Motti Read Online Free Page A

happened, even if we’re not always paying attention to them. In any case, all sorts of unfounded stuff makes it into in the newspaper, maybe someone makes those things up in bed at night too.
    The King of Dogs? But seriously! More reasonable, though not by much, is that their visitor was the incarnation of the first Laika. The one in space. She became the intergalactic prophet of a highly advanced race, nothing like the sort of alien we’d think up. Such strange things, strange and unthinkable things, happen in this world, why not this? Every weird story, however juvenile, can come true if we just wait long enough. If we just think up enough stories, logic dictates that one of them will turn out to be true in the end. Such is the power of statistics, Motti thought, sleep already lost to him, and now he got out of bed again and went to the living room, then came back and turned on the light, turned it off and walked to the refrigerator, didn’t find anything of interest inside, went to the living room and again sat in the chair next to the wall, and then his cheek grew cold pressed against the white paint and the base coat and then the plaster, the cinderblocks, the plaster on the other side, the paint on the other side, the other life twitching there. If Motti’s brain were made out of gears and tiny screws and other mechanical elements like an old watch that someone slaved over for ages, anonymously, if his brain were like this, a single perfect click would have burst out then from the fragile mechanism and echoed through the apartment. Since his brain was not like this, however, a very, very long exhalation, almost a moan, came out of his mouth instead, and his body slackened ever so slightly.

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    But, after all, if there are ghosts and gods and sudden rescues, and if there are powerful and wonderful beings out in the universe, then why can’t there be a prophet, and if there’s a prophet, then why not a messenger, and if there are messengers, why shouldn’t Laika, his Laika, why shouldn’t she be one of them, what impressive and important adventures she’d have to look forward to. She’ll save everyone. Motti too. She’ll rescue homeless animals, punctured laboratory animals with electric wires hanging out of the holes drilled into them, animals about to be made into food, animals abused by children. In the end, thanks to her, there will be a great fellowship of all living things. That is to say, the great fellowship that already exists, but that we refuse to see and recognize, will be revealed. Motti will have a role as well, he imagines, laughing at himself. Even in your wildest dreams (he laughs), even in your most unrealistic visions, you’re so small and petty. Still, you must have a role, huh? As if you do so very much in your real life. (For all his defects, Motti is not lacking in self-criticism.)

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    How great is the need to believe, even to know with certainty, that there is someone above us who oversees, who determines, who keeps a watchful eye on every deed. To know that there is a father, an evil father even, just so long as he’s there. Just so we’ll have a director and navigator, someone keeping tabs on our thoughts, and to whom we must eventually answer, be it willingly or not. Because the world hurries by so quickly, hurries downhill, help, and everything is irreversible, understand? Irreversible. And how can it be that all the way to the top of the pyramid there are only more people just like us, who tinker hopelessly through days and nights, stitching together the plots of their lives patch after patch; only one fear in us is greater than the fear of being caught, and that’s the fear of not being caught, of falling down without a rescuer, all the way down, and there’s no bottom.
    So we invent limits. So we push at them and hope for a firm hand to hold the leash, even if we choke a little here and there, even if we don’t know how to