Part 10: Cuentos Completos 1

Falling back into his reverie, the Idealist idly presses the power switch, yet the broadcast's performance of disorder and delirium has already reached its end. The radio plays no more.

Paracelsus: A name carried in whispers ... the Panopticon of Comala-where every question finds its answer.

The Idealist: I quite like these stories that travel up from the telephone lines.

The Idealist: The stranded, the deluded, the ones forever haunted by riddles without solutions, they come here, drawn by forces unseen, by paths not meant to be traveled. They ask, they seek, they wander through lives frayed at the edges, tangled in paradox and unreality.

The Idealist: Do you really feel nothing in the face of these challenges? Don't you realize we can shape what we have here into something that holds actual meaning?

The Idealist: This all leaves me feeling ... somewhat lost.

Paracelsus: Have we found clarity or more confusion? I'm not sure. But it's already taken up too much time. Idealist, do you still remember what you set out to do at the very start?

The Idealist: I ... Of course I do! My poem-I would never forget it.

The Idealist scans the confines of his cell in panic. Finally, he finds it-a tiny fissure in the wall.

The Idealist: Beneath this crumbling plaster, I named it: A History of Eternity, for within it lies poetry without end-the very source and medium of my great epic! Its delicate contours speak to me of ... sorrow.

Paracelsus: With every passing day, the crack extends a little further, and so your poem will never reach its final line.

The Idealist: There will be a way. If this endless and sorrowful poem is to be conveyed with all the elegance and exactitude it deserves, then I must construct a language worthy of it!

The Idealist: One all-encompassing, unhindered by ambiguity-not a conceptual illusion, but something absolute, precise, essential. A "language of creation," one that shall unshackle every artist and poet alike.

Paracelsus: So that's what you've been discussing with the Linguist all this time-your perfect language.

The Idealist: Claro que sí. But now, with the Linguist gone, our language's birth hangs in limbo. That is the tragedy of the telephone. We speak, yet we remain strangers to each other, and he, perhaps, to himself most of all!

The Idealist: But! I will continue onward with new projects. Poems, shaped by many hands within these walls, a curated collection of their imprisoned tongues. Within them, I will discover the systematic method behind every language. Through that, I will ensure the opening lines are flawless in their meaning. Until then, I will host our literary salons, wandering through this literary labyrinth with the intent to build an exit someday ...

The Idealist: But ... I ...

Paracelsus: But for all your efforts, that poem remains unwritten, unexecuted. Not even a single word has been committed.

Paracelsus: You are lost within your literary labyrinth, lost in infinite inquiry-so much so that even your name has abandoned you. Idealist, do you even remember who you are?

The poet, the writer, the pioneer of thought ... Bewildered, he stares at the sorrowful crack in the wall.

The Idealist: Who ... Who am I ...?

*rrring-rrring*
*rrring-rrring-rrring -*
The line stirs once more with another call from the outside world.
It never ends.
Lift the receiver and vanish into the interplay of reality and perception ...
To lose meaning is to lose yourself.
In the end, he will vanish within his own story ...

It defies reason. Why haven't we reached transcendentality? Not even the door seems within sight. I ... I cannot fathom it. Is all of this meaningless? Are we condemned to stand on the edge of that which cannot be spoken? How does one bring about an end to the endless?