(condensed version of the anti-novel adopted by Marinetti's Futurist movement, fable of smoke, of a vaporous man that descends to earth to be hailed as a saviour, a tragic figure in boots, who is he, what does he want? …

from the black uterus

- I'm light... a light man... very, very light... From up there.

- You're not much of a man; it seems to me that the only thing of a man about you are your boots.

- He's a thick cloud that's come very low!

- Phooey! He's wearing a cloak of lead.

- Excuse me, were you born with your boots on?

- No, I found these as soon as I came down.

- And yet again with this coming down!

- Some logs burned below me all the time; a low fire, and a coil of smoke rose all the way up the chimney were I was... a light philosophy, extremely light, was what could come all the way up to me... Was I amassed and created little by little by that warm coil that constantly came up? Cell by cell like the stones of a building? So that the product of that fire was used entirely for my construction... I must have carbonized slowly day by day, changing gradually over the years until I finally turned into the thickest possible smoke - but I can't remember anything about that day or anything before it.

- The purification of matter!

- Imagine how pleased the King will be!

- The Queen will be wild with joy!

- The ladies of high society are telephoning from everywhere to acquire information.

a philosophy so light

- Man of smoke, born of three mothers, Pena! [Pain], Rete! [Net], Lama! [Blade], Pe.. Re.. La.., Signor Perelà, appointed by His Majesty the King as the third member of the Committee for the weighty, difficult and long overdue compilation of the new Code for our country.

Everybody wants a piece of the prophetic smoke. The ladies of high society honour Signor Perelà at a Tea:

- As for this blessed Code, Signor Perelà, which is always in the making but never gets done, we're at least a hundred years behind the times. Little is said of women in the old Code, and that little is always to their disadvantage or beside the point. Women must have a part in many more matters, in all matters if things are to go as they should...

In another part of the realm, lunatics claim his lightness as a kindred spirit.

- For a man like you the only admiration to be desired is that of lunatics, it's the only possible kind, since in the world, except for lunacy everything is...

At the height of his fame he is proclaimed the sole author of the new Code.

- First Christ, and now Perelà.

- From him we can expect only a work of purity and fairness, a work of absolute social justice, both material and...

The Queen's parrot has its say too:

- God...

Over and over, the parrot repeats this one word, the only word it ever learnt.

accused of fiendish arts

Imperciptibly the tide begins to turn against Perelà.

- I don't know what it is about that man's eyes. I can't look straight at him.

- He's disturbing...

Levitational anxiety sets in. Not knowing what to make of it at first, people begin to feel light in Perelà's presence, experiencing the uncanny sensation that at any moment a gust of wind might carry them away with the clouds.

- Believe me, when I'm in his presence and he says that he feels so very, very light, I myself feel as though I'm rising. And note that I weigh three hundred pounds, but it doesn't matter.... I feel myself going up...up...up.... Without doubt the universe is supported by a feather.....

The anxiety of lightness, of weightless existence. The incendiary fate of burning matter consumes gravity and the hope of framing a new Code evaporates. Alloro, faithful senior servant of the Kingdom attempts to imitate Perelà. He burns himself in gruesome fashion in the hope of attaining lightness and the prestige of the great prophet. Brought to the suicide's carbonised corpse, Perelà observes:

- He wanted to become light...

Alarm! The great city reacts, it would rather ossify into its recurrent patterns than risk becoming an experiment in the realm of scattered thoughts and floating life. A show trial is staged, the prophet Perelà is now a diabolical criminal accused of promoting self-incendiary propoganda.

the code of Perelà

A balloon now fully inflated, we watch it rise up into the sky, up there. Translucent and empty, rising lightly and swiftly, but where is it going? Equipped with the longest telescope of all, that of the critic, we stand by and observe, we want to know where.

- Well then, here it is. Only these boots could be the Code of one whom you chose to call Perelà. I bequeath them to you. They alone could anchor to earth my one and only virtue. In this beautiful sunset will rise a small grey cloud in the shape of a man - clouds may take all shapes; upward and onward it will cross the sky, beyond the horizon, beyond the sun, into infinity...

A memo for the next millenium, for a new breed that takes lightness without compromise. Fully inflated, rising, but where to? Again the heavy question, "but where to?", the compromise that must be left like boots that can never be outworn.

A shape in the sky, thats all, but it never stands still. The critic watches from afar. What are we to do with these boots you left us Perelà? Your detritus is all you leave us with, while you are already in the future, meeting strange new birds, exotic types that the world has never seen before. Telescopes will never reach that far, so we collapse ours into our vest pocket.)