by Rhys Hughes
“Heaven forfend! What was wrong with you?”
I sighed. “A mortal fear of ducks.”
“That is peculiar. That is unique.”
“Do you require proof?” I demanded.
“Your question is almost an insult. Are you implying I doubt your words? But we have only just met, and I have not had time to learn you are a liar. Perhaps after all there are other people who have a horror of ducks, but I have met none.”
“That is not my fault nor responsibility.”
“True. And I originate in a time before psychiatry, so maybe that has something to do with my scepticism.”
He emphasised this last word and I flushed with anger. “So you are accusing me of fabrication?”
“Merely keeping an open mind. I have found that easy to do since my cranium was smashed to pieces.”
I digested this apace, but I did not stray from my position or move my face to betray my thinking. I finally resolved to cool my rage, which had more to do with nervousness than any authentic sense of vexation at his mistrustful manner. It occurred to me that the condition of being a dead Chinese sage recently rescued from a jar was more unbelievable than simply having a phobia of waterfowl. Thus I reconciled my malady with my reason, both of which had started to wander apart, even though they were unused to travelling anywhere alone and would probably get lost, calling for each other along the wet loops of my brain like dysfunctional lovers in a maze. Soon I was calm again.
“Soul or not, I still don’t understand how you could fit completely within the jar. It was very cramped inside your head: you admitted that. But this vessel is even smaller.”
“Indeed so. My ghost was staked out in the sun and when it was dry all the way through, the men with clubs pounded it to powder. Then they poured me in. I forgot that detail.”
“A desiccated sage! Does that explain why you poked me in the eye? You needed fluid to reconstitute yourself?”
“Tapwater is best, but tears will do.”
“Another thing I wish to ask you before we part company. How is it possible to disprove reincarnation with logic? And more to the point, how do you make it appear in a room?”
He curled his drooping moustaches around his thumbs. He seemed much dejected by my impatience to leave him already. To be honest, I wanted little to do with him. While he curled, I tugged my beard. And so we inadvertently plucked hairs in the full knowledge – which is both a comfort and a surprise – that no matter how many we extracted we should not go bald before fate wanted us to.
“Logic is a curious thing,” he said at last.
“Like a cat?” I ventured.
“Not quite. And not like a pig.”
“Like a duck?” I groaned.
“I’m tempted to dispute that. More curious.”
“Like a therapist?” I cried.
“Yes, but more rigid and less nosy.”
I was astounded and shouted: “What a curious thing this curiosity must be! And lots of it dwells in logic?”
“Most of it, I should say,” he said.
“But how does it disprove reincarnation?” I pressed.
“With application,” he replied.
“Tell me!” I gurgled, all afroth with speckled foam, the kind which comes from horses drowning in ebb tides.
He folded his arms and nodded with a huge smile, so that the curve of his mouth swept up and down before my eyes like a spoon in profile, ladling my desperation out of me and into a space just a little forward of my brow, where it irrigated the wrinkles of my frown and squint. My own forehead was slurping my excitement like soup. And the pounding of my heart was like fresh bread pulsing in a greasy oven below and behind the main meal. I was also my own waiter, but I made a poor show of that, exhibiting rudeness to the time taken for him to provide the answer. I saw he was inhaling deeply, ready to give me the argument in one rapid burst, and I regretted my interest.
Into my unhappy flaking ears, he boomed:
“If something is itself, then it is not only like that because it thinks of itself as such, but also due to how it is regarded and rated from outside, chiefly by other minds, and this external definition would also have to be reincarnated for the thing to remain itself in its new guise, and if a thing took along its environment during its rebirth, no difference would be noted at all in anything, so it could not be said to have been reincarnated, but merely that it was continuing to be what it already was, and this aspect of not realising it was different is also a part of the environment it would have to take along to remain itself in its next life, which means that for reincarnation to work it must cancel itself out as a real phenomenon.”
He ended with a wink both smug and sly.
“Fine and grand!” I stammered. “Clever and cunning! So that is how logic may disprove the concept. But after that how does one produce the actuality in a room? How did you?”
“First I took a small stone. A pebble.”
“What then? What next?”
“I killed it with my wand and it was reborn as a jar. In its first life, it was a solid object and rather useless as a storage vessel. But in its second, it could carry liquids.”
“You were punished just for that?”
“Indeed so. I created my own prison with reincarnation! The jar I made from the stone was this one.”
“Which you struck with your wand?”
“Yes indeed! Although my rivals preferred to call that particular tool a chisel. But what’s in a name?”
“That is a very dismal tale,” I sighed.
“Yes, but now I am free and can make my living by telling fortunes. Which is exactly what I will do.”
“Good luck to you!” I responded.
“Might I practise on yours?”
“Do I have enough of one to tell?” I wondered.
“Have you heard of the ‘I Ching’?”
“Not now I bathe daily,” I said with a frown, “and since I stopped visiting the ladies on the corners.”
“What was the reason for that?”
“They called me Ducky. It annihilated desire.”
“That is not the real ‘I Ching’. That is itching. They are different. One is an oracle, the other a sensation.”
It was at this point that I made a very foolish decision. I chose to be polite and stay. I shrugged.
“Go right ahead and tell it.”
“Good. Do you have fifty yarrow sticks?”
“I do not. I have never had any. Will uncooked spaghetti do? Can we utilise straws instead? But I have nothing like that on me either. You must begin your new career elsewhere.”
He tucked his hands inside his sleeves, so that he now hovered in a traditional mandarin fashion, an image familiar from books and patterns on plates and certain types of fancy wallpaper. He blinked slowly and it became obvious that he had interpreted my flippancy as genuine regret. I regretted I was not flippant enough. There is a nice symmetry there, but emotional patterns are rarely as clean as geometrical ones. This example was dirty. Most breeds of conformance are.
“Coins are an alternative method,” he said.
“I have those,” I admitted sourly.
“Three are required. All the same size.”
I groped in my pocket. “Here.”
“Not pennies. Higher denomination.”
My other pocket yielded proper treasure. “This is the most valuable coin in our currency. Will it do?”
He licked his lips. “Three of them please.”
“What happens now?” I asked.
“We need to create a hexagram. There are sixty four in the ‘I Ching’. Each one has a different meaning. A hexagram is made up of two trigrams. Some of these trigrams might include moving lines, which give birth to a second hexagram. In such cases, the first hexagram states your situation in the present, and the second suggests a likely outcome. Now you must tell me what you wish to know.”
“My fortune,” I responded weakly.
“Not good enough! You sho
uld ask the oracle a specific question. A typical example might be ‘What is the best way for me to brew a perfect pot of green tea?’ or ‘How far should I sail my junk on my next trading voyage?’ or ‘Where has my pigtail gone?’. And the ‘I Ching’ will probably reply with its customary wisdom and wit. But you must always respect it and never treat it as a servant.”
“I haven’t got a question,” I murmured.
“Come now! Everybody has a question. Don’t be shy. Your life can’t be hermetically satisfied, can it? Surely you need to know something? I have never met a man with a seal of contentment around his existence. Nobody is that settled, not even the Sages of the Misty Mountains, who were curious, but never dared admit it, about what lay beyond the mist, though it was mostly just paper tigers and rice crackers. Even dragons are intrigued by things like foam.”
“Well, there is one thing I want to know.”
He clapped his hands. “That’s the spirit!”
“No, you’re the spirit. I’m the man. And yes, moribund humour is better than none at all. I truly believe that.”
“Ask your question,” he urged.
I stuttered: “How may I win the heart of my therapist? How might I claim her for my own? She is voluptuous and smart. She is canny, bright and bold. Her hair smells good, like the wine available in the homes of successful friends, the sort you can never find for yourself in shops. She has lips which can read the labels of such wines without stumbling. I want her, I need her, I desire her!”
“Good,” he remarked. “Now toss the coins.”
I did so. They landed at my feet.
“Three tails!” I remarked. “Is that special?”
“In a sense, yes. But everything about the ‘I Ching’ is extraordinary and deserving of reverence. You have just created the first line of your hexagram. It is known as ‘Old Yin’ and it is a moving line, which means you will have a second hexagram for your reading. Hexagrams are built up line by line from the bottom.”
“Shall I draw it in the dust?”
“That is a fine idea. It is a broken line. There is a cross in the middle of it. Yin lines are darker, softer and more moonlike than their Yang counterparts. They are female.”
“How does this relate to my question?”
He extracted his hands from his sleeves and waved them. “Impossible to say until the process is completed. Throw again!”
I stooped to pick the coins up, but he uttered a squeal. I glanced at him and asked: “What’s wrong?”
“Use new coins! Leave those ones there!”
Reaching into my pocket, I extracted another three and tossed them. They span and clattered on the ground.
“Two tails and a head,” he cried.
“What do I draw for that?”
“An unbroken line. It is ‘Young Yang’.”
“Do I throw again?” I asked.
“Yes, but with three more new coins.”
I followed his instructions and this time I was presented with two heads and a tail. “What next?”
He smirked. “You have created your first trigram. The third line is ‘Young Yin’ and must be drawn as a broken line. So now you have two such lines with an unbroken one between them. This trigram is known as K’an. It represents water or a pit.”
“Is that a bad sign?” I wondered.
“Of course not. It takes its meaning from the context of the upper trigram, which you must now produce.”
I extracted more coins and threw the next line, which was another ‘Young Yin’. This was followed by three heads, which created an unbroken line with a circle in its middle, known as ‘Old Yang’. This was a moving line and therefore complex. The final line was a third ‘Young Yin’. I had created an upper trigram the same as the lower. Together they formed my first hexagram. I waited for the sage to interpret it. He bowed with vaporous grace and announced:
“Water maintains its flow as it pours. Your sincerity should mimic its example. Danger waits for you, but it will keep you on your toes. A man who is willing to learn from hazards will succeed. He might also be able to teach others how to cope. Men who are easy to deceive may achieve enlightenment only in little rooms.”
I scratched my head. “That isn’t very clear.”
“Neither is your complexion, but I don’t stress the fact. You must wait for me to shuffle the moving lines into your second hexagram. ‘Old Yin’ becomes ‘Young Yang’, and ‘Old Yang’ becomes ‘Young Yin’. Now there are two new trigrams, Tui and K’un. Together they form a hexagram called Lin, which is associated with the concepts of approaching and advancing. Remember that the initial hexagram indicates your present situation and the second the most likely outcome.”
“What is the meaning of it?” I flustered.
“Progress will continue for a long time,” he replied, “but decline and decay will set in before the day is over. Spring is always followed by autumn, so this is quite natural. Make a good example of yourself and take responsibility for others. Lock the door behind you when you desire wisdom. Cancel future appointments.”
He paused and drew back, bobbing on his own complacency, his wispy eyes growing hard, like hailstones waiting in dark clouds to crack with knuckle emphasis on all faces below. He was a meteorological nasty, icy and severe, and I was glad it was still daytime, for exposure to him at night would be perilous without an overcoat. But it was my courage that was frightened of him, not my true self, and so I stood up with my arms akimbo, whatever that means, and faced him down. He merely indicated my hexagrams in the dust and grinned.
I snorted. “They don’t cast any light at all.”
“You must venerate the oracle,” he responded. “Venerate it and then venerate it some more. That’s what.”
“I still don’t know how to win my therapist’s heart. I’m no less at a loss than before regarding her.”
“Things will work out,” he said, “for better or worse. Or else they will remain the same. Of that I have few doubts.”
“I’m taking my coins and going home,” I huffed.
“Wait! Pick them up and toss them again. But this time throw them all together. High, very high.”
“There are eighteen,” I pointed out.
“Indeed so,” he said with a nod.
“This will resolve the mystery of my destiny?”
“It will contribute to that.”
I scooped them up and followed his instructions. They span far into the sky, at least in terms of the power of my shoulder, the elasticity of my wrist and the range of my squint. They glittered in the sunlight. They turned as they flew on the tabletop of blue nothing. And then they seemed tired of rising. As if consulting each other, and unable to talk and move at the same time, they slowed down, faltered and stopped. They began falling, picking up speed, retracing their steps or whatever they used instead of steps, for coins can’t walk, although they may get spent by a long hike, if the destination is civilised and reached. I finally knew what they were aiming for.
They were going to strike my head!
“Duck!” screamed the sage.
I did so, squatting down on my haunches.
“Not that sort of duck,” he added.
There was movement in the bushes. A shaking of leaves. Then a giant beak appeared through a gap in the branches. The crest of nightmare, the wings of despair. It was the hugest example I had ever seen. At least as tall as me. It waddled. It quacked.
“That sort,” he explained.
I ran. I tripped. My trip was faster than most types of run. I left the park and accelerated down the driest streets of the city, those most disagreeable to ducks. But even here I knew I wasn’t safe. On each side, houses loomed over me, and in every house a bathroom, and in most baths a rubber duck! Well, maybe not most baths, but quite enough of them for the objective of terrifying me. I believe the coins still hadn’t touched the ground, so rapid was my escape, but as I passed the manholes in the roads, I seemed to perceive a new casting of the oracle, a revealed fate p
rofoundly pedestrian. A gritty doom. Yet I was unable to interpret it. As I encountered them one after the other, I felt these were my valuable coins landing in the park and also my desires, squashed and too heavy to rise again without a lever. I covered them with waistcoats as I hurried, stripping myself nude both for the decency of destiny and the comfort of my puff. Difficult work, fleeing.
Eventually I reached my house and locked myself into the safest and smallest place, a secret cupboard under the stairs. I had lost money but retained my existence. The deal was in my favour. I’m not an omnipresent narrator. I’m one of those who only know what is happening when they are included in the scene. However, I have a good idea of what took place in the park once I was gone. I worked it out by sadly musing on my pair of hexagrams. Water and a danger which can be resisted? The enormous duck was not real! It was a costume or some other kind of illusion. Thus out of the bush came my therapist! If she can teach others how to replace distressing images with plain ones, surely she knows how to reverse the trick. She gathered up my coins and deposited them inside the stone jar. Then she pushed the sage back in too. Progress followed by decay? Even a wizard may become the puppet of a psychiatrist. She left him lying there for her next victim, her next client.
Most therapists earn extra money by rattling their jars on corners. Not her. She was cleverer than that. On midsummer day.
Two Fat Men in a Very Thin Country
My friend Pepito must always be believed, even when he is telling lies. Exactly why this should be so is beyond my powers of explanation. But it’s a tradition which I’m reluctant to ignore, and thus I now place my hand over my heart and swear that the following tale is accurate in every fact. Pepito told it to me himself, while we rested under the orange tree which stands in the centre of my patio. Most of my body was in the shade, but my boots stuck out in the noonday sun, and the heat raised an odour from them which was not unlike soup.
He often related anecdotes which had happened in distant lands. I suppose he’d travelled a lot in his youth. That must have been the case, for now he barely moved at all, except from house to house, kitchen to kitchen, with slow greed, as if he was trying to balance out or retract all his previous activity.
