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YEAR 102: THE MOST SIGNIFICANT TEXT
MASTER TREACLE CALLED THE MEETING to order. As Professor of Geology, I had a seat on the fifth row and could see him standing tall on the stage of stacked books, smiling brightly in his purple robe – dyed with grape juice. A few curious onlookers from the barbarous other side of the chasm were shouting rude remarks, but as always, we ignored them. I turned around and looked at my bedmate Sandra, who was a few rows back – Assistant Professor of Calculus. She gave me a smile, looked at Treacle, and rolled her eyes. I smiled back and nodded.
Treacle cleared his throat as a signal we were to quiet down and attend.
“We will begin with a musical number by our university music ensemble.” As he said this he cast a scowl my way. I was supposed to play this morning, but my turkey-bone flute had been CU-ed (cleaned up) last night and I had not had time to carve another. Apparently it came loose from the strap around my leg where I had bound it. It was a shame because I had managed to hold on to it for over a year. Oh well, c’est la vie.
The music was lovely, and I did feel a tinge of guilt that I was not there. I was also a little disappointed that the flutes sounded so strong without me. By ordering raw intestines to eat, several types of harps had been created by stretching the gut between the bookcases and the railing, or up and down the railing. It took most of the morning to set these instruments up, so the music they created was well appreciated. Even the barbarians in the stacks across the gap stopped heckling us while the musicians played.
After a loud and appreciative applause, Treacle stood again.
“Our invocation to the great God of Zoroastrianism will be offered by Professor Donaldson. After her prayer, this year’s Most Significant Text will be read by Dr. Rachel Hasnick. Dr. Carter will introduce the text with an award presented to Stew Sand who found the text three months ago on level minus fifty-six in row five, book forty-eight, in area minus three hundred eighty-eight. There were a number of entries that might have been contenders for the MST, but when this one was found there was no question of this year’s winner.”
Professor Donaldson stood and raised his hands into the air.
“Great God, whose heaven we eagerly await. We are gathered here on the first day of the one hundred and second year of our time in Hell, to praise you and to honor your memory and presence. Bless these proceedings that we may find favor in your sight. That we may be led to our life stories. That the days of our imprisonment may be short. Bless our efforts. May peace be had in all our districts. May the search be undeterred. Bless our university that it may continue to prosper. That its leaders and councils may be wise in teaching truth to the inhabitants of Hell. May we be led to be better people by combining our knowledge and teaching one another the truths gleaned from our lives while on earth. May …”
About here I faded out and snuck a peek at Sandra, who seemed to be sincerely participating in the prayer. While I would never admit it to the administrators of the university, I was more than skeptical about trying to pray. What kind of God lets demons choose such a bizarre Hell? Why put conscious beings through this? What purpose could it serve him or us? Was he/she/it worthy of worship? I honestly didn’t know.
Stew, the finder of this year’s Most Significant Text, was introduced and given an award (a piece of soap from the showers carved into an amazing replica of a chicken, which had been placed in a nest of coconut fiber – it is impressive what you can get out of the food kiosks. Apparently, if it is possible to eat, you can ask for it).
Rachel got up to read the text. She was a good friend, and we had spent many a day in long talks and thoughtful conversation about the nature of life, reality, and the implications of this afterlife. She had been the editor of a literary magazine before Hell and now held a post in the philosophy group as Professor of Hell Studies. She received the book she was handed with great solemnity. She opened it. “Reading from page eighty-seven, I quote, ‘The bat housed again four leaves of it.’” There was a deep silence as people pondered the significance of this passage. Barbara handed the book to Professor Treacle, who continued.
“First, note that the text is a complete sentence. Significantly, it begins with a capitalized article and ends in a period. Notice the subject, ‘bat,’ and the verb ‘housed’ refers to ‘four leaves,’ and we find out that they belong to ‘of it.’ Never before have we found such a perfect example of a complex sentence. Stew Sand is to be highly praised for finding this year’s Most Significant Text. Its location has been memorized by all here, and I think there will be many who will want to visit the site of this book and ponder its meaning. Thank you again, Stew.” Treacle turned toward him and with a slight bow of his head, began to clap politely. We all joined in.
Johannas Back, a food scientist, turned to me as we clapped and whispered to me sardonically, “I know exactly what it means, and I don’t have to ponder it much – it means it’s going to be a thousand years before we find a paragraph that makes as much sense as this stupid sentence.” I laughed and nodded. But inside, of course, it disheartened me. We’d been here over a hundred years. And that was the most significant text this year? Last year’s was worse – “Can dye dogs riverward.” Everyone was abuzz about how this year’s sentence started with an article, had a great verb, and even seemed to make a little sense. But it made me realize it would be a long time before we found anyone’s story, let alone mine.
The proceedings over, the people began to disband. A few had come from a long way. Some from as far down as the 12,853th floor and some as far away as 22,889 shelves over. The university was well thought of, and people knew its reputation even a great distance from its origin. I felt blessed to be on the faculty. I saw Rachel standing by herself holding the book she had just read from.
“Hi. Nice reading,” I said as she looked up.
“Thanks,” she said, smiling slightly. “Another year down and another significant find.”
I gave a soft laugh – more like an audible smirk.
“Always the unbeliever, eh?” she said.
“It’s just been so long – over two of my lifetimes on earth,” I replied, feeling sorry for myself. “And I’ve found one coherent phrase in that time, ‘lightbulb ocean left,’ of all things …”
She smiled. “Ah, yes, the MST of ’25.”
“Exactly,” I continued, “and I’ve not found a thing since – that was a nice sentence today, by the way, but Stew’s a digger, he spends most of the day with his face in the books scanning. I can’t scan more than an hour or so before I just can’t stand it anymore.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
We stood in silence for a moment, and I asked if I could see the text. It had been in Stew’s possession for most of the time and he had just given it up a week ago.
She nodded and handed me the book. I opened to the page and stared at the text. A thrill ran down me as I saw those words embedded in a sea of gibberish. Real words, with meaning, as if they had been in a sentence from a real book printed long ago on earth. I looked at it a long while, enjoying the feel of the book’s weight and the deep satisfaction of finding an island of sensible text in an ocean of meaninglessness.
“It does bring a modicum of hope.”
“Yes, it does … and maybe some despair.”
I looked at Rachel. Since we were all white, little differences were magnified, and her freckles made her seem different and mysterious in a way that almost intimidated me. I knew what despair she was talking about. This tiny nonsensical sentence was all that a group of over seventy-five people could show for a hundred years of effort.
She continued, “And I’m so sick of this. I’m sick of the monotony. I’m sick of this university. I’m sick of listening to people’s life stories. I’m sick of listening to people repeating books they read when they were alive.” Her eyes were starting to water. “And do you know what I hate most of all?”
“What?” I said as sympathetically as I could, but I could
guess what was coming.
“I’m sick of having nothing to look forward to. I’m sick of not having any dreams. I’ve spent a hundred years – four times my earthly life – looking for a book that exists somewhere in an infinity of gibberish. I can’t do it anymore. I’m sick of it.” She suddenly kicked the kiosk as hard as she could, and then she melted down beside it, crying.
I just stood there for a moment. Such breakdowns were common. We were all sick of it. If I let it get to me, let it get away from me at all, I could be in the same state in a matter of minutes. I knelt beside her and lifted her up. I found tears running down my face. It surprised me. Something about the day – reading the damn text, and making such a big deal about something so stupid, had raised my feelings to the surface too.
She looked at me, noticed I was crying too, and smiled. “Bad day.”
“Bad day,” I agreed. I helped her to her feet, and she took a step and winced in pain.
“I think I broke my toe,” she laughed wryly.
“Probably,” I said. “You kicked that thing pretty hard. It will be healed in the morning.”
“Yeah. Of course.”
She looked around. There was still a good crowd of people around. Sandra was looking my direction. Wondering, I could tell, whether I was going to join her for dinner or keep talking to Rachel all evening. Sandra and I had been bunking together for about three years. I liked Sandra, we had a great deal in common, and I was going to miss her. It seemed funny at the time that I would think that right then, but I knew it was true. I could tell something big was about to happen. I’m not sure how I knew, but I did.
Rachel glanced at the direction I was looking and said, “You’d better go. Sandra’s got a jealous streak I can feel from here. I’ll be all right. Go on. I’m fine.”
I ignored her. “You were on the exploration of ’58, weren’t you?”
“I was.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, with Sandra still glaring at me from the distance. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard your version.”
She gave me a grateful look and began, “Well, as you know there were eight of us. Dr. Cummings spearheaded the whole thing. He put together the four teams of eight who were to travel up, down, left, and right until we came to the end of the hall, or to the bottom floor or the top floor, but the idea was none of us would return until we found an end, even if it took twenty years … Are you sure you want to hear this? It’s not a very interesting story.”
I nodded vigorously.
“Well, I was on the team with Cassandra …”
“The anthropologist, right?”
“No, she’s the Marxist economist.”
“Right. Go on.”
“And Jed, Conrad, Katrina, Daphne – the tall Daphne with blond hair – Mike, Rudy, and Doc.”
I nodded at the familiar names.
“We went left. Every day we would walk until noon, eat something, and walk on until it was time to spend the night. After about a month, we started running into people who hadn’t heard of our university. But they were always eager for news from far away. Never any diversity, of course. No old people. No children. No blacks. No Asians. No Hispanics. Just bland, ever-present whites. Things seemed civil everywhere we went – unlike the barbaric behavior and rape gangs across the divide. Strangely, after about six months the people started getting scarce. And a week after that they disappeared completely. We were alone. The books continued. The sleeping rooms continued on the same interval we had always seen them, but no people.
“At first it was pleasurable. We frolicked like kids in some secret place, but after a month we began to feel lonely. After a year, we really had nothing to say to each other, and we were on each other’s nerves so badly we started sleeping in separate rooms at night. But we had our charge, and on and on we walked. We walked a year further and never said a word to each other. The following year the girls banded together and talked from time to time. The year after, a few romances and occasional conversations continued. It was on the anniversary of our fifth year that we suddenly just stopped. No one said anything. We just stopped walking, looked at each other, and turned around and came home. I can’t tell you what it was like to find people again. I think the first man we ran into thought we were off our rocker, but it had been over nine years since we had seen another face, and we couldn’t leave him alone. I’m sure he felt like a celebrity with all of us fawning over him. Nine years with only eight faces. It was horrible.”
She fell into a thoughtful silence.
I said, “I’ve heard the same from the people who went up and down. After a while people disappeared, but the books went on and on … Weren’t the up group gone for twenty-five years?”
“Twenty-three, but who’s counting?”
“And one never came back? Julia Hatch, wasn’t it? I knew her a little.”
“I think so. They said when they finally turned around she just said, ‘Not me,’ and kept on climbing. I wonder if she’s still climbing.”
I noticed Sandra was really scowling at me now. I knew in a moment she would storm off. But I just wanted to talk to Rachel.
She noticed Sandra too.
“You’d better go. She’s not very happy.”
I shook my head and lowered my voice. “Do you think this is really a Zoroastrian Hell?”
“Ah. Our resident non-believer. How can you doubt it? We were all told the same story by a great demon. There’s a sign posted every fifty yards that tells us it is. And I don’t see any way around the reality of being here. We all wake up to the same set of rules, the same consistency. Why do you doubt?”
“I don’t really doubt – I just want to. I think in part it’s the lack of diversity, the lack of nuance, like the veins of a leaf, or the grains in a piece of feldspar, the lack of variety and detail. I keep wondering about the idealist’s perspective that our minds are sitting in a jar somewhere and all this is just a projection of some sort. That kind of input would be easier to maintain if you didn’t have to worry about detailing a dragonfly’s wing.”
“Do you believe that’s the case? That only you are real?” Rachel asked slyly.
I sighed, “No. Not really. I can’t take solipsism seriously.” I smiled at her and added, “At least I know you’re real.”
She gave me a big smile, amused at my maudlin pronouncement, but glanced quickly over to where Sandra had been standing.
Sandra was gone. I was glad. It seemed funny that one day I would go to bed in her arms and the next not feel anything, like a switch had gone off. But no, that wasn’t honest either. This had been building for a long time. Our silences were getting longer. Our arguments more frequent. How do you stay with someone when there are no dreams to build? No purpose to accomplish? No meaning? No meaning – that was the monster that drove us away from one another in the end. Always.
“People keep telling me God is good,” I said, “that we need to pray every day for His kind mercy. But why pray? Everything is given to us. For protection? Why? Even if we die, we just wake up the next morning as if nothing had ever happened. Will praying hasten the search? I’ve seen no evidence of that. Why thank this God who has condemned us to an endless Hell? We are all slowly going crazy. And the task? We all know it’s impossible. A book on our life? There must be billions of such books. In what detail? From whose perspective? A book on every second of our life would take volumes. A book about my life from my own perspective would be very different from that of an observer who loved me, or from one who hated me. Which book is the right one?” I was venting, but I could not seem to stop. So many irritations in this place, so many endless, meaningless frustrations.
“So I don’t want to believe,” I went on. “During my earth life, I believed I would live with my precious wife forever. I believed I would one day be a God. I believed in doing good to my neighbor. I did my home teaching. I paid my tithing. I served in my calling in church. That God made more sense than this ever could, and yet do I wake up in the C
elestial Kingdom surrounded by my departed family and friends? No, I find myself on a folding chair in the office of some demon sitting behind a desk with a vision of people burning in Hell in the window behind him. So all my beliefs disappeared then. Why should I trust things now? Who knows, maybe in a hundred billion years I’ll find my book. I’ll stick it in the slot and boom, I’ll find out that, no, Zoroastrianism isn’t the truth either, but it was really the Baptists who were right all along and this is just part of God’s preliminary salvo into an eternity of horrors. So it’s bam, splash, and I find myself in a sea of boiling sulfur. Or maybe this is some strange philosopher’s Hell where we have to experience every possible Hell that can or has ever been expressed.” I sat down, frustrated and depressed. “So … I guess I don’t have much hope that things are going to get better.”
She knelt down beside me and took my hands in hers. She didn’t say anything; there was really nothing to say, I suppose. Tomorrow would come, we would discuss something, eat from the kiosk, and go to sleep.
She looked at me thoughtfully, smiling sadly to herself. “I remember when I first got here, I was a vegetarian deeply committed to eating low on the food chain. When I was alive, I didn’t want to be part of the industrial food complex with its abject animal cruelty. Then one day someone watching me eat said, ‘What, do you think there’s some Hell somewhere in the larger universe where people are running a chicken factory? Another where they make these meals for the kiosk and send them here on some sort of conveyer belt?’ The absurdity of it has never left me. We can’t care about anything here. We can’t make a difference – all meaning has been subtracted, we don’t know where anything comes from or where it goes. There’s no context for our lives. We’re all white, equal ciphers, instances of the same absurdity repeated over and over. We try to scratch some hope or meaning out of it with our university, but ultimately there is nothing to attach meaning to. We’re damned.”
A Short Stay in Hell Page 5