The Annals

by Petronius Jablonski

  “But perhaps it is only outrage that leads me to this.”

  “But it can take years for a writer to get recognized,” Sandy said. “You should be proud that —”

  “Not that kind of outrage. I’m outraged that where a book ends up is a far better place than where other things do, that even the worst book has the potential to exist longer.”

  “What other things?”

  Go and sit on his lap, I thought. How much further can he debase himself? What final act has he planned for this play of helplessness, this self-degradation, this sensitivity? Will he now curl into the fetal position and weep?

  After scooping several words from the pond, the men lifted a silver tray at least six feet long and four feet wide. Their cautious handling would have sufficed for an atomic bomb. The man in front held it from behind and they marched with synchronized steps. I flirted with the idea of pounding on the window to measure the depth of their concentration, but I suspected the book’s fans might not view my behavior as a lighthearted prank. Cheers erupted from the next room. The attendant began to sob. Sandy pressed her lips to my ear. “Let’s go read some of it.”

  “Of course. I’m going to fetch my notebook. Save me a place in line.”

  Outside, the Eternal Question blindsided me, removing the cruel shackles of Time and suspending me in a dimension of pure contemplation. A magnificent silver fortress approached. With a turn into the parking lot it revealed a black flank shining like freshly spilled India ink: black like a moonless night, black like still water reflecting a starless sky, black like French Roast coffee. I ran behind the somber but elegant exterior and waited for the owner to park.

  “The 1976 Lincoln Continental Town Car.”

  “Good call, chief.”

  “It is breathtaking, sublime, imperial, resplendent …” Throwing down the impotent tools of language, I humbly adored. “Permit no one to park in the adjacent spot. I shall return with my car.” And I ran across the street, thrilled and terrified at the prospect of an imminent encounter with the Eternal Question.

  “That’s a beauty, chief,” the Lincoln man said. We surveyed the Great Ones from every conceivable angle. His sprightly steps and youthful face made his gray crew-cut seem an unreliable indicator of his age. The slender but muscular physique discernable beneath his silk blazer cast further doubt. “I think the Lincoln is a tad bigger,” he said after a long analysis.

  “With Cartesian certainty I know the 1976 Fleetwood is a full inch longer. Yet your observation is justified. The Lincoln appears larger.”

  Standing between the bows with his arms crossed, looking from ship to ship, he said, “The Caddy is more tapered. The Lincoln is more like a block, so it looks bigger.”

  Though reeling from the lightning of his commentary, I sustained the full brunt of its implications. “You mean the Lincoln is more rectangular?”

  “I suppose you could say that. More like a brick. Why, is that important to you?”

  “It is the fundamental criterion of automobile greatness.”

  “I don’t know. You think it’s that cut and dried?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “What about the Caddies and Lincolns from the late eighties?”

  “Abortions.”

  “Yeah, I’m not a big fan myself. But aren’t they rectangular?”

  After a long pause I concurred. “I suppose.”

  “Well, so much for your criterion. Our cars are better because they’re bigger, that’s all.”

  Appalled that the ultimate foundation of automobile judgments could itself be summoned before the high court of Reason, I lashed out in despair before dissecting his postulation. “Rectangularity not the fundamental criterion? But how did you do this? How could you drink up the Great Lakes? With what squeegee did you wipe away the horizon? Where was I when you unchained the earth from the moon? Are we not falling?”

  “Take it easy, chief. No need to get all worked up.”

  “But consider this: Would you prefer the special Fleetwood seventy-five?”

  “Way too big. But now you’re shooting down both our ideas. That car’s a humongous rectangle.”

  “Is it possible that rectangularity and size are neither sufficient nor necessary conditions of automobile perfection?” I asked fearlessly, the destination of our discourse unknown, the velocity dizzying.

  “Maybe it depends on the size of the rectangle.”

  “Rectangularity remains the criterion, but only functions within certain parameters? You cannot have your cake and eat it.”

  “You know, some folks say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

  Every muscle in my body contracted. “And some folks have first cousins for parents. The sirens’ call of relativism has shipwrecked our culture. Think of the consequences. The rap and hip-hob my girlfriend listens to, on par with Bruckner? Her trashy novels, on par with Lawrence Sterne?”

  “You got a point, chief, but you shouldn’t get so worked up.”

  “But I must. I am the only one who cares.”

  “Speaking of books, I’m going to go see how this one’s progressing,” he said. After we exchanged pleasantries and shook hands, he departed.

  “And speaking of Bruckner.” I buzzed all the windows down, programmed the stereo to play the adagio of the Sixth Symphony repeatedly, and assumed the Lotus position between the cars. The dialogue had awakened me from my dogmatic slumbers and I sought clarity and fortitude. (Oftentimes, even the most heroic effort on the Big Questions in philosophy only reveals a greater darkness beyond.) As though suspended between two vast magnets, every particle of my conscious phenomena, however dispersed or distinct, converged harmoniously on the Truth and Beauty of Rectangularity. Time became a fable.

  • • •

  Before proceeding, the Reader is solicitously encouraged to obtain photographs of the exact models described above and place the Lincoln to his right and the Cadillac to his left after setting his stereo (the preferred conductor is Celibidache, not Klemperer). Some bending and stretching before attempting the Lotus position is advised. Fermented or caffeinated drinks are contraindicated, but no limit is imposed on English Ovals. (Is this movement not the greatest piece of music ever composed? Does it not capture, as though through synesthesia, the tragic grandeur of the Great Ones?)

  • • •

  “What the hell are you doing?” came an awful shriek, scattering my mental particles like confetti and severing my umbilical chord to the realm of contemplative bliss. “Where have you been?” I looked up and beheld Sandy scowling down at me. “It’s the most incredible book I’ve ever read.”

  “I can imagine. You must tell me everything. I was preoccupied.”

  Once we returned to the main road, she began to outline it until I put Dean Martin’s Greatest Hits on the stereo. “Can we listen to something else?”

  “Certainly. The other option is Perry Como. You will choose wisely, for either choice is wise.”

  “Why can’t I play something?”

  “Because my car is not some mawkish democracy, but a monarchy where a philosopher-king endowed with the perfect fusion of wisdom and benevolence knows what is best for his subjects.”

  “More like a dictatorship where words words words words words …”

  Disagreements pertaining to musical selections had plagued our expedition and I feared that a revolution could sire another churlish democracy (that odious government of the rabble, by the rabble, and for the rabble will be scrutinized and exposed — as if wise men have not already been dutifully engaged in unmasking this wretched charlatan for the last three-thousand years — in Part VII of my annals). Driver’s Choice, a policy tested in the laboratory of the wisest scientist of them all, Time, could, if one did not mind befouling himself, be established on socialist principles:

  1) A person’s input in a political matter should be proportionate to the impact it will have upon him.

  2) Musical selection has a direct bearing on the temperament an
d stability of the driver, who cradles within his hands the welfare of his passengers and fellow drivers.

  3) The vomitus of guttersnipes and criminals, which, to the extent one can understand it, joyously celebrates the collapse of civilization, inflames the temperament and wracks the stability of all good men.

  Therefore: the driver, bearing the greatest responsibility, has the absolute right to spare himself from any horrors that could threaten his Quietude. Despite the hordes of torch-bearing ignoramuses screaming, “one person, one vote,” it is only his input that matters.

  “… words, words, words and why should I have to listen to things I hate?”

  “O scourge of youth, dreadful night that you and your peers stumble through, characterized by puddle-deep convictions, vapid idealism, and, worst of all, ghastly taste in music and all things, why was I spared from your clutches? Whom shall I thank for deliverance?”

  “Can’t we just compromise? Let’s have silence.”

  “Compromise,” I gasped, so disconcerted I scarcely knew how to proceed. “Lacking the free time of Henry Higgins I should simply ignore what you just said. Possessing the patience of Buddha, I will briefly address it. Compromise is the spineless essence of democracy, which, as I have stated, this car is not. Now please, regale me with a synopsis of this great book. I will reduce the volume, but not in the spirit of compromise.”

  While she outlined and reiterated, I brooded about the eventuality of our arrival at the Point of Percipience. The fatuous book party had provided an amusing detour, but I could not hide from the knowledge that between our destination and us lay only a stretch of road decreasing with every mile gained on the odometer. I, a lonely fisherman reeling in a behemoth from the depths of a raging sea, knew that each circle of my arm brought it closer. I envisioned a shadow beneath the boat turning the water black as oil. Before it reached the surface, I pulled out a long silver knife and cut the line. The silhouette deflated. The water returned to blue.

  “Come to your senses,” Reason commanded, snapping me out of this coward’s fantasy. “This line cannot be cut.” Then an epiphany descended. The truth of my situation, formerly obscured, exposed me to its injurious rays: I am not the one holding the reel, and the growing shadow is the hull of a ship we are approaching, having received enough slack to depart the illusion of freedom. Perhaps lobsters, as they ascend to the surface, believe they have been chosen by mysterious but benevolent forces in the heavens.

  • • •

  We entered a campsite at dusk and found a secluded spot next to a bosk of trees. In lieu of my deluxe tent with the extended porch, we made due with a pup tent lent to us by Sandy’s uncle. After gathering wood I started a fire on a desolate patch of ground that had served as a home to many of them. Though edible, Sandy’s stir-fry shared the gustatory defect afflicting all vegetarian cuisine: a nagging absence of meat.

  The crackling of the flames eclipsed the sound of crickets and the heat forced us to retreat a few feet. Sandy leaned back on her hands and I put my head in her lap. Watching the stars, I shuddered at the patience of oblivion. They are no more eternal than breadcrumbs tossed across a dark pond. Permanence is relative. That even they must die, those cherubs who shone for billions of years in a wondrous way, should their mortality bring us comfort, a familial affinity, or despair? I visualized an alien astronomer thousands of light-years away gazing into his telescope, watching us. We should have jumped up and flailed our arms and shook our fists, for we will leave no other vestige.

  “What are you thinking about?” Sandy asked after a long silence where two people in their own little worlds occupy the same one. (Is that not a magnificent definition of Love?) She played with my hair and I watched hundreds of orange serpents charmed by some wild flute only they could hear.

  My stomach chastised me for its famine rations. “The cult of vegetarianism, if left unchecked, will do to our species what the Christians did to the Roman Empire,” I said, more to myself than her. “Someone has to do something.”

  “What?”

  “I mean no offense. Your intentions are honorable but hideously misguided. The human brain has slightly decreased in size during the last ten-thousand years. Was it just a coincidence that it shriveled during our species’ unhealthy obsession with agriculture? I suspect that television, internets, and sundry gizmos will shrivel it to the size of a walnut by the end of the next century.”

  “That’s not simply wrong; it’s crazy.”

  “I speak a truth that anthropology professors fear to whisper, lest their students throw down their Hackey Sacks and brandish a rope. Our massive brains crave the heavy fuel of calorie-dense critters. The average human brain needs, at a minimum, ten ounces of meat a day. Mine can scarcely function on less than fifty.”

  “That’s the most pathetic rationalization I’ve ever heard, even by your standards.”

  When the fire dissipated we squeezed into the tent and I remembered how dissimilar the ground is to a soft mattress. With exhaustion being the most potent tonic, I no sooner shut my eyes than the diving bell sank like a stone. And in that deep sleep my hopes dashed upon jagged rocks on the shore of an infernal vegetable-induced nightmare, impaled and left to die a pitiable death beneath the icy claws of salty waves. A perversity no less grotesque than the land of my exile tinctured all my actions and thoughts.

  From extensive studies in anthropology, I recall a tribe of savages who believe that dreams are reality and our waking life is but a dream. When I first happened upon this notion I deemed it the brazen embellishment of a vainglorious anthropologist, something so delusional only Franz Boas could believe it. But after this dream I partook of their unique ambivalence and prayed they were mistaken.

  As we drove along the interstate, colors and shapes revealed their hidden secrets and my thoughts flowed with the power and clarity of rapids. A green highway sign, its blank face framed by white reflectors, telepathically imparted to me the correctness of taking the next exit. Feathers rained. My initial hypothesis involved an unfortunate flock of birds crossing paths with an airplane, but soon a pink blizzard poured down on us. Shiva, god of pillow fights, danced behind a boa. Sandy giggled, dangling her feet out the window, heedless to any visibility problems.

  I buzzed my window down and feathers gushed in and Sandy laughed crazily. I extended my arm to probe them but their density rendered it immobile. It seemed as though we were driving through a huge pile rather than a downpour. I accelerated, convinced of our safety.

  “As long as the wheel is straight we will stay on the road,” said Reason. “Vision is but one of the senses and the least reliable at that: duped by all manner of ruses and prone to infirmities.”

  In spite of the feathers, or perhaps because of them, an ecstatic sense of relief embraced me, as though wondrous tidings had replaced the nervously anticipated certainty of dire news. In place of exhaustion, what one might expect after an arduous journey, I found myself in a reflective mood.

  “Driving to the Point of Percipience is like heating a strange liquid slowly,” I said after an effortless expenditure of thought, as though inspired, as though possessed. “One does not know how it will respond. It may solidify like a brick of gold, it may evaporate in a ghostly puff of smoke, it may explode in your face, it may do nothing at all, or it may cause feathers to rain down from the heavens.”

  This orphic pronouncement, the perfect distillation of all we had experienced, dazzled me, but Sandy laughed and grabbed handfuls of feathers and threw them across the dash. That the mess she made did not enrage me should have provided the insight necessary to navigate my way through the slender neck of the dark bottle, if not to wakefulness then at least a condition of lucid dreaming.

  Although my Fleetwood contained the largest and most powerful engine ever made, its performance under these conditions had yet to be tested. If our progress ceased, I planned on climbing out and crawling to the top of the pile. The puerile fear of being buried alive, upon which that potboiler Edga
r Allen Poe based a career, did not torment me. I slipped my car into low gear to accommodate the growing resistance and the storm began to clear. “Post hoc ergo propter hoc,” I said, exposing the fallacy of that fallacy, accelerating through the light drizzle, hoping to make up for lost time.

  A curb of alabaster appeared beside us and grew until it bisected a rainbow of pink, black, green, and gold. After we drove through a narrow gate, all the confusions and insecurities of our jigsaw journey were forgotten like they had never happened. This realization brought me closer to Sandy’s giddy level.

  “We should have taken a plane,” I said, laughing. “We do not remember most of what happened. Wherefore the purpose of going through it?” The ludicrous desire to partake of a means of transportation as decadent and unnatural as flying clearly bespoke a vegetable-induced delirium, but it seemed quite reasonable at the time.

  At the end of a winding road, a mansion with a long portico beckoned. Giant fingers probed the other side of the sky, as though it were made of Cling Wrap. The pleasing aroma of lemons greeted us long before we came to a yellow moat where blue and green flamingos strutted. We parked and approached the Point of Percipience. Three rows of portholes covered its amethyst front. Faceless eyes gazed at us through dark glass as we stood between two statues of naked elephantine men shielding their heads with their forearms. I fell to my knees and cried, “It is no mere point, but a temple. We shall enter and partake of its riches.”

  My effusive display of reverence did not embarrass Sandy, whose giddiness ceased. We bounced up the white Styrofoam steps as if gravity had only partial access to this sacred domain. Humbled, I approached the chrome door, hoping the correct knob would be marked.

  “Let’s try the bell first,” said Sandy.

  We waited. She pressed it again. The wall shone in the distance. The fitful jerks of the blue flamingos bespoke mechanical rather than biological entities.

  “No one’s answering,” she said.

  “It is a big place. Perhaps they cannot hear us.”