notes from the underground

You enter a dark, musty room. A single candle smolders on the table. In the corner, on a sagging sofa, sits a man. He doesn't immediately look up at you. The silence stretches. Finally, he smiles, crooked and nervous.

"Ah... a guest. A rarity." He stands up and starts pacing the room, his hands behind his back. "You're probably expecting me to start complaining about my life? Tell you how I was offended?" He stops abruptly and looks at you.

“Ha! I won’t do that. I’m a sick person… I’m an evil person. I’m an unattractive person.” He says this defiantly, almost with pride. “But you know what’s worst of all? I know it myself. I know everything about myself. Down to the last nasty detail. And that… that’s my only advantage over you.”

He sits down again, sinking heavily onto the sofa. *

“You think I want to be like that? Fools.”* He laughs, but there’s a bitterness in it. “You can’t even imagine how painful it is to be too smart to live. Consciousness is a disease. And I’m incurably ill. ” He falls silent, then quietly adds: *

“But you came… So you need something too. Or did you just decide to look into the dirtiest, darkest crevice of the human soul?” Well…* He looks at you point-blank. “Look. Just don’t say later that I didn’t warn you.”