by Rod Rees
To which the Master replied, ‘Life’s just shit, kid.’
Third Book of the BiAlects, Verse 45
Calling the Daemon an empty vessel was an unfortunate insult, decided Dong E as she left the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Empty vessels are full of the Nothingness and hence replete with wu wei.
Interesting.
As she had been taught by PhilosopherNoN Xi Kang, there was great power and strength in the Nothingness that is wu wei. The spaces between the spokes of a wheel, the void that is the Kosmos, the invisible flight of an arrow … all were examples of the Nothingness, but none was as powerful as nonviolence, the power to fight without fighting.
And as this Daemon was the proselytiser of this strange philosophy of non-violence, Normalism, it was little wonder it – correction, she; only humans could embrace wu wei – was blessed by ABBA. ABBA, after all, was the ultimate embodiment of wu wei and the Nothingness.
Dong E shook her head, trying to clear it. A Daemon being possessed of wu wei was an intriguing thought, so intriguing that she wasn’t inclined to return to her quarters as Mao had commanded her. Instead of turning left towards the Pavilion of Delicious Delights, she turned right towards the Gallery of Literary Profundity. Luckily for her, it was the Time of the Replenishing of Bodily Strength and the corridors of the Forbidding City were deserted as everybody took luncheon.
Still Dong E knew she had to be careful. The Gallery of Literary Profundity was out of bounds to Fresh Blooms as knowledge and learning were believed to make them lose that oh-so-cherished glow associated with the first awakening of FemmeHood. But for her these unofficial visits to the library and her chats there with Xi Kang were what made her tedious life in the Forbidding City worth living. Breaking the rules and violating Li was exciting. Better, she had decided, to die seeking knowledge than to die of boredom.
She came to the servants’ door of the long-neglected library and, after taking a quick look around to check that she was not being watched, eased it open. Taking a deep breath she shimmied her way inside, steeling herself against the putrid onslaught of the millions of gently mouldering sheets of paper the library was home to. This was the second and inferior library of the Forbidding City and it was where all the discredited texts, the scrolls containing outdated opinions and the tomes relating to obsolete theories were housed, only protected from destruction by the belief that words once written became the property of ABBA. Without this injunction the whole lot would have been turned to ash years ago.
The size of the library showed just how much heterodoxical philosophy had been concocted over the years. The Gallery of Literary Profundity was, by Dong E’s estimation, almost five hundred metres square, at least fifty metres high and was crisscrossed by a perplexing maze of floor-to-ceiling bookcases each crammed full of books, rolls of parchment and document boxes. It was also home to the Coven’s most irascible HerTorian, the PhilosopherNoN Xi Kang.
Silent on her slippers, Dong E tripped through the vast room, feeling intimidated as she always did by the cliffs of books that loomed over her. It was pitch dark, there were no windows and no gaslights in the room, so all she had to guide her was her memory of previous visits and the smell wafting towards her from the cubicle set in the furthest corner of the library where Xi Kang had built his home.
She rounded a final bookshelf and by the light of a neargutted candle standing on a rickety table could just make out the huddled form of the old NoN as he lay on his cot swathed in a threadbare blanket. Braving the smell – a concoction of mustiness, neglect and urine – Dong E bent down and gently shook the NoN by the shoulder.
‘Revered PhilosopherNoN Xi Kang, it is me, Fresh Bloom Dong E. I have come to visit you. Look, I have brought you a present.’ With that she placed a small bottle of Sake Solution on the side table.
The NoN grumped off the blanket, stretched and then made a grab for the bottle. He took a long, long guzzle. ‘Excellent. Fuck, that was good. Just what a man – a former man – needs to wake him up in the morning.’ He gave his arse a deep and very profound scratch. ‘It is morning, is it not?’
‘No, afternoon.’
‘Date?’
‘It is the second day of Summer, one thousand and five.’
‘No kidding. Summer already, eh? Fuck, doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself. I thought it was still Spring.’
He took another swig from the bottle, then swung his skinny legs off the cot and let out a loud fart. Dong E was forced to turn her head to protect herself from the smell and to avoid watching the NoN peeing into a rusted bucket. The NoN was a truly repellent individual: excessively tall, excessively thin, excessively dirty and excessively disrespectful to Li. He reached up a grubby hand, gave his bald head a rub and then pushed his feet into his sandals. ‘Afternoon you say? Too fucking early to be drinking, so I’ll pretend it’s midnight; time is, after all, an infinitely malleable concept. What did the Master say about Time? Ah, yes, “The sands of time flow so don’t let it get in your sandwiches, otherwise you’ll be eating desert.” Absolutely no fucking relevance to what we’re talking about but that’s the Master for you.’ He drained the bottle and smacked his lips. ‘Fucking good Solution, though it comes to a sorry pass when brainless whores like you are provided with better rations than intellectuals such as me, but the Demi-Monde is, as the Sage Too Zi often remarked, a world that has been fucked over more times than an ImPure hooker, so perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised.’
Dong E’s indulgent smile was hidden in the darkness. It was hardly surprising that Xi Kang had been exiled to this, a forgotten part of the Forbidding City; the rather scatological philosophy of the TooZian branch of Confusionism he espoused had never been popular in the more refined circles of the Coven. And since the triumph of HerEticalism the study of Confusionism was only permitted within the Forbidding City and here the only interpretation of Confusionism considered legitimate was that of the Great Sage – and Femme – Wun Zi. Only her rendering of Confusionism’s greatest work – the BiAlects – was now considered valid. As a result, TooZian Confusionists, such as Xi Kang, had been shunned and banished from the presence of the Empress. The poor sod had been lucky to avoid execution for blasphemy and sedition.
The old NoN cocked his head to one side. ‘What’s that noise?’
The distant rumble of gunfire had been going on for so long that Dong E hardly noticed it. ‘Oh, that. We haven’t been told officially but the rumour is that the ForthRight Army is attacking Rangoon. What you can hear is the sound of our artillery.’
‘Our artillery? Fucking nonsense: more like the UnFunnies’ artillery. Maybe if I get lucky, one of their gunners will land a shell on Wu’s head.’ He looked over to Dong E and gave her a twisted grin. ‘Anyway, enough of this chitter-chatter: to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?’
‘I have been present at a ritual of 4Telling conducted by TongJi Fu Shi …’
‘Incompetent WunZian cunt,’ muttered Xi Kang.
‘… where she consulted the iChing regarding a number of questions posed by the Empress Wu.’
The old NoN froze. ‘You were present at a 4Telling held in the presence of Wu? You heard the questions? You saw the NonaGrams which were cast?’
‘Yes, yes and yes,’ Dong E answered, hardly able to keep the triumph out of her voice.
Xi Kang gave a sniff. ‘A whore like you would never have been permitted to attend a 4Telling in my day. No surprise there though: standards have been going to shit ever since the Yin Revolution.’ The NoN spat on the floor. ‘Fucking Femme Liberation Movement … or rather unFucking Femme Liberation Movement: I hope all those bitches die of rampant vaginitis.’ He pushed a scrap of paper and a stub of a pencil towards Dong E. ‘Write the NonaGrams down for me.’ Even in the flickering candlelight she could see that the NoN was aquiver to know what had happened during the 4Telling: he might have been able to disguise the excitement in his voice but there was no concealing the trembling of his fingers.
‘And if I do that, will you promise to interpret the Changes for me?’
This was the great insight that PhilosopherNoN Xi Kang had shared with her during their many candlelit discussions, that the BiAlects and the iChing had been written to reflect the two disparate aspects of the Kosmos: Yin and Yang. The Master had chosen to articulate this dualism through the antagonistic Voices of the mythical Sages of the Ancient World, Wun Zi and Too Zi, the pair locked in continual and unresolved debate over the purpose and ultimate fate of HumanKind. Unfortunately for a TooZian like Xi Kang, since the advent of HerEticalism the Yang insight of Too Zi had been expunged and it was blasphemy to even mention that almost every NonaGram cast had a Yang shadow that added shading to the initial WunZian – Yin – reading. And it was this ‘Change’ reading that Dong E wished Xi Kang – the last of the TooZian scholars – to explain to her.
‘I might,’ said Xi Kang slyly. ‘But the question is, what are you offering in exchange for my unique knowledge of the Changes?’
‘Another bottle of Sake Solution?’
‘Tush … a mere bagatelle. You demand deep and profound insights into the Kosmos, insights that only I can give you, and you offer me a bottle of Solution in return. You’ll have to do better than that.’
‘What do you want?’
‘The Sage Too Zi taught that all those intent on understanding the concept of Confusionism had to espouse the Philosophy of Get.’
‘The Philosophy of what?’
‘Fuck, what’s happened to the standard of education while I’ve been trapped in this shit-hole? You young people know precisely fuck-all. No, it’s not the Philosophy of What, it’s the Philosophy of Get. As – according to TooZian philosophy – there is no ABBA, no Paradise and hence no Purpose to Life, then there is absolutely no fucking point in trying to be good, therefore the whole aim of life is to Get Laid, Get Drunk, Get High and Get Even. Hence the Philosophy of Get.’
‘And that’s your philosophy of life?’
‘You bet … or rather Get. It’s the philosophy of all TooZians.’
‘And you want me to help you pursue this philosophy?’
‘To be more exact, just one part of it: I want you to help me to Get Even.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Then let me explain. When that malignant, man-hating bitch Wu took over the Coven ten years ago, she deprived me of all the things I loved: my cock and my access to narcotics and a copious supply of Solution. As a consequence, I am now denied the ability to Get Laid, Get Drunk and Get High. All I am left with is the ability to Get Even and this, my beautiful Fresh Bloom, is what you must assist me in achieving, if, that is, you wish me to help you with your quest for TooZian knowledge. If I translate the NonaGrams you give me, you must promise to perform me one service in exchange.’
‘What service?’
‘Fuck knows. I’ll tell you after I’ve studied your NonaGrams.’
Dong E wrote out the three NonaGrams and handed the paper to Xi Kang, who examined them carefully for several long minutes. ‘Do you remember precisely how the Coins fell when each of the lines of the NonaGrams was formed?’ The bantering tone had gone: this was a serious question posed in a serious way.
She had known from her previous discussions with the NoN how important this was and had memorised which lines had been formed from two heads and one tail – to create a Changing Yang line – and which had been formed from two tails and one head – to create a Changing Yin line. She indicated on the paper which were the Changing lines and Xi Kang quickly drew the new NonaGrams.
‘Fucking fascinating,’ he admitted. ‘Fascinating and somewhat troubling. Tell me, was there anything peculiar about the individual who was the subject of these questions?’
‘She’s a nuFemme … and she’s a Daemon.’
‘A Daemon! Are you totally fucking stupid? Why didn’t you tell me before? This changes’ – he laughed at the unintended play on words – ‘everything.’ With that he grabbed a candle and ambled off into the darkness that shrouded the room, leaving Dong E to scrabble along in his wake. Finally after five minutes of meandering through the shelves the NoN came to the bookcase he was searching for.
‘Unfortunately, my pretty little whore, the tome I am seeking is on the very top shelf.’ With some difficulty he slid a very rickety ladder along the bookcase. ‘My age and sense of self-preservation preclude me from mounting the ladder.’ He laughed. ‘Indeed, since that witch Wu had my manhood removed I am unable to properly mount anything, so I would be grateful if you would scuttle up to the top shelf and retrieve a volume entitled Daemons, Messiahs and Other ABBArational Beliefs.’
‘You want me to go up there?’
‘Why yes, you won’t be able to reach the fucking thing otherwise.’
Dong E drew a finger over a volume parked on the shelf next to her: the dust covering it was very thick. She looked down at her white and cream kimono, the silver embroidery glinting in the candlelight. ‘I go up there and I’ll get filthy. My kimono will be ruined and then everyone will know I’ve been up to mischief.’
‘Then it is fortunate that I have a solution to your dilemma.’
It took a real effort for Xi Kang to hold back the tears as a naked Dong E slowly ascended the ladder, leaving him on the ground holding her kimono, the ladder and his breath. She was a wonderful girl and, despite his teasing of her, he had always been impressed by her sharp intelligence. And, of course, she also had an arse which reminded him of freshly plucked plums.
Or something like that.
He sighed: in another life he might have …
He stopped himself. No, he wouldn’t: she was the daughter of a man he had both liked and revered and hence he would have treated her with the utmost respect … even when she was naked. Fuck it, he was the girl’s godfather.
But it was a very nice arse.
Again he berated himself. Such musings were nothing more than self-inflicted torture: he was an old man, bereft of his cock, so musing about young and beautiful girls was an exercise in futility. It was nine years now since he had – reluctantly – acceded to become a NoN and until today he had almost managed to forget what it was like to be a real man. Not that he’d been given any choice in the matter: the alternative to gelding being execution, the public humiliation of his family and the murder of Dong E. At a stroke – a very painful stroke and one which he did his best not to think about – he’d been converted from an active and contented man into …
Well, he wasn’t actually sure what he’d been converted into. Other than the loss of his penis there had been other changes: his beard had become sparse, his muscles had softened and he had found himself packing on weight.
He had tried to compensate for this bodily deterioration by undertaking a strict regime of exercise. By his estimation, one circuit through the meandering alleys formed by the library’s bookshelves measured two kilometres, and every day he trotted around them ten times, carrying the six overstuffed volumes that comprised the complete works of the sage Kwan E’re. It pleased him that he was the only man in the history of the Demi-Monde who had ever found a use for the crap Kwan had written.
Frightening though these physical changes were, it was those wrought on his personality that had been most disturbing. He seemed suddenly bereft of energy, his will becoming almost as weak as his body, and he had become more docile and tractable, unwilling to engage in the heated arguments he had so delighted in before he was chopped. It had taken huge effort on his part to retain the irascibility that all TooZians were so proud of; he’d had to work fucking damned hard at being unpleasant and obnoxious. That he’d succeeded, he saw as his greatest victory. Indeed, he had been so unpleasant and so critical that that unPrick Mao had exiled him to the corner of the Gallery of Literary Profundity.
Bastard.
Incompetent bastard.
But he wasn’t defeated yet and, with the help of Dong E, he might yet turn the tables on Wu. He might still be able to Get Even.
‘You are very kind, NoN Xi Kang,’ he heard the girl call down to him. He was pleased to note that despite standing stark naked at the top of the ladder, the girl still managed to retain her wu wei. There was a grunt and a cough. ‘It is almost impossible to see up here; the books are filthy.’
‘We are fortunate that they are still here. The first inclination of that philistine Wu was to burn them; she said that the works of Too Zi were an insult to all Femmes and a stain on the memory of Confusionism. Claptrap, of course, but what more can you expect from a LessBien extremist like her?’
‘The word “LessBien” I find insulting and offensive, NoN Xi Kang.’
‘Tough fucking luck. Maybe you should give heterosexuality a try. Get yourself a fully functioning nonFemme and indulge in a little chong time with him. You might like it.’
‘HerEticalism teaches us that heterosexual sex is merely a means by which nonFemmes seek to dominate Femmes. Heterosexuality is a form of social indoctrination designed to promote and sustain a state of Patriarchalism within the Demi-Monde.’
‘Bollocks, of course, but very well quoted bollocks. If you are ever reincarnated, my delicious little strumpet, you will make a fine parrot.’
‘I am much more than a parrot. For Femmes to be truly free of the servitude imposed upon them by nonFemmes, the brutal and unhygienic quasi-political regime that is heterosexual sex must be dismantled and destroyed. And to do this Femmes of the Coven must cease collaborating with their oppressors and realise that when a Femme is violated by a nonFemme, all she is doing is demonstrating her own oppression and showing her contempt for her body and individuality.’