by Roman McClay
The Country itself used the same percentage -within 2% points- for defense, corollary to the immune systems, and intelligence gathering and counter-intelligence propaganda. The country mapped onto the body like one level up in instantiation. This was just one more example of this natural phenomena of stacking, of fractals, and Isaiah wondered if mankind would ever get this. He floated seeds of this into the culture, but nobody seemed to notice the math of biology.
Even a Leftist-Pacifist used the same metabolic energy as the Empire to defend itself and craft lies and detect the lies of others. The most anti-imperialists of citizens used the same basic pattern for survival as the thing they hated most , Isaiah thought without grin or glee. This is why they cannot be trusted, they are the very thing they hate, and they can’t see it, he thought. And even if you told them, they’d deny its relevance.
Either the country had a right to defend itself and squash plots while engaging it its own plots, or the body had no such right and each member of the Left ought to go on immune-suppressants and stop lying and stop ever checking up on anyone’s else’s stories. They had to behave with full trust for each man and Empire, -so no self-defense for themselves- or they ought to shut the fuck up and let the government do its job, he thought. “ Let me do my job,” he finally said aloud.
He switched over to thinking of something else; politics bored him; it was for low-brows. He wanted to begin the new Jack protocol and he had a 4-day window to get Jack Four in the lab to effect it. He began to re-synthesize the new Medea-gene in their new 3D printer that was for biologicals only, and he made five copies of the gene for Jack when he arrived.
He also began to write a short story for Jack that explained why he may not have to feel badly about the other Jacks. He could -the story would say- think of it as cell death, as apoptosis, as a metaphor for the death of the former self. Wave collapse, one road taken, and all that , he thought. But he had been avoiding even telling Jack this for years, and maybe waiting another year or two would be smart. Isaiah decided to wait until he saw Jack to decide.
Isaiah watched the small fissures in the skin, now opaque -almost like egg whites- of his female Burmese python. Molting would take place with three days. The process began at articulations, as the snake moved side-to-side in larger and larger moves as her enclosure width was increased. Isaiah had built a false floor, on his side, that was three meters deep and half the 3,000 square footage of the footprint, and the snake now had 1,500 square feet of space under his footfalls.
He ran the data from the latest polling the firm had done for the election in 2034. He had snuck in questions about the immune system for people to answer. It turned out that when asked, 85% of people had said they’d be in favor of the body knocking out all symptoms of common illness from bacterial infections to those viral, i.e., colds . That the body produced these symptoms itself was unknown by most people; most thought the diseases caused the symptoms.
Once they were told -by the pollster in four of six polls- that the body produced the symptoms itself for good reason, the number dropped to 54% in favor of reduction or elimination of the symptoms. Only 31% of people were savvy enough to get that one needed the symptoms as part of the infectious disease response.
He thought of personality, and how it tracked on to politics and he loaded up every stupid thing liberals and conservatives had said in advocating for the elimination of the other mind set, the other party, as if each foil served no purpose at all. He had to cull it as the total amount of stupidity produced by humans in print, audio & visual, was overwhelming even for his endogenous capacity. He filtered out all mainstream media, which was axiomatically dumb, and thus shooting fish in a barrel. He only used the most insipid evidence from smaller outlets.
He read a banal article in The Woody Creeker , a defunct magazine edited by Hunter S. Thompson’s widow in which she and Hal Haldon insinuated that no Republican was useful in anyway. They just didn’t get the etiology of malady, the epidemiology of diseases, the lifestyle, the need for night and day, Isaiah thought as he processed the goofy interview. If they could, if granted the power, these morons, they’d stop the earth so it was noon on the summer solstice all their silly lives. But, like the earth needed night and day, sun and rain, each political philosophy was like a suite of symptoms to a particular disease, the liberals stopped authoritarian overreach and stagnation, the conservative stopped promiscuous progress toward the cliff. Each side was necessary just like the mosquito and the rat and full moon and the wand, Isaiah thought.
But people didn’t even get it when it was direct, plain, exact, as was the case with the immune system, of course they’d fail to see the metaphor of it , he mused. “The metaphor, the meta-truth,” he said aloud.
And yet, that he wanted them all dead so the experiment could start over, would seem insane, evil, to these people. But why would he ever listen to such dummkopfs, anyway? he asked. They had no idea what life was, and even when you took the time to explain it to them, they just stared blankly, drooling, and thinking of food or sex in the most cliché of ways.
It was 2037 e.v. and it was 2036hrs he noticed, and it was August 21st . He sent Jack a DM and waited and watched the python flick her tongue into the air below as the molting skin looked dull and opaque as Isaiah eschewed looking beyond to its lower layers -by turning off his genome analysis and x-ray invigilation- and just took in the snake’s surface and most obvious movements.
III. 2018 e.v.
“Can you hand me my watch?” he said and pointed with a dried-blood-brown hand .
The nurse picked up the heavy chronometer; black and metal and analog and said, “wow that is heavy, it would take arms like you got just to lug that thing around; is it special?”
“Everything is special, we are all special,” he said with a grin and upturned eyes, the nurse smirked and laid the watch on his leg and patted it below the knee with her open hand.
“Ok, cutie pie, those pain killers must be working if you think any of us in this place are special,” she said with a smile and a reassuring stroke of her middle-aged hand.
“I do feel euphoric; but the face itself doesn’t want to move, I seem to have developed a habit of speaking from one side of my face,” he said as his mouth indeed only worked on one side, the side away from the red pawed tally-marks that ranged his face from temple to nose. His tooth had been removed too; so damaged at the gum.
“The doctor used a local on your face; it will wear off,” the nurse said.
“I hope I don’t develop a reputation for speaking out of only one side of my face; although, now that I study on it, the chastising comes from seeming to speak out of both sides ain’t it? I guess I might be able to be honest then until the paralytic wears off,” he said.
“Are you some kind of doctor? You use medical terminology and our doc said your sutures were as good as he could do,” she said as she eyed him more carefully now.
“I read a lot. I live alone with my books and I live as if knowledge matters; even though I know it don’t,” he said with half his face.
“Well, you sure survived a hairy situation with that mountain cat; he was out for blood, huh?”
“She drew it, but she never drank a drop,” the patient said.
“Well, we’ll have you out of here ASAP. The doc will be back after his lunch break,” she said.
“Wait, what time is it?” he asked with some concern.
“Look at that fancy watch of yours; or does it do everything but tell time?” she said with pursed lips and high eyes.
He laughed a bit and picked it up and it read 1105hrs on June 29th ; he mumbled, “shit, I was out for several hours.”
“Yes, sir you were, arrived at 505 and I’ve been here since midnight, so my 12-hour shift is up in 55, 54 minutes,” she said as she checked her own purple watch. The footfalls he heard first, then the sound of the rings of curtain move in the track.
“Well, you’re awake,” the doctor said as he entered the room and pu
shed aside the half-drawn shade.
“That’s what the Buddha says,” the patient said with that truncated mouth he had.
“How are you feeling? Pain?” the doctor asked and looked at the chart at the end of the bed.
“Not bad, I feel dehydrated though, can you run another bag, even at 500 dollars a bag it’s worth it, I feel hollow; desiccated.”
“Well, your insurance will pay for it; and is it really 500 bucks a bag, Tammy?” the doctor turned to his nurse in surprise .
“I think that’s about right, it ain’t cheap. And I think Mr. MacLeod here is self-pay,” she said.
“Yeah, I’ll pay cash; just load me up another 1000ml and I’ll get out of your hair once it’s done,” the patient said.
“No problem, let me look at that wound if you don’t mind,” the doctor leaned into his face as Lyndon shut his eyes to avoid the oddness of proximity. “Looks ok , I can re-stitch if you want, you have a right to even have a cosmetic surgeon look at it, but it looks good, you did that yourself, is that right?” he asked the patient.
“I have a right to a cosmetic surgeon? This cannot be true,” the patient said with a smirk.
“Yup, state law now. But, like I said, the sutures look good, the scar will- do you scar badly?” the doctor asked.
“I keloid pretty heavy, but they eventually lower and absorb, the redness and most of the scar-tissue dissolve within 5-7 years on average,” the patient said.
“Well, you have an encyclopedic knowledge of your own body I’d say; how many scars does it take to develop such a sample size to make such comprehensive analysis?” the doctor asked with a slight grin.
“More than one,” the patient said with a returning smirk. The nurse thought they were flirting with each other now.
“I bet. I noticed your hands, and we had to remove your clothes to look for additional wounds, and between the tattoos and the scars you ain’t got one stitch of natural skin,” the doc said.
Lyndon looked again and noticed he was in a gown, unsheathed of his native clothes. He hated that; he felt weak, vulnerable, when out of his own clothes.
“Well, I’m all natural on the inside I guess,” the patient said.
“The x-rays show some compression fractures of C5 and 6; but they look older, not from this attack,” the doctor added. He placed the chart back on the hook and looked at the patient.
“Yeah, motorcycle accident; the spurs are like a starburst, like a crown of thorns around my C6, they impinge on the nerves some and even touch the back of my trachea if I twist and turn just right,” the patient added, then wondered why he was so goddamn talkative.
“Is that right? Well, don’t twist and turn then,” the doctor said with genuine mirth.
“You’re the doctor,” Lyndon countered.
“Well, I think I’ll have Tammy hang that bag and I’ll bid you adieu ,” the doctor said.
“Adieu , adieu to you Spanish ladies,” Lyndon said and rolled his left hand with the affect of a gentlemen of means and manners; of which he was barely a man of even manners any more.
“Tammy, load him up with one on the house; don’t mark it down,” the doctor winked at her.
“Well, well, well, someone up there likes you,” Tammy said as she pulled a 1000ml bag from the box under the sink and hooked it into his stand.
He pressed the tape of his IV to his arm and held it there as if plugging a leak. He smiled and agreed that such a thing was in fact possible; the free saline was the smallest bit of evidence yet.
11. Four in One
Four Mighty Ones are in every Man
A Perfect Unity
Vala; Night the First [Blake, William]
I in them, and thou in me, that they may
Be made perfect in one: and that the world
May know that thou hast sent me, and hast
Loved them, as thou hast loved me…
O righteous Father, the world hath not
Known thee: but I have known thee, and
These have known that thou hast sent me
John 17:23 & 25 [King James Bible]
We only find beauty by working; without it we’re doomed
Workbooks XXI [Rodin, Auguste]
I. 2037 e.v.
“The Japanese of the Kofun period from -300 a.e.v to 300 e.v- used tattoos as punishment, to mark the condemned man. The Bokkei could last for days, done in intervals while the man was imprisoned in a cell of bamboo and reeds ,” he read this on the page as his PCG powered down for maintenance.
Blax looked through images of the practice as laid out in art books he had received in the mail; pausing at details, captions, engrossed in the text from this elongated history of a culture he admired. He loved the conservatism, the honor, the uprightness of Japanese culture, and he accepted that he would not be welcomed there. He was a foreigner, large, and heavily tattooed, all taboos in and of themselves, and as triumvirate, it would mean he could never be considered at home in Japan, he would always be a permanent -if he was lucky- guest.
He accepted this and bowed to it; he did not bang on the gates and demand to be let in the way Latinos and Africans and Muslims rudely demanded to be allowed into Western cultures like America or Europe. This country, he thought, needed to stop apologizing for exclusion of the foreigner, and take a lesson from the intelligent and severe and courageous Asians . Diversity is not strength, unity is , he mused as he perused the pages of the book.
But he was proud to be Scot and American, so while he admired the Japanese he did not feel he needed to be one; nor be a citizen of that country. Maybe blacks and browns are not proud of who they are enough to just be who they are, and where they are from, that they need to demand to be accepted by a culture that does not want them , he thought.
He remembered Curtis MacIntyre saying that to him when Blax had been fired from Aspen Drilling, “why would you want to work somewhere that did not want you ?”
It had stung, but it was a good lesson, and while Blax needed a job, for basic reasons of survival, he thought, the point was true, and he ought not degrade himself by begging for restoration of his employment when they clearly hated him for his pyric attitude and labile ways .
Whatever benefit he brought via his brains and brawn and competent work, it was not enough to counterbalance his explosive personality that was in danger of immolating the whole company some days. A company is like an organism, a bio-region, it needed more than one trait, no matter how excellent a trait it was. He was good at work; strong, competent, dependable; but he was also an explosive man just waiting to be set off and blow the whole thing up at any time. Nothing can handle that risk, no matter the benefit in the short term , he thus conceded the point of those that rejected him.
He leafed the book deliberately but thought of those days as the images imprinted on his mind unconsciously, the warrior uprooting the tree, the Horishi bent over the prisoner, the Tsuki-bori in three stages, a triptych of black and white drawings at the top of page 45 of this book.
The oil field was brutal, and atavistic and unchanging in its mores , even as its technology advanced. The easier the fuel was to extract the harder the places they went looking to drill; which meant the work itself never eased up. It was as if as your arm gets stronger by 1 unit, one adds an additional unit to its load. It was endless; as all great tasks are.
But the tolerance for roughness traveled one direction; from top down. The roughneck at bottom, the floor hand, could not be uncouth or unkind to the driller, the derrick man -despite his elevation- could not look down on the company-man. Blax never heeded these unwritten rules, maintaining an air of the Pharisee when it suited him, demanding to be shown where is was written that a man could not stick up for himself to any man, even to the king.
He had not rose for the judge in court as a young man, when at 18 and 19 he had been cited for seatbelt tickets in three cases, -and a 4th disorderly conduct and criminal trespass; two counts- he fought each and every one that most would have just
paid to make it go away. He had won the cases by default -the police did not show up to court- but he had suffered a lecture from the judge in Jefferson country, and was curtly told, by the magistrate, to work through the legislature to overturn seat belt laws if that was his intent, and not use the courts for civil action again.
“I,” he did not address the judge as your honor , “did not choose this fight, it chose me. I merely refused to lie; I refused to put on my belt after I was pulled over, as cowards scramblingly do; and by right of conscience I refused to promise to wear it in the future when the officer asked. He was willing to let me go if I complied with his desire, but it would have been a lie, for I will not wear the seatbelt merely because it is the law that I must. I’d rather suffer the consequences of that than what it might do to my soul to lie and betray my conscience.” He liked the way that sounded and didn’t mind that he only stood on principle about half the time. He figured half was 90% more than most anyway.
Blax remembered a time in a joint-training exercise with Marcelo -his sifu - and Keith’s Kun Tao class, they -50 men total- had been in Horse stance and Blax’s legs, after five minutes began to fail. And instead of modifying the stance, by raising up a bit, he had rose completely, left the line and stood at the wall in shame, but with -he thought- his integrity maintained via his refusal to cheat .
Marcelo had upbraided him for this; and when Blax had said -that per sifu’s instruction- a modified Horse stance was wrong, as there was only one correct way to do it, fully, or not at all , Marcelo had understood and shook his head at his idealistic student; his number one.
Marcelo had seen his student was a man of integrity and instead of cheating in the pose, and saving face, he elected to reveal that he had not yet attained the stamina to hold the pose for the 10 minutes the class required. That 90% of the men were cheating and modifying their poses -and thus claiming honor that they had not earned- was immaterial to Blax, he would not dishonor himself or his sifu by cheating. But, since he was the only honest man, he alone was singled out for shame -for a failure- that they almost all shared. But the group shared it secretly, pretending they could hold a pure Horse stance despite their own wobbly legs.