by Rhys Hughes
My neighbour had hardly altered her appearance during my period of non-existence. Her long hair had been tied up in a messy bun, her nails were slightly longer. After she had sung herself hoarse, and dented an expensive set of iron woks, we enjoyed each other’s company on a less formal basis. “I missed you,” she said.
There was perhaps something accusatory in her manner. But I nodded politely and ignored her frustration. “I have destroyed death and must rid my world of birth also,” I stated. We sat under her bedroom window, which was open; wisps of perfume drifted out. I had never asked to visit this sanctum, though from my chair I was able to study its interior: her own Celestial Horn was draped in lingerie.
Since her demise, Meredith had planned an elaborate opera set in the interstellar void. Now I sketched a hasty libretto: “Listen to my scheme. As living space reaches a premium, there will be those seeking to relieve the pressure. Hopelessly impractical as they are, a fleet of vast starships could be constructed in orbit, to bear emigrants to alien pastures. A policy of lebensraum.”
Meredith twirled a reed between her fingers. “Difficult to execute properly. And it skirts the issue. God requires you to stop production of children, not to populate other solar systems. Beware of immersing yourself too deeply in fantasy.”
These were strong words indeed from my admirer. I shrugged with a flicker of impatience. “Allow me to continue. God knows the secret of cold fusion. If I can borrow the formula and whisper it in the ears of sleeping scientists and engineers, I can persuade them to develop huge reactors to power the starships. When ignited, the engines will flood Earth with radiation. Whole continents will be sterilised, populations will moulder, atheism will be thwarted!”
Meredith loosed her hair. I saw that her roots had turned grey. A theme I thought denied to dead poets had been returned to me: the utter loss of youth. “Tell me what you know of the universe,” she sighed. For once, I knew she did not want lyrics.
I recited the creed. “There are a huge number of parallel Earths, floating in bubbles of reality, like pieces of food in saliva globules. Every possible working out of every situation occurs in total. On one, Mishima was an ape; on another, a housepainter; on a third, a stitcher of kites. On mine, he was a writer and suicide. There is one Heaven, large enough to accommodate the beings of all dimensions, though not comfortably. God rules the system like a chef who distrusts his whisk. We are his devoted servants.”
Meredith inhaled deeply and gripped my arm. “Suppose this isn’t true? What if the opposite is the case? A single Earth and a huge number of parallel Heavens! We think of sentient beings arranged in a pyramid, with God as the apex. What if, in some of these alternative Heavens, the bricks of that pyramid were rearranged?”
I struggled to interpret her metaphor. Pyramids do not slant large in the Samurai consciousness. I shifted uncomfortably on my seat. “God not as a capstone, glaring white?”
She made a wedge of her fingers. “In many of those other Heavens, God might be a lower brick. In a few, the pyramid might have toppled. Or even be inverted completely.”
I was softly dumbfounded. “God as the weakest creature in the whole universe?” My laugh was unpleasant.
“Yes, but we wouldn’t know about it. We die and assume we ascend to the one true Paradise. What if this is the Heaven where God is ineffably feeble? We defer to his reputation, we empower him with our ignorance. A desperate front maintained by his angels.”
“It is atheism which erodes his power. He told me!”
“Perhaps he has nothing to erode. Maybe he just can’t keep up with the deception any longer. He relies on our unwitting charity. We provide for all his needs. As we realise the truth, we stop working for him and reclaim what he owes us. Kicked out of a palace into a seedy hotel! What next? A basement flat with rats and damp?”
The notion was thoroughly tasteless to me, but not alarming. I saw a similar truth in my mortal time: the divinity of an emperor smeared in saccharine Yankee mud. I objected: “But how was I able to kill myself if God has no power? He really made it happen.”
“What exactly did you get up to on Earth, apart from carrying out a mission? Did you visit any tea houses?”
I nodded. She was alluding to drugs: I had indeed sampled the green beverage in Ginza. Thinking about it, the taste had been rather odd; but I attributed this to falling standards. “Some sort of catatonia inducing substance?” I whispered. I knew that God had agents in the Yakuza underworld capable of slipping such poisons into drinks. Even if this were untrue, it would be simple to adulterate my regular supply. All imports from Earth passed through the hands of the Cherubim-Gestapo.
“Think about it before you descend,” Meredith suggested. This was a hint for me to depart. I had erected a makeshift tent in the ruins of my pagoda. As I finished my wine and stood, she touched my arm. I stiffened and burned with a medley of emotions.
“My ranch is large and lonely,” she said. “Perhaps one day you will consider…” She flushed, frowned and turned away.
I wanted to hold her in my arms, nestle my head in her bosom, but I felt unable to move. My manners are too refined. She continued: “We are, after all, more than just friends.” While she faltered, I bowed and made my way quickly to the security of my bicycle. Tomorrow, I vowed, I would confess my real feelings: an act of courage greater than suicide. Deeper than love for a country, for tradition.
Inside my tent, sword forming the central pole, stitched kimonos as silk canopy, I sat with Genji and reflected on my sins. If the hierarchy of Heaven really was reversed, I had been acting without absolute orders and thus without moral safeguards. My creation of an immortal human race was not right in the assured, deontological sense. I was responsible for the consequences. Furthermore with only one Earth instead of many, I had no chance to dilute my guilt. It confronted me like a mother: nor was I able to plead bullying by angels. In Meredith’s revised cosmology, these were stronger than God but weaker than poets.
There were other fears. I had doubtless incurred the wrath of those Gods who existed in the alternative Heavens. Would they act against me? Was there no way to redeem myself? Might I enlist the aid of the devils? But Lucifer had once been God’s right-hand entity, presumably the second weakest creature in the universe. Were men and women the real inheritors of this dimension? Or were there lesser beings higher up on the inverted pyramid? I craved Meredith’s cool logic.
After a troubled sleep, I resolved to abandon my second assignment. But when I returned to the lodge, Meredith had vanished. I called out in vain while flamingos scattered from the sunset like traitors. I circled the house and tapped at the windows.
The rear door was ajar. I passed through into chaos. Garments were strewn on the floor, musical scores flapped underfoot. There was a loud rustling coming from the bedroom. Repressing an urge to knock, I pushed into the intimate space. Gabriel looked up in fright; I had caught him searching through Meredith’s underwear. The force of my anger surprised us both. “You downy pervert! Where is she?”
He leered, a pair of stockings dangling from his grubby hand. “God has been listening to your little chats.” He gestured at the Celestial Horn that stood on a dressing table behind me. “These beauties operate both ways, mister. We heard the blasphemy. She’s been sent downstairs, of course, where all opponents of the regime end up. All the way down to Hell!” Rubbing the silk over his bristly chin, he added: “Better get on with your mission if you don’t want to join her!”
“I’m not going,” I replied, refusing to bow.
An exasperated light came into his eyes. “Dissent, eh? You’re in it now, my friend. Wait till God hears about this. Tip you over the edge of Heaven, he will, like that tart of yours. Brimstone for supper tonight. And a trident in the backside, no question.”
I knew he was lying. I jumped forward and seized the Archangel in a headlock. His feeble resistance confirmed everything Meredith had said. Twisting his arm behind his wings and applying suitable pressure, I
soon had the truth out of him. He shouted: “We had a word in her ear. Joan of Arc came round last night!” I knocked off his worn top hat, revelling in my power. He gargled: “She accused you of unnatural habits. All sorts of vile business. Said you were a debauchee. Now let me go! I’ve got the damned teleological arthritis in my bones!”
I was aghast. “This is nonsense! Meredith wouldn’t leave me because of gossip. What exactly did you tell her?”
Though in considerable pain, Gabriel managed a chuckle, greasy lips flecked with spittle. “She didn’t seem to mind about the animals. It was the young boys she took exception to. Pity, she seemed such a liberal. I suppose she couldn’t face you after that.”
Stunned, I dropped the pathetic figure onto the bare floorboards. A hollow space had opened in my stomach, just above the hollow space where my guts had once squirmed. I stood over the Archangel and drew my sword. He whimpered and shut his eyes. Vermin, for whom my blade was a bailiff, were already abandoning their host, scuttling from his matted locks into the shadows. I would not let them use me as a new abode; I stamped those few who approached into elegant streaks, a calligraphy of crushed chitin and borrowed blood. Perhaps in this language I read a word of restraint. At any rate, I did not sunder the fool; my sword descended and his faded halo clattered in two pieces under the bed.
I left him sobbing and writhing in his own filth. There is no pride to be earned in destroying large insects. Departing Meredith’s ranch and beckoning to Genji, I threw a leg over his crossbar and we trundled into destiny. There was only one way for God to salvage some honour. Kneeling at his feet, I would present my sword to him. I would ask him to do the decent thing: if he refused, I would assist.
When I reached the Hotel Descartes, I was alarmed to find it fallen almost entirely into ruins. Rubbish, old clothes and charred mattresses lay heaped against the walls. The roof had collapsed; the iron balconies sagged like intestines strung between poles. The entrance was locked. So I rang the bell until the mechanism broke; I pounded on the rotten door. As I turned to go, I noticed that one of the piles of linen was actually a hunched figure. A thrust with my blade soon had it moving — it was the receptionist, covered in bruises and blisters.
“I demand to know God’s whereabouts,” I cried.
She drooled and wheezed. I leaned forward to listen to her words. A little shaking made her mumblings more comprehensible. It seemed God had been evicted for non-payment of bills.
“He had a case of dynamite under his bed,” she croaked, tapping her nose. “Left a burning cigarette on the pillow before stomping out. Don’t know where he went. Good riddance, I say!”
Before I could pull away, she flung her arms around my neck and let loose a horrible shriek: “Took the towels before he left! Always said he was a thief. Strange stains in the bathroom!”
A useless gesture: I removed her outraged head.
A journey of a thousand miles does not always begin with a single step. Ask Genji for details. His wheels are warped, his frame is twisted, but he is still faithful. On the hills I dismount and carry him on my back. I will never abandon him, though he pleads to be thrown into a roadside ditch. When he falls apart I shall build a shrine from his pieces. After that I must walk all the way. I will plant a tree for him in Eden. One of my few inspired ideas was to make a present of my visa to D.H. Lawrence. I told him that Earth needed his talents, that it thirsted for his blend of mysticism and the glorification of physicality, not for mine. In fact, I simply want the Garden to reclaim some of its original beauty.
I travel Heaven, looking for God, looking for Meredith. Because she never deceived me, I search for him in the basement flats of the largely empty cities I encounter. Paradise is not overcrowded after all — it was a deception. The few people I meet also believed they were privileged. The trick maintained a desperate balance, the equilibrium of an acrobat perched on a sword. A new mood has gripped Heaven: with God’s disappearance, people are forced to be free, to shoulder responsibility, to make choices. I am unprepared for such changes. My mentality is too rigid, I belong in a starched past which never really existed. I lust for death more than ever. My quest is the same as always: blood and blossoms.
In a dingy cellar in the last town I passed through, I chanced upon a group of my fellow countrymen. They were mostly ancestors, with a few later emperors and businessmen. After I had forced an entry and brushed the splinters of rotten door wood off my shoulders, they invited me to sit with them over a pot of green tea. Even here I was unconsoled: it took a great deal of restraint not to turn on Hirohito and blame all my troubles on him. By renouncing his divinity he subjected our culture to a fatal paradox. It set a precedent. A perfect being cannot claim mortal flaws. Once a god always a god. Aware of my hate, he said, “Students and deities always end up in basement flats.”
There is still hope in my aching brain. I like to imagine that somewhere there are creatures able to grant my wish. In the rhomboidal courtyards of deserted tenements, dying angels are pegged on washing lines; beyond the cities they are worked mercilessly in the fields; blinded in deep mines they hack at motherlodes with picks. The revolution is spreading. If angels are stronger than God, and we are mightier than angels, who can we look up to? There must be something. When I find God I shall ask him a single question. From Mishima, the very lips. Down there, in his foul basement, before I cut him into three pieces and skewer each one, a holy trinity, I will demand to know the address of his landlord.
Fanny Fables
1: Fanny is Famished
Fanny was seventeen years old and her head was so full of romantic thoughts it’s a surprise it didn’t burst and splatter the walls of her bedroom with the crushed petals of rejected roses, the musical notes of wistful songs and those little glints that appear in winsome smiles with perfect teeth.
But maybe thoughts don’t exert much pressure, unlike the more volatile gases. Who knows? I’m not a neurologist and neither are you. Probably.
Fanny was unhappy in this world of ours.
She hated the cynicism and dirt of the city, she loathed the intolerance and brutality of the rural regions, she fretted constantly at the casual cruelties of her fellow human beings, the greyness of the utilitarian society into which she had been born, the cold drudgery of pointless work, the general lack of imagination exhibited all around her, and she had no friends who felt like she did.
It was a lonely existence for her, and although solitude had its bittersweet qualities, it wasn’t enough to feed her hungry soul.
She wanted to leave the planet and go elsewhere. But where?
To the Evening Star, of course! Every night it shone through her window, bright over the distant rooftops of a slum where mad people roamed the streets and shouted their despair, a twinkling point of hope beyond the sooty glass ceiling of her life, a beacon that seemed to sparkle just for her, to her, calling out.
She remembered an old poem by a writer named Poe and whispered a few lines to herself. “Twas noontide of summer and mid-time of night, and stars in their orbits shone pale through the light of the brighter cold moon... Proud Evening Star in thy glory afar, and dearer thy beam shall be...”
Perhaps on the Evening Star she would find peace, a magic world where everything was nice and gentle and easy. A romantic paradise!
Yes, she yearned to reach that place, at the speed of thought, but it could only be a futile dream, couldn’t it? Her carpet wasn’t magical, it couldn’t fly, she had tried enough times, and that old lamp on the sideboard didn’t have a genie in it, she’d rubbed and rubbed, like many young girls do, and nothing had come out at all.
So she was stuck, stuck in thoughtless ugliness!
One evening she decided to get drunk on a young wine, partly to forget about her dissatisfaction, partly to focus it more sentimentally, partly because a young wine is a romantic drink, partly because she couldn’t afford anything better. She drank and her head whirled and she fell off the bed.
Off the bed and onto the
carpet!
She struggled to stand up, her brain spinning, and in the process she happened to rub the carpet a few times with her pale delicate hands. Suddenly the threads of the carpet unravelled and reared up, forming themselves into the figure of a huge man with a big turban, a giant who stood with folded arms.
“A genie!” she gasped.
“Yes,” he replied, “the fairytales got it wrong. Carpets are for rubbing and old lamps are for flying. A simple case of misinformation. But now you’ve summoned me I have to give you one wish. What will it be?”
“I want to go to the Evening Star!” she cried.
“Really? Are you sure? How fast do you want to travel there?”
“Faster than I’ve ever travelled before. At the speed of light... No, at the speed of thought! That’s how fast. Not one jot slower!”
“Sure you don’t want to reconsider that wish? Maybe you’d prefer immense wealth or irresistible beauty or a vast intellect?”
“I know exactly what I want. Give it to me now!”
And so he did. And while he was in the process of doing so, he spoke softly the following words, “I think your choice is a bad one, but who am I to pass judgment? For a start, the ‘Evening Star’ is a name actually applied to two separate planets, Mercury and Venus, both visible for a short time before sunrise or after sunset. Secondly, the ‘speed of thought’ isn’t as rapid as you probably imagine. I won’t go into the technical details about the frequencies of different brain wave patterns, because I’m not really a neurologist, and neither are you, but I’ll briefly state that ‘thought’ can only be as fast as the maximum firing rate of neurons. At this moment your brain is in Beta Mode and its pulse frequency is between 15 and 18 HZ.”