More Than Melchisedech

by R. A. Lafferty

  Time is the measure of the duration of material creatures and substances. It is the numbering of the successiveness of material change. Things that do not change do not have a beginning and end, and do not display successiveness. An instant of time is imperfect, and anything that is imperfect may be added to. Suppose that one lives only every odd millisecond of an instant, or every third millisecond of it? He would still be living with successiveness and would still be living through imperfect instants. Then those instants could, in another successiveness, be added to. This would not be living that instant twice, though it would resemble it very closely. But all of this is sophistry.

  There is only one time.

  Aeon is the measure of the duration of non-material creatures or substances, as time is that of material creatures or substances. Thomas writes “Although the aeon is instantaneously whole, it differs from eternity in being able to exist with before and after.” There is one aeon for every immaterial individual and for every immaterial relationship. Some aeons apply only to the non-material aspects of individuals and relationships. A person who is partly material and partly immaterial will be sometimes in time and sometimes in aeon.

  There are more aeons than one.

  Eternity lacks both beginning and end. It exists as a single instant lacking successiveness but having immeasurable depth. Eternity is perfect, and anything that is perfect cannot be added to.

  There is only one eternity.

  Boethius says: “The flowing instant produces time and the abiding instant eternity.”

  Augustine says: “Eddying thoughts have no part in the saints' vision of the world.”

  Thomas says: “Time and eternity clearly differ. But certain people make the difference consist of time having a beginning and an end whilst eternity has neither. Now this is an accidental and not an intrinsic difference... eternity is an instantaneous whole, whilst time is not; eternity measuring abiding existence and time measuring change.”

  There is an old school-boy argument that states that, since eternity does not have a beginning, then obviously it has not begun; and that the abiding existence is not yet.

  There is only one Lord of Time and of Eternity.

  This is the end of the short notes on time and related things.

  Melchisedech Duffey was swimming in wrong water that was like opaque glass. And quite possibly he was drowning in it. No, the whole of his life did not flash before his eyes in those fragments of seconds, but significant pieces of his life and lives did flash to him.

  There were the times when he had been the Boy King of Salem and had done magic. He had had black giants to serve him. He had made birds out of clay, and flung them in the air. And they flew.

  There were the times when, in Iowa and other places, he had been the Boy King in Disguise. Then he had black giants to command also, but they were invisible. There were the early years when he was shuffled from false kindred to other false kindred. There were the blessed boarding schools where a few persons, Sebastian Hilton, John Rattigan, Lily Koch, understood that he was really a King in Disguise. There was Charley Murray who did magic tricks while Duffey did real magic.

  There was the meteoric gold-touched business venture in St. Louis. There was the foster-brother Bagby. There was the great Rounder's Club, as fine a club as was to be found in the world. There was the sister Mary Louise. There was boxing and promotion. There was the string band. There was Olga Sanchez of the torchy shoulders, Helen Platner of the Bavarian Club, Papa Piccone of the Star and Garter, Beth Keegan who was an ivory statuette.

  There was the flaming love for objects of art. There was St. Malachy's. There were the talismans by which persons would be created or at least awakened. There was a hearty but unexpected leave-taking.

  And following that, Melchisedech then being probably in his seventeenth year, in a very early morning, had walked out on a river shore in East St. Louis, just below the Eads Bridge, and had walked right on to a low-lying boat that had been the Argo in disguise.

  There had been adventures on the Argo, and now the adventures were finished for a while. That had been the life of Melchisedech Duffey thus far.

  Duffey still heard the words of the vanished Brannagan: “I'm not even sure that it has to happen, with as many shimmer lines as there are in the air now. If we three withdraw from it, we make it a little less likely to happen. We help to break the consensus.”

  Then Duffey was swimming in right water again.

  “I shall arrive. What time, what circuit first, I ask not,” he was saying. What a time to be quoting Browning. Duffey was swimming in the Sea of the Seven Lost Years, and one can never be sure onto what shore he will come out of that sea.

  It was the year 1923, and Duffey was quite a young man. He swam ashore from the muddy river. He had eddying thoughts and he had come on an eddying way, so perhaps he wasn't a saint all the time. But he was still a Holy Magus in patent and title.

  Melchisedech was swimming and drifting easily. It was the same river and the same town where he always came out of the Sea of the Seven Lost Years. He touched the shore just below the Eads Bridge. It was the river town St. Louis. But just below the high bridge there was a little bob-tailed fishing pier that he had never noticed before. A young boy was sitting on the end of the pier and dangling a line in the water.

  “Holy cow!” the boy whooped. “How far did you swim?”

  “Oh, about eight thousand miles,” Duffey called easily, “but the current was in my favor.”

  “Funny man, you remind me of something funny. I think that Manatee is the name for it.”

  “And you remind me of something funny, young fellow,” Melchisedech panted as he lunged onto the shore. “I think that Stranahan is its name.”

  “My name is Stranahan,” the boy gaped, “but how did you know?”

  “You have the Stranahan sound. There were four sons in a family I knew, Philip, Hugh, Timothy, and Vincent, going from the oldest to the youngest. Which one are you and how old are you?”

  “I'm Philip. I'm ten.”

  “Ah yes. I knew Vincent best, in his later years.”

  “But there weren't any later years for Vincent. He died when he was five days old. He was born on April 5, 1921 and he died on April 10, 1921. Is it right with you, old man. You made a funny noise.”

  “Oh, Vincent, Vincent, sure it's all right now. You were always so droll a kidder. I didn't know you till you winked.”

  “I can't help it when I wink like that. But I'm not Vincent.”

  “You winked with Vincent's eyes.”

  “When Vincent was born his eyes were wide open and everybody called out ‘Oh look, he has Philip's eyes; and in the five days before he died I'd sit by his bed and we'd look at each other and understand each other. I believe he could have talked to me, but he seemed to think better of it.”

  “Well then, Philip with Vincent's eyes, I suppose that everything is still all right. Everything except everything. Where do I start to pick up the pieces? Did you ever know a girl named Teresa Piccone?”

  “Yes, she's in the first grade at school. Funny old man, you look at me with somebody else's eyes too. And I'm in the fifth grade at school. She's a comical little Italian girl who carries live pet mice in her pockets.”

  “That's her. Do they call your house the Cat Castle?”

  “Yes. What's your name, funny old man?”

  “Melchisedech.”

  “Nobody is named Melchisedech. Why don't you go out to our house and see our folks? Maybe they can find out what's wrong with you. Do you know where our house is?”

  “I do. I'll go there at once. I will see you later, Philip.”

  Melchisedech went by the Old Stranahan house, the Cat Castle. He recognized the place, almost, but it just wasn't the same. It was like a burlesque of the old house that he'd visited in other years and in other contexts. He didn't make himself known there.

  After that, Melchisedech was sitting in a sort of tavern only two blocks from the Cat
Castle. It was in the unhappy years when the blight of prohibition was already on the land, and the only bottles on the shelves were bevo and near-beer. But the people there were drinking real beer; for in St. Louis the people knew all the tricks. Well, everybody except Melchisedech was drinking, but he was not waited on. He shouted and he grew angry, but he soon realized that the people could not see him or hear him.

  “So, it's come to that, has it?” he asked somebody, God, or his Angel, or his own inner self. “I ask a sign that there really is such a person as myself. I've come to doubt it and it shatters me. A sign, a sign, for the love of God, give me a sign! Oh, there's the sign. She isn't very big though. Little girl, how old are you?”

  “I'm five and a little bit more. I'm in the first grade at school. I saw you looking at the Stranahan house, and then I saw you walk away from it. I was pretty sure who you were, and I saw what kind of trouble you were in. The reason that people can't see you is that you're a ghost, either one who hasn't been born yet or one that has died. The reason that I can see you is that I can see ghosts.”

  “Are you Teresa Piccone?”

  “Of course I am, and you're King Melchisedech. It has to be that I'd meet you sometime even if it was after you were dead. Oh, this is a delight, the way you take off your beard and hang it on your ear. Live people can't do that.”

  “Maybe some of them can. Can you see other ghosts, Teresa?”

  “You mean Vincent, don't you? He died before I was born and it's only this last year that I'm able to talk to him. He says that his seeming to be born was all an illusion, that he was sent to the Stranahans as a good omen. Soon he will really be born, in another part of the country, to another family of very good people. And when that happens, the Stranahans will forget even the illusion of him, but the good omen will be part of them forever. If I were God, I'd make somebody remember Vincent, just for the fun of it.”

  “I believe that God has done that, Teresa, just for the fun of it. He's made somebody remember Vincent. You.”

  “Oh yes. Of course I will. I always forget about me. But if the Vincent Stranahan that you remember so well over so many years didn't really live those years, then it casts a big doubt on you, doesn't it?”

  “It sure does, little Teresa. It makes it seem that maybe none of my lives happened.”

  “Maybe with all your ancient memories you forgot to be born? If that's the case, then I think I can fix it up for you. I'll have you be born to me in twenty years or so. I'll just have you, old King Melchisedech, be born to me. Then one at least of your lives will be real. And I believe that if one of them is proved real, all the rest of them will be real too. And in the meantime we'll stay in touch, we can you know, even if it's only playing ghost. And in twenty years or so, I'll have the oldest king in the world as my baby.”

  “You do give me some slight hope, Teresa.”

  “And in the meantime, why don't you have some fun? You don't have to be an old ghost. Why don't you be a young ghost? You can be, you know.”

  “Oh, Oh, Oh, I'll try it, Teresa.”

  Melchisedech Duffey walked down by the Eads bridge, and he looked at Philip Stranahan sitting on the little bob-tailed fishing pier and dangling a line in the water.

  “Which of us is the ghost, Philip?” he called up to the boy.

  “You know my name. Hey, did your grandfather find you a while ago? He seemed to be looking for somebody and I believe it must have been you. You look just like him only about fifty years younger. Did he find you?”

  “I and the grandfather are one,” Melchisedech said.

  What? What? Yes, it was the year 1923 again, and Melchisedech was twenty-three years old, one of his favorite ages.

  “And if Teresa, in twenty years or so, gives me a valid life, then all of my lives will have been valid. But what will that do to Philip sitting there? Philip shows a touch of the hazy unreality. Better he than me.” Then Melchisedech began to sing.

  “Oh, it's great to be young and in danger,

  Hi Ho!

  It's great to be young in the morning!”

  “But it's afternoon, man,” Philip Stranahan protested. “I fish here in the early morning and in the late afternoon too.”

  “I am twenty-three years old, Philip, and I can be twenty-three years old again and again and again. And how many times can you be ten years old? My ghost is more solid then your ghost. In this new life, in this ever-flowing multiplicity of new lives, it shall officially be ‘In The Morning’ for all twenty-four hours of every day. I'll settle for nothing less.”

  APPARENT END

  AN ESSAY EXPLAINING THE ALTERNATE ENDINGS OF THE BOOK ARGO In the Course of Which I'm Obliged to Explain The Detailed Workings of The World Itself

  The editor-publisher of these books has asked me to “compose the finishing essay for the final book ARGO, explaining the alternate endings.”

  “Yes, sure,” I told myself, and I started to sketch the outline for a two or three page essay on the subject. “This will be easy,” I said. And in a minute I added “This will be harder than I thought.”

  Then something took possession of my hand and wrote words that were not my words at all.

  “The book ARGO seems to have alternate endings because everything and everybody in the World seems to have alternate endings. That's the way all the Worlds and all the people in them are made. That is the Detailed Working of the World Itself. But the endings do not really end.”

  The business of somebody or something else writing with my hand scared me. It plunged me into darkness and despondency. I sat down then and wrote a letter to the Editor-Publisher. “I don't know how to write this essay. It's impossible.” But I didn't mail that letter. I kept it three days and then I tore it up.

  I said to myself “I'll do the impossible for him. If people didn't do the impossible now and then, things would never be done. And if it is required that somebody should explain the detailed workings of the world, that somebody might as well be me.”

  I began with my own writings and with ARGO as the latest. It seemed, until I thought of it a bit, that I had written quite a few novels, and many shorter works, and also verses and scraps. Now I understood by some sort of intuition that what I had been writing was a never-ending story and that the name of it was ‘A GHOST STORY’. The name comes from the only thing that I have learned about all people, that they are ghostly and that they are sometimes split-off. But no one can ever know for sure which part of the split is himself. “Is this myself, right here and now, or is this the ghost?” is a question that most people, from some shyness, do not ask themselves nearly often enough.

  “But what about the people who aren't novelists?” someone asks. “Your sketch applies to only a very small minority of people.”

  Wrong. The more numerous and vital people live their novels (their lives). The less vital and less direct and less effective persons write theirs. But there is not too much difference. Every writer realizes pretty soon that his writings are peopled by real people. Of course they are. Real people are the only kind of people there are.

  There was a man named Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) an essayist, editor, physician, psychologist, and publisher of the ‘Mermaid Series of Old Dramatists’, designed to bring the 17th century dramas to a wider public. This drama revival was one of the great loves of his life: but he had very many great loves in his life. One of them was his fixed idea that there are no common people, that all of us are geniuses, that all of us are absolutely wonderful. He encapsuled this idea in a writing called ‘THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL CONSTANCY’.

  The thesis of Havelock was that all persons with brains and bodies not seriously damaged are of about equal power and ability, that a guy who scratches out a slim living on two and a half acres in shantytown is as intelligent and capable in all ways as are John D. Rockefeller, or Thomas Alva Edison, or Wilhelm Wagner, or George Bernard Shaw (G.B. Shaw and Havelock Ellis were very close personal friends), or Victor Hugo, or the President of the United State
s or of U.S. Steel, or of Alexander Graham Bell, or Henrik Ibsen.

  It was simply that peoples' fancies turned to different ways of fulfilling themselves. Ellis, in his work as physician, psychologist, and as forerunner of the psychoanalysts, was thunderstruck by the creative richness of some of the totally unimpressive lower-class people that he turned up. And he remained thunderstruck by such things for ten years or so. People selected the enjoyments that appealed to them and followed them out in lifetimes of high pleasure. And Havelock's ‘Mermaid Series of Old Dramatists’ found echoes here. Some of the common-uncommon, lowly-but-not-really-so-lowly people were recreating the wonders of the THREE PENNY OPERA or the BEGGARS OPERA in their lives. Some of them exulted in the wonderful world and racy challenges of extreme poverty. It takes as much brains and ability for the very poor to make it as it does for the very rich. Some of the people played with Hell Fire itself and its unholy excitement.

  Havelock Ellis was a little bit before his time with his LAW OF INTELLECTUAL CONSTANCY. The people who were manufacturing the current thinking of the world considered themselves very superior people, and they would not easily admit that they were barely equal to the lowest of the lowest. Yet, in less than a decade they adjusted to it. They admitted that there was such a thing as ‘occult compensation’ which compensated the underlings for being underlings, but it wasn't really a threat so long as it remained sufficiently ‘occult’. And a little bit later, though buried under a mountain of words, it was admitted that the LAW OF INTELLECTUAL CONSTANCY was true, but not really very important on a working level. And such is still the case with it today. But it is important as a cornerstone to the explanation of the Detailed Workings of the World Itself.

  It is established that the human race is made up entirely of glowing geniuses. That's something. And it's pretty well established that the begeniused human race is totally ghostly in all the meanings of the word, that it is overflowing so that very often persons cannot be contained in a single body, that it runs pretty much on multiple and parallel tracks. It's agreed that every human person is really two or three different persons when in an overflowing mood. (“As many as Nine different persons,” an Irish hero hollers from several hundred years in the past.)