Level 7

I did nothing. Gradually the pangs subsided. But despair filled my mind, despair as black as those fields were green, as bitter as that spring breeze was sweet. There is no need for poetry to convey that.

MAY 28

P said today that she knew this was going to happen to me and that she had warned me. It is too late now, anyway.

I am so depressed that I do not want to do anything—except one thing: to get back to the surface. If I could do that I would willingly give up Level 7 for Level 1. Indeed, I would not care if they allotted me no level at all! Even if it meant spending just a very short time up above, just a day. To live for a day, and then perish!

Butterflies live for only a day, but they do live. Not in caves, but in the full light of the sun. Among flowers. They fly around from one blossom to another, in whatever direction they like.

I suppose complaining will not do any good, but what else can I do? Eat, meet P, talk with X-107 and sleep. That is the sum of my ‘activities’.

I can push the buttons, of course—when somebody decides it is necessary. That is an activity, certainly. But is it enough?

No, much too simple. Why did they make it so easy? Just pushing a few buttons—where is the fun in that?

And what next? What do I do when I have pushed my buttons? What will there be left for me when I have fulfilled my life’s function? What other goal shall I look forward to?

Shall I be like God before He created the world, sitting lonely in an empty universe? How cruel men were to create a God who is self-sufficient living a solitary life throughout eternity. Why have they condemned God, why have they condemned me, to such a lonely prison?

MAY 30

P tries hard to help me. She really is anxious about my present mood. She has even encouraged me to resume the conversations about mythology which I used to enjoy with R-747. She says that would be better than brooding all the time.

But I do not feel like it. Why should I? Do gods invent mythology for people? Let the future generations invent what stories they like. I do not care what they think.

X-107’s attempts to make me talk about things do not succeed any more, either. Nothing interests me any more. Nothing down here, at least.

MAY 31

P is in despair about me. She must like me very much. Apparently she is quite sociable, after all. She is doing her best to drag me out of my apathy.

I see her point quite well, but I cannot be bothered to make the effort. Why should I?

Does this mean I have become self-sufficient? I want nothing of anybody or anything down here. Perhaps that makes me the most self-sufficient creature on Level 7. Like a god!

Maybe I am a god, or about to become a god! Let R-747 invent myths about me, the god who pushed the buttons. X-127, the push-button god.

No, I have not pushed the buttons yet. But I am self-sufficient like a god. Not as happy, though. Not even as happy as the butterfly which is born and dies on the same day. But who said that gods should be happy?

I am a god. The god wants to make a bargain with a butterfly. He wishes to be a butterfly for a day—but outside the caves, up there—and he offers the butterfly in return an eternal existence—down here.

What do you say to that, butterfly? Will you agree to the bargain? It’s a good one: eternity for one day of flying among the flowers.

The butterfly rejects my offer. What is it saying?

It says it will not exchange one day of happiness for eternal misery! Damnable butterfly! The audacity to refuse a god’s bargain! To defy a god! To defy God!

I shall curse you, butterfly, you colourful hedonist, I shall curse you till the end of your days!

It says something. It dares to answer! What is it?

“I do not mind your curses, O God, for my day is short.”

It flies away.

Butterfly! Butterfly! Listen to me, don’t go away! Stay with me, I won’t curse you. But stay here with me. Wait! Please stay!

JUNE 7

Today I came back from the psychological department. I spent about a week there.

Apparently I was going mad. Quite raving, as I can see for myself from what I was writing on May 31. All that nonsense about gods and butterflies! It seems I even got my entomology wrong: butterflies, so P told me when I had finished muttering about them under the drug, live for longer than a day. Some even hibernate!

Anyway, I am all right now. Only weak and tired and empty, as if someone had removed my inside. Metaphorically, that is. My mind and soul feel empty, just as if they had been purged in the way my stomach was, after the wedding chocolate.

It is a good thing, this mental purge. I do not suffer now. Nor do I enjoy my awareness of things. I just am and do not mind being.

I still have the memory of something being wrong with me, but the thing itself has gone away. It was a more complicated business than the stomach purge, though. They had to give me drugs and some electric shock treatment to clean out my mind. But now I am quiet and all right.

JUNE 9

It happened this morning.