The Day I Killed My Father by Mario Sabino Page A

carried onto the sand by the sea. ‘Le inutili macerie del tuo abisso …’ He was seized by the idea that he himself was good for nothing — just excrement in an ocean of other worthless existences. What had he done with his life to this point? Nothing. He hadn’t been able to love those who loved him (and there had been so few!), and he hadn’t produced anything of relevance in anything he’d turned his hand to (except in the opinion of Kiki and her backpacking ex-boyfriend — but Kiki and her crowd were a load of rubbish, too). What kind of epitaph would excrement like he have? Gazing at the seascape — which was, in itself, an invitation to live — he tried to come up with a phrase that, on his death, would sum up his idiotic existence. And at that moment he fancied he heard a voice, mingling with the sea breeze, whispering in his ear: Here lies he who died without ever having been.
    Died without ever having been. But having been what? And then a light came on in Antonym’s mind. Without ever having been a man of spirit. Yes, that was what he wanted to be: a man who, through personal enterprise, would help change the fate of the world. This ambition was what was stopping him from being ‘a normal man’, as Bernadette liked to say. The fact that he hadn’t fulfilled it had often led him to feel dead or that he could be approaching death — perhaps even at the hand of Bernadette, who wanted him to be ‘normal’. Ever since he’d been a child, Antonym had felt different, special, but without ever lighting upon what it was that made him special. All those moments of anxiety that had punctuated his life, all those empty afternoons munching on biscuits, all those idiotic articles. They were symptoms not of his vacuity, as he had always thought, but of anticipation.
    Antonym took a deep breath, his eyes closed. ‘Ubriacato dalla voce che esce dalle tue bocche quando si schiudono come verdi campane e si ributtano indietro e si disciolgono.’ No, poetry wasn’t just surface — not to one who decided to make his own life poetry. Yes, that was what he had to do: give his existence a poetic dimension. Brutally poetic. All great men had done this somehow — the good ones and the bad ones. But what is Good and what is Evil? If God couldn’t exist without Evil, if Evil was also a part of the divine plan, then … Then, that was it! One couldn’t judge men of spirit, because all of them were fulfilling God’s designs. What did it matter if, in the lines they composed, a few worthless little lives were lost along the way? It was the big picture that mattered. The big picture!
    He could no longer condemn Hemistich and Farfarello. They were obviously partners in an undertaking with a higher objective. Yes, that was it: a new religion! A religion that celebrated the senses as the only way to understand the world … Life and Death … Augusto. Hemistich had said that Augusto had acted on his own impulse: ‘The purest expression of the senses.’ No, there was no flippancy in this remark. Hemistich and Farfarello had witnessed the deaths of Augusto and his wife. No one was that flippant. Perhaps they were true men of spirit, the founders of a new way. A way that contained a dash of Evil, certainly. But, since Evil was a part of the divine design, there always had to be someone to do the dirty work. And if this fate — doing the dirty work essential to the divine plan — was born of human free will, he who stepped forward to play the part had to be considered by God to be a special child. A child who loved Him so much he was willing to relinquish the advantages of Good; who was willing to face limbo, hell, or whatever else, so that God could bask in glory. Evil was thus a parallel highway to the highway of Good — and both met in infinity. The infinity that was God!
    A religion of the senses that led to total