© Estate Roman Opałka and Muzeum Sztuki , Łód
The outpost
In module two , the man has been asleep for eight hours . The undertow of brainwaves , recorded on the screen , fluctuates slightly . Undecodable , the electrical images of his dreams barely illuminate the darkness like fluorescent , flickering northern lights . The man seems calm . The body , secured to the bed , is bewildered , peaceful and agreeable . The air in the module is thick . There is no violence or vice in the man ’ s dreams . His face looks purified , almost boneless , without hallucinations . The eyes flicker in their sockets . The arrangement of things in module two is methodical and full of common sense . Everything has been selected according to the criterion of usefulness and is not far from the man . When he wakes up he can easily turn on the light , reach the computer and drink some water . In that order there is something that hints to a predisposition to pain , something of which the man does not seem aware . He sleeps with caution and the things , very useful and beautiful , surround him like reassuring tutelary deities . There is no discrepancy between the things and their function . They remain available , ensuring a continuity of benefits and services . It is only from the man that , at times , a tendency towards the useless seems to emerge . His hidden purpose , the ultimate goal of his body-living-thing remains mostly unknown . Of course , all his vital signs are monitored and he is perfectly alive and healthy . The body in the cot is a weaned body ready for use . But there is something fatuous in the flesh , something inconclusive in the breath . The man in the module continues to sleep , stubbornly . Something superfluous in him gropes its way forward for some blind , trivial and happy life . Shortly after the ninth dawn , he opens his eyes and does not look around . He slowly reaches out his arm to turn on a flat light , which whitens everything , and then he detaches the electrodes from his skull and unhooks himself from the straps . The agreeable body begins to float , rotating on itself inside the module as it rises toward the porthole . The outside Space is unbearable , as it has been for the past year . The man has been in the station for six hundred and fifteen days and he has still one hundred and one to go . Beyond the glass , the Space , very black , noble and terrifying , has been decomposing for billions of years . The man sees it continuously from the portholes and from the dome , while he lives in the Station and his body is meekly decaying in the microgravity . Like an obsession , a prototype of living death , the Space sends signals of future disasters . The man holds onto the handles on either side of the porthole and looks down . Below the Station , the Earth persists . It is bluish and shiny and , from that distance , unmistakable . The man looks at it longingly . From that distance he sees it entirely and with despair . In that outpost of his , the man is a peripheral being and full of prophecies . The Earth floats at the mercy of cosmic abandonment and the teeming , ruinous human insects are all sliding too fast into the future . The man squints his eyes and moves away towards the exit of the module , then turns left . The training lasted ten years , but the feat has proved futile . The man can now see without confusion , yes , but without depth . From high above , without shadows , everything is equal , perfect and without feature . Further down , surely , the uncertain terrestrial life goes on . The man knows that there is a light that continuously falls without pain on that life . A hot , greedy , natural and artificial light that glides , ignites and melts on the taut imperfect skin of all things . They are so close as to be indistinguishable . But the light shows their nature and everything , even men , are glowing halos of their own internal fuel . From up there , what the man remembers are only reverberations , refractions and diffusions ; an electrified and dazzling vision of the world . All he has left of life is a luminous memory , the electric sizzle in the fundus oculi , its desquamating retinal image . It is only , just only an iridescent and incendiary visual residue . The man stops in the Centre . Above him is the main dome , the dark and wide-open eye of the Space . He moves over to the control panel . The operating system is on , waiting . The man presses the record button and begins the six hundred and sixteenth day .
TALES OF LIGHT / LUCE 338 25