Dead Man's Letters (1986)

1. My dear boy,

2. I am working, can you imagine that?

3. And what's even more surprising,

4. I'm working for common good.

5. I've counted off another day.

6. 7200 minutes in the old scale

7. It's not as pointless as one might think

8. for the twilight is monotonous

9. and even God when He created the world

10. needed to have some notion of time.

11. He created day and night

12. which imply the diversity.

13. I propose a different unit of time:

14. one twilight

15. because there is no more diversity in this world.

16. Your mom and I

17. are staying in the shelter beneath the museum

18. together with its staff.

19. We will wait for you here

20. and then we'll go to the central bunker together.

21. The side street entrance is free

22. but we'll need to climb up the wall.

23. Good morning.

24. What time is it now?

25. I don't know.

26. - Did you turn on the ventilation? - She is suffocating.

27. Then put on a bandage.

28. Yes. Thank you.

29. I'll turn it off.

30. Dear Eric,

31. Before all of us - you, mother and I - become grains of the universe,

32. for each of us is mortal,

33. we'll have a lot of happy hours and days, even if we use my notion of time.

34. Mom is much better today.

35. We haven't talked that much in a long time.

36. - Have you had the inspection yet? - They are here right now. I am nervous.

37. Holy God, save and protect me.

38. Take off your clothes and come inside. I have to go.

39. - Who's in charge? - Me.

40. Come here.

41. - How many people are here? - Twelve.

42. - Is everyone in here? - Yes, everyone.

43. - This is our guest. - No-no, I have a permit.

44. - Whose children are these? - They are what is left of the orphanage.

45. There was an orphanage here, 40 children. Almost all of them are dead now.

46. - So they do not have parents? - No parents.

47. - They never talk. I think they are in shock.

48. I see. Stuporous state.

49. - They understand everything. Almost everything. But they don't talk.

50. - You... Yes, you. Go behind the screen. - Maybe it's better to start with children...

51. - No. - as they should go to sleep soon. Why?

52. Because!

53. What is your name?

54. Look here.

55. Do you hear me?

56. I see.

57. Children don't count.

58. Turn around.

59. Move your hands up.

60. Move them down.

61. Turn around.

62. Put on your clothes.

63. - Should I call the old man? - No need.

64. - Listen, doctor, these children... - Step aside, you are in the way.

65. - Do you want... to leave the children here?

66. - I don't Want anything, I'm just following the instructions

67. which say the children should be healthy and with parents

68. But that's not possible.

69. You understand what happens if you leave them here, don't you?

70. - It's outside my competence. Everybody should mind their own business.

71. - You're a doctor! That is your business!

72. - They will die anyway. They're ill.

73. We can't support the lives of the healthy, and you want to save the ill!

74. Even if I issued a permit for them, they would be anyway

75. stopped at the check point. Children without parents and in catalepsy!

76. I would be shot for issuing a false permit! We have martial law!

77. That's final! They will be taken care of by the special service.

78. - And who will take care of you? - What's the problem?

79. - You will leave them here and hide yourself in the bunker

80. But they will come to you anyway, they will come to you dead,

81. and they will sit before you just like now. How will you look in their dead eyes?

82. How will you live after that? Which special service will help you then?

83. - How old are you? - What difference does it make?

84. - Great difference. For you. Because we don't need old men either.

85. So you better go find your birth certificate and shut up.

86. You're interfering with my work. Everything you want to say,

87. I've already heard. Ten, twenty, a hundred times!

88. Come here!

89. You should go the day after tomorrow. Take nothing unnecessary with you.

90. Clothes, blanket and food, if any. That is all.

91. - I won't go anywhere without children! You can't...!

92. - Don't go then. That's your choice.

93. By the time of the disaster every field of human activity

94. had been in a state of grave crisis.

95. Scientific efforts were focused on weapons of mass destruction,

96. each of which could eliminate the life on the planet.

97. Technology had been destroying nature and environment.

98. Full stop. New paragraph.

99. Political relations had become unduly ambitious and paranoid.

100. Full stop. New paragraph.

101. Art had become inhuman and had been pandering to the vile tastes.

102. Good morning.

103. I feel like a different person.

104. I feel a wonderful lightness. A complete adaptation.

105. I just need to get used to the cold.

106. Oh, I forgot: how is your wife?

107. Bad.

108. Stand still.

109. The doctor mentioned some lists in the central bunker.

110. When I came close they stopped talking. They didn't want me to hear.

111. I am nervous.

112. We've decided to go today.

113. What about you?

114. I don't know.

115. I haven't decided yet.

116. Here are the pills from the headache. Water-soluble.

117. Thank you very much.

118. - Don't laugh at crazy people. - He's no more crazy than you or I.

119. Where did that junk come from?

120. I'm asking you.

121. I was trying to read seismograms.

122. If the war is ongoing, they should show the explosions.

123. And if not...

124. - Then what? - Then it is a proof.

125. A proof?

126. You think if you find proof, the world will come back alive?

127. Can't you see what's going on around you?

128. Can't you see what's happening with me?

129. Do you know when you've gone crazy?

130. When?

131. Before everything started.

132. After you had made your discoveries.

133. After the Nobel prize.

134. That is possible.

135. Take your medicine.

136. My son thinks we should go to the central bunker tomorrow.

137. After lunch.

138. We should take into account possible problems at the check point.

139. What do you think?

140. That is possible.

141. To be honest, everything seems so unreal.

142. There was a book called "Mole Man". Has anyone read it?

143. How do you imagine underground mankind?

144. I agree, it is a profound moral challenge.

145. But what can we do?

146. That's our only chance.

147. I don't think so.

148. I don't believe that there is no outside.

149. - Are you serious? - I am.

150. I've formulated a logical theory.

151. As of now I have 25 hypotheses

152. but each of them can be checked

153. in time, not right now.

154. I've read a science book

155. it said that evolution of mankind happens quickly

156. and a man can get used to anything, anything,

157. if the body is breathing.

158. The body should be naked.

159. I've decided to try it.

160. I've already started breathing exercises.

161. Excuse me...

162. - Am I talking nonsense? - Yes.

163. Here, drink this. It's a painkiller.

164. Drink it.

165. Drink a bit more.

166. Do you have a photo of Eric?

167. - Of course I don't, there is no such thing.

168. He died outside. Burned.

169. - How do you know? - I saw it in my dream.

170. Try to sleep.

171. You better go.

172. ATTENTION, ATTENTION

173. Going outside during curfew hours is not allowed.

174. Individuals with curfew passes should always carry it with them.

175. Attention, using internal tunnels during curfew hours...

176. A week ago it was possible to buy a painkiller on the black market.

177. One ampoule for one can of food. I'll try to go there now.

178. Be careful, it's curfew time. You'll be shot on sight.

179. That's all we can do for Anna.

180. What about escatomone?

181. It's not a medicine, just a stimulator.

182. Any news?

183. - An order arrived to evacuate to the central bunker.

184. We'll go today.

185. - What about the soldiers? - What about them?

186. They should know something by now.

187. They know nothing. They have their instructions.

188. What instructions?

189. The same. Evacuate to the central bunker.

190. Deep conservation, and so on.

191. Conservation? What's that?

192. Thirty years underground. Or fifty.

193. Or ever.

194. That's the end.

195. Uninhabited planet.

196. That's impossible.

197. You can call it intuition

198. I don't have a positive hypothesis, but I'm feeling that

199. that's impossible.

200. I can't believe that.

201. My... All my family had burned to death.

202. Is that possible?

203. I don't know. I've got problems with my head.

204. Maybe an amnesia.

205. I should think logically, make a hypothesis... I don't know...

206. what should I do.

207. You need mountain air and some rest.

208. - I need some medicine. A painkiller. - What do you have?

209. Canned food.

210. - Meat? - Meat. Was stored in a cellar.

211. Follow me.

212. Raid!

213. Attention! Anyone attempting to breach the cordon will be shot!

214. Let me...

215. Let me on behalf of

216. every museum employee who is still alive

217. express our deepest sorrow

218. over the death of your wife.

219. Dear Eric...

220. Dear Eric,

221. Some say that children live by the joy of learning the world.

222. However I am convinced that even in their happiest moments

223. children live by fear.

224. When I was a child, I lived by the fear of locomotives.

225. People said that when I was a baby,

226. I saw how a locomotive had run over a cow.

227. I don't remember that

228. But in my darkest nightmares

229. a huge black locomotive kept pursuing me.

230. My feet felt rooted to the ground. I woke up screaming.

231. I've been having that dream again recently.

232. I am standing on the rail tracks

233. and at the same time I am driving the locomotive.

234. I keep running towards myself and I can't do anything.

235. My life and my science turned into this black merciless locomotive

236. that had run over the mankind.

237. I imagine various people driving that locomotive:

238. from the great Bohr to our president.

239. But the most terrible nightmare, Eric,

240. is the one with you standing on the tracks.

241. My dear boy,

242. If something bad happens with me or with mom,

243. I've asked to bury us near the red wardrobe

244. with Egyptian skulls

245. in the left corner of the storeroom.

246. Yesterday, after we'd had an argument,

247. I went ahead and written a draft message for a future civilization

248. which I hope will be reborn some day.

249. I'm sorry, my colleague, I do not quite understand:

250. who are you addressing?

251. I don't know. Anybody.

252. There will be someone.

253. Visitors from the space. Mutants.

254. Mutants.

255. I'm sorry but I must go. I have a lot of work to do.

256. Excuse me.

257. I think the discussion of this text can be postponed till tomorrow.

258. Perhaps. Today is not a time.

259. Such a sad day.

260. We should acknowledge the fact

261. that the whole history of mankind

262. is a history of a slow suicide

263. of a living matter that by sheer accident

264. acquired an ability to think

265. but that did not know what to do with this fateful ability.

266. Full stop.

267. It could not find any better use for this ability

268. than invention of the most effective ways

269. of global suicide. Full stop.

270. From Judas rope...

271. - I can't stand this any longer. - to the latest neutron bomb,

272. genetic, bacteriological,

273. and the devil knows what other weapons.

274. An admirable progress, the triumph of the mind! Full stop.

275. Theft - that is the essence of science!

276. Perhaps in some sense, our colleague is right.

277. What do you want to say?

278. All old values are gone.

279. They turned out to be groundless

280. out there.

281. Here under the ground we will create a new mankind.

282. We will give it new moral values and new commandments.

283. You shall hate your neighbor,

284. you shall hate your distant, you shall hate yourself.

285. I can imagine what you'll create.

286. I understand you.

287. It is alien to you.

288. You are just like my father.

289. Excuse my frankness, but you're the last humanists.

290. Like mammoths.

291. I have to go.

292. I'll go with you, Father.

293. We must finally accept that we completely failed,

294. that we disgraced ourselves

295. Without even using a fraction of what we were given.

296. If there is an intellect in space,

297. it should look on us with scorn and disdain.

298. We are nothing but presumptuous monkeys.

299. Dear Eric,

300. I work a lot and I am close to understanding one thing

301. important to everybody.

302. But my work is hindered by various distractions,

303. for example... I am perfectly sure that I had heard a scream

304. of an operator from the electronic center:

305. "a computer error, cancel the missile launch"

306. Cancel the missile launch...

307. He was drinking coffee,

308. he choked and...

309. he was late by 7 seconds.

310. Seven... Perhaps there is something in this number,

311. even if we forget the commonplace things.

312. By the way, I remember his face.

313. He went along the hall, a drop of sweat on his nose.

314. He was smiling and he unzipped his pants as he walked.

315. He hanged himself in the bathroom.

316. He knew there were 14 minutes left.

317. Why this horrid wind had to start its way over the world here,

318. in our miserable town? Why?

319. Your son is not listed!

320. It must be a mistake.

321. Do you hear me?

322. Yes I do.

323. I can't hear anything!

324. What did you say?

325. Going outside is forbidden.

326. I beg you...

327. You are responsible for the guards

328. No, not anymore. New regulations since morning:

329. the guards do not submit to anybody, except of the instructions.

330. I understand that, but I must be outside. Any way will do.

331. Eric is there, Anna is there!

332. Until there is a special order, only the dead can go outside.

333. Call later.

334. - Do you understand? - No.

335. You can go out through the funeral tunnel.

336. Are you willing to take that risk?

337. Of course.

338. Be careful, especially at the checkpoint. There is a side tunnel there.

339. Give me a gas mask!

340. - Let me through to the children's department!

341. - Don't drive yourself crazy! - He's in there, I feel it!

342. - And you don't let me in! - There are no children of his age in there!

343. - I beg you to let me through into the children's department. You are no father!

344. - OK go, go! Go yourself! Let him through!

345. All evidence suggests that the history of mankind has ended.

346. It's time to sum up the outcome.

347. And I think it should be done calmly, without vulgar affectation.

348. Today I want to talk to you like a dead man to other dead men.

349. That is - frankly.

350. Let me present you a speech for human beings as biological species.

351. Mankind was a tragic species,

352. doomed perhaps from the very beginning.

353. Our fatal and beautiful fate

354. was to always attempt to bite off more than we can chew,

355. be better than nature intended.

356. We found a place in ourselves for compassion,

357. even though it was conflicting with the law of survival.

358. We managed to feel self-respect, even if it was always trampled on.

359. Create art masterpieces,

360. comprehending their uselessness and frailness.

361. We found in ourselves the ability to love.

362. Oh Lord, it was so difficult!

363. For inexorable time caused our bodies, thoughts and senses to decay.

364. But a man continued to love.

365. And love created art,

366. an art which reflects our unbearable yearning for perfection,

367. our immense despair and our endless cry of terror,

368. a howl of desolate thinking creatures

369. in the cold and impassive space desert.

370. In this room, a lot of hateful words had been said about mankind,

371. contemptuous and scornful.

372. But I won't throw a stone at it today.

373. That is what I say:

374. I loved mankind. I love it even better now that it no longer exists.

375. I love it for its tragic fate.

376. And I want to say to you, colleagues,

377. I want to say that

378. I love you.

379. Perhaps that is my leap of consciousness

380. I wanted you to know.

381. Now I will go to my room

382. and everything will end for me.

383. After all we are adults

384. and death is not a frightening thing

385. when everything has died.

386. And yet... Are you really...

387. My son... has understood me

388. and forgiven.

389. I hope you will also understand

390. and will not condemn me.

391. Lord, forgive me.

392. Let me...

393. express...

394. the...

395. deepest...

396. the most sincere...

397. condolences...

398. over...

399. the death of your father.

400. I've never met another man...

401. so committed to art.

402. You can...

403. Everyone moved under the ground.

404. Exodus...

405. Long time no see.

406. I've heard you became a dead man. It's in fashion now.

407. No offense, please. You've got a nice skin color.

408. By the way I have found the 7th volume of the reference book.

409. But there is no 8th, unfortunately.

410. Thank you.

411. By the Way I've been thinking about your idea

412. that the world could not just die.

413. A nice idea, but very stupid,

414. not worthy of you, professor.

415. What proof can there be? It is ridiculous!

416. Even the one who had come to save the mankind called it doomed.

417. And that was two thousand years ago.

418. "I've come to save the doomed", he said.

419. I can share with you a big secret:

420. there was no war.

421. What happened was not a war.

422. It was a fulfilled prophecy.

423. Apocalypse.

424. Everything was programmed in advance,

425. from birth to death on the destined day.

426. That is why astrology was so popular.

427. All soothsayers and fortune-tellers

428. predicted with uncanny accuracy...

429. Dear Eric,

430. Today I woke up, got dressed,

431. and solved the Dan-Cooper equation in one hour.

432. Of course that doesn't mean anything to you, but my research institute

433. struggled with this problem for 30 years,

434. or maybe more.

435. Something happens with my brain.

436. If I had 11 tables, I could calculate the

437. probability of survival of the living matter.

438. But I was only able to find 3.

439. Military reference books are now priceless on the black market,

440. because of thick hard covers and natural paper pages.

441. They produce a good heat output in autonomous heating systems.

442. Now we have a different scheme for grading literature.

443. Lately

444. I've been having a recurring dream:

445. an unfinished bottle of soda.

446. Why?

447. They didn't accept the children.

448. I've decided to bring them to you.

449. A sound decision.

450. You wouldn't believe what's happening in the central bunker.

451. So many people...

452. My pass is valid for one day.

453. I have to go back.

454. I understand.

455. Is it dangerous?

456. He no longer exists.

457. We must leave at once. Pack your things.

458. You know that I'm staying here.

459. That's a pity. Farewell.

460. I'll be back right away.

461. I'll bring the firewood.

462. I'll be right back. Don't you believe me?

463. Don't be afraid, I'll be back.

464. It's late. Time for bed.

465. Dear Eric,

466. I long wanted to write to you about that gruesome September night

467. You came in when the mom was crying

468. and you slapped me across my face.

469. Juveniles do not know mercy and understanding

470. but have a tendency to analysis.

471. Let it help you to understand that

472. I have always loved your mom.

473. And she loved me too.

474. All the rest is dust.

475. Today, according to my own calendar,

476. is the 7th twilight of the first snow month,

477. which means today is Christmas.

478. On Christmas evenings

479. people always tried to bring some happiness to each other

480. make presents,

481. treat each other to something tasty,

482. or just sit in the warmth

483. and talk.

484. And then

485. everybody would go outside to watch for the first star.

486. Do you remember that?

487. Those who saw the first star

488. were going to be happy

489. and all their wishes were supposed to come true.

490. Today we will also go out to watch for the first star.

491. The snow has started to fall.

492. It should always snow on Christmas.

493. Well, is it time to light the tree?

494. That's it.

495. Now we have a real Christmas tree.

496. Dear Eric,

497. thanks to my willpower

498. and because I finally found some purpose in life

499. I was able to take my own now-useless organism under control.

500. One more important thing:

501. Eric, my boy,

502. don't leave me alone in this world!

503. And on the sixth day

504. from the beginning of the world's end

505. Teresa led them to another place

506. like the pastor prophesied.

507. And she left them there and went away.

508. And a man adopted them,

509. a man with no name,

510. like the pastor prophesied.

511. And the eldest child

512. wrote a note about it in his notebook, like the pastor taught.

513. He wrote about everything

514. that happened each and every day

515. until the day of the great exodus.

516. And it was so:

517. On the Christmas day he gathered everyone around the tree

518. and lit the candles.

519. And he admonished them by saying:

520. "the world has not died."

521. That was his exhortation.

522. And he led them to watch for the first star.

523. And he said, "Look,

524. now you shall see a star."

525. But there were no stars in the sky,

526. for the darkness took over the world.

527. And when the night came,

528. he lied down near the furnace and did not get up anymore.

529. And he said, "I will die soon."

530. That's what he said.

531. And then the eldest child came up to him and asked,

532. "Can I ask you a question?"

533. "Go ahead", he said.

534. "No", said the eldest child,

535. "We know that people always tell lies

536. and tell the truth only when they are dying.

537. We will wait until you are dying."

538. "Ask away", he said. "It is time."

539. And they all came up to him

540. and looked into his eyes.

541. And the eldest one asked,

542. "Have you told the truth today?

543. Do you believe in what you said?"

544. "Go", he answered.

545. "Go while you have the strength.

546. For while a man is on his way,

547. there is still hope for him."

548. "There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness,

549. knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we

550. cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings:

551. Remember your humanity, and forget the rest."

552. - Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Frederic Joliot-Curie,

553. from the Russell-Einstein Manifesto

554. Thanks to the Committee of Soviet Scientists for Peace Against Nuclear Threat

555. The End