Je Veux  

The widow agreed to a single interview. It would be the first time in over fifteen years that she would make a public appeareance. During all that time, neither her nor her husband had talked to the media. She couldn't hide her contempt for them. She knew how people saw her, what they thought of her, the crude jokes. Some, all of them being men, could understand his decision. But no one in the world understood her. Why did she stay with him? To the world, she was simply The Cock Digger.

She knew he would never set the record straight. He knew they'd never truly understand. And, as long as he was around, it was his right not to talk about it. It had been a complete character annihilation, and still she felt she owed them an explanation.

Up until the moment when she answered the door, she was ready to change her mind.

A small crew of documentary filmmakers surrounded her with cameras, microphones, lights and equipment. She looked magnificent. She knew the world would hate her for it, but she was there to be truthful, and her beauty was a big part of that truth. For fifteen years, she had had access to something that the world could only imagine, and the obvious conclusion was that it did her wonders.

Before the interviewer asked anything, she took out a list and began reading names. Individuals. Organizations. Religious figures. Heads of state. Most were anonymous. It was a long, long list. She read one page and then she opened up a box. The continuation of the list. She could have kept going for a couple days, but the gesture was enough.

"What's that?", asked the interviewer.

"Just a list of all the people who have sent me death threats, hate mail, crude drawings of myself and Eric doing unspeakable things. Every day I get a few hundred more."

She said this with such poise and elegance, a very light smile on her face. It was rehearsed, obviously, but it didn't matter. It was the denouncement and the elegance that mattered. She was determined to show just how unfazed she was by the whole thing.

"Why did he do it?" Asked the interviewer.

She resented how vulgar this documentary would end up looking. She knew they'd use her letter as a cold open. Then he'd ask why. Then they'd cut to a rapid montage of news and reactions talking about her husband, about her, about the choice he made and how stupid and bizarre it all was. Vulgar. But she needed the money. More than that, although she didn't want to admit it, she wanted all the poor devils that had sent her letters to know.

She took a deep breath and the image of her husband came to her. She saw him as a middle-aged man, a bit chubby, handsome. Loving. A terrible sense of humour. A perpetual melancholy about him. She always pictured him first as the man he was before the wish than as the man he'd become.

"He did this because of me. Because he was selfish. Because he was afraid. He did it for love. I've read so many books and articles and opinions written about him and his choice. I've come across every possible theory out there. That's what you people don't understand. You all want a simple explanation for everything. No part of this whole thing was ever simple."

She was earnest. She had decided she would tell the truth no matter what.

The interviewer tried to stay silent. A big, angry vein almost popped out of his forehead. It was clear he was fuming inside, but he would use that to fuel his creativity later, for the editing, for the voiceover commentaries. For now, he would simply listen and ask.

"Walk me through your version of things. When did you first hear about the being?"

"The being? Is that what you call it? Vague. Well, my sister told me about it. She sent me a picture of it, the one that went viral when it first appeared over Rabat. It looked so fake at first, didn't it? An inverted pyramid floating in the sky. Every surface smooth and polished, reflecting the sand underneath. After a few days, when I learned it was real, I instinctively knew there was no God. No hell, no heaven. It was just us and that thing, alone in the universe. And it was so indifferent. Thousands of people were killing themselves under the pyramid and it just didn't care.

"Months later, it made its first sound. Eric watched the video and he was awestruck. There was something about that hum that he couldn't escape. All day, he would walk around repeating it, playing it on the piano, recording it and playing it backwards, looking for some message."

The rest of the conversation was probably fodder for the documentarians to form an image of her and her husband. Their daily lives as recluses. His problems with alcohol. The correspondence with intellectuals and activists who supported his decision. The billion dollar offers to show the whole thing to the world. The botched operation to reverse it.

She was surprised to see how little candor she had. The conversation flowed and it felt to her like she was talking about someone else, a historic figure. And he was that. He might have been her husband, her lover, her only friend in the world. But, to the eyes of the world, he was an enigma. The Dicktator.

"Eventually, they managed to translate the humming into a language. The pyramid only understood mathematical relations, and soon it became clear that music was the only way to communicate with it.

"I was out with my sister when the news broke that the pyramid would grant humanity one single wish. My sister hugged me so hard it hurt. She thought we would all come together. People around us were crying. Cancer. War. Climate change. For the first time, we were all pulling in the same direction. I was petrified. The fact that the pyramid could even have such power, that it would be so cruel as to only offer us one. What a terrible thing to dangle over us. I think it enjoyed watching humanity foam at the mouth for the wish.

"A few weeks later, Eric was contacted by the government. He'd been chosen as the interpreter between us and it. He was chosen because of his musical gift. Everyone always asks why they just couldn't use a recording. The pyramid only understood music when it was played live, by a human. Maybe that's the sign that it was actually divine. Anyways, the government knew he'd be able to play the melody exactly as needed.

"They took that joy away from him, you know? He was one of the best musicians in the world, and after it all happened, he never played the piano again."

The interviewer snickered. It was unnecessarily fake and loud. His way of telling her he'd never feel pity for that man.

She kept going.

"The next three years he spent practicing hours upon hours every day. You remember how it was. A whole committee was formed to determine the one wish. Eric didn't care about it, he didn't read the news, he acted as if they didn't exist. He knew all those philosophers and technocrats and politicians would eventually decide on something. All he cared about was the execution of the melody. It had to be perfect. He was so, so scared of that thing not understanding him, of making a mistake. He lost so much weight during those three years."

She knew where the interviewer was going. She saw it coming a mile away. Vulgar, but she didn't mind as much. After the why, this was the most obvious question.

He wiped his glasses, took a sip of water and asked, "Was it worth it?"

She smiled. She regretted it instantly. She knew they'd use that clip in the trailer for the documentary. Tasteless.

He asked again, as if trying to set the stakes. The whole world knew what he meant, but it worked. It seemed more dramatic.

The interviewer was relentless. "Was it worth it? When Eric stood up there on the platform with his piano and he played the melody, the whole world watching live, I remember thinking it would all be over. All the bad things, I mean. All the terrible things would be over. I thought we had conquered evil with music.

"For a few seconds, no one said anything. I looked over at my mother and I just can't forget how confused she was. Broken, in a way. The automatic translation took five seconds to process the melody. As soon as it came in, she dropped to her knees and let out a sound I've never heard again, not even when my father died. That's the first thing I think about when I think about your husband."

The widow looked at the interviewer with a sad smile on her face. She'd heard thousands of versions of that story, what everyone around the world thought, said or did when they heard the translation. She wasn't surprised nor moved by what the interviewer said. She was sad about Eric.

She looked the interviewer in the eye and spoke, "With the first note, I knew he was going rogue. He wouldn't make a mistake, I knew that. It was deliberate. Those five seconds felt like months in the desert looking for water. And then it came in, in French, of course. He chose French because that was his mother's tongue. A weird homage to her, but that was Eric.

"Je veux la plus belle bite parfaite du monde. Sounds beautiful, doesn't it? I couldn't fucking believe it.

"I want the most perfect, most beautiful dick in the world.

"And like that, the pyramid vanished into thin air without a sound."

"Was it worth it?" he asked again.

After a deep breath, she answered: "It's not fair, this position he put me in. It was never my responsibility or my choice. I never told him to do it. I had no idea he was planning it. I hated him for it. But it was worth it. You should have seen it. Maybe it would have been fair for everyone to see it at least once. Then maybe they'd understand. It was beautiful. I cried the first time I saw it. It was sublime in the way Kant would use the word, like a raging storm in the blackest night.

"We all lost out on world peace, and that opportunity is irreparably lost forever. And my heart breaks every time I remember that melody. But something so good was born of it. It should have been shared with the world, but you would have destroyed it. And Eric knew it. He didn't want anyone to ruin what the pyramid had granted us.

"Let me just say this, so people out there understand me. The world isn't worse because of him and his wish, but rather, because of what he didn't wish for. He died knowing that. But, for fifteen years, this little world we were confined to had something so perfect, so precious.

"I hated him because of what he did. And I despised how beautiful his dick was. With a dick like that we didn't need God, we had it all. At the same time, I loved him because of what he shared with me. You all think it was a waste. It changed everything for me. My world was him and his dick and that's what matter. Now it's all gone. No pictures, no descriptions, no measurements were ever taken.

"Beauty is a strange thing. You've never seen something as beautiful. There is no way you could ever understand, no comparison would ever do it justice. It simply ends the category. From the bottom of my heart, I don't know how the world managed without it.

"Would humanity really have made the right wish? We would have found a way to fuck it up again. Could you think of a better wish? The only answer was this, and it was right for us. If that makes us the villains, so be it."

She took a sip of her glass. Tears formed in her eyes, but she wouldn't allow them to see her cry. She sat there under the lights, her back erect, looking at the man in front of her. It was a weird expression on her face, one of forgiveness.