The Sacred Era: A Novel (Parallel Futures)

by Aramaki Yoshio

  The verses continue:

  Oh Providence of the Fates and Reason! From its hidden state of being, the Seed transforms into Energeia.

  Watching over this great transformation will be none other than Our Lord the absolute universal, whose child will bring about our transcendence as long as we believe in the Word.

  And this theater of transformation is the Word of the Lord, the reform of the real into the actual, the proof of our objective being.

  Now, the Seed faces the shining celestial body before it, bringing to a close its long voyage across the heavens.

  Though that be so, the Seed approaches, only to turn another way.

  Tracing a gentle curve across space, it departs again.

  Like a skipping stone bouncing across the water’s surface, once more it slingshots past the gravity well and begins its eternal journey anew.

  Tens of thousands of eons pass, but it blooms and bears fruit but once. What name shall it be given? There is no name. Like the pale glimmer of Sirius in the empty sky, it simply sparkles alone, since that moment when its mother planet had spread thousands, tens of thousands, tens of millions of Seeds to all four corners of the universe.

  What fate awaits all those others that spread across the stars with it?

  Of them all, many met their death as they could not bear the cruelty of this lonely universe. Others fell into the stars and met fiery ends. Still others found themselves trapped in the Sargasso Sea of a gravity well and froze alone.

  But of course, the Seed will never know what fate awaited its comrades. All it could do was to continue wandering the empty skies of this vast and boundless universe.

  And then, a long time passes . . .

  Pages upon pages of such verses, which read like epic poetry about a great drama taking place in the vast empty space beyond the distant future, all prophesized by The Holy Igitur. All K can do is try his best to make sense of these prophecies in his own mind.

  Among the millions scattered from their mother planet, only a handful find fortune, only a handful escape the merciless cruelty of chance. Just as only a single sperm among millions will find its way to that one egg, the Seed makes its way to a chance encounter with a place that is just right for it to grow.

  A solar system with a star not unlike the star its onetime home planet circled. A single planet orbiting a single shining sun. Beside this dark and heavy planet, the Seed splits apart. Soon it takes the shape of a mulberry. It absorbs the energy of the sun, the gravitation, the electromagnetic radiation . . .

  Like an aquatic plant floating on the surface of the water, it extends an appendage, an impossibly long root that reaches out toward the surface of the dark planet. Just like that, it floats like a ball of algae in space, vivid green glimmering over its surface. Like an advertising balloon floating in the dark sky, like a strange ball of vegetation attached only by a single root.

  And then, pulled by the orbit of the planet, it too begins circling the sun. At times the appendage appears close to tearing, leaving the Seed to float away. But like a blind man clinging on to something, to anything, it keeps hanging on.

  “Sir?”

  Night has already fallen when Martha’s voice startles K. He must have fallen asleep as he was reading “The Book of the Seed.”

  The windows have been left open, letting into the room the light from the stars and a view of the crescent moon.

  “Your dinner is ready,” Martha says.

  Martha stands close to K. Too close, their skin almost touching.

  “Thank you,” K says, as he conceals his gaze on Martha’s lean body in the darkness of the room.

  Already accustomed to the darkness, K’s eyes take in every inch of her pale figure. White skin reveals itself beneath her wide-open collar. Her breasts swell with her breathing, as if ready to burst out.

  Suddenly, Martha covers K’s face with her own. Her soft breasts press up against him with so much pressure that he can barely breathe. She giggles when he tries to push her away.

  Martha kneels down before K, caressing both of his hands in hers. A white jasmine flower adorns her black hair, so overpowering K with its fragrance that he nearly succumbs to her seduction.

  Somehow, K manages to finally stand up from his seat.

  “Holy Igitur!” he whispers to himself as he comes to his senses.

  Desperate to hold off the desire welling up within him, he steps aside, leaving Martha behind as he makes his way to the dining room. There, he finds a humble supper awaiting him atop the table.

  4

  One day passes, and another begins. Still, K remains disconcerted and without purpose. Nothing at all has changed, not even when he returns to City Hall in search of answers.

  He locates the room where he was interviewed on that day he received the results of the Sacred Service Exam. But all he finds is a storeroom, unused for years now. Finding no answers in City Hall, he pushes on to the Papal Court, but he comes up empty there as well.

  This peculiar turn of events drives K to lose himself, to suspect that his very hold on this world has become tenuous. He can no longer deny that everything around him has gone out of sorts. So, when did all this go wrong? Out of all the moments in his life until now, is there even any way to tell which one was the turning point?

  “To think that the world runs on a single timeline is unnatural. All things in the world are multidimensional, so time too must flow in multiple directions.”

  Darko Dachilko supposedly uttered such words a long time ago. Now it seems that it is K who finds himself lost in such a maze built out of these structures of time.

  Darko Dachilko categorized temporal flows into four types. Just as water freezes into ice when cold or evaporates into steam at high temperatures, time also flows and takes various forms according to the environment it finds itself in. The first form of temporal flow is time as we normally experience it. You might call this the liquid form of time, which itself could be categorized into several more subtypes. While the details of Darko Dachilko’s theories elude even K, he does recall that the flow states followed the patterns of fluid dynamics, as subcritical flow, or uniform flow, supercritical flow, or a hydraulic jump. But time could also enter into a “solid state,” the time of stillness, which is its second form. Then there is the third form, an extremely indistinct “gaseous form.” But perhaps the most interesting of them all is the fourth form of time that Darko Dachilko identified, which he compared to the behavior of a certain type of matter that climbs up the sides of its container against the force of gravity when placed in conditions of very low temperatures. In other words, this fourth form of time was none other than the reversal of its flow.

  All this is moot, however, since K has no way of determining if he is caught in one form of temporal flow or another. All he can do is to go with its flow.

  And so K sits at the desk, one passing day after another.

  On some days, Tantra comes up to his office, requesting his authorization for some trivial matter or another, everything from repairing clogged plumbing to requisitions for food supplies. As far as K can tell, this is the only work Tantra performs. The expenses for these requests are all billed to City Hall. While this is not unusual in itself, what does catch K off guard is learning that their expenses come out of the budget of the Refugee Relief Fund. The fund also covers the salaries for K as the director and Tantra as office administrator. Any additional research costs, however, are a separate matter altogether.

  According to Tantra, all the previous researchers received funding by applying to different departments as the need arose. Of course, he knew nothing of the procedures for filing such an application. That would be the director’s job. But not knowing what he’s even supposed to be doing in the first place, K sees little point to submitting applications for research funding.

  What else is there for me to do but wait for orders to come from their end?

  K makes up his mind to just sit still for now, even if not knowing what
his next orders will be or who will be issuing them frustrates him to no end.

  Spending his days doing nothing soon becomes a torturous ordeal for the young K. On those days when he can no longer bear the monotony, he takes a three-hour break in the afternoon to stumble into the old temple next door. The long-abandoned temple has a dome in a style similar to the Holy Igitur Monastery, though the equipment to reflect the light of the stars on the ceiling no longer works.

  A cool breeze greets him as soon as he steps inside the stone structure. He stretches out his body on the marble floor, keeping his eyes fixed upwards, gazing at the temple’s ceiling. Suddenly overcome by feelings of regret, he stares at the motionless ceiling while keeping his body similarly unmoving. Has he become a fallen angel cast down to Earth from heaven? Has he been wasting away all his precious days of his youth living each day without any purpose?

  K has learned to accommodate such self-destructive urges these past few days. No longer are they so despicable in his mind. No, there is no longer any point in refusing to acknowledge the secret desire for debauchery already awakened in him. As if possessed by the spirit of the depraved heretic Darko Dachilko, his corrupted mind can no longer control his growing desire for the body of Tantra’s daughter, Martha. Night after night, his fantasies of having sex with Martha bring him wet dreams.

  On the tenth night since he was first assigned to this office, Martha sneaks into K’s bed. Not noticing her beside him, he continues to sleep at first. But one touch of her skin is all it takes to startle him out of bed.

  He gives Martha a harsh reproach.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing here?”

  Still stripped naked, Martha tells him that Tantra sent her there.

  Furious, K summons Tantra.

  “But, sir, this is how it has always been done, with your predecessor, and everyone else before,” answers Tantra, not one bit of remorse showing on his face.

  K screams at him.

  “You are going against the spirit of The Holy Igitur’s teachings! Have you not read the commandments of the Southern Scriptures?”

  “I have” comes Tantra’s nonchalant response. “But are not the officers of the Sacred Service granted exceptions to these commandments? To freely have any woman—is that not one of the privileges accorded to you?”

  Tantra lets a smile form on his lips.

  “If Martha is not to your liking, then there’s not much we can do about that. Of course, my daughter will not at all be happy to hear you say that.”

  “Why not?” K’s confusion was clear.

  “As I’m sure the director is aware . . .” Tantra’s words overflow with sarcasm. “Your privileges are also your duties. But you are refusing to fulfill your duties. Now, my daughter is entitled to receive your charity. But if that is not something you can grant her, is it not only natural that she would find this hurtful?”

  A strange notion indeed. And yet he is unable to find the words to respond.

  When K sees Martha the next morning, he finds her on the verge of tears as she cleans the office. Once she sees K, she covers her face with her hands, fleeing to a back room. Martha’s feelings elude K’s comprehension, but as much as he wishes to pretend that nothing is amiss, he cannot deny that everything about this situation bothers him.

  At breakfast, K once again speaks with Tantra about the events of the previous night. But Tantra is not in good spirits.

  “You rejected my daughter,” he tells K. “There is no greater insult.”

  “I rejected her. But it was not my intention to insult her.” K speaks with a firm tone. “You need to watch your words.”

  “Understood.”

  While Tantra does not argue any further, he nevertheless fails to resist the urge to slam the milk jar on the table.

  Then, nightfall.

  K is deep in slumber when something jolts him awake. A loud scream coming from somewhere downstairs. Quickly, he dresses himself, then rushes down the stairs.

  Gently opening the door to the administrative office, he finds Tantra snoring on his own bed. Empty bottles of liquor are strewn about by his pillow. He must have been drinking to help him sleep.

  Was that just a dream?

  Perhaps it is best to simply head back upstairs. But K feels a thirst, and so he proceeds into the kitchen to get himself a glass of water.

  K steps into the dark kitchen. But instead of touching the earthen floor, his feet feel something fleshy. Eyes still unaccustomed to the dark, he feels the ground with his hands.

  A body. Martha’s body. She is passed out on the floor.

  K holds Martha up. After finding a glass of water nearby, he dribbles some into her mouth, continuing until she regains consciousness.

  “Martha? What happened? I heard a scream,” K asks, still supporting her in his arms.

  “It was a ghost. I saw a ghost,” she says. “I was so scared. I woke up to go to the bathroom. That was when I sensed something strange over here, so I came in to have a quick look. Someone was sticking his head into the jug, lapping up all the water. For a moment, I thought it might be you, sir, so I said I can pour some water into a glass for you. That was when he turned toward me.”

  Martha shivers all over her body.

  “It’s all right, Martha. Whatever it was you saw, it’s no longer here.”

  “It was so frightening. It had a pallid glow and had no head.”

  “No, that can’t be.”

  Almost reflexively, K blurts out these words. But he knows that it’s the truth. Darko Dachilko’s ghost was here. But this is no time to panic. He must calm himself down.

  “Martha, has this ever happened before?”

  “Yes. But tonight was first time I have ever seen it. My father told me before that a ghost sometimes appears in this house. He must have thought it would frighten me, which is why he never said much more about it.”

  K holds his tongue.

  “All right, let’s get you back to your room.”

  “No! Please don’t leave me alone. I’m scared.”

  She trembles, clinging tightly to K’s chest.

  The scent of Martha’s body overwhelms K. There is no longer any resisting its hold on him. A powerful urge beyond his control stirs within him.

  As soon as they find their way back to K’s room, they immediately get right into bed. Martha takes control of every inch of K’s body. Her delicate charm hides an avarice far beyond anything in K’s imagination. She finds ways to awaken new and unfathomable desires in the already exhausted K, as if wise to techniques of drawing water from a dried-out well.

  Again and again, she cries out in pleasure.

  “I want you! I want you!”

  The next morning, K calls Tantra into his office. Once again overcome by his guilt at breaking the commandments, K initially thinks it will be difficult to face him. But Tantra makes no effort to hide his awareness of the intimate relations between K and his daughter. Now, he takes a wholly different attitude with K, acting overly familiar, overly obsequious with him.

  Tantra’s attitude annoys K. But he has to bear with it for now. He puts all effort into putting up an unperturbed face for him.

  “The ghost appeared here last night,” K says.

  Tantra’s confusion makes itself visible on his face.

  “He was in the kitchen, drinking water.”

  Tantra remains silent.

  “You’ve known about it all this time, haven’t you? You don’t need to hide the truth from me. A headless ghost does not frighten me. I mean, I have a pretty good idea as to who it might be.”

  Eyes widening, Tantra stares back at K.

  “Do you mean? Do you mean, sir, that you know who the ghost is?”

  “Yes, I do. Before I came here, the same ghost made an appearance at the Holy Igitur Monastery. Murdered a man named Abir. But I brought you here, Tantra, because I want you to tell me something. The previous director—Bose—did he know about the ghost?”

  Tantra gi
ves K a very uneasy look.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “And the director before him?”

  “Yes. I am sure that both of them knew. But is it true? Could it really be the ghost of Darko Dachilko? The man has been dead for seven hundred years.”

  “I see. So, Tantra, I want you to tell me the truth now. When you told me that Mr. Bose had gone to Planet Bosch, that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir. You are correct.”

  The pallid color of shock paints Tantra’s face.

  Things are finally coming together in K’s mind.

  “Bose was strangled to death by the ghost, wasn’t he?”

  “You are absolutely correct. How did you know?”

  “The victim at the monastery was killed in the same way. Six-fingered hands strangled Abir by his throat.”

  Tantra leans forward as his face turns pale.

  “Just as they strangled Mr. Bose.”

  According to Tantra, the director prior to Bose also died the same way. Prior to K’s arrival, besides the director, there were four other members of the Planet Bosch Research Center. But after the director’s death, they all fled, not telling anyone where they were going.

  “Actually, both the previous two directors were quite into the study of Darko Dachilko. Could this be connected, somehow?”

  “I’m more interested in the connection between this mysterious Planet Bosch and Darko Dachilko. Do you know anything about this?”

  “No, I know nothing about that. Even just speaking the name of that heretic gives me the shivers.”

  Recalling his conversations with the late Abir, K remembers that, just like Tantra, he too was quite frightened about something. But in the end, Abir never got the chance to explain to K what exactly so frightened him. Abir once mentioned that the Papal Court had restricted access to any information pertaining to Planet Bosch, formally designating it all classified. What secrets are they keeping? Is there some connection to the appearances of the ghost of Darko Dachilko?

  K contemplates his next words.