SCHRODINGER'S CAT TRILOGY

by Robert Anton Wilson

  Pickering's Moon circled the Earth, going backward. And still the Punks came: the Chocolate Mouse, the Tax Writeoff, the Welfare Bums, the Primal Scream, Baphomet's Witnesses, the Black Rabbit of Inle, the Vegetables, the Fruits, the Nuts, the First Church of Satan Scientist, the Tantric Presbyterians, the Huns, the Creatures from the Back Ward, the Special Children, the Visigoths, the Vandals, the Looters, the Shooters, the Scooters, the Peanut Butter Conspiracy Revisited, the Thousand Kim, the Seeds of Discord, the Benton Harbor Rat-Weasel, the Bloodshot Pyramid, the Wascal Wabbits, Crescendo, the Diabolic Variations, Skinnerball, the Committee for the Elimination of Death, the Weird Made Flesh, the Poor Golems, the Wretched Refuse, the Alluminum Bavariati, the Double Helix, the Goons, the Thugs, the Teeming Shore, the Unnatural Act, the Solitary Vice, the Morose Delectation, the Wrist Slashers, the Window Jumpers, the Kryptonite Kids, the Stay-Free Mini-Pads, the Elect Cohens, the Corpse-Eaters of Leng, the Miniature Sled, the Hash Brownies, the Boston Blackies, Kadath in the Cold Waste, the Neanderthal Tails, the Giant Slugs, the Sloths, the Disadvantaged Youth, the Albert de Salvo Fan Club, the Dead Kennedys, the Molotov Cocktails, and, loudest and most eldritch of all, Great Cthulhu's Starry Wisdom Band.

  And overall there was a smell of fried onions.

  ???? Hierusalem, my happy home

  ???? When shall I come to thee?

  ???? When shall my sorrows have an end,

  ???? Thy joys when shall I see?

  ????

  ???? Thy walls are made of precious stones

  ???? They bulwarks diamonds square

  ???? Thy gates are of bright orient pearl

  ???? Exceeding rich and rare

  ????

  ???? There trees for evermore bear fruit

  ???? And evermore do spring;

  ???? There evermore the angels sit

  ???? And evermore do sing

  ????

  ???? Ah, my sweet home, Hierusalem

  ???? Would God I were in thee!

  ???? Would God my woes were at an end

  ???? Thy joys that I might see

  It was dark in the room. His mother sang that song. She wore a perfume that smelled like lily-of-the-valley.

  Dashwood cut through an alley where two ancient Egyptian priestesses were leading a captured UFOnaut in chains past a Dog-Headed God.

  "Maybe Acid would help," somebody muttered.

  SDATE YOUR BIZNIZ PLEEZ, the computer insisted. HOOKUP UZING IMPROVED EQUIPMEND TO AVOID FEEDBACK. SDAY TUNED.

  A Dominican monk marched past carrying a sign that said:

  JEWES WE KILLE

  TO SERVE GOD'S WILLE

  Strange messages were appearing on the computer console: SL LR MS ASK GREEN DREAMS TK X1826PCS M.Y.O.B. (MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS)

  Simon Moon seized the microphone and began a long, unintelligible speech about the Drug Problem. In each of our major cities, he seemed to be saying, there are thousands of people who desperately need dope. For all practical purposes these people simply cannot live unless they get "high." He estimated the number of afflicted adults in the nation at well over 125,000,000, and said their habits included, but were not limited to, Valium, marijuana, Miltown, uppers, downers, acid, cigarettes, booze, aspirin, DMT, cocaine, peyote, and Coca-Cola. He called upon all concerned citizens to donate their surplus dope to a huge pile in the center of each city, to be called the Public Trough, from which the needy could take what was necessary to keep them functioning.

  The window next door lit up suddenly, showing an ancient Hindu princess in Tantric rapture with a UFOnaut.

  "Eternal Serpent Power," Simon was ranting. "If we all raise the Kundalini at once, maybe we can get through the Dark Night of the Soul and see the Golden Dawn. Three A.M. is the worst of it-that's the peak for UFO Contacts, murders, suicides, and Bad Trips."

  A brutal group of Cro-Magnons came over the hill and began clubbing Ancient Astronauts to death. The Cro-Magnons were tall, blond, and Aryan; the Astronauts had the blue skin of Krishna and Quetzalcoatl.

  A neon sign flashed:

  HALL OF SELF-LOVE

  THE AMERICAN DREAM ACHIEVED

  DO WHAT THOU WILT SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF THE

  LAW

  In the first room George Washington was holding a movie camera on Linda Lovelace as she masturbated and moaned, staring fixedly into the camera-eye. In the second room John Adams was holding a movie camera on Georgina Spelvin as she masturbated and moaned, staring fixedly into the camera-eye. In the third room Thomas Jefferson was holding a movie camera on Annette Haven as she masturbated and moaned, staring fixedly into the camera-eye. In the fourth room James Madison was holding a movie camera on Tina Russell as she masturbated and moaned, staring fixedly into the camera-eye.

  "What's the use of revolution without general masturbation?" sang a Punk Rock group called Dr. Climax's House of Dildos.

  In the fifth room James Monroe was holding a movie camera on Marilyn Chambers as she masturbated and moaned, staring fixedly into the camera-eye, so it would register every expression in her eyes, every involuntary twitch of pleasure around her mouth.

  A spastic handed Dashwood a leaflet headed "HELP EPILEPTICS LIVE AND WORK IN DIGNITY."

  A girder fell on the one just man in San Francisco.

  Anarchists ran through the streets screaming, "Aux armes, citoyens! The government is taking over our country!"

  CLEAR FOR LAW-AND-ORDER DAY GREETING! blared the loudspeakers. FOLLOWING IS GREETING FOR LAW-AND-ORDER DAY.

  Cotton Mather, Cotton Hawes, and Cotton DeAct paraded past with a sign saying:

  YE POPE TO SHUNNE

  A BATTLE WUNNE

  A girder fell on an unjust man.

  George Dorn realized that, amid all this nightmare imagery from the random circuits, he was coming back together again, a little bit at a time, coming out of the illusion that he was Frank Dashwood.

  "Here it is," Cagliostro the Great said, handing George a book called The Answer.

  George opened the volume eagerly. It had one page and said:

  FLOSSING

  "Here it is," Dr. Hugh Crane said, handing George a book called The Answer.

  Frank opened the volume eagerly. It had one page and said:

  Jan Zelenka was born in Bohemia in 1679, wrote in a style similar (and much admired by) Johann Sebastian Bach, died in 1745. Much of his sacred music is still admired, but perhaps his greatest composition was his Capriccio of 1723.

  Out of the sea rose a gigantic, chryselephantine, bodacious, incredible yellow submarine, waving the Black Flag of Anarchy and the Golden Apple of Discord.

  Mavis, the woman with the tommy gun, appeared at a window. "Gravity sucks!" she shouted. "The cream of the jest rises to the top. That's the Law of Levity."

  And the submarine took off and floated over North Beach like a flying saucer.

  Mavis threw down a rope. "Grab hold, George!" she shouted. "We've come to rescue you!"

  And he leapt, and grabbed hold, and they pulled him up, into the Golden Space Ship.

  Captain Hagbard Celine (who looked a lot like Hugh Crane the magician, when you stopped to think about it, and a little bit like Harry Coin, the crazy assassin, and somewhat like Everyman) took his hand. "Good to have you back aboard, George. Was it rough down there?"

  He tried to be modest. "Well, you know how it is on primitive planets…"

  "They gave you merry hell," Hagbard said. "I can see it in your face. Well, cheer up, George. It's over now. We're heading home."

  And indeed there were thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of them: great golden ships sailing past at the speed of light, heading into the center of the galaxy.

  It was the planetary birth process; earth, like a single giant flower, after incubating for four billion years, was discharging its seed.

  And the ships, like homing pigeons, were going back where the experiment began, where the DNA was created and ejaculated out onto every planet, where the Star Makers dwell, beyond the Black Hole,
out of space, out of time.

  THE RETURN TO ITHACA

  The future exists first in Imagination, then in Will, then in Reality.

  –barbara marx hubbard

  One evening while Wing Lee Chee was meditating he found himself floating higher and higher, becoming more and more detached, observing with total lucidity that he was a little old man sitting in a room high on a hill over a huge city on a planet circling around a star in a galaxy of myriads of stars among countless galaxies extending to infinity and eternity in all directions, within his own mind. And in that lucidity he knew that he had been lying to himself for months, pretending not to notice what was happening to his body as it gradually terminated its basic functions, fearful of looking straight at Death; but now, in that lucidity, looking at it and seeing that it was just another of the millions of things that Wing Lee Chee (who was so rich and powerful) could not do anything about; but now, in that lucidity and objectivity, looking far down at this particular galaxy, this insignificant solar system, this temporary city, this house that a strong wind could blow away, this absurd old man who was rich and powerful but could not command the tides or alter the paths of the stars, it was all suddenly a great joke and every little detail made sense. For, in this new lucidity and objectivity and selfless perspective, he did not giggle or weep or feel dazed, but only smiled, very slightly, knowing he would soon lose this body, which was like an old run-down car, and this central nervous system, which was like a tired and increasingly incompetent driver, and the meta-programmer in the higher nervous centers which gave him this perspective, because out here beyond space-time he simply did not give a damn about that life, that planet, or that universe anymore.

  So, as he very slowly came down, contracted, into Euclidean 3-D again, he was aware of every amusing, poignant, radiant little detail, the wholeness and the harmony and the luminosity of it all, knowing how richly he would enjoy every last minute of it, now that it didn't matter to him anymore.

  The next day he called the office and told his secretary he wouldn't be in. Then he took a long walk, enjoying every bird, every flower, every blade of grass, every radiant detail, and getting a bit winded-another sign that the car was running down-and finally taking a cab to Ying Kaw Foy's house.

  She wept when he told her, but he smiled and joked and chided her out of it.

  "I may be one of the last men to die," he said when she was calm. "President Hubbard in Unistat is putting a lot of money into research on longevity and immortality. No, don't weep again; it is nothing to me. I feel like one of the last dinosaurs."

  "You are the best man in the world," she said, eyes flashing.

  "I have been good to you," he said. "I have been as much of a scoundrel as was necessary to be rich and comfortable. Many will be glad of my death."

  He told her how he was arranging to have most of his estate liquidated, turned into cash, and deposited in her account.

  He urged her to take advantage of the longevity drugs as they became available, and to meditate every day. "One year of life is wonderful, when you are conscious of the details. A thousand years would be more wonderful." And then he added a strange thing: "Think of me sometimes, and look for me. You'll never see old Wing Lee Ghee again, but you'll see what I really am if you look hard enough and long enough."

  And then he suddenly realized it was coming even sooner than he had expected. "How absurd," he said. "I must lie down now."

  He stretched out on her couch. "I must have walked too far," he said. "So many hills… so many ups and downs… and all I want now is one thing. Open your blouse, please. That's right, thank you. No, I just want to look at them. Such lovely Brownmillers, like peaches. Let me touch them. No, let me kiss them. No, never mind, I'm going now."

  "Don't go," she cried. "Kiss them, kiss them first."

  "Right back where I started," he said, suckling. And then he left her.

  Ms. Ying decided to go to the French Riviera after the funeral. She would spend a year there, having a series of young, crude, unintelligent lovers (who wouldn't remind her of him) and then decide what to do with her money and the rest of her life.

  She sold the Rehnquist and a lot of other junk when she gave up her house in Hong Kong.

  The wholesaler didn't know what to do with the Rehnquist at first, but he finally sold it to a Sex Shop in Yokohama.

  Markoff Chaney was vacationing in Japan that summer, because-after years of paying him only about three hundred dollars a month-his stocks in Blue Sky, Inc., were suddenly paying two thousand dollars or three thousand dollars a month.

  Blue Sky made zero-gravity devices that were proving very useful in the space-cities President Hubbard had created.

  Chaney had also written a book, which was selling moderately well despite its rather eccentric thesis. It was his endeavor to prove that all the great achievements in art, science, and culture were the work of persons who were, on the average, less than five feet tall, and often shorter. He claimed that this fact had been "covered up" by what he called "unconscious sizeist prejudice" on the part of professional historians.

  He had called the book Little Men with Big Balls, but the publisher, out of a sense that Chaney perhaps had some unconscious prejudice of his own and certainly lacked good taste, had changed the title to Little People with Big Ideas.

  Chaney spent his first day in Japan visiting Kyoto. He went out to see where the Temple of the Golden Pavilion had once stood, and he spent three hours walking around there, trying to get into the head of the Zen monk who had burned it down.

  Chaney had known the story for years: how the monk, working on the koan "Does a dog have the Buddha Nature?", had tried one answer after another, always getting hit upside the head by his Roshi and told he didn't have it yet. Finally, after meditating continuously for a day and a half without sleep or food, the monk had a brainstorm of some kind and dashed from his cell with a hell of a yell and burned down the Temple, the most beautiful building in Japan at the time.

  The court had declared the monk insane.

  After three hours of trying to get into the monk's head-space when he set fire to the building, Chaney had his own brainstorm. He had been ignoring Dr. Dashwood for three or four months, he realized.

  He took a cab to Western Union and dispatched a telegram to Dr. Dashwood at Orgasm Research. It said:

  FLOSSING IS THE ANSWER

  EZRA POUND

  Chaney had gotten those words many months ago, while having some dental work done. The dentist suggested they try nitrous oxide, and Chaney eagerly agreed.

  He remembered that the great psychologist William James had once thought he had the whole secret of the Universe on a nitrous oxide trip. What James had written down, in trying to verbalize his insight, was OVERALL THERE IS A SMELL OF FRIED ONIONS. Chaney wanted to know what it was like to be in the state where fried onions would explain everything. He sniffed deeply and expectantly as the mask was placed over his nose, and waited.

  No illumination came at first, but the room seemed to be getting bigger and bigger, and then it was getting smaller and smaller, and then he became aware that the dentist, as was typical of his species, was making remonstrating noises as he gazed into Chaney's mouth, saying that brushing was not enough and that everybody should be more conscious of dental hygiene and so on, all the usual craperoo, and then he, Chaney, wasn't there anymore, he wasn't anywhere; it was just like what he had heard about quantum jumping in physics, because he was there again, having gone from 0 to 1, and then going back to 0 again, not being there, and then back to 1 again and the dentist said somberly, like a very wise old wizard:

  "Flossing is the answer."

  And Chaney felt like he might giggle or weep, but was too dazed to do either, having found it at last, the Answer. And it was so simple, as all the mystics said; it was right out in the open and we didn't notice it because we weren't conscious of the details. And he stared up, awed, at the wise face of the great sage who had given it to him, at last, the
Answer.

  Flossing.

  And the damnedest part of it was that for weeks after he still had flashes when he thought that was it, the Answer. Flossing.

  After Kyoto, Chaney went to Yokohama to see the infamous Sex Shops, as was inevitable.

  In the first Sex Shop he purchased an artificial vagina which seemed vastly superior, in both realism and pneumatic grip, to the model he had at home.

  In the second Sex Shop he bought a box of pornographic Easter Eggs.

  By then he was feeling the surging despair again, knowing that these substitutes were not what he really wanted, knowing his loneliness and his exile with that bitterness that he usually kept at bay by concentrating on the absurdity of everything-in-general, experiencing the terrible isolation of being out there on the moon separated from the ridiculous oversized clods by 250,000 miles and sizeist prejudice.

  And then, in the third Sex Shop, he found it.

  The Answer.

  And it wasn't flossing at all.

  Dr. Glopberger had worked in the Sex Change department of Johns Hopkins for a long time, and thought that nothing could surprise him any longer.

  Markoff Chaney surprised him.

  "No," Chaney said, in answer to the first question Glopberger always asked, "I've never felt like a woman trapped in a man's body."

  "Um," Glopberger said. "Well, sir, what do you want here?"

  Chaney opened the box in his lap.

  "Good God," Glopberger said. "I've only seen one that big once in my life." What was that character's name- Wildebeeste? Strange one: he had kept it after the operation, had it mounted on a plaque or something like that.