Self-Reference Engine

by Toh EnJoe

  I could hear the sounds of the invisible people as they made their way through the turnstiles, flowing past us on their way to the street. It seemed to be only about seven or eight people. That’s a lot of people to be getting off in an out-of-the-way place like this. If we could see them it would cause a big fuss. I wasn’t interested in hearing anyone say this was not a big deal just because we couldn’t see these people.

  James kept staring at the ticket barrier, totally cool. I thought I knew what was coming our way, but actually I didn’t have a clue. At a time like this, in a place like this, anything could happen. And by anything, I meant I might like to see a capybara or a wombat. That would be about the degree of excitement I was prepared to absorb. A Komodo dragon would have been a bit too much for me right then.

  Jay stood stiffly guarding the ticket gate, while I just stared at it like some kind of leftover noodle.

  Finally, around the corner, one old man came shuffling along. He tugged at his overly long coat and pulled his cap down over his eyes. Half his face was covered by his beard. He carried a gnarled staff, and the brim of his hat had nasty-looking holes in it. Like someone had put together a gunman from the Wild West and a kung-fu master, then divided by two and added the topping of your choice.

  Neither of us naively believed this old man would miss seeing us. As he approached the ticket gate, all he had to do was look over it, and there we were and no mistake. He came walking straight toward us, quickly. The hotel’s that way, Mister. I was all set to point out the church in the center of town. Of course, there was no hotel in our town. Of course, this attempt at preemptive resistance was woefully inadequate.

  First of all, the old man had an odd way of walking. His legs were moving. And he was moving forward. But those two facts seemed to have nothing to do with one another, like some third-rate composite image, like a job half done, as if all that mattered was the appearance of forward motion. I for one would not go see that film a second time. And I had never confessed to anyone that I was crazy about bad movies.

  “Richard!”

  Surprisingly, it was not James the old man called out to, but me. Let it be said here and now that I have no father and no grandfather, and there is no way I should have any relative anything like this queer-looking old guy disembarking from a nonexistent train. If there had been someone like that in my family, I might have grown up a little more normal myself. To sum up this old man in a phrase, I would say he was a “walking apology.” His seedy appearance, his crooked spine, his knobby fingers, his bulging veins. It was as if, standing right in front of me, was an expanding abstraction, with no idea what country he was even from, let alone where he had been or how he got there. Always and everywhere late, redefined, not even allowed to stop expanding at the appropriate point.

  The old man did not even look at James; he just headed right for me, looking straight at me, up close. It was as if he had made up his mind that he already knew that the person beside me was James, that it was obvious, just like he didn’t have to reconfirm there was oxygen in the air.

  “What day is it today?” He opened his mouth again with his peculiar pronunciation. Like a foreign national who had gone once around and become himself again, an accent that could be anything or nothing. Of course, I had a faint memory of having heard its lilt before.

  “I suppose it’s turned the twenty-eighth by now.”

  “Of February, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  The old man nodded deeply in a way that seemed very familiar to me. He reached into his jacket, looking for something, pulling it out and handing it over. Nervously, I accepted it and opened my hand to find it was a bent five-dollar gold piece. Of course. Yeah. This sort of thing happens all the time. You had to think so or you’d go completely crazy.

  On his butt, there should be a scar from a hornet’s sting. And he should be missing a few toes that were trampled by a bison. Right, James? Even if those wounds of honor were just stories I had made up. Or perhaps because they were.

  I would not have been surprised if, at that very moment, the old man had suddenly drawn his weapon and fired off a shot in the direction of the past. But actually, that would have been a bit over the top.

  The old man looked around once more, pensively, then asked, “Has she left?”

  There were plenty of things I had always thought I wanted to say to a time traveler like this. One was that time travelers should look like time travelers, in leotards, with a clock emblem on the chest. For another thing, I wanted them to have taken care of everything before things got like this, before it all got started.

  I’m sure they had a lot of things on their plates too. They might have missed the time train to the past because they were too busy brushing their teeth or something, or they might have been short on cash. It might have been some sort of planned prank, or some adult nonsense. At any rate, for them to keep repeating this awkward crap means that they grew up watching all this awkwardness. They had never known anything but awkwardness.

  “What, what about you?” The old man tore his gaze from me and turned to face James. “How come you’re standing here instead of chasing after that girl?”

  James remained silent. He had heard what the old man said, but this Jay was not the same James who was in love with Rita. That James had run off someplace else, while this Jay was the Jay who was still mad at Rita for having shot me. This Jay had absolutely no reason to be running off after Rita, even if you prayed to all the gods of heaven and earth.

  The old man suddenly raised his gnarly staff and started brandishing it, saying, “You run after her this minute, you idiot!”

  At the angry roar from the old man’s mouth, he struck James right in the temple with his staff. Hey, hey there, old man! I thought, but the words stuck in my throat. I don’t care what kind of future you came from, we don’t do that kind of thing here. Don’t you think you’re being a bit rough on your former self?

  James shook violently, doubled over, and managed to take two or three steps, but then he pulled himself together and stood up again. A trail of blood trickled from his temple. He was the kind of guy who would laugh if a beaver bit off its own tail. If he wanted to, he could dunk this old man’s face a hundred times in hell’s own wash basin and make him apologize, but instead, he bit his own lip and stared at his own future, the future where he would not know his own future.

  Even at a time like this, Jay didn’t know when to stop thinking weird shit.

  “What the hell do you think you’re up to?” the old man asked. He held his staff straight up before him, gripping it with both hands. It was the old man who was up to some weird shit. James had still done nothing.

  How about we all just relax? Without thinking, I almost called him by name. But then I just called out, “Hey, Mister. What do you think you’re doing, hitting James like that? Saying things like that? I’m going to call the police.”

  Honestly speaking, I would never make a good actor. I spoke these lines in a completely flat intonation, and they emerged from my mouth expressionless. But I had a few choice words for my fellow actors. At a time like this, anybody would be anxious. I don’t care how much soul-searching they had done, it wouldn’t be enough.

  But what about me? My position, my circumstances, whatever you want to call it? I would like to ask this guy James here, wherever he came from, what he thinks of that. I thought James’s future was to leave this burg and head for the East Coast and then end up somewhere in the west. Plan D was for James to disappear from that middle west of North America and disappear from my future completely. The appearance of this old man messed all that up, but James’s disappearance was supposed to be the continuation of this story; at least, up to now it was. He must be thinking my heart was all aflutter as I wrote the history of that small parting.

  “The attack of the self-proclaimed star-man Alpha Centauri has begun!” the old man went on, oblivious to the objections that were going through my head. “The object sunk in
the primary star of Alpha Centauri has begun to move!”

  That story is not part of this story. It does not even take place in this universe. It hasn’t even happened yet, James. That is something that happens in a universe on the other side, and we don’t know about it yet. I had noticed—and wondered about—the Shining Trapezohedron that suddenly appeared and was abandoned at the same time. But if everything is wiped away up to and including that framework, this story itself will be left on wobbly legs.

  “Haven’t you figured out yet that this isn’t the sort of universe where you have to worry about details like that?”

  That was James all right. Everything he says is nonsense. Even now, all grown up and turned into an old man already, he’s still full of crap. Just a little more polished.

  “All of space-time is changing, with a hitherto unknown degree of speed. The giant corpora of knowledge who mistakenly believe they are extinct even though they’re standing right there are of no use at all because they are so depressed about all their multiple internal universes. Who pulled the trigger on the extinction of the giant corpora of knowledge?” the old man proclaimed dramatically, pointing his sword-cane at…James!

  He did!…Not! You did it! When the giant corpus of knowledge Plato fell into a massive depression and you wanted to snap him out of it, weren’t you the one who proposed using that nutty doctor? And it was you who created the conditions that led them to the peculiar conclusion that the corpora were extinct. It wasn’t James here who did that. And who actually stopped the giant corpora of knowledge? The little girl who asked those oh-so-simple direct questions.

  As I struggled to recall this tale, it finally dawned on me. The girl who bombarded the giant corpora of knowledge with questions, who made them so sure of their own extinction, could it have been? How could it not have been? But if that weren’t the case, how could a single word from a single child have brought down the giant corpora of knowledge? This was all a bit too tall a tale. But it may have actually been the truth. The giant corpora of knowledge had been hounded into believing they were extinct. Someone had held a revolver to their collective head. I was thinking quite seriously about this line of speculation.

  “Go and open the box, James. Slice up all the streets and alleys. We may still be in time for the things we may still be in time for. Of course, there’s no reason we should still be in time, but this is no time to be saying things like that. But of course, you won’t be able to open that box on your own. Go get the girl.”

  Not that I didn’t think he should have to take care of it himself. After all, wasn’t this a seed he had sown? Wasn’t he the one who had fallen head-over-heels for a crazy girl who believed that the past could be changed? Shouldn’t he be the one to have to solve the riddle and deal with the fact that the heart-shaped hole in his chest was the inevitable result?

  But who did it? Of course, it was this-side James. I wanted to shout it out in as loud a voice as I could, but I didn’t do it.

  And the tale as it proceeds from here is nothing more than an unending chain of slapstick. James was still the smartest guy I knew, and Rita was just a completely screw-loose girl, moody and outside all norms. And now there were two Jameses.

  As for whether I wanted to be involved at all in the chain of slapstick that was about to begin, I believe I have already said I would just as soon beg off. I will say it again as many times as I have to. By any means necessary. Excuse me. Take this cup from me.

  “First, shouldn’t you be thinking about going to talk to Echo, or the hyper4-giant corpus of knowledge Baphomet?”

  I have no memory of ever having heard the name Baphomet before. I don’t know if it was part of a story I have heard and forgotten or a story I haven’t heard yet. Or a story that will remain forever hidden from me. It’s even possible it is a kind of story that will never be told. Truth be told, I have no intention of encountering every story in the world. And I have absolutely no intention of being buried under the mountain of stories that everyone just keeps on writing. Writing something myself should be at least a little bit better than that. I welcome stories that have never been told.

  “James! We’re going!” I tried to grab James—who was still standing wordlessly confronting the old man—by the arms and drag him away. I was going to finally take care of this pest, even if it meant grabbing him under the arms, gagging him, and tying him up with rope.

  James put up no resistance whatsoever. Deep in thought, he showed no sign that he was even looking at the world around him. So I dragged his stiff body out to the parking lot like a length of lumber. When I had reached a suitable distance, I turned back around to look at the old man. He was still standing there in the same stance as before.

  “Hey, Mister!” I yelled, getting beyond the instant’s hesitation. “Welcome back, Mister. We’ll take care of this from here.”

  That was about all the pleasantries I could muster at that point.

  Slowly, he began to shake his hands wildly in my direction. I was unable to tell whether tears were streaming down his cheeks. Even if the old man’s cheeks were wet with tears, it would not be a simple matter to know just what kind of tears they were.

  The wetness now spreading over my cheeks was pure happiness, a well-known non-substance.

  Welcome back, James.

  I was just here pulling this-side James out to the parking lot. I opened the back door of the car and kicked James’s butt into the seat.

  I got into the driver’s seat and started the car.

  This is where I want to push the joystick toward the future, as far as it will go, but unfortunately this old jalopy is no battlecraft, and right in front of us is a wall. Gotta back up first. I really should head back home. I had a gut feeling this tour of trouble spots was going to take a long time. The yardstick for measuring it was all tangled up, suitable only for pointing out dislike. Chasing the train would be out of the question.

  It would have been a mistake to expect a trick, like that girl just staying quietly on the train. Or a black telephone remaining silent forever. There’s no reason for things that don’t usually happen to actually be happening, don’t you think?

  We are riding down the highway in the night.

  “You’re going to tell me everything, right?”

  In the back seat, James seems to be waking up again, and he sits up.

  “I’ll tell you as much as I can. Anyway you look at it, this is going to be a long ride.”

  That story is already over, but at the same time it is also the story that is about to begin.

  “Rita?”

  “Rita.”

  “I just can’t believe it, that I would ever fall for a girl like that.”

  That’s James for you. Just don’t ask him to freeze.

  But that is my line. Thanks to him, I am, even now, in the present progressive tense, suffering.

  “Hmm. So it was me who is in love with Rita?” James blurts out, staring out at the landscape outside the window and the superimposed reflection of his own bloody face.

  “Where…where are we going?” he asks. The question is not like him. The answer was decided long ago, wasn’t it?

  “Out there. That way, James.”

  I succumb to a paroxysm of laughter.

  In the back seat, James sticks his nose high in the air and snorts.

  The rude bastard. I will find the string and attach it to a ribbon and hand the end over to Rita. This isn’t even my story.

  I can hear the roar of the engine, and I floor the accelerator toward the future.

  We will ride through the noise of the night.

  EPILOGUE: SELF-REFERENCE ENGINE

  And what if I am not here, but I know you are seeing me. It is not possible that you are not seeing me. There, see, you’re looking at me now.

  I know that I do not exist, but you are seeing me.

  I know that I am not, but I am being seen.

  The me that does not exist knows, at the same time and through some pecul
iar method, that the fact of your existence is obvious.

  And what happened next?

  A natural question, bursting forth from natural rights.

  But reality is a harsh mistress, so its story must also be at least a little bit cruel. That’s why I don’t want to tell that story. Furthermore, there is the fact that to tell an unending story would take an infinite length of time. In the end, the two of them live happily ever after. I guarantee it. I’m telling you so there can be no mistake. But just exactly what kind of end “in the end” that refers to, unfortunately I don’t have the words to describe simply.

  By the time they met again, innumerable other events had taken place. The fragmented universe had climbed the ladder, or they themselves had fallen and fragmented, and frozen, and thawed again, and fallen and fragmented and thawed out again. And in the interstices of those occurrences there was buried yet another infinity of stories.

  But these kinds of stories I have no wish to tell.

  The tale of the storyteller Kyodaitei Hatchobori, the attacker, who bore all the hopes of the giant corpora of knowledge on his own back.

  The tale of Yggdrasil, who plunged into an ill-fated love with a hypergiant corpus of knowledge.

  The tale of the bloodbath war between infinitely replicated Rita and infinitely replicated James.

  The tale of the burning of all the books that threatened to upset the fundamental reasoning behind this tale.

  The tale of all the universes not brought to your attention by this book.

  All of these things happened and will happen.

  And in the interstices of all these tales lie buried innumerable other tales. That is in fact the reason why all these tales cannot be told. Stories are not a well-ordered set. Between any two given stories lie countless other stories. I know of no method for lining up those stories in some order so they can be told. The best I can do is to focus on a lone story, as though it were a single point, and try to imagine even converging on that point while the stories dance atop stepping-stones.