Ancient, rotten matter is falling apart. Spreading around it the smell of despair, despondency and melancholy.
For how long one may last the lifespan of a stiffening cadavre? Will life return to it if we let current flow through it or heat it to room temperature? Look, skin is already beginning to bubble, green, growing spots are getting visible. When I turn my head and look at the corpse once again, I see that these spots are becoming more and more obvious. Soon the corpse will turn green completely. I suspect the corpse is turning green from the inside as well. I mentally imagine how his insides are covered with green bloom and inflate, as if they are preparing to burst. But they will not burst if they are not heated. If you put a corpse in a fire, then the air remaining in its intestines, stomach and lungs, will increase in volume, and then these leather bags will begin to burst, making a characteristic sound. I do not think that this sound will be as loud as if someone had burst a balloon. I think it will be more remote, softer, it will be a more velvety, more gentle sound. I have never burned corpses and therefore I can only guess what kind of sound it will be.
Sometimes art reminds me of this corpse. It lies in the sun, heats up and slowly rot, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbows, but it is necessary to warm it to the required temperature, and it will begin to swell and burst, letting out the poisonous gases hidden inside. Some of us will feel bad, someone will feel dizzy, someone will start to feel sick, someone may even die, but I would not suggest it will be a big deal. After all, in the end, you can always go away, hide in a safe space, have your quiet life for another ten or fifteen years. The bad news is that in these fifteen years, poisonous gases will reach you, although it is possible that this will happen much, much earlier. Although, the good news is that not everyone might feel bad from these poisonous gases. In general, your overall condition might even improve.
You ask what needs to be done to fall into the category of those to whom poisonous fumes of burst rotten art will benefit? The most correct answer is the most obvious. Much better from such inhalations will feel those who already will be infected with poison, in whose blood this corpse, fetid liquid will already flow. You should not be afraid of this, because it acts on the principle of vaccination. A little poison is injected into your blood so that your whole body imperceptibly mutates for you, turns into something else, something new, something that is no longer afraid of dying from poison, because it itself now carries a part of it. Mutants will be saved and will feel like in a good resort. I will be very happy for them. They will pick up scraps of torn flesh and remnants of splashed liquid from the ground, after which they will begin to sculpt a new form of art, I don’t know which one. There are no recipes yet. Maybe they will plant it all in the ground, like root vegetables, or cook until a homogeneous mass, or roll it into jars. Maybe these bits and pieces will have to be fertilized, and for this work there will be bees who will not refuse to fly to the call of the mutants. Or maybe they just have to eat it all and pretend that nothing happened so that they can safely go about their business ...
I know you have another question. What will these mutants look like? Will they look like you or your friends? Or, maybe, on your distant relatives, somebody whom you especially dislike? Here I can only say that some of them already live among you and their appearance does not differ from you. How is this possible, you ask. I will answer—I do not know.
We are crazy dancers who do not know fatigue.
We are three times brewed tea bags that have retained their taste.
We are the ones who looked straight into the eyes of invented danger and survived.
We are scattered in the infinity of glittering particles, and we ran out of money to pay for the fare on the night bus.
We always know exactly what to say, but when we say it something incoherent comes out.
We constantly get our hands dirty but by some miracle they always remain clean.
Nothing could be more absurd than us.
Nothing more nightmarish than us would have been possible.
Nothing could be more boring than us.
Nothing more usual than us would have been possible.
We are always ready to share our vague prerequisites.
We have long been accustomed to your ridicule, but we know that laughter prolongs life.
We write our manifestos, because we know that they are absolutely useless.
We do our art, because we know that it will soon explode.
We will die one by one, because we know that we will live forever.
Ballade du concours de Blois
Je meurs de seuf auprès de la fontaine,
Chaud comme feu, et tremble dent à dent;
En mon pays suis en terre lointaine;
Lez un brasier frissonne tout ardent;
Nu comme un ver, vêtu en président,
Je ris en pleurs et attends sans espoir;
Confort reprends en triste désespoir;
Je m'éjouis et n'ai plaisir aucun;
Puissant je suis sans force et sans pouvoir,
Bien recueilli, débouté de chacun.
Rien ne m'est sûr que la chose incertaine;
Obscur, fors ce qui est tout évident;
Doute ne fais, fors en chose certaine;
Science tiens à soudain accident;
Je gagne tout et demeure perdant;
Au point du jour dis: "Dieu vous doint bon soir!"
Gisant envers, j'ai grand paour de choir;
J'ai bien de quoi et si n'en ai pas un;
Echoite attends et d'homme ne suis hoir,
Bien recueilli, débouté de chacun.
De rien n'ai soin, si mets toute ma peine
D'acquérir biens et n'y suis prétendant;
Qui mieux me dit, c'est cil qui plus m'ataine,
Et qui plus vrai, lors plus me va bourdant;
Mon ami est, qui me fait entendant
D'un cygne blanc que c'est un corbeau noir;
Et qui me nuit, crois qu'il m'aide à pourvoir;
Bourde, verté, aujourd'hui m'est tout un;
Je retiens tout, rien ne sait concevoir,
Bien recueilli, débouté de chacun.
Prince clément, or vous plaise savoir
Que j'entends mout et n'ai sens ne savoir:
Partial suis, à toutes lois commun.
Que sais-je plus? Quoi? Les gages ravoir,
Bien recueilli, débouté de chacun.
— François Villon, 1431
