From a couple of days I decided not to think to that word anymore. Each time when I fill my mind with it, I sense all the avalanches of the highest mountains fall down over me, fireants tribes invade me, tearing my skin in small pieces, and the oceans of the neighbourhood's worlds send their waves to throw me over the face of the Earth. Don't be surprised, because after many years of wandering I returned again on the Earth. Old soldier in imperial troops, traveller towards the ring of the diamond worlds, the survivor of Alderin, I, the one who has been called ``The Indestructible'', now with a knee-implant and with a enviable biotic hand, have been discharged with all the honors when the time was right. And here I am, speaking with you, in the biggest city of the planet, with a cheque more than huge in my pocket, an unlimited access card to all the bordels in the area and a list with the favors granted by the empire, from which I should choose two. Life could be beautiful without this awful headache and the word which invades periodically my mind.


What you said? Speak a little bit louder, please. My left ear has now an ionic accelerator, that's why sometimes it's hard for me to make a distinction between the branched sound waves that reach to me from such a short distance and the unintentional noises produced by the movement of the bodies. Repeat, please. How long since I was gone? Aha, if we count in earthly years more than one thousand, but if you look at me and at my humble body, almost fourty. Intergalactic travellings, this is the answer. I can't forget the smile of the company commander in that day when I signed for the first time the conscription papers. How he looked at me, seems like he tried to analyse each fibre of mine, each little bone, to see if I will understand the pain that will overtake me. The mental one, because the physical pain was long gone, once with the invention of the postmonitour pills. Since than, every time I fought in the front line, I was conscience that my bones will rot there, I was sure that there isn't anything on this world which can give me back the lust for life. The world, like I knew it,disappeared in the first two weeks of transport from the Earth to the first planetary station which made the connection with the median fighting zones. My woman, parents, friends, wipped out from my mind in that morning, when I decided to make the first step on the way of becoming an adult. So I thought. I wanted to die, and all of these before the word had come.


When? Can't tell. It wasn't a suddenly sensation, was like a kind of progressively surrender, a freeze that overtakes you, from all over, gradually and firmly. It shaked up my senses, filled me with unfamiliar sensations, and than in the next moment it disappeared rapidly and hide so good that I couldn't find it with the weeks. After it was gone, a lot of time I remain paralized, shaking from all my body and having fever.
To explain you? It's simple, but I don't think that you will understand. You can disconsider these stupidities said by a old war veteran, with an ill and scorched mind. For example, it invaded me during an asalt on Pandelium IV. Our army succeded in making a break in the enemy defences, and now was the troopers turn to create the numerical superiority, so necessary for the invasion. The battlefield was full of gases and flames, chemicals were burning all over, the sky was full of screams and cries. And then it striked me. Without any warning, without any preventive sign. It erupted in me like a prescience volcano, filling my senses with the smell of fresh pancakes (cookies, muffins)!! I fell on my knees in the middle of the battle. From all over, a sweet and sticky smell of fresh cooking food invaded me, like my parents used to make in the hot sunny mornings, when we were to our summer cabine at mountain side. I couldn't breath anymore so I called the medical help. I recovered after few weeks, keeping, like now, the stunning sensation, which since than tears appart my soul. And that was only the beginning.


If it affected my fighting capacities? Hm, interesting question. I don't think so. It was like a cold shower for me, like an electric shoque which comes from an unisolated connection cable. Though, sometimes I couldn't wait for the word to come again. I was preparing my mind, relaxing with days, being eager for new diving into reality. Yes, reality. Because that was how I saw it. My world died long time ago, and now the Earth have reached the so-called ``singularity'', a level of maximum development, cornucopia, the happiness of the gods. There isn't anything that can't be bought, or can't be delivered almost immediatly. You want to be a war hero, no problem! The computers will elaborate a strategy, real estates firms will buy the afferent properties, and the mediatics companies will hire personal and will take care about the spreading of the news, necessary for the rising popularity of the client. and this is just a simple example. You want to beat the record of the speed at the earth surface using a portant vehicle, excelent, a single call can make you the happy owner of a turbo-jet engine in a less than an hour. Our society has modified, industrialization helped us to get out from the fighting for survival wars era. How you think that in the past, somebody eager of discussions and debats like me, could have walked on the streets to an automat and ordered a live press conference, broadcasted to all the known media programs, at rush hour, with the greatest minds in the field, like I did know? Do you think that was possible? But anyway, in any labyrinth exists two dangers. The road which leads to death and the road which get you out to light. That's why, in the last years of war, the word became my best friend. I delighted my nights full of loneliness with images and sensations from a world long time gone, adding to my tired mind more reasons to hold on in the following years of nightmare.


What? Then why I'm complaining about it now? This is odd. Because, since I stepped on the Earth again, the word is coming stronger and stronger each time, at constant intervals of time which become smaller and smaller, disarranging me, crushing me under the impact of the thousands sensations which bring them with. And now it is not my friend anymore.
In my mind screams are collapsing together, I see cities overtaked by fire, wars that split the planets, strange smells and greasy touches. For me now each moment is a tragedy, a macabre theater which continue endlessly and which I want from all my soul to reach end. If is something like a foresight here? I don't think so, this is stupid! On the height of the highest development, the Earth can't be covered by distructions and meaningless slaughters. Also, this was the purpose of the singularity, right? A small point which moves slowly to infinity, but not any infinity, a real one, an infinity that we can feel, big and fat like a pig for holidays. I didn't understand why it invades me now with such a fury, and anyway doesn't matter. My mind is weak and from one time to another, the shoque that will give to me a new cerebral invasion,surely will kill me. And this only because of what happened before.

What you mean, what incident? I didn't told you about it? Ah, I should have started with it. So, like you heard before, I landed on the surface of the Earth, full of worries and with a big emotion in my soul. I was returning home. To be honest, I didn't get used with all the new things around yet, but there was a time when I really tried. And almost succeded, until one sunny morning, when reading a local information I decided to give myself an unusual gift. What I wanted it was to expensive even for my huge budget, so I used one of the emperial favors.
Said and done. After some minutes, when a checked all the existent offers on the market, I choosed a newly appeared firm but with exceptional references. I called and after they recorded my preferences, they scheduled me in the next day. After an hour, showed up an inspector sent by that firm, he picked up all the informations that he need, and went leaving behind him a slightly levander scent. In that day, the word didn't come.

What? No, I don't keep you in expectative anymore, I tell you now. I wanted a feelings simulator! Mm yes, expensive, I know. But put yourself in my place. I losed everything in the moment when I signed the conscription papers, and after that not only once, a billion of doubts and regrets invaded me, transforming my life into a nightmare. No, the word was not among them. He had a life on its own. Distinct. So, I gave to that inspector, about I was talking, the description and all the datas about my love on Earth, the girl with who I was engaged before the shipment, the girl who was erased from my way by a foolish thing. I will not enter in technical details. They should accumulate informations about her, about her internal structure, psihological profile, biological datas, and then, after a complex algorithm elaborate by a sofisticated computer network, they should simulate her sensations and her feelings regarding me. I should sit in a biological closed room, which was pulsing to achieve stronger effects, exactly like a heart, and connected to the mainframe with the help of some tiny receptors, I should let myself being invaded by all her beautiful feelings for me.
And? It wasn't like this? A,no, she loved me for sure, no problem about this. In the next day morning, I moved myself to that firm, made all the prepairing tests, they injected me a cauterization substance and than lead me to that room. Everything worked conform the plan. The experiment began, but before I had the chance to enter in catalepsy, it stopped. They stopped it. They get me out of the room and explain me that is for the first time when something like that is happening, that they are very sorry, the firm will cover the loses,bla, bla, all the classic texts. It seems that the reason for interuption was the incompatibility between my brain and the biological computer system. My mind was perfectly closed, it didn't aloud anything from outside to bother the inside mechanism.

It seems that during the experiment, the word came back with all its fury and destroyed all the cerebral connections necessary to my inner sense. And I didn't even feel it coming. I didn't recorded any proof of his presence, but the outside operators confirmed me about his existence, they told me that the impact was distructive for me, murderous, and that in the next ten hours, my psihical condition will change in worse. But they could isolate it. At short time after, I lived the building and using the second emperial favor, I bought few grams of slow lethal poison, which I took it immediatly. It works like any thermical paralyser, only that its effect is considerable slow because of some catalysingsubstances. I want to laugh now thinking how many people will go to their shrinks, trying to erase from their memory the image of an old man fell down in front of some public discutions automat, in full street. Dead.

Yes, I don't have much time left, maybe some minutes. Now that all is over, I wait for the word to come again over me, in that way I can end my days in a profund happiness. what? No, now I am sure he will not torment me anymore. We made peace one another, we adjusted our conditions until we arrived to a mutual understanding.Soldier here, word there. Its name?? But, I didn't give it to you in the technical description of the meeting? And you still didn't get what it means? ``Human'', you still didn't get what it means the word ``human''?