The Sacred Era: A Novel (Parallel Futures)

by Aramaki Yoshio

  As he speaks, the man picks at a large strawberry in his bowl with a fork.

  “Now, tell me, suppose that through technological development since that time, we find ways of feeding a population two and a half times this size—think of improvements in animal breeding, new chemical fertilizers, the extermination of pests, or the cultivation of the oceans, forests, even deserts and barren lands—I would surmise that people at the time would conclude that such developments provide more than a sufficient margin for further growth.”

  Finally, the man pauses to catch his breath.

  “But think about it. Take a population increase of 1.8 percent every year. What would be the result? Compounded?”

  “Double in forty years?” K hazards a guess.

  “Precisely. By the time humanity migrated into space upon reaching a population of one trillion, only two hundred years had passed. Extrapolating from this, we will completely saturate an area of space with a radius of two billion light-years within only eight hundred years.”

  “Sorry, but isn’t all this in the Southern Scriptures? Chapter 103, verse 63, I believe.”

  “Oh, is that so?” the man’s voice is sour with sarcasm. “Well, here we are today. Despite the optimistic projections back in the day, where have we ended up? We’ve exhausted every last bit of our resources. We’ve dried out the oceans. Our population is now a tenth of what it was, but more and more people eat less and less. There seems to be no end to all the suffering.”

  “This is true,” K says.

  “But what if it’s possible for us to cultivate worms for food? Don’t you think that we should at least try to mitigate even just a little bit of this suffering? The chef over there was telling me that silkworms are a promising prospect. Did you know that they once bred and cultivated silkworms in the East long ago? We could relearn their techniques.”

  The man will not stop speaking. K gives him a long look. Somewhat overweight and dressed in the usual long-sleeved clerical robes, it is obvious that his gut hangs out because he hasn’t been living in accordance with the commandments. The sin of gluttony consumes this man.

  “Of course, all this can’t really amount to much more than a temporary reprieve. After all, the rate of worm reproduction has nothing on the amount of food you can get out of grains.”

  “So, are you telling me that you don’t believe in the papal edicts, sir?” K asks.

  “No, not at all,” The man says, shaking his head. “That’s not what I mean.”

  A vague awkwardness—a cloud of doubt—hangs between them.

  “I can follow your logic,” K says. “About using worms for food, I mean. But still, I feel that—”

  “Why not? It’s not like there’s never been a custom of eating insects in history. People have eaten locusts or locust eggs in various places before.”

  “I know that,” K says with a shrug. “But my point is that no matter how logical your reasoning might be, I still think it will soon be all over for humanity.”

  “Oh? Please, do go on.” The man stares at K like he’s studying an unknown specimen. “You’re still quite young, yes?”

  “Yes, sir. I just passed the Sacred Service Exam, actually.”

  “Well, good for you. You must be the youngest to ever do so.”

  K tries to stifle a smile.

  “That’s what I’ve been told. Anyway, I believe in the doctrine of a millennial prosperity. So, it really doesn’t matter what we do, since the world will come to an end in several years or so, no matter what.”

  “Right . . . well, I can see where you’re coming from. But do keep in mind that this is only one way of thinking. There’s no way to know if any of these prophecies really are accurate. Maybe the end of the world won’t happen after all.”

  “Of course,” K says, deciding that it is pointless to argue with this man. “Interestingly enough, several questions about this subject appeared in this year’s Sacred Exam. In particular, there was the third question on the first day. That was the day when the most people simply gave up in the middle of the exam and walked away from their seats.”

  “Really? What was the question?”

  His face openly betrays his surprise. This must be the first time he’s hearing any of this. This is why K takes his time to explain in some detail.

  The man sets down his knife and fork. He draws his face closer to K.

  “That is very interesting,” he says. “So, what were your answers?”

  “I just went by the teachings in the Southern Scriptures. It says that the creation of the world is a figment of God’s dream, so God’s awakening from this slumber will bring about the world’s destruction.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” he says. “There was something about that in several verses of the Southern Scriptures.”

  “It’s in there. Chapter 73, titled ‘the God’s Dream.’”

  K’s smile made his delight at recalling the reference quite apparent.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t that one of the more densely allegorical sections?”

  “Yes, it is. According to the scriptural notes, the section is supposed to be symbolic of the glory of God’s creation of all things under the sky. But that’s not the case at all—it’s actually a literal account. Well, at least, that’s what my master taught me.”

  “Hm, that’s a somewhat unorthodox take on it. So, tell me, who is your master, anyway? I promise I won’t tell another soul.”

  Only now does K notice that all trace of the man’s optimism and energy has been wiped away from his face, replaced by a vague melancholic expression.

  “His name is Hypocras. He was a cleric assigned to my village. I guess you could say he was a rather strange fellow, but then again, I followed his teachings when I wrote out my answers, so I guess his interpretations were correct, seeing as how I passed the exam with those answers.”

  “So, let me get this straight, this guy Hypocras claims that this ‘world’ is nothing more than the dream of the creator, is that right?”

  “That’s right,” K says, his mouth full from the food his hands ply into it.

  “This is serious.”

  “Is it?” K has never really given much thought to the subject.

  “Utter madness, I say,” the man says, shaking his head anew. “You’re telling me that you actually passed writing such answers in your exam?”

  “It’s the truth. That’s what I wrote, and I passed the first day of testing. Since you have to provide a correct answer to every single question or you are barred from proceeding to the next day’s exam, my answer had to be correct.”

  “Yes, that is how the rules work,” came the man’s half-hearted response.

  His eyes glaze over. Is there something he’s just realizing now?

  That is when K stops speaking for a while. For the moment, his attention goes to the task of cleaning off his plate. Despite what he said earlier, if a plate of worms were placed in front of him now, he would still eat every single bite of it. In the end, hunger surpasses any preconceived notions. It really doesn’t matter to him. If only the man hadn’t been wasting so much of the food on his plate, then maybe K would not have bothered to challenge his assertions.

  It isn’t particularly fancy, but for K, the food in the papal cafeteria is plentiful sustenance. Nothing for him to complain about. This time around, he can look forward to emptying his bowels of proper food. Plenty of real food will lead to plenty of real shit. This thought brings joy to K’s mind.

  “Are you going to eat that? If not, do you mind if I have it?” K asks the man, finger pointed toward his plate.

  “Sure, if you want it. But what are you going to do with it?”

  “Wrap it up and take it home with me.”

  The man gives K a look of disgust. But he does not say anything as K wraps up the leftovers in a dirty old washcloth. His plan is to bring the food to the woman by the tree as a token of his appreciation for the milk that she shared with him.


  K has found his very own personal heaven in this cafeteria. He must be pleased with himself. With nothing but his own grit and perseverance, he has obtained the privilege of joining the Papal Court. Of course, he should also offer a word of thanks to his old master for making it all happen.

  Something’s not right.

  After gulping down his glass of water, K brusquely wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Now that he is satiated, his thoughts can finally return to what he saw in the papal chambers earlier.

  “Do you mind if I ask you something?” K says to the man.

  This whole time the man has been watching K, mouth agape in amazement at his incredible appetite. Other than the two of them, few still remain in the cafeteria. Little by little, the crowd thins, until no one else is standing around waiting for an empty seat.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Do you know why there hasn’t been any announcement of a new pope? The thing is, I actually saw someone standing in the window of the papal chamber earlier.”

  The man lets out an audible gasp of surprise.

  It’s an effort for the man to keep his voice low: “You saw it? You saw the ghost?”

  It is K’s turn to be surprised: “Ghost? What do you mean?”

  “The man you saw in the papal chamber—he’s a man who does not exist.”

  K gives him a long stare.

  “What? No way,” he says. “You’re not pulling my leg, are you?”

  “It’s the truth. Listen, I’ve been hearing rumors about it for years now. Everyone knows about it. The man you saw no longer exists in this world.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone who’s been dead for a very long time now is inside that room.”

  The story sends a chill down K’s spine. According to the man, the papal chamber that the sentries pointed out to K has actually been sealed off from any access. No one should be able to get into or out of the room. Nevertheless, this ghost keeps showing up every so often. At first, the Papal Court believed that undocumented passageways that somehow no one knew anything about let someone sneak into the chambers. They actually went as far as taking apart the walls during their investigation. But there was no evidence whatsoever of any such passageways.

  “What sort of being is capable of such feats as entering and exiting a sealed-off room without leaving a trace?”

  “If not merely a figment of the imagination, then it must really be a ghost,” K says in disbelief. “So who is this ghost?”

  “Darko Dachilko.”

  “You mean, the heretic?” K let slip an exclamation.

  “That’s right. What you saw is the ghost of a man who died seven hundred years ago. Or I should say, as the experts on the phenomenon suggest, that it’s a kind of extradimensional mirage.”

  “An extradimensional mirage?”

  Hearing such technical jargon unfamiliar to his ears flummoxes K.

  The man shows the slightest hint of a smile.

  “It’s an idea not many are familiar with, so I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of it before, but put simply, it’s a concept employed within the field of Sacred Ontology.”

  This is how, by happenstance, K ends up listening to a long lecture about the fundamentals of what is widely recognized as the most prestigious field of research among all the Holy Disciplines of Sacred Inquiry. Although it is only to be expected that little of what he hears makes much sense to him, since the subject is intimately wedded to the foremost thing on his mind at the time—namely, Planet Bosch—he soldiers on. And so he lets the man carry on with his long lecture.

  “So, in other words, what all these outstanding issues raise is the question of the true essence of the Southern Scriptures. What impetus prompted The Holy Igitur to author the dense text of the Southern Scriptures? This becomes a particularly thorny problem to navigate for anyone attempting to do an analysis of the famous ‘Book of the Seed.’”

  The man addresses his imagined audience with narrowed eyes looking to the distance.

  K leans close. He urges the man to continue.

  “Please, do tell me more. Earlier you talked about the creation of this Planet Bosch. Who created it? And for what purpose? Are you saying it wasn’t the same God who created our universe?”

  “Ah, yes. Now, this is really just a hypothesis at this point. One of many hypotheses among the researchers who have been studying this in secret on the instructions of the Papal Court, for that matter.”

  Blink, and you may just miss the almost imperceptible moment of hesitation before the man continues speaking with such fury and passion that one might wonder if he weren’t possessed.

  “You are aware that the classic theory of evolution—Darwinism—was radically revised some time ago, yes? Well, let me explain. Moving away from the old understanding of evolution as a process directed by environmental and natural conditions to one that is put into motion by a supernatural power gives us a far more thorough understanding of how it all works. Sure, some people raised the criticism that this was little more than a regression to medieval theology. But I don’t agree. It’s not so much an overturning as it is an overcoming of Darwin. You’re familiar with the Galvanon trans-theory? Anton’s transcognition methods? What touched off these discoveries was humanity trekking some five hundred light-years into space, far beyond this sphere of six thousand kilometers in radius that we call the planet Earth. There, they made contact with the so-called Invisible City of Samarkand.”

  “I see. Isn’t it supposedly a mirage-like city of unimaginable beauty?”

  The man takes one breath. His voice turns softer when he speaks again.

  “Exactly. They say it appears from time to time inside the Taklamakan Space Desert. The city materializes into empty space from out of another dimension beyond our reach, as if it were being mass-produced from a single template. Think of it this way: Samarkand is capable of reproducing itself—it’s a self-replicating city. The stories of this ‘Invisible City’—stories that seem to have been passed on from one generation to the next among the crews of interstellar trading vessels—are almost reminiscent of pilgrimage allegories or bardic songs. My interest in them lies in their mode of transcription and replication, which are akin to those of living organisms. My own field of molecular biology has long taken an interest in the concept of templates. It’s what unmasked the secret to carcinogenesis, which is connected to mechanisms of DNA–RNA transcription, that is, to mutations in the DNA template strand. I think that these same mechanisms hold the key to unlocking the secret of Darko Dachilko or the legend of Planet Bosch.”

  “I’m not sure I get it,” K says. “Are you saying that Darwinian natural selection has been debunked?”

  “No, no, that’s not it at all. Please don’t misunderstand. It’s not that it’s been debunked at all. Let me put it this way. Within specific local contexts, natural selection describes evolutionary phenomena quite well. The field of Sacred Evolution, however, goes beyond these contexts. Its interest is the epistemology of the relationship of this world with other worlds, in other words, the evolutionary elucidation of a multidimensional universe. Think of it like a philosophical investigation into the template of our phenomenological universe. Samarkand’s momentary manifestations in space suggest that it is the materialization of a mirage. You might even say that it’s a four-dimensional projection from a wholly different dimension of the universe. Likewise, our galaxy, and even Planet Bosch, might just work the same way.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” K whispers, still deep in contemplation. “Does Planet Bosch have a template then? Could it be—”

  K freezes in place as a frightening thought overcomes him.

  “—the Earth itself?”

  “Possibly.”

  Now the man falls silent. Why is that? Is it because these questions go to the very heart of the Southern Scriptures? Or is it because the man is not telling K everything he knows.

  4

  It is late, b
ut K still finds his way back to his old spot under the banyan tree. But she is gone. He looks everywhere, but he cannot find the beggar woman anywhere.

  “But I have all this food for her,” K mutters. “What a waste . . .”

  Another woman, unfamiliar to K, now sits in the spot. Yet oddly, this woman carries in her arms the same baby that K recognizes from before. K offers her the leftovers he brought with him, asking her just what exactly is going on here.

  This is what the woman tells K: “She gave me some money. Wanted to switch places with me for some reason. So I let her have my baby for a few days. Looked like she had lots of money. Probably from an important family too. Couldn’t say where she’s from though.”

  Nothing to do now but stand here dumbfounded.

  All K can do the next day is wait under the banyan tree. Somehow, he thinks—he is convinced—that the beggar woman will make another appearance there. But no such return comes to pass before the dusk begins to set in.

  K finally makes a decision. Might as well move on from here. There’s that place he was told about at his interview. Clara Hall, was it? Might as well check that place out.

  And so K ends up back at the public plaza, where he stops a patrol officer making his rounds. But when he asks him about the location of Clara Hall, all the officer gives K in response is a quizzical look. Did he get a good look at K’s face under the glow of the street lamps? Did his youth give him pause? Why else would he raise his truncheon at him?

  “Wait! Wait!” K screams.

  “What do you want, you punk? You trying to take the piss out of me, boy?”

  “This is a misunderstanding! Please, take a look at this!” K presents to him the silver medallion. The officer’s face stiffens.