Luftbahn

A being of magnetic substance, a hollow but deep gaze, eyes of nothingness, black and intense like a black hole, I was able to look at it for a second and any millisecond more would be too much, a torment. He wore a long, flowing gray robe and didn’t seem to be walking, but rather wandering around the room. I noticed, very attentively, that when he entered the café where I was, about two or three eyes turned to him, while the majority ignored him or didn’t even notice him. I couldn’t stop thinking about that creature, I don’t know if he was a man, I don’t know if he was a woman, I don’t know if he was human.

He sat at a table by himself, drinking coffee (or tea) from a black cup. I didn’t see him ask for anything at the counter, and yet there he was with his hot drink, in a cup that simply wasn’t from that café. Strange, to say the least. He seemed to be staring at one point, while at the same time he seemed to be staring at nothing. It intrigued me and I couldn’t ignore it. I even wanted to be brave enough to go and sit next to him or even ask him something. But something stopped me, fear perhaps, and the fact that I couldn’t look at him for another second.

But how could I pass up this opportunity? All my life it seemed that I wanted to experience something supernatural, and when it seemed that the opportunity was there, sitting less than twenty meters from me, I was… afraid? What else was stopping me from going there? The possibility of my world collapsing when I clashed with such different ideas? What if he had some unavoidable truth to tell me? What if everything I wanted to know couldn’t be known? What if I was just ignored?

I didn’t have the courage to go and talk to him at that moment. But there was someone sitting at the next table, a very put together woman in her fifties. She was drinking something while reading a magazine. Our tables were almost next to each other.

“Hi, what’s up?” It’s always challenging to start a conversation with a stranger, but someone had to.

She smiled and answered my hello back.

“Sorry to bother you like this, but did you also notice that being sitting over there? The one with no eyes, the one with the macabre smile even when he’s not smiling, the one who looks lost while carrying all the answers?”

She nodded. From the look on her face, it seemed she knew him well.

“You’re new here, aren’t you?”

In fact, it was the first time I’d been to that café, and that neighborhood wasn’t where I usually walked, either.

The woman continued:

“He’s a madman, chaos itself. They say that anyone who talks to him never comes back the same. He doesn’t speak with his mouth, but transmits his thoughts. So, without saying or asking anything, you already have the feeling that everything has changed. Just look at him for a long moment.” 

“I can’t look in his direction for more than a second.” 

“Of course not! People intuitively protect themselves from such imminent danger.” 

“Even so, I want to go and talk to him!” I was hoping she was going to tell me the story of someone who had already spoken to the enigmatic figure. I was looking for answers as to what he was, but she didn’t seem to know much about the mysterious man. But that conversation only made me even more curious to go and meet him.

The woman warned me sternly that I shouldn’t go there. Fear comes for a good reason, she said. But something in his aura was so connected to me. I would probably see myself with no ground. But my dream had always been to fly into the supernatural.

And there was the game of duality: the security of what I’d created so far or the dangerous, reckless spark of the desire for hidden knowledge. What an inexhaustible desire to walk the dangerous path of the unknown. I could continue drinking my hot coffee with honey right now, just the glimpse of that being would be enough for me to think about, which could probably be forgotten in the coming weeks. Or I could go there and find out what was in that black cup.

I got up from my chair and headed towards the being. Suddenly, it seemed that the whole cafeteria would look at me, they would criticize me, I was suddenly very frightened and what would those people think of me? I would become the center of attention, the person who defied nothingness. What if I was humiliated right there, if he refused to talk to me? Could my ego take this social fiasco? What a risk. But so what, maybe it would be really embarrassing, but then people would laugh and forget about it. What’s more, I’d done what everyone wanted me to do, become an icon, even if a humiliated icon.

I was already on my feet. I started to move towards it. I looked around, no one was actually looking at me, no one noticed my movement! Those who were reading continued to read, those who were talking continued to talk, those who were just looking ahead continued to look ahead. Even the woman next to me who warned me didn’t seem to notice that I was moving towards what she herself called the cursed one. I thought about poking her and saying, “Look at the crazy thing I’m about to do!” But the silence and the apparent invisibility cloak I seemed to be wearing was actually comfortable. 

I was already shaking. There was an empty chair at the table and I sat down without asking permission. I sat down without even asking if I could. In fact, how could I? The whole time I wasn’t looking at him, I was looking away the whole time. What a moment, what an unusual idea. Me sitting there with the most supernatural power, which not even in my wildest dreams or nightmares could I have imagined. And he was such a presence. A very very strong presence.

My heart was racing and frozen at the same time. Even if I wanted to, it wouldn’t be possible for me to say something, no voice could come out of me. But he seemed to be reading and transmitting thoughts! Shh. I stayed silent to see if I could hear anything from him. Suddenly, all the noise, the music, the side conversations in the café, all that stopped at once. Absurd silence. As if by accident, my head was turned by a greater force, and I looked at him. Transcendence. What was that??

And what echoed was “I am you” 

More than being united at that moment, I felt that we were – and had always been – united for eternity and forever. 

I, who came before the verb, brought more than plans – I brought possibilities

I am silence that screams. I’m lost until you find me. 

I’ve thought of everything, but at the same time I’m nothing.

And the image that came into my head was of a circle, forces moving in circles. Particles were appearing and disappearing all the time. 

Suddenly, I came back to reality. I was back in the cafeteria. With a strange sensation. That being was still there, and I still couldn’t look at it directly as usual. Around him, there seemed to be a ripple, as if the air passing through him became denser. 

I got up and left. 

Even that day, at home, ideas kept coming to mind. 

That figure represented the nothing that contains the whole. After that encounter, I felt a stronger enthusiasm for life, because he was the power I lacked. He presented the possibility of wandering without rules, he seemed far removed from reality and oblivious to any moral storm. It seemed to change and adapt at the same time as it contained within itself all the truths and all the laws.

A mysterious enigma. If everything came from nothing, and from that nothing everything came to be. Then would it contain all the love, all the piety, all the good in the Universe? Would Chaos then be pure good? But everything still in an unmanifest form, only as a seed of possibility?

Chaos spoke to me that day and what was most present in me, apart from the return of enthusiasm, was hope. 

“Hope is not the daughter of order, it is my sister. I am Chaos.” 

That dark image seemed to communicate with me, in dreams, in moments of distraction. I had in total two or three visions. And the following was one of them.

I woke up in the middle of a dream, the sun was already shining brightly in the room, and the lack of curtains meant that I woke up to that bright light in my face. The dream was still fresh in my mind: I was immersed in dark water, and in that water there were also shiny particles, silver particles. This water was moving, it was carrying me, I was being carried and it was as if I was plunging into this abyss, but I didn’t feel any shortness of breath. As I swam, something was communicating.

You fear me because you can’t name me,

but I am not destruction

I am everything before I am form.

And all the light that will come,

already exists deep down, here,

with me.

I’ve had many thoughts since those episodes. Chaos spoke to me of hope, of potential, but also of faith. It was apparently possible to believe and organize that energy for creation. 

I wondered: did we come from Chaos and will we return to Chaos? 

And yes, he told me (and that was the last time I had a vision): from dust we came and to dust we shall return; and that dust is sacred, pieces of an eternal chessboard. I’m the one who makes it possible, but I’m not the law, just a manifestation of it. 

After a few weeks, perhaps months, when I didn’t have any more visions, and all that strong feeling of having found him was dissipating, I became a little bored. I wanted to be able to continue this crazy, mysterious journey. I went to the neighborhood again, to that same coffee shop. But there the air seemed different, everything was normal. I walked through the streets of that area, nothing, everything as normal as it always was and no clue to the mysterious being. But I hadn’t been delirious, it had all happened!

I’m not much of a conversation starter, but I really wanted to know. If that woman at the next table knew him, someone else must know him. I walked past the houses, observing everything, any distracted person who seemed local I would ask. Then there was an elderly man, sitting on a wooden chair in front of a house, smoking a cigarette. 

“Hi, sir. So, let me get straight to the point…” 

I described the figure I was looking for, maybe he knew him. 

“Oh, the Fool, the crazy guy who comes through here? Yes, yes…” And he started laughing…

The conversation went on and on, he told me various stories. 

“That Fool had a dog that looked like him, the dog seemed to be made of smoke, he’s not always with the dog, but almost always. The other day, walking with that strange animal, the guy took a biscuit out of his pocket, one of those dog biscuits, and gave it to his four-legged friend. But that wasn’t a dog cookie at all, it was a fragment of linear time. Since that day, some people experience time lapses, as if they were experiencing something for the second time, I’ve seen people call the phenomenon deja-vu.“

And another story about the chaotic madman: 

“He used to go shopping at John’s grocery store, and one day he buys an abnormal amount of frozen pizza, 36 pizzas in total, he paid for everything with pennies. After half an hour, he shows up with the pizzas all baked, he puts them on the roof of the market, climbs up there and eats them while watching the solar eclipse.” 

“And this: this guy wanted to find a new business idea. He’s full of ideas but has little notion of reality. He decided to create a ceramics course, it lasted three hours, he’s so clumsy that he used magic clay with the students, and they unwittingly created objects with a life of their own. Without an option, he had to adopt a cup, a bowl and a vase as his new pets.” 

I had a good laugh at the chaotic stories. 

And at the end of it all, I understood one thing: with the primordial force of chaos, we can combine faith and self-confidence to become co-creators, and with this well-conducted energy, we can even become Magicians!