It is the moment before the night ends. If it were spring and it weren’t too cold for any season, the birds would start to sing now. Thome imagines the birds; he’s of the age of those who experienced them, these springtime birds, that make everything seem so sad, the morning, life. His father spent the previous night planning his administration. There were twenty old men present. The house smells of them. Thome looks forward to the moment when they will die. It’ll be a surprise for the old bastards. Oh boo, now that we’ve socked away billions, now that the range of our possibilities includes power, the power to influence a few million human lives, for the worse of course, now we’re supposed to get lost?

The men climb into the helicopter standing by in front of the house and fly to Scotland. Ciao. At exactly this moment there are no doubt a million influential men around the world trying via disparate means to secure world domination. Nearly the entire world seems relieved to subjugate themselves to old dictators. Men are finally back in power—strong, substantial men. And just between us: What’s the difference? So-called democracy was just a shell company for the super-rich. That’s what people said and well, come on now, they’re right. And now everything is like it used to be, don’t you see? Really not so bad. Wars are being planned, resources depleted and traded, intrigues plotted, government overthrows planned, epidemics concealed, medicines not approved because they’re not sufficiently profitable, legs amputated because saving them wouldn’t be sufficiently profitable, weapons dealt, foul-ups covered up; in the Vatican they’re preparing for the end of the world so some guy can let himself be celebrated as Jesus afterwards; in South America new guerilla armies are being assembled; in China—okay

MA WEI

The old men, thinks

THOME