The one thing I prayed I would never witness again was violence. A world without crime, without war or revolution, without sickness and poverty, without bitterness and prejudice seemed to my way of thinking like the only real Heaven. Let the dead kill off the dead, I said to myself. Crazy as it sounds, it made great sense to me. Not a single one of us had had a real chance on Earth. Even the rich were miserable. Even the men of genius suffered tribulations of all kinds. Nor had the good ones been spared. It was as if the planet were diseased, or condemned. un monde maudit. No wonder the brilliant ones were the poets, the madmen like Blake and Rimbaud. No wonder everything was topsy‑turvy. No wonder man was beginning to explore outer space ‑ to find new homes for a dwindling humanity, a humanity that had killed the mother which bore it.
The crime of hating my mother while alive now seemed to me enormously significant. I was indeed, as I had written in some book, “a traitor to the human race.” The only escape for me was to quit the planet once and for all, find another Heaven and Earth, another God or gods. It seemed utterly inconsequential now to seek out my beloved authors. I knew now they could give me no comfort, no wisdom. The whole business of literature seemed a completely futile one.
If my mother was ready to leave I certainly was not. There was so much I had yet to discover ‑ perhaps I would be detained a thousand years. All the better, thought I to myself. Perhaps by that time no world will be recognizable. Perhaps it will be a new Heaven and a new Earth everywhere, in all the Universes.
During these reflections my mother had slipped from sight unknown to me. I looked about me but could see no trace of her. Had she already returned to Mother Earth? The mere thought of such a possibility filled me with a profound sadness. I sank to the ground and held my head in my hands.
When I looked up I perceived my mother some distance away. She appeared to be on her way out. Looking more carefully, I observed that she was waving to me, waving good‑bye.
With that I stood up, my eyes wet with tears, and giving a mighty shout, I cried: “Mother, I love you. I love you! Do you hear me?”
I imagined that I saw a faint smile illumine her face and then suddenly she was no more.
I was alone, but more alone than I had ever felt on Earth. And I would be alone, perhaps, for centuries or, who knows, perhaps through all eternity.