I’m fully aware this kind of life is totally meaningless, artificial and can’t bring me any happiness, I can’t walk out on it. I must go on with it, telling lies, deceiving and taking advantage of millions of people to keep making even more money. I envy you for being able to live happily in the world you’ve made for yourself. But the world has already changed for me. It’s no longer the world in which we struggle for food, clothes, medicine and accommodation, but an entirely new one in which everyone has to fight with everyone else to make as much money as possible.’
‘Aren’t you sleepy yet?’ the young man asked, and yawned loudly. ‘You can sleep here if you want. I’ll go on listening to you until I pass out.’
‘So you’d like to sleep?’ the man with the shirt asked while raising his wrist to look at his jewel-studded gold watch. ‘Four in the morning already. No wonder you’re sleepy. Well, I’ve had my bottle’s worth. You can go to sleep now. I’m leaving.’
‘No, no, I’m still enjoying myself. You sure you want to leave?’
‘Yes, but I’d like to add something.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘The world outside is the world of NICs. Everyone lives, thinks and behaves the NICs way, and I’m one of those soulless NICs beings who are being taught only one thing: to get whatever you can without ever giving a thought to how you get it.’
‘You’re using funny words. I don’t understand.’
The man with the shirt laughed and crawled outside through the plastic sheet opening.
The well-mannered house owner also crawled out to see him off.
‘Can I come and chat with you again?’
‘Sure. But you must bring Shiva with you.’
‘OK.’
‘And one more thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t piss on my house again.’
They both burst out laughing at the same time before the man wearing the white shirt walked away into the darkness and the man with the shaggy, unkempt beard disappeared back into his rubbish dump of a house.
A falling star suddenly shot across the sky…