by Sladek, John
3RD: In 1899, Alfred Jarry wrote ‘How to Construct a Time Machine’. He died in 1907. In 1913, as Marcel Proust, he began scribbling about time once again. This has led some to suppose that Jarry somehow succeeded in building his time machine. A simple disproof of this follows:
Had Jarry succeeded, he might have travelled back in time and assisted at the difficult breech-birth of his own grandfather. He might indeed have been the clumsy male midwife who caused the infant’s death – a man using the alias ‘Marcel Proust’ but who is otherwise unknown. But others have shown that the midwife was not Alfred Jarry; moreover the real Proust had no access to the time machine built by H. G. Wells to Jarry’s instructions. QED, ‘How to Construct a Time Machine’ is fiction, developed without the assistance of a midwiving author.
14TH: Pendulum clock invented by Christian Higgins, 1656.
22ND: On January 22nd, 1932, the USSR began its second Five-Year Plan, again demonstrating the infallibility of number as a means of measuring and controlling time.
7TH: Another river-day: On June 7th, 1849, between 4.10 and 4.11 a.m., we are told *, Huckleberry Finn awakens on his river-raft. He perceives ‘stars’, and ‘then he sinks into an immemorial sleep that envelops him like murky water’; real worlds and their times are no more than an interruption in the dream of a fictional character, himself not entirely believable, but dreamed up by someone using the name ‘Mark Twain’ (river slang again), whose real name, we are told, was Samuel Clemens. Clemens, of course, does not exist. There is a chance that he once existed, if only, in the fertile delta of the imagination of Jorge Luis Borges.
19TH: Non-discovery of two celestial -objects, OH 471 and 4C 05.34, said to be the oldest objects in the universe, being primeval galaxies. Radiation from these objects has taken the entire lifetime of the universe to reach the University of Texas at Austin.
24TH: Persons using a special device at the Institute for Parapsychology, Durham, North Carolina, have shown an uncanny ability to see into the future, 1/250,000th of a second.
15TH: It was not on the 15th Undecember 1938 that paleontologist Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer discovered among the catch of a South African trawler a fish called the coelacanth, previously thought to have been extinct for several million years.
8TH: Anniversary of a week ago Thursday.
26TH: J. W. Dunne, in An Experiment with Time, shows how dreams not only come true, but everything else works, too.
8TH: At noon, GMT, on December 8th, 1859, Admiral Henry Fitt set out on his famous round-the-world ‘Beat the Sun’ cruise. Sail, oar and special elastic engines enabled him to keep a constant westerly speed of 460 knots, staying ahead of the Sun. In principle this meant that when he had circumnavigated the globe, shipboard time would be (still) noon of the 14th, while shore time would be noon of the 15th. He intended to recoup the enormous cost of the cruise by reading advance copies of the newspaper stock market reports, and gaining a 24-hour jump on other investors. This scheme seems to have failed in some way, and the controversy it aroused led to the establishment of the International Dateline, which ships are forbidden to cross for 24 hours at a time.
20TH: St Zeno’s Day. Zeno proved motion to be impossible, since even the slightest motion must require an eternity of time to be completed. The proof of this has never been completed.
21ST: The discovery of entropy proves time to be neither a river nor a turning wheel, but merely a direction. Entropy means disorder, and as we move forward in time, disorder increases. Thus when we watch a film, we know whether it is running forward or backward by entropic indications: A pane of glass is shattered, a banana peeled and eaten, a tortoise drops on the head of Aeschylus and kills him – all indicating forward movement in time. A shattered pane coming together, a banana disgorged and reclothed in its skin, or Aeschylus coming to life, standing up and firing a tortoise off his head into the air – negative entropy, or backward movement in time. Time is an arrow.
14TH: Black Saturday. Henry Ford says: ‘History is bunk’, but proves automotion possible.
20TH: St Zeno’s Day. Zeno said that, for an arrow to reach its target, it must first move ½ the distance, then ½ of the remaining distance, and so on: ½ + ¼ + c + …, an infinite series that can never be completed in a finite time. Likewise he arranged a race between Achilles and a tortoise (or perhaps Aeschylus and a tortoise) proving that same point. Time to Zeno must have seemed an arrow divisible into an infinite number of points. He did not believe the story of Aeschylus’ death – how an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head – even though such a death seemed to fulfil an oracle. The oracle said that Aeschylus would die from a blow from heaven. Rational Zeno would have said it meant no more than an instant bolt of lightning.
6TH: Discovery of the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second.
22ND: Believing in history is like believing oracles. The past is a phantom like the future. Nevertheless, the USSR put great trust in both: Having awakened on their river raft from one dream of a Five-Year Plan, they dozed and dreamt of a second to come.
6TH: The speed of light being known, Einstein was able to dazzle the world with his special theory of relativity. It declares that, to an observer moving at the speed of light, there is no time. An arrow and a tortoise fired at one another at the speed of light, to us will seem to collide instantly. Nevertheless, the tortoise will himself have an eternity in which to contemplate his impending death. To him, the arrow will be Zeno’s arrow, suspended forever at a safe distance.
25TH: A suitable founding date for the fictitious United States of America, home of Huckleberry Finn again, awake. In honour of Undecembrist philosophers and poets, the United States took its emblem and slogan from Zeno. That many points in time cluster together to form a continuum, they express as One from Many (E Pluribus Unum), below an eagle, holding arrows and bolts of lighting. On its breast are ‘stars’.
28TH: Reputed founding of Time magazine by Henry Luce (= ‘light’).
4TH: The Babylonian New Years Day (1st of Nisan) began on April 4th, 786 B.C.
27TH: In the Bodleian Library there recently existed an uncatalogued item, namely an almanack, containing entries of a peculiar nature. Under ‘Gardening tips’ it recommended ways of glueing petals on to blossoms (‘You’ll be rewarded by the sight of these blossoms closing into beautiful little buds’); glueing dead branches on to the cut stumps of tree-limbs; planting whole carrots and later digging up carrot seed; depollination, etc.
Under ‘Astrology’ it described persons having a letter full of important news, which they then sealed up and gave to the postman to deliver to the sender; it spoke of useful advice from a friend, which was first followed and then received; it spoke of many famous persons who had died in Taurus, but subsequently lived long and useful lives.
Of world events, it spoke of a peace treaty between two major nations, from which the signature had recently been removed; war would follow. The main concern in wartime, evidently, was for the millions of new lives which would be created – to cope with such a population boom would require, eventually, an enormous number of pregnancies. Again, could the farmers cope with the great volume of food which these new millions would expel? The land seems hardly able to bear the burden of such bumper crops as will appear, nor are the farmers, in the foreseeable past, able to pay for such crops.
The entire book went on in this way, even to its advertisements, for wrecked cars, worn-out shoes, fingernail parings and other body wastes. For adolescent readers, a certain cream guarantees the eruption of real pimples, as no other cream or lotion can do. Broken appliances are said to add filth to clothing ‘scientifically’ (when they begin working), to remove heat from cooked foods, to stain teeth or scuff shoes to a low shine. Electronic apparatus promises to remove radio or stereo noises from any room.
This almanack no longer exists. Having reached its own copyright date, it was of course sent to the printers to have ink removed from its pages, to be pulped and processed, and now it is a coni
ferous free in Finland, where they say it loses one ring per year, disappearing up its own annulation, annually. There is some question as to what becomes of it: It may be that, reaching the seed or cone, it will then grow up again in some negative time, becoming once more a solid tree and finally cut down to make matches, one of which will strike a light at some necessary moment. (Proust begins his story by striking a match to look at his watch. Nearly midnight.)
0TH: C. L. Dodgson, another unbirthday. Author of ‘What the Tortoise Said to Achilles’ (Mind, December 1894). What the tortoise does say would take an infinite number of pages to record, though this difficulty might be overcome by removing the ink from earlier pages and re-using them, in an endless cycle …
25TH: Dodgson lies awake at night compounding his ‘Pillow Problems’, vain exercises in infinity to help pass the invalid hours. Proust has been watching the steak of light beneath his bedroom door, unable to decide whether it is midnight gaslight or dawn. Zeno turns in restless sleep, in his nightmare running slowly, dragging old tortoise feet through mud to escape the arrow that comes ever infinitesimally closer without striking. Huckleberry Finn lands on the shores of sleep safely, after his moment of drifting awake, seeing unfamiliar points of light; he may remember a single star, but the wrong one: It exploded into nothing 4,320,000,000 years before the Earth was born, and nothing remains but its false light. Aeschylus at breakfast tells his wife his dream: ‘It was raining tortoises and …’ And Manilius squats watching the horizon at dawn in an act of faith.
THE GREAT WALL OF MEXICO
1. Washington Crossing the Yangtze
His predecessor had kept tape recorders running in every room, catching his ‘thoughts’ as he paced. But then his predecessor, Rogers, had always been a flamboyant action-man leader, the first Secret Service agent to be elevated to the position he guarded with his profile. His career spanned a few headlines:
GBM SAVED FROM SHOOTING
HERO BODYGUARD TO RUN FOR SENATE
SEN. ROGERS WILL RUN
ROGERS WINS!
ROGERS ASSASSINATED
Before the assassin could confess, the police station at which he was held blew up, along with a fair piece of Mason City surrounding it. The FBI found the cause to be a gas leak of an unusual type. On succeeding to the office of Great Seal, our man promoted the investigating agent, K. Homer Bissell, to bureau chief.
Our man kept his thoughts on specially printed forms:
There were also memoranda, agenda, briefs and résumés always stacked on top of the elegant polished* desk. The Great Seal liked to be well supplied with business at hand. It enabled him to expedite and finalize things with obvious efficiency at any time, ready to deal with work and get it out of the way before he relaxed, working hard to play even harder, making his guiding principle Throughput.
MEMO: From the President
I do not tolerate noisy press conferences. If possible, the next press conference should be arranged to maximize silence.
I, the state, further do not like science fiction cops. If it is really necessary for them to wear those helmets, plastic visors, tunics, gauntlets and jump boots, will they please keep out of my sight.
‘I can see how this is going to build up into something,’ Filcup warns. ‘Remember when he didn’t like certain news analysts? My God, remember when he didn’t like brown eggs?’
Karl Wax brought up the subject of uniforms at the Tuesday meeting of Special Advisers. His ‘birthday cake’ suggestion was voted down (‘We have to make a pleasing offering to the President, but this is ridiculous. Anyway, a naked guard is just the kind of thing that could backfire. We all know how He feels about nakedness’) and Dan Foyle gained the upper hand with ‘a uniform of evening clothes, slightly modified in some distinctive manner – anyone who’s seen Turhan Bey and Susanna Foster in The Climax will know what I mean. This has been a long and bloody war – though not pointless or without compensations – and He sorely needs a little formal relaxation.’
Agenda for Wednesday
Commission stamps to commemorate Walt Disney, Louisa May Alcott, Ty Cobb; provisionally Billy Mitchell, Ralph Nader. Check figs on Indochina: Gen. H. claims 2,250 megatons reqd for reconditioning, Op. Orpheus. Check position on Tanzania vis-à-vis South African bloc. Could recredit our reputation in Brazil, renew Arab franchise.
Presentation of award from Mothers of American Insurrection (blue suit). Read speech of Q’s for decontamination efforts, constitutional loopholes. Lunch with leading blacks. Press conference on Martha’s blood clot. Important: p.m. conference with Bissell, psychologists, police reps on physical/mental reconciliation of disaffiliatees, dealing with radical element.
While Tichner and Groeb arrange his urgent memos, he runs over the morning mail résumé, made up as a composite letter:
Dear Mr President:
While 47% of me would like to congratulate you on your courageous stand on the Chile question, 21% of me also wonders if you’ve lived up to our expectations regarding … and though 17% of me disagrees, a massive 36% thinks you handled the Moral Pollution bill wisely, and for the rest, I can’t make up my mind.
Sincere good wishes,
Your friend,
J.Q. Public
Suggested Uniforms for White House Police
Brocade, knee breeks and periwigs
Minutemen, ‘dressed for Sunday’
Student Prince
Uncle Sam
Henry Clay gaiters, panamas
Christy’s Minstrels
Custer’s cavalry
Commodore Perry
Rough Riders
The Climax
Mysterious Island
Dickensian ragamuffins (struck off, replaced by ‘Leopard tuxes and light-up bow ties’)
Texas A & M
Diamond Horseshoe
Each Night I Die
Zoot blues
Nice neat business
The GS follows no suggestions, however. For a time, while he reads a digested condensation of the life of FDR, the palace guards are persuaded to imitate that eminence. Bang seven-thirty every morning the guardroom doors slide back and out rolls a parade of large-jawed men in gleaming wheelchairs, champing their cigarette holders and assuring the President that he has nothing to fear but fear itself. And even that phase is preferable, they all agree, to his Peter Stuyvesant period.
After the mail, his condensed news digest:
Wednesday, February 12th
PRESIDENT SIGNS CONTROVERSIAL DUCK BILL.
Conservation leaders praise forward-thinking leader. President disclaims, says only small step forward, but ‘little strokes fell great oaks’.
President To Announce New Peace Plan
President’s Wife Feared Ill
Cabinet Changes?
He was vaguely aware that the real press hardly ever mentioned him; these items had been gleaned from the Rood City Post, the Oslo (Nevada) Times and the Budget Junction O’erseer. He knew the press laughed at him for his sincerity, for his supposed vanity, for the way he conducted the war. They crucified him if he looked solemn, and when he smiled there were unkind remarks about his woodenness. The press! What did they know? Let them go on calling him an unsaleable commodity, a snap, an empty suit. They would one day look the ape!
Not a Gem
During morning coffee, he felt like a visit to the Reagan Room, but curbed it (PRESIDENT MASTERS OWN CONDITION). There was still the award ceremony (The confounded press! More pix with eyes closed, mouth open) and the luncheon with its precarious handshakes. And first of all there was Operation Orpheus and fat, freckled General Hare.
‘We call it Orpheus, sir, because there’s no turning back. We thought of calling it Operation Lot, but people might get it confused with Operation Sandlot, our talent-recruiting program, and with Operation Big Sandy. Operation Sodom was even worse. So we –’
‘Get to the point, Hare. Where do you get this figure of 2,250 megatons?’
The general set down
his coffee cup carelessly, so that the cookie fell from its saucer perch. Disorder. Reagan Room. Operation. Or Free Us. The music of the nukebox means a dance with China. I’d like to get you. On a slow boat. China, angina, regina, vagina.
‘Let’s see now.’ General Hare jotted figures on the edge of a soggy paper napkin. ‘We have North Zone, South Zone, Countries Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog …’
Slow bull to china.
‘That makes 1,939,424 square kilometers, and that comes out to only 749 megatons. Allowing a 300 percent margin for error, we get 2,250 megatons, say 150 warheads. We wouldn’t hardly miss it?’
‘Haha! Oh, excuse me, general, I just thought of something. What kind of – ha – boat would a slow boat to China be? Eh? Eh?’
‘I don’t exactly get you, sir. You mean –?’
‘It’s a riddle, man! Just tell me the answer to that, and I may give you the green light on one of these operations.’
‘Mr President! I –’
‘Give up? Give up?’
There was some argument about whether the general had actually given up before the President told him the answer. To placate him, it finally became necessary to okay Operation Big Sandy, both phases.
A Lexicon of Governmental Report Terms
alienatee: person not sympathetic to the government
bugs: demonstrators (hence swatting a swarm: riot control)
dealienation: brainwashing
decontamination: shock therapy used in dealienation
disaffiliate: anarchist
maverick: businessman who defects to radical side
opinion analyst: police agent
rationalizing an increment: stopping a demonstration
reconciliation: interrogation with extreme force