She supposes that she, the large Miniaturist, is bored as well. Honestly, she tells us, she’s just killing time.
Until inspiration strikes.
(Thank her for sharing, etc.)
* * *
—
My turn.
11
Today, they bring animals in. And here are what appear to be: ten large and hairy M’s. Tawny camels for today’s entertainment.
They are bobbing along in the same direction above the surface of the Institute’s sandy Athletics Oval. Brought in from the capital city for a morale-boosting, official event—a camel race. We’ve all turned out for the spectacle. I’ve come along, to be a team player, and because I could use a break from the confines of my project’s uncertain development. I need to contend with the increasing, claustrophobic subjectivity which it has engendered in me. I do this by getting out and about.
There is quite a bit to take in. The M’s loiter, grunt, and rear, while they wait for their jockeys to mount them. Some sit abruptly, awkwardly, folding into themselves like umbrellas in order to do so. Though they are now, still, quite far from me, I can imagine them blinking their long lashes and pouting their doughy lips—flirty girls. A long red sash is being raised; this is the starting line. Behind and above the lowing mounts and the sash is the sky, which is deep blue, though every now and again, it is infected by outbreaks of small gray squares, a sort of image-degradation, which blinks in and out, and may last only as long as the image is rendering. Which is to say that the sky today is in progress.
The breeze is strong, and a few sand-devils trouble the surface of the track, along with little bits of litter, which is surprising. A couple of sheets of what appear to be paper, frolicking on the gusts from the turbines. These are turned up higher than normal today, in order to provide proper ventilation for the contest—as the animals are not known for their hygiene. I’ve just begun to notice that the Institute’s bespoke autumnal chill has now faded just a tad, and is now overlaid with a minor yet unpleasant tang; and added to a strong ungulate aroma, the Institute smells Rn like a recently defrosted refrigerator. The fans should eventually dispel it though. And still, it is pleasantly boisterous out here and the crowd’s in a great spirit.
I’m sitting on a riser up in the stands. Next to me is 鼎福 the Architect, chin resting on his fist like an allegorical statuary. Beside him is the Theologian. On the other side of me is dear Miss Fairfax, smiling, chatting with the Philosopher. Her leg is resting on one edge along the opposite edge of my leg, connected at our margins. And this co-extensivity is full of promise and potential. In the row just above and behind me is Dennis Royal. He’s greasy; mortared up with sunblock which he hasn’t really bothered to rub in properly. There are big smears of white on his nose and under his eyes. Next to him is Miss ☺ the Brand Analyst. She has a banner in her lap, with something or other written on it in the local language. Presumably to fly and wave, once the race begins. She plans on rooting, it would seem.
And oh, there is the Mysterious Woman, that gaunt emblem.
She’s across the crowd on another set of benches entirely, sitting alone, way off to the side, taking it all in through her bright but recessed eyes. Even she is joining in the fun.
Now, I see, far away, the Director, whom I have set some kind of internal compass to. Near him is Mr. Al’Hatif. The Archeologist has found some local scholars, and is probably pumping them for information about statuary. Perhaps raising more capital. Among them, he looks more local than ever. He has the talent of blending in. Now I wonder if he is native to this region at all, and perhaps not just a chameleon. Another faker. This group, he and his contingent, are caught up now in the action on the oval, where all the animals are now being corralled into their starting formations, and stand expectantly, twitching and jutting their chins, raising legs, setting them back, attempting to turn, but unable to.
Everything is set. “A dam set to burst.”
And even this, now, is reminding me of other races which I’ve attended or read about, and these other races are now overlaid upon this one, or mixing together like the scent of the Institute and the smell of the beasts, and I’m thinking in particular of that classic novel, not the one I am currently trying to read, but another famous one, where everything unravels at a race, and how the main character is powerless as it all unfolds and it is told weirdly from not one, but two POVs, and everything kind of splits, but then I remember that I am actually thinking of the film version of that novel, the third or fourth adaptation of it in which the whole thing is transposed into a contemporary milieu, though not as contemporary as this one (for whatever could be), when I’m yanked from the slurry of my thoughts by Mr. Royal. Dennis is leaning over my shoulder from above. A delicate gold chain dangles from his neck. He smells like cigarettes and coconut.
“A bit peaked?” he asks.
He blinks, fidgets. Chews his nails.
“I’m fine, Dennis. You? How are the algorithms?”
“Doing what they are supposed to do; make more money, and bully for me.”
I once again and as usual begin to fear that everyone’s project is going well except mine, and so I reflexively reach in my pocket for some confidence and poise, not that I’ll take it here, but just to remind myself that I’ve got the option, but I don’t have the option, because I find the pocket is empty. Did I leave them back at the…Ah. No.
Am I out? I’m out. Or I must be getting down to a few. My medicines, my pills.
Though I haven’t begun to panic yet, the drumbeat is not far off—I wish I could feel the tablet’s hard, little roundness in my pocket. Roll it in my fingers. That feeling would ground me instantly. Instead I feel into my other pocket for my device. Grip it like a stress ball. Hope it doesn’t start pinging again.
“You’re a cagey one, Mr. Visitor,” Dennis now says. He has been watching me. “No fair, you asking about my work anymore. I’ve noticed all that information flowing in a single direction. It seems that everyone here, but you that is, is just bursting with undelivered narrative.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Frobisher, I won’t beat it out of you.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Still, you are suspiciously private about it all, aren’t you?”
“I’m sorry, I’m just a little out of sorts today,” I reply as flatly as possible.
He concludes the exchange languidly, with the soft, dismissing wave of a hand. “Splendid. I’ll just piss off then,” he says, and leans back once more. And I turn back toward the track and the race, which now appears to be in progress. I had somehow missed the report from the starter’s pistol.
The race is on, and, so far, no more than a cloud of sand, moving slowly around the track on the far side. No details. Though I’m sure the animals are a sufficient distance from one another, they look from here like a single clump.
Everyone’s devices are out and held aloft to take videos. I see the race replicated several times over. And on the screen of one device in front of me, I can see now that one of the bestial M’s is edging out the others as they scud toward the post from the south. Their bellies heave as they gallop. As the field spreads out they begin to spell out “mmmmmm” as if the universe were promising good things in ever-increasing degrees of deliciousness. They are now rounding the grandstand, where the pavilions have been set up. The pack thunders around the bend near to where I am sitting, so I now can see all the beasts in their girded and beribboned finery. A merry bunch of careening creatures. They are running fast, each expanding and contracting like octopi squirting through water. Every time the rear legs go back, the neck cranes forward. Each animal is ridden by what appears to be a tiny man, the size of a human baby, but dressed all in black; each whacking away with metronomic precision with a whip-like crop. Mr. 鼎福 leans over and explains: “Robot jockeys.
They used to use children for these races, but, what with the systematic abuses—” And so, now, these little mechanical men. Command-and-hit shock-sensor jockeys, built of factory-grade drill presses. Wonderful!
There is some sort of commotion. The crowd is now uniformly turning its attention to a strange event. The camel which is out in front is listing dramatically. “Look out,” a fellow in the audience shouts. The great thudding animals are losing traction in the sand. Gripping the track is becoming more problematic, the faster the pack runs. All of the animals are beginning to wobble, gaits becoming uneven. They are tripping on something—too far away to see. The lead beast loses traction all of a sudden, slips a hoof, pitches, and now, suddenly, its far end is rising up as its head points down. It surges and tumbles, and becomes a crazy knot of animal pelts and sand. There is an indecipherable struggle. People are scrambling to get out of the way as the second-place animal runs, uncorralled, toward the hoardings, and rebounds from the side of the official dais. A person pops off the platform: jumps, like a tiny toad. Everyone is scrabbling to get out of the way. I am too far away to do anything other than watch, which I do, glassy-eyed. As the other animals behind the doomed ones make up the distance, they reach the site of the initial catastrophe and halt abruptly, which initiates a chain-reaction pileup, as animal after animal crashes, some of these capsizing, tail over head. There are sustained and distant cries in languages I don’t understand (though the basic tenor of these cries is quite comprehensible) as another row of seats across from us is breached by the panicked herd. Now the little mechanical jockeys, who are all newly mountless, are crazily thrashing about in the sand, driven along by their wildly spinning crops-turned-outboard-motors. They seem to want to cross the finish line with or without an animal to ride. One of them makes a mad dash for the perimeter instead, flagellating away like a wayward sperm, and crashes through an advertising hoarding, and is now heading out of the metastructure and the compound itself, in a snaking line, out into the desert sun.
Godspeed, little robot.
Wincing in the sun, I turn to say something to Dennis, who is looking in exactly the opposite direction, having not spared the wreck even half a glance, and turning back around again I see the upturned hull of a beast, dorsal side down in the sand, its legs looking for purchase, the sad detritus of its saddle and ribbons. Only one or two of the animals make the finish line. The first to do so is surrounded instantly by men in white robes, trainers and owners, grabbing at its harness, patting it proudly. A bucket of water is brought to it and then it is led toward a winner’s paddock.
A hearty shout goes up from the far pavilion. For the winners or for the fallen I am not sure. But then I see the Director, standing to his full and obscene height, all command and joyous competency—he’s giving commands of some sort—and the winning camel is led forward, in a foaming sweat (Is it a camel? A camel, Rly? It’s dromedaries which have two humps. Dromedaries are M’s. Idk. Camels are lowercase n’s. They don’t have those here. Never mind.), and garlands of flowers are played across her floppy, protuberant back. The Director hands a towering golden trophy to the animal’s owner, a local man, enrobed, a sheik of some order, and his suddenly frightened letterform lows, loudly. The audience begins to laugh at the base comedy, and then everyone applauds.
While this is happening, several attendants head down upon the sandy track helping the downed animals right themselves. Spasms from feet finding no purchase. Straining, upraised heads. Necks, flopping like enormous eels, dark puddles forming. The animals blink their ladylike lashes and roll their eyes. I’m taping the whole thing, way in close, so I see it enlarged. Also enlarged: the Mysterious Woman all the way on the other side of the event.
“What fuckery,” Dennis says, all hot breath on my neck, leaning back over me.
Across the way, the Mysterious Woman rises to leave.
“Dennis, who is that?” I ask, pointing at her, as she picks her scarf off of her lap and starts coiling it about her neck.
Mr. Royal squints.
“What? Who? Her? Haven’t you met? That’s Miss Chatterton.”
“Miss Chatterton,” I repeat, “the Mysterious Woman is Miss Chatterton.”
And even as I say this, she’s passing our portion of the bleachers. She looks up at us shyly, and Miss ☺ the Brand Analyst and Miss Fairfax wave, though Dennis does not; and we all walk down now, the event having officially ended, footfalls twanging on the aluminum steps, and then groups form up, as they do, and then 鼎福 the Architect speaks to the Mysterious Woman, who looks a bit trapped, and then the Archeologist has come over, and I can hear the Mysterious Woman’s voice, and it is more girlish than I would have thought, though it is a bit rough as well, though also perfect, really, and suddenly she turns to me and, for a moment, seems to really take me in, and then, looking down, says:
“What did you do to your uniform?”
She has addressed me. This is a fact. A real fact. She’s spoken: to me. I stare back at her with friendly surprise, totally inert with shock. People are talking and laughing.
She speaks again and then someone else does.
Time. Passes.
And now she has left.
* * *
—
Workers emerge, and begin to clean—bring a tarp, gather garbage onto it, then haul it off, leaving long troughs in the earth. Snake out hoses, and wet the grounds. A tractor arrives, pulling a long series of rakes, and another comes in its wake with a sand spreader. They make their slow way around the track, in the opposite direction to that in which the animals have just run. A couple of straggling peons clean up the banners and other refuse from the stands. I see a jumpsuited worker with the small spike, just opposite me and Dennis, picking his way around the track. The man from the wave pool? After about ten yards, he stops, and crouches to observe something. Something, even seen from here, is clearly paper. Then, with a quick downward thrust like a heron’s beak, he spears it.
On the way back to the Enclave: more trash.
The Institute is beginning to let itself go, I think.
And yet, and yet…that paper.
My mind is working on something. Has latched on to something new.
I can feel it.
12
THE FUNDAMENTS OF MY PROJECT
Fundament 1. The project shall have many channels. The project shall have multiple modes. The project shall be polyphonic. Heteroglossic. The project shall be a total work.
Fundament 2. (Capaciousness.) The project is commodious. NB this is not to say the project includes everything; the project is not all-encompassing or encyclopedic. But the project is generous. It allows for all material that will be a part of it. Camel. Bowl, palm. Paper. Dream. Preexisting material, even. It pulls many things toward it, from the meatspace into the mindspace.
Fundament 3. The project shall have a visual component (It would be easier for it not to, for it to steer clear of the optical realm entirely, certainly, as the visual aspects of the project are quite demanding, but in this I have no choice. See Fund.1.).
Fundament 4. The project shall have a narrative component. Narrative is the key ingredient in all my work, as well as in all work like mine. Perhaps narrative is the key ingredient in all human endeavor. Idk. But I do know for certain that every man-made thing should have a story to tell.
So then: a series of events. Preferably, a series of unstable events in which an agent is confronted by choices. (Narrative is, of course, the component of the project that I have the least facility with.)
Fundament 5. The project shall have dramaturgical components, including aspects of blocking, theatrical movement, stage direction of both a prosaic as well as an extravagantly elevated nature.
Fundament 6. The project shall have a rhetorical component. Rhetoric, here, refers to two separate gestures:
a) “Rhetoric” in the sense of tha
t which enables the project to convince its audience of something; of the argument being presented, and of my attempts to win you over to the project’s conclusions w/r/t this argument.
b) The sense of “rhetoric” in which the project calls upon a range of stylized movements, shapes, idiomatic phrases, and intonations. These are critical to the work at hand.
Fundament 7. The project shall contain aleatory components. I.e., the project shall be open to chance. (Court it, even.)
Fundament 8. (Communication: there will be none.) Communication is not on the project’s agenda. Nothing, here, will be said that can be understood. There will be neither communion, nor kinship. No empathy felt, nor accord reached. All discourse regarding a shared or communicable interiority is undesirable. The project is the enemy of import. (Import is for amateurs.) The project does not recognize putative differences between the creator of the project and the consumers of the project. The project is not some third thing in a triangulation. The project is not a relay. The project is not a megaphone. Rather, the project subsumes the consumer and creator in its own plane of immanence.
Fundament 9. Though the project shall bootstrap its very existence out of its mere possibility, the project shall also be self-liquidating. It seeks, as its ultimate goal, complete erasure. The project proceeds, at first, by building the very material which must, by necessity, be deleted. The project is not to be confused with this material itself. The material is only the raw material for erasure. Especially important is that whatever import—aura, or mystique—which has affixed itself to the project or has accrued in the project must be excised, or allowed to wither.
Fundament 10. Iteration. Imitation; reproduction; duplication. Counterfe
Fundament 11. The project should foment psychic dislocation and confusion.
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