Libertionne

Moopechka saved the moment. Gently stroking the unhappy editor on her recently operated-on wrists, he said that it’s all rot, stop grieving and give in to some unbridled pleasure. Melissa perked up a bit, like a deflated balloon receiving a puff of air.

“That’s true. Let’s leave everything and go drive somewhere fun. Wow, what a beautiful pair you make! Just a couple of cooing love-birds!”

“Hmmm, not sure about that,” thought Tiberius, looking at their reflection in the mirrored door of the shelf unit. It took some imagination, but Paul still could pass for a turtle dove, with his impudent, inwardly slanting gray eyes, his wicked, girlishly pouting lips, and gold-colored hair, which he dyed every week. And there was Tiberius, powerful and muscular, hair tinged with gray and wrinkles on his still young-looking face, bearing a resemblance to an Italian mafia boss who had been a professional fighter in his youth. On his jaw, a long, fresh scar, and a two-day stubble. A fine love-bird, he.

Suddenly there was shouting from the other side of the wall, the noise of furniture being thrown around, a scream and the sound of breaking glass. In other words, all the signs of a heated and constructive professional debate. Melissa didn’t even bat an eyelash.

“That’s the miniseries department,” she explained to Tiberius and Moopechka. “Creative folks, what can you do.”

Moopechka was intrigued.

“Miniseries! I love them! Can we go and see, please, please?”

They had to go and see.

Melissa pounded on the door with her fist, ignoring the doorbell and the brass plaque that read “Use the doorbell!!!” The ruckus going on inside instantly stopped, then something hit the door with a dull thud and crashed to the floor.

“That must be Lucy’s bag,” Melissa commented thoughtfully. “James’s is a bit heavier. That means the author’s pride has once again been wounded.”

“But why didn’t we ring the doorbell?” Moopechka inquired. Devoured by curiosity, he did a little dance in place and extended his neck like a goose.

“They wouldn’t have opened the door for us. That’s for visitors; our own don’t use the doorbell. Well, finally.”

The door was opened by a young man who looked like a slightly ugly gnome. A full week of stubble, red-nosed and very angry. The gnome was clearly happy to see Melissa.

“Melissa, my dear, explain to your girlfriend that if the sponsors want the main character to eat their brand of hot dogs, then he has to eat them, even if it gives him heartburn!”

In response to this, a horrible crashing sound came from the center of the room. The whole group carefully peered through the half-opened reinforced door. The situation was even more dismal than at Young Lucifer. It was practically empty: a few computer desks, an office desk piled with books, and dark, dried-up puddles of coffee. In the corner, a plastic fig tree was timidly hiding. And not without reason, its twin brother was lying next to the wall, buried underneath office folders with crumpled pieces of paper sticking out. Tiberius’s gaze followed another folder that flew past them and landed in the pile. The destruction was caused by a girl who was sitting at a computer desk, not paying the slightest attention to the visitors.

“How?” she bellowed, to no one in particular. “How is Joan going to eat your wormy… your disagreeable hot dogs, if for the last six hundred and eighty episodes she has been a vegan?”

“She gave up,” said the gnome, wringing his hands, “or gave in to temptation. In other words, think something up; you’re the screenwriter. But she has to eat them in the next episode – we signed the contract yesterday.”

“Can’t you feed them to a different main character?” Tiberius said, offering a rational suggestion.

“Alas,” said the gnome, ruffling his disheveled hair, “Joan is the audience’s favorite; her rating is the highest.”

Seeing the absence of understanding in the eyes of his guests, he motioned them over to his desk.

“Allow me to show you. Every day we get a technical order.” Panting, he dragged a sizeable red folder out of the burial mound under which the fig tree so majestically rested.

“This is from the sponsors, the advertisers, and from above, if you catch my drift. We then think up a plot for the ongoing series based on this scheme,” James pointed to a magnetic board hanging on the wall, broken into the sections “Who”, “With whom”, “Where”, “What they did” and so forth. We add the products that we are advertising, and, voilà!”

The gnome, standing on tiptoe, firmly took “Joan” and with a magnet he pinned under her name a sheet of paper that read: “Wild Boar hot dogs. Organic. Feel the flesh of a wild boar on your tongue!” The screenwriter, who up to that point was in a kind of stupor as she watched his manipulations, burst out in tears. Moopechka, in contrast, rejoiced:

“Tibby! Look, this is a nonsense game. Remember, we sort of tried it at George’s party? Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” He looked embarrassedly at James.

“It’s nothing. It’s true, actually. We make TV shows about idiots, for idiots,” Seeing how Tiberius and Moopechka flinched at this remark, he reassured them. “Everything’s fine – the system sees the word “idiot’ as a medical term. We’ve become skilled at freely expressing our thoughts about our dear TV audience.

A skinny girl resembling a mouse looked through the doorway without knocking. The gnome greeted her with a snarl.

“Sarah! Well, it’s about time. Is the poster ready for Little Red Riding Hood?

The mouse nodded, went over to the presentation stand and with her smartphone transferred an image of a languid youth in a red bonnet (he wasn’t wearing anything else) surrounded by a bizarre cocktail of muscle-bound men and just as muscle-bound werewolves. The text read: “A global blockbuster! Passion and treachery! Bestiality, rape, murder and the eating of flesh! All this and more, at all cinemas throughout the empire! For ages 6 and up.”

“We need to go,” Melissa delicately reminded them, “or else we’ll be late for the exhibit. Good luck, James, with your tricky matter.”

“I’m also leaving, as my workday is ending,” the gnome said, and walked toward the exit. Reaching the doorway he turned to the screenwriter. “Oh yes, I almost forgot. Our contract with the pet store is ending, so, Lucy, my dear, please relieve Mr. Snork of her eight cats.

“How?”

“Well, I think they caught distemper.”

And he gracefully darted behind the door.

The new word in art

The car stopped near a huge, ghastly building, its architecture resembling an industrial factory. Above the gloomy entrance hung a five-ton polished slab with the laconic message: “Garbage factory. Art gallery.” Solid and massive, you understood immediately as you passed this tombstone-looking slab, that this place exhibited serious art for a serious public. If the names of bars and clubs sometimes induced in Tiberius a question, sometimes a smile, and sometimes complete bewilderment, then with the name of this cathedral of art he was in completely agreement. Well, perhaps it was a bit too honest, but overall… Inside it was noisy and crowded; the entire world was there for the exhibit opening. Looking at the walls, Tiberius sighed with relief. They were empty. That meant there would be a performance, not an installation. He was afraid of installations – you never knew where to expect them. At the last exhibition he embarrassed himself when he threw some garbage into a bin that was obediently sitting near the entrance to the hall. He hadn’t noticed a sign nearby informing visitors that this was an installation called “The Consumer.” And a lawyer friend of his had spent a month dealing with a lawsuit over the conduct of several robot janitors who at the end of an exhibition had thrown away a pile of ripped-up cardboard boxes, which, as it was ascertained that same evening, had comprised an installation called “Liberation.” With performances it was simpler – you wouldn’t mistake the creator for a piece of garbage.

They sailed past the huge line at the entrance thanks to Moopechka; he made a phone call, and a pale, sickly-looking youth quickly came out to meet them from the building, and led them past security.

“Tibby, this is the great Naitch!” Moopechka said, introducing the pale young man. For some reason he forgot about Melissa, and she could only look reverently at the creator, not venturing to introduce herself.

“I know you,” Tiberius smiled. “Last year I was with my friend Michael Storm at your performance “My Day.”

He recalled the theatrical hall rented for this purpose, crammed with people. The organizers wisely locked the doors, the lights went out, and only the stage was lit. On the stage was a couch, and on the couch rested Naitch, his hand placed on his head. For the first ten minutes the crowd observed a respectful silence, staring at the completely immobile figure. Then, when it became clear that the essence of the performance consisted of the creator’s complete absence of action, a certain agitation began. Tiberius, whom nature had more or less graced with intellectual ability, if not conscience, made his way over to the guards and whispered that he had an urgent need. Apparently his example was an inspiration to many, as a few minutes later when he sat in the car, he saw dozens of art lovers rushing into the parking lot.

“Naitch, my dear, you don’t look so well,” said Moopecha, his voice snapping Tiberius out of his flashback.

“You see, Paul,” Naitch replied, lowering his voice to a whisper, “today the theme of the performance is ‘The artistic process’… And so, I have to defecate in front of the viewers…”

“Oh, how clever!” Moopechka clapped.

“Right here,” Naitch pointed to a square pedestal in the very center of the hall. On a snow-white surface, a chrome vase had been installed. They stood for a while looking respectfully at the improvised altar where the sacred act would be committed. Melissa furtively took a photo of herself with the pedestal in the background. The artist broke the extended pause wistfully.

“I’ve done a similar performance as a test at the Crisis club. There was, shall we say, a technical glitch. To avoid repeating that, I’ve taken precautions. That is, a laxative.”

“And?”

“And if this cursed performance doesn’t begin right now, it won’t happen at all.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Moopechka nervously. “I’ll run and catch the curator, that baddie, he’s probably messing around at the bar. We need to start right away!”

“Hold on, Paul,” groaned the unhappy creator, leaning backwards against a fake-marble sculpture. It was a copy of the Venus de Milo, indistinguishable from the original, but adorned with a black military cap and a spiked collar. The nipples of the unlucky goddess of love were decorated with metal clamps festooned with pink silk tassels. While Tiberius was thinking whether or not the sculpture was a continuation of the tradition of dadaism, with its strangely manner of drawing a Salvador Dali mustache on the Mona Lisa, or was it an advertisement for a typical pleasure store, or both at the same time, as was frequently the case in the art world, with the plight of the great artist growing worse and worse. Something had to be done immediately, and Tiberius decided to engage in some cultured small-talk on the topic of art in order to distract the unhappy artist from more pressing issues.

“Tell me,” he said to the creator, who was making strange motions near the legs of the placid and serene Venus, and his complexion was in perfect harmony with the sculpture, “I understand how it is with installations, that you can sell them, but how can you extract a financial benefit from a performance?”

“Oh,” said the artist, livening up a bit, “usually this is really a challenge, but to be honest you don’t really need this, because the main idea is to generate buzz, to make a big splash, to become famous, and then they’ll buy whatever, any old, how to say it…”

“Bi-products of vital functions?” hinted Tiberius considerately, trained to clothe his true thoughts into tolerant words.

“Yes, yes, that’s right. But in the case of today’s special event, it’s possible to obtain the actual goods themselves. Now where is Paul with that nasty curator? What, did they go to the bar to goof off?”

“Really? And where’s the novelty?” Tiberius inquired sweetly, as if by chance.

“What are you trying to say?” barked the creator, insulted to the core. He was so indignant that his face began to turn slightly red.

“But everyone knows,” Tiberius continued innocently, “that Piero Manzoni, in the year 1961, sold ninety tins of his own excrement, each one with an inscription stating that it contained “100% natural Artist’s Shit”, sold by weight for the same price as gold. Thirty grams in each tin. The idea is that people like the word “natural.”

“Oh…”

“By the way, the tins exploded, for obvious reasons,” Tiberius continued, ignoring the melodic ring of his smart, informing him that he once again had incurred a fine for using expletives, “and their lucky owners were left with nothing.”

“I didn’t know…” whispered Naitch, “…but this only means that I’m following in the footsteps of the greats!”

There was no arguing this point. And Tiberius hadn’t managed to voice his opinion about being spoken his mind about the precedence of ideas in art, when over near the archway that led into the hall, a commotion ensued. The cavalcade was led by Moopechka, leading by the hand a frail-looking youth in a sumptuous pink jacket decorated with sequins, clearly the curator, and behind him teemed a crowd of reporters, and behind them, the judges. And everything heralded a happy ending, but suddenly a pitiful groan reached Tiberius’s ears. Taking a look at the creator and realizing that he who hesitates is lost, Tiberius turned to the public and slightly raised his voice. It’s true, nothing strengthens the vocal cords and nerves like lecturing in front of young gold-diggers in the mines of academia. Tiberius’s voice easily rose above the hum of the crowd, the background music, and other sounds.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Today the great Naitch calls your attention to a performance called ‘The Artistic Process’! ” And he turned and whispered, “Take your pants off now, you loser.”

The audience applauded, and cameras began clicking. Several hours later, Tiberius and Moopechka were profoundly amused as they watched the news broadcast dedicated to culture: “Today the great Naitch shocked the public with his unusually brave, innovative declaration in the sphere of art. Choosing Venus as the symbol of an aging artifact of a dead and barren classicism, he very passionately and expressively depicted the process of breaking away from the conditionalities of academism…” And so on and so forth.

The Gifts of Bacchus

And then began what Tiberius hated with every fiber of his soul. Evening socializing. One had to go from a bar to a club, then from a club to a bar, everywhere having to drink something and greet someone. At a bar called the Malevolent Hacker, he met Moopechka’s acquaintance Colin, who was a winemaker. In short, Moopechka had friends everywhere. This wonderful creature better than anyone embodied the postulate: “trust everything to God.” His mornings began with a dilemma – where and with whom to have breakfast. And what was interesting was that he always solved this issue, and never paid. And although as someone living on unemployment benefits Moopechka had more money than Tiberius, who worked five days a week, his pockets were always empty within the first few days of the month. And he never knew why. But the reason was fairly clear to Tiberius, from whom Moopechka was always trying to borrow money. The poor guy couldn’t live a single day without buying some kind of “terribly trendy little item.” His apartment, thanks to this lifestyle, closely resembled the warehouse of a fashion store, yet he was always complaining that he had absolutely nothing to wear. This was actually understandable – it was impossible to find anything in that pile of stuff.

“Ah, Colin, hi! Let me introduce you – this is Tiberius, who I’ve told you about so many times. Aren’t you jealous?”

Colin, who up to that moment was reading something intently, jumped up as if he had been stung, and broke into an ecstatic smile.”

“And what is it you are reading?” Moopechka glanced over the shoulder of his friend. “Roquelaure services? What is that?”

All three looked at the advertisement. “Roquelaure services. Just send a text, and you’ll immediately receive the service! Only one hundred thousand dollars. A whole hour offline!”

“I don’t get it,” said Moopechka, scratching his nose, perplexed. “Just to sit for an hour without Internet, one hundred thousand dollars? What’s the big deal?”

“Not just without Internet,” Tiberius said, for the first time in his life looking at an advertisement with interest and affection. “You are completely switched off from the grid. No cameras, no surveillance, you can do anything you want, that is, within the confines of your own apartment.”

“Right. And you want to tell me that the secret police will honestly close their eyes to everything.”

“I don’t think they would bother with such nonsense,” winked the bartender, who, as there were no clients, decided to join the discussion. “They are serious guys. Their job is to kill and torture people, supervise punitive expeditions, investigate secret plots. So, I think you can go ahead and fool around in your own apartment.”

“But weren’t they disbanded?” asked Moopechka, doubtingly. “The secret police? A few years ago? There was some kind of scandal.”

“Yes, I read about it,” said Tiberius absentmindedly. “There was a businessman who committed suicide not entirely on his own, the details came out in the investigation, there was an uproar – something like that, such medieval methods in our humanitarian day and age.”

“And so what?” the bartender shrugged. “They are always being disbanded, then they regroup again. As soon as the noise dies down. This is why I’m sure the Roquelaure service is a safe bet. In our time, a scandal in the press can even destroy monsters like the secret police.”

“But… a hundred thousand! Tibby’s salary is three thousand. And to be honest, I can’t imagine how I’d spend that hour, since everything’s is possible anyway. We live in a free empire.” Moopechka was a bit confused.

“For you,” thought Tiberius. “But not for me. Why, why wasn’t I born like everyone else? Why am I a freak, a pervert, who has to carefully hide his illness?”

“And the name is strange,” snickered Colin.

“Actually, no,” Tiberius objected softly. “‘Roquelaure’ is a black cloak with a hood, used by Venetian men so they wouldn’t be recognized.”

The next twenty minutes were informative. Tiberius, who had a rather outdated concept of winemaking, imagining sun-drenched vineyards and hundred-year-old alpine oak casks, discovered that wine, like the majority of modern-day products, was made at a factory from water and a mixture of interesting chemical substances. And the price of this industrially-produced cocktail was the same for all types of wine. Colin, laughing, added that if one were to increase by a few grams the dosage of two of the components, then the result would be a popular cleaning product found in every apartment.

“One and the same formula, you understand? The rest is the work of designers and PR specialists, as the market needs wine in different price categories. That’s why you never get too drunk from synthetic wine, but you will suffer from the consequences. That’s why I only drink beer,” the celebrated winemaker confided.

“But that’s probably also…”

“Of course. But I don’t know about this.”

And what could one say, knowledge increases sorrow.

“But real alcohol is still sold?”

“We make it. But we make very little, and sell it cheap. So that it’s not prestigious. Almost nobody buys it.

The Labyrinth of the Minotaur

The Gnarly Duck was just exactly like a fashionable club should be. Inside it was cramped, crowded, dark, with strange smells hanging in the air; the noise from the music and the hundreds of voices was so loud that people had to shout, and the light show dazzled the eyes. On the bar countertops, swaying in waves, were the lethargic and somnambulistic body motions of half-naked male and female strippers. Tiberius couldn’t help admiring one of them, who was very young and immaculately built. Her gaze was serene and completely absent. She seemed not to notice where she was and what she was doing, looking off into the distance somewhere above the heads of the dancers. “Exactly like Nausicaa, staring at the sea horizon fruitlessly, knowing that she will never see Odyssey.” No sooner had Tiberius crossed the threshold of the club, when his smartphone began to pester its owner with questions. “Should I show your geolocation? Do you want information about our discounts and special offers?” And so forth, and so on. Tiberius took pleasure in pressing “cancel.” He was in this place for the first time; usually he went to the more democratic “Delirium’, where one could sit quietly at the bar with a glass of wine and boring, guileless sandwiches. Here you had to order a table beforehand, and pay a handsome amount of money in advance. True, this included drinks marked with a star on the menu, a three-minute private dance (Tiberius wracked his brain thinking of how to organize a private dance in a big, open room in front of a table for six) and several items from the “crazy menu’. Moopechka was completely in his element, loudly discussing with Melissa the weekly prize giveaway – today the club was giving away some kind of “Labyrinth of the Minotaur.” Everyone except Tiberius rushed to register for the contest. Tiberius, remembering that a traveler could expect nothing good from the so-named labyrinth, asked for a clarification. It turned out to be nothing special – a typical package of nightclub amusements, except for free. Moreover, Tiberius was completely bored by this typical evening entertainment, and reading the menu not only didn’t help things – on the contrary, it led to a new round of questions. The list read:

– Private dance. Again? he thought.

– A thematic costume striptease. What could that mean?

– The smearing and subsequent licking off of cream from the body of the minotaur. Cream: no cholesterol, zero calories, only natural ingredients… The poor minotaur.

– Oral sex. Who does it to whom? They need to be more specific.

Tiberius opened the menu. It had a retro look, leather-bound on thick, textured paper. The first page provided information that was succinct and easy to understand: “Narcotics.” This was followed by a long list, including terms that Tiberius knew, like “cocaine’, “hashish’, and so forth, as well as the mysterious “Kiss of the Geisha’, “Anjelica, kidnapped by pirates’. A professional consultant was needed.

“Paul,” Tiberius said, showing Moopechka the menu, “what is this?”

“This, my little dearie, is a cocktail of narcotics. For example, ‘Cinderella’s Slipper’ is a combination of amphetamines and acid.”

“Then they forgot to write, ‘For use near a cemetery’.”

“No, silly. It’s like with alcohol – everything is synthetic. It’s completely safe, non-addictive, and the effect lasts about fifteen minutes. Eh, if they weren’t so expensive…” Moopechka rolled his eyes dreamily… “I would go from one of these wonderful things to another all day.”

“Well, it makes sense,” thought Tiberius. “You could say, with care and concern for society. After all, each of us has his own narcotic.” He remembered a neighbor, a gamer, who lived across the wall. Tiberius saw him only once, when he moved into his new apartment, and it seemed like he had never left the place even once. Pale, skinny, he greeted Tiberius, who had returned from his morning run, so timidly and quietly that the latter had to guess what he was saying. This inhabitant of a virtual world ordered food from a delivery service; where he got his money from, one could only surmise. But there, in his magical, mysterious land, he was probably working miracles, flying on dragons or whatever else they do there. The walls in modern apartments were so thin, clearly for easier spying on those who were so indifferent to the fate of humanity, like Mister Stern. And until Tiberius completed a thorough soundproofing, he heard practically all the neighbors – to the right, below and above – except for him. Only occasionally in awhile did the door open, to let in a delivery, and the sound of bare feet treading to the bathroom and back. Oh great Internet, you opened an entire world for humankind, locking him into his own four walls!