КНИГИ КИРИЛЛА ПОТЁМКИНА

30. THE GARDEN OF OBLIVION

(Location: Brussels. Reserve bunker of the European Parliament «Europe-Zero».)

Different smells hovered here. The air didn’t stink of money, like in the shelters of the Swiss Committee. It didn’t reek of the acrid sweat of millions of working bodies, like in China.

The space was saturated with the aromas of valerian, lavender, and… stale underwear. The stale, sour spirit of animal fear was unsuccessfully masked with expensive chemical air fresheners.

The huge meeting hall, resembling an ancient amphitheater, was bursting with attendees. Hundreds of people — ministers, deputies, ombudsmen — shrank into the soft armchairs. Their postures had lost all grandeur. The officials slouched, wrapped trembling arms around themselves, many of them crying quietly and doomed.

Huge plasma panels broadcast the End of the World. Live. They broadcast Finland eaten by the Fog. They broadcast the black columns of Voronov’s Legion marching endlessly through the snow. And they broadcast the faceless «processors» of China. And the Fog itself. The substance slowly, lazily, like a sated beast, tumbled over the Alps and the Pyrenees, swallowing city after city.

— «We cannot fight…» — sobbed the President of the European Commission into the microphone, a once-elegant woman whose flawless makeup had now run into a smeared clown mask. — «We have no army… We have lost our will… We… We just want all this to end!»

— «Please…» — the hall echoed her in a doomed chorus. — «Let it just end…»

The light under the concrete vaults flickered. However, the lamps did not go out as they would during a missile attack. The lighting changed to a soft, warm, pink-gold. The air instantly filled with the thick scent of blooming apple trees and fresh milk.

In the center of the amphitheater, in place of the usual speaker’s rostrum, a Radiance flared up. It was not frightening at all. On the contrary, the glow evoked an irresistible desire to drop to one’s knees and press one’s cheek against the source of safe warmth. A Figure stepped out of the light. Not a Dragon and not the digital «Architect». The Mother appeared before the crowd.

Beautiful, devoid of obvious gender, with a face woven from the features of all the madonnas of the world. Her shining garments flowed like living water, and behind her back rhythmically swayed wings of the softest light.

— Hush… — she sang. Her voice did not demand military submission. It lulled. It penetrated the very heart like a sweet, paralyzing poison.

— Why are you crying, my children? Why torment yourselves with fear?

— «We are dying!» — someone from the back rows shouted hysterically. — «The Fog is coming! War is coming!»

— War is the lot of crude souls, — the Mother smiled affectionately, all-forgivingly. — Pain is merely a system error. You, refined, feeling ones… you were not created for this bloody dirt. — She spread her arms wide, as if wishing to embrace the entire trembling hall. — You are tired. I see it. Your world has become too loud, too cruel. Do you crave peace?

— «Yes…» — the hall exhaled in a single, sincere groan.

— Then come to me. I have grown a Magnificent Garden for you.

The bunker walls dissolved without a trace. The concrete gave way to a grandiose illusion. Endless meadows bathed in an eternal sunset. Babbling crystal streams. Trees bowing under the weight of ripe golden fruits.

No pain. No crushing responsibility. No primal fear. Only an eternal, sticky, and sweet sleep. Eternal nirvana.

— «This is… not death?» — the President asked with timid hope.

— This is a Transition, — the Mother lied, and the lie sounded sweeter than any truth. — You will shed your heavy, aging bodies right here. The flesh will turn to earth, nourishing new flowers with life. And your souls… beautiful, immeasurably tired souls will enter the Garden. You will dream dreams that will never end.

She smoothly extended her hand. On her shining palm appeared a small, snow-white pill. Or a seed?

— Who is first?

They did not run in panic. They obediently lined up. They did what they had done their entire conscious lives — they submitted.

They jostled not out of aggression, but out of unbearable impatience. The European leaders were rushing to check their lives like heavy, unnecessary luggage into a cloakroom.

The President approached first. With trembling fingers, she took the «seed» and placed it in her mouth.

— «Thank you…» — she whispered.

Her eyes rolled back. A blissful, serene, idiotic smile froze on her face. The woman sank softly to the floor. And in that very second, ugly, wet roots began to sprout right out of her expensive business suit. Her skin darkened, rapidly covering with hard bark. Her fingers elongated, turning into knotty branches. Her body began to decompose, melt, transforming into nourishing humus.

But the President no longer felt this. Her fading consciousness floated in a pink syrup of illusions, uninterruptedly generating a subtle, viscous energy. The energy of Despondency.

A sweet, nauseating, putrid narcotic smell of decay wafted through the hall. The Mother deeply inhaled this aroma, and her inner radiance flared even brighter.

For the Entity that had taken the form of the Mother, this process was the sweetest delicacy. Not the burning hot pepper of fury, like in Russia. Not the dry, unleavened bread of machine order, like in China. The Entity was tasting a true elite dessert. The sweet rot of a civilization decomposing from its own impotence.

— Go, my children, — she sang, watching with pleasure as hundreds of people submissively lay down on the floor, turning the bunker into a giant compost heap. — Sleep. The Fog will cover you. You will make excellent fertilizer for the New World.

Soon, not a single living person remained in the huge hall. Only a strange, surreal forest grew, woven from human remains, over which the eternal, narcotic haze of absolute submission hovered like a thick mirage.

Europe did not perish in battle. Europe simply lay down and fell asleep, meekly allowing the system to digest it alive.

END OF BOOK TWO