instability, but he was of the mind that his condition justified that small deviancy. And who could hear him anyway? The amoeba? He grinned every time he thought about the mass of dying bodies that way.
One day, while staring at the Well, he fantasized about that green circle surrounded by black being his brain. Half-closing his eyes he could see it melt in a slimy, waved, spongy mass that could very well be the radiography of his cranium. The idea was intriguing. But he was clever enough to rapidly stray from the path that lead to such thoughts. There were weeds there, and sharp stones emerged from the ground. Better to proceed on the beaten path, the one paved with hard work, obedience and rigor leading him to...
Where? He wondered looking in the mirror. And with a peaceful smile he answered: “To your island, of course.”
For time to time he still thought about his life before the Tank. In the beginning nostalgia had been overwhelmed by enthusiasm, so he had little time think back to a not particularly brilliant or attractive past; not so much to make him regret his choice, at least. Now, after eight months inside that huge cylinder, he realized difficult it was for him to mentally rebuild the apartment he had left and where he had lived for many years. The topographical references of the outside world, which were once straight lines guiding him, had folded like the legs of a chair inside the trunk of a car, amassing inside his head.
There were lots of faces and names in the world of his past, the outside world. It was incredible how so many things inside him were fading away. His memories were hundreds of balloons attached to a thread, like those tied outside houses for a child’s birthday. But the birthday had already passed and in time the balloons were left there in their uselessness, bending their heads, getting smaller, withering...
He had promised to always look forward. And it was what he had managed to do. Of what was behind his back - all those things that couldn't keep up with him or couldn’t reach him - he could do without.
No, he was happy about being there. He was satisfied of his job. He didn’t want to go home early.
“I am the NMO, yes sir!” He showed his tongue to the mirror and, thinking back to Stevanich’s word, he added: “And whatever fear awaits him, I will face it.”
He would have to keep that promise a few weeks later, when the fires lit.