Bardo or Not Bardo

II. GLOUCHENKO

Brass horns. They can send a very deep note over an enormous distance, across the valley when there are mountains and a valley, when there is a rocky landscape, full of abrupt fractures and sparse grasses. That’s what we hear first. Lamaist, Tibetan horns. That’s how the book begins. It’s an unusual sound, but one heeded without reserve. Straightaway we know that this vibration is a part of ordinary life and death. We like it immediately. It invades the world, the body’s bones, flesh and images and even the dead mired in the body’s folds, and it is soothing. That is what the first, the very first, sound is like. Soon after, a collective murmur arises. It spreads nearby, as if it were taking place within an assembly more interested in long prayers than anecdotes or pointless narrations. The voices are indecipherable. A ceremony is underway, in a language that does not seem to be our own. In any case, we understand it a bit less than our own.

Then comes a silence.

This happens several times: horns thunder, voices blend into an incomprehensible address, then comes a silence.

It’s beautiful.

I then hear the voice of the soldier Glouchenko, and this music, these noises, diminish. Soon they stop entirely.

“Is someone there?” Glouchenko asks. “Did someone say something?” (Silence.) “What are those. .”

He gropes around, an iron cup scrapes on a shelf and topples over into the void. It clatters violently against the ground.

“They’ve cut off the power, the bastards.” (Silence.) “Hey! Is anyone there?”

No answer. Absolute darkness surrounds Glouchenko. So thick, so black, it feels like ink running through your fingers. Glouchenko doesn’t dare move. He’s never felt at ease in the dark, he’s a little potbellied, not very skilled with his body, he’s afraid of causing a disaster. He wipes his moist hands on his pants.

The chorus of murmurs picks back up. It’d be difficult to determine its point of origin, where in space. It is simply there, in the background to the dark. One voice is now detaching itself from the rest, becoming more distinct. The language hasn’t changed: still more foreign than our own.

I don’t think I can say I recognize this voice, since it has been depersonalized by the demands of the ritual, and flattened by its journey through the dark space. Despite all that, some of its inflections might remind me of something. A long time ago, I met a man who wished to dedicate himself to the exploration of magical universes. That man’s name was Schmunck, like mine, with a different first name than my own, Baabar. My first name is Mario, but that’s not important. Let’s say that the voice I’m identifying here is Schmunck’s. So as not to complicate the story, we’ll say that I recognize it. It’s a solemn, controlled voice, like those that frequently resonate in monastery meditation rooms.

“Oh noble son,” the officiant says, “you who are named Glouchenko, the time has come for you to find the Way into the Light. Your breathing has just ceased, your body has already begun to cool. In the life you have left behind, you received a military education, since you were an artilleryman, but you also received a religious education, long ago when you were infatuated with Buddhism. You spent several months in an ashram and were told many times about the Clear Light. Now that you are currently neither living nor dead, wandering through the Bardo, which is to say the world that serves as a link between life and rebirth, you will come into contact with the Clear Light.

“Come to your senses, noble son, you who are named Glouchenko. Remember the lessons the priests passed on to you. Prepare yourself. I am here to help you. I am the monk speaking into your cadaver’s ear. I am going to guide you to your confrontation with the Clear Light. You are now going to find yourself with a choice: turn to enlightenment and become Buddha, like many brave souls before you, or pursue the foolish and painful wandering of the living, who travel ceaselessly from birth to death, then from death to rebirth, without consolation or respite. .”

“What the. .” Glouchenko says.

In the established silence, he cautiously advances two or three steps. He has no landmarks, save for the iron cup that fell in front of him earlier. The cup bumps against his foot. It gives him some small confidence. He pushes it as he moves.

“There’s a guy talking somewhere in the dark,” he states.

The cup rolls. It slips out of his reach. He shuffles carefully right and left, but can’t find it. He’s lost the cup. He stops walking.

“Hey, talking guy!” he shouts. “Show yourself! Did you turn off the dorm lights? Well? I can’t see a thing, it’s darker than night in here. .” (Silence.) “And what’s this cadaver business you keep talking about? I heard you mention a cadaver. I’m not deaf. What’s with this cadaver and Clear Light business, huh?” (Silence.) “Hey, boys! Where’d you all go? Hey! Where’d you all go, you lousy. .” (Silence.)

Glouchenko has come to a halt. He is not normally a cowardly sort, but he is disoriented, and afraid of bumping into an obstacle, or being swallowed by a hole again. By an ordinary hole or an abyss.

“Or maybe,” he mutters, “there’s been a short circuit, and the lazy slobs are pretending to sleep so they won’t have to go down to the basement. Hey, guy who was talking a minute ago, would it kill you to go change the fuses? Are you pretending to be asleep now too?” (Silence.) “Fine. I get it. Glouchenko has to take care of it himself.”

He starts walking again. If we listen, we can recreate his slow exploration of the dark. He collides with an obstacle. He lets out an exclamation of pain. He mutters.

“Dammit,” he says. “You really can’t see anything. Finding the meter’s not going to be easy. There must be an electric meter near a door or in the basements. A circuit breaker. Gotta find a door, to start. A door or some stairs.”

In the distance, the splendid lamaist horns sound out. The officiant’s voice follows. It is suddenly clear and distinct, going straight into the skull as if it sprung directly from memory.

“Oh noble son, Glouchenko,” says Schmunck. “I repeat this into your cadaver’s ear, I will not stop repeating it over the next few days, before a photograph of you, or your clothes once your body has been taken away, or a chair in which you used to sit: the time has come for you to find the Way into the Light.”

Schmunck’s profound bass begins to grow weaker.

The speech is becoming an unintelligible rumination.

“I can’t find a thing,” Glouchenko complains. “No doors, no stairs. .”

I suppose Glouchenko advances by groping at the space in front of him. That doesn’t stop collisions. He bumps into things standing in his way that had gone undetected by his hands. Low pieces of furniture, stools-turned-nightstands. Sometimes he snags objects by accident. The objects fall and break. These incidents exasperate him.

“What is this place?” he grumbles. “The walls don’t have windows. Those jerks must’ve moved me while I was sleeping. They took me out of the hospital dormitory, they moved me here, to this. . I can’t figure out what this place is. . They must have waited for me to start snoring, I mean I am a pretty heavy sleeper. . Good job, boys! That’s a smart prank!” (Silence.) “Unbelievable how dark it is!” (Silence.) “They’ve been hiding somewhere the whole time. . They’re watching me, laughing quietly, those idiots. .”

He shouts.

“So you think this is funny?”

I didn’t respond, but, to tell the truth, I didn’t think it was terribly funny. A little, certainly, but not terribly so. If I had had the chance to exchange a few words with Glouchenko, I would have preferred to reason with him without laughing in his face. I would have tried to make him admit that he was not the victim of a joke by his barrack mates, and that the situation was, at heart, much more serious. But, restricted to my role as an outside commentator, I had no way to make myself heard to him. Any communication between us was out of the question. I could certainly establish audible contacts, but not with him. Only with the manager of Studio One-Five-Zero-Nine. We spoke to each other over the radio when the waves transmitted.

I was on duty. I’m a reporter. I get sent to places my colleagues don’t want to go, in general from fear of boredom rather than misfortune or death. I’m the youngest, so it’s normal for me to get the drudgework. And now I’ve been assigned to report on the Bardo. I’m not complaining. The management decides where I’ll go, and I obey. Everything must be explored, so that the radio public is not ignorant of any of the strange nooks and crannies in the world. On my professional license, there is my name, Mario Schmunck, followed by a mention of my grandiloquent way of thinking. Mario Schmunck, special correspondent. They could have simply written that I’m a journalist.

“Are you receiving me?” I said. “Hello, can you hear me? Am I on air?”

Before my departure, I’d been set up with a device in my ear, and another in my mouth, near my uvula, supposedly so it wouldn’t get in the way. Communicating was a nuisance. It lacked power, parasites often made it inaudible. The Bardo is a part of the world, but wonders of technology don’t work in it. Since I’d arrived, my wireless systems had been malfunctioning.

“Hello?” I repeated. “Studio One-Five-Zero-Nine, can you hear me?”

I got a response.

“Good,” I said. “I’ll start then. Four, three, two, one, hello. Mario Schmunck here, special envoy for the Off-Shore-Info Broadcast. I’ve been asked to do a report on what’s going on here.” (A pause.) “We are currently in the Bardo. What is the Bardo? It’s not easy to define without resorting to complete nonsense. Since I’m addressing non-specialists, I’ll simplify. Let’s say that it’s a world before life and after death. It’s a floating state in which those who have just died awaken. A state or a world. Floating, either way.”

A pause.

“At the moment, it’s very dark,” says Mario Schmunck. “There’s neither up nor down, left nor right, nor any measurable flow of time. In any case, that’s the first impression people have of it. People starting their walk through the Bardo.” (A pause.) “Him, for example. This man here, this freshly deceased man is named Glouchenko. He can’t see a thing. He’s moving slowly, cautiously, through the shadows, but he’s a bit clumsy, and keeps bumping into obstacles. He’s already knocked over a stool, banged into a crate serving as a nightstand. He destabilized a shelf with a swing of his shoulder. He’s basically blind. Now, he’s heading toward a military trunk heaped with utensils and tableware. He’s going right over it. He’s going to trample it head-on.”

The impact is violent. Some of the tableware is dashed to the ground. The aluminum dishes bounce and roll away.

“Dammit dammit shit goddammit!” Glouchenko shouts.

Several fragile objects are in pieces. Vials, phials. Medical equipment. Glouchenko howls. He’s hurt himself, the shadows annoy him.

“He’s back in the thick of it,” Mario Schmunck comments. “He hit his right knee and toppled over, his arms swinging through the void. He’s hurt. It’d be better if he just stood still, but the darkness puts him on edge, so he’s agitated. He hopes he can find the basement. He’d like to place his hand on a circuit breaker, flip a switch, and get the power back on. So he started looking for a stairwell, some sort of passage down to the cellar. He has hardly any doubts about where he is. He’s certain he’s in a hospital dormitory or barracks. Barracks because he comes from a military universe, he was a second-class artilleryman before his death, he’d been sent to the equatorial front to civilize the Indian populations still hostile to the market economy. A hospital because his life ended in a medical post. . in a nameless village, invisible in the forest. . Anyway. Moving on. This Glouchenko doesn’t think for a second he’s nowhere, and that he’s just begun his journey through the Bardo. He’s convinced there’s a power outage. He doesn’t understand that he’s dead.”

Glouchenko makes his way through the scattered objects. Not incautiously, he shuffles his feet on the ground as he walks. He doesn’t have shoes, he is wary of glass shards, he doesn’t lift his legs. A metal plate accompanies him for a meter. He’s not walking on a wood floor. In any case, there aren’t any creaking boards.

“He doesn’t understand that he’s dead, no, not at all,” Mario Schmunck insists. “Like most of us, such a thought doesn’t even occur to him. The information has been given to him, however. He receives advice and explanations from a man speaking to him from the world of the living.” (A pause.) “You know, it seems quite simple, from the outside looking in, to pay attention to what a monk is murmuring in your cadaver’s ear. But in fact, no, it’s not so simple. You keep on. You imagine you’re in the dark, you’re still alive, and you’re the victim of a bad prank. You refuse to believe the evidence.”

Glouchenko is obviously hesitating in the darkness. His steps are heavy. You can easily imagine his clumsy movements, his crude, almost animal, stature, his absence of grace.

“He’s like a deaf man being serenaded with patience and compassion,” Mario Schmunck comments. “This dead man, instead of preparing for his encounter with the Clear Light, is looking for a light switch! He keeps his hands on the wall as he walks, his only thought getting down to the basement. His name is Glouchenko, he is thirty-five years old, he led a normal life. .”

Far away, the Tibetan horns trumpet anew, and, much closer, a gong tolls. It emits a melodious, prolonged note. A superb note. It would make anyone want to join a monastery to hear it again, at any hour, day or night.

During this time, the special correspondent consults his file on Glouchenko. He turns the pages of a spiral notebook. Details abound, like in a police dossier. Mario Schmunck came prepared.

“I’ll summarize Glouchenko’s life,” Mario Schmunck announces. “Primary school, professional school, military service. .”

The paper swishes as the journalist wields it.

“I’m just going to skim through this,” says Mario Schmunck. “Obviously, I’ll have to pass over some details. . Delivery driver after the army. . Buddhism attracts him momentarily. . He pursues an education in a lamasery for eleven months, as if he were destined to become a monk, then gives it up. . Often changed jobs between twenty-two and twenty-five. . Duck killer on a duck farm. . Gang of friends. . Bad crowds. . Dropout laborers, subversive groups. . Radical propaganda, egalitarist speeches. . Participates in a supposedly revolutionary heist. . Eight years of reeducation with a strict diet. . Prisoner’s medal for an endurance competition. . New gang of friends from the camps. . Social reintegration. . Chicken killer on a chicken farm. . Then he forgets all that, he enlists in Auxiliary Forces. . He’s sent to export democracy to an equatorial district. . Forests, swamps, creeper vines, giant centipedes, malaria, Cocambo Indians to subdue. . In reality, he doesn’t have the time to get to know the country, or murder a single indigenous person. Just arrived at base camp, he helps unload a seaplane. . A supply-crate explodes. . Biological weapons, apparently. . Glouchenko catches a deadly plague. . It was thought he had been vaccinated before leaving, but he hadn’t. And then, yesterday, he died. .” (A pause.) “A completely unremarkable life. . Short, mediocre, incoherent. .”

I don’t consider it useful to always say what I think, because it’s often shocking.

But I say this.

“A shit life,” I say.

A pause. Distant horns.

Gong. Silence.

Gong.

Now, the one heard is the voice of the officiant, the voice of Baabar Schmunck, the lama. It never stopped, but we weren’t paying attention for a while. And now, we hear it. The admirable vibration of the gong accompanies it.

“Oh Glouchenko,” Schmunck says peacefully, “oh noble son, at one time in your past life, we gave you an elementary religious education. And even if you drifted away from us, after having been near to us, you cannot turn from the Way now. Remember what you learned.” (Gong.) “Accept your dissolution into the Void and the Clear Light when the time comes. Renounce existence, consciousness, individuality.” (Gong.) “If you do not, you will have to walk for forty-nine days, assailed by frightening visions, only to be reincarnated as an animal or human. A porcupine, for example, or a monkey.” (Gong.) “A porcupine that sniffs stupidly or a howler monkey. For example.” (Gong.) “Listen to my counsel, Glouchenko. Do not let your confused mind influence your decisions.”

The voice fades. Schmunck continues speaking, but the stream of sound dies out.

“Do not turn away from the Path,” the voice picks up again.

“Hey!” Glouchenko calls out. “Hey, you, talking guy! Where are you hiding?”

Glouchenko freezes. He cups an ear.

“Weird,” he mutters. “Sometimes it’s like he’s yelling right next to me, and sometimes it’s like he’s whispering a hundred meters away. . In either case, I can’t figure out a single damn word he’s. .” (Pause.) “It’s like I’m in a dream. That has to be it; I’m having a nightmare. .” (Pause.) “Wait, what am I saying. If I were dreaming, I’d be seeing things. . And there’s nothing here. Only darkness. . It’s obvious that. .”

He starts moving again. He extends his arms. With his hand or his foot, it’s unknown, but he touches a telephone. One of those old models from the interwar years, with a round dial and fork, and a mechanical bell that jingles when you shake it.

“What’s this? A phone!” Glouchenko is astonished. “I wonder if it still works?”

He shakes it.

“Sounds like it,” he says.

He picks up the receiver. He gets a dial tone. He tries to use the device by feeling around. He mumbles. The bell jingles no matter what he does.

“Well, it’s plugged in,” Glouchenko notes. “If I could just dial a number. . There must be a switchboard. . It’s usually zero-zero. . Oh goddammit! How can you do anything when it’s so. . Is this hole a zero or a nine? I’ll just try it, maybe. .”

The dial turns, returns with a scrape to its original position, turns, returns with a scrape. From the device, after the tone, come the echoes of a tantric ceremony, skewed by minute electroacoustic disturbances. There are horns, conches, collective prayers, chimes, whispers. No distinct voice stands out.

“Hello, can you hear me?” Glouchenko shouts. “Glouchenko here. Is there anyone at the switchboard?” (Faint murmurs, less and less perceptible chimes. Everything fades away.) “No, they don’t hear me. I got a wrong number, of course. .”

He hangs up. Silence surrounds him. He doesn’t know what to do.

“You bastards!” he suddenly screams. “Turn the lights back on right now! That’s enough, it’s over! This isn’t funny anymore!” (A pause.) “Come on, boys! The joke’s gone on long enough! Turn the power back on!”

A beat.

He picks the telephone back up. He listens to the dial tone. He slams the receiver down violently.

“Bastards!” he mutters.

Then we hear him take a seat next to the phone. He’s made his decision. He sits, he gropes around, he pulls on the wire, he moves the jingling device. He places it against his leg.

He feels tired.

“Fine, might as well stay here and wait for someone to call me,” he says. “I don’t feel too good, I should rest for a bit. Later on, I’ll untangle this wire, if I have time. The thing’s all twisted. .”

In the distance, an extreme distance, the gongs and horns cease. For several moments, there is absolutely no sound.

Then we are startled. With how intense the silence and darkness are, the officiant’s voice takes us by surprise.

“Oh noble son, Glouchenko,” the officiant articulates, “give yourself over to reason, do not believe what you see, the colors and forms around you are but pure illusion. .”

Glouchenko doesn’t react. He’s heard nothing. He wasn’t startled.

“Well,” he mutters, “someone’ll call me eventually.” (A pause.) “Whoa, what’s happening? I feel all washed out. I’m just completely tired, all of a sudden.” (A pause.) “I’m going to wait for them to turn the lights back on. Until then, I’ll just take a short nap.”

“Oh Glouchenko,” says Baabar Schmunck, “the skies now appear to you as a dark, navy blue, a divine blue light, marvelous and brilliant, springs forth in your direction. Do not be surprised by it, noble son.” (Gong.) “Do not fear it, even if you are barely able to take in the view.” (Gong.) “Place your faith in it.” (Gong.) “This light is meant to welcome you. Just beside it throbs a drab white glow. Do not be drawn to it, for that is not the light of grace.” (Gong.)

The voice is weak, solemn, pacifying, but comes from too far away. I mentioned before that I thought I recognized the voice as Schmunck’s. I’m less sure of that now. I wouldn’t swear on it. Besides, it’s a detail that only concerns me and my memories, and I’m not important here. Only Glouchenko here is important. Only Glouchenko here is at the center of the dark unknown.

“Do not be attached, noble son, do not be weak,” exhorts the officiant’s voice, whether or not that officiant is Baabar Schmunck. “Do not look at the white glow that does not hurt your eyes, look instead at the shining blue light that blinds you, look at it with a deep faith. Try to dissolve into its halo. Try to melt into the rainbow that. .”

Schmunck, or a monk like Schmunck, starts describing the monochrome rainbow, and we would like to know more, but the voice slowly fades away. We would like to know more and we concentrate on the absence of sound, as if there were an explanation coming that would satisfy us. But silence reigns.

For a long moment, silence reigns.

Then the telephone’s sudden ringing thunders through the void, strong, unquelled by the darkness, and, this time, it startles everyone.

Glouchenko has a spasm of alarm. He was dozing.

“Those lousy bastards!” he growls. “They’re good at timing their shots! They don’t even leave me alone during my nap!”

On the second ring, Glouchenko picks up.

“Hello?” says a clear voice.

“I’m listening,” says Glouchenko, angry. “Glouchenko here. Who’s on the line?”

“That you, Glouchenko? Can you hear me? It’s me, Babloïev. Can you hear me? It’s Babloïev on the line.”

“Babloïev?” Glouchenko hesitates.

“Yes,” says the other.

Glouchenko lets out a huge sigh.

“Stop kidding around, boys!” he says. “Babloïev went out with the munitions crate, the other day. When we were unloading the seaplane. He got messily strewn all over the water. You know that he. . Why would you joke about the dead like that? That’s not right. . Why are you messing with Babloïev? He went back to camp in three different plastic bags, poor guy.”

“Two,” corrects the other.

A pause.

Since we are there as well, I explain that Babloïev and Glouchenko are sitting four or five meters away from each other. They don’t see each other, they’re using the telephone to talk, though in reality they could do perfectly fine without it. Their voices travel through the wire as electric pulses, but, at the same time, they traverse the open air in the short distance separating them. So we are in the presence of a blind, four-voiced dialogue. It’s a trivial detail, but I explain it anyway.

Glouchenko grumbles.

“This isn’t right,” he says. “You ought to have even the smallest modicum of respect. Moving me to a different barrack isn’t all that clever, but this is something else entirely. Stop mocking a dead man, boys. A dead hero slain in action.”

“What are you talking about, Glouchenko? I’m right here, on the other end of the line. We’re together. I saw you sleeping. I wanted to talk to you.”

“It’s a pretty good imitation,” Glouchenko says. “It’s really like it’s him talking.” (A beat.) “Listen, I’m sick of this darkness. It’s gone on for hours now, so tell your friends that. . (A beat.) No, there’s no way you’re Babloïev.”

“Oh, come on, Glouchenko,” Babloïev snaps, “it’s like you don’t even realize. .”

“Huh?” says Glouchenko.

“Are you thick or what? Where do you think you are? Pull yourself together, Glouchenko! Look around you! Do you still not get it?”

“Get what?” Glouchenko is losing his patience. “Do you think it’s funny to talk to me like I’m the last idiot alive? I get very well what’s going on here, thank you very much. And what’s going on is that you’ve cut the power! So leave me alone!”

“Fine,” says Babloïev. “I’ll explain it to you. Both of us are dead. Me, from the explosion. And you, from sickness. We’re dead. Right now we’re floating in the Bardo.”

A beat.

“In the what?” Glouchenko asks, calmer.

“The Bardo. The intermediary world. We’re going to float and walk around here for forty-nine days.”

“Cut the crap,” says Glouchenko. “You’re barking up the wrong tree if you think you can just jerk me around. You’ll never get me to believe anything you say. . I can prove I’m not dead, because. .” (A pause.) “I would’ve noticed something like that. .” (A pause.) “So tell me, guy with Babloïev’s voice! Was it you who cut the power?”

“The power? What are you. . Listen to me, Glouchenko. There’s no more power for you. No more light. You’re dead, full stop, that’s all. There’s no more light, or absence of light. That’s what it’s like here. And it would serve you well to. .”

“That’s enough!” Glouchenko says. “If you want to scare someone, go find another victim! Babloïev or not, leave me alone!”

He slams the receiver onto its stand. The telephone jingles. The communication is finished.

Exactly at the same moment, the echoes from the religious ceremony return. Horns, gongs, buddhic mutterings. When they reach our ears, they seem exhausted from their long journey.

Glouchenko perceives nothing.

“Those bastards are trying to scare me,” he says between his teeth. “It looks like they don’t know who they’re dealing with.” (A pause.) “Hey, boys! If you’re looking for another gullible village idiot, you’re barking up the wrong tree!” (A beat.) “I’m going back to sleep.”

A beat. He starts shouting again.

“Glouchenko’s not the idiot you’re looking for!” (A beat.) “I’m beat. The bastards’ve really worn me out.”

Babloïev is no longer expressing his thoughts. Let’s say that he’s not on the other end of the line anymore. Let’s say that he’s not anywhere anymore. If everything is nothing but an illusion, Babloïev has no reason to continue communicating with Glouchenko.

“Since there’s nothing to do here,” Glouchenko announces, “besides sleeping and waiting for something to happen. If they hear me snoring, maybe they’ll decide to stop fooling around.”

He doesn’t start snoring immediately, but he does doze off without delay.

He is surrounded by stray deep notes, murmurs he can’t distinguish. The officiant’s voice travels to him, but he doesn’t hear that either.

“Oh noble son,” says the voice, “soon you will be in the presence of a magnificent green light, an extremely rich emerald green, whose splendor cannot be described. Do not fear this light, take refuge in it. Renounce everything, do not be attached to what you still believe to be your memory or consciousness. Leave that behind, abandon it. Accept dissolution in this radiant green, join the light in which you will finally be no more. . Do not hesitate, Glouchenko. . The moment of your dissolution has come. . Plunge into that light to extinguish yourself. .”

A beat.

The voice is nothing more than a miniscule vibration. Then it vibrates no more.

Then, close by, the crackling of an acoustic system breaks the silence. Mario Schmunck is with us once more, and when I say us I count myself as well, obviously. Mario Schmunck the special correspondent, the commentator, the journalist on a mission.

“Studio One-Five-Zero-Nine, do you copy?” asks Mario Schmunck.

I had returned to the scene, also known as the Bardo. I continued my report for the Off-Shore-Info Broadcast, and, after a break, I spoke once more from the intermediary world. The radio silence had lasted for just an instant, few listeners had noticed it, but, in Glouchenko’s existence, two whole weeks had flown by. In my own, that is to say my existence, I don’t know. I’m ignorant on the subject of which system of measurement I’ve been hooked up to since I started my broadcast. I possessed among my meager special-envoy equipment a glow-in-the-dark calendar to keep track of Glouchenko’s time. Fifteen days had already passed for Glouchenko. But time was vaguer on my end. Was it fifteen days for me too? Or a few minutes? No one had told me before I left. I was about to ask about my union rights, and maybe even complain some, when management warned me that I was live on air. I swallowed my doubts, my demands. After all, the difference between days and minutes hardly mattered to my well-being.

“Mario Schmunck here,” I said. “Ladies and gentlemen, listeners of Off-Shore-Info, thank you for tuning in. I am speaking to you once more from the Bardo, the floating world awaiting the deceased. Glouchenko is now about thirty-three days away from reincarnation. The shadows around him are atrociously thick. This is the stage on which Glouchenko performs. Hmm. . perform? Actually, he’s been moving much less now. He’s less agitated. He’s sitting next to the phone and spends most of his time sleeping. That’s how his days have gone. Day fifteen. . Sixteen. . There’s a stopwatch grafted to my wrist. . Seventeen. . The days pass. .” (A beat.) “Not long ago, there was another guy nearby named Babloïev, an old army buddy. They’d occasionally talk to each other.”

I got a call from the studio. I was being received poorly. I was asked to articulate better.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll continue. Babloïev got in touch with Glouchenko over the telephone once or twice a day, but Glouchenko eventually couldn’t bear Babloïev’s explanations anymore. After a while he stopped answering.” (A beat.) “Glouchenko is a typical dead person, all in all. Someone is trying to guide him, read him instructions, drown him in advice. And he remains deaf. He doesn’t obey. So then someone arranges for him to have an interlocutor on his own level, a companion in the dark to dot all his i’s. . What a waste! He’s a typical dead person, stubborn, narrow-minded, dissatisfied with his lot, and, of course, unable to utilize the knowledge he received while alive. Even though he learned quite a lot about death when he was in the monastery! He was told about it day and night. But he. .” (A beat.) “See, I have some ideas about Buddhism too. . I’ve read the Bardo Thödol, like everyone else. . Now, knowing exactly what I’ve retained. . If I were suddenly in Glouchenko’s place, I wonder if. . Hello? Yes, is that you?” (A pause.) “Yes, okay.”

I’d been interrupted by the head producer. He urged me to return, post haste, to my role as objective commentator. The states of my soul with regard to tantrism had nothing to do with my reporting. I was sent there to talk about Glouchenko, not myself.

“Okay,” I said. “Got it. No personal commentary.”

Silence.

Long silence.

The sound of a gong pierces the shadows.

“Day twenty-two on the control calendar,” says Mario Schmunck. “Day twenty-three. The weeks are flying by. A limitless black thickness reigns here. Day twenty-four. Wait, there’s that gong again. It’s a safe bet that the officiant’s voice is about to break through the shadows.”

“Oh noble son!” resurfaces Schmunck’s distant voice. “The soldiers carried your body away nearly a month ago, and I have sat every morning in front of a photograph of you to speak to you. I have addressed you with patience, while you have continued wandering through the Bardo like a frightened animal. You have continued walking aimlessly, as if you possessed neither intelligence nor intuition. You did not recognize the Clear Light when confronted with it. You have not benefited from my counsel. .”

The voice, harmonious and convincing, weakens. The rebukes are non-stop, but lack power. It’s a shame, because the intonation is really quite nice. Anyone would listen to it willingly for the simple musical pleasure. Glouchenko, for his part, understands nothing. From the start, he has remained unmoved. Schmunck’s criticisms do not reach him.

“You are still locked in the heavy and painful chain of cause and effect,” the voice continues. “It is high time that you liberate yourself, Glouchenko! Make an effort, Glouchenko!”

We hear a gong again, but the sound is so diminished there’s no way of knowing whether or not we merely dreamed it.

“I’m going to stick to the facts,” Mario Schmunck says. “Glouchenko is hunkered down a short distance away from the telephone. It is, let’s see. . My calendar is telling me that this is day twenty-nine. So, Glouchenko’s been dead for four weeks already and still doesn’t know it.” (A beat.) “Between naps, he still believes the darkness is due to a power outage. . He has truly closed off all other avenues of thought on the subject. He’s waiting for his barrack mates to give up on their prank. . From time to time, he wakes up and grumbles a few severe judgments about his army brothers. He might just stay in one place forever, dozing and muttering like an idiot. .” (Distant gong.) “In The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the monks describe in detail the visions that assail every deceased person for forty-nine days, during the laborious crossing of the Bardo, but they didn’t predict that Glouchenko would sleep near an old telephone, not walking, not going anywhere. .”

Mario Schmunck has brought a copy of the Book of the Dead with him, just in case. Far be it from me to be the one to reproach him for it, mind you. I do the same thing too when I travel. I keep it in my bag. The Bardo Thödol. It’s useful reading, an investment for the worst days. He flips through it.

“At every step,” says Mario Schmunck, “before and during every trial, and also after, someone exhorts the dead to detach from the illusions of existence. You want to convince them to refuse reincarnation, pushing them toward permanent dissolution. You can’t accept the notion that someone would want to live again as a conscious individual, that someone would desire to be reborn once more. . to try their luck one more time. . It’s fine so long as you don’t insult them. . You get sarcastic because they keep trying to be reincarnated. .” (A beat.) “In fact, I don’t know if I’d be able to renounce that kind of prospect. . Diluting yourself into nothingness doesn’t seem all that appealing. . And do you know how you yourself would react? In this situation, in the dark, in fear. . What would you choose? Dissolution, or reincarnation? Nothing forever more, or a new life of suffering? For example in a frightening and despicable body? As a baboon, a chicken? A powerful mafioso?”

Strong audio feedback cuts through the space separating the inside of Mario Schmunck’s mouth from the inside of his ear.

“That’s true, I shouldn’t have done that,” the journalist admits as an aside. “Yes, I know, you’ve already warned me once. Yes. No subjective evaluations. It slipped out. Okay. No negative opinions about the system. . No, I don’t have any excuse. Okay. Won’t happen again. Yes? A review for those who’ve just tuned in? No problem, I’m on it.”

A beat.

“Off-Shore-Info, do you copy? Ladies and gentlemen, dear listeners, Mario Schmunck here. I’m back on air after a technical issue. For the people just now tuning in, I’m going to briefly list the steps of the journey the deceased follows, as they are written in the Bardo Thödol. Day one, blue light. Day two, white light. Day three, yellow light. Four, five, red, green.” (Gong.) “Then, encounters with forty-two organized into groups of five pairs. . The number is lopsided, yes, but since I’m not here to give my own personal opinions on the system, I. . Fine. So. Day seven, encounter with the deities of Knowledge, armed with curved blades, brandishing skulls full of blood, drums and trumpets made of human femurs, flags of human skin.” (Gong.) “From day eight to day fourteen, confrontation with the irritated, bloodthirsty divinities. . And then, from day fifteen to forty-nine, wretched wandering in deep shadow, in great agony, through gusts of wind, hailstorms, and wailing mobs. .”

Silence.

“At least,” Mario Schmunck says, “such a scenario unfolds when the deceased makes his way through the Bardo, not when he sleeps soundly. Glouchenko’s case is peculiar, I think. . For him, it’s already day. . Pfff! Day forty-three of his nap. .”

Silence.

Gong.

A not very strong strike of the gong, in reality, but, for some reason, this is the one that wakes Glouchenko. The soldier stirs. He yawns. He stretches.

“Wow,” says Glouchenko. “I wonder how long I was asleep. Something like an hour or two. Or maybe just five minutes. Who knows!” (A pause.) “It’s pretty quiet around here! Quiet, dark. . No one else around. . Although. . Sometimes it’s like someone’s whispering in the dark. Must be coming from another building. . Or maybe it’s just a feeling. .”

He stands back up. He stumbles as his feet find the telephone cord. The phone jingles for half a second and Glouchenko, by reflex, sits down and picks it up.

“Hello, Babloïev?” he says.

He rests the receiver on the cradle and starts muttering.

“Dammit,” he mutters. “What’s going on with me? Here I am talking to Babloïev, poor guy. . Hardly disembarked, and already sent home in a plastic bag. No time to get used to the climate, to fight the enemy. It was our own weapons that exploded in his face. . Talk about a waste! Those arsenal bastards, they’ll pack things up any which way!” (A pause.) “Wait a second, what am I doing talking to a dead man? The darkness is getting into my head. . The darkness, the stillness. . I’ve got to move. .”

He trips over metallic objects. Once again, he is walking into the inky night, his footsteps small and cautious.

“Nothing’s changed at all,” he says. “I have to go. I have to get out of here. I’m going to end up falling into a hole.” (A pause.) “The room has to have a door, no one’ll tell me different. I’ll go straight ahead.” (A pause.) “Go on, Glouchenko, you’re going to get out of here. It’s just a matter of minutes.”

“Oh noble son,” the officiant’s voice suddenly says. “Six weeks have passed, and at no moment have you concentrated your mind on the means of your liberation.” (Gong.) “You have roamed the shadows like a fearful beast, you have not taken advantage of the thousand opportunities before you to become Buddha. .” (Gong.) “Now, it is too late, Glouchenko. You are going to live again.” (Gong.) “Alas, Glouchenko, I am warning you, you are going to live again. Now, you are growing inexorably closer to your rebirth. You are going to be sucked up by a womb, you are going to be inserted into a fetus.” (Gong.) “Listen to me, Glouchenko.” (Gong.) “Try at least to have the intelligence not to enter the first womb you see, not to throw yourself into any available envelope, in order to avoid becoming an animal in your next existence.” (Gong.) “Listen to me, noble son. I am going to guide you so that you choose a womb with discernment. A human womb.”

“Hey, talker!” Glouchenko calls out. “Where are you?”

Glouchenko advances. His feet land heavily on the ground. The sound he makes, reminds us that he doesn’t have to wear shoes.

“I’m sure there was a guy whispering somewhere. .” (A pause.) “Hey! Whispering guy! Where are you hiding? Come on, greenhorn, show yourself, the jig is up!” (A pause.) “That you, Babloïev? That you, boys?”

He again advances two or three steps.

He has stubbed his toe on an iron mess kit or a grenade. He sends it rolling away. It bounces twice then wavers a moment, with an increasingly quick pendular movement, then settles.

“Listen to me well, Glouchenko,” the officiant says.

Glouchenko has stopped. He listens to the sole moving object, which then subsides. Something in the air quality suddenly catches his attention.

“Huh,” he remarks. “That’s weird.”

He sniffs.

“There’s a smell now,” he says. “That’s new.”

He’s completely still so he can inhale better.

“Smells like cat piss,” he says. “No, wait, not a cat. . Or maybe a cougar. .”

“Focus your attention, Glouchenko,” says the officiant.

“It’s wild animal piss,” says Glouchenko.

He sniffs again.

“Damn!” he exclaims. “That’s strong! That’s really fucking strong!”

“Listen to me with all your strength, noble son,” the officiant says.” (Gong.) “Soon you will have been walking for seven weeks. You are going to reach the journey’s end.” (Gong.) “Soon you will see males and females in union. You will feel a deep sympathy for them, a violent sympathy. You will be attracted to the notion of quickly entering a seed.” (Gong.) “You will want to be created by a father and a mother.” (Gong.) “Now focus your attention on what I am saying, Glouchenko.” (Gong.) “Do not let yourself be placed in any random embryo. Act with discernment. If you give yourself over to your sympathies or random chance, you risk being reincarnated as a miserable beast. You might wake up as a cockroach or a snake, or even a yak, constantly soiled by its own dung. That would be foolish, Glouchenko.” (Gong.) “But all the same, you were a human being in your past existence.”

Glouchenko doesn’t listen. He doesn’t hear. He sniffs.

“It smells like musk,” he says. “There must be stable nearby. . Hang on, no, what am I saying? It doesn’t smell like horse. . More like a zoo, a bunch of wild beasts. . Pfff! That’s really fucking strong!”

He gropes around. An indefinable object falls behind him and breaks.

“Those imbeciles brought me to a zoo. . They think they’re so funny. . It just goes on and on. . Their damn lousy joke’s gone on for hours now. Since last night, even, if I’m adding it up right. .” (A pause.) “Hey, morons! You think this is funny? Come on, it’s over now, cut it out! Turn the lights back on, now! You hear me, boys?”

He cups his ear. Not the least response.

He then starts carefully examining the air again, bit by bit, the dark air surrounding him, which is at present much hotter and much more humid than it used to be. We hear horns, the gong’s moving resonance, but all that does not currently interest Glouchenko. The smell of urine, on the other hand, mobilizes just about every one of his senses. He uses it to guide his steps. It acts like a magnet to him. He is drawn to the trail, associating it with the end of darkness, associating it with life, liberty, and deliverance.

“Mario Schmunck here,” the special correspondent subtly intervenes. “We were cut off. The station is telling me that the connection’s been reestablished. So I am speaking to you once again, directly from the Bardo, on behalf of Studio One-Five-Zero-Nine.” (A pause.) “The calendar shows that Glouchenko’s journey is nearing its end. Glouchenko has been here for almost forty-nine days. He has inexorably moved toward the place and time of his rebirth. He has not listened to any advice, he has seen nothing, he has not been terrorized by whatever may be. . To cross through the darkness, he has not ruminated on the ideas about death and the Clear Light that were given to him several years ago. He has not remembered the teaching he received, he has not counted on his instinct and his mediocre intelligence, and here is the result. .” (A pause.) “Please note that I am not judging him. Since he was tired, why would he keep himself from sleeping? When I take his place some day, I sincerely don’t know whether I myself. . What I’m about to say isn’t at all orthodox. But still, sleeping seems like a good way to escape the nightmares of the Bardo. .” (A pause.) “Yes, right, that was a personal opinion. Yes, I should have kept it to myself, but. . I promised, I know.”

At the same moment, Glouchenko lets out a sigh.

“I’m dead tired,” he says. “My legs are barely holding up. And my head, let me tell you. . My brain feels like it’s completely empty. .”

He takes several steps.

A beat.

“Hey, it looks like there’s a light over there,” he says. “Straight ahead. Yes, there’s a brighter line in the dark. Like the bottom of a door. . I’ll go that way. . That’s where the smells are coming from. . It’s getting sharper now. .”

“At this very moment,” says Mario Schmunck, “Glouchenko is moving toward the light he has glimpsed. He’s groping around, his hand comes to rest on a knob. He’s finally found a door. He pushes it open without any particular difficulty.”

The door opens onto the night, a dark night. It’s cloudy and starless, but the contrast between the night and the shadows whence Glouchenko comes is so great, everything appears distinct, as if it were high noon. Glouchenko rubs his eyes. The nocturnal light is painful. He is beneath immense trees, deep in a wet, warm forest. We see a lush landscape and, here and there, pairs of living beings. Glouchenko hears noises. He is a short distance from a couple of copulating monkeys. The noises belong to the midnight forest: tropical chirps and shouts in the background and, much closer, simian moans of love, the rustlings of leaves.

“Hey, you, over there!” Glouchenko calls. “What are you. . Well, those two don’t seem bothered. . Hey! Were you the ones who cut the power earlier?”

Glouchenko observes the macaques for a moment. First with bawdy curiosity, then with a growing feeling of love. He likes these monkeys, he suddenly feels powerfully attracted to them. He is filled with the urgent desire to be their son.

The clamors and hot silences, the jingling of drops on black puddles, the monkeys’ racket in the high branches, the dripping forest ambiance, the smells of wild beasts, of rotting wood, the mustiness of drey, the rasps of scales and chitin on everything, the vapors rising from the mud, the shrill grunts and juices of coitus, the odor of anthills. All of this surrounds Glouchenko.

“Glouchenko is approaching the sexually-joined monkeys,” Mario Schmunck describes. “He is filled with the pressing desire to be their son. He isn’t afraid, even though the macaques are growing in size as he advances. The closer he gets to them, the more steps he has to take to reach them. . The couple now appears gigantic to him. . The male and female rise up before him like mountains. . He’s drawn like a magnet to the womb. . He’s walking toward it excitedly. . He’s still shrinking. .”

A beat.

“He doesn’t understand any of what’s happening,” continues Mario Schmunck. “He now only has a single wish in his head: to melt lovingly into these two beings, becoming a seed, their successor. . All his memories have disappeared. He is afraid of nothing. . He doesn’t realize how tiny he is. .”

“Okay,” says Glouchenko. “I’m going to rest here, while I wait. I’ll go in there.”

“He has practically no awareness of what is happening,” Mario Schmunck comments. “We can just make him out in the fray.”

A beat.

It is hot. It is midnight. The forest sways beneath darkening clouds. Sometimes, for a second, the landscape is silent, but soon the cries of monkeys return, the rustlings of plants, the drone of selva cicadas.

“It’s over,” says Mario Schmunck. “I don’t know if I’d have behaved more intelligently, in his place. More gloriously. I don’t know.”

I don’t know either, and here, I am speaking in the name of everyone.

We hear a brief electrical whirr.

“Yes, sorry,” says Mario Schmunck. “I didn’t realize I was still on the air. . No, of course, there won’t be any more egocentric asides. . Okay. .”

So, Glouchenko. Or what remains of him. . He’s going to lose consciousness any second now.” (A pause.) “That’s it. The counter’s reached zero. Glouchenko has lost complete consciousness.” (A pause.) “He exists no longer.

A pause.

He exists absolutely no longer. He’s going to get to live again.