*
“We are the finest minds in the world,” Keech said, “There is nothing we can’t do.”
“Tell that to the Securities and Exchange Commission,” Molloy whispered. Nervous laughter made its way around the table. Keech smiled graciously.
How different they were. How changed. No longer the young, virile masters of all time and space, an undeniable tiredness filled their eyes. Keech suspected they weren’t even real anymore, except perhaps as facets of himself. Still, even if they were only symbols from his psyche, they were his symbols.
“I will not have us dissolve into nothing,” Keech said.
Smiling, he strolled behind Molloy’s chair, patted him on his recently acquired bald spot and solemnly intoned, “The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face, we through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?”
“Commander Keech is quoting Emerson,” Bean acknowledged, “trouble.”
“Guilt and fear, guilt and fear. Living gods to some. Shadows to us. They are our tools, nothing more. Reality did not move against us. The fact that we were caught is nothing more than an inconvenient coincidence. Worlds rise and fall everyday based on coincidence. Men rise and fall based on which coincidences they are able to recognize,” Keech said, raising a hand, “May I present you all with another?”
The lights dimmed. On a screen behind Keech a photo of Calico appeared. She was dressed in rags, standing on an urban street, her bruised arms outstretched. Her eyes were closed, her head turned towards the sky, her mouth opened wide.
Bud Bean’s voice, unusually defiant, broke the darkness, “First question, oh, my lord and master, Keech, and unless I get the right answer, I’m walking out of here.”
“All right,” Keech sighed, “What is it?”
“Have you touched her, sir?”
“No,” Keech answered, “and I promise I will not touch her for as long as this project is active.”
“Continue, then, oh wondrous one.”
Keech, a shadow silhouetted by the projector beam, did, “Her name is Calico. Late twenties, schizophrenic, delusional. Tormented for years by inner voices, she’s been barely able to feed herself, much less complete a thought or compose a coherent sentence. Nevertheless, as of last week, this bag lady was being quoted all over the city; in homes, coffee houses, galleries, board rooms and heaven knows where else.”
Mannon, curious, but not quite willing to show it, muttered, “So what’s she saying?”
The lights came on.
Keech reached into a box by his feet, “My friends, let me show you something that will make you all feel young.”
With a lusty thud, fresh photocopies of the Great Work landed on the table, only now, they were called, “The Great Word.” With the first page half-torn, Keech was forced to improvise. Bud Bean grabbed the top copy, the rest were passed around.
“Where it came from, I do not know. God, if you believe Calico. Doubtless she found it in the street. At first I was afraid a messenger dropped it en route to some agent or publisher, but I checked, and no one’s heard of it,” Keech explained.
“And if the author re-surfaces?” Mannon asked.
“You either buy him,” Keech smiled, “Or I kill him.”
They laughed. They actually laughed. Maybe, Keech thought, he didn’t have to assure them of anything.
Bud Bean flipped through the pages, scanning a line here and there, pausing to read a paragraph that caught his eye. He was puzzled, trying to understand. Had his master, Keech finally gone off the deep end? Not possible. Then, awareness finally burst upon him. His eyes lit up. His mouth twisted into a grin.
“You beautiful madman,” Bean said, “We’re going to create a religion, aren’t we?”
Keech bowed.
“Well then, why not?,” Bensen said, rapping his long lean fingers against the table, “In the old days all it took was a few charismatic prophets. We could hire dozens.”
Mannon rolled forward in his chair, “Suppose we can. There is also the question, and forgive me for being the one to ask it, of why?”
Keech took his seat once more and looked Mannon in the eye, “Because we can, that’s why. Don’t fool yourself into thinking we work for money. We’ve all been filthy rich for years. Influence? Fame? We’ve seen them come and go. Those games are old. We’ve mastered them, played them out. The time has come for us to invent a new one. What I am proposing, gentlemen, is that we become the cornerstone of a new cultural movement, that we cultivate, manipulate and dominate a new way of life for the peoples of the earth. It’s been said that if there were no God, man would have to invent one. Well, I submit that we make one. In the age of stone they built pyramids. This is the Age of Information. Words and images are our stones. Let’s use them to build a system of thought that will last just as long.”
“Hallelujah!” Molloy exclaimed.
“Keech be praised!” Bud Bean said, grimacing.
“Well, as long as we’re talking about systems of thought,” Mannon interjected, “just what does this “Great Word” say?”
“I’ll leave you to discover its intricacies on your own,” Keech said, “but briefly, it suggests that what we think of as God, rather than some external, eternal, immutable, omnipresent, omnipotent being, is, in fact, one of a series of meta-subconscious templates that sit between ourselves and the world, acting as a kind of filter for reality. The book calls these filters Aeons.”
“Sounds more like a neurosis than an object of worship, your highness,” Bensen said.
“In a way. There are small Aeons, some only a few years old, that are probably just neuroses. But there are also big Aeons, Aeons that exist in millions of individual minds simultaneously, mystically retaining their character, cohesion and control. The God of our culture is a particularly large Aeon, a being that exists primarily as a psychic pattern, with all of us acting as His individual cells,” Keech said.
“Don’t like it. Smacks of conspiracy. Sounds like we’re all slaves to this Aeon thing,” Mannon grumbled.
“It’s closer to the Hindu notion of dharma – it doesn’t rule us, it is us, and we’re it. Depending on the type of Aeon you’re culturally assigned, it can be a pleasant or unpleasant experience. According to the book, most of Western Man has been stuck with our particular, dead-end, Aeon for about 2500 years. It insists on a male dominated spirit/body split, and seems intent on promising the end of the world. There’s no easy escape. He’s embedded in the language itself, so we’re all indoctrinated the moment we acquire speech. Each and every one of us, atheist and believer alike, is forced to live out variations of this Aeon’s story, adopting its nuances and its limitations. The book insists that the time has come to change Aeons. Or should I say, the time is nigh,” Keech said, his eyes narrowing devilishly.
“Wait a minute,” Molloy interjected, “We’re salesman, PR people, what do you want us to sell? That intellectual drivel you just rattled off? What can we position in a market? A book? Audio cassettes of a bag woman? You don’t need us for any of that!”
Keech shook his head, “I’m not talking about just a book, or a few recordings, I’m talking about inventing and disseminating a way of life. I want converts, true believers, I want priests and priestesses, I want a Mystery Cult with a hierarchy, clear, segregated steps from Initiate to Master, lush rituals, meaningful symbolism. I want a complete religion, founded by the God of today, that speaks to the people of today.”
“Yadda-yadda-yadda. You miss my point,” Molloy continued, “Sure, maybe you and six guys from Yale know what this book means, but we’re talking about a mass audience here. The people on the street aren’t going to have the slightest idea what the hell you’re talking about.”
“You’re wrong. Calico proves that. She has no idea what she’s reading, her listeners have no idea what they’re hearing, but she speaks it, and they repeat it. Secondly, this brilliant book, with its manifold arcane references, alread
y provides us with a nascent hierarchy. If one out of a hundred gets a particular reference, he or she will tell their friends. The friends, seeing there’s something more to it, will pay more attention to the book! That’s one of the reasons this is such a hot topic. Everyone’s having a field day interpreting it!” Keech said.
“Besides,” Bensen said, warming, “we can publish books explaining the book.”
Keech turned his head, delighted, “Yes, that’s it! We should publish books explaining the book, lots of them, but we have to be careful that they all contradict each other.”
“Am I the only one this sounds crazy to?” Molloy asked, “I mean, are you on any medication we should know about, Keech? Are you all right?”
“Of course he’s all right. He’s more than all right. He’s a damn prophet,” Bean said, tapping a pencil on his pad with nervous excitement, “Contradictions are crucial to religious conviction. They disable the reasoning mind and speak to the heart. ‘He who is not with me, is against me,’ Matthew 12:30. ‘Anyone who is not against us, is for us,’ Mark 9:40.’ It works, it’s easy, and it’s fun.”
“Since when do you read the Bible?” Mannon asked, raising an eyebrow. Bean shrugged and started tapping faster.
Molloy rubbed his beard, “So far, the only part I like is this hierarchy thing. It’s got promise. It appeals to a need for security and structure. Maybe we could have some sort of merchandising associated with those levels, like a little commemorative jewelry so that members could identify one another?”
“Why not?” Keech smiled, “It’s all up to us.”
“If it’s the book, do we need this Calico at all? Seems reckless to pin ourselves and a lot of money to a schizo,” Mannon asked.
“She’s absolutely key,” Keech said, “Listen to this.”
Keech pressed a button on the table. A recording of Calico’s girlish, life-affirming voice floated through the speakers. It said:
“In the unaware, it provides comfort and the illusion of certainty, but left unknown, it becomes a parasite with a festering death-wish. We must each choose for ourselves the face of God or be forever buried.”
“That voice,” Molloy said, nodding, “You’re right, Keech. There really is something here.”
“Okay,” Bean beamed, tossing down his pencil, “I’m in. Let’s get down to it. What kind of religion do we want? Your basic generic Judeo-Christian born-into-sin-and-needs-a-redeemer deal, or are we talking more Eastern, more along the lines of a ‘thou art god’ religion, where everyone has just a little bit of their own pure divinity? Do we want any manifest intermediaries between ourselves and God? Is Calico our new Aeon, some sort of Jesus? The son returned as daughter?”
“No,” Bensen waved his hand, “Wouldn’t wash in today’s market. We can’t give people what they think they’ve got, we’ve got to give them what they think they’re missing. Guilt is the status quo, so we’ve got to provide freedom. No intermediaries between the self and God.”
“You’re right,” Molloy added, “Calico is more of a teacher, a pal. Maybe she got there first and now she can give us directions, but salvation isn’t peculiar to her.”
“I think we’re giving the intermediary thing short shrift. We’ll be giving up a lot of potential control,” Mannon said.
“Not at all,” Bean smiled, “The best way to control someone is to make them think they’re in control.”
“But is she Jesus, Moses, Mohammed or Buddha?”
“All men, you’ll notice.”
“Yeah, we’ve got a real shot at tapping into all that earth-mother shit going down the last decade or so. It’s done wonders in clothing retail.”
“I’m looking through this thing and I’m trying to make it jive with what you’re saying, but I can’t,” Molloy said, “Where, in this book, in this notion of a human God or Aeon or whatever, is the punishment and reward? It’ll never fly.”
“Oh, forget the book. It’s not important in this context,” Keech said.
“Not important? You dumped it in front of us like it was the next Bible!” Molloy objected.
“Yes, exactly, the next Bible. The book that has been twisted and misinterpreted for thousands of years for the sake of humans seeking power and coherence. Do you think the Christian church would have survived the Crusades or the Inquisition if it went ‘by the book’ so to speak? Yes, we have a book. Yes, it says what it says, but in the end, if we do our jobs, people will believe it says whatever we tell them it says.”
“So what do you think, boys,” Bean asked again, “are we ready to throw off our shackles or are we looking for a new taskmaster?”
“Like I said, I think we’re all sick of feeling guilty and undeserving. That’s the current trend, anyway, and the pendulum’s due for a swing.” Molloy said.
“I agree, but I don’t think we’ll want to do without Guilt entirely. It’s such a perennial. Maybe now, we’re overburdened. We’ve got the rent, the mortgage, we don’t want any more obstacles – so we offer freedom.” Bean said.
“Quite right,” Keech said, “but look at the long term. Once they’re free for a few years, they’ll be like children. They’ll beg to know what to do, where to go, they’ll crave law, and then they’ll crave guilt. So it’s not so much a question of whether or not to use guilt, it’s a question of when and in what amount. I suggest we start out with total freedom, call it Phase One, then adjust as the market dictates.”
Bud Bean picked up his pad and giggled at what he had written on it.
“Well, in that case, I think I’ve got a slogan for phase one,” he said.
“Well, don’t hold back, man!” Molloy said.
Bean shrugged, flipped over the pad so they could all see it, and read what he had written, “Feel the need – find the power!”
Someone said, “Perfect!”
After that, they all started speaking at once.
7. One Man’s Ceiling
The demon-thing leaned in closer, its eyes twin beams of blackened evil, its smallish skull covered in light, white skin. As the creature’s dark orbs threatened to bore into the woman’s soul, the tiny bit of humanity left in its shell struggled to hold back the malevolent force. It was no use. In an instant, the terrifying truth exploded from the parched throat, threatening to reduce her to nothing.
“I am Gaza!” he howled, wild-eyed and feral. His dried lips twisted into a wicked smile.
There was a pause as the woman rustled some pages.
“I’m sorry, was that Garza?” Beth Mansfield asked, struggling with the pad in her lap.
“No. Gaza.”
“With a ‘z’ or an ‘s’?”
“G – A – Z – A! Gaza! The gift of god!”
“Is that in a language I might have heard or, or is it something that just came to you?”
“All languages. All tongues. Gaza.”
Its gaze wandered down to the pad, to make sure she was getting it down correctly. When it was certain she had, it pulled its head up and stared into her eyes again.
“You come to Gaza because you wish to know the truth,” he said.
Beth shrugged as she searched through her papers for the proper file, “Uh, actually, Gaza, I just had a few background questions.”
“Then you are a fool,” he answered, unable to conceal the disappointment in his voice. No one had been to see Gaza in months, and the one true master of all things had grown lonely.
Beth, meanwhile, though she said nothing, inwardly agreed that she was indeed a fool. This was her fourth session in the Jesus Ward, as the interns called it, and she still hadn’t gotten used to the small interview room. Gaza could get up and pace on his side of the glass, but the tiny desk she was cramped behind barely let her move her arms, much less sift through papers and notes. An adjacent observation room, currently empty, had left the tiny space remaining nearly unfit for human habitation.
Last week, after that fiasco with the housewife who thought she was Elijah, Beth p
romised herself she’d put her papers in some kind of order before stuffing them in her carry-bag. Now, Gaza’s file was nowhere to be found, and the King of Time and Space was losing patience.
“Is that it, with the yellow tab?” Gaza asked, peeking from behind the glass.
Sure enough, he was right.
“Yes, thank you. How did you know?” she asked.
“Gaza knows all.”
She nodded back, then thought, “Yeah, all the ward’s files have yellow tabs. He must have seen them before.”
She was new, barely a month the job, but getting the hang of things quickly, particularly the little mind games psychotics liked to play. The first stage of her new assignment consisted of these interviews; meeting madmen and women, finding patterns, gauging types, then trying to fit them into the model of cults she was building based on that book, When Prophecy Fails. Then, if all went well, she’d be assigned an active cult to study.
She scanned the file to jog her memory. Gaza was once Clarence Dwight, a gas station attendant in Nebraska, until he received a “call” revealing his true identity as master of the material plane. Two years ago, he and three women were incarcerated for setting fire to an elementary school. At the time of their arrest, they claimed the flames would free the children’s souls from the prison of their bodies. No one was hurt, but Gaza was judged criminally insane and, for his troubles, granted membership in the Jesus Ward.
“I see you had followers,” she said, looking up briefly. That was key for her purposes. A potential cult in the making.
Gaza smiled and said, “Still do.”
True enough. There were five “Gaza Girls” at the time of his arrest and subsequent imprisonment. Two weren’t directly involved with the fire, and so were at large. They were using their freedom, if one could call it that, to spread Gaza’s word through a small newsletter and web page, to which Gaza himself managed to contribute “telepathically.” They claimed a circulation of over 3,000, with about 200 true believers. Gaza had promised his believers many things.
“Why do you think that is, Gaza?” Beth asked, “Some of your followers have Master’s Degrees. Why would they believe in your power after you were convicted, jailed, and otherwise shown to be powerless?”
He spoke slowly, peacefully, as he glanced around at the walls of the room.
“They see what others cannot. They know these chains are illusions that Gaza will burst free from.”
“Yes,” Beth said, checking her notes, “You promised them you would break free and deliver them all to a new Eden. You even announced a date, October 22, 1996. What went wrong?”
The peace faded from his face. Gaza stared through the glass at Beth with contempt.
“Nothing went wrong. It was a test of faith. They must be strong to face the days ahead.”
“Then you made the same promise again for February 3, 1997.”
“Another test.”
“March 4?”
“And on that day, the faithful saw me walk among the clouds.”
“But no one seems to have gone to Eden, and you’re still here. Part of you, anyway.”
“Only the part that needs to speak to you, so you can spread the news to your sterile world. Gaza is gracious and seeks salvation for all. I am legion, and my numbers continue to grow. All will know the day when it comes – when the earth shakes beneath your feet and fire leaps from the stones to burn you, and your children take up the bones of your parents and use them to beat you to death. You will see it then. You will see it all.”
“When?”
“August 3, 2006.”
“Giving yourself a little more slack time, this go round, huh?” Beth muttered. In an instant, she realized she should have stayed silent.
Gaza leapt to his feet and pounded savagely at the glass.
“Do not mock Gaza!” he screeched.
His arms were thin, his body slight, and though he hammered as hard as he could, the thick glass barely moved. Nonetheless, Beth dropped her file and scrambled to press a small button on the wall.
Gaza’s eyes rolled back up into his head so that only the blood-shot whites could be seen. Drool dripped from his mouth and rolled down his chin and neck.
He began muttering, “Asa nan ferrum oyi!” over and over.
Just as he was about to hurl himself at the glass again, two interns rushed in and quickly pinned his arms. As they struggled to restrain his writhing form, he turned to Beth and said, “There is a conjunction in the stars at that time, an event that has not happened since the last time Gaza walked the earth. If this is not true, Beth Mansfield, and I am not who I say I am and what I predict will not come to pass, then tell me why do my followers grow in number? Could it be they hear a truth you fail to? Could it be that they know what you do not?”
Gaza was dragged out. The door shut behind him, leaving Beth alone with her pounding heart. It wasn’t Gaza that got to her, exactly, it was a memory. The look in Gaza’s eyes reminded her of her father when he was angry, and also of a boss at her first job. They were two men, considered functional by most definitions, who also didn’t like to be contradicted by the facts. There had been no glass between them and Beth, though.
Still thinking of the men in her past as she bent down to collect her papers, an odd thought struck her. If Clarence had gotten a business degree and simply lied about his “calling” he, with all his energy and personal charisma might well seem perfectly at home in a Board Room, a Senate seat, or even as the dictator of a small country. He had the intelligence, the drive and the crude savvy necessary to be a leader of men.
She picked up her list of interviewees and glanced at the names. What made these broken creatures different from those who ruled nations or corporations? What made them different from anyone who believed they were born to rule? Happenstance? Didn’t they all somehow, in some way, think themselves special, chosen, different? And if chosen, then by whom, if not God? The thought crossed her mind that perhaps the only real difference was that the “leaders” outside had simply learned to state their beliefs more effectively.
And if Gaza had found the right words, what then? Was that sanity? A simple question of translation? She shuddered.
The door clicked open, letting in some much needed air. Dr. Gald, her liaison to the hospital, a huge, reassuring teddy bear of a man, helped her out into the large hall.
“You have to be careful not to challenge them so directly, Ms. Mansfield,” he offered, “They have a lot of emotional energy invested in their belief systems. For Clarence to admit he is not Gaza would mean admitting he put hundreds of children in danger for nothing.”
Beth shrugged sheepishly, “I know. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe the promotion came a little too soon.”
“Nonsense,” Gald smiled, “you’re doing wonderfully. You care, and you’re attentive to detail. The rest will come. Clarence is particularly touchy. Once, I set Gaza off by wearing the wrong color tie. Purple offended his astral vibrations. Who knew?”
Beth smiled back, already much calmer. He was a kind man, hardworking and sincere, she thought, much different from her father, that boss and Gaza. She felt lucky to be working with him.
She thought nothing of it when he walked her out of the building towards her car, but when Gald coughed a bit and started shuffling his feet at the edge of the parking lot, she knew something was up. She thought the big, old teddy bear was about to ask her out for dinner.
“Ms. Mansfield,” he began, “ I’ve watched your work here with some interest, and I’ve come to respect your opinion on certain issues. When you’re finished with all the patients you’ve selected, I was wondering if perhaps....”
“Here it comes,” Beth thought.
“Well, I was wondering if you’d consider adding one more patient to your list.”
“Huh?”
“He’s a special case, very cogent, very coherent for periods. I actually look forward to my sessions with him. I’ve sort of been keeping him to
myself.” Gald said.
“Uh, I’m studying cults,” Beth said, recovering her composure quickly and hoping Gald hadn’t noticed her hesitation, “does he have any followers?”
“No, no, but he has some very interesting ideas, similar to the one’s you’re working on in some ways. I really just wanted to get your opinion on him. I’m not familiar with a lot of the nuances of religious, um, mechanics that he discusses and I was hoping you could help me determine how much of his speech is delusional, how much is education,” Gald said, a little embarrassed.
Beth grimaced. She had her hands full with the current crop. One more was one too many.
“If he’s all that bright and coherent,” she asked, “what’s he doing here?”
“Ostensibly, for trying to kill his father. In reality, he’s delusional. He believes he’s written a magical book that can save the world. A variation on the Jesus syndrome in some ways, but there are some interesting complexities,” Gald explained.
“A writer, eh?” Beth nodded, “All right, I’ll talk to him.”
“He’s not quite ready yet, but he’s coming along. In a week or so, I’d like you to meet him.”
Beth sighed, clicking her pen, “What’s his name?”
“It’s an odd one,” Dr. Gald said, “Hapax Trigenomen.”
8. Another man’s floor
Samson was fighting with Jesus over the rules to a game of chess. Yahweh’s long-haired servant had never heard of a piece being resurrected just because some pawn made it to the other side of the board. When Jesus calmly explained that the game was over, and he had won, Samson became furious and knocked the whole thing over. Nearby, Mohammed wanted to get to the water cooler, but Moses kept blocking his way, refusing to allow him to drink until the water split in two. Buddha watched, refusing to get involved. He found everything funny at first, but started to cry when Gaza walked back into the room. Buddha was hurt that Gaza had been interviewed before he was. After all, Buddha had been here for 4,000 years.
Hapax Trigenomen sat alone in a corner, helpless amidst the parade of medicated gods and prophets. His head was bent forward, giving his motionless, open eyes a view of his body from the neck down. His static arms, limp wrists and trembling hands looked just fine, but they all felt numb and oh so far away. Then there were the fingers, of course, the ten digits that anthropologists theorized had brought about the birth of human consciousness. Even numb, Hapax could always feel himself in his fingers.
Just at the edge of his low field of vision, a pile of papers sat on a table. They weren’t newspapers or magazines exactly. Those barely existed anymore. These were printouts from electronic magazines. Normally, one would read them on a computer, but computers weren’t allowed. Hapax tried to make out one of the headlines. Unfortunately, the text was getting smaller every day while the pictures grew and grew. He couldn’t be sure, but one of the headlines seemed to read:
MAN FLIES VERY HIGH – DOES HE TOUCH SKY?
Not too bad, rather like a Haiku, he thought. Probably some poor journalist out there in the byte stream still thinking his feelings were important. Someone who hadn’t figured out yet that it was all pointless. How could he? Most of the population didn’t have a clue. After all, maybe you really do have to be trapped in a sewer or waiting in an abortion clinic or sitting in an insane asylum to truly understand that all moments are essentially the same.
That sounded good. He wished he had a pencil to write it down, but pencils weren’t allowed either. They were afraid he might stab his hand and ruin a perfectly good pencil. Maybe if he said it over and over again he would remember it. All moments are essentially the same. All moments are essentially the same. All moments are … or are they? And then a trail of words took off without him. It was no use. He could barely remember it now. Sober, it had been hard enough to hold onto any thoughts. The drugs made it impossible.
A hand waved under his eyes. It was Doctor.
“Hapax?” Doctor said.
Hapax raised his head a little. About the only things he could remember, oddly enough, were the things Doctor said. For example, Doctor said if he was good, maybe they’d take him off the pills that made him shit strange colors and piss out semen mixed with urine. Doctor also said the Mafia wouldn’t come for him and take him to his parents, if he were good. Doctor said they’d even give him candy, if only he’d stop screaming. Hapax wasn’t sure he wanted to.
A while ago, when Doctor asked him to talk about his parents, Hapax said, “Well, I don’t want to make them sound like monsters or anything. I’d rather let them do that for themselves.”
This disturbed Doctor. Any show of wit seemed to disturb him. He was silent for a moment, then said, slowly, “I’ve spoken with them, Hapax, rather often, and to me they seem like perfectly pleasant people, terribly concerned about the pain their son is in.”
This made Hapax get all scrunched up.
“Really?” Hapax answered, “Then, I guess I do belong here, because I completely fabricated two vile, self-destructive people who destroyed the one thing in the world I thought might save me from them and the sad, demonic image of the world they implanted in my brain since the day I was born.”
“You feel angry at them,” Doctor had said in response.
Today, though, Doctor was being much more direct.
“Hapax, do you hear any voices?” he asked.
Hapax smiled. He liked the question a great deal.
“Can I answer your question with a question?” he said to Doctor.
Doctor hesitated, then looked up from his sheet, clicked his pen shut with his thumb and said, “If you like.”
“These voices you asked me about, the ones that schizophrenics hear, do you know where they come from? What they are?” Hapax asked.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Doctor said with furrowed brow.
“I mean where do they come from? The ground? The air? Personal experience?”
“Experience, I suppose. Parents. Authority figures. Deeply buried memories being used by a fragmented psyche to communicate with itself,” Doctor answered, wondering if he was being too technical but aware of Hapax’ fear of condescension.
“Yes, yes, but you don’t take that extra step. You don’t get their real power at all, do you?” Hapax said, a glint in his sedated eyes.
“I’m sure they seem powerful to the person who hears them.”
“They’re even more powerful to the person who doesn’t. Freud was wrong. Jung came closer but got locked into that stupid universal myth thing that Joseph Campbell preaches. I guess some people just have to think of themselves as magicians. I, on the other hand, am not guessing. I simply know,” Hapax said.
Hapax paused and moved a little closer to Doctor. He smiled in a conspiratorial fashion that did indeed make him look crazy.
“I could explain it to you, if you like, but only if you promise to really listen,” Hapax said.
“All right,” Doctor answered, settling back in his chair.
“You said their source might be a parent or an authority figure,” Hapax began, “Good guess. The voices often seem to take an authoritative tone – do this, do that, don’t do that. What a good boy, what a bad boy. So they certainly sound like a parent. If it was a parent, though, the next question is what makes the parent talk like that? We Westerners are so interested in setting boundaries around things, breaking them down into pieces, that we seldom let ourselves reason in the other direction – out.
“Let me tell you a story. In my senior year in High School, I was sitting in a bar, listening to my girl-friend talk about her life. She didn’t want me to comment, really, that was clear after a few minutes, just to listen, to act as a sounding board for her troubles. As she spoke she sounded sad. She felt that she had somehow boxed herself into a corner and didn’t understand how or why. She rattled off the chances she wanted to take with her life, the things she thought might make her happy, then responded with a list of reasons for not taking
any chances at all. It dawned on me, as she engaged in her monologue, this self-answering conversation, that there was more than one voice coming out of her, and that several of them clearly weren’t hers. There was a voice of caution, a voice of bravery, a voice of morality, a voice of indulgence. One might have once been an aunt, another a teacher, one or two must have been her parents.
“During her life, she had heard them all, and, along the way, adopted them into her psyche. So here they were, all talking to each other, right in front of me, as real as real can be. It dawned on me as I listened to her, to all of her, that to say it was the mom or the dad or the aunt, didn’t finish the question. After all, they were people, too, just like this woman, just like me, and they had all gotten these attitudes, these perspectives, these “voices” from somewhere else.
“But here, in this woman, my admittedly ambivalent girlfriend, they all spoke with such personality, such conviction that when I made the leap, when I started thinking this was not her, or anyone in particular, I started picturing not the people, but each voice as having its own history, its own ... life, communicated from person to person, generation to generation, as part of the psyche, but at the same time maintaining such individuality, in tone, intent, perhaps even cadence, that it could be judged as a separate living thing.
“I believe that these voices are the building blocks of our individual identities, and we, in turn, generate them. If Jung hadn’t bastardized the term by trying to link it to some half-assed biological structure in the brain, I would call them archetypes, the primal forms out of which our selves are made. Instead, I use the term Aeon.”
There was silence for a moment. Hapax noticed, to his dismay, that Doctor had failed to take any notes. He seemed to be in some sort of reverie. Hapax waited.
“Are they alive, the way we are, these Aeons?” Doctor finally asked.
It was a question, a good one, not some psychological trick. Hapax had to think about it a minute, then he said, “Well, they locomote, moving from body to body, they reproduce, my brain to your brain, parent to child, friend to friend. They just don’t have bodies, or rather single bodies, the way we do. Honestly, I don’t know if they’re alive the way we are. They may be alive more the way the earth is, you know, the movement of the tectonic plates and such. Anyway, I do think that the most useful way to think about them, maybe the only way to really grasp the idea of them, is to consider them alive.”
“Go on,” Doctor said.
“Okay, here’s the frightening part. Some of these voices go back only a few decades, maybe even a few years, but others, others are ancient. The biggest, oldest one I know of goes back about 2500 years, but hell, some might even go back to the origin of mankind. Think of that. Cultures shaped by these voices, wars motivated by these vast repositories for the collected experiences of life.”
Hapax leaned back and exhaled. He’d never told anyone any of this. It had never been spoken aloud. It was a strange, exciting relief.
“So, to finally answer your question, yes, I do hear voices, especially since I’ve been here. But don’t worry, I know enough about what they are and where they come from that they don’t bother me, at least not enough to drive me into catatonia. I look at them, they look at me, and, eventually, as time passes, with the help of your kind medications, they will fade back into the shadows once more. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that my consciousness, in healing, will find it more difficult to hear them, since they never really fade, we just become them.”
“These Aeons of yours, they rule us?”
Hapax bristled, unsure if he was being humored. Doctor motioned for him to continue. There was no point in stopping now.
“Rule? I’m not quite sure I’d use that word. Let me think about it. Does the movement of a hand in the light rule the shadow it casts? Yes, I suppose in a way it does, only in this instance, I’m not quite certain who is shadow and who is hand. It seems to me that perhaps we reflect each other. The Aeons wouldn’t exist without human psyches. They “sit” on us, are made out of us, so in some ways that makes us the hand, not the shadow. Yet at the same time, our behavior, our relationships, our feelings, the essence of us on a personal, social and species level, is filtered through the Aeons, informed, codified and given meaning by them. They are the fates, the gods of light and darkness, and that makes us the shadow, and them the hand. I’m afraid I’m not being terribly clear in answering your question. I suppose, in a larger sense, I don’t really know. It’s not like I found something immortal and immutable. All the Aeons taken together don’t necessarily form a coherent cosmology. Sometimes they’re at war with each other, sometimes at peace, sometimes they’re benevolent, sometimes a bane, but the point was, is, that they form us, they’re the filter through which reality reaches us – and the matrix through which we create. They live and die, but across decades and millennia, and unless we give up our childish notion of an indissoluble self and come to terms with them as us, we’re condemned to ride out the momentum of whatever game they care to play,” Hapax said.
This time, Doctor did make some notes. In fact, he wrote for quite some time, leaving Hapax to break the silence.
“We in the West have been stuck in one major Aeon for a long time. Who we are, who we believe ourselves to be, is trapped by what that God allows us to be – in an effort to preserve himself. What my Great Work did was figure out which buttons you need to push to access your Aeons. When you play the right chords, you can make a new melody, even change Aeons,” Hapax said, then waited hopefully for a response.
Doctor looked up, concern replacing confusion on his face.
“Are they wise, these Aeons?” he asked.
Hapax sighed, “Some, I guess, but they’re so damn extreme, they often seem a little silly to me, like a cartoon. Actually, I don’t know if that’s a quality inherent in them or just the only way I apprehend them. Of course, none of it matters now, the book is gone and I could never reconstruct it in time.” Hapax said.
“In time for what?”
“Well, before the language dies. The method I developed to access and alter Aeons uses words. I have no idea how they can be encountered without them,” Hapax said.
“The language is dying, did you say?” Doctor asked.
“Uh, I’m a little tired. Maybe we’d better leave that for another day,” Hapax said.
Doctor stared for a while, picked up his notes and left.
9. How are you today?
“Hello. I’m Sally and this is Elaine,” Sally said, smiling.
“Uh, hi,” Marty ventured, stopping dead in his tracks.
“You guys read comics,” Elaine noticed cheerfully.
“Yeah,” Steven piped in.
“Very cool. A lot of great myths that invest our lives with meaning have survived through comics,” Elaine nodded.
Two attractive women talking to two overweight teenage boys. Marty bristled, his urban second sense afire.
“Are you going to try to sell us something?”
Sally smiled even more, revealing a row of perfect, white teeth.
“You’re really bright,” Sally said, “and you’re right! We are going to try to sell you something. What are your names?”
Going on the hopelessly optimistic notion that Elaine and Sally were going to sell them sex, Marty said, “Marty.”
“Steve,” Steve said, nodding a bit by way of introduction.
“Steve, Marty, we’re going to try to sell you something, but not something you can touch, and not for money. We’re going to try to sell you a lifestyle,” Elaine explained.
“Must be pretty difficult being that smart,” Sally said sympathetically, “You probably feel like a lot of people just don’t understand you.”
“I get by,” Marty said, trying to maintain some dignity.
“I’m sure you do,” Sally continued.
She stood a little closer and put her hand on Marty’s shoulder, squeezing it just a bit and added, “
But with just a little education, you can do better.”
“Better how?” Steve asked.
“Well,” Sally said, still holding Marty by the shoulder, but facing Steve, “From the moment we’re born, the Script Writer in us writes the script of our lives. It determines our failures, our successes, anything and everything we do. Even so, that Script Writer is just a part of us, so really, whether or not we get what we want still comes down to you and me. The problem is that most of us have no idea how to access that Script Writer, so we just keep living out the same old movie. We feel our needs, but we can’t find the power to fulfill them. Take you guys. Steve, what would you like most of all right now?”
Fixated by the one thought in his mind, Steve hemmed and hawed.
“A little self-conscious, eh?” Sally said, “No problem. You’re a young man, full of hormones, feeling your identity for the first time, maybe you want to meet girls, but, maybe you don’t know how. You feel the need, but you can’t find the power.”
“Isn’t that what that bag lady says?” Marty said, nervously staring at the woman’s hand pressed against his shoulder. He was starting to sweat.
“You are smart, Marty, and obviously connected to the changing times we live in. Yes, it’s exactly what Calico says, and we’d like you to read her book,” Sally said.
She lifted her hand from his shoulder with a gesture that said, “Now wasn’t that simple?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” Marty said, “I’m Jewish.”
“Shalom! So am I!” Elaine chimed in.
Apologetic, Marty added, “My parents are very conservative.”
“What about you? What does Marty need?” Sally said, brows furrowed in enthusiastic attention.
“I’m very conservative, too,” Marty quickly concluded, “Is there any kind of trinity in this thing?”
“No, not at all. It’s completely new,” Sally said, “We’re part of a very informal group that recognizes the importance of what Calico is trying to teach us. We want to help spread her ideas. We call ourselves the Church of the Ultimate Signifier – now that’s a little complicated to explain simply. It’s kind of like when John said, ‘In the beginning was the Word’ but it’s more about the power we as individuals can exercise over our own Word.”
Marty started backing away, making negative-sounding grunts, “John? Sounds Christian. I mean, you’re calling yourselves a church.”
“Church is a bad word,” Elaine ventured, “It isn’t a church-church. It’s just people, like you and me, feeling needs, finding power.”
“Um, I think I’ll pass,” Marty said.
“Okay, that’s cool. No pressure. You can always change your mind,” Sally said. Then, smiling broadly again, she turned to Steve and asked, “What about you?”
“Uh, what would you want me to do?” Steve said.
“Just come back to our little office, have a soda, fill out a questionnaire and, if you fit our profile, get yourself a free book. What have you got to lose?” she said.
Steve looked at the two women, smiled and said, “Let’s go.”