I.
Sunday, 8:46 am – Mortimer: awake, alone, avoiding the messages awaiting him. A vile on his bedside table rests on a package of sterilized needles marked with dates and times. Doctors’ orders: the medicine first thing each day, before any novel experience can intrude. Out of reach and out of sight, a paper letter lies on the floor. The voice confined to the blinking light on his communicator coos: Mortimer sways.
My grandfather kept his collection of obsolete medicines in the cigar boxes his grandfather gave to him as a child. He would have given them to me if he had any confidence I could resist eating them in an emergency over more modern measures.
We did a book on ‘oral medications’ once… it had a diplomatic concluding chapter, but the tone was thoroughly suspicious. Leonard said that the transition from anti-biotic technology to Creative Cell Injections probably killed more people than the transition from free food market to National Sustainability. I don’t know… ‘anti-biotic’ does seem like a strange phrase. How do the pills decide who to kill and who to spare… I bet they can’t … how could they tell the difference?
I’ve never had a daily injection other than my blue print, and it’s just a monitor-and-response program… these programs doctor O’Brien gave me swim in my blood all day, obstinate and bossy…
Just a prick, between the nerve endings, no feeling at all, something to work on the rest of the day.
9:46am – Mortimer closes his eyes. He leans seriously against a chair to give his body some support against the incoming solution. His ventricles contract against the wave, give way, and Mortimer re-opens his eyes.
“I haven’t had a letter sent here in ages.”
I haven’t ever had a letter sent here. Nobody really sends mail anymore. They had to stop using paper for advertisements. I can’t even really imagine how one would go about sending mail now – I guess they could always just drop by and put it in the box… they never got rid of the boxes.
Celine Surkis
766 Edventure Road
Mortimer BlithE
7700 Roving Doc
Apartment #15
“I have a friend.”
A new friend. The medium changes, but the effect is the same; nice paper, my name printed in someone else’s hand. I’d like to leave it at that. Just like the blinking messages on the communicator; nice to know I’m wanted or needed, no real desire to know how or why. Anyway, this letter is probably just a test of my sanity… it looks like a test. Mother never could resist surreptitious means; how could she now, with the support of a professional.
9:55 am – Mortimer opens the letter, slowly, but hopeful.
Mr. Blithe,
So nice to finally meet you; in fact we have met, but not intimately like this I suppose. It gives me the feeling that I’m just laying eyes on you for the first time.
You must be wondering how such an arcane thing as a letter arrived at your door, just in the manner it would have if letter writing were still the order of the day. Because, of course, it is not, and there are not Mail Persons or Letter Carriers any longer to do the work that has clearly been done. It is strange, a letter today, but perhaps no stranger than a modern man, such as yourself, making his living riding a literary artifact chasing a carnival of cultural fossils. What’s past is past, what’s future is eventual horizon, and what’s present is presence presenting itself... tell me, is there a difference, Mr Blithe?
When I was young, there was no one around to ask tough questions in easy times. The result? Green and hapless answers in harder, darker times. Admittedly, there were occasions of interception, when more adept hands interrupted monotonous parental fumblings, but in general the benefits and virtues of mentorship were taught to me by shadow and absence – by deficit. Nothing to dwell on now, I assure you, seeing as we’ve come here to this day together, you and I, teacher and student.
Right – the book.
Your second assignment awaits you at the central archives downtown. This is a concrete library Mortimer, not as graceful or responsive as your database, but not as ephemeral either – you’re going to have to actually lift these things to make use of them. Just books, nothing too exotic, but indispensable dimensions nonetheless.
Studs Terkel,
Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day And How They Feel About What They Do
ISBN-10: 1565843428
Begin with chapter four of Working and don’t go farther than necessary. I’m sure you’ll know exactly how far that is, but since this is new for you and I both I will say this; you will know when you’ve gone far enough.
Also, a personal favour for me? Look for this…
Boguslav P. Lowendowski,
Grey Matter Mirage
ISBN-7: 1645386537
Finally, Mortimer, a riddle for the riddler; have you ever been to the circus?
Celine
I should have opened the letter before the injection. Hard to tell what’s what… who’s who… when’s when… when I feel like this.
Did she say my second assignment?
II.
10:45 am – Mortimer sits running his thumb across his own name everywhere it appears in the letter. A quiet panic saws quietly through the appendages of the day he had planned, leaving only torso and head. Paralysis begins its journey to the heart. Mortimer spots a blinking light and tumbles back to reality.
I have one new message.
“You have one new message.”
After the last message, it seems a bit strange to hope for some kind of basic notification… even foolisher to think that someone might just want my company; I’m not sure I can handle these ciphers of adventure, they make me paranoid. Whatever, if I can survive a letter from Ms. Surkis, I’m sure I can handle the rest of the known human world.
“Morty, it’s Art. I hate these proximal messages, so I’m going to be blunter than if we were walking – okay? Those injections that scientist gave you are a blunt instrument –everything is a muted haze with them Mortimer. You need to go in the other direction, get clean, and see what your body says about all of this. Do you know that it’s winter? Can you remember the last time you were outside? What did the air feel like on your skin?
I want you to come with me to the Hearth tonight. It’s time, long overdue in fact. I’m not actually asking either, I’m going to come and pick you up around eleven, and if its true that you still have operational motor skills, and the motivation necessary to use them, I suppose you’ll be able to get out my way – but I hope you’ll be there”
10:57, not very much time to get ready.
“Moriarty are you there?”
“What’s that?"
“Morty it’s me. Let me in.”
“You’re early.”
“Look, I’m sorry about the message – say anger out of love, this is… a loving intervention; just open the door.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Listen, why do you think that doctor’s liquid solution is any better than the one I’m offering; where there’s a lucid will there’s a lucid way.”
“Did they teach you that? Wait a minute, what’s your liquid solution.”
“I think you should just let me in.”
“Okay, but I have some demands: I want secrets, a comparative religious framework and the right to leave when I want – I don’t want to end up your cult mule. Also secret handshakes and anthems… I want them too. Do you have pins? I have… errands… I could be running instead of going with you to this magic show.”
“Really? It’s the end of the world, your sensory system is severely compromised, and your best and only friend is trying to include you in his survival plans – but you have shit to do? We don’t have any handshakes Mortimer, we’re not a cult, we’re a plan of action.”
“No handshakes… I’m going to let you in but if you don’t share any esoterica I am going to be seriously suspicious of the grounds of your conversion.”
“……………………………………………………….”
“………………….”
“Isn’t that better, its just me Morty, Art, how much of this strange life have we been through together? Why not a little more? When have I ever hurt you?”
I miss Belay.
“Besides, things haven’t been going very well for you down trodden trails, why not try a new path.”
All roads lead…
“Where does your path lead?”
“You’ll find out at the Hearth.”
“Fine. What’s that around your neck?”
“It’s a flint.”
“What’s a flint?”
“It’s for starting fires. We have two orders, Fire-Starters and Seed-Carriers. Fire-Starters carry a flint and a secret weapon; a diamond knife for making stone tools.
“…”
“Don’t ask to see the knife, I’m not allowed to show it to you. “
Doctors orders.
“That’s fine.”
“You should be excited Morty, today’s going to be a very important day for our little group.”
It isn’t yet?
“How do you know that?”
“Last night’s sequence was unequivocal – the moment is ripe and our plans will come to fruition before long.”
“What sequence?”
“The Abba sends out sequences for us to use while we sleep, instead of injections, so we can internalize his messages better.”
“You mean like a dream?”
“No, not like a dream, my delusional but endearing antiquarian, like a communion of his mind and ours, of the Abba and the followers, of past events and future possibilities.”
Like a dream.
“I think I’ve been having dreams lately.”
“Oh no Mortimer, really? Please don’t say that. No one dreams anymore, you know that. It was so superfluous to our operation that as soon as the body had another means of information consolation, dreams just stopped. You’re probably hallucinating. Anyway, neither the old dreams nor the new monitoring medications will leave you free enough to act when the walls come down Mortimer. That’s why we use the sequences overnight; to keep us free, protect us while we sleep, and prepare us for the journey to the new world.”
You’re probably hallucinating.
“What did you say?”
Nothing.
“We don’t have time for these mind games Mortimer, telepathy is nothing but a grey matter mirage, and it’s the end of the world, so for the love of someone else’s god will you please put some pants on so we can go?”
III.
10:45pm – Mortimer sits nervously in a folding chair beside Artimice, as an array of shady and outcasted individuals stream into a large auditorium. The room itself smells of bodies and cold – it reminds Mortimer of the parties he used to go to with Belay. It occurs to him that it has been years since he noticed the smell of a room.
“Hey Morty, I know it’s been a hard couple of weeks, but it means a lot to me that you’re here. I hope you understand that I’m so hard on you because I want you to awaken like I have. I want you to know. I – I want you to come with us.”
“I know Art… thank you… it means a lot to me right now to believe I have a choice.”
“You always have a choice, that’s what I learned here; just because the situation seems dire, and survival seems unlikely, doesn’t mean we’re trapped. We feel trapped when the way out is too difficult to imagine. Then the dying mind takes over and begins to corrode the possibility of escape. That’s why we need visionaries, seers who can see past the impass. They don’t save us themselves, but they can imagine that we can save ourselves, and we are saved by the very possibility. Don’t give in to the similitude of desperation Mortimer, I don’t think you’re crazy, I think you’re sad. I think you think all the presents and futures are the same now because you can’t imagine any new ones… that’s why I brought you here… to give you the gift of possibility.”
Rebutal?
I think that possibility comes to comfort the dying mind, to march it towards the only end.
“There is no end, Morty, to all of this. Can’t you see that? People pursue these apocalyptic fantasies, as if an end is possible. I’m not denying that unimaginable horror periodically intervenes in lives of men, but catastrophe is not cessation. None of this will ever be over. Some of us will die, and some of us will survive and live – that’s all. Some of us will be just human, and some of us will be future human, and take this ship wherever it’s going.”
Someone’s getting up to speak. I can’t believe I agreed to this.
“Oh, the goosebumps as always. Did I tell you how happy I am that you’re here to see this?”
I can’t believe I agreed to this.
“What do you imagine will happen then?”
“What? Be quiet Mortimer, Theodore is about to speak.”
“When we leave here? Will we just forget? What if I miss this place?”
“Morty shut up, there is no more this place, there is no more here – just stop it, it makes you sound naïve”
This place?
Seems here.
Why is everyone standing up?
“Look at all of you! Welcome, don’t clap please, look at this turn out – let no one ever say our paranoia was paralyzing.”
Laughter, which means that was a joke?
“No, no, anyway I’m glad this week’s sequence managed to communicate the urgency of the situation – to see such a large group here today shows me that you appreciate it as well. Quite a show of lucidity.”
“Lucidity!”
What is going on here?
“Before we begin I should say, to any new arrivals; we don’t have the luxury of time, so I will be blunt and if you don’t humor me, I won’t kid you.”
Come on, that barely even made sense and they’re laughing; Art always did have a kind of a cardboard sense of humour though.
“If you’ll all join me in the recitation of the Lucidity Pact, we can get started.”
Quite the collection of smiles.
“Starting with a garden, Another great new world,
Old order that is starving, Courage boy and girl,Bring the fire, and the seeds, All awake head south,
To freeze and thaw Antartica, And fill an open mouth…”
Art always said he’d make a great parrot.
I should really go, but now I’m curious – everyone is just waiting quietly… for…?
“Thank you for that, thank you. Today I will begin from the beginning, because these are historic times and there is no better way to speak of what we must do than to trace what has already been done.”
Start from the start. Fill me in.
“So as you all know, our work has now been one hundred years in the making. The Antarctic Christ came to us then, with a timeline and a vision, with plans for a century of escape.”
“The fire burns!”
“And as I believe you all also know, he divided the future years into four quarters, into four seasons, to help us mark the time, note the changes, and pace our departure. Our predecessors and founders waited patiently through the summer and the fall, and now we have survived a solemn winter. Like our ancestors before us, like great explorers, we have waited aboard great ships, trapped by sheeting ice through a frigid and impassable winter. And let me say this to you all so beautifully assembled here today; we have been so quiet, so stoic, so patient, that every crack and fault has been audible to us in our repose and waiting. We have heard the ice creak, the ground move outside our door, and only we have truly known why.”
A man who in mocking others also mocks himself, because he despises himself but despises others more. They’re talking about you in the newspaper, so at least some of the sailors have been talking.
“Truly the spring has come. Truly the ice is melting. Truly the time of our departure is here.”
Everyone looks awfully excited.
“And truly, just like our ancestors, just like great explorers, when the ice melts we will depart aboard our ships, returned to our journey, destined for greener pastures.”
“Future shores!”
On what continent?
“I have been speaking so far in poetic terms.”
That was poetry?
“He said poetic terms.”
“Shut up Artimice I’m trying to listen.”
“But a revolution is no time for poetry.”
I was not aware that that was true.
“Now I must speak to you of action – of the actions we must all be prepared for when to sign comes.”
He must have meant when the time comes.
“The most important thing will be to move without delay. Splinter cell leaders must not wait on my command – you have all been thoroughly trained, you will know when the time has come. Fire-Starters, you have little to carry and should arrive at your vessels within the first hour. Seed-Carriers, retrieve your seed packages from cold storage and bring them as quickly as possible to the deep freeze compression chambers on your ship. Immediately after departure we will begin germinating seeds – and farmers. You have all been patient so far, but sex can be no less strategic for the future man than anything else he does. As we sail, the hot sun will beat through our thinning atmosphere, melting the polar ground as we approach. When we land, we will plant, we will feed, and we will grow. Our destination, without predators and without human competitors, will be ours to work and love alone. This naked, fertile, earth will be the garden of another great new world. And so all of you, assembled here tonight, you must be prepared when the time comes.”
I think he means when the sign comes.
“Now, lest you think I underestimate the challenges we face, I’d like to ask one of our very own Fire-Starters to come up here and offer us some insight and inspiration.”
Just in time… I’m not sure how much more of that I could take.
“I’d like to ask Artimice Lye to the podium.”
Oh no… he wanted me here… to hear him… to hear this lunacy… that is a lot of applause though… maybe he wants my approval…
“Thank you, thank you all very much. I’m vey thankful to be able to speak to you all at such a critical time for our organization, and even happier to have such close friends here in the audience today.”
This is new… professional Artimice… maybe that’s why he needs these people… a chance to be serious…
“Now, naturally, some of you are feeling trepidatious about leaving and maybe you’ve even been scared to talk about it, thinking that others will think less of you for expressing your concern. I’m here to tell you not to ignore the doubt, but to pursue it further, to allow the nagging questions out; to allow fear to fill you with a sense of purpose. None of us are happy here. We begin to prepare by admitting it.”
Strange days Mr. Lye.
“Let’s take a step back and think for a moment. If, dissatisfied with our lives, we began looking around for culprits, we might naturally assume that the Executioners and their meticulous metrics were strangling us, constricting and controlling our movements. We might look, and we might find their leadership wanting, but would we be correct?”
“The present is a symptom!”
The past is the disease?
“That’s right. Our present condition conceals the truth; the Executioners are just the remedy, the disease has disappeared into a past we no longer remember. Now, in the discomfort and myopia of sickness, we mistake the side effects of the remedy for the symptoms of the disease.
What’s the disease?”
“The disease is the delusion that separates man from nature, the delusion that tries to control the world. Our ancestors broke a promise made to the dirt, to the ground, to the trees, to the oceans and the rivers, and we will suffer as long as we don’t repair it. That’s what this is about, make no mistake; the crimes committed against the forests and the skies. If you believe we are leaving because politicians and mathematicians have made life intolerable, remember that their ‘systems’ are the only reason we exist to criticize – don’t mistake an outmoded solution for the problem itself.
The problem began in the Gorge, that ten billion strong stampede of human stupidity, wasting itself on religion, wasting itself on sex and kink, wasting itself bending the products of nature to its denuded ideal – its human ideal. And today? We haven’t got rid of hunger or fantasy; we’ve just made them virtual. We must make sure that frivolous creativity dies with this city, with this System. Too much energy, and water, and food, has been wasted in ceremony, in pomp and art.
When we find our land, when we find our home, we must find a creativity that serves nature, which serves survival. Our ‘creativity,’ our ‘art,’ will be the conscious evolution of and entire ecosystem. Animal and photosynthetic life, blended in the productive unfolding of time, together for better, better each day forever. The myths, the stories, the images we have used to bridge the gap between us and our environment have only kept us apart. No more speculation, no more gazing, no more creativity that divides us from the changing world. Never again should we pollute our surroundings and poison ourselves, possessed by ideas of ‘higher importance’ – hunger and imagination will serve us and the earth in one stroke with no reason or reasonings beside.”
“The fire burns!”
I have to go. I haven’t eaten anything and I still feel like I’m going to throw up.
III.
2:46 pm – Mortimer stumbles out of his chair, out of the stuffy room, and down the hall towards the street. He pushes through the heavy doors like a diver surfacing for air after a long dive. The deprivation is obvious on his face as he heaves outside. Some of the people walking past stop to stare, but most hurry past him with their emergency provisions held tightly in their arms. Some, without emergency provisions, look Mortimer in the eye with a mixture of pity and panic, and rush off to obtain supplies of their own. Mortimer thinks, finally and with the exhaustion that always accompanies truth, that he has no idea who is crazier… him, the inside, or the outside world.
There must be a difference. At least I don’t feel the need to leave this place, or I can’t see how it would help. Everybody else seems convinced. Maybe I should go to an old church, and forget this cultic anarchy. How could you invent a religion anyway? It’s supposed to be the wisdom of the ages, some kind of spontaneous storytelling, a revelation. You can’t just sit down and right a universal human handbook – all our pasts and futures – just because you’ve been having a prophetic year.
“Hey excuse me.”
“Oh I’m sorry am I in your way.”
“No, Mortimer, it’s me, its Leonard.”
“Oh hey… hi.”
“Are you okay, you look terrible.”
“It’s supposed to be the end of the world, how much worse than that do I look.”
“A little worse.”
“Okay Leonard, fine. Where’s all your water and stuff? Aren’t you getting ready to leave the city?”
“It’s not the end of the world, Mortimer, they’re just practicing evacuation procedures for each quadrant of the city. They’re safety measures.”
“Always so practical. It’s endearing… in its own way… it is.”
“Mortimer, how have you been? We’ve missed you at work, and you know I feel really bad about what happened – ”
“Listen Leonard, it’s fine, I’ve got other things to worry about now, and I’m not so sure I would want to be writing at a time like this.”
3:15 pm – Mortimer walks down busy, chaotic streets. As he passes a church, it occurs to him that, if there were ever a time for religiosity, this would certainly be it.
I can’t believe I’m doing this, as if the
last sermon sat so well – a second to remedy the first?
It’s not the samething at all. Artimice and the Firestarters are clowns.
All that meeting proves is how far out there a group would
need to be to make this circus of a city look normal –
to make my parents and the Executioners look like
competent ringleaders. Still, two churches?
It’s like getting married and having your
funeral on the same day.
“Sir would you please take a seat; the preacher is about to take the stage.”
They called me Sir, off to a better start already… the stage?
“And now if you would please all rise, the pastor can begin his address.”
More pleases, I like this place, not as crude as its modern counterpart.
“Hello everyone. Now I know we’ve all heard and felt stirrings these past few months; fear and worry of changes. It is most important in times of uncertainty to turn to trusted sources, to known friends. There is a prescient passage in that archipelago of thought we call the Teaching, the Book, the Recitation; I will read it for you now.”
When they were three separate religions, they each had a book… I think the compromise has made them subtler… maybe, even, more convincing. Tranquil told me they added books when they merged, to resolve discrepancies, to modernize… and have something new to share.
“But first let us pray:
What is hard for many to hear,
What many fail to understand even though they hear:
All the water of all the seas are not to be compared with the flood of tears that has flowed since the universe began,
Amazing is the one that can teach it,
Lucky is the one that understands.
Praise be the Cosmic Truth.”
The many fail, the one succeeds.
“Chapter nine, verse three. In the time of cataclysm and revelation, the plates set at the table of the earth mother will crack and separate. With a mouth of flames she will devour the leftovers, swelling amidst cries and chaos. In the oceans, hurricanes and tornados will lift to the skies and abandon the abandoners, while on land in the centers of civilization and culture, new fault lines will open and swallow our monuments of hubris and immortality.
But only she is immortal. Strengthened the returning energy, the great mother will swell with digestion, spinning faster and faster as she grows. The survivors of her meal will go mad trying to comprehend her sickening speed, the centrifugal fever cleansing her face and skin. And on these roughest of seas, we will float, her chosen future – eyes of sanctity, ears of regret. The earth mother’s fever will break only with the most terrifying intractability; sights that cannot be, but are, words that cannot be heard, but are understood, time that cannot fly, but must. And like her children, the great mother will awake from her sickness dream with new breath in her lungs, new ground under her feet, and new vistas clearer than ever before.
My grandfather said they used to speak about the father… and the son… I don’t know when the mother took his place… I wonder who’ll be next… god the friend?
As she begins, again anew, calmly as ever a start, the broken pieces of the world destroyed will fall to the earth. The sediment of the passing age will collect on ocean and forest floors, soil and rot for the new, to be thanked for its contribution, but in spirit forgotten. Finally, with the oceans and atmosphere clarified, we will emerge; the untouched, the unsoiled, the effervescent. Remember her centrifugal logic. We must be light, we must be simple, we must be without construction or artifice. All superfluity, all human magnificence and luxury she will destroy. We must be light to float upon her spinning war.
And so I urge you, you who have had courage so many times before in this age of technology and seduction, you who risk your life to keep your bodies free of injections, you who have faith enough to dream the dream of the wise baby… be simple, be ready; we must be light to float upon her spinning war.”
What the hell was that?
IV.
6:30pm – Mortimer enters his apartment, exhausted, confused, defeated. He looks around the small space as the electric motors start up, trying to remember why he left in the first place. He remembers the morning’s letter, but can’t find it anywhere. No signs of interference present themselves. The only irregularity is a small ball of wrapping paper resting on the edge of the table.
Everything in its right place... except that crumpled paper… I can’t remember… nobody gave me any wrapped presents… I don’t think… I don’t think they sell wrapping paper any more. Anyway I thought that note was real… the note this morning… didn’t we establish that? Did I take my injection before or after… or, wait, when did I take the doctor’s injection.
Maybe I should just look at the paper…
There’s something written on the back…
Mr. Blithe,
I shouldn’t say I’m disappointed; the masculine mind struggles to hold two thoughts in its pointed head… but I am sorry you were so easily distracted. You see, there’s an urgency to our time together, Mortimer, beyond the pacing of your own emancipatory struggle. But I forget myself. Of course you didn’t go to the library, of course you didn’t find the books, of course you needed to hear a second opinion – admirable skepticism all of it. There may be nothing more dangerous than a pupil who takes their teacher’s words for truth no matter the cost to themselves.
But Mortimer, your friends today, they forget something important when they speak of the future; all are architects of fate working within these walls of time. It is not by drastic action that disaster is averted; drastic action is nothing but the last push of the inevitable. Through individual efforts to change things, to escape slow moving fate, fate is enacted and change is prevented. Dissipation is the agent of order Mortimer, and when the dust settles, I hope we’ll have occasion to agree on it in person.
Celine
8:13 pm – Mortimer lies down to sleep. If dreams were still a reality, tonight his would be pregnant and incredible. His injection begins, the lights in the apartment dim, and something rounder than a nightmare bounces across an empty mind.
Fate is encountered on the road taken to avoid it.
