Mucho es mayor el miedo que suspende
mi alma del tormento de allí abajo,
que parece ya pesarme esa carga.
Dante Alighieri, Divina Comedia, Purgatorio, Canto XIII, 136-38
Siglo XXV. Tan omnipresente como impotente, el Padre observa. Ni en sus más ambiciosos sueños se hubiera atrevido a vaticinar una vida tan larga para su imperio. Tampoco habría sospechado que el hombre hubiese podido sobrevivir a sus pecados durante tanto tiempo. A las puertas de las librerías, las masas, expectantes pero dóciles, guardan fila para descargar la recién editada novela. Preparan sus zócalos craneales para recibir la presunta última entrega de esa saga que él comenzase un lejano día, en lo que ahora pareciera otro universo. Apenas reconoce el planeta. En lo alto de las austeras fachadas, el trastataranieto de su bichozno, consumido como los cactus del severo desierto arrakeno, ofrece su mejor sonrisa artificial desde una levitante silla de autopropulsión. Nadie le calcularía ciento cincuenta años: de hecho no aparenta más de un siglo. Los fieles veneran su holograma como si del propio Paul Atreides se tratara.
Desearía mandarles un nuevo diluvio. Darles una lección por adorar a un becerro de plomo. Reprocharles a esos ingratos su indiferencia y castigarles por su traición. Sólo existe un Padre verdadero… Pero hace siglos que carece de cuerpo. Y ya nadie le recuerda. A veces hasta él duda de quién fue Frank Herbert. A dios muerto, dios puesto.
Los efectos de la agonía inducida por la especia remiten. El escritor, poco a poco, abandona el estado de precognición y regresa a 1965. Cada día le atormentan más esas visiones de futuro. Tanto que algunas noches insomnes ha planeado destruir su manuscrito y romper así la cadena. Pero su naturaleza es débil, y nada puede frente a las tentaciones terrenas. Él no ha conseguido superar la prueba: no ha logrado aniquilar sus pasiones. Es sólo un hombre. Abre el cajón y extrae el paquete ya preparado: la dirección de su editor minuciosamente escrita con letra vacilante. “Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas”, musita por un momento. Antes de zambullirse en sus sueños de grandeza de nuevo.
Far greater is the fear, wherein suspended
My soul is, of the torment underneath,
For even now the load down there weighs on me.
Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, Canto XIII, 136-38
Twenty-fifth century, as ubiquitous as powerless, the Father stares at it. Not even in his wildest dreams would he have dared to predict such a long life to his empire. Nor would he have suspected that mankind could have survived their sins for so long. At the doors of bookstores, the multitude, expectant but obedient, stand in line to download the recently published novel. They prepare their skull sockets to receive the supposed final book of this saga he began to write a day long ago, now it seems to him another universe. He barely recognizes the planet. At the top of the austere facades, the great-great-great-grandson of his great-great-great-great-grandson, drained like cacti that grow in the Arrakeen harsh desert environment, offers his best artificial smile from a self-propelled levitating chair. No one would think he has one hundred and fifty years. In fact he does not look more than a century old. Devotees venerate his hologram as it were Paul Atreides himself.
He would like to send them a new flood, to teach them a lesson for having worshiped a calf of lead, to reproach those ungrateful their indifference, punishing them for their treachery. There is only one true Father... But he lacks a body for centuries. And no one remembers him. Sometimes even he doubts who Frank Herbert was. “God is dead, long live god”.
The effects of spice agony decrease. The writer slowly leaves the state of precognition and returns to 1965. Those visions of future torture him more every day. So much that some sleepless nights he has planned to destroy his manuscript and thus break the chain. But his nature is weak, and he can’t do anything against earthly temptations. He has failed to pass the test: he has failed to kill his passions. He's just a man. He opens the drawer and pulls out a ready package: the address of his editor carefully written in a hesitantly handwriting. “Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas”, he mutters for a moment, before he immerses himself again into his dream of glory.
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