Chapter 4

What is a revelation? A serious, self-respecting book would mention the term as it presents itself in the dictionary and with this being a serious, self-respecting book I would have no choice but to quote the Advanced Learner’s Oxford Dictionary  of Current English (Second Edition) as follows:                                                                                                                          “re ve la tion: making known of something secret or hidden ; that which is revealed, especially something that causes surprise.”                                                                                  

And to clarify matters even further I will employ the use of a real life example. Think back, if you will, on the time when you first discovered the process out of which babies were actually made of despite rumors of storks and so forth or of the reason why the sea seems to be various colors of blue at all times except for when you scoop some of it up in your hands. Hold on to the feeling those revelations or any other of particularly strong impact you might have experienced in life have left you with and come back to the cobble-paved, garbage-can-lined alleyway a stymied and evicted Nina had been standing on in the midst of one such revelation, hence all the fuss with the dictionary terms and childhood examples.

Something hidden had been made known to her and she had found it especially surprising. She was not happy. However she was not depressed, cheated on, used, mistreated, ill or abused. At least that is not how she felt. And she was in no need of medication, cognitive therapy, sexual liberation, motherly love or a shoulder to cry on.   A t least not to her understanding. She was simply unhappy with happiness being an emotional component we can immediately identify as lacking without the need of further analytical introspection.

What is this, some kind of existentialist crisis? , she thought. This was not the time for such emotional outbursts however so she squeezed her feelings back into temporary oblivion. There were more important matters at hand.

Despite it being late morning the alleyway she was standing on remained dim, sheltered by the majority of the sunrays that came its way by tall, red-brick buildings rising around Nina in an anonymous crimson wall, their backs turned against her. Somewhere in the distance a street lamp was gasping its last breaths. The lane extended on a straight line on both sides of her leading directly to a concrete-wall- dead-end on one side and a large, green, metal door on the other on which a very stern looking padlock was grasping firmly both ends of a chunky, metal chain, securing its handles.

Nina’s features curled onto themselves in parsimonious despair. She turned herself around faintly making to knock on the entrance of the kitchen she had been thrown out of and beg for admittance when her ears caught a rhythmic rattling, a memorable sound she couldn’t quite put a name to. It sounded strangely familiar, inviting even. It was directing her towards a small side street that was sprouting vertically from her current position just a few feet away.

“Ha!” she exclaimed. “That’s what happens when you panic. You miss out on the important stuff.” Nina advanced along the brick wall towards the opening and peeped around the corner. The lane was thin and spindly, formed by a similarly continuous barricade of red bricks as its adjacent lane only here the blocks were no longer red but a dirty brown, the well-known color of oxidized apple cores and rotten tomatoes. The cobbles covering the ground were much more worn than they were on the alleyway with several patches missing, allowing tufts of wildflowers to sprout from the earth in little clumps of delicate green and yellow. The whole street looked positively ancient; as ancient as the team of geriatrics sitting in a circle around a shriveled, wooden chest of drawers on the surface of which a game of dice was unfolding.

Two elderly men were sitting arched towards the drawer chest and across from each other, both taking their turn to shake the dice in their fist and then releasing them noisily onto the wooden surface with a heaving motion of their entire bodies that made them fall to the edge of their seats and then with great effort and cracking of joints compose themselves up again.

The rest of the old men that made up the party were arranged around them in the thralls of the same gambling fever as the active participants seemed to be. All of them made up a seemingly alive, mutually inclusive organism that moved to the motion of the rolling and rattling ivory dice, leaning forward at their descent with eyes bulging out of their sockets with anticipation, their breaths drawn inwards and then released and their spines settled motionless at the same time as the two dotted cubes had reached a numerical conclusion. Before the hand of the player had propelled the dice forward he would squawk out a number; the sum of what he predicted the two dice would reveal. At no point during the few minutes of her watching the game did Nina ever notice any of the participants of this ceremonious competition give any indication of defeat or victory, relief or regret at the result.

Nina was one of those people that even as children are always perceived to have the demeanor of an elderly person in the sense that they are interested in participating in ‘grown-up conversations’ – even if it is only in the form of quiet observation- and are on many occasions lost in thought, appearing to be somewhat aloof and distracted, hence Nina’s childhood tendency to seek the company of much older people, be it her grandparents or the elderly neighbor on her building block whom she often visited for the cinnamon biscuits and stories she generously presented her with. Nina felt absolutely at ease and enjoyed herself immensely in the company of the old lady due to her being offered three of her favorite things in abundance; comfort food, storytelling and complete acceptance with the third being by far the most important to her. As far as she could tell, that was the best part about people who have exceeded a certain age. They don’t bother with appearances and offer those around them the same courtesy. At that moment though, being completely undetected, Nina was being offered some time to herself. Some time to collect her thoughts and try to make sense of the situation she had inadvertently found herself into.

How novel, how soothing it was for her right now to be in the presence of others without them ever noticing her. It wasn’t that Nina was antisocial or misanthropic though. On the contrary she was greatly fond of human kind. In fact she liked nothing more than sitting in the quiet corner of a café or the bench of a city park watching people passing by oblivious to detection so she could actually look at them. The problem was that lately and with escalating propensity during the last few years of her existence when she found herself in the company of others she would experience an itching undercurrent of obligation to either entertain or awkwardly ignore them which she was growing very tired of.

So Nina found herself thinking she could have stood and watched these old-timers play their game of dice for ever. What made her come forward and alert them to her presence though was the event that took place right after ten or so throws of the dice had produced a winner at which point one of the two old men stood up and removed the lower part of his leg, presenting it as a trophy to the other. She had never witnessed a game of chance ending in such circumstances. Furthermore the unlucky grandpa that was coming short of half a leg retained his stoic composure mirroring the feelings of his fellow gambler receiving the, thankfully for Nina, fake limb. She decided she had to make conversation with them. They could even point her to the right direction out of this mad place.

Nina shuffled her way in between two of the members of the audience trying to come across as natural and unfazed by the circumstances. She rested her hands in her pockets hoping it would make her look casual and proceeded to stare at the dice, mimicking the men around her. To her left stood a stooping, stocky old chap, withered and white-haired, wearing a straw fishing-hat and a brown canvas suit the exact same color of the brick wall behind them whom she greeted with a gentle “Hello”.

 It took the old man a few seconds to become alert to Nina’s greeting, alert being an overstatement to his slow, drawn-out mannerisms as he turned and looked up at her, being slightly smaller than Nina, and presented his hand to her in formal greeting. She shook his hand slowly, smiling warmly at him and introduced herself.

“I am Jack, at your service” the old man said in a deep, gravelly voice, tipping his hat. “Just Jack, no last names, no formalities…We don’t give out our last names here because it makes us feel even older than we actually are” he continued waving his hand dismissively.

Nina warmed to him immediately. She had a soft spot for old-fashioned good manners and self-deprecating humor. Jack quickly pointed next to Nina where a tall, skeletal man stood hunching forward. “This is my older brother, Tom. He is almost deaf from one ear and too cheap to buy new batteries for his ear-piece so you’ll need to speak up.” Jack put his hand around his mouth and addressed his brother. “Tom. TOM! We have a potential new club member. This is Nina”, he yelled and pointed at Nina standing next to him waving silently at the semi-deaf brother.

The old man looked around with a startled expression and then at Nina curiously. He immediately grabbed her hand warmly and encompassed it in his huge palm shaking it repeatedly while producing a large grin that revealed a series of missing or broken teeth, the remainder of which though, oddly enough, had maintained a pearly white. “Charmed my dear Tina, charmed”, he yelled. “Very nice to meet you too, Tom” Nina yelled back as loudly yet politely as she possibly could. What was more she actually meant it. In fact, this was the first time in a long time that she had been made to feel at ease in the company of others.

“We have never had anyone nearly as young as you joining but I am sure it won’t be a problem”, Jack said to her tugging at her sleeve while his brother was still shaking her hand. “We will of course have to put it to a vote with the rest of the guys just to make things more formal and then Bob’s your uncle”, he continued building momentum as he went along. He seemed to be very excited at the prospect of a new member. Nina though was not matching his excitement at joining an, apparently formed by the congregated gamblers, club on which she had no information and that, in her mind, had an undefined connection to prosthetic members swapping hands under dubious circumstances.

Raising his arms as high as he could in order to be seen by everyone around him and with some difficulty, as Nina observed, Jack croaked repeatedly for everyone to be silent stating he had something important to say.

The little street became very quiet and still with the exception of the intermittent wheezing and coughing. The other members of the aforementioned union were now becoming alert to Nina’s presence as well. She looked around to see all of them staring at her in initial disbelief and then in gradual, warm acknowledgement.

The members were eight in all with Jack proceeding to introduce them one by one while adding very specific, albeit incoherent, information on every one of them next to each of their consequent names. “Edgar, prosthetic lower arm”, Jack said pointing to a dark man next to Tom with sunglasses and graying, thick hair. “James, prosthetic lower leg”, he continued referring to the old man sitting by the drawer-chest who had previously lost his aforementioned leg-part to the fat, bald man sitting across from him whom Jack introduced as “Friedrich, dentures”. Directly behind Friedrich a small, thin man wearing a mechanic’s uniform was standing, grinning and waving both hands up in the air. “And this is our mechanic, Lewis, prosthetic hands”, said Jack loudly and then leaning into Nina’s ear whispering “we roll his dice for him”. Right next to the still-grinning Lewis stood a handsome old man dressed in a frayed tuxedo introduced by Jack as “Arthur, glass eye” and lastly the seemingly eldest of the bunch, leaning perilously against a cherry-wood cane with his eyes half closed against the sunlight. “And last but not least, Walt, prosthetic hip”, Jack said stepping backwards for Nina to get a better look at the shriveled man.  

“Very pleased to make your acquaintance” Nina said politely looking around at the friendly, aged faces.

“All of those in favor…” Jack demanded sternly. Seven hands rose in the air slowly except for the one belonging to Walt, still grasping his cane and seemingly to the brink of falling asleep and subsequently off of it.

“Walt, wake up, you’re missing the vote”, Arthur leaning towards him said in a gentle tone while pinching off a speck of dust that had recently settled on his jacket’s shoulder, returning its state to immaculate. Walt gave out a loud snort opening his eyes to focus on Arthur quizzically and then turning to look at Nina in a probing manner.

“Do you dye your hair?” he asked her tipping his little head on one side and assuming a somber look as if considering this to be information of the outmost importance.

“Nope, all natural”, Nina replied, amused. To that Walt raised his arm slowly off his cane facing into the distance and then resting it down again, closing his eyes while doing so and looking very tired by the whole commotion as if this had been more action that he cared to participate in for a day.

 “Welcome to the club!” Jack exclaimed overjoyed shaking Nina’s hand with gusto. The rest of the men had also crowded around her, each taking their turn to shake Nina’s hand cordially as well, and all attesting to how pleased they were to have her in the club. Nina’s arm was beginning to go numb.

As soon as the re-introducing and vigorous handshaking had been over and done with, James turned to a worried-looking Nina and sensing her anxiety asked her if she had anything she wanted to ask. “Well, I don’t mean to be rude with you all being so nice to me, letting me join your club and everything… It’s just that no one has told me what this society actually stands for and what my responsibilities will be as a member…” said Nina apologetically. The old-timers looked at each other disapprovingly. Jack smacked his hand against his forehead and shook his head.

“How silly we’re all being. We got all excited about getting you to join that we forgot all about the particulars. My dear Nina you must think we’re all senile which, as you may have noticed, some of us actually are. Please forgive me and allow me to introduce you to the ‘Amor Fati’ club. Welcome!” Jack cried out. “Very good to have you, Mina”, Tom exclaimed on other side of her.

Nina, with the little Latin she was familiar with translated the name in her head. ‘Love your fate’ club. Certainly the most original name I have heard of being given to an association, she thought.

“We are a society dedicated to the vigorous application of stoicism, firm veracity and emotional perseverance”, Jack continued excitedly. “We all meet here every Wednesday by the back entrance of our prosthetic member clinic and gamble with the only thing of actual value to us in an attempt to break the material shackles that tie us to the constant ebb and flow of randomness and shed our ties to emotional flakiness and deep apprehension of the unknown future, the strange or the unfamiliar.”

“We here at the ‘Amor Fati’ club see things as they are and not as we think they ought to be”, said Lewis cheerily.

“We don’t sweat the little things”, said Edgar, resting his sunglasses on top of the shock of grizzled hair sprouting from his head and winking at her.

“We snub our fate. We don’t respond to the idea of success other people seem to have or expect from us. This way we attain control over our own lives by setting our own standards”, said Tom a little louder that the previous two.

“We are never disappointed because nothing can disappoint us. The only standards we set are our own values and principles. You cannot lose at a game in which the rules have been set by you”, said James.

“What is more, you cannot control your environment because it is not constructed for you to be able to. We are only a little piece of the puzzle, an intertwined component of the universe”, said Friedrich, in between lengthy coughs into a handkerchief.

“The logic behind a god creating the universe in a specific manner is driven by pure megalomania on the behalf of humans. We think the world has been created around us as our own special playground. We refuse to see themselves as another component of our natural surroundings and the universe at large”, said Arthur giving a small, thespian bow at the end.

“We humans even elevate our everyday supposed mistakes, coined as sins, to a point of cosmic significance. The sun apparently truly shines out of our posterior orifice”, said Jack knitting his eyebrows in disapproval.

“Right now has no end”, said Walt wearily, momentarily waking from his stupor.

Nina was taking in all the offered information with increasing excitement. She was looking attentively around at the old men with initial surprise and escalating affection. Never in her time had she been informed of a club or association she had actually had any desire for joining or even seen the point in existing before this moment.

Even while growing up Nina had been a fairly sociable kid in general though one which detested any kind of activity that involved her having to forsake or undermine her individuality in order for her to belong to a larger group. Needless to say, fitting in to any kind of society was in her eyes a clever camouflage for torture. Still, with all her prior history of negativity towards such endeavors Nina was thrilled to be belonging to this particular club. She would have signed up for it having heard of the name only let alone having met the other members, the most agreeable fellow-club-members she could have thought of. That the proceedings came along with clever catch-phrases was for her the icing on the cake. Had she considered it a little further she would even had recognized that what these geriatrics were actually building a society around had everything to do with preserving ones healthy individuality, in preserving their emotional well-being. And after everything said and done she was ready to take part in the stoic gambling, roll the dice Jack was placing in her palm ceremoniously and cement her friendship with the elderly men.

There was only one little problem though, one which Nina ironically, was presently despising. She had no prosthetic members to speak of. No dentures, glass eyes, or ear-pieces to gamble with. She was grudgingly, resentfully, physically whole. I don’t even have any fake manicure-nails or hair-extensions to bet with. Crap! Nina thought to herself angrily. I was actually looking forward to this. With that thought, she turned around to Jack and made to give back the two ivory dice.

“I’m sorry to have wasted your time but I don’t see any way for me to be an ‘Amor Fati’ club affiliate. I cannot gamble with prosthetic members because I don’t have any. I’ve been racking my brains to come up with something but there is nothing. All mine” she said pointing up and down herself.

“But surely, that is not a problem”, Arthur offered quietly. “It doesn’t have to be a strictly physical prosthetic part that you gamble with. Something which fits the description and is part of your person will do”, he continued.

 “Meaning?” Nina asked expectantly.

“I will provide you a portrayal of what a prosthetic part feels like and you can then think of whether you happen to have one in your possession. It doesn’t even have to be presented to us; just the knowledge of its existence will suffice. So, let’s see. A prosthetic part is something artificial that has been created in replication of an actual, natural, preexisting missing part in order to assist us in pursuing a customary existence and to appear as ordinary to others. The fake limb, of course, never replicating or replacing the missing, actual part in entirety. In fact we can still feel the missing limb as existing even though it has long been removed”, Arthur said attentively.

“Yes, yes. Let’s recap then”, offered Jack. “Think of something that you have lost about yourself that is evident to others as still existing and you can still feel the traces of. Something important which you have had to replace with a back-up that doesn’t work quite as well”. A moment’s silence fell about the dirty alleyway, which was increasingly being bathed in the warm, midday sunlight.

“Well?” asked Friedrich.

Nina was thinking hard. Her brain hummed and buzzed burning the small remainder of her breakfast in the attempt as it shuffled through its files and projected all the memories it could come up with at such short notice. A fragmented, incoherent movie of her life fast-forwarded in her brain. Would this qualify as a comedy or a tragedy, I wonder? Nina thought to herself. Cinematography aside though, she was drawing a nice, clean blank.

“Well?” Friedrich asked again. It would soon be lunch-time and there was nothing in the world that could compel Friedrich to forego lunch. We all have our priorities with breakfast, lunch and dinner being Friedrich’s.

And that’s when it hit her; the baby sister of the revelation that had sneakily crept up at her right after she had been rudely shoved out of a beautifully smelling kitchen. And it hit her with a baseball bat. “Integrity”, she said sternly. “My integrity. I don’t have it anymore though you wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at me”, she announced. Tom nodded his head in agreement after taking a very professional, albeit impromptu, examination of her teeth and ear cavities.

“I walk around trying to look confident and whole, but it is just a mask. I have forgotten who I am. I have lost my integrity and what I have replaced it with is mostly random pieces and images from my environment that seem to fit somewhat only never exactly”, she said staring at the ground.  The words became official realizations as they phrased themselves and spilled out of her mouth in small, sad sentences.

“Sounds perfect!” Friedrich proclaimed happily. Lunch would be on time as usual.

Jack rattled the two dice lovingly in his fist a couple of times and then threw them onto the wooden drawer top. “Six” he announced right before they stopped rolling. Everyone huddled closer to attest to the result. The dice had rolled an eleven.

The men slowly brought themselves backwards again and focused on Nina expectantly. Nina grabbed the dice and started shaking them noisily inside her hands. “Is what I am betting my integrity or lack thereof?” she asked Jack.

“Let’s go for integrity. And if you win, you get it back”, he answered her sternly. Nina made to protest at the inconsistency of such a decree but Jack continued before she had expressed any of her assertions. “As I have already told you, we make our own rules here at the ‘Amor Fati’ club. And they tend to be very flexible” he said smiling.

Nina felt like hugging the sweet, old man but she had dice to roll; and roll the dice is what she did, yelling “Seven” as soon as she had released them onto the drawer-set, forgetting to breathe for the entirety of the effort in absolute communion with her fellow associates watching the worn, revered cubes rolling against the wooden surface shortly before resting side by side, round dots haling the sunlight. Seven round dots in total to be exact.

Seven black dots and nine gasps were produced at that moment and then complete silence followed by an abrupt, wheezing cough from Friedrich.

“You can have your integrity back, then”, Arthur said maintaining his composure.  Everyone else stood silent around her. Nina struggled to retain her stoic collectedness in accordance with the ‘Amor Fati’ rules as well but she was new to the club and too young to achieve such mastery of emotion so she couldn’t help but keep a small tear from rolling slowly down her cheek and then disappearing into the fibers of her sweater turning the spot where it had disappeared burgundy, a round, wine-red spot in a sea of crimson. As sweet as young women crying with emotion can be Nina felt nothing but a little shame at breaking the club rules so early into her initiation and making her fellow club members uncomfortable as she was guessing they would have been, although showing no such confirmation in their glances towards her which were filled with sympathy.

“Well, since lunch-time is approaching and I am fairly certain Friedrich cannot wait another second, today’s club meeting will have to be adjourned until next week. Same time, same place everyone. James make sure to take your medication so you won’t forget”, Jack said firmly, breaking the uncomfortable silence. As everyone started to rearrange themselves into achieving any kind of movement away from the alley he turned to Nina kindly and patted her on the back.

“Can I come with you?” she asked him with a sigh. “I seem to be a bit lost at the moment.”                             

 “I’m afraid not Nina” he told her calmly, looking very thoughtful. “I’m fairly certain that you’ll have to find your own way.”

Nina’s heart sunk as soon as he finished his sentence. Her stomach started to suddenly pulsate with pain. It felt like it was filling with hot, burning liquid, pressing against the walls and attempting to burst free. Her feet abruptly felt very light, as if she had to run in order to avoid an invisible upcoming danger. The dirty bricks around her appeared sharp and pulsating in and out of view. And together with all this emotional turmoil she felt the unmistakable twitches of tears coming alongside the accompanying wobble around her mouth that seemed to be getting worse with each breath that she drew. She felt escalating pain alongside a strange sense of freedom, the kind of freedom that came from not belonging with anyone which was something that she was not quite certain she had been looking for.

Nina turned her head to face away from Jack, Tom and Walt’s anxious faces - the three men falling back to see her off - and stared towards the end of the alley where a regal house with bay windows stood imposingly tranquil and still. On the inside of the windows she could see heavy, pine-green curtains drawn to block any view of the interior. Nina composed herself yet again, not wishing to add any new burgundy markings on her sweater and turned around smiling at the three men. “I could ask for information at that house over there”, she said while pointing at the impressive, velvet curtains. “Maybe they’ll know where I need to go. If I’m lucky, they might even know Dr. Stingworth” she continued with poise.

“Who is Dr. Brickwork?” Tom asked looking very confused.

“My dentist”, Nina replied matter-of-factly.

At that statement the three men nodded at her in agreement. Walt looked somewhat unconvinced though. “That boy living over there in that house…” he said reproachfully, shaking his head. “Not firing on all cylinders.” Nina stifled a laugh. Somehow she found such an individual fitting perfectly into these surroundings.

 “I will be fine, don’t worry about me. I have had my fair bit of experience with crazy. So much so that I’m beginning to suspect I will miss it when it runs out. So, any last advice?” she requested.

 “Work hard, have fun, make mistakes and keep a back-up plan”, Jack said pointing his finger theatrically at Nina.

“Always tell the truth; it sounds a lot more exotic and unbelievable than anything you can invent. People will think you manipulative and scheming. They will revere and acknowledge you without any effort on your part” said Walt staring dreamily into the distance.

“Oh… not exactly what I meant by ‘advice’ but thank you. I will try to remember that”, said Nina and made to walk toward the house at the end of the street and away from the ‘Amor Fati’ club and the group of old men she had grown so fond of.

“And another thing…” Walt said a little louder towards her direction. “Don’t dye your hair”.