Micheal was sitting on the bed, holding an open black bound notebook in his right hand.

  Inside the open notebook there was a single line, but it was blurred. Completely illegible. As if he were farsighted only at that exact spot: everything else appeared clear. That line was hypnotic. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. His was an anguish dulled by the estrangement of the surrounding world.

  The room was his.

  Unmistakably so.

  Same layout, same essential volumes. But now there were colors. Muted, impoverished, as if deliberately left to fade. The walls hovered between a dull gray and a cold beige. The light wooden floor bore thin scratches, traces of repeated movement. The desk, pressed against the wall, was almost empty: a few objects, aligned with a care that had nothing to do with aesthetics. A functional, defensive order. The single bed, the cheap bookshelf, the closed wardrobe. No concessions to comfort. No attempt to make the space welcoming.

  A place of transit.

  Or containment.

  The door opened.

  Micheal flinched.

  Partly because Anton had entered. Partly because of the unreal, soft light diffused by a strange pale blue, watery substance that seemed to have flooded his house. A hallucination? Was the writing in the notebook one too? What the fuck was going on?

  He closed the black notebook and set it beside him.

  Anton was wearing one of his thought-out gopcore outfits. He did that sometimes: dressed according to a logic that had nothing to do with looking more presentable. Pointless to ask why he’d chosen those clothes that day. He would have dodged the question, drifting into one of the topics he felt confident about at the time. Or he would have started giving him shit about the role of aesthetics in interpersonal relationships.

  “What are you doing here?” Micheal asked, genuinely surprised, rubbing his tense face with his hands.

  “What do you mean, what am I doing here?” Anton replied, equally surprised. “You texted me an hour ago to come over. You said you felt like distracting yourself by talking, remember?”

  Micheal didn’t remember.

  Everything felt vague, like waking up inside a dream that was already underway.

  “You okay, bro?” Anton asked, sitting down on the bed beside him.

  “I don’t know. I’m kind of confused.”

  “How come?”

  “I already told you I don’t know.”

  “Were you writing a poem?” Anton’s gaze drifted toward the notebook.

  “Yeah. Or at least… I think I was trying to.”

  “You think?”

  “I told you I’m confused, fuck. Don’t start hammering my head with stupid questions.”

  Micheal bent forward, raking his hands through his hair.

  “You always end up like this when you write poetry? And I thought you’d quit.”

  “You’re stubborn, huh? I decided to start writing again recently.”

  That memory felt like it belonged to someone else. As if his consciousness had been implanted in that body only minutes earlier.

  “Why did you change your mind?”

  “I was thinking about our conversation about impostor syndrome. You said non-functional knowledge pushes people to show off their erudition. That if you take yourself seriously, knowing that a kind of knowledge is non-functional when you can’t apply it to do anything concrete except entertain someone or bask in other people’s ignorance, then you inevitably end up an impostor. Someone trying to elevate their social status by exploiting stolen notions, as long as they seem intelligent. Even though they usually aren’t. Anyone could get there with little effort.”

  The words flowed effortlessly, in stark contrast with the mental fatigue weighing on him. He felt dissociated, as if he were watching his own life from a slightly displaced vantage point. As if fate had decided to mock free will.

  “What did you call that category?” he finished.

  “The epistemic fraudster. But Sokal would say intellectual impostor.”

  “Someone could put you in that category. You yourself struggled with thinking it was fair to include you. But you managed to counter it by using self-irony as justification. If you don’t take yourself seriously, you can neutralize both external and internal criticism. Because it all stems from a misunderstanding.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Anton laughed.

  A full, clean laugh.

  “Yeah. I decided to become an epistemic jester. You didn’t seem that interested when I told you about it. I’m surprised you listened so carefully. I might even get emotional.”

  He had a beautiful laugh, Micheal thought.

  And for a very brief moment, the anguish loosened its grip.

  Anton was the one who spoke again.

  “So you used that same mechanism as a shield to return to poetry, right? If you’re no longer writing out of some delirious ambition, out of an idea of greatness you know is ultimately illusory, then the unrealistic expectation that used to poison your creative process loses its grip. It can’t eat you alive anymore.”

  Micheal hesitated for a moment.

  “I wouldn’t have put it that way… but yes.”

  He inhaled slowly. “Since I got into Wasatch, partly because I met you—don’t give me that smug look or I’ll smash your face in—and partly because the kind of people I dealt with before stopped feeling… inevitable. As if they were the normality I was doomed to interface with.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, irritated more by the idea than the memory.

  “I know you hate classist arguments. And I know you disagree with me about pop subcultures and all that pseudo-sociological bullshit that used to get on my nerves too. But from my point of view, there’s no getting around one thing: dull minds exist, they’re the majority, and whether you like it or not, they end up interfering with how you perceive the world. With your… perceptual bandwidth.”

  He paused. His voice dropped.

  “I haven’t completely changed my mind about poetry. Maybe I was just too absolute. Writing wasn’t a mission, or a test to pass. It was just… beautiful. That’s it.”

  He looked up at Anton.

  “When I was writing, I felt this warmth spreading through my body. A quiet fervor. Like, for a moment, I was actually facing the unknown with something ridiculously simple: a pen. And it worked.”

  He hesitated, then added:

  “I want to go back to writing—more lightly.”

  “You know… there’s a little book, if I remember correctly titled The Last Messiah, by a Norwegian philosopher — a certain Zapffe — in which he argues that society, and people themselves, are systems engaged in taming the shifting chaos of consciousness.

  We are systems that artificially reduce our own consciousness, because a surplus of consciousness would annihilate us. It’s a universal acid. Consciousness destroys individual worldviews and, potentially, even noospheres…”

  “Why the fuck are you talking to me about this?” Micheal asked, genuinely bewildered. Then, before Anton could reply, he added:

  “And anyway, consciousness is the only true creator of noospheres.”

  “That’s not true. Even AIs could create noospheres, even after our extinction.”

  “But we created AIs.”

  “And it’s not necessarily true that creating them requires a conscious life form.”

  “Mmh… maybe. But what’s the point?” he asked, looking at him skeptically.

  Anton sighed softly, as if carefully choosing his words.

  “You see… Zapffe describes several strategies through which a human being can prune their own consciousness. I won’t list them all: one is enough to get to the point. Attachment.

  We build spiritual outposts, small symbolic fortresses, within which it’s easier to keep cosmic anguish at bay. Those who manage to defend them best, eventually turning them into bastions against the dissolution of meaning, are often celebrated. And that’s understandable: they’re fighting the hardest battle.”

  He paused briefly.

  “It’s paradoxical that, to feel closer to the cosmos in its entirety, you had to build a fort against it. Almost ironic.”

  A hint of sadness surfaced on Anton’s face. Micheal listened, absorbed.

  “And it must not have been easy to face existential terror when that fort — fragile, evidently — was torn down by social pressure.

  But now you’re calmer. Less pessimistic. You’re starting to create fixed points again to chase away existential discomfort. I’m glad you’ve started writing again.

  I’m curious to see what shape your new bastion will take.”

  He hinted at a barely perceptible smile.

  “I bet it will be magnificent.”

  Couldn’t you have simply told me, “That’s wonderful news, Mike! I can’t wait to read some of your poetry”?

  No.

  That wouldn’t have been your style.

  Anton is like that. Even his acts of kindness are cerebral and enigmatic.

  But why only with me? Why you…

  “Why are you staring at me like that? What are you thinking about?” Anton asked, wearing a sibylline grin. As if he knew exactly what was going on in Micheal’s mind.

  “Nothing important.” He shook his head.

  “Now, though, you have to let me read what you’ve written. I’m really curious to see what the mind of a former enfant prodige is capable of.”

  “I didn’t actually manage to do much. I only wrote one line, then I got stuck. I’m clearly out of shape.”

  “That was predictable. And the line? Want to recite it for me?”

  “I don’t remember it.”

  “Then let me read it.”

  “Mmh… okay.”

  Micheal rested his hand on the notebook to grab it.

  But his hand trembled.

  He pulled it back abruptly.

  What’s happening?

  A sudden anxiety flooded him.

  “Forget it. It’s a shitty line,” Micheal said, visibly agitated.

  “Come on, how bad could it be? Besides, I don’t understand poetry at all.”

  “Why do you keep insisting?”

  “Are you really ashamed to let me read it?” He pointed both hands at himself. “I never imagined a cursed poet like you could be so insecure about his own work.”

  The tone was sarcastic, but good-natured.

  It’s true.

  Why don’t I want him to read it?

  Why?

  At that point Anton lunged forward and tried to snatch the notebook.

  Micheal’s eyes flew open and, instinctively, he shoved him away. Then he grabbed him by the shirt with both hands, at chest level.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Micheal shouted in his face.

  Anton was terrified. “Bro, what the fuck is wrong with you? I was joking.”

  Micheal stared at him, panting, eyes wide open.

  In silence.

  “You’re scaring me. Let go of me,” Anton said in a trembling voice, while vainly trying to push his arms away.

  Micheal’s sudden rage faded.

  Between Micheal and Anton, an unclassifiable sensation slipped in.

  As Micheal stared into those frightened eyes, the sharp smell of Anton’s sweat crept into his nostrils. An image began to take shape in his mind. The unease advanced in step with its emergence. But something blocked it.

  Meanwhile, time had run aground.

  His mind was moving at a speed greater than both his body and reality.

  And as if that memory — or that imaginative act — had reified itself, turning into a cutting stimulus, reality changed its viscosity.

  Ontological thixotropy.

  Everything began to liquefy.

  He saw Anton’s face melt and blend with his arms and with the room. Then he was enveloped by that material slurry. He closed his eyes instinctively.

  Eigengrau.