THE OPEN ROAD

peace, love, happiness & understanding

December 23, 2021

Quite a long time ago, I adapted this short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky and performed it. I hope you enjoy it! (J.S.)

Dream of a Ridiculous Man

I’m ridiculous. Some people think I’m crazy. Which is better, in a way, except that they also think I’m ridiculous. But I don’t mind. I love everyone. I’ll tell you why. See, that’s what I want to talk to you about. About why I love you. Even though I don’t know you. Even if you laugh at me. I’d laugh too–not exactly at myself, but just to join in–but I feel so sad when I look at you. Because you don’t know the truth. And I do. It’s hard being the only one who knows the truth. 

I used to feel depressed about seeming ridiculous. Not seeming. Being. I’ve always been ridiculous, and I think I’ve known it since the day I was born. Well, for sure by the time I went to school. The more I learned, the more I understood that I was ridiculous. Life was just like school in that respect. Everyone always laughed at me. But nobody ever suspected that if there was one person on earth who knew better than anybody else that I was ridiculous, it was me! And what really irritated me was that nobody knew that I knew. But that was my own fault. I wouldn’t admit it to anyone. I was too proud. My pride was so strong that if I had confessed to anyone that I was ridiculous, I think I would have blown out my brains the same evening. As a kid, I lived in constant fear that one day I would break down and tell one of the other kids. But as I got older I became a lot calmer for some reason. I don’t know… Maybe it was because I was becoming very disheartened about something that I couldn’t do anything about, which was that I was slowly but surely coming to the rather cheerless conclusion that nothing in the whole world made any difference. This idea had been creeping up on me for a long time, but I became fully convinced of it only last year. All of a sudden. I suddenly felt that it made no difference to me whether the world existed or whether nothing existed at all. I became acutely conscious that nothing mattered. I thought: probably things had mattered in the past. But as I thought about it more I realized that things had not really mattered in the past, they only seemed to. I became quite certain that nothing would matter in the future either. At that point I stopped being angry with people, and almost stopped noticing them altogether. I would be walking along and I would run into people! And not because I was lost in thought–what would I be…? I didn’t have anything to think about. I had more or less stopped thinking by that time. It made no difference. Not that I had everything figured out. Far from it. I had no idea what the hell was going on. I didn’t understand anything. But nothing made any difference and so all the things I used to worry about just sort of faded away. 

And, well, it was only after that that I learned the truth. I learned the truth last November. The third of November, to be exact. It was a gray, depressing evening. Cold and rainy. I was walking home. It was late. And I remember thinking: “God, this is a miserable night.” The rain was that kind of rain that is hostile, the kind of rain that is deliberately trying to make you feel miserable. Then the rain stopped, but that was even worse because everything was just so soggy, and it seemed colder than when it had been raining. I was thinking that it wouldn’t be so depressing if the streetlights weren’t on. They only made it worse by illuminating everything. 

I looked up at the sky. It was very dark. There were clouds that had torn wispy edges. The patches of sky between the clouds were deep black. All of a sudden I noticed a little star in one of those patches. I stopped walking and just stood there, looking at it. Because that little star gave me an idea: I made up my mind to kill myself that night. 

I had been planning to kill myself for a couple of months. And even though I’m always broke I had bought a nice little gun and loaded it. But two months had gone by and it was still lying in the drawer. I was waiting for the right moment. I was completely indifferent to everything and I was waiting for a moment when I didn’t feel indifferent so I could kill myself. Yeah, I know…sounds stupid… 

Okay. So…I was standing there looking at the sky. And all of a sudden this little girl grabbed me by the coat sleeve. She was, I don’t know, maybe about eight years old. She was completely soaked. She was pulling at my arm and trying to say something. But I couldn’t tell what because she was shivering and sobbing. You know how it is when kids try to talk when they haven’t finished crying yet? I looked down at her, but I didn’t say anything. Then I pulled my arm away and kept walking. But she ran after me and caught me and was pulling at my coat. She was very frightened about something…incoherent. All I could make out was something about her mother. Her mother was dying or was in some very bad situation. And the little girl had run out to find someone to help. But I didn’t go with her. At first I told her to go find a policeman. But she just held me tighter and wouldn’t let go. Then I got angry and shouted at her. And she let go of me and just stood there. I think she was too stunned to even cry. Then she saw someone coming across the street and ran to him. 

I went back to my apartment. It’s pretty depressing. The wallpaper is this ugly color of green, but it’s so grimy you can hardly tell what color it’s supposed to be. It’s peeling off the walls. The carpet is filthy. Whoever lived there before me must have had a lot of cats, because the carpet and the furniture have the unmistakable smell of cat piss. Plaster is falling off the ceiling. The guy upstairs keeps having problems with his toilet. I don’t know what you’d have to do to get the landlady to fix anything. I mentioned to her once that the furniture smelled like cat piss, and she said: “If you don’t like it, you can move out.” And that was the end of that conversation. So, anyway, my apartment is pretty depressing. But it’s cheap. I sat down at my desk and lit a candle. I prefer candlelight. I don’t want to have to look at what a dump I live in. I sat there. Next door they were making lots of noise. As usual. The walls are paper thin. Sometimes I can hear my neighbors having sex. But my other neighbor is this big dirty guy with a beard. I think he sells drugs because people are always coming and going all night long. His regular friends like to drink beer. And they get into fights a lot. Usually they just shout at each other, but sometimes they get into real fights. One of them put his fist through the wall once, right into my apartment. The landlady doesn’t say anything because she’s afraid of him. I’ve seen this guy drunk on the street, asking people for money. But I don’t mind having him for a neighbor. He doesn’t bother me. I just ignore him. And he ignores me. I don’t care how many of them there are in that room or how much noise they make. I don’t even hear them after a while. I sit up all night in my armchair–doing nothing. I only read in the daytime. At night I just sit without even thinking about anything. Well, sometimes thoughts sort of wander in and out of my mind. By morning the candle has burned out. 

So, I sat down at my desk and took the gun out of the drawer. I remember asking myself: “Is this it?” And I said to myself: “It is!” I was going to shoot myself. I knew for certain that I would shoot myself that night. The only thing I didn’t know was how much longer I would go on sitting there before I shot myself. And I would have shot myself, if it hadn’t been for the little girl. 

See, nothing made any difference to me, but I could still feel pain, for instance. I mean, if someone had hit me, it would hurt. Same with feelings. I could feel pity, just like I used to do when things did make a difference to me. I felt pity for that little girl while she was pulling at my coat and sobbing, which didn’t make sense, given what I’d just decided. And I continued to feel sorry for her even after I got home. As I sat at my desk I couldn’t get her out of my mind. And that irritated me. I hadn’t been so upset in…I don’t know how long. And all these thoughts were banging around in my head. Like: “As long as I am a human being and not nothing, and until I cease to exist, I’m alive, and able to suffer, be angry, feel ashamed. Okay. But, on the other hand, if I’m going to kill myself in a couple hours, why should I care about that little girl, or about shame, or anything else? I’m going to become nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’m going to completely cease to exist, and the whole world along with me, so shouldn’t that have some slight effect on my feelings of pity for that little girl?” Why did I shout at her? It was because I was angry at the fact that she was making me feel. Why should I feel anything? Why should it matter if I’m kind or cruel if I’m going to be extinct in two hours? 

As I sat there all these questions were driving me crazy. Before I could answer the first one, another would come up. And another and another. Do your thoughts ever come so fast that you can’t keep up with them? Like, I wondered: what if I had lived before on the Moon or Mars and had done something so shameful that you can hardly imagine? Y’know, like you sometimes experience in a nightmare. Something just unbearable. And if afterwards I found myself on Earth and I remembered what I had done on the other planet–and I knew that I would never go back there–would I feel shame when I looked from the Earth to the Moon, (or Mars, or whatever), or would I feel that it made no difference to me? I mean, the questions were completely useless! The gun was lying on the desk in front of me and I knew I was going to…use it, but I couldn’t get the thoughts out of my mind. It seemed to me that I couldn’t die until I had figured something out. The little girl, in fact, saved me, because by asking these questions I put off my execution. 

Then I fell asleep, sitting in my armchair. I had never done that before.  I fell asleep without being aware that I was doing it. I dreamed a dream. It was the third of November. People make fun of me: they say it was only a dream. But it revealed the truth to me, so I don’t care if it was a dream. Once you’ve realized the truth, you know it’s the truth. It was just a dream. Okay. But I was about to commit suicide. And my dream saved my life and changed it. 

I dreamed that I picked up the gun and pointed it straight at my heart. My heart, not my head. I always thought I would shoot myself in the head. I aimed the gun at my chest, paused for a second or two, and pulled the trigger. 

Y’know how in a dream sometimes you fall from a great height, or are being murdered or beaten, but you don’t feel any pain? That’s how it was. I didn’t feel any pain, but everything was suddenly extinguished, and a terrible darkness descended all around me. It was like I had become blind. And I couldn’t speak. I was lying on my back. I saw nothing. I couldn’t move. People came near and they were shouting. The guy from next door was shouting, the landlady was screaming….   

Then, the next thing was: I was being carried in a closed coffin. I could feel the coffin swaying, and I was thinking about it, and for the first time it occurred to me that  I was dead–dead as a doornail–and I knew it. There couldn’t be any doubt about it. I couldn’t see or move, but I could think and feel. This didn’t bother me. I just accepted it. 

Then they buried me. And they went away. And I was alone. It was cold and damp, just like you’d expect. I felt very cold, especially in the tips of my toes, but I didn’t feel anything else. 

I laid in my grave. I didn’t expect anything. I just accepted that a dead man has nothing to look forward to. But it was damp. Some time passed. I don’t know how long. A drop of water that had seeped through the lid of the coffin fell on my left eyelid. A minute later… another drop. A minute later…another drop. One drop every minute. It was infuriating! And when I got angry I felt a sharp stab of pain in my chest. “That’s my wound,” I thought. “That’s where I shot myself. There’s a bullet in there.” And every minute another drop of water fell on my eyelid. It was driving me crazy. And I cried out—not with my voice, but with my whole being: 

“Whoever you are that’s doing this to me, if anything more rational exists than what is happening to me now, I would like to experience it. But if you are punishing me for committing suicide with life-after-death, no torture that you inflict on me can ever equal the contempt that I will go on feeling for you forever and ever!” 

I made this appeal and waited. It was silent for almost a minute. Then a drop fell on my closed eyelid. But I knew that everything was going to change immediately. And it did. 

I don’t know how my coffin was dug up and opened, but I was grabbed by a dark unknown being. And the next thing was: we were flying through space. I could see again, but it was pitch-black. It was the blackest black night. We were flying through space at a terrific speed. We had left the earth far behind us. I didn’t question the being who was carrying me. I was too proud. I just waited. I wasn’t afraid, which surprised me. I have no idea how long we were flying. Suddenly I saw a little star in the darkness. 

“Is that Sirius?” I just blurted it out. And then I got mad at myself, because I wasn’t going to ask any questions. 

The being who was carrying me said: “No. That’s the same star you saw between the clouds when you were coming home.” 

I didn’t like this being one bit. I had expected complete non-existence—that’s why I shot myself. And now here I was in the hands of this being—not a human being, but a being nevertheless. It existed. “So there is life beyond the grave,” I thought, in that kind of off-hand way you do sometimes in dreams. Deep down, though, nothing had really changed for me. I thought to myself: “If I must be again, I won’t be defeated and humiliated!” 

I said to my companion, “You know I’m afraid of you and that’s why you despise me.” That’s just like me — to say something completely humiliating right after I told myself I wasn’t going to be humiliated. 

He didn’t answer, but somehow I sensed that our journey had a mysterious purpose. I was really frightened now. We had long passed the constellations that were familiar to me. And then I saw our sun and was flooded with a strong feeling of nostalgia. It couldn’t be our sun—we were millions of light years away from it—but somehow I knew with every fiber of my being that it was an exact twin copy of our sun. I had a warm feeling of coming home. And for the first time since I had been in the grave I felt a stirring in my heart. 

“But if this is exactly like our sun, then where is the earth?” 

My companion pointed to the little star I had seen twinkling in the darkness with an emerald light. We were heading straight for it. 

I felt an uncontrollable, deep and sad love for the earth I’d left behind. 

The face of the little girl I had treated so badly flashed through my mind. I started crying like a baby. 

We were rapidly approaching the planet. It was growing before my eyes. I could distinguish the ocean, the outlines of Europe. A great jealousy blazed up in my heart. 

“How is such repetition possible? And why? I can only love the earth I’ve left behind, stained with my blood. I know I’m an ungrateful bastard for shooting myself through the heart. But that doesn’t mean I stopped loving the earth. I never, never stopped loving it. I loved it more than ever on the night I ended my life.” 

Somehow…I don’t remember how…I was already standing on this other earth. My companion was gone. It was a bright, sunny day. It was beautiful. It was like Paradise. 

There was a radiant feeling in the air. Bright flowers were everywhere. The sky was filled with birds. And they weren’t afraid of me. They landed on my shoulders and hands and sang to me. And I saw and came to know the people of this blessed earth. They surrounded me and touched me and kissed me all over. They were beautiful! I’d never seen people so beautiful. The first moment I looked at their faces I understood everything! It was an earth unstained by the Fall, inhabited by people who hadn’t sinned, who didn’t know the meaning of sin. They lived in the same kind of Paradise that our first parents lived in. Except that all the earth was everywhere the same Paradise. It had no boundary. 

Well, so, I mean…all right, so it was just a dream. But the love of those innocent and beautiful people has stayed with me. I can still feel their love flowing out to me from over there. I have seen them. I have known them and they showed me something. I loved them, and I suffered for them afterwards. I knew from the beginning that there were many things about them I would never understand. I was kind of surprised that they knew nothing about our science, for instance. But I soon realized that their knowledge was derived from different emotions than we are accustomed to. And their aspirations were different, too. They desired nothing. They were at peace with themselves. They didn’t strive to gain knowledge about life in the way we do because their lives were full. I couldn’t understand their way of being in the world. They looked at their trees with an intense love and talked to them as if the trees were beings like themselves. They really talked with them. And the trees understood them! I’m sure of it. They knew the language of the trees. They looked on all nature like that. The animals lived peaceably with them and didn’t attack them or run from them, but loved them. They weren’t concerned with whether I understood them or not; they loved me regardless. 

They were playful and high-spirited like children. They made love and begot children, but I never saw in them those outbursts of cruel sensuality which are the source of almost every sin. There were no quarrels or jealousy among them—they didn’t even know what those words meant. Their children were the children of them all, for they were all one family. They rarely got sick, though of course they died; but their old people died peacefully, as though falling asleep. I saw smiles on those occasions, never grief or tears. I saw love that seemed to reach the point of rapture. They had no specific places for worship, but wherever they went they were in a kind of uninterrupted communion with the whole universe. 

I told them that I had a presentiment of all this years ago. That I felt a nostalgic yearning, that became at times an unendurable sorrow. I told them that often on our earth I couldn’t look at the setting sun without tears…that there was a sharp pang of anguish in my love for people: why couldn’t I love them without hating them? 

They listened to me, but I  could tell they didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. They didn’t  understand me, but they loved me. They loved me. And when in their loving presence my heart became as innocent and as truthful as theirs I didn’t mind that I couldn’t understand them either. 

I’ve tried to talk to people about this. They just laugh at me. How could all this have been crammed into one dream? I must have just awakened with a certain sensation and then invented most of the details after I woke up. And when I admit that they’re probably right, they think it’s the funniest thing in the world. Sure, when I woke up what remained was mostly a powerful sensation. But nonetheless, the real shapes and forms of my dream, those I actually saw while dreaming, were so harmonious and enchanting and beautiful that when I was awake and trying to describe them in words I just blundered along the best I could and had to make up some of the details. I needed to make some conscious account to myself of what I had just experienced, even if in the process I couldn’t help distorting it. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t really happen. All that couldn’t possibly not have been. Because what happened afterwards was so awful, so horribly true, that it couldn’t have been a mere figment of my imagination. The fact is, I corrupted them all! 

Yeah. That’s how it ended. The dream encompassed thousands of years and left in me only a vague sensation of the whole. I only know that I was the cause of the Fall. Like a horrible virus, I infected that happy earth that knew no sin or sorrow before me. They learned to lie and grew to appreciate the beauty of a lie. Maybe it all began innocently, with a joke, a flirtation, a bit of sarcasm, some small deceit–just a germ. But this germ made its way into their hearts and they liked it. Voluptuousness was soon born, voluptuousness begot jealousy, and jealousy…cruelty. I don’t know how it happened! I can’t remember. But soon, very soon, the first blood was shed. They were shocked and horrified. They began to separate and avoid one another. They formed alliances, but the alliances were against each other. The idea of honor was born. They began killing the animals for food, or just for sport—and the animals ran away from them into the forests. People began to crave separation. They asserted their “personality.” And they came to distinguish between “yours” and “mine.” Especially “mine.” They began talking in different languages. They knew sorrow, and they loved it. They thirsted for suffering. And they said that truth could only be attained through suffering. It was then that science appeared among them. When they became vicious they began to talk of brotherhood and humanity. When they became criminals they invented justice. They drew up codes of law and instituted public executions. 

They only vaguely remembered what they had lost, and they wouldn’t believe that they were ever happy and innocent. They even laughed at the idea of their former happiness and called it a dream. And yet they longed to be happy and innocent again. Like children, they surrendered to the desire of their hearts, glorified this desire, built temples, and offered up prayers to their own idea, their own desire. But if someone had showed them the way back to their state of happy innocence they would have refused to go. They said to me: 

“What if we are dishonest, cruel and unjust? That’s the way things are. That’s how they’ve always been. Maybe with the help of science and reason we can make some small improvements. Knowledge is higher than feeling.” 

That’s what they said. Something like that. 

Saints came among them. With tears in their eyes they told the people of their pride, of their loss of proportion and harmony. They were ignored, or laughed at, or stoned to death. Men arose who began to wonder how they all could be united again in mutual understanding, so that everybody would still love himself or herself best of all, but nobody would interfere with anybody else. Whole wars were fought over this idea. 

Everyone believed that each of these orgies of reciprocal mass-destruction would be the last. That science, and the instinct of self-preservation would ultimately force humanity to unite in a harmonious and intelligent society. Therefore, to speed up this inevitable progress, the “very wise and righteous” did their best to exterminate as quickly as possible those who failed to understand this noble idea. 

They glorified suffering as the most profound experience. I felt so sad for them. I think I loved them more than before—when there was no suffering in their faces, when they were innocent and so beautiful! I loved the earth they had poisoned even more than when it was a paradise, because sorrow had made its appearance. I’ve always been in love with suffering. But only for myself! Only for myself. To see them suffer just made me utterly miserable. I hated myself for what I had done. I told them that I was responsible for all the corruption, contamination and lies. I asked them to crucify me. I even showed them how to make the cross. I couldn’t kill myself because I didn’t have the courage, but I wanted them to martyr me. I yearned for my blood to be shed to the last drop in torment and suffering. They just laughed at me. They didn’t believe me when I said I was the cause of their suffering. And even those who gave me the benefit of the doubt—maybe they were just humoring me—said that what I did was perfectly justifiedt that they didn’t want a life without suffering, and that what happened was inevitable. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy. They said I was becoming dangerous and they would lock me up in an insane asylum if I didn’t shut up. Then a sadness entered my heart with such force that I felt like I was dying. And then I woke up. 

It was morning. My candle had burned out. Everyone was asleep next door and it was completely quiet. I was in a very strange state of mind. I had never fallen asleep in my armchair before. And as I was trying to adjust to being awake—because a really strong sensation from the dream still lingered—I saw my gun lying there loaded and ready. I pushed it away! I wanted to live! I wept. I felt this amazing joy—infinite, boundless joy. I was intoxicated just at being alive. And I immediately felt this strong desire to talk to someone, to anyone. To everyone. I decided: “I’m going to tell them.” What? The Truth. I have seen the Truth. I have seen it with my own eyes and it’s beautiful! 

And ever since then I’ve been trying to tell people about it. They laugh at me. People say I get the story all mixed up, and if I’m already doing that, then what will it be like later on? They’re right. I get confused and I’ll probably just get worse as time goes on. I mean, it’s confusing because it’s very hard to put it into words. I don’t know…I think everyone is confused. Because…well, everyone wants to be happy, right? And look how unhappy everyone is! 

But I have seen the Truth. And I know that people can be happy and beautiful. I just can’t believe that evil is our normal condition, that we are evil by nature. People laugh at this faith of mine. But how can I help believing it? I’ve seen the Truth. It’s not like I invented it with my mind. I really saw it. I experienced it. And the living image of it will be with me always. I’ve seen it and I know we can realize it, and that it will transform us. I’m not confused about that. Of course I’ll make mistakes and say the wrong thing, but the living image of what I’ve seen will correct me and put me back on the right path. I’m feeling pretty good right now. And I feel like I have a kind of mission and I will have it as long as I live. But I don’t know exactly what it is. At first I wasn’t going to tell you that I corrupted them. That was a mistake. But the Truth whispered to me, “You’re lying,” and put me back on the path. I don’t know how to establish a heaven on earth. I don’t know how to put it into words. At least the most important things I need to say—I don’t know how to say them. But that’s okay. I’ll just keep trying. 

It’s all really very simple: 

In one day, in one hour, everything could change! The main thing is: we have to love each other, and love this earth. That sounds too simple, doesn’t it? But it’s true. That’s the main thing. That’s everything. Nothing else matters. It’s not particularly original. It’s been said a million times and it hasn’t done any good. I mean, look at the world! It’s a mess. I don’t know…if only we all wanted it, everything would change in the blink of an eye.

–Fyodor Dostoevsky