Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Requiem

Outside, it is snowing, and the flakes of porous ice lay themselves with a soft violence on the dark plinths that carpet the walkable spaces of the city. My cherry billiard table cries solitude, if it weren't for a shiny white ball that I make bounce off three cushions in a way that it tells me the right time for what I am writing. I cannot afford to make a mistake right now, at the very moment when I am realizing that life is inexorably leaving me. No, I absolutely cannot. An imprecise god has given me the chance to be played as an instrument on earth, and I have annihilated him with my arrogance, with my selfishness, with my exuberant grandeur, damn me.

Alcohol and glory have done the rest, but you, forgive me, Lord, do not punish me with the irrevocable pain of death, I am still young, I have never missed a single note in my compositions, I am the greatest, and you know it, do not let me fail right now. The subtly wrinkled surface of my original scores has never been corroded by razor blades or natural elements intended to erase naive abnormalities sketched in pencil. Never, never...

I feel that you are not listening to me, imprecise god, you have turned away, leaving me in the coils of this mediocre Italian musician. Do you realize that I cannot be helped by a miserable cadet? I fear that he is my only and last valid resource. What a fierce punishment you are inflicting on me! That's why you are imprecise!

Incompetent! Grab that pencil resting on my well-polished rosewood and start writing! You damned! Strings, I want dancing strings, light ones, those chords must be caressed, shaped, softened with violent sensuality, stormy sensuality. I know that the oxymoron is not for you, young inexperienced musician, but you cannot afford to give me a poor performance right now, when life is covering me with ignominious mockery!

I need winds, blazing brass, prolonged notes that start with one instrument and end with another that takes its place without anyone noticing. I need these miracles, you disgusting spreader of venom! The imprecise god has cast me on earth to be played by me, and I shudder at the mere thought that now, as I am writing my death, the same entity is disgracefully forgetting me. Hey! I am talking to you, imprecise god! Do you remember how I made you have fun when I was writing about life, the brothels, the disputes among furies, the love adventures of well-groomed gentlemen, of colored powdered wigs and pompous yards of valiant scented fabrics, of drunk servants, of dishonored maids, fabulous orchestras, and improbable marriages? Here is my punishment! Rest assured that I accept it willingly! I am tired of all this! I have written enough thanks to you, and now I understand you are punishing me. You are whipping me by forcing me to write death. My own death!

I need female voices, those that have amused me so much with adulteries and career successes! Yes, those, young "composer" Italian! My shadow has always covered you, and now you are taking your rightful revenge. Now that I no longer have the strength even to tap the time mentally. I need my billiard table and wine, a little more wine. I hear the isolated sopranos uttering seemingly sinister words, I feel a hope, yes! Those powerful female voices that recover grace and aura with just a flick of my right hand in the wind.

I need tenors and baritones, a choir made of them! I need their booming voices, I need stormy, roaring, violently dramatic, sinister choirs! Death must be sung properly, not with a distressed lament, with a brilliant fusion of male voices that have the capacity to inflame every dark altar! No organs! For heaven's sake! The ecclesiastical style should not be involved much. My death must be an opera! Come on, Italian! The power of god must have its final manifestation! He is punishing me, and I will try to deliver my last blow to him!

Be silent! Whining peasant! Before my work is consecrated by imposing strings accompanied by the tenors chosen by god, I need an ounce of time. An ounce that encapsulates my anger before the diaphragm contracts for the last time. My last breath must be perpetual and, to be so, I need a few minutes. I must unleash my rage! Off with the black horses that scorch the rough cobblestones of the streets! Their hooves must screech on the ground and their funerary drapes must slap the icy Austrian wind!

Dies Irae, Dies Illa! Fall down, damned black rain! Sink into the clogged ventricles of time! I want demons to slash the air with their trumpets and attempt to sew them up with the bows of my cellos! I want to see them suffer in this perverse mad game before ending forgotten among them! Come on, grand choirs, strike time with your electric power! Do not let the fluid hope of life invade what has already been imposed by god! Thunder, baritones! Thunder, sopranos! Let yourselves be accompanied in the ferocity of a twilight now near!

The rain beats incessantly, but I feel it is ending. Something is corroding my insides! I feel the outcome of my punishment is materializing, and I fear I will not be able to finish the work! No, not this! You cannot do this to me! You cannot let a mediocre connoisseur of music complete such an imposing work! I am the best, you told me so, and I know I am aware of that! You cannot do this to me!

I feel doomed, something is consuming me from the inside... I will end up in a common grave, forgotten by all... what an end! I hope I am wrong and my arrogance fades with time... forgive me, imprecise god... let my music be eternal... eternal... I am grateful to you...