He said that this is the future of humanity. "Right now," he said, "the real value of the world's money is worth 50 times less than what it used to be in the mid sixties. On this axis of poverty everything will collapse. When that happens there will be open universal war, and it will be a nuclear war, because that is the only type of warfare that remains economically feasible in a physically collapsing world."

      He paused at this point and fumbled for something in his pockets, but then gave up searching. "This is the truth," he said finally, "except you can't tell it to anyone. People want to hear lies. 'In Lies We Trust!' That's the motto. They want to hear that they are rich, even though the world is collapsing under their feet. Nothing is real anymore, my friend. What people believe in is all artificial, even that which separates the sexes."

      With this said, the man walked away. He turned around at the door and smiled with wicked kind of look. "There, my friend, is your connection to the love pains. People have been lying to each other and to themselves for centuries. Why would this suddenly change? Why would people suddenly treat each other as human beings? That is why love pains are good for the pubs. They will never run out of customers."



      I remained at the bar after he was gone. He seemed to know something about the deep things Erica and I had explored, though we had explored them in a different context. Nowhere in the world could I have listened to a more powerful lecture on this unique subject. In the context of what Erica and I had explored all day in different ways, I knew the old professor was right in his perception of the present political world. That meant that all other political lectures that I had listened to before were totally built on lies. Perplexed, I ordered another beer. I could soon see why the professor had called this hell-hole his home. It had become a trap.

      I didn't finish my beer. I barely drank any of it. I left it sitting on the counter and walked out.



      On the way to the hotel I wished that I had never set foot in this damn, dark place where my political illusions had been so cruelly overturned with his blunt exposition of the truth, including the scope of my mission. Yes, he answered some of my questions that I had struggled to come to terms with, which I had tried to avoid in the hope of finding peace in answers that would be comfortable illusions rather than the nagging truth that was becoming evident everywhere. I realized that I had found no peace in the pub on this ground, only more pain, and strangely, I was grateful for the rare opportunity that I had been given to be confronted with what was obviously the truth. For me, his blunt demand to face the truth outweighed all the comforts that one imagines to derive from comfortable lies.

      I promised myself to be more sensitive to the truth in the future, to be more honest with myself. Except I realized that this is more easily said than done. Perhaps, a person like myself with a shallow perception of things and with less honesty than the professor demanded, needs to go right back to the fundamentals and begin ones own research of the dimensions of love as Erica had found necessary as a means for dealing with the truth.

     

      I hadn't gone more than a hundred yards towards the hotel when a woman called out to me. I glanced back. I saw her standing in front of the pub, waving. "Please wait," she called and started walking towards me, swiftly. When she arrived, she was quite out of breath.

      "You didn't find in the pub what you were seeking," she said and reached her hand out. "Am I right? I can help you to find that," she added, still holding her hand out. "My name is Helen."

      I introduced myself and said that I was a diplomat, really. I told her that I had actually found more than what I came for. "The professor explained a lot to me that I knew little about," I said. "Now I understand a great deal more. At least I understand something that I didn't understand before."

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Stories about  Sex from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche