The Annals

by Petronius Jablonski

  In a fourteen-day span in October of 1962 the world tottered precipitously on the brink of nuclear destruction. Compare the sheer magnitude of this crisis with that of the Black Death. The number fourteen is involved in catastrophes or near-misses so vast in scope that humanity’s very survival is contingent upon their resolution.

  A historian may not, on pain of breaking his vow to Objectivity, silence the testimony of his senses. These earnest witnesses deserve their moment on the stand, where the court of Reason may rule on the merit of their statements. My fourteenth year, blackened by the infliction of algebra, condemned me to months of agony while refuting the infernal alchemy. In a different key, during the antecedent year I lost my innocence.

  And the number thirteen? Wherefore its vilification? The twelfth disciple of a Roman mystery cult betrayed the founder: 12+1=13. This singularly overrated, interminably squawked-about hubbub destroyed the Great Empire and waged intellectual genocide against Reason for two millennia, but with its besmirchment of a blameless integer it has crossed a line.

  Consistent with their rationality, the cult’s practitioners arrived at the exact opposite of the correct conclusion regarding the luckiness of thirteen. To the extent that I am capable of unraveling their snarled and refractory beliefs, the betrayal led to a sacrifice that saved mankind from the primordial curse suffered by the first two humans when a talking snake beguiled them to eat a forbidden apple. According to this “logic,” thirteen should be the lucky number.

  Now, how can anyone who listens to talking snakes be held culpable for his actions? Is not a man who entertains their counsel a candidate for the insanity defense? And who would want to eat an apple? (Yes, dear Reader, I am familiar with the case of David Berkowitz but it does not apply here. He fabricated the story about receiving instructions from his neighbor’s dog whereas Adam did no such thing.)

  Hopefully I have dispersed the menacing clouds looming over this innocent integer. Why, I would rather stay on the thirteenth floor of 1313 Thirteenth Street listening to Mozart’s Thirteenth Symphony than compose part XIV of my own annals. The Reader may breathe a sigh of relief as he turns to the Preparations for Part XV.

  Preparations for Part XV

  As he approaches the summit of my annals, the Reader is encouraged to reflect on the cautions observed by Sir Edmund Hilary before he conquered Mt. Everest. He did not knock on Tensing Norgay’s door one morning and ask him if he had any plans. In the same manner, upon entering the Death Zone at 26,300 feet, he did not declare, “The rest is gravy. See you at the bottom.”

  As the Reader’s faithful Sherpa I have never permitted my humility and deference to hinder stern cautions about the jagged terrain and deadly crevasses. Now, as he enters that perilous zone where the oxygen is thin, my words may sound grave and insistent, but it is only because I so desperately want him to reach the glorious summit.

  • • •

  The Reader closes my annals and paces his room, knocking over empty bottles, kicking cans of Spam and Sterno. “I doubt this is like climbin’ a mountain,” he says, ignoring the inspirational nature of my comparison. “I don’t need to prepare for no ascent.”

  • • •

  The Reader should not deceive himself. It is not mere skepticism that causes him to balk at preparations. A virtue when not exceeding incautious doses, skepticism is naught but a high standard for accepting beliefs. If left uncurbed, however, this virtue transmogrifies into leering, jaded mockery. Once upon a time, the good skeptic checked each belief’s resume, partitioning them into those worthy of assent and those unworthy. Now a bitter cynic derides everything as fraudulent, expecting the worst and invariably finding it.

  And if the Reader’s condition persists? Surely he does not think it represents a quiescent demeanor? The perpetual suspicion of cynicism is but a way-station to paranoia. That enemy will fire no warning shots across the bow. Absent a reversal of this grim progression, the Reader will be chest-deep in recursive theories involving extraterrestrials, CIA agents, and international bankers. On this Möbius treadmill he may run for the rest of his days.

  Perhaps it is too late. Does he think I am involved? When not studying my annals does he wrap it in foil, zip it in a leather satchel, lock it in an attaché case, and bury it in his backyard? What elaborate rituals and redundant cautions does he undertake to shield the penetrating gaze emanating from my throne of darkness? And what other macabre secrets lie beneath the oft-disturbed surface of his backyard?

  The Reader’s delusional haste is a symptom of the thin air he climbs in, and I, his modest Sherpa, do not take offense. To recuperate and acclimatize for the summit, he is to draw a hot bubble bath in the evening. The soothingness of the opium he consumes must occur slightly after his immersion in the water but concurrent with the beginning of the fourth movement of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. This altered state is only a crude approximation of the curious one I experienced in Part XV (Petronius’ Thirteenth Sensation), but approximations are superior to contradistinctions.

  If the Reader, aflame with the cantankerousness of paranoia, wishes to dispute this point, he may, on the following evening, peruse any of the offal from the bestseller list in an icy bath concurrent with the cacophony of rap and after the ingestion of an emetic. This experiment will, in addition, cement a point I have labored all my life to prove. Even in the glum dusk of civilization there remains an Objective difference between abominable things and great things. Contra Buzzcut, contra Sandy, contra everyone, the difference is not a function of arrogance, but of Truth.

  XV:

  I Experience the Rapture of a Knife-Edge, Introduce Petronius Time Types I and II, and Demonstrate to Sandy the Consummate Importance of the Difference Between Denotation and Connotation

  Along a road flanked by squat and gnarled trees the sun splashed my face with steady bursts of warmth. The incense of freshly cut grass emptied my head of everything but the endless orange prairie of my hood. I brushed my toe across the accelerator and melted the peripheral landscape like solids in a clear plastic blender. For the only time on our expedition — indeed, one of the only suchlike intervals in my life — my mind suspended its analysis, ruminations, remembrances, and even its production of erotica. How counterintuitive, especially upon reflection, that this constituted one of the most gratifying moments of the journey. How curious that a period devoid of rational delineation dyed my memory with such pleasing hues.

  The present, formerly a watchtower from which I surveyed the grisly battlefield of the past while nebulous but threatening shapes amassed on the horizon of the future, became a meadow flanked by walls of gold, beyond which the terrain was of no concern, as though Reason had been cloistering me from my surroundings and informing me via outdated and arcane journals. Was I awakening from a nightmare of abstractions, like a man escaping a shadowy underworld? Unperturbed by the approaching Point of Percipience, unsure how to assess the revelations I had allegedly been subjected to, I drove. All crude fixations had been blown away like dust off a mirror. And how the mirror shone!

  “Perhaps the knife edge of Now is what truly matters,” my heart said. “Technically speaking, it is all there is. The rest is fantasy or hearsay. The present, this flickering candle carried down a dark switchback, casting its measly glow on no one knows what, away from one abyss and toward another, what makes it seem unreal like a night between two days, one illumed by the terrible clarity of hindsight, the other distorted by the hallucinatory glare of dreams and expectations?”

  • • •

  Late in the afternoon the unique clarity disappeared as mysteriously as it arose, though I must stress that the reunion with my friends, Reason and Reflection, was not in any way unpleasant. A dismal gray quilt smothered the earth. Even the wildest imagination would have been unable to find faces or shapes in the filthy clouds. I yearned for the euthanasia of night, the peace of oblivion.

  At dusk we departed the interstate and mounted the final road, a series of declivitous hills. Dur
ing a flash of time at the top of each, I expected us to drop off the edge and fall into nothing. The thought of my headlights idly illuminating empty space as we fell enchanted me. In the absence of a fixed point of reference, would we even be falling?

  (In the anterior paragraph, “flash” designates an interval not objectively longer than the same period experienced by a third party engaged in something numbingly mundane but felt by me as lasting longer due to its extraordinary nature. Tentatively, this shall be designated as Petronius Time Type I. The taffy-like stretch that absolute time undergoes whilst a man is under the influence of tetrahydrocannabinol is Petronius Time Type II. To forfend a disruption of the balletic grace of my chronicle, Types III through XVI shall be elucidated in an excursus.)

  My odometer vindicated my calculation that it would perform the big roll before our arrival. The numbers would soon read 00000. I shook Sandy’s shoulder. “Look. It’s going to flip. What should we listen to? Something reflective? Something triumphant? Something melancholy?”

  “I can’t believe you woke me up for this. Don’t you sleep anymore?”

  “It is not what they denote; it is what they connote.”

  She watched me, uncomprehending, scarcely sensate.

  “They denote a distance traveled, the same distance traveled by millions of cars. What they connote is their special significance to me.” It was essential that she understand the gravitas of what was about to occur. “When it was 85,000 we were in Grant Park with Buzzcut and Heather and he lost his keys and we had to find them before the sun set.”

  “Is this that memory thing? The one where you can remember all the cards in a shuffled deck?”

  “That is Simonides’ trick; anyone can do it. This is important. At 90,000 we were on our way back from the bed and breakfast in Door County where we played Scrabble with the couple from Toronto who insisted on using a dictionary but we still bested them. You cheated with cryptonite and they never caught it. Remember when we all tried to find a word that rhymes with armpit?”

  “Please pull over. I’m going to drive. Just for a while.”

  “Do not be absurd. You have never driven my car.”

  “Okay, then we’re going to park. You need a nap.”

  “Around 95,000 I heard the third movement of Beethoven’s Fifteenth String Quartet for the first time and you said it was depressing and I demonstrated how the greatest music, of necessity, is sad music, except for the instances when it’s not.” My thoughts were not fitting the tiny words at all, squeezing out like toothpaste while I searched in vain for more commodious containers.

  “At 98,000 we were parked on the hill across from the airport and that cop interrupted our consensual act with his flashlight. And the numbers go up and up and reach the pinnacle, the apex, the culmination, soaring all the way, to zero,” I said, suddenly sad and frightened. “That is what everything returns to.”

  Sandy started to cry. She finally understood the difference between connotation and denotation.

  XVI:

  The Panting Wall of Gloom

  Scabs of crabgrass covered the gray plane and clouds weighted down by their own filthy bulk descended. Sandy stared out her window while I contemplated the plausibility of various explanations. Darkness like a wave appeared on the horizon. My obstinate foot decelerated until only a heroic determination kept it from the brake.

  “What the fuck is that thing?” said Sandy.

  “Do you know any sea chanteys? An eye patch and parrot would compliment the salty dialect, as would the occasional tale of creatures from the deep.”

  “I’m serious. What is that?”

  “It appears to be a wall.” A silver line vertically divided it. The map gave no explicit instructions about what to do upon arriving. The road ended where the Point of Percipience began.

  “Oh my God. Look at it.”

  “Please remember that the earth is round. This is not the edge. Sailors were the first to recognize this. A sea chantey please.”

  “Why is it moving?”

  My glib façade would henceforth demand the versatility and dedication of a Shakespearean actor. Massive bubbles formed and receded on the surface. It appeared to be gasping for breath, suffocating in a netherworld plush with crabgrass. I stopped the car. “How interesting.”

  “What is this place?” Sandy said coldly.

  “Mr. Horn declared it the eleventh wonder of the world. No doubt the interior is even more impressive.”

  “We’re not driving through that thing.”

  I put my head out the window and looked up. Squalid clouds slid over the top, conveying the illusion of the bastion collapsing, drowning us in a sea of shadows. The road went through the silver passage but the other side appeared hazy. I prepared to drive through before it changed forms to block the entrance or digest us as we passed.

  Sandy bludgeoned me with her eyes. She looked older, haggard and confused, quite possibly on the brim of savagery, preparing to pounce. Her look demanded an explanation while simultaneously insisting that none would suffice. Its only precedent involved a misunderstanding when she discovered panties beneath the seat that did not belong to her.

  “Permit me to put this in perspective. You were awestruck by a giant eagle, but for this magnificent optical illusion you have naught but scorn and apprehension.” Feigning exasperation, I consulted with my voodoo doll. “What would Henry Higgins do?”

  “Optical illusion?”

  “Well of course. The refraction of the bubbles is predicated on …” I awaited salvation from my steadfast muse. “… a convoluted prism. The ignis fatuus is the oldest trick in the book. Plotinus wrote about them in his Seventh Ennead. This one is unique only by virtue of its size.”

  “Whatever,” she said with halfhearted ascent, grabbing the door and armrest.

  As we passed through the narrow passage I noticed the odometer continued to read 00000. It must have been stuck.

  How the Reader May Halt the Foredoomed Voyage of Time to Prolong His Enjoyment of My Annals

  Curse this prescience. It is not a gift, but an affliction. I see the future so clearly and it breaks my heart. The Reader finishes my annals and wipes tears from his eyes. “My only complaint is that it had to end,” he sobs. Clutching his chest he cries, “Verily, it melted the frozen lake within.”

  There, there, dear Reader, dear friend. Would that we could avert our heart-rending adieu. By means of Petronius’ Box we can at least forestall this sorrow. Perchance the advertent Reader has observed how events fall into three broad categories: those that have happened, those that are happening, and those that have not but shall. (I am aware that subdivisions could be added. For our purpose we need only concern ourselves with the three listed.)

  No doubt the Reader, perspicacious to a fault, has grown to loathe the cheap gimcrack of time travel resorted to by every hack not excreting thrillers. Nevertheless, does he not, midst his unrequited longings for permanence, secretly bemoan the reckless pace at which the palpable present dissolves irreversibly into the gloaming fairy tale of the past? His curiosity at the beck and call of his heart’s deepest longings, no doubt he wonders what it would be like to experience life in the absence of Time, to step from the temerarious train and sit at the park bench of permanence. By means of Petronius’ Box he shall.

  In Part XVII is a box of Ps. Presently it represents the Reader’s future. When he happens upon my Box it will represent his present. If he simply glanced at it and continued reading it would fade into the past.

  Now, if he comes upon my Box and does not continue but stares fixedly, he ipso facto steps out of Time. He leaves the ill-destined ride and enters a state whispered of by mystics.

  Be forewarned: my Box is not a toy, but an entrance to another dimension, a gift lovingly bequeathed to a friend, and, as will be demonstrated, far more formidable than Plato’s much-ballyhooed Ring of Gyges.

  “But why not place your miraculous Box here?” the Reader cries. “Petronius, I can’t wait
another moment for your Box.”

  Dear Reader, so that it can represent the future it must be at least a few pages away. As a fellow itinerant on the meandrous road of life, I empathize with this enthusiasm, but as a historian I have conditioned myself to enjoy the gratitude of posterity. Just as light from long dead stars continues to shine, the full radiance of my genius will not reach its audience in my lifetime. Consider all who shall delight in my annals a thousand years hence. How will I enjoy the generations of ovations if not via the anticipation of them? (Not incidentally, reveling in the adoration of posterity is the Seventeenth Petronius Sensation.) The Reader, to allay his yearning for my Box, should contemplate the sublime rewards of delayed gratification. Soon he will be liberated from that wicked taskmaster, that crazed and merciless tyrant, Time.

  XVII:

  The Introduction of My Nineteenth Sensation and Petronius’ Box

  “The philosopher-king changes a wheel,” I said, throwing the jack beside the tire and bracing myself, not against the indignity, but the torrent of reflections on the ill-timed occurrence. Out of several million miles driven in my lifetime, this was, beyond certainty, the single most inauspicious moment for a flat. My concern: the inauspiciousness could embitter and enrage me, inducing a reckless maneuver that would exponentially increase the inauspiciousness (stripping the tire iron on one of the lug nuts, for example).

  This precarious position I hereby baptize the Nineteenth Petronius Sensation. It refers to inauspicious situations where the threat of far greater inauspiciousness lurks like a sniper. Heretofore, the calamitous and expansive nature of inauspiciousness has been ignored or downplayed. My Nineteenth Sensation shall serve as a warning of this looming cliff. It is the slipperiest slope, the mortal enemy of auspiciousness. A man no sooner lowers his guard to curse it when it increases a thousand-fold.