The man who wasn't

Background

The year is 1970. In a small but highly catholic country of Europe, a little town stands at bottom of the slopes of a hill, upon which a grand catholic sanctuary stands. The then International Police for the Protection of the State was in charge of, among other things, taking charge of heretical accusations which leads us to this moment in the story. A seemingly homeless man, mumbling to himself about dead gods and the maggots in their corpses, was accosted by two agents of the IPPS and was found to have been clutching a book with, according to report, incriminating evidence... or was he?

A Room Sunk in Darkness

The delegate detective walks in by the single wooden door and cordially greets the two guards at each corner of the room. He sits on the free chair, in front of the homeless man who sat, hunching, at the other side of the table. The single capped lamp engulfs the two in a precarious cone of light. Reaching out with an arm clad in blue, he sets a recorder on the table.
- Please state your name for the interview
The Homeless man looks up and gazes through the detective, into infinity.
- I have none. - he says summoning a scowl onto the detective's face.
- You don't remember your name?
- One cannot forget what one never had.
- Fine. Let us say your name is now... Carlos. is that ok?
The Homeless man smirks slightly.
- What name have you just given me?
The detective looks at one of the guards questioningly. The guard simply shrugs back.
- No one has given you a name. - his scowl intensifies - Look, just tell me who you are.
- That is the problem... I am not.
The detective leans back in his chair, plunging his head in the darkness outside the cone. He scratches his beard and says with a patience wilted through years of service.
- Let me put it like this. I've just been scolded by the director of contentious services because we didn't question you before sending you to the courts for a sentence of wholesome life labour. He seems to think you know something we should hear. So you will cooperate or we will shove you in a ship to Cape Verde right now. Have we been understood?
The Homeless man now focus his interest on the detective.
- This director... does he crawl?
The detective leans forwards again, his face red, his hand holding an opened dogeared journal. he reads...
- The maggots fall and fade. Their faces that of God. I can't find my way back. They litter the way back, I must move forward. - he places the book on the table. - It goes on like that. What could you possibly know that would be of importance?
The Homeless man gazes at his journal, forlorn.
- It is not what I know that is important. It is what I don't know. I don't know how long I've been here. I don't know how or where to go back Home. I don't who or why you are. I know nothing but the dead gods raining maggots on my path. And when I'm gone you won't know anything either. You won't even know you met me.
The Homeless man stands and picks his journal. He turns the light switch on his way out, sinking the empty room behind him into darkness. He stops outside the police station and scribbles on his journal. He turns around and gazes at where the police station isn't; at an endless gas-filled star-lit sky.
And the homeless man walks on through the ruins of mankind.