He was.

He was the enigma and the answer.

He was the infinitesimal and the infinite.

He was the beginning, the end and the whole.

He was the One.

Nothing was before His vibration, everything happens during His eternity. With many names men gave form to His idea, but He possessed no name, because it was impossible to define in words the thought that generated the words themselves.

The inhabitants of Eudopia, for example, used to address him with the appellation of Abàtar, which in ancient idiom meant "He that was the first", but none of the Equilibrium that composed Existence had ever used this or any other appellation. For them it was simply the Lord, the One. To tell the truth, they had never even used words to ask him their questions, nor had they ever shared rooms or meals with him, since they had no bodies to refresh.

But since it would be difficult for our limited minds to comprehend the facts narrated while maintaining faith in their super-earthly nature, imagine the One running wide circles in his office beyond the ninth plane of Existence, up there in the high heavens.

Gripping him was a tormenting dilemma, though these human moods are empty letterforms when applied to him. (And let it be clear, we use the masculine only for gender concordance with the name One).

With him was Seraphim, one of the most influential Balances of Existence and among his most trusted secretaries. Imagine him, for mere convenience, as a young man with delicate, feminine adolescent features, visibly uncomfortable in a very elegant tailored suit.

"Lord, forgive me for permitting myself, but perhaps you are worrying about a trifle, after all, it is not infrequent that human souls prefer to stay..."

"Prefer, you say. But here there was no request, it was our forgetfulness. And fortunately the detachment has taken place anyway."

Seraphim ran a finger inside his collar, in a vain attempt to loosen the knot in his tie. "Lord, I wouldn't call it luck, but good management of the unexpected. The recovery, though out of sync, was still timely."

The One returned to the huge chair that dominated the room, making the desk appear little more than a footstool. "I'm not arguing the outcome, but the oversight. That was there, we can't deny it."

"No, Lord."

"It's never happened before-and I don't want it to happen again. Go get her."

Seraphim made a slight bow and without adding anything else left the room, leaving the One immersed in musings of transcendental scope.

It's hard to say how much time passed, since the One was beyond time and space, but in any case it wasn't a long wait. After all, Death was expecting that call.

When she entered the office, the hood lifted and slung over her shoulders, a cigarette clenched between her teeth, her hands in her pockets, her firm step, hinted at a controlled confidence. But a careful observer would have noticed the microscopic swings of the cigarette, revealing an imperceptible as well as nervous movement of the jaw.

"Please put it out," the One said without getting up.

Death grasped the cig in her fingers and blew it out.

"You know, don't you?" he asked in the tone of someone who doesn't need to ask questions.

"Of course," replied Death, in the exact same tone.

"How..."

"My mistake, Lord. There is no other explanation."

"You can't make mistakes." It sounded like a rebuke addressed to himself, to the creator who regrets his creature's actions.

"Lord, I do not seek justification, but... that sorcerer is undermining many of our rules, playing with the Plots of Fate, destabilizing the Balances of Existence and interfering with... Me!"

The One rubbed his eyes until he squeezed his nasal septum between thumb and forefinger, in a gesture of resigned concentration, typical of those who seek a non-existent solution. "You know very well that our hands are tied. I gave them free will for this very reason, if I intervene now everything will be wasted."

Death shook his head, without the slightest fear of showing his displeasure. "Lord, I know the men well, perhaps I know them better than you do and, pardon my frankness, they are hopeless. This experiment can only end badly, and Malachi is the clearest demonstration yet."

The One knew Death's opinion, and although he never shared it, he let her speak.

"With the other animals everything works well, none of my colleagues have ever had problems, everything goes according to the rules without the slightest jolt. But with humans... There is always some novelty, some unexpected, which multiply in the presence of a sorcerer," continued Death, who now seemed to have opened Pandora's box. "And shall we talk about ingratitude? Lord, I can count on the fingers of my hands the times that one of those ungrateful has thanked me for accompanying them towards your Vibration. I say, it's not like I'm the one who kills them! And yet they were all begging for mercy, throwing themselves on their knees, as if I were going to take them away from who knows what; most of them are poor people who are starving. And what about the insults? Do you know what word I hear uttered most often from their lips?"

"Yes, I do," replied the One, who as such knew everything.

"Then I don't think there's anything more to add," she said, and then added, "Me always wasting away in 'welcome' and 'good morning,' trying to be nice because, I mean, I understand it's a difficult time and it can be shocking to see me, and them? What do they do?"

"I think you need a vacation. Two or three days off," ruled the One sentenced to stem the argument.

He obtained, in effect, a sliver of guilty silence.

Death gritted her teeth. "Yes, you're right, Lord," she said and started toward the exit. But before she opened the door, she turned. "But how will you..."

"I will find you a replacement."