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    Vita Noia: A Fantasy Story
    Vita Noia: A Fantasy Story
    Vita Noia: A Fantasy Story
    Ebook94 pages1 hour

    Vita Noia: A Fantasy Story

    By Joe Thompson

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    About this ebook

    Vita Noia describes the way of a pill, the small pink pill, also called happiness stimulator, which has been developed as suicide blocker and leads finally to a type of egalitarianism which offers a small, unscrupulous elite the possibility to take control over the happy humans and to establish under the cover of the altruistic goal of bringing the great overall happiness to people a totalitarian regime.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateFeb 26, 2002
    ISBN9780595726486
    Vita Noia: A Fantasy Story

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      Book preview

      Vita Noia - Joe Thompson

      All Rights Reserved © 2002 by Joe Thompson

      No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

      Writers Club Press an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

      For information address:

      iUniverse, Inc.

      5220 S. 16th St., Suite 200

      Lincoln, NE 68512

      www.iuniverse.com

      Any resemblance to actual people and events is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction.

      ISBN: 0-595-21682-X

      ISBN: 978-0-5957-2648-6 (ebook)

      Printed in the United States of America

      I have taken two days’ vacation from eternity. I walk across the bridge into the past, back to where I came from an eternity ago. At least this is what it feels like even though only two generations have passed since the day of my voluntary death. Sixty years are but a few seconds in the history of the world. It is a dreary November day. The city where I was born and where I spent the important years of my life emerges through the fog. I attempt to orient myself and look for the churches, which are still the best landmarks. They represent absolute values. Unfazed by architectural trials and tribulations, they endure like sacred cows no one dares to slaughter. The editorial offices, core of the local newspaper, are no longer located in the historic building near the train station but have moved into the publisher’s new building in a suburban business park. I glance over the chief editor’s shoulder. I knew the predecessor of his predecessor. The present editor is typing the headline of the feature for tomorrow’s issue into the computer. DISCONTENT DEFEATED.

      Of 1,200 people surveyed, all answered in the affirmative when asked whether they were content with their lives.

      It is lunchtime and the chief editor glances at his watch. He gets up. The cafeteria is waiting. I type a name into the database: Gerhard Schwedler. The computer replies without delay: see Bizarre Suicides In Our City. I type in the search words, Bizarre suicides but the computer replies unapologetically, Access denied.

      *

      Graffiti on the red brick facade of the Max Planck High School reads,

      We are bored to death that’s why

      —we love each other to death

      —we hate each other to death

      —we work ourselves to death

      —we inject ourselves to death

      —we eat and drink ourselves to death

      —we copulate to death

      —we are frightened to death

      —we hurry each other to death

      —we beat each other to death

      Why? Maybe because no one sated our longing, no one gave us a vision, no one taught us how to dream.

      I will kill myself because none of you loved me, because I loved none of you. I will kill myself because our relationships made no sense—so that they will make sense.

      (Louis Malle, French film director).

      *

      The morgue is divided into several sections.

      All from last week, the medical examiner said as he opened one of the freezer boxes. The increase in numbers is atypical for the season. It’s almost epidemic.

      They are kept in the section Suicide on account of weariness. ID cards inside plastic covers are tied to the feet of the dead, giving a brief analysis of each unnatural death.

      Günter Schwedler, 18. Son of Bruno and Erika Schwedler, senior student at Max Planck High School. Inherited the sensitive nature of his mother. He is perhaps too intelligent for this world. His path through life is predetermined. Since the boy exhibited no distinct inclinations or interests, it was assumed that he would choose to become a teacher like his father before him. He is likely to marry, start a family and fulfill the conventional norm of two children. By the time he has reached the age of 40, he will only grudgingly recall the naïve flights of fancy of his youth and, along with spontaneity, visions and dreams, dismiss them as youthful indiscretions. At this time, everything in life bores him, in particular school, perhaps because he already knows his future too well.

      Walter Caliendo, 18. Senior student at Max Planck High School. Of Italian descent. His parents came to Germany as guest workers thirty years ago. His dark skin, black hair and Roman nose are visual reminders of his Italian heritage. He inherited from his father in particular a meridional temper and from his mother a metaphysical inclination. He conducts long talks into the night with his best friend, Günter Schwedler, about the meaning and absurdity of their existence. The thoughts of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer most certainly don’t spark their aspirations for a non-heroic life.

      Both are afraid of leading a mediocre life without ever grasping its deeper meaning.

      One day, a field worker on his way to work finds them inside an old VW Rabbit. The car, as well as the cost of the lessons and driver’s license, was a gift from Günter’s parents on his 18th birthday.

      The field worker notices that both passengers are dead. They have led a red plastic tube from the exhaust through the side window into the passenger area and then started the engine.

      Guido Buchwald, 26, single and the younger brother of Erika Schwedler. Drops out of a college with an intermediate diploma in Anglistics after meeting Sylvia Schwarm, 22, his only long-term relationship and love of his life. He met her at a pizza restaurant where she worked as a waitress. Their love erupted like a volcano. One time, they made love in front of the town hall and got a ticket from a police officer for lewd behavior. Since they met, they’ve been living in a trance, consuming each other like hungry animals. This happens on occasion in the restroom at a movie theater, where they had intended to watch a film, or in a public phone booth, or behind a dumpster in the rain. He’s the love of her life, and she is the love of his; that is, until she leaves him. Since then, she’s been going nowhere fast. She begins to hang out with the wrong crowd and to shoot up. The guy she ends up with has a police record, and she robs a gas station with him. They are caught and Sylvia Schwarm is sent to the women’s jail where she’s been ever since. The breakup hasn’t been easy for Guido, either. He no longer cares about his appearance, he lets his beard grow and his eyes look sadder by the day. He, too, is taking drugs. He gets increasingly paranoid and loses his general interest in life. His first suicide attempt fails, but the second is successful. He stands on his bed, wraps a tie around his neck, and, tying the other end to the handle on the window, lets himself drop into darkness.

      Susan Schober, 20, student in the final semester at Max-Planck-High School. Susan is scared. The written final in German didn’t go well. Goodwill already played a significant part in the exam committee’s decision to admit her to the Abitur graduation exam.

      If she fails, she can try again next year. However, the thought of committing herself to another year of school is not very appealing. She is sick of the classrooms with their pale green-washed walls. She’s bored with the classes, tired of her fellow students. What are her chances for the future, even if she passes next time? Her poor grades will only take her from the frying pan into the fire: eight-hour days of office hell in some old office or bank or insurance company. When Susan doesn’t return from her restroom break during the exam, the supervising teacher

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