by Rhys Hughes
She howled. The way of the haiku, the Kado, is in my very essence. In lieu of an apology, I muttered:
A chord of her hair
By my clumsy fingers played
Sounds a single note.
Against the sunset, antithesis of all my ideals, flamingoes veered silent and indistinct, like splinters of the sinking star. Why had God erected such a ludicrous vista? Because the sunset is a symbol of the artist? But nobody wanted the thing: I can only live in the light of the sunrise. I suspect a mordant joke. Can a frozen sun really be said to be setting rather than rising? I refuse to concede the point. They are not the same. Close your eyes and use your nose.
Meredith huddled in her shawl. A cool wind rose from the shallows; reeds tottered. Chimes hanging from the porch offered five notes of a coherent melody. She crooned to herself, stealing the music and adding words. I was reminded of a fairytale, the way her syllables soothed. I shrugged. “Then I must go to Eden…”
Not a notion to relish. Once the most sublime garden in the Cosmos, Eden had fallen into neglect. Picnickers are mostly responsible for the damage, the litter that has accumulated over millennia. But I personally blame D.H. Lawrence. He was a poor choice of gardener. The work is beyond him; he grumbles into his beard as he hoes and rakes. It was a long journey, a bumpy ride. Honour for Genji, my bicycle. The chance to burst a tyre in the divine service comes to few velocipedes.
Meredith indicated her desire to retire indoors. Her house is pure ranch, complete with wooden veranda and paraffin lamps. But it rests on stilts above the waters. We stood, once more shoulder to shoulder, and I saw in her form a silky strength pulped from the flesh of a myriad young boys. As I waited for her to make the first move, she asked: “If Heaven is overcrowded, why do we meet so few people?”
“We are privileged guests,” I told her, “living in one of the last wilderness areas. We must be appreciative.”
In truth, her tone depressed me. My mission seemed little more than a token gesture. Shortly after I died and climbed the cumulus ladder, my knowledge of cosmology underwent a radical shift. I discovered there was not a single Earth but a multitude of them, each one slightly different, arranged in neat parallel dimensions for the apparent purpose of playing out the total sum of all possibilities.
Now I was going back to my own, to close the border, but there were innumerable others, on rival Earths. Shutting off the exit from just one would barely scar the surface of the problem.
Meredith was blaspheming. “Why does he live in a hotel? You don’t really believe that sea air nonsense?”
I suggested he craved simplicity. This did not satisfy her; she had studied too much in the hermetic tradition of philosophy. Though God was omnipotent, he could not do everything. For example, he could not impede his own progress or attenuate his own power. Such actions are born of impotency. God’s doings sprang from strength, never from weakness. She learnt this from Anselm, the very lips. “It looks bad,” she explained. “A deity in bed and breakfast accommodation!”
These ontological twists bruised my skull more than shochu (sake is a fairly weak drink) and I shook them free. I told her I had chosen to serve God whatever the metaphysical basis of his decisions. Even if he was turning senile, I would continue to obey. A mad Creator is no less useful to me than a sane one. Defeat can be noble as victory. I believe this still, I am merely more cautious.
For a minute, we mocked the sunset. Meredith, who sometimes thinks in quotes to please me, said: “All the world’s a stage, and here is the safety curtain.” The sky was a wall of flaming cloud. The truth of the marsh, cancerous with small islands, was anonymity. Wavelets lapped like prams. A beacon on the far shore winked its attentions. Flattered and offended by the familiarity, she pursed lips. She turned toward me and my smirking bicycle. Mechanisms are her suitors, gear ratios court her favours, seeking to impress and penetrate.
As I watched the beacon, the absurd thought branded itself into my consciousness. There was no lighthouse on that stretch of marsh. It was my pagoda, burning in fits and starts. Someone was detonating barrels of gunpowder in the vicinity! Tempered by centuries of damp, the pagoda was resisting to the very end. I stood and stumbled on the rim of the porch, nearly falling into the marsh. I cannot slit veins here, but I can silt them up. Would this suffice as a substitute demise?
“Arsonists?” Meredith was incredulous.
Tying my headband to Genji’s handlebars, I took leave of my friend with a slight bow. I skirted the ordure, oily as sweat, sword bouncing in basket. When I reached my home, there was nothing left but the glazed roof, floating on the marsh like a monstrous lotus. The wood and paper fluttered as ash, greasing the waters further. On the causeway, shards of my Celestial Horn formed a sparkling message: JUST A REMINDER, SIGNED GOD. I noticed two shadows in a punt, poling their way back to smugness: the Archangel Gabriel and a lackey. They wiped soot from their haloes. God’s dirty work leaves indelible stains.
The following week, on borrowed wings, I soared through Earth’s upper atmosphere, high over Asia. I alighted in the city of my childhood, the focus of my maturity. I had decided to combine business with pleasure. I wanted to remember the good times, the unheeded shouts, the feel of the edge in my abdomen, as startling as a girl’s tongue. Nostalgia. My head jumped from my shoulders on the third attempt.
Tokyo had certainly changed since my day. I was born into the old city, unwilling beneficiary of Kanto earthquake and American fire. In the wake of these ravages, flimsy wooden structures had sprouted; these were gradually replaced by low-rise concrete blocks. An ugly town for much of my life, it has to be admitted. But now wealth had encouraged the erection of glass and steel edifices. In the districts of Harajuku and Roppongi, people moved with less grace and more confidence. Wallets distorted pockets, credit cards were fumbled.
I spent a good two hours wandering around, seeking familiar haunts. I kept generally to the rooftops. At last, in Ichigaya, I chanced upon the site of my original death. The compounds of the Ground Self-Defence Force had been demolished. So I returned to the Ginza district, the hub, and stalked the edges of the moats ringing the Imperial Palace Grounds. Mandarin ducks and joggers flashed their plumage.
I sensed I was not alone here. Dark forms could be felt vibrating seductively on the other side of the metropolis. Probably agents of the Other, sowing the bean sprouts of discontent. It was best not to concern myself with them. I had seen enough evil: the hammer and sickle painted on walls of student common rooms, the withering of my culture. I awaited nightfall and made my way directly to a discreet hoteru, a love hotel, in the Gotanda section. Here my target, Dr Miyoshi, head of an eponymous corporation, lay snuggled with a hired hostess.
Filtering through the air-conditioning, I reassembled myself and dipped into the folds of my robe. Miyoshi was snoring loudly; the girl in the hollow of his armpit was quiet. Informants for God had already reported this weekly ritual to the Hotel Descartes on the Fax Vobiscum. God likes to keep a careful eye on his promising subjects. I had acted on the news with typical panache. I glanced around and winced at the décor. The room was furnished in standard hoteru style, with a mirrored ceiling, gaudy satins and other decadent luxuries.
From my robe I produced a purple ovoid. I had obtained it after a great deal of haggling with D.H. Lawrence. Despite the papers I carried, permitting me the use of any facility in Eden to aid my mission, he had remained truculent. Finally, after I agreed to read his complete works, he allowed me to pluck a single fruit. The tree I approached has always been the most jealously guarded, though it is not the most famous. There are no serpent-kissed apples in its branches; only Knowledge comes that way. The Tree of Eternal Life drops plums.
This was the contour of my plan. I squeezed the fruit between the compressed lips of the hostess, breaking the skin on her teeth. As she awoke, the sweet juice trickled into her throat. Her eyes widened; with a flick of my sword I clove her heart. Her breastbone sagged; the blade came out with a sound like
that of a hinge.
Before she could bleed away this absurdity, I was gone. I left in the conventional manner. Departing a hoteru unobserved is simplicity itself. Customers and staff are supposed never to see each other. The bill is paid to a hand protruding from a curtain. As I strolled past, I cleared my throat and lisped: “Goshukuhaku.” I am no humorist, but this is a very ironic joke. Take my word for it.
Outside, in the cool night, I attached my wings and lifted into the skyglow. Aside from a touch of clear air turbulence, my return journey was uneventful. I was eager to confide in my neighbour, to seek a quiet place to reap my reward. I found Meredith, as always, on the porch of her stilted ranch. She was experimenting with an embossed gong, as big as a shield, to which she had fixed various percussive adjuncts. When she struck it with a mallet, but gently as if massaging away its brassy stress, the sound was an acceptable cacophony.
She was pleased to see me. We exchanged bows, hers slightly deeper than mine, an unnecessary mark of affection. “How did it go?” she asked. I told her about the declining moral standards. I had witnessed men and women shaking hands instead of bowing, diners unable to grasp the true eating implements properly (and calling for a fork.) We drank more wine, we nibbled at slices of kasutera. Genji, whom Meredith had kindly taken in like an orphan, came out to greet me.
I explained to her the exact nature of my actions. “When Miyoshi is awakened by the lashings of his harlot, his horror will soon be replaced by scientific curiosity. A woman without a heart who is still alive is a strange discovery. The plum will have lodged in her throat. Miyoshi will make the connection between the fruit and her sudden immortality. He is a man of true vision. The chemists of his Corporation will analyse the juice. An immortality drug will be on the market within a decade. Garage synthesists will ensure global availability.”
Meredith was sombre. “No longer able to die, the citizens of your Earth will bar themselves from Heaven.” I could not understand her lack of zeal. Or rather, I could understand it but refused acknowledgement. Success meant I would now be able to destroy myself. She would no longer enjoy my company. A rending weakness.
I said goodbye with informal swiftness, not even looking back as I led Genji over the causeway to a quiet marshy bank. My pagoda roof had drifted into the centre and started to sink. I watched it as I bared my chest, drew my sword and tasted its gleam. Genji shed a tear of oil. He wanted to follow my example. But who would be there to sever the spinal cord of his brake cable? Consciousness is suffering. I had earned the right to break free. He had not.
I was lying in the reeds, part of nothingness, when the Celestial Horn began to call. Splinters of the broken apparatus were being driven under my toenails. Somebody was kicking me, images of my childhood jumped into focus. “Hiraoka! Hiraoka Kimitake!” Who was using my real name? I could only open my eyes to see.
The Archangel Gabriel and a lackey, the same who had destroyed my pagoda, were crouching over me. It was raining. They were dressed in old suits and carried twisted umbrellas. A rough looking Gypsy tandem rested on the causeway. Removing his top hat, shiny with age, Gabriel dipped it into the fetid waters and emptied it over my face. A tadpole wriggled up my nostril. The lackey (who I finally recognised as Joan of Arc) thought this hilariously funny.
“Wake up! God wants to see you.” Gabriel had a coarse Irish accent. When he replaced his hat, his halo struggled inside, warping its shape. He wore fingerless gloves; rubbing palms together, he produced enough static electricity to curl the ends of his dirty moustaches. Again, Joan of Arc burst into laughter. She was a simple child, the slackness of her facial muscles betrayed a mental degeneracy. “You’re in trouble now, you rascal,” Gabriel added.
With their unhelpful assistance, I staggered to my feet. I felt the wound in my side. It had disappeared. Genji was peering from some reeds, shaking with terror but too loyal to flee. I beckoned and, reluctantly, he approached. As I squinted at my surroundings, I saw that little had changed. Yet the decades pressed on my shoulders; I felt their weight like snapping turtles. “How long?”
“Not quite a century.” Gabriel folded his umbrella and gestured at his tandem with the point. “I told God to leave you dead. But he said that’s what you wanted. Follow us. Make sure you keep up. Purgatory was designed for the likes of you.” He mounted his saddle, waited for Joan of Arc to follow his example and then pushed off. I watched them totter down the causeway, picking up speed and howling as the cold rain smashed their faces. There was no time to think.
I climbed onto Genji and pedalled after them, my little legs stiff from inactivity. They led me away from the marsh, onto the rutted road, past the funfairs, the sticky Guignol horrors. Unable to match the pace, I fell behind. A mist hung over the sea, broken boats flickered in and out of focus, drifting aimlessly. My jaw worked against the sight, teeth champing on the cold steam.
Truth is cooked by time
Seconds cast the world to pan
Paradise to pot.
I was losing my ability. It was a punishment for my failure. A form of sympathetic magic. An ironic situation. Failure required the instant sacrifice, ritual suicide, yet here I had been resurrected to confront my shame. My surroundings mirrored my humiliation. Even the calliopes were weary, indistinct. By now, I had lost sight of my escort. Towards the Hotel Descartes I continued, turning over Meredith’s words in my brain. In a curious way, I felt hungry for her scepticism. Am I doomed always to chose the role of victim?
The Hotel Descartes was in a dreadful state. Windows were boarded up and plaster was flaking off the outside walls. Gabriel and Joan were nowhere to be seen. The receptionist in the lobby glowered at me; one more century’s worth of shrivel. I began climbing the stairs on my own, up to number 49. But she called out; the sound of a rotten cork falling into a bottle of sour wine. God no longer had a double room. He lived in one of the cheaper singles round the back. We trudged gloomy corridors. The odour of damp cabbage greeted us like a friend who steals books. I grew faint, a flimsy echo of oblivion.
The receptionist left me in front of a door stained with graffiti, much of it carved into the wood in unholy hierograms. I had to use my own fist to knock. A hacking cough came in reply; I turned the handle and pushed into dimly lit squalor. There was no en suite bathroom in this residence. A cracked sink, bloated with string vests and socks, stood next to a derisory washstand. God was concealed behind the grimy curtains, exposed feet in threadbare slippers.
“Ah, Yukio,” he rasped. “My disappointment exceeds all limits. You promised you would do something, we made a deal. I kept my side of the bargain. Why did you let me down?” He cleared his throat with a horrible gurgling and proceeded to mumble some incomprehensible litany. Had I not known better, I would have deemed him drunk.
I bowed my head. “I did my best. I know not what else I could have done. The plan was a neat one.” As God shuffled impatiently behind his curtain, I added: “I do not understand what went wrong. Did Miyoshi not play his part? Did the inhabitants of Earth reject immortality for other tricks? My dream has flaked all away.”
God whined. It seemed he was racked by sobs, an impossible notion. “It didn’t fail,” he replied. “On the contrary, it worked all too well. On your planet, within a single generation, death was unknown. So the spiritual gate to Heaven was welded shut. The elderly no longer swarm; in this respect, I am pleased. But men and women who cannot die have no use for God. I have been forsaken.”
“With all respect,” I answered carefully. “That was not part of my mission. I was employed to tighten up border controls. If your support is dwindling on Earth, increase it with a miracle or two. Demonstrate the divine wrath. It should be easy for you to fill the churches again. Forget the precept of faith for a time.”
The Holy slippers shifted, toes flexing in an untidy rhythm. Was God actually considering my advice, or were these the wriggles of some pantocratic anxiety? A sudden glare behind the faded fabric made me draw back; but this was no blinding hal
o. The flame snapped out and a curl of heavy tobacco smoke drifted towards the yellow ceiling. Coughing mucus, God grumbled and muttered to himself.
“My power is sustained by faith,” he said. “As people fall behind with their worship, my living standards drop. Why do you think I’ve had to take this blasted room?”
My mind raced. “On one Earth, humans have achieved immortality and taken to atheism. Surely this is a drop in the cosmological ocean? What about the loyal trillions?”
God snorted. “Immortal yes, but not infertile. They keep producing children, doubters like themselves. That Earth grows ever more crowded with unbelievers. When it reaches saturation point, I’ll be out on the streets. Homeless, I’ll be, hungry.”
“So you want me to do something about this as well? Return and find a way of sterilising the population?”
The curtain rippled. A burning cigarette fell onto one of the worn slippers, scorching a hole in the tartan. God shook it off with a spasm. “Forget about parallel dimensions and alternative Earths. I want you to concentrate on yours. The level of atheism has sapped my miracle-forming powers.” He started coughing again.
“I’ll try. I’ve got an idea already.”
And the voice that punctuated the coughing was desperate: “I hope so, Yukio. For Heaven’s sake!”
I used to believe that immortality was a reflection in a prism of dew, suspended from a sword. I used to reason it as the pivot between pain and beauty. The act, the gesture, is ephemeral; but it folds down upon itself. The final poems before the blade penetrates the flesh, the useless charges across some Okinawa of the mind; these are wrapped in the present like parcels. I saw eternity as nothing other than a petal of transience, folded the correct way.
Meredith premiered her latest piece on her veranda, with myself as the total audience. Even Genji was excluded, his aesthetic sense deemed inadequate. An elaborate set-up of reeds and cooking utensils chilled me with its exotic homeliness. It was a celebratory work, to mark my second visit to Earth. Very few return visas had ever been granted; not even Spinoza managed to obtain one.
