The Devil's Workshop

by Donnally Miller

  Bramij returned alone.

  “Where’s the squaw?” asked Harry.

  “She got away,” Bramij answered.

  “She got away?!” Harry blurted out in complete disbelief. “She got away?!”

  “She told me to close my eyes. When I opened them she was gone.”

  “What kind of an idiot are you?!”

  “Um, let’s see . . .”

  “Well don’t just stand there! Get her back!”

  “You don’t think I tried already?! She’s gone, I’m telling you.”

  “Which way did she go?”

  “I don’t know. My eyes were closed.”

  “Well go get her! She can’t have gone far.”

  Bramij showed no sign of moving, so Harry closed on him and hit him in the face. A fight broke out, with Dane coming in on his brother’s side.

  “Peace, brothers!” Clumphy stood. “Violence resolves noth –“

  At this all of Harry’s rage boiled over and he completely snapped. He turned to Clumphy and battered him in the face and the stomach. Then he grabbed a stick and beat him over the head till he’d collapsed, covered in his own blood. Once he was on the ground Harry kicked him viciously. It was possible to hear the ribs snapping. Eventually he wore himself out and fell to his knees beside his victim, who was gasping great shuddering sobs and moaning in pain.

  The slave drivers and the other slaves just looked on. They were shocked by the sudden outburst and somewhat awed by the single-minded ferocity of Harry’s fury.

  Finally Harry stood and returned to his bowl of stew. He took one mouthful and then threw it out. “It’s cold.”

  “Is that what you call not damaging the merchandise?” asked Dane softly.

  “He’ll be fine.”

  But clearly he was not going to be fine. He was rolling back and forth moaning, and blood was pouring from his nose and mouth. Pete and Tom tried to hold him and offer some comfort. “Do you have any bandages?” asked Pete.

  “Do you think I’m a stinking doctor . . . ?! He’ll be fine.”

  The argument with Dane and Bramij was now forgotten. No one spoke. The only sounds were the crickets, the low crackling of the fire and Clumphy’s sobs. Clumphy looked as though he was trying to say something but Pete, who was cradling his head in his arms and whose clothing was soaked in his blood said, “Shh . . . Shh . . .”

  Clumphy was breathing in shallow panting bursts. He closed his eyes and eventually the sound of his breathing quieted and the heaving of his chest subsided. He lay very still for a long time. Tom grew afraid that he’d died, but when he placed his head on Clumphy’s chest he heard the slow steady thump of his heart still pounding away.

  As Tom pulled his head away Clumphy whispered, “Imagine if you could do away with belief . . .” Clearly speaking required a great effort. Tom urged him to keep quiet, but he went on, “What if there were no such thing — ow, ow, ow, it hurts . . .” He moaned, then attempted a smile. “What if we all believed nothing . . . ? What would we share . . . ?”

  “There’d be nothing to share,” said Tom softly.

  “We’d be sharing the dream . . . Our dreams are the same, it’s our beliefs that differ . . . ”

  That was the last he said for a long time. Everyone lay down except Harry, who was keeping watch, and Barking Dog, who couldn’t rest. He kept staring into the woods hoping to catch a glimpse of Breezy Woodchuck. How could she leave him alone?

  It was late in the night before Clumphy spoke again. “When I used to prepare a sermon it always bothered me that I taught the truth, but it was possible to come up with some little fact no one cared about that would contradict the point I was making . . .”

  “Shh . . .” said Pete.

  “It seemed like that would happen all the time . . . The truth is simple but facts are confusing . . . Now it’s happened again . . . It doesn’t spoil the point I made, but now I look a little closer I see it’s actually an apple tree . . . Silly mistake . . .”

  Tom, drowsy and barely coming awake, said, “Never mind. I still believe it’s a pear tree.”

  In the morning Clumphy was dead. He’d passed sometime during the night without anyone noticing. The hands Pete and Barking Dog had held during the night were rigid and cold. Harry stood over his corpse and cursed. He said to Dane, “I ought to put you in his place on the chain. That’d be fair recompense.”

  “Me?!” said Dane. “I wasn’t the one who killed him.”

  “All I ever wanted was a good, reputable business.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “And you guys mess it up.”

  Dane ejected a lot of water and mucus from his mouth. Then he unlocked the corpse from the chain and dragged it to the side of the road. Harry wanted the body buried, but Dane and Bramij didn’t see any point. Harry insisted. He’d have blushed to admit it, but he was fearful of the uneasy spirit if the body was not properly laid to rest. Dane said he wasn’t going to do any digging and anyway they didn’t have any shovels.

  “You could use your bleeding hands,” said Harry.

  “Too much work,” said Bramij.

  Then Harry remembered he was a slave owner. He ordered the slaves to dig a hole with their hands. This order was not received with much enthusiasm but after a few sharp blows from the slave drivers’ sticks it was assented to and the hole was dug. They put Clumphy’s body in and threw some dirt on top. Once that was done Harry thought he’d give the slaves a little breakfast that wouldn’t cost him anything. “Bet you didn’t know food grows on trees? It does. Here.” He took some fruits from the tree and threw them to the slaves. “I don’t know what it is, though. I never saw trees like this before. What is it? A peach? Anyway, it’s probably not poison.” The slaves ate the proffered fruit, which was bitter and tasted like lemons. Tom spat it out.

  By the time they’d finished eating, half the morning was gone, so Harry said to make up for it there’d be no break in the middle of the day and they went on. Tom quickly found himself worn out as he staggered at the end of the line knocking his blistered feet against every root and protruding stone. Pete tried to help by warning him of obstacles, but Tom was so weary and his injured foot was in so much pain he could barely stand, let alone keep up the pace the others were setting. He thought he would just drop and he wouldn’t mind whatever the slave drivers did. If they killed him that would just bring on the inevitable a little more quickly.

  Around mid-day they emerged onto the Coast Road which was smoother and easier to traverse than the Forest paths. Shortly after entering onto the Road Dane said, “Look, there’s someone sitting on that rock by the shore.” The line stopped. Harry walked over to get a closer look. “Want me to grab him?”

  “No, don’t bother,” answered Harry. “I’ll show you how we get this guy.” He shouted to the man they’d seen, “Hey, you! Get over here.”

  The man looked up in surprise. “Are you talking to me?” he shouted.

  “Yes. I’ve got something for you.”

  The man stood up. It became clear that the rock they’d thought he was sitting on was actually his bottom, which was by far the largest part of his anatomy. “What is it?”

  “Come and see.”

  The man seemed ambivalent, unable to make up his mind. “What if I don’t like it? Can’t you just bring it to me?”

  “Listen, stupid, if you don’t get here pretty soon I’m going to give it to someone else.”

  The man just waved his hand and sat down again.

  Harry shook his head in disgust. “Well? What are you looking at? Go get him,” he said to the slave drivers.

  The two men ran down and grabbed Colophus – for of course it was he – and dragged him to the Road.

  “It seems like you’re going to an awful lot of trouble just to give me something,” said Colophus. “What is it?”

  “This.” Harry struck him in the face and then clapped him in irons and attached him to the end of the line, behind Tom. “Alright, let�
�s go.” And the line started up again.

  Tom found the going even more difficult now with someone behind him. He was constantly being pulled backward when he’d speed up, or being bumped from behind when he’d slow down. Also, he realized, the person behind him was talking to him.

  “Tom,” said Colophus, “is that really you?”

  “I know that voice,” said Tom. “Colophus?”

  “Yes. Can’t you see me?”

  “I see nothing.” Tom turned his head, revealing his eyeless sockets. His cheeks were covered with the gore and pus that oozed from his wounds and his beard was sticky with blood and vomit.

  “Oh . . .” Colophus bumped into him. Then they didn’t speak for a while, concentrating on keeping pace.

  “So you’re out of the leviathan too?” said Tom.

  “Oh yes. When I gave up and set fire to my memoirs, everything went wrong. I found myself swept up with a lot of other refuse and deposited on the surface of the sea.”

  “So now you know what I said was true. We weren’t in Purgatory. We were inside a fish.”

  “There’s no contradiction. It was Purgatory. I just didn’t realize Purgatory was inside a fish.”

  “But now you must realize you’re not dead and you’re still in the real world.”

  “Of course I’m dead. Now I’m in Hell . . . I didn’t fulfill the tasks God gave me. I lost hope and God has seen fit to punish me. I’ve been sent here to suffer torment eternally. These are demons driving us on, craftily disguised as men.”

  “They’re not. They’re men. Demons would be more intelligent.”

  “And I see you’ve been sent to Hell too. Although your punishment is remitted to a degree. You’ve been relieved of the sense of sight.” Just then Colophus tripped and fell, bringing Tom and Pete down with him. This led to a general stoppage of the line and when things had finally gotten sorted out Harry decided they’d take a short break after all. While they were resting, Colophus asked Pete if he knew what sins he’d committed that had caused him to be sent to Hell.

  “Pretty much all of them, I guess,” he answered. “I never took much notice. I was mostly busy fixing people’s shoes.”

  “You fixed shoes and were sent to Hell. There’s a pun on soles there somewhere,” said Colophus.

  “What sort of God sends people to Hell?” asked Tom.

  “Maybe you should ask what sort of people believe in a God that sends them to Hell?” Colophus replied.

  “What is God?” asked Tom.

  “I whipped my son and said disheartening things to him. I felt bad about that for a long time, though I never said so . . .” Pete was sifting through his memories, not too proud of what he found. “Don’t know where my wife and son are now. We ran different ways in the great fire. Maybe they’re better off without me.”

  “Don’t think that for a minute,” said Tom. “They miss you very much. They need you. They’re looking for you right now. Hold onto that. Without that you’re just a slave.”

  Pete said, “I’m not a slave.” He stood up. This movement jerked Tom and Barking Dog to their knees. “I have to –“

  Dane hit him with a club. “Sit down.”

  “I’m not a slave!” he shouted.

  “You’re a slave!” There were more blows.

  “I have to get to them . . .” he sank down and both slave drivers hit him. After he lost consciousness they hit a few of the others for good measure.

  When the guards moved off they were all silent for a long while, hardly daring to breathe. Pete sat huddled next to Barking Dog, who had his arm over his shoulder. Everyone was thinking about Clumphy and hoping Pete wouldn’t be next. Their drivers seemed to be becoming more harsh and irrational by the minute. After a while Tom repeated the question he’d asked earlier. “What is God . . . ?”

  “You expect an answer?” asked Colophus.

  “You may be the wisest man I ever met. When first I encountered you I thought you were a fool. Since then I’ve been through many troubles and I feel like I haven’t learned anything from them. But I look at you, and you’ve been through troubles just like mine, and I feel like you’ve learned from them. So I ask you, what is God?”

  “Everything I’ve been through, the beatings and the punishments and the trials I’ve endured, all this has been the process of acquiring wisdom?”

  Tom ripped up a piece of grass next to him and threw it into the wind. “Certainly I think so. You’ve had to learn things you didn’t want to understand.”

  “Then I would say after one has acquired a certain amount of wisdom one should have learned it is very foolish to acquire any more.”

  “That sounds like one of those wise old sayings people repeat. In fact, it may be a way of restating the proverb, ‘Once burned, twice shy.’”

  “But like all old proverbs it is also a contemptible falsehood. We are not twice shy. Constantly we burn our fingers, time and time again. And what is this great truth we constantly are learning, over and over? We learn that we don’t like to get burned . . . And I don’t think you are still the same. To me, you are different. So I’m sure you’ve learned much.”

  “What I’ve learned is that it’s better to have eyes than to be blind.”

  “I’m sure you’d deduced that already, so this is not what we’d call an insight. Mostly the lessons experience teaches are lessons we already knew. In fact, now I think about it, that’s the difference between being taught and learning. We can only be taught things we already know, but the things we learn are not the things we are taught. But I’ve digressed. What were we talking about?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “You asked me, ‘What is God?’”

  “Oh, that’s right.”

  “I don’t know why you’d think my experiences would have taught me the answer. There are a few things I’ve learned. For instance, the fact that man’s cogitative faculties reside in his buttocks. No one knew this till I discovered it. But the nature of God? Again, I think this is something we already know. God is the divine creator and ruler of the universe.”

  “But what sort of being is that?”

  Colophus took a moment to ponder. “Maybe I know . . . What creates the universe and holds it in place . . . ? It’s what that silly gospel was trying to tell us. God is language. And language is God. God puts meaning into the sounds that come out of our mouths. And that’s what creates and rules the universe . . . It’s all so simple when you think about it . . .”

  “So our understanding creates the universe? It isn’t the other way round?”

  “We open our eyes and see what’s there. What makes it the universe is God . . . Sorry to speak of opening our eyes.”

  “I have no eyes to open.”

  “Can you see anything at all?”

  “Only when I sleep. In my dreams I see. When I wake I see nothing. It’s like having my eyes closed.”

  “You see nothing when you close your eyes?”

  “I have no eyes to close.”

  “When I close my eyes I see the congregation of the saints – I see God’s angels, entwined in graceful community of complex form, celebrating in jubilant happiness all around me. And only I am alone and in Hell.”

  “Certain it is that I see nothing. Just black.”

  “If only I had your vision.”

  “Let’s get moving,” said Dane, hitting Colophus with his club.

  “Blast your stinking ass,” said Bramij. And so, with much quiet grumbling, the chain gang set off again.

  That night they settled in a campsite by the side of the Road. The slaves had some watery gruel for dinner, but they could smell the sausages Harry and the slave drivers were roasting for themselves. It was a sweet smell, but one they couldn’t sink their teeth into.

  After the events of the preceding night, everyone seemed subdued. The slaves were left to their own devices, under the watchful eyes of their warders, and they curled themselves into a circle. No one seemed interested in enforcing th
e prohibition on talking that had been in effect on prior nights, so Colophus asked, “Can I tell a funny story?”

  There was no objection.

  “All the great truths that have been discovered and pronounced by the great philosophers have been in the form of statements.”

  “That comes as no surprise. What other form could they take?” asked Pete.

  “They came wrapped in the eloquence of truth, and men acknowledged them to be great insights. But every statement calls into being its contrary, and inevitably its contrary is also found to be true. Indeed, it might almost be given as a rule that a statement is only true if its contrary is also true. However, this leads to a great deal of confusion and to a world where everything is allowed. But don’t humans have a way of expressing truth that does not contain its own contradiction and that extracts from those that hear it the involuntary admission of truth? Yes, they do. It’s called a joke. And the involuntary admission is laughter. Any truth that cannot be expressed as a joke and confirmed by laughter cannot be true. Statements are incompetent to state anything with finality or complete accuracy, but once you’ve laughed at a joke you’ve acknowledged its truth. This idea occurred to Cladibus, the Emperor of Demarest not long ago. It also occurred to him that mankind had struggled through several ages in its rise to civilization, when mastery of various different materials had been the road to the command of society. There had been the stone age, then the bronze age, the age of steel and so forth. He saw that mankind had entered into an industrial age, but he saw that this age would soon pass and was to be replaced by a new age which he believed would be the age of truth. After all, what could possibly be more valuable than truth? He who knew the truth would be master of the age. Furthermore, he knew how the truth was to be expressed. Not in the form of windy slogans that inevitably went out of date, but in the form of the jokes that could be told forever and which men were always involuntarily acknowledging to be true by laughing at them. So he decided to get rid of his treasury and replace it with a Department of Humor. He selected a Secretary of Humor whose job it was to tax the citizens, but unlike the taxes they had been accustomed to paying in the form of money, the taxes that would be collected would be jokes. So the Secretary of Humor set about going round to all the citizens and collecting their jokes and bringing them back to be stored in the old treasury building, which had been emptied of the gold coins and ingots of precious metals that had formerly resided there. The jokes were stored there instead to be used in case of drought or famine.