If I want to be alone, I stop. I take a piece of black chalk from my pocket, and I trace a circle around myself. In my circle, I am sheltered. No one has the right, or the power to say a word to me while I am inside my circle. No one has the right or the power to enter it, to touch me, or even to look at me for too long.
When I am in my circle, I no longer hear the noises of the street, the ocean’s waves, the cries of birds. I can remain here motionless as long as I want. I don’t care about anything that happens around me anymore. The circle isolates me from the outside world and from myself. It is total bliss, it is peace.
Inside the circle we cease to feel cold, hunger or pain. Time stops. We plunge into the abstract like a protective dream. We become the center of the circle.
When I want to leave the circle, I simply reach out with my hand and break the line of the circle. No one can do this but me. No one can break the circle for me from the outside. The miracle of the circle is that it offers us complete security.
Since the circle was invented, the world is getting better. There are no longer wars, famines or disasters. Crime has dropped. If we are overcome by nausea, we encircle ourselves. If someone gets on our nerves, we enter the circle. If a thief breaks into our house at night, we quickly close ourselves within the circle.
If we leave for a long voyage and are tired, we can rest within the circle. If we cannot find the answer to a fundamental question, the circle is the best place to think about it. If death approaches and we do not want to die, we can vegetate indefinitely in the circle.
We can never lock two people in the same circle at the same time. Some tried, but happened. A circle for two does not exist, and we are certain that it never will.
There are people who have tried to bring small animals in the circle with them: dogs, cats, mice. But still nothing happened. If there is another living being next to you inside the circle, it doesn’t work anymore.
Since people have taken to using the circle regularly, the appearance of the city has completely changed. Circles are everywhere. There are people who simply situate themselves on the sidewalk or in the middle of the street, closed in their circles. There are those who don’t come out of it for days at a time. In large waiting rooms, in public places, in train stations, we see nothing but people curled up, as if forgotten in their circles. It is much quieter and cleaner now.
At first, it was necessary to have magnetic black chalk to be able to draw the circle. The chalk was rather expensive and most people were unable to buy it. Little by little, the price of chalk dropped and colored chalks were also for sale. Finally, they were given out for free in the city halls.
Today, we are aware that one no longer needs chalk to draw a circle around him or her. The circle can be drawn using the end of a pencil, a lipstick, or even with a fingernail.
Everyone agrees that the circle presents the ultimate miracle cure. Here it is the end of the century and no one is unhappy anymore.
Polls show that the inhabitants of the city spend more than one hundred days each year in their circle. They have already completed a census of those who have not left their circles for five years, ten years, twenty years. Undoubtedly, they have tasted eternity.
But I’m not bothered by those certain rumors that have been running through the city recently. They say that the circles conceal a trap, that sometimes we enter it forever. They speak of people blocked in their circle against their will. They claim that those who live in their circles for ten or twenty years are, in reality, prisoners. It is also said that, for some time now, the majority of circles no longer obey men. It is said that there are many people who, once encircled, discover that they can on longer reopen their cages.
And that they will never leave again.
