– Don't start a comedy," I grinned wryly.
– You know what, I'm willing to bet," my brother said insistently, holding out his hand to me. – I'll put the blood cup on the line.
I grinned, but shook his hand firmly.
– You'll lose," I warned him
– We'll see. – Markus glanced at his watch and smiled. – I've got to go!
– To her? – I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
– I had invited Mariszka to the cinema.
"To the cinema? Like children!" – I thought, but kept my thoughts to myself.
– Good luck. Fly," I said instead.
– Good luck to you, too. And whatever you say, your approval means a lot to me. – He gave me a friendly clap on the shoulder and flew away. And I was left standing by the cliff, watching the beautiful evening sky and reflecting on the drudgery of my life.
Everything I was once passionate about had long ago ceased to interest me: hunting, entertainment, music, books, philosophy, studies, history, science… Now I was living simply because my life was stretching. To put it more precisely, I was living my life without any meaning, and at times I thought that eventually I would dawdle from boredom and tedium with the current. The university and the system of institutions of higher learning that I had once idolised had become intolerable to me. These institutions had become to me a concentration of stupidity, and it was funny to watch professors trying to pass on knowledge to a younger generation whose goal in life would be to pass that knowledge on to the next generation of fools. An endless chain. And, although I, without boasting, had a profound knowledge of all the known sciences of the modern world (for the sake of interest I had finished all the known universities of the globe, and now, sitting in lectures, was exhausted from boredom), to discover something new became for me a duty, ceased to be a pleasure for the soul and mind.
After my conversation with my brother, I felt something strange, inexplicable. It was a new feeling for which I did not know the name. It was different from anything I had ever felt before. It felt like emptiness. Emptiness and disappointment. But what am I disappointed in? I have no reason to be trapped in black melancholy. And to get my mind off these thoughts, I decided to fly to the bridge where I liked to meet the sunset. But this time the sunset had already gone: I would have met it if Markus had not so unexpectedly wished to speak to me.