The Annals

by Petronius Jablonski

  “Of course not, but isn’t this beautiful?”

  “That creature will contaminate the prophecies you receive, will it not?”

  “What do you mean?” she said, putting the ball in her lap but keeping her eyes fixed on it.

  “Oh great and mysterious ball, what are we having for lunch? Rainbow armadillo. Oh great and round crystal ball, what does the future hold for me? Rainbow armadillo.”

  “It’s not for predicting the future. The armadillo is probably part of some cultural narrative. We’ll have to look it up when we get home.”

  “Cultural narrative? Like the Phoenix?”

  “Maybe, but isn’t that one shared by many cultures?”

  “Like a plague. I recommend not looking it up. The aesthetic value of mythical creations invariably exceeds whatever meaning they have, if any.”

  “Like your hood ornament and dashboard mascot?” she said with disapproval.

  “Precisely. I could care less what outlandish tales they denote. The sight of them brings me joy. The only meaning that matters is what meaning they have to me. Besides, she said it was a real crystal ball with special powers of prognostication.”

  She raised the ball so the sun again shone through it. “What a character. Tourists love that shit.”

  • • •

  At the fall of night we entered a rest area. Sandy climbed in back and gained immediate passage to the Land of Nod. The gatekeeper had always been fond of her. For reasons never disclosed, he despised me. Even the most excessive bribes proved insufficient to gain his favor. While I leaned against the trunk and reflected on the day’s proceedings, an epiphany befell me: I must begin my annals, my history of this portentous odyssey. How else can I sift the revelatory elements from the dross? There can be no certainty while adrift in the middle, for the moment is always given precedence by the senses. And hindsight is a flighty harlot indeed, popular and acquiescent but scarcely faithful.

  Grateful that my muse contacted me before any precious details were shipped off to the overflowing landfill of history, I retrieved a notebook from the trunk, located a pen in the glove compartment, and turned on the reading light. Sandy’s snores indicated that no stimuli could awaken her (one curious and delightful exception being the corner of a bed sheet tickling her ear).

  Not wishing to begin my chronicle in haste, I paused to gather my recollections, lit an Oval to vitalize my gifts of transcription, reflected on the accomplishments of my peers: Thucydides, Polybius, Livy, and Seutonius. And I began my annals, writing slowly at first, refusing, like any great historian, to permit vain concerns of style to interfere with the simple accuracy of my narrative. As my confidence ascended, a natural eloquence took over, and Truth joined splendor in an uncompromising union.

  A ponderous yoke left my shoulders, a gratification common to all practitioners of this noble science. When a historian documents events he witnessed it not only confirms their ontological status for posterity, it endows him with a distance from which he may provide a level survey. I could not fathom how the self-evident necessity of this undertaking had evaded me.

  I filled a third of the diary in an hour and made a mental note to purchase more notebooks the following day. I wondered if the signs had the same meaning by themselves that they did in the overall context. I footnoted this exegetical query, hoping the answer would be forthcoming once my annals were complete and I had time to meditate upon them.

  Whereas the events of the afternoon were fresh in my mind, I devoted a disproportionate amount of space to them, secure in the belief that I could recount the other epic encounters at my leisure. The remembrance of the benighted phantoms slithered across my flesh. Though reluctant to relive the experience, I needed to purge it from my mind, to trap it safely behind bars of ink.

  When cramps silenced my arm and the fog of enervation clouded my transcriptive faculty, I turned to the first page to peruse my annals, prepared to savor that sweet but guilty pleasure common to all great writers: the vicarious enjoyment of one’s creation via the imagined bliss it will bring his reader.

  The page was blank.

  Frantically flipping through the notebook and not finding so much as a smudge, I felt the nauseating momentum of the earth hurtling through space. My voodoo doll mocked my failed authorship with his savage leer and a perverse and cantankerous determination overcame me. I turned to the first page and began again.

  “So what if it all disappears,” I whispered, bristling with defiance. “The transcription itself is ennobling. It preserves what happened for a moment, which is better than nothing. Indeed, it staves off the Nothing — for an instant.” In my fervent state I believed this to be important. In the coolness of detached reflection I often wonder if it is. How can a historian reconcile himself to the disappearing ink we delusively use to preserve our chronicles?

  I went outside to stretch and smoke. Headlights on the interstate sliced through the night but always left it intact. I reeled from a sensation common to all eminent historians taking a rest from a momentous project: a wearying synergy of woe and agitation begot of the recognition that there is much to be done and one is not doing it. I hereby christen this Petronius’ Fourth Sensation. With odium, I will tolerate its application to pauses from momentous projects in general. (The perspicacious Reader will recognize how it forms the yin to the yang of Petronius’ Third Sensation.)

  When I tried to sleep, my eyelids became screens where ignorant, pathetic ghosts marched back and forth. “Impossible,” I said. “Completely impossible.” I sat up, not frightened but enraged. (Do not worry, dear Reader, as you shall see in the excursus to Part V, the manure of this rage fertilized a most wonderful fruit.) I opened the back door and eased my way in. Though it provided extensive space for travel, the backseat did not comfortably accommodate two with the intention of sleeping.

  • • •

  Viewed with the detachment of satiety, the attraction between the sexes, the magnetism that mercilessly and inexorably drags them together, appears as nothing more than bizarre cajolery hoodwinking us to populate a madhouse with fresh inmates, something the distant murmur of Reason could never do. (Salubrious for the madhouse is that satiation rarely exceeds thirty minutes.) Considered from any other standpoint it seems the most lavish of tricks, magnificent chicanery, Mother Nature’s greatest special effect: commanding the perpetuation of an existence that most of its heritors have grave reservations about, yet making the means of perpetuation its most redeeming feature. Bravo, you magnificent, deranged, diabolical bitch. Bravo.

  Sandy’s arms gave me sanctuary from the ghosts. But where would that comfort be tomorrow? For what can comfort a man who has found himself in a town of ghosts?

  The Dialogues of Supernatural Individuation

  So that the Reader may fully share the perturbation I experienced in Part V, it is essential that he understand and fully acknowledge the theoretical impossibility of ghosts. To the philosophic novice, being theoretically impossible is a far graver offense than being physically impossible. The latter is a misdemeanor against the laws of nature; the former is a desecration of logic herself. Unfortunately, a straightforward descant would expose even the most learned to arguments intricate and arcane. Despite the technical perfection, my exposition would prove insufficient to infuse the Reader with the perplexities that assailed me or bring him to his knees with the unique awe of a grand philosophic revelation. His loss would be of tragic proportions: the argument I shall unveil is as original and profound as the introduction of amino acids into the primordial soup. Remember, I was not frightened of the ghosts; the impossibility of their existence agitated me.

  To clearly elucidate and explore this point, I have decided to demonstrate it by means of a dialogue. If the format was good enough for Plato and David Hume it is good enough for me. The Reader is encouraged to imagine himself seated at the table with the participants, actively following (perhaps even participating in) the discussion.

  • • •

/>   The Participants

  Sophia represents the voice of Reason. Scatius is a wily philosopher whose views are in diametric opposition to mine. Cretinius holds the views of the common man.

  • • •

  At a picnic table in Pulaski Park sat Sophia, Cretinius, and I. The morning sun or Sophia, which article of creation deserved greater reverence, which was more conspicuous and inexplicable in its beauty and power? Though she was barely eighteen, to look into her dark green eyes was to confront wisdom itself. We shared a bottle of schnapps (far from discouraging my enjoyment, Sophia filled my glass the instant it was empty) while giant but gentle Cretinius worked the morning crossword.

  “Sophia, a fascinating problem vexes me. In the realm of the supernatural how, in theory, would we individuate things? How would we recognize one entity as being distinct from another?”

  “What’s a two-letter word for alternative?” said Cretinius, rubbing his salient brow.

  After some thought, Sophia leaned forward, revealing cleavage from the plentidudinous bosom concealed beneath her toga. “It couldn’t be the same way we individuate natural things. Consider five coins. What distinguishes each of them is their occupation of different spaces.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Now I am not asserting that spatial continuity is the only consideration, but it is essential.”

  “Cretinius, that’s a terrible habit,” said Sophia, her radiant, non-Asian features grimacing as his finger excavated his nose.

  A loud belching interrupted her as Scatius staggered into the park. His spindly legs seemed incapable of supporting the humpbacked torso upon them.

  “I fear he is in his cups again,” I whispered.

  “Those are sandals,” said Cretinius, his lazy eye looking up and away from the crossword.

  “I wonder what views Scatius holds on your position,” said Sophia.

  “And what position is that?” he said, taking a seat. The black caves of Scatius’ eyes provided the only contrast on his forbidding face to his pasty skin. Though his hair was thin to the point of endangered, his skeletal arms were covered with dense patches of beastly fur. He helped himself to our schnapps, guzzling it from the bottle.

  “I was maintaining the theoretical impossibility of ghosts,” I said. “My critique is more severe than the assertion that they do not exist. I maintain that it makes no sense to even speak of them.”

  “Ah, the cheap solvent of logical positivism,” he said with a hiccup. “That’s about as original as breathing.”

  “Scatius! Don’t touch me there,” cried Cretinius.

  “My argument owes nothing to the lazy and arrogant positivists,” I said. “They assert that statements are only meaningful if they are verifiable. My position is that we cannot coherently speak of ghosts because they cannot be individuated by the criterion of spatial continuity. The difference between one and three of them is not a feature of the distinct chunks of space they occupy. By what criterion can they be separated?”

  “Your argument is fascinating,” said Sophia, cradling her chin in her hand and batting her long lashes.

  “It is interesting,” agreed Scatius.

  “What about Casper the Friendly Ghost?” asked Cretinius. “He takes up space. So do the ones on Ghostbusters.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Sophia.

  “Be patient,” I said, stroking the celestial crop of sun-bleached down on her arm. “Something good will arise, non-Phoenix-like, from his point. Cretinius has voiced the common perception of ghosts. Although we say they do not have spatial dimensions, we conceive of them as gaseous or luminous beings who occupy space in a mysterious fashion that allows them to float through walls. Unable to conceive of non-physical, non-spatial, invisible beings, we are reduced to the conceptual level of tabloid sightings and cartoons. Oh, what can comfort a man who finds himself in a town of ghosts, a town where the stern sheriff of logic is not obeyed?”

  Scatius belched. “The answer is both obvious and devastating to your cute little argument. Ghosts can be individuated on the grounds that they have unique minds or personalities.”

  Sophia turned to me and put her hand atop mine. So soft the skin. So unequivocal the yearning in her eyes. The sun beamed on its masterful handiwork: sporadic freckles on her nose, shoulders, and in the heavenly valley of her mountainous bosom.

  “What’s a three-letter word for opposite of later?” asked Cretinius.

  I winked at Sophia and clasped her tiny hand and prepared for triumph. “On the contrary, we cannot speak of distinct personalities unless individuation has already occurred. ‘I have seven minds but my bother has only four,’ is a ridiculous statement, but if physical embodiment is not a criterion how can we criticize it? From this it follows that we have no means of individuating disembodied minds.”

  “Sophistry,” groaned Scatius, reaching for the schnapps. He finished the bottle and smashed it on the bike path. “Let me think,” he said, massaging his temples.

  “Oh Petronius, your arguments shine with the light of Truth,” said Sophia.

  “Here is the fundamental difficulty,” I said. “Terms such as two, many, some, and few are coherent insofar as they refer to distinguishable items. If we have no means of theoretically distinguishing one ghost from another, what sense would it make to say that there are many of them as opposed to a few, or one as opposed to three? When we attempt to determine the autonomy of entities in a domain where spatial and physical considerations can not be applied we are, to put it politely, speaking gibberish.”

  “Gibberish indeed,” said Scatius, pounding his fist on the table. “You would deny what all of mankind has believed since the dawn of time?”

  “He’s angry,” said Cretinius.

  “Mankind does not know that what they think they believe is conceptually impossible,” I said. “It is the philosopher’s task to demonstrate this, not to encourage their folly with trickery.”

  “Writer’s throughout history have documented the tragic plight of ghosts,” said Scatius, putting his head on the table. “Trapped between planes, ignorant of their condition …” He began to snore.

  “You mean cynical hacks know a good gimmick when they see it,” I said. “The lost-ghost cliché is absurd on the face of it. After a full day without hunger pangs or trips to the restroom even Cretinius would figure out that something special had occurred. And what should we make of the supernatural dimension that stands as the basis for these tales? What could possibly transpire in a bodiless, non-physical realm? The traditional answer is the experience of bliss or a reunion with deceased family members. Has no one noticed these are mutually exclusive?”

  “But wouldn’t you want to see your father again?” said Sophia, running her fingers through my hair.

  “Exceptions only prove the general rule. Regarding the plausibility of the former answer: compile a list of all the types of bliss you have experienced without the use of your body.”

  Sophia giggled. “There aren’t many, and the best one isn’t included.”

  “Something smells bad,” said Cretinius.

  “Oh my,” cried Sophia, pinching her nose. “Poor Scatius has had an accident.”

  “He pooped,” agreed Cretinius, and we all abandoned the table with its slumbering defecator. “Petronius, look at the bugs,” said Cretinius with glee. Attracted to the sweet liquid from the broken bottle, a squadron of yellow jackets darted about the shards.

  “No Cretinius, those are —”

  I put my finger to her lips. “Sophia, when I establish my academy, Experience shall be granted an honorary professorship. Hopefully all my pupils will be as receptive to my teachings as you. And as lovely.”

  Cretinius screamed and lumbered away flailing his arms.

  “Now, even if we can conceive of a disembodied state of bliss, what do we mean by bliss in this context? A state of schnapps intoxication? For all eternity? As much joy as that syrupy nectar can bring, would you want to feel like
that forever?”

  “Oh Petronius, let’s go for a walk in the park.”

  VI:

  A Book Party, an Infernal Nightmare, and a Refutation of Vegetarianism

  After losing our way we found ourselves on a nameless road heading into a nameless city. The architects guilty of the structures we passed must have conspired to design buildings as nondescript as human ingenuity permitted. Even pyramids would have been preferable. Instead of expressing empathy or maintaining a silent faith in my driving prowess, Sandy reveled in my fallibility.

  “Columbus, where are you taking us? Are you sure this is the way to India?”

  I seethed. This was my question whenever her navigational skills left room for improvement. “This is an indirect route,” I said, trying to visualize where we might have strayed.

  “Are you sure it’s the right way? Where’s the map?”

  I winced. It was mounted, bathing my study in Old World elegance. Though my innate driving skills precluded the need for cheat sheets, I recognized the singularity of this one. It arrived in the mail in an ornately carved wooden canister. A green eye marked the Point of Percipience; a closed eye marked my house. Between them it resembled an anatomy chart of the circulatory system: roads ran parallel, crisscrossed, and wove into spirals. It seemed odd that an old map would delineate modern roads. Surely they could not have existed since time immemorial. My first inspection commenced under the nonchalant assumption that I enjoyed the liberty of choosing from amongst numerous routes. Subsequent surveys refuted this. Most of the roads did not approach it; most that did veered off. Out of hundreds, only a few had any worth. Deprived of the luxury of choice, I compiled a tiny mental list of where and when to turn.

  “The map is in the bear trap of my memory,” I said. “As a scholar of Euclid, I can assure you that straight lines are overrated.”

  “Would you please stop and ask for directions?”

  “Ask for directions,” I said with feigned thoughtfulness. “And afterwards I shall purchase a paper to peruse the classifieds for Eunuchs Wanted, for that is what you will have reduced me to.”