The Devil's Fate Read Free

said to himself, as it crossed his mind that the poor man had probably not eaten for days, whereas he had thrown a whole plate of French fries into the bin only the evening before merely because he had cooked too many and hated eating the same thing two days running. He banished any urge to feel remorse, and grabbed a strap above his head in one hand and held the newspaper in the other. It was dated the previous week. Touché, replied fate with its customary sense of humor. The first page carried headlines of events he knew almost by heart. His curiosity lingered on a news item about the hundredth reprint of a book. A true record. Lucky author, he muttered to himself. Needless to say, he tried to calculate an approximate figure of how much the fortunate chap would have earned. The article stated that sales had peaked at an incredible nine hundred million copies. It was a collection of poems and maxims called “Instructions for Living”, which implied that someone had found the way to describe emotions so satisfactorily that they could be experienced merely by reading those words. Curiosity drew him to the inside page where the whole article was printed under Charles J. Gordon’s byline with an excerpt from the book. He read it with the attention he paid to everything he hoped might surprise him, although that rarely happened these days.
     
    I’ve sailed the heights of a parallel world, testing the sensations I felt in this dimension...
    I’ve received the gift of being heard and I asked for help from those I considered better...
    I walked for miles in the hope that my suffering might abate and leave room to feel alive... much more alive than any attempt to stay awake...
    I brightened every single day with the power of pride... but whatever I found only made me realize I had to turn back...to where the beginning has your name: my love...
     
    His heart leapt. The beauty of those words rekindled a sensation he hadn’t felt for a long time. It was as if he had put on a DVD and watched an old film. The memory cried out. He could almost hear it with his own ears, not just with his conscious mind; it seemed to want to tell the whole world about what had just been revealed. He was as certain of that as he was of the fact that in that precise moment his lungs were filled with the air that allowed him to think: it was one of his poems. He could hardly believe that Julia had done such a thing. She was the only person who knew about those words. No one else had read them and no one else had been allowed to see them. Unless, in an attempt to put her theory to the test and give him the surprise of his life, she had taken his book to a publisher who had smelled a good deal and appropriated the rights and therefore the property. He took out his mobile and rang his companion’s number; she should have woken up by now.
    The voice on the other end was not the one he wanted to hear but a recorded message telling him that the person he was telephoning was currently unavailable or unable to take his call. He hung up with an annoyed flick of his wrist and told himself he would try again later. By then, the train was pulling into his station. He stepped off and walked quickly to the stairs. He tried phoning again, but the same voice repeated the same information as before. As he climbed the steps to ground level, an advertisement glued to the wall caught his eye: “Instructions for Living, limited edition available in the best book stores”. His heart advised him not to get himself into a state, but his brain reminded him that there was a book shop inside the subway. He hurried to the top of the stairs and looked around until he saw the store a short walk away. He made for the door, past a couple of tourists looking for maps of the city, entered and spoke to the shop assistant.
    “I’d like a copy of “Instructions for Living”, please.”
    “You too. I’m sorry but we sold out an hour after opening yesterday morning. There’s only