APOCANGELICA Wild Beasts

Chapter 4

 "I mean... the ultimate purpose of this therapy that Im doing here, is it not to allow me to be re-inserted in society?"

"Certainly Ada. As I said yesterday: the therapy should make you gain control of your thoughts, and with them of your emotions and your feelings, and then, finally, of your body."

"So couldn't you even say that, symmetrically, the society in which I should insert myself in is not capable of managing a person with my problematics?... Or rather with my characteristics, which society considers problematic?"

"The managing ability of a society is expressed in the therapy that it allows you to follow."

"In order to make me able to live inside this society, right?"

"I understand what you're getting at: you're asking me if the treatment in itself isn't really an attempt by society to conform to certain behavioral patterns the people who deviate from it."

"Yes: Who says that not being able to live in society is my problem rather than a problem of society as a whole?"

"This is a long-standing and often debated question: being that society welcomes individuals who conform to standards and well-defined models, although broad and varied, and the analysis has as its ultimate goal to help the individual live better in the society now ready to receive him, the whole thing could also be seen as forced push to adapt to rules and models that from the start were not chosen by the individual... Well, I personally think that there is still a lot to say about it and I am sure that in future the debate will be lively for a long time. However, I believe that the key to understanding is, in fact, free will."

"You mean the fact that it was my decision to follow the therapy?"

"Exactly. Those who feel the personal need to live in a more satisfying manner and better confront themselves with others, and decide to satisfy this need with the help of therapy, at the end are exerting a pure personal freedom."

"Your point of view is interesting, Doc... but a bit academic. I ask myself: if I decided that I no longer wanted to follow the therapy, what would my parents say about that!?!"

"I'm afraid this is another matter," he said contritely.

"Yeah," she concluded."There are always annotations in the margins."

*

"Pangaea?"

"Yes. This world. That's what I called it."

"This world... This world has no name. It is only the Above Kingdom."

"Oh... and how do you know?"

"Because I was born there."

"Ah. Well if there is an above, then most certainly there will be something that lies beneath it?"

"Of course: the Kingdom from where you come from. And then there is a world even further down: the Under Kingdom. A place I advise you to avoid."

"Why?"

"Because there you will find bad people, as you humans call them."

"Nastier than those that are chasing me?"

"Oh yes! Much nastier!"

"How much nastier?"

"Nasty enough to act without following any rules."

"Instead do the others have to follow the rules?"

"Oh sure! Or at least, they should... I mean the rules are there, but don't know if people comply to them... well!"