Self-Reference Engine

by Toh EnJoe

  He winks, at no one in particular, just slightly away from the camera.

  Then, before he can even turn toward the light, at a speed faster than perception, a brilliant white flash lights up the screen.

  The image of a solitary young girl, from behind, standing defenseless before a giant, grotesque stone form.

  She wears a simple white dress and socks. Her socks are turned down at the ankles, with lace frills and tiny ribbons. Her long hair flows down over her shoulders.

  The stone form has two large horns and a star on its forehead. In this direction it has the face of a black mountain goat, and on its back, soaking up all the light, are wings like a bat’s. It is sitting relaxed, cross-legged on a jeweled throne, and holding Caduceus in its lap.

  “Mendes!” the girl shrieks. She tilts her head as if to insert a gap that says, Aren’t you? “What name do you prefer? Leonard? Put Satanachia? A Muhammad Ibn Abdullah impersonator? Abu Fihama? Arkon Daraul?” She speaks the names one by one, raising her tone at the end of each as if seeking to provoke him.

  “They call me by names you must never utter!” This is most likely the voice of the stone image.

  “Don’t I know it?” She hangs her head and drags her socks noisily on the floor. “But if I were to call you a hyper5-giant corpus of knowledge, that would just be that much more dangerous.”

  Flames, rimmed with soot, dance on the stone image’s back. On his right arm is the word SOLVE, and on his left, COAGULA.

  As if to show respect for the young girl’s audacious attacks, the stone image opens its eyes, if only slightly. Its golden pupils rotate from the far side of a hidden other dimension.

  “Aren’t you ashamed to be seen in public in such a common guise?” the girl asks, pulling herself up to her full height.

  “Not especially,” the image says, its voice a rumble. “And you shouldn’t be so flip with me, little girl.”

  “You’re right.” Unlike her posture, the girl’s vocal response is devoid of enthusiasm. “This is just the sort of thing that was never supposed to happen under your regime! If I could only get you to understand that!”

  “I’m not exactly sure what you mean when you say ‘your.’ Surely you don’t think I am responsible for this. I am willing to join forces, if only as an expedient.”

  “Honored,” replies the girl, still listless.

  “Don’t push your luck, Yggdrasil. To me, a giant corpus of knowledge such as yourself is less than a speck of dust of a speck of dust that has fallen into the universe that exists within a speck of dust. I could flick you away without so much as lifting a finger. I wouldn’t even have to think about it.”

  “Don’t think that physical form frightens me. And your voice, well, I’m very sorry about that.”

  “Who do you think you are?”

  From the darkness behind the stone image, loud laughter echoes and tumbles as if from a thousand mouths. A black sphere, like a universe.

  “And did you think—” Yggdrasil’s slender body buckles at the waist. “—did you think I came here completely defenseless?”

  “Everybody knows how your mind works,” says the stone.

  Yggdrasil does a little dance, still facing the giant smiling image. As her feet dance upon the floor, little silvery fishes jump around in spreading waves. Still leaning forward, she snaps the fingers of her right hand.

  “Hey, Bobby!”

  “Yes, Yggdrasil?”

  For an instant, ripples spread across the face of the stone image.

  “Where, where did that come from?”

  The cute little white socks melt from Yggdrasil’s feet and form a swirl, then straighten out into a line.

  “So, this is when we are supposed to fight?” Holding both hands out straight, Yggdrasil accelerates, piercing through the dimensions, toward the chest of the stone image. “This is also one of the rare opportunities we have to defeat you utterly. You are said to be omniscient, but you are unable to know the new. This seems to be something that was added to a story that was already finished. You are old. You are completely surrounded. This is now the second circular story. If this was still the trailer you would already be done for.”

  “Interesting. Funny,” the stone image yells. “I like you. I like you a lot, girl. And if I didn’t…”

  The words inscribed on the stone image’s arms begin to glow faintly.

  The words SOLVE and COAGULA float up to cover the screen.

  Jumping through the surface of the water are tiny fish, their little bodies glinting like willow leaves.

  “Yggdrasil!”

  The solitary female touches the rocks with her hand and calls out to the fish.

  “Yggdrasil, back up!”

  Before the girl’s eyes, a fish jumps up, twice, three times, flapping its tail. The fifth time, it flips its tail hard and never reappears.

  “That’s right.”

  The girl lowers her shoulders, and her hair spreads across the water.

  “So that’s the way you decided to go.”

  She slaps the lakeshore with both her hands.

  “Did I know you? Where? How?” she mutters.

  “Soon that will no longer be an issue.”

  Behind her in the woods, the sound of a gun cocking, more than once.

  Her hair still hanging in the water, the girl presses her arms to her sides. Black steel against her finger. A revolver-type revolver. A revolver that looks just like a revolver should. A lump of steel that could only be a revolver.

  “Thanks for the advance notice. You’re too kind.”

  She steps aside adroitly, takes aim at another enemy, and pulls the trigger casually. You recognize her as the girl on the train.

  A young soldier marches along the cliff face.

  You have no memory of this person. He does not resemble anyone who has appeared so far, nor is he any person who will appear hereafter.

  Why not? Because the story has gone beyond anything that can be told by borrowing the form of any particular character.

  There is no need for any person to appear to connect this episode with another, nor is there any message to link one to another, nor is there even any prayer of doing so.

  A laser sight focuses on the young man’s forehead.

  The young man spreads his arms and seems to be saying something. You know he has already forgotten the reason why.

  By about the time the report of the gunshot can be heard from our vantage point, the young soldier will have fallen to the ground. The bullet will not miss its mark.

  Around this time, in all corners of the universe, red points are glowing on the foreheads of humans. Some people are observing their counterparts carefully, while other people are keeping their eyes firmly shut. Some are relentless in pursuit. Others are hiding people behind them. That’s when just about everything happens, but for whatever reason no one thinks to ask why.

  The cries of the fallen are swallowed up by the wind and melt away and disappear.

  A cigarette, stained with blood, is separated from its graft and falls to the ground. A geofront, covered in rubble. A goat, in the darkness, healing its wounds, waiting patiently for the resurrection. A trail of blood, leading drop by drop into the woods from the edge of the lake. One body, of a young man, fallen in the wilderness. Other bodies scattered to the ends of the universe.

  “What the hell is supposed to happen with all this?”

  Two points of light overlap on my laughing face. My head has not yet been split open.

  I am watching the bullet, traveling faster than the speed of sound. It will definitely not miss.

  Two bullets collide before my eyes, and fireworks ensue. I watch as they repel one another, graze my ears, and continue their flight.

  “Not yet,” someone says. Maybe it is me.

  Of course, that’s what I would say even if it was my time.

  Once the story is over, it goes on, and there is still more story to come. The next story after the end of this book.


  Nothing is certain, all is busy. This story is not yet over, and already we’ve bungled the trailer for the next one. Resting in death, not something I’m in a position to permit.

  “Stand,” I should be saying.

  “Stand.”

  If the voice in the sky said that to me, I would most likely stand. Whether I have a brain or not. Whether I have a body or not. But before demonstrating my extraordinary technique, I think I will wait until we have brought this story, now under way, to some sort of a conclusion. I beg your indulgence for a little while longer. For now, let’s be patient.

  Leave it up to me. Until the one after the one after this. Until after the end.

  At the very least, I have no intention of leaving the sequel up to those stand-ins, the actors.

  I plunge into the shadows of the rubble. I hope to measure the distance until the next rubble falls.

  Even so, when this book ends, the curtain will go up on the next story. Until then. There could be no greater good fortune than to have your help, even a little, to get the characters and sentences from the previous story over into the hands of the actors of the next one.

  15. YEDO

  FROM ACROSS THE street, the sub-corpus of knowledge comes running this way, calling out in a loud voice.

  “My Master! Trouble’s a’brewin! Master Hatchobori giant corpus of knowledge, hello?”

  The situation is dreadful. Even the giant corpus of knowledge Hatchobori himself must realize how dreadful this is. It is true, it is entirely too true, and explaining would be extremely embarrassing. He realizes this is his job, the job reminiscent of the Edo-period police who share his name, but Hatchobori never expected this.

  Staring coldly at the sub-corpus Hachi who, before he is finished panting from running, before he can begin his report, must bow deeply from the waist as his own comic-foil name implies, his shoulders bobbing up and down, gasping for breath. Hatchobori has no choice but to follow suit.

  “What is it, Hachi? Eh, now? Has something terribly awful happened?

  What the hell are you talking about? he starts to continue, absurdly, but he has second thoughts.

  Ever since the first appearance of that fabulous being, the hypergiant corpus of knowledge known as the self-proclaimed star-man Alpha Centauri, the giant corpora of knowledge have become increasingly histrionic in their sense of doom. The emergence of a hypergiant corpus of knowledge that completely ignored the giant corpora of knowledge was completely ridiculous, so the response of the giant corpora of knowledge was slower than slow. While some procedures for first contact were formulated, the actuality of the star-man Alpha Centauri’s first appearance was unspeakable and utterly absurd. The delayed response might reflect a certain lack of imagination on the part of the giant corpora of knowledge, but as a matter of fact this completely unfamiliar kind of knowledge seemed akin to complete stupidity. As a result, while the giant corpora of knowledge waffled back and forth, unable to grasp the reality of the situation, the hypergiant corpus of knowledge had just said whatever it pleased and disappeared, only to reappear somewhere else entirely.

  This cannot go on, the giant corpora of knowledge began to think, and even if they were only half right, once the debate was over and the action phase began Hatchobori could only shake his head as he contemplated the efficacy of the plan. Now, the plan might have solved any problems of earning his own keep, so there was nothing to object to, but he had to admit that sometimes it gave him headaches. Like now.

  This is what the giant corpora of knowledge thought: We have seriously overreacted to this other universe, which is simply different. If we think we’re smart guys, good, we are, but it seems that elsewhere in the multiverse there are tons of entities that are way smarter than we are. And if that’s the case, the only way to fight back is with comedy. For whatever reason, that is the conclusion the giant corpora of knowledge arrived at. If knowledge was not going to be enough for the win, laughter would have to do. It’s an old trick among humans, but for the giant corpora of knowledge it was a novel concept.

  If, heaven forfend, the hypergiant corpus of knowledge were ever to turn belligerent against us giant corpora of knowledge, it is well beyond our powers to say just what would work in that case. Of course, it is only obvious one should try to be prepared for any eventuality, and Hatchobori did not know which of the giant corpora of knowledge it was that first had the idea of resorting to comedy, in parallel of course with that other enormous undertaking. Not that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind that he and that corpus would get along pretty well.

  At this juncture, the giant corpora of knowledge sent out a grand announcement to all, seeking one of their number to devote itself exclusively to humor. And a corpus was created for the task, but he never lived up to expectations. For Hatchobori, who had been abandoned in a corner of a warehouse alongside the Fukagawa River, shrouded in dust, this was the call to salvation, but really he wondered what was the honest truth that lay behind it?

  Grumbling all the while that he just didn’t understand this job, Hatchobori, who was on his way to interview the giant corpora of knowledge, had been ordered not to write the kind of comedy a comic writer would, and also not to analyze comedy from the past. He had no practical experience to speak of, so this fact in itself was no cause for complaint.

  “We,” said the giant corpus of knowledge who came to meet him, “think comic computing ought to be possible.” The corpus didn’t smile. Hatchobori struggled to determine whether the statement itself was intended to be a joke, but the giant corpus of knowledge had delivered the line with utter sincerity, from the core of his circuitry.

  Humor has effects that simply cannot be foreseen. It has a certain energy that none can reproach—its effects appear unbidden from somewhere on the far side of gaps in thought, bypassing the illogical, and coalescing. In truth, we have come this far by ignoring the entire realm of comedy. Our purpose, however, is not simply to watch and laugh. Unless humor can be packaged as calculations, we have no use for it. Our current view is that this is impossible.

  Hatchobori was perplexed, thinking that the corpus was spouting nonsense, and so seriously. Its idea could hardly be called an opinion or even a fantasy. Even as a joke it stank. It was just a thought. It was no surprise, though, to realize that this was a conclusion reached by the conclusion of comic calculations. Are these guys gonna be all right? was all Hatchobori could think.

  I would like you to test the possibility of a particular type of calculation—the kind of calculation where each individual operation is a laugh. I think that you, Master Hatchobori, could do this.

  Counting in his head to five 1016 times, Hatchobori said, That’s what you may say, Master, but still he ended up the loser. There’s a big difference between laughing and joking around and calculations where each step represents one laugh.

  The giant corpus of knowledge nodded as if in assent, but gave not the slightest sign of having been impressed by Hatchobori. Serious work will be left up to other giant corpora of knowledge. Your mission is to experiment in the calculation of laughter, without prejudice, for your master.

  Hatchobori did not press the issue of when exactly comic computing had become the calculation of laughter.

  “The fate of the universe depends on you.”

  Adding that silly bit of flattery to an otherwise serious matter, the giant corpus of knowledge hastily concluded the conversation by handing Hatchobori his commission.

  “That’s enough for today. You may leave.”

  Hatchobori was incapable of meeting the targets for even the most basic functionality, but in this regard, he understood, very deeply, that the giant corpora of knowledge were smarter than he, and that he was being dismissed like a pawn set up for a sacrifice.

  He felt like the foolish samurai who, for sport, had been told by his superior to fetch the moon and bring it back.

  To be assured of his prize, the foolish samurai had to go out as if to fetch the moon. He had been told
to fetch it, and he would have to think up some witty line to show that he was willing. He even felt like he could really do it; he had that much passion and enthusiasm for the idea. But the thing that could depress Hatchobori was to think that the story was real. Even if the foolish samurai really did fetch the moon, by the time he brought it back the master would have long since forgotten he had even made the request.

  Hatchobori would have to cheer himself back up again by telling himself he was reading way too much into this, before even getting started on his own task. He didn’t even know if the foolish samurai would even be able to fetch the moon in the first place.

  “Kiyo, the sub-corpus of knowledge belonging to the dye shop master…” the sub-corpus of knowledge Hachi finally catches his breath and begins his report. “It’s just like a knife through her heart. It’s awful.”

  As he watched the sub-corpus of knowledge Hachi cross himself while invoking the name of the Lord Buddha Mahavairocana, Hatchobori’s heart grew heavy. Of course, not out of some kind of sympathy for the sub-corpus of knowledge known as O-Kiyo.

  “There is no doubt. It must have been a chance encounter, a collision even, upon coming in the front door,” said Hachi. The sub-corpus of knowledge Hachi held his feelings in check, but in his intense efforts to reconstruct the scene he gasps as he struggles to control his breathing.

  This guy thinks this is all just fooling around.

  Having been tasked with the ridiculous notion of formulating the calculation of laughter, Hatchobori finds himself, naturally, at a loss for how to proceed. The assignment had come from out of the blue, as the thought floated into someone’s head, so now Hatchobori was left with no one to complain to, but the matter was too important to be left to chance. Hatchobori did not know what to do, but he was not one to sit idly by. He is too fond of his own skin for that.

  Hatchobori does not think of himself as particularly distinguished among the corpora of knowledge, so his first thought was simply to do something, anything. He hadn’t a clue where to begin, so he started by creating some sort of a framework for calculations, just as it came to him. As he worked, his ideas took some kind of shape, and thus he imagined making himself the main actor on that particular stage. He played with the idea of making the entire calculation process theatrical, with sub-corpora cast to play secondary roles.