after the terroristic act had found expression in a mental echo. Sometimes I feel like Dr. Freud’s soul mate, but of what importance was Antonio’s transformation from a comic hero into a rocket, which averted the catastrophe last minute? Was there a possibility to gain »definitive peace« for the world like the master had mentioned in his speech? What might such a pacifier look like? And how did Antonio’s cruel former master fit into this bizarre concept? Should I worry about him looking like an Italian macho or maybe better about the fact that Antonio had been happily curling up just in the guy’s lap who had once abandoned him so recklessly?
I had ducked the next and crucial question until last, as I couldn’t even find an explanation to some extent. Why this bestial killing method? Why of all things the ear or better the whole hearing aid, which the killer removed in total? Certainly the feline ear was unique, or to speak in the language of advertisement: a hit product. It is nature’s most sensitive hearing aid and outshines every other species’ aural sense in the aspect of distinguishing single sounds. So it was comprehensible that humans took a closer look at this aural wonder and maybe even abused it for their dark deeds. But, and this but trashed my theory like a big wrecking ball: 1. The feline ear was researched by scientists right down to the last detail ages ago and was taken even the slightest secret. So nobody needed to arrange cruel experiments with »living material« but could easily download every information in that score from the internet. 2. I had every reason to be proud on our ear trumpets and to praise them to the skies, but, that’s only fair, humans had developed even more sensitive listening devices by now and had come first in the winner’s podium at the Eavesdrop Olympics long ago. If one meant to do it, with the appropriate high-tech device one could easily listen from outer space to a worm burping 30 feet below ground level. In this regard we couldn’t teach them any more.
Thoughts of this kind buzzed through my head while I began to wish for finally seeing something else than darkness and the monotonous linear stone corset of a catacomb. I had attended a clever quiz, but as a candidate I had failed miserably. Yet, the game didn’t count for nothing, as I had gotten a feeling where the journey was headed.
One question, a concrete one this time, still bothered me. Where would I end up at the exit of this ancient Christian tube? Hopefully not in the middle of Rome’s killing traffic, which was as considerate of four-footed road users as much as a lava flow was of proud homeowners. But I suddenly realized where I was located, and at one go I smelled fresh air and from afar I saw the first contours of a place, which made me gasp in awe. »In truth!«, I shouted like the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca did in 1337, » Rome is greater, and greater are its ruins than I imagined! I no longer wonder that the whole world was conquered by this city«.
The catacomb ended at a wall that was covered in spider webs and in which a hole in the impressive size of Gustav had been smashed. The fallen rubble still lay everywhere around the threshold. I jumped outside into the night and via a ramp I finally, finally reached the Forum Romanum! Fronting me the mighty triumphal arch of Septimius Severus towered, which was to remind of the victories over Parthians, Arabs and the tribes in former Assyria. Moonlight dipped the 75x82-feet-giant, which was situated across the church Santi Luca e Martina, into a bluish shimmer. Impressive about the three-gate building were the four giant marble reliefs, which showed scenes from these wars with superior plasticity. The victory goddesses sat enthroned above those, holding their trophies.
Quickly I jumped onto a little hill of broken pillars, turned south-east bound and let my eyes roam over the heritage of the empire, that so shortly before sunrise outranked every sword and sandals film’s technicolor-panorama. It was epic! It was titanic! It was ... gorgeous! What a wide plain, surrounded by ruins, gardens and temples, covered with fallen capitals, upright lonely pillars, trees and silent desert. It seemed as if the agitated rubble from the poured out ashtray of time and the flinders of a big world had been knocked