REMEMBER TO LOOK AT THE MOON

A father once wrote to his son:

“Do not follow the things you condemn, but behold the glory of those you choose to imitate,so that you may raise the same glory within yourself.For the fool is he who, while admiring the good, commits deeds worthy of blame. And remember, my son, to look at the moon.”

JANUARY 1824

He walked slowly along the banks of the Thames, one step after another.His dark leather shoes left faint, almost invisible marks upon the damp pavement.The hem of his trousers, touched by droplets, darkened with every step — a narrow crown tightening around his ankles.

His gaze was low, his pale eyes glassy and entranced.He walked with the pavement on one side and the steep parapet on the other, straight and steady, as though no curve could ever exist along his path.

But there would be curves. Very soon.

The night was starless and heavy with darkness.The full moon lay veiled by thin, smoky clouds — like sand carelessly scattered upon a porcelain plate.The only light to guide him came from the gas lamps, standing at equal distance from one another, so the wanderer would not lose his way.Some glowed faintly, others burned too bright; together they created a macabre dance of light and shadow, where the passerby became now visible, now unseen — at times merely a contour, at others only a pair of thin legs adrift in solitude.

He would not have been there had he not found that note — the last words of a madman.He had left him during his early adolescence and lost all contact when he moved to London to study.He, a man of reason and action, active in the radical party; his father, a romantic dreamer, born a century too soon.The world belongs to the first kind, he used to think.But that thought was not so strong within him now.He was alone, in the company of the unknown, on a cold English night.

A sudden wind rose, and the long coat he wore felt no heavier than a thin dressing gown.He wrapped his thick wool scarf a second time around his neck, letting its ends fall behind him; the wind caught them, raising them parallel to the ground — as though an invisible hand were tugging him forward, guiding him toward something.All without his conscious will.

THE FIRST CURVE

He turned left and found himself upon a long bridge.After a few steps, the pavement vanished; the road became unpaved, and soon he noticed the lamps were gone as well.He walked alone, in darkness.

He stopped abruptly — a dull sound, something slender and low, slipped between his legs.Startled, he stepped back and crushed something soft beneath his heel.The creature whimpered and ran away.

He had always believed himself independent, a man who had built his life by his own hands.The lack of family support had made him feel strong.And yet, why now this fear?Why this sense of loneliness, of being lost, of being wrong?He brushed those thoughts aside and quickened his pace.

Thinking carefully, he realized he had never seen that bridge before.

A distant flash of lightning lit the sky — thin, withered hands seemed to reach for him.A shiver ran down his spine, his mouth went dry, and then, once again, all was darkness.

Nothing happened.He felt his cheeks hollowing, his chest turning cold.He no longer felt life within him.

A sudden howl of a dog tore him from that deathlike trance, and he began to walk again.At last, the bridge ended, and domestic lights appeared ahead of him.

OUTSKIRTS

He walked among crumbling houses with narrow windows.Like ghosts, sheets hung from lines in gardens long abandoned to winter’s frost.The neighborhood lay silent and still, and the houses, mute and motionless, seemed to watch the wanderer pass.

He moved, yet he felt he was standing still.The houses were all the same — their sheets, their small skylights.Only houses, sheets, and skylights...Houses, sheets, and skylights...The words repeated in his head until they lost all meaning.

His arms rose stiffly before his chest; he began to march, and his lips murmured, like a chant, those three cursed words.He was a zombie, no longer guided by himself.He felt damned, trapped in an endless circle of visions now reduced to shapeless colors and sounds.

Then something light and fragrant embraced him in a dark, tender hold.He tried to free himself — then surrendered, and lost consciousness.The last thing he saw was a cluster of tiny, luminous dots; then everything turned the color of nothingness.

THE NOTHING

Lost in an undefined space, he drifted with body and mind through a dimension unknown to him.He perceived nothing — neither concrete nor abstract.He simply existed.

There was no hatred, no sadness, no love, no joy.There was only apathy.He felt in a primordial state, and yet something within him whispered that he did not belong there.

Dry tears traced his face.His fate was to vanish forever.Terror took him.

Every cell of his mortal body was abandoning him, dissolving into imperceptible atoms to return to the universe.He felt light.Insignificant.Essential.

A web enfolded him and spun him round in the void.He turned slowly, then faster and faster, until all around him became nothing but a swirl of colored lines.

JANUARY 2025

His gaze fixed upon that phrase.In one hand, a glass of whisky; in the other, a pencil.He felt tired, so very tired — almost old.

Remember to look at the moon.

His body began to take shape again.Atoms reassembled into living cells.

A fly buzzed near his ear.He turned his head, annoyed — the insect was already gone.

Little Kuro meowed affectionately, tail held high, brushing against his legs.He stroked the cat’s back.

The window was open; a cold wind entered the room.With one hand he held the left pane still, with the other he reached for the handle.

Then he stopped.Enchanted, he gazed at the sky.The night was clear, crowded with stars. The moon — full.