Groundfloor. Indoors. There is no furniture other than a bookcase against the wall, a desk next to the bookcase, and two chairs at the desk.

     There are only two beings, whose wings are falling off and dirty looking as if having not been even once used to fly. One of them, with large and baggy buttocks, is standing on tiptoe on one end of the desk, gluing an ear to the transistor radio made in Hell, hidden on the bookcase top, seeming to be attentively listening, yet, from time to time, turning around her  pale face with two weary eyes, sighing; the other - sitting at the desk, bending his head, writing something continuously without a stop. The lines of his words are overflowing the floor, making it four inches flooded, and spreading swiftly to the drains outdoors. The atmosphere is stuffy, a bit smelling of rats, of cockroaches, and of rotten garbage,…

     I beg you. The standing one repeats, her voice being sad. What have you been writing like that for?

     The other gives no reply, apparently being quite absorbed.

     Oh no! Her voice sounds even sadder. It can’t be so. I can’t believe it.

     Pardon? The answering voice being indifferent.

     I can’t believe it!

     But believe what?

     It can’t be so merry. It’s already supposed to be very unhappy down there!

     The writing one raises his head, at last, still looking quite indifferent, though. The transistor radio is emitting the sounds of the nine channels of the VOH, the Voice of Hell, one by one.

*

     He raises his head, at last, when she starts turning the radio button, searching for Channel One, VOHell. A symphony is being played by the anuses. He stops writing, but with no intention to listen, just in order to have an inattentive look to the right; there, another piece of gray lime has just dropped off the dirty wall, on which there are plenty of words such as Dieu, Love, Rai,… scribbled clumsily in chalk and charcoal, around a sketch, even more clumsily made, of a portrait of God, with a look which is at the same time respectable and suspectable, and a halo of dirty color. Yes, a halo!

     The symphony stops. The program is continued with a professional voice:… Following is the latest news. Just recently we have received  twelve more beings with wings. One of them reported that they had fled the darkness of some medieval Heaven, some unequally sad nation. They were all exhausted. Some of them were dead. Now there has been found no measure which can help the others to cheer up a little bit. We would like to bow respectfully before them all. We respect any sorrow of Heaven,…  He yawns.

     The scratching sound from the radio button. She is tuning in to Channel Two. An essay is being half read:… Obviously, the most callous yet most faithful mission of consciousness is to betray, after all, and, quite unfortunately, that is the only means of saving the Truth,… He still doesn’t feel like listening at all. His ears are paying attention to the sounds  echoed from some floor above, in the building - some  quarreling, harshly nagging voices, some shouting, and then some dry cries,… His eyes are looking out of the window. Out there, a wind is making a cloud of dust rise and whirl. The sky is sombre. There is a gray tornado still suspending somewhere, he knows.

     Channel Three. Some news about the latest scientific discoveries… An experiment has just been successfully performed on… His staring eyes are fixed at the window while he is trying to imagine something serious - a laboratory, for example, with the test tubes and the white coats,… He tries until he feels headache and, at last, shakes his head. Ah, once more he realizes very soon that no serious image can survive in his conscious field. However, that’s all right, ultimately speaking. Those things, no matter how serious they may be, have nothing to do with him, sitting here, in a stuffy chaos a bit smelling of rats, of cockroaches, and of rotten garbage!

     The radio tuner continues its scratching sound. It is being turned enthusiastically, again. Channel Four. The Timeless Sreeeeaming Voice. He lays the pen down. That is the very word he really doesn’t want to hear. Time!

     Channel Five. The zero o’clock news. It’s time again! What is that?  Isn’t it the concept  attached to each time zone, which some herd of tailed-beings content themselves with  and take turns gnawing at? Thus, he can’t share it with them. Here, where he resides, morning or night, on sunny or on rainy days, in the little hot or in the very hot season, the only lamp on that ceiling is always on, just like a sickly yellow eye, vertically hung and never shut, and, in its chronically sickly yellow, haunting light, he can’t tell what time it is. His time here is immeasurable, limitless, or twisted and condensed, in some way, which he can’t describe with a worldly and imperfect language; it should be experienced and interpreted by means of some absolutely transcendental categories, which are quite beyond the reach of both his consciousness and imagination. Ah, time! Since very long, he has stopped being aware of it.

     The news bulletin suddenly pulls him back to the radio:… It is rumored that, on the ground floor of Heaven, from his false sorrow, a winged-being is letting his verses overwhelm and make flood all the drains…

     She turns around, with her reproaching voice.

     They are saying about you. Her eyes seem to be wearier.

     He listens, looking quite sad.

     No. They’re mistaken. My sorrow is real.

     And he hangs his head, seeming to be very sad, looking at the lines of words being shed ceaselessly. How can they understand what he is doing here? Oh well, forget it; he shouldn’t care. When he is writing, he alone is the counterpoise of the world, he himself develops into a world of his own…

     Channel Six. The creaking noise of a bed. The panting breaths mingled with the soft, encouraging hisses,…

     I heard that the she-devils down there are very beautiful, is that right? Her gloomy voice sounds like groaning.

     Not at all. He mumbles, his head still hanging. It’s been proved that the female beings with a tail down there have to sit for hours in front of the mirror, painting again and again the contour of the openings on their face with the cosmetics of extra fine quality. They must be ugly.

     But she still doesn’t seem to be appeased. Her trembling fingers go on torturing the radio tuner.

     Channel Seven. The sounds of clinking glasses. Laughter. Compliments. A merry making party. Well! Come on! Cheers! On the 1991st death anniversary of… He can’t help , once more, looking out of the window. In the distance, at the end of his eyeshot, across a treeless deserted field, there is a big mound which is named The Tomb of God. As for him, he has never called it that way. It is so offensive for the heart  to see it today, full of patches of dirty yellow weeds. He always thinks that it is supposed to be flagged with chilly marble slabs, resting in peace and quiet, under the dense shade of the evergreens…

     Channel Eight. Salvos of choking laughter.

*

     She keeps on turning again and again the radio button, hopelessly, and at last, bursts into tears.

     Oh no!  She leans her front against the bookcase, her shoulders trembling. I can’t believe it!

     Come on! Patiently he says, involuntarily groping for the pen.

     Again, he bends his head, writing at full stretch. And his words, again, overflow the floor, flooding it, and spreading swiftly everywhere,  the greatest part down into the drains reeking of rats, of cockroaches, and of…, only a little part rising and whirling with the wind, glittering in the cloud of dust. There is still a gray tornado suspending somewhere outside,… The atmosphere is really stuffy.

     He wishes that she would tune in to Channel Nine. But without much hope. She will never choose to listen to Channel Nine, nor will she ever turn them all off. She would rather be all the time tuning in and, going on like that, enthusiastically drawing the scratching sound out, as if forever. That’s better, anyway. She says. I hate Channel Nine. Yes, he knows, there is emitted only an Eternal Silence there. But, for his part, how he craves for it!

     From some floor above in the building can be heard a resounding voice, which is now drowning the stubborn scratching sound of the tuner. Hang it all! Confound it! You are choking again! What misery! People still keep on swallowing tons of hell so skillfully, and you - always choking to death on a mere grain of rice. Honestly, if only I could vanish underground for shame.

     He doesn’t want to listen at all, just going on writing, silently and pressingly. But. sadly, how can he shut up his ears! There, and he also hears her tuning in  to Channel Seven again…

    Somebody’s snores are sounding like thunder. Has the merry making party finished? He mumbles… Suddenly in a while resounds a piece of the Adagio of the… N°14 in C sharp minor, by…  Channel Six, isn’t it? He is about to ask, but the tuner has been turned. Yes, it must have been Channel Six. They have stopped doing that; there is left merely the bleeding sound of music, the bleeding moonlight. Again, he looks involuntarily out of the window, at the clouds over the field of eternity; it’s not like spring, nor summer, nor autumn, nor… Yes, the clouds. What immortal dreams are they nursing? Where do they come from? He suddenly feels so much like a stranger. So much.

     Channel Five seizes his mind with its constant voice, once again: … Never has there been and never will there be anybody, either, to hear of such a suicide - suicide by poetry. The flow of verses is rising high, by the centimetre, and will certainly be over his chin, his mouth, his nose, and that will be an end to all that: there will be left only the eyes, wide open, slowly turning motionless , and then empty. Meanwhile, the flow will have stopped rising. It should take it  a very long time to recede completely by way of the drains, and there will be  left just alone the poet, lying flat to the ground, his pair of wings being all crushed…

     They are saying about you again. Her voice sounds very dry.

     No. He looks blankly down the desk, stopping writing, yet just scribbling something with his pen. They understand nothing. Here we don’t know what death is. Such concept has already been defined as having no sense in Heaven.

     He is still scribbling with the pen. Why are they telling such a lie? Nobody has ever known anything about this place of his. A suicide by poetry? What a funny idea! For him to compose poems! Actually, he’s only letting the words spurt like this, making the floor four inches flooded, and nothing other than that. And, as for him, his being has been appointed not to be ended ever.

     But, I beg you. What do you keep writing like that for?

     I beg you. His voice sounds very dry, too. I don’t know. Ah, is there possibly evernother answer which can be as truthful? Likewise, is there possibly ever anything other than this ugly pen for him to experience all these formidable dimensions of Eternity? Truly, he doesn’t know.

     He catches a glimpse of her tightening her lips. Naturally, that’s not the first time he has been asked such a question. Oh well, let’s forget such trifles once he is, by himself, able to be the counterpoise of the world and, by himself, able to develop into a…

     It seems that she is herself, too, able to forget. In a flash, she has already been found listening to another channel, looking quite frigid.

     Channel Four. A programme of poetry. Where has The Timeless Screeeaming Voice already gone? And, it is now poetry. Some reading voice having something imploring in itself, which forces him to prick up his ears.

     … You go out to the lane, sit down on a block of stone and begin to cry your heart out. You cry at first for yourself and then for everything, yes, everything in the world : for the sky and earth being too vast, for the clouds being too blue , for the sun - too bright , for the rice field - too yellow, for the river - too full of water , for the people passing by: for that woman with too thin the shoulders , too big the breasts , for that man with not only too miserable the gait, but also too long the penis ,… Ah, all things existing are too beautiful and too pitiful for you to bear. However, the very thing that is becoming more and more terrible is that you still aren’t able to understand the reason for their existence. Thus, you go on and on crying and, finally, find out that your eyes are an overflowing spring.

     Oh poor thing! What unknown creature with a tail is able to bear such unhappiness, which is so much like that of his own? The piece of poetry makes him really envy despite its being composed of only a few sentences. Well, unlike many other masterpieces he has ever known, which are nonsensically long and perfect, nonsensically well-written, intelligent and great, and which are not worth recalling at all…

     Anyway, regrettably, poetry is still not something she is interested in. The scratching sound is determinedly speaking it out again. The radio is being tuned back to Channel Three…

     It is still some brief news about the latest scientific discoveries:… have confirmed the existence of black holes,… The question of the nature of black holes, an absurd mystery of the physical reality… Again, all the things at the same time being serious and having nothing to do with him, sitting here, in a stuffy chaos, a bit smelling of rats, of cockroaches, and of rotten garbage, under the two-fold pressure: one, being lead-gray, of a tornado, which is still suspending somewhere out there, and the other, being sickly yellow, of the single lamp in the room, which is just like a chronically haunting eye, vertically hung and never shut…

     … Recent studies have shown that, under the conditions of Heaven, liquid from the eyes will not run down the cheeks, but will… The words go on ringing extraordinarily seriously while he doesn’t know anything to do other than yawn, and silently realizes that he never remembers to cover his mouth just in time.

     His yawn lasts as long as the scratching sound of the radio button and cannot stop even when, on Channel Two, is already heard the familiar, peculiar essay:… Although energy is always to be consumed in all forms, in this way or another, it is still the most tragic to exert oneself to the utmost in order to exhaust it for the memorization of things which are untrue, or exchange it for the belief in things which are unreal… Yes, and even when he, as if by some natural reflex, turns his eyes away, in a flash, out of the window, towards the Tomb of God, with a sad look.

     At the moment, how much more he desires to have the radio tuned to Channel Nine, to immerse himself totally in it - the Eternal Silence, which has not even once been heard. However, he keeps on sitting still like that, twiddling with his pen, quietly yawning and quietly bending his head at last, writing on and on, letting his words overflow and spread pressingly everywhere…

     Oh well, let him hold his sole solution as such, and he will be forever faithful to it, despite everything, despite the radio itself, which has been tuned by her hurriedly and noisily back to Channel One, where there has just been finished also some news bulletin, some essay, or some poem, he is not sure:… There will be you left alone, yet that will be enough to fulfill your mission as witness of the mysterious and eternal meaninglessness of the existence of Heaven… And, of course, even the way of ending like this, he says to himself, should be ignored, too.

Saigon, 02/1991