''"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains: round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.'' SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe


A New Career In A New Town

By: David Bowie

From: Low (1977)


...Memory and history are connected to one another, but they aren't the same thing.

Amarant Coral is at the bar, where the surroundings laughters have a kind of despair, the walls discolored of any fruitful ink, and the beer tastes awful. Whatever, life's a poison enough, nothing can be any more awful.

...Only because a knight wears an armor... to hide herself from the world...

Two men at the corner. Amarant can't ignore what they say, or stay away from the tobbaco's smoke. Are they talking about Freya? Nah, they don't know her as much as I do, thought the man with cerulean skin.

Those men are discussing about whether or not bring down Magdalene's statue. The talk of town. As if her nudity bothered enough people in past, as if a drunk man had any reason on his head filled with alcohol, or any other poison that mixes with the senses. One of these days, they will be selling snake poison, and no one will perceive.

...We don't live in the past. Our minds fool us. They tell us we're gonna be succesful at the future, but I ask: What the hell is a future made of?

One thing that called out Amarant's attention is that the two men talked, but their words, something in these... they were not talking at all. Like someone made them talk those things. The whole town? The beer had no such effect of making one man smart enough, to talk and to stand on both feet. There's nothing worse than losing equilibrium, bladder and sense of decency. Except for a random stranger talk, they come out of nowhere and they hang you around with some meaningless chat, so thought the mercenary. Well, Amarant used to be a mercenary, one more reason to be at such place filled of decay.


— ...I write.

— Do you write?

— Yes. I write novels. And you? What do you do?

— Nothing. I sell things.

— Things like?

— Well, things. Books, for example. I have a whole crate of books stolen from the library. I sell these.

— I don't see books as a thing.

— You're a writer, after all.

— Have you sold your soul as well?

— I never had to steal a soul and call it mine.

— So you were born with one?

— Sometimes, I wish I wasn't born at all.

— Why not?

— Look around. It's depressing. Boring as well.

— You live by selling stolen goods, right?

— Doesn't an author steals ideas and put them at their own books? They call it 'inspiration'.

— It's hard to find inspiration. A challenge to steal an idea and make it your own. I was thinking about writing, so that's why I came to this place.

— This? You mean this filthy? WHy would you want to write about it?

— I don't want to write about the place, but people. People like you.

— Like me... I saved this world, and I am regarded as any person. That's what I earn.

— Did you saved this world

— Surprised? Because of me... well, not only me, but Zidane as well, and the Queen, the Knight, the other knight, I think her name is Freya, yes... these folks are well known, as I stay at the shadows.

— Have you tried to step into sunlight?

— Heh... as if it's easy to do so.

— I'd like to pour simplicity in my works, instead of writing what comes to mind. It ain't easy to write, no way. You have to put detail in this, detail in that, not everything needs detail. He said, she said, people don't think about what others say in the very sentence that first comes to mind. Well, books don't need to be realistic at all.

— You and your work... don't you care about anything else? – gosh, I hate writers. They make their own little world and do whatever they want. This one doesn't stop making questions. Think you're smart, huh?

— Of course. But I enjoy writing the most. It's a way I've found to express myself.

— Express yourself? Don't you mean run away from your problems?

— That's why I create problems for my characters to deal with.

— I see.

— It's quite entertaining. Because it ain't real, there are no consequences.

— So you write about people that don't exist?

— I said my characters were not real, not that they don't , well... I made them exist. Have a purpose to do so. At times, those characters are not even mine, but from another author. Like Cinderella, Pinocchio, the Three Little Pigs, these stories and their characters, they belong to everyone, not some greedy company. Could you believe it? Being unable to use a character because someone said that he, she, it, dog... whatever, the character belongs to his and only his. His property and nobody else's. There's no such ultimate egoist in this world like this one I mentioned.

— You haven't seem the meaning of arrogance, my friend – I think rationalizing too much causes pain to be greater than it's supposed to be. Should I tell it to this great author? – neither pain.

— You relief pain by drinking beer, am I right?

— Sure I do. Like you, and everyone else. Not everyone is a writer.

— But anyone can write. You can do lots of things if you insist.

— Yeah. I kicked the devil's butt... With help, I mean. My friends, I thought they were friends... they are writing a book about their adventures. 'The Final Fantasy', though this world has still a bit of fantastic in it.

— Almost like we're in a book – gee, when will he learn that not everything is about books? – you see, characters are more than people. They might not be real, but they are inspired by real events. I'd say they live longer than their own author... anyway, characters, they can be the statement of ideals and political views, but not explicitely. Imagine writing about a social problem as a a person. Like, poverty in person, as a kid. An orphan whose parents are nowhere to be seen, the State doesn't take care of its children, leaves them at open streets.

— So what? Witing about poor kids won't change a thing.

— Yeah, it won't change. But by telling these people exist, I am pointing out that a problem exists in our society.

— You're doing such a favour to us all...

— So do you, drinking. To forget, right?

— I drink because this is the finest drink of Alexandria. How many have proved it so far?

— Do you count drinking as a victory of sorts?

— Do you count being here in search of inspiration as a victory too?

— Ouch! Bullseye. I heard you used to be a mercenary, Mr. Amarant.

— Those times are over. I earn a lot by selling books.

— It's still illegal, isn't it?

— Illegal, you say... I was hired for the very Queen of Alexandria once to kidnap her own runaway daughter. I failed. Are you going to include this failure in one of your books?

— I like to write flawed characters.

— Why? If you can make them live in a world better than ours, only with a pen?

— Indeed. I was thinking about that, pal. About how I've been writing my characters. How I screwed with their lifes, make them say and do whatever I want, and somehow I enjoyed doing this. Until now.

— Here. Have a drink.

— No, thanks. I don't like it. I never drank in my life. It's been a while since I went to church, confessed my sins...

— Why a god would confess, after all?

— A god? Me? No, I'm no such god. I'm beginning to have benevolence for my own creation. I'm tired of seeing them suffer. Funny.

— What's so funny?

— You see... the book ain't even mine. It belongs to a person who haven't finished it. I liked the intent of that person, I read his world, and when I saw it was left unfinished, I thought 'I can continute the tale. Carry on the torch'. Well, if you stay close enough of fire, you might get burned. Oh...

— What's it? Got burned?

— I think I wrote the very sentence I told you twice in my work. Three, four times in a row. No problem, that's only mine. I have this craze of writing the very thing in my story, forgetting I did it before. It's the lack of feedback, the best and worst of it.

— Best? Worst?

— Best thing is that no one bothers you. Worst is that nobody gives you advice. Well, that's my leave.

— Hey... You haven't told me about what you write.

— What? I thought you weren't interested at all.

— Maybe I grew a bit of interest – yeah, maybe.

— I don't write about sex. It makes me feel uncomfortable.

— I understand –

— I mean, people do feel comfortable when they are... you know, doing that. It's just that I don't describe the whole thing, detail by detail. Uh... thing is, it's a thing from outer world, how do you describe it at all?

— Who are you asking to? Wait... are you impling that I-whatever... – never had that much of an active life.

— ...I improvise. I try to make it as if the characters are enjoying themselves, drifting away from Gaia as they float to the skies and beyond... It's imagination. I lack realism. Hehe, realism... I laugh so hard when I see books in which characters act cynical and punch and the main villains are uninteresting politicians talking about business while a hero wearing a goofy colored suit relies on punches. I think I got over that phase, for better... yeah, better. See ya!

— Farewell – I didn't meant to say bye to that stranger. Maybe he forced me to. Maybe it's because mom always told me to have some manners.