One evening, an old man sat next to me and said:
“Do you know my son, some day, shortly
after this powerful, apocalyptic detonation
when there
are only giant, blunt rocks on the
Earth coated in a layer of thick, black soot,
a grand, white, radiant spaceship will land.
Somewhere between former Los Angeles
and the vaporized Black Sea.
And these strange, lanky beings
will have pills on-board
that they would have given us humans
as a gift, as always, when one visits
any savages,
one gives them small gifts.
Pills against sadness
they’d have given us, as a gift,
if we were still there.
Imagine, my son –”
said the old man mournfully –
“wonderful, little pills against sadness.”
“And these strange, lanky beings
will leave their spaceship, they will look
around and immediately know that a short
while ago a
powerful, apocalyptic
detonation occurred. And they will sit
between the giant,
blunt rocks,
shaking their heads and breathing heavily.
And each of them will quickly swallow a
pill against sadness.
One of them will even write with their finger
in the thick,
black soot on a giant, blunt rock:
‘We would have
loved to know what you are!
How you look!
How you speak!
Humans!’
And then suddenly one of them will
shout, they will shout that they found something.
And that
will be an old, dented,
little film projector, with a movie reel.
Sure, why not?” said the old man.
“And they’ll be overjoyed,
the strange, lanky beings will wait
until it’s dark and project the movie
on their grand, white, radiant spaceship.
And they will be astonished because
they will see a Mickey
Mouse movie.
A Mickey Mouse movie with Donald Duck,
Tom Cat, and Goofy.
And these strange, lanky beings
will climb into their spaceship and say,
‘They were cheerful,
these humans.
They looked cheerful,
they spoke cheerfully.
We would have given
them our
pills against
sadness
in vain.’”
The old man told me this story. I reflected on it,
and
wrote the following lines:
On a particular day in the year 1928,
the dutiful moon stood suddenly to the left,
and on the right the dutiful sun, together in
the same sky.
Appalled, they stared at each other,
and in this short moment of terror
both forgot for a
fraction of a second
to do their duties.
The aftermath was disastrous.
Please, may this day be cursed for all eternity!
On this day, Mickey Mouse was born.
