Not Dark Yet

by Berit Ellingsen

  He had started by eating only certain local nuts and seeds for a thousand days. Since he had been a vegetarian for most of his life, and the nuts and seeds were often used in the monks’ dishes at the temple, the change was mild.

  In the mornings he would participate in the daily tasks at the temple, as he had done since initiation: cleaning the floors, laundering robes, preparing the meals, sweeping the grounds. In the afternoons he ran for hours on the paths that wound through the forest, and in the evenings his meditations were extended. In the beginning it reminded him of his novice years, when the work had felt heavy, the food monotonous, the sitting raw, but then, as now, the structuring of the days, the slow rhythm of the seasons, and the yearly observances approaching and receding in turn, transformed the labor into something joyful and satisfying.

  The minimized diet and the increased activity made him lighter, leaner, and not just in mass or weight, but in thoughts and concerns as well. They simplified everything further than taking the robes already had. He could easily see why the process was done and why it was given such reverence. It also built the endurance — and discipline necessary for the next part of his journey.

  After a thousand days he was allowed to restrict his diet further, to only the bark and roots of pines that grew in the mountains above the temple complex. Every morning he ran to those heights to harvest the thick bark and bulbous roots with a small sickle and spade, in sun as in rain, never taking more than he would need for the coming day and be able to prepare on his own. On that thin, but fragrant diet, the soft parts of his body slowly shrank and vanished. Since his bones remained the size they had always been, they jutted the fabric of his robes to new and unexpected shapes, like the gorges that remain after a river has carved its way through.

  When his flesh had finally become lean enough, he was permitted by the senior monks to go to the grove of droopy-leaved lacquer-sap trees to the north. He walked there with a broad knife and a deep bowl, cut a diagonal groove in the bark of a young tree, caught the drops of yellow-gray liquid that seeped forth in the bowl, and carried it back. In his room he heated water from the temple’s sacred source in a bronze kettle patterned with long-stemmed poppies suspended from the claws of a small bronze dragon. He poured a little of the hot water into the resin he had collected, along with some tea leaves. The resulting infusion was bitter and thin, but he drank it while chanting scripture in his mind.

  The effect from the sap tea did not delay, and voided his body in long, slow shudders that lasted through the night. When dawn finally arrived he was emptied and exhausted and drenched in his own sweat. The thought that he would have to return to the grove and do it all over again in just a few hours brought such despair that for the first time since he started the journey he considered leaving it, despite the shame that would entail.

  With the second bowl he was already dehydrated when he started, and he could feel it damaging his insides a little more. When the sun finally paled the mountains to the east again, he was certain the other monks had heard every gag and groan he made during the night.

  He thought his body would adjust to the water-removing tea the same way it had grown used to the reduction of sustenance during the two thousand previous days, but that did not happen. Instead his body seemed to become more and more sensitive to the sap, until even just the smell when he lifted the bowl to his mouth made him gag, and it was only through great labor, merciless detachment, and harsh discipline, that he managed to drain it. He usually started vomiting and perspiring long before the bowl was empty. He voided himself and drank more, retched and returned to the tea, until the bowl was empty. After that, the heaving went on for most of the night and into the morning, until it was time to push his legs beneath him and walk to the lacquer sap trees again. Once, while crossing the garden, he suddenly had to lean over the carefully raked leaves, but nothing came, not even bile, which saved him from a lifetime of shame for having soiled the temple grounds.

  However, one morning when the snow was bearing down on the eaves and the chill swallowed every waft of heat from the brazier in his room, it came to him that the lacquer tree sap wasn’t poison, but medicine. Not for the ills of the world, but for his own sickness of selfish desire and willful ignorance. After that he took the tea almost with pleasure.

  His wrists and ankles thinned to twigs, his ribs and spine to branches. His skin became dry and thick, like parchment, and his lips paled and cracked. When he sat, it felt like the ends of his pelvic bone would pierce through his rump, and he was too weak to fulfill any of his tasks, even walking to the grove for more sap. Now that had become the chore of another monk. What little he could do, which was leaving his bedding to sit for a while and then lie down again, had to be done slowly and carefully, while looking beyond the constant ache in his bones, the listlessness in his limbs, the tenderness of his eyes. It caused every thought and emotion to stand out with cruel clarity, like a leafless tree under the desert sun, which did help the sitting.

  Occasionally, the abbot handed him one of the tiny tangerines from the well-tended trees in the south garden, to stop his gums and skin from bleeding. He ate the golden fruits whole, peel and all, but where they had previously tasted sweet and fresh, now their scent and flavor was that of the sap tea and his own bile, and made him throw up and perspire almost as hard as they did. But he had to continue. Nearly no one who attempted the journey succeeded, and for those who did the rest hardly mattered.

  The new year observances came and went and he barely noticed it. He scolded himself for his lack of attentiveness and presence of mind, but lost it again as soon as the voiding started with a mouthful of the next bowl of tea. No one suggested he cease the process; it would be the same as saying that they didn’t think he’d manage, and being allowed to start on it was a sign of great trust and confidence, although on moonless nights when he slept with his head nearly in a bowl for voiding, he almost hoped someone would say something. Yet, in the spring he discovered a brightness, a glow inside himself, that was beautiful and terrible at the same time. He had no words for it and did not try to explain it, but remained inside it when he could, and simply watched it when he couldn’t. He told no one of this.

  When they finally moved him into his appointed space, built especially for his long limbs, he was more dead than alive. If it hadn’t been for the stone behind him that supported his back and the wood around him that braced his knees, he would not have been able to sit up at all. No longer having to eat or drink was a relief since his insides refused everything now, even pure water from the temple’s icy source. The silk ribbon they tied to his wrist extended to a small silver bell outside. He had to ring it once a day to signal he was still alive and that they shouldn’t open his tomb yet to see if the transformation was complete. Since he couldn’t see the sunlight through the stone and no longer managed to follow the passing of the days, he listened for the sounds of the morning chants instead, and rang the bell when they were done.

  He didn’t know how the end would come, but imagined it like falling asleep without noticing, which he had done all his life, or as something common, yet unstoppable, as the first snow in winter, or when the ice melts in spring. Now the brightness was there all the time and there was no need to leave it.

  Katsuhiro said his name and he startled, nearly sending the plastic bottle that was still clenched in his hand clattering to the floor.

  “Poor bastard,” Katsuhiro said, nodding at the monk behind the glass. “Mummifying himself and then being buried alive.”

  “Why?” he said, his voice more high-pitched than he had intended. “He wanted to be happy. What more does human life have to offer?”

  Katsuhiro stared at him. “That’s crazy! Don’t tell me you would have become a mummy too if you had lived back then?”

  “Mind your own business,” he said and started walking toward the door and the summer-sound of insects.

  For weeks afterward Katsuhiro sent him photos of rich teenagers drinking cham
pagne in private jets, shopping for designer goods with crowds of friends, or tanning by the pool on yachts while deep kissing other people. He never replied to those mails and immediately deleted them.

  26

  WITH THE NEXT ROUND OF TESTS FOR THE ASTRONAUT selection program taking place right after New Year’s, he not only had a timely, but also an impressive-sounding excuse to leave the city earlier than he otherwise would. Although Beanie was staying over at her parents’ house, probably in the girly-looking bedroom where she grew up and which her parents still kept, despite her having moved out years ago and having lived in various apartments after that with a sequence of friends and lovers, he went to sleep on the couch. The cats came to cuddle on his chest and belly, but soon curled up against the sofa’s back cushion. The two small creatures snored loudly enough to wake him once, and when he moved they started purring, as if to persuade him to remain still.

  When the alarm on the phone rang, he got up and dressed in the clothes he had arrived in. In the kitchen he opened the food cabinet and saw that most of the cans were still there. Beanie avoided processed food as much as she could and usually made her meals from scratch. He put a few tins of tomato paste, crab meat, pineapple, and mushrooms in the backpack. Most of his winter clothes were in the cabin, but he took out a wool sweater and a good shirt and pants from the bedroom closet, rolled them up, and put them inside a plastic bag to protect them in the backpack. He left a “Goodbye I love you all will mail soon” note to Beanie on the kitchen worktop and petted the cats in turn. Then he exited the apartment and locked the door behind him.

  The elevator was empty and silent. In the mirror on the rear wall he was a tall, lean shape in a blue mountain jacket and gray cargo pants. The empty foyer smelled of cigarettes and stale air from the entrance. He entered the cold December drizzle, the almost deserted parking lot, and the bare lindens outside. The morning was quiet, carrying the scent of wood smoke, fog, and bone meal from the feed factory in the bay. The tiny droplets that hung in the air felt like cold kisses. On the path through the narrow park that led from the honeycomb towers to the train station he only passed a few dog walkers and some stragglers on their way home from the night’s festivities.

  He had memorized the time-table before he left the cabin and knew the trains started at ten in the morning after Christmas. He hoped the information was still correct and that the schedule had not been changed over the holiday. The information booths were closed and the only way to check the time tables and buy a ticket was via the monitors and vending machines that were clustered inside the station.

  He had to wait for less than fifteen minutes before the train arrived and when it did it was just a couple of minutes late. Only a handful of people exited the compartments, pulling large suitcases or carrying tall backpacks, and even fewer passengers boarded. This time, there was plenty of space for his luggage on the shelf inside the car, and most of the seats were empty. He almost called Michael to say goodbye, but he assumed Michael had been up late the night before, and sent a message instead, saying that he loved him and thought of him all the time, and that he was welcome to visit the cabin any time.

  The journey back to the mountains was obscured by fog and rain. The bilberry and heather that were visible along the tracks were almost bare, and the trees and bushes looked as if they’d never grow leaves again. But when he came down the path to the cabin, the last rays from the pale winter sun, as it sank in flames behind the mountains, revealed that green stalks were jutting all over the heath.

  27

  HE WAS DETERMINED TO BE AS WELL PREPARED for the upcoming tests as he possibly could. During the time that remained before the meeting he ran for several hours daily, along the fields if the ground was dry, or on the treadmill on the terrace if the soil was too wet. For strength he did exercises that utilized his own body weight, a variety of push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, squats, dips, and kicks.

  In the morning and midday, when he was most alert, he cycled through the tests he had taken for the first round of the application, and searched for similar tests online. He suspected he had to have as few errors as possible on the tests, and at the same time do them as quickly as possible, to have a chance to pass. He assumed he would be compared with not only a statistical population average, but also against the other applicants. He didn’t know how many or how experienced they would be, but assumed that in addition to an education in the natural sciences, engineering, or medicine, many of them would also have a military or aviation background, perhaps even as fighter pilots or rescue divers. He wondered how many of them had seen action.

  Some days into the new year he took the train past his home city to a larger one further south on the coast, departed at its central station, and from there caught a tram to a quiet campus in the suburbs.

  The astronaut training center did not distinguish itself from the surrounding low and rectangular structures which, judging from their logos and signs, housed various science and technology companies and research institutions. Only the large scale models of various launch rockets outside indicated that the building was dedicated to activities in space.

  A row of flags whipped in the high winds that the new year always seemed to bring. He pulled the hood of his jacket up and pushed his hands deeper into the pockets. Even here, far south of the mountains, the wind was cold and insistent enough to chill the hardshell outer garment and the fleece jacket beneath. It was one of the few times he had felt truly cold that winter. Above the fluttering flags, dense clouds rushed by, looking heavy with rain or snow. The mid-morning was as gloomy as dusk and unlikely to become much brighter until the meager daylight turned to darkness.

  At the entrance of the astronaut training center sat a large model of the space organization’s most recent spacecraft, an oblong shape in a matte gray color, with sharp, cutting angles, which made it look as fast and deadly as a shark. He recalled what he had read about the new spacecraft on the organization’s web site; the vessel had been in development for more than a decade and had started as an experimental vehicle to test whether a spacecraft with acute angles and flat planes would deflect the heat and pressure of reentry to the Earth’s atmosphere better than the traditional ones with rounded shapes. From there the spacecraft had been successful at test after test and was now in use as a transportation and cargo system for astronauts in low orbit. Perhaps a modified, larger version of the spacecraft would be constructed for the journey to the red planet?

  The glass doors slid open with a breath of hot air from the heaters above to reduce the chill from outside. He passed an inner set of glass doors and entered a surprisingly small foyer where more models of orbital probes and satellites and other spacecraft were displayed on brushed steel pedestals and in canvas-printed photographs on the walls.

  A woman in a white blouse, dark blazer, and dark skirt, was holding a clipboard with the space organization’s logo on the back. She welcomed him and asked if he was there for the testing.

  He nodded and smiled.

  The woman smiled back, her teeth white and even. “Please wait here,” she said. “When everyone has arrived I will call you to follow me.”

  Along the back wall of the foyer was a bench with leather cushions for waiting guests to rest their legs, but he felt too energized to sit down. Instead, he wandered around and took in the many models and pictures and plaques that described the space organization’s activities in low Earth orbit, at Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the second lagrangian point. The tiles on the floor were made from a black mineral that had tiny, sparkling crystals locked inside, polished to a high shine and a smooth surface. The effect was that of standing in deep space and looking at the multitudes of stars.

  When he arrived only a few other candidates dressed in thick winter clothing were waiting in the foyer, but during the next half hour, the room filled with men and women of various ages and builds, so many that he could only study a few of them without staring openly. Some of the arrivals spent the ti
me looking at the exhibits or smiling faintly to everyone else. Others sat down on the bench by the wall, read on their phones or books or newspapers they had brought with them. One or two were eating a packed breakfast. As far as he could see there were about fifty people in the room when the space organization’s representative stepped in the middle of the floor and asked for their attention.

  “Welcome everyone!” she smiled. “So happy to see you could make it to the testing today and found your way here. I hope you all had a good journey. Please follow me, and we’ll get started right away.”

  The small crowd picked up their belongings and followed the representative through a doorway in the back of the foyer, down a corridor with a mezzanine and skylights in the ceiling. Beneath the skylights hung a series of transparent plastic banners in the sequential colors of the rainbow, each displaying the logo of a former space mission, emitting a full spectrum of colors on the blank white walls. The group was upbeat, but quiet as they passed beneath the rainbow-colored light on the starry floor.

  Further in, the hallways of the training center became darker and narrower than those they had followed from the foyer. The space organization’s representative took them down a long corridor, then a shorter one, and finally into a spacious room supplied with rows of desks and computer monitors.