the coffee room: our clients who want to set up a company will be here shortly, shall we get a coffee in the meantime? You can stir yours, if you wish.»
«I won’t have it stirred, just to show you my support.» After a few minutes, we are in the deed room again, sitting on the same chairs we sat on earlier on, with two coffee cups in our hands.
«Now, Brando, all that positive energy that is coming out from you, where does it come from?»
«I believe it is just an inner feeling. It is not on sale, I think.»
«Just as well, otherwise suicide attempts could unreasonably increase.»
«I don’t think I am contagious, anyway.»
«No, I don’t think so. What comes out of you is harsh if anything but what worries me is what you have inside.»
«Really? Why are you saying this? I don’t look too weird or depressed today... I mean I don’t look any different than other days.»
«That’s it, Brando. You are depressed and weird like many other days. However, lately, you are almost over the limit. I have known you for years now, I have never seen you like this.»
«You think so? I don’t know, I haven’t thought about my psychological and physical condition today, actually. I got here and I got down to work with the files. I think I did even take a breath, from time to time.» Maybe the thought of the blue glow took my mind off what I was doing for a few minutes, her apparition may have shaken a regular day at its onset, but I think I am alright.
«I am not too sure, Brando. You look to me more and more... I don’t know how to put it...»
«Loony?» I ask.
«No. I’d rather say gloomy. As if you are trapped inside something. Trapped in there.»
«Trapped inside what?»
«Trapped inside, that’s all.»
«What do you mean, trapped inside myself?»
«Yes, that’s it.»
«Excuse me, notary, I have felt just fine up until two minutes ago: the day was passing just fine, like many others. Now, thinking that I am trapped within myself could make me feel distressed, it is a disturbing picture.»
«Maybe I am the only one to detect this lately: don’t read too much into my words. It depends on the places we are trapped in: they don’t have to be always bad places. If you have coconut trees and sun all day inside yourself, it could be all good» he replied with a smile.
«Sure. Haven’t you just said that I am gloomy inside? Actually dark?» I ask a little puzzled.
«Yes: mine was just a theory in fact» he answers. «Contra spem.»
«So funny» I say it with a grin.
«Let’s put aside this introspective journey inside yourself» the notary goes on, «what makes you feel this way?»
«What do you mean? I am the same as any other day.»
«Has anything unusual happened to you recently? Is your matt car okay? Your parents? Is everything okay? Do you still live on your own refusing every human contact?»
«When are our next clients coming?» I ask with a sarcastic tone, to try and change subject.
«In a few minutes, I reckon. However, we have plenty of time to make a brief examination of your current life.»
«Good, how nice. Why though?»
«For no particular reason. I worry about you, about your psychophysical condition. More about the former than the latter.»
«Excellent. I am happy that you worry about my mental health. It pleases me very much.»
«So then?» he insists.
I am looking at the empty cup that I hold in my hands.
«Now I can tell you that my matt car is doing well and I guess my parents too, I mean, they are doing only too well. I add that I do not live on my own, I have occasional and normal contact with the other dwellers on planet Earth, and you are one of them.»
«Thank God, Brando, you have stopped hanging around with the aliens, this is a positive thing. Did you start hanging around regularly with somebody else, I mean, with the opposite sex?»
«No, I didn’t. I stopped with the aliens, just give me some time to change my habits, meet new people to hang around with. Maybe zombies, there are so many around.»
«Very funny. Let’s take a note: nothing new, the candidate does not point out any recent changes in his lifestyle. I am sure that if you behave like this, the sentence to home confinement will be revoked, sooner or later.»
«Home confinement that I was granted being trapped inside myself?» I wonder, puzzled.
«Right that one.»
«I was asking because I was afraid I had got lost.»
«So, are you dead on not trying to repent?»
«I don’t think I need to repent for anything. That’s the way I am: I do not hang around with aliens, zombies nor human beings; I am gloomy and a bit down but I have always been like that. Maybe lately the whole situation has gone a bit worse, maybe I find it difficult now to put up with some situations that I used to somehow manage before.»
«Attention, please. We have here some sort of explanatory sentence which expresses a whole thought» the notary says sarcastically. «Are you talking about work in general or something more complicated?»
«It is the whole situation, what is around us: people, in particular. It is the attitude that people have towards each other. Not just in the working environment: it is something that makes me sick, it makes me feel bad.»
«People. People make you sick: disturbing. What do you mean, Brando?»
«There is some sort of pathological apathy everywhere. They all just want things and expect them without doing anything useful for themselves or for the others.»
«That has been my feeling too for quite some time.»
«Do you know the history of do ut des?» I ask.
«Sure, do ut des and do ut facias, are the foundation of private law. You are talking about a wider picture, don’t you?»
«Yes, a wider and more trivial scenario. Men have always acted this way: you give something to get something else back. I think this is fair, quite normal. The problem is that now it is only a des: give me this because I am entitled to it, I want this because I am more worthy than you. The synallagma has changed: everybody expects something but nobody does anything.»
«Interesting analysis. Is that what makes you gloomy?»
«I don’t know. This is for sure something that I can’t stand. And there is so much more to it.»
«Talking
