DIOGEN HAD SHOT at himself, but not being a rifle expert, the bullet ricocheted and he somehow managed to shoot off three toes on his right foot. He fainted with pain and bled. A pair of shepherds discovered him by the side of the road, just before dawn. The men, upon seeing him there with the rifle at his side and a discarded picture of the President, which Diogen had taken from the hotel room, panicked and ran off to find a telephone and call an ambulance. They crossed themselves all the way.
Next to Diogen was a note that read: Don’t hate me. I just can’t do it. Life has no meaning. I tried my best.
The note was blown off by a gust of wind. No one ever read it. The ambulance came with the whir of lights and noise, and Diogen was transferred into the vehicle where he was connected to all kinds of tubes. The medics concluded that he would live, and it would be somewhat complicated to walk at first. The nurses tried to call the house to inform the family, but no one was home.
All the while Diogen was unconscious, dreaming. He dreamed that he and Ivan sat by a river that was like the one they both so loved, but not that one, and that Ivan was surrounded by dragonflies, which flew around him and landed on his hair. Then those same dragonflies landed on Diogen’s hair. They had the most delicious picnic laid out between them, and they smiled at each other and looked into each other’s eyes. Diogen was as happy as he would ever be. They looked at the river, where fish jumped out of the sparkling water. The air smelled of orange blossom. Diogen was, he was convinced, dead, and had gone to heaven. When he woke up in the hospital room, alone, or rather with three snoring men around him, he was not sure whether he had descended into hell. He had intended to end his life. But life had not finished with him.
“Oh, you’re awake,” said a nurse with yellow hair. She was checking the drip that was going into Diogen’s arm. “Were you cleaning the rifle or what?”
Diogen looked at her. Said nothing.
“Well, you’re alive. We tried to call your house, but can’t get hold of anyone. You just rest for now,” she said and left the room.
Diogen closed his eyes and saw strange landscapes, the prairie, the savannah, arid alpine mountains. Places he had never seen before. He also saw his older brother, aboard The Blue Dolphin, weeping inside a small round window, sitting on a bed like a child.