The Sacred Era: A Novel (Parallel Futures)

by Aramaki Yoshio

  Did all the other passengers disembark while he was asleep?

  K pushes his body up through the cabin of the vessel. He appears to be inside some kind of cavernous holding tank filled with a viscous liquid.

  This must be the protoplasm that fuels the ship. Still in a daze, he extends his limbs from their fetal position. He swims in the direction of a light. That has to be an exit.

  The exit appears to be a tubular tunnel that resembles a drainage pipe. Along the way, he encounters several valve locks, each one operating automatically, opening for him as he swims from one chamber to the next. With each chamber he swims through, the volume of salty liquid thins out, until he makes it to the final chamber, which is filled completely with air.

  K has found his way out of the Nirvana ship.

  Looking back, K sees the black ship behind him engorged with air. It appears to have crash-landed on a grassy meadow. A fence made of a strange thorny wood surrounds the area, continuing down the rolling hills beyond his view. A herd of domesticated animals grazes in the distance, but K has never before seen such green beasts.

  This was no spaceport at all. Not one sign of a single structure or piece of equipment—or, for that matter, any people—that you would expect from such a facility. Not much choice but to make his way up to a nearby hill. At least, maybe, he’ll see something from up there.

  A warm, pleasant breeze blows over the meadow. Walking up the hill, K could easily be mistaken for someone going on a picnic. Once he makes it to the top, he turns his gaze back on the Emissary. Even from atop the hill, the ship still appears enormous, looking like a gigantic balloon that tumbled onto the field. It astonishes him that such a flimsy-looking vessel could have traveled across vast reaches of space spanning several hundred light-years.

  K watches as the Nirvana ship belches, spewing out the liquid inside it into a small stream that flows down the slope in the pasture, until it is all absorbed into the ground. Right before his eyes, the ship’s exterior begins to deflate.

  Almost as soon as the ship flattens out, it begins to inflate anew. Once it is fully inflated, the wind tumbles it along the field until, suddenly, it launches itself into the air. Now fully transformed into a balloon, the Nirvana ship steadily climbs upward into a boundless sky serene in its brightness, with every bit of it awash in clear blue, as if it has become a soul lifted up to heaven.

  Struck dumb with amazement, K can do nothing but watch as the ship slowly disappears from his view.

  It takes some time for K to come to his senses. As much as he might want to wallow in despair at being left all alone in the universe, he can’t just linger about atop this hill forever. He decides to head down the narrow trail on the opposite side of the hill. Surrounding him is a picture of tranquility. Birds sing in the distance, but none are visible to K. Perhaps it is pretentious to think so, but there’s something oddly mythic about the atmosphere of this place. Stagnant, yet seemingly governed by a time that stretches for all eternity.

  K arrives at a fork in the road. Though uncertain of which path to take, in the end he opts to follow the road that goes farther down the gentle slope, spiraling down the hill. K walks without stopping to rest. But the path doesn’t seem to go anywhere, just continuing on without end.

  Or so K thought. After walking across seven or eight hills, he comes to a turn in the path. Right there stands another man. So abrupt, so unexpected is this event that K is taken aback for a moment.

  This other man is quite old indeed. He wears a bulky cloak with a hood over his head. Oddly, the man seems to have been expecting K.

  “It really is a pleasant day. Just perfect,” he says. “I was just about to head off to pick you up. You were on that black ship, right?”

  “Yes.” K nodded.

  “What’s your name, son?”

  “My name is K.”

  “I see. My name is Parnassus. Where do you wish to go now? Or would you prefer to follow my lead?”

  Not seeing much choice, K tells the man that he will follow his lead. The old man turns on his heel, leading K back up the road he came from.

  K walks side by side with him.

  “The thing is, I was on my way to Planet Bosch,” K says. “But it looks like my ship had to make an emergency landing here.”

  The old man Parnassus gives K a knowing look, as if he no longer needs to hear his story. Indeed, he makes it seem like he’s already heard it all before. Yet he explains little to K, only giving roundabout answers that entirely miss the point to any of his questions. All he tells K is that he is alone on this unnamed planet.

  “So just what have you been doing here all by yourself?” asks K.

  “It’s my job to take care of lost children like you,” the old man answers, laughing.

  “Oh? Does the black ship make emergency landings on this planet every now and then?”

  “It does indeed. There are plenty of planets just like this one around this part of space. And each one has a caretaker just like me. We all take care of any lost souls.”

  “So, how many are there?”

  “You mean in this star system?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” K says. “Do you mean this planet orbits a star? What is this planet called?”

  “There is nothing of the sort.”

  “Just as I thought, it’s a planet without a name.”

  “Well, if you must call it something, then you can call it by the name of Planet Nirvana.”

  “Planet Nirvana.”

  K gives Parnassus a sidelong glance.

  “Correct. And the central star of this system is the Nirvana Star, so called because the star is composed of the same substance as the souls of you travelers.”

  The old man’s words confound K.

  Seemingly reading K’s mind, he points to the zenith of the sky, toward an orb of white light shimmering against the clear blue sky. Circling around the larger orb are smaller soul-stars, whose numbers must have been in the thousands, even the tens of thousands. Even the old man has no idea how many there are in all. It reminds K of the structure of an atomic nucleus, with so many small satellites orbiting a central nucleus, each tracing its own orbital path.

  “So, the large soul-star above us is like the sun of this system,” Parnassus says. “This soul-star you stand on now is also one of the planets in the system, revolving at the farthest of orbits. One day, you too will return to the Sacred Star.”

  Lips loosened all of a sudden, the old man explains to K everything he knows about the spiritual astrophysics that govern this star system. Much of it escapes K’s understanding, but one detail that leaves an impression on him is the fact that this star system, located at the very edge of the Taklamakan Space Desert, was the point of origin for all life in the entire universe.

  “So, the thing is, I have orders to travel to Planet Bosch. Parnassus, do you know how I can get to Planet Bosch from here?”

  However, the old man has fallen silent. K looks at him, but he simply stands in place, unmoving.

  “Hey! Are you there? Is Planet Bosch far from this place?”

  Parnassus still does not answer. That’s certainly odd. K peeks under the man’s large hood. He sees the old man breathing in and out as he sleeps, even as he remains standing.

  3

  Night falls on the planet. As the large soul-star circles to the planet’s far side, the smaller soul-stars hidden by the afternoon light now give off a pale glimmer. Worlds both large and small flit about the night sky, looking like countless fireflies.

  K sits down on the side of the road, watching the still-sleeping old man. He does not look like he’s about to move again any time soon. Not a single twitch of movement, not even a breath, as if he had fully petrified into a fossil. Frozen while still in the midst of walking, his pose strikes K as rather precarious, but oddly enough he does not fall down.

  Without any idea of what to do on his own, K doesn’t really have much choice but to wait for the old man to awaken. It would be an enti
rely different story if others happened to live on this planet, but since only this old man here can guide him, there’s not much else for K to do.

  K turns his gaze to the sky, watching the smaller soul-stars flickering out there, reminding him that this place is another world altogether.

  It’s certainly been a long road from Earth.

  How long has it been? Leaving my hometown, journeying to the capital city of Igitur, taking the Sacred Service Exam—all of these feel like happenings from another story, from another lifetime.

  Such recollections of things past overflow in K’s mind, making him feel increasingly more alone in the universe.

  What is going to happen to me now?

  All these things that have happened simply beggar belief. K passed the Sacred Exam. He trained in the monastery in the middle of the desert. He received the official notification to go to the Planet Bosch Research Center. He received another notification to depart from Earth. He traveled to the strange emerald-colored city of the void. Finally, he boarded the ship to traverse the great distance of the Taklamakan Space Desert. Things seem to be happening far beyond his control or understanding.

  What is going to happen to me now?

  K repeats these words over and over. Ten times. A hundred times. But there is no answer.

  No one tells K anything at all! Not about his journey. Not about his destination, the Planet Bosch. Why has all information about this planet been suppressed? What is the purpose behind his journey? How is he supposed to know what to do without such information?

  Is such a thing even possible?

  Frustration builds within K as these thoughts circle around his mind.

  Argh!

  K screams out to the sky, though it comes out more as a cross between a yawn and sigh of lament than anything else. As if responding to his call, the smaller soul-stars floating in the night sky tremble.

  K lays his head down on the grass, using picked grass as a pillow. The comfortable softness of the grass surprises him. It may as well be a top-of-the-line bed as far as he is concerned. Somehow, this relaxes him, calming the anger that welled up inside him just moments ago. His face starts to look even blissful.

  When you think about it, human beings are born into this world, then die. To what end? Who’s to say?

  There’s a famous dialogue between the heretic Darko Dachilko and his disciples that’s relevant here:

  “Where do people come from and where do they go?”

  To this question, Darko Dachilko gave this answer:

  “My beloved disciples, why human beings are born into this world, then live their lives, then die—we do not know the fundamental reasons for this.”

  “Master, please tell us!” The disciples all persisted.

  Then, Darko Dachilko answered:

  “Human beings come from the one and only place and return to the one and only place. An eternally repeating cycle.”

  “Where is the one and only place?” one disciple asked.

  “It is a place where all life is born and where all life returns upon death.”

  “Is it in the Great Heavens?”

  Darko Dachilko answers:

  “It is the womb of all life and at the same time the tomb of all life.”

  “Master, do you know this place?”

  “I know the place. I have been to this place and seen this star. Do you all doubt this?”

  “No!” the disciples shouted in unison. “But, Master, how did you come to know of this place? How did you come to see this place?”

  Thus Darko Dachilko spoke:

  “Are you all demanding to see proof from me?”

  Darko Dachilko’s retort was quite harsh. And so the disciples fell silent.

  But among them, the one known as the Dark Disciple suddenly stood his ground and shouted back.

  “Yes, Master. We do demand such a thing from you.”

  Sad eyes accompanied Darko Dachilko’s next words:

  “So we have a traitor in our midst. Telling you all the facts of the matter will only bring me sorrow. And my sorrow will become your sorrow. But I will step forward and tell you all. For once you know how I came to know of this place, once you know the facts of the matter, you will believe that the teachings I have preached are the truth.

  Sadly, in the edition of the collected dialogues that K read—officially banned, of course—the crucial section that follows had been redacted. All that remained of it was a short phrase, which read, “This is because I am a XXX.”

  The story goes that Darko Dachilko’s revelation of the truth caused a stir among all the gathered disciples in The Orchard.

  Soon after, the Dark Disciple betrayed Darko Dachilko to the Papal Court.

  And so Darko Dachilko was arrested and brought to the infamous trial for heresy. All sorts of crimes were included in his indictment. Finally, the verdict came down—execution. They say that his confession—the truth he purportedly told his disciples in the redacted part of the text—was the single decisive factor in the determination of this verdict.

  4

  K falls asleep.

  He awakens to the large soul-star rising from behind the horizon beyond the hill.

  It looks like Parnassus had slept standing through the night. His eyes snap open as soon as K rises from his grassy bed.

  “Oh!” the old man says. “I slept quite well.”

  “Do you always sleep like that?” K asks.

  “Yes. I always sleep at sunset and awaken at sunrise without fail.”

  He takes a couple of steps forward, proceeding tentatively as if testing his feet. Once his body fully returns to normal, he turns to K.

  “Shall we go on, then?”

  K dusts off the grass from his clothes.

  “Sure, all right. But first, could you tell me where we’re going?”

  “Where? Didn’t you say you were going to Planet Bosch?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then, follow my lead.”

  “All right.”

  The pair return to the road, walking along hills and even more hills in every direction. It begins to dawn on K that this road will continue on and on without end. He snaps.

  “Parnassus!” he shouts from behind him.

  “What’s the matter? Tired already? Shall we rest for a bit? Time is one thing we have plenty of.”

  “No, nothing like that,” K says. “I’m just wondering if this road continues on and on without end.”

  “Why do you think so?” the old man asks without turning around.

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s just a feeling.”

  “Oh, is that right?” says the old man, his voice almost mocking.

  “Wait! Aren’t you supposed to be the only man on this planet?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then shouldn’t you know exactly where this road will take us? Shouldn’t you know if there’s actually a destination at the end of it or whether it just goes all around the planet, taking us back to where we started?”

  The old man’s face goes dark as he shakes his head, his earlier mocking confidence all but vanished.

  “The truth is that I don’t know myself. It’s been hundreds of years since I first came here. Or has it been thousands? It’s been so long I no longer remember. But I still have no idea whether this road will ever end somewhere.”

  Rocking his head back and forth, the old man speaks about his life on this planet, telling K that after all his walking, he can say with certainty that this road circling around the base of the largely featureless hills of this planet never crosses paths with any other roads.

  “But it doesn’t really seem like such a huge planet,” K says, obvious disbelief written all over his face. “I mean, you can even see the curvature of the horizon.”

  “You are absolutely correct,” the old man says. “This planet isn’t all that big.”

  “My guess is that following this road for three days or so should take us back to where we started.”
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br />   “You would think so, but I must have walked this road many thousands of times, and yet never have I returned to where I started.”

  Hearing this disturbs K, though there is still a part of him that wonders if this old man isn’t just trying to play him for a fool.

  “So, what you’re saying is that it doesn’t matter how long we keep at this. In the end, I’ll never find my way to Planet Bosch, will I?” K says in frustration. “You told me to follow you, and so I did. I thought you would take me to a spaceport where they dock the ships bound for Planet Bosch.”

  “A spaceport?” says the old man. “I’ve never seen such a thing in my life.”

  “Then, why did you tell me to follow you?”

  “I have no recollection of ever ordering you to follow me. I just asked what you wanted to do. Besides, instead of just standing on the street waiting for nothing, walking along this road at least gives us something to do. Anyway, going on is all we can do. In the end, it’s at least a good way to kill time.”

  In the end, this is all Parnassus is doing.

  “Do you really think there is much to gain from just walking?”

  “No, not really,” the old man says, seemingly indifferent to it all. “In fact, I’m completely bored with this scenery. It’s just hills upon hills as far as the eye can see.”

  “And yet you keep on walking?”

  “That’s right. What else am I supposed to do? You never know, maybe there’s something beyond the next hill I just haven’t come across yet. I haven’t lost hope quite yet.”

  “Sure. But hope alone won’t really get you anywhere.”

  “You may just be right. My thinking was just like yours in the beginning. Just like you, I thought I’d quickly get tired of all this walking and just quit. But even if I stop walking, it’s not like there’s anything else I can do. So I might as well just keep moving forward even if only to kill time.”

  “I guess so.”

  “That’s when I had a realization. Hope, you see, is something that will never disappear. It’s just something you can never exhaust. As long this road continues going beyond another hill, and another hill, then so too will hope persist forever.”