Peter Billig
THE LINK
A Saul Vogel Mystery
"What is the matter with you?" he protested at last, my squirmy mood disturbing his – that of deep pacific relaxation. "Got a pain in the rear?"
"As if you didn't care about the great news: Humanity is finally landing on Mars!"
Together with the rest of the world, we were awaiting the TV transmission from the simultaneous landing of four manned interplanetary craft, their mission to build a base on the Red Planet. The transmission was scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. and I could hardly contain myself. I checked the watch: 20 minutes to go. Did not bother to see commercials, look-backs (establishing bases on Moon to be used as chute for further travels) or listen to the experts, having heard all their opinions and predictions before.
"You misunderstand," he protested. "I am interested, but I don’t share your view of things to come. You and your co-religionists view the future of Mankind as that of space expansion, while I feel that we yet are too much linked to Mother Earth to be able to leave her without restoring her to her previous glory."
"You think that since we killed a few whales and reduced the jungles to national parks, Mother Earth won't let us go? On the contrary, she'll kick us all the way to Alpha Centauri – if only to get rid of us!"
"I'm afraid she won't. Her nature is to detain those who don't respect her."
"Care to explain?"
"Mother Earth is of Space, too, but she won't be just used by us, no sirree!"
"She survived the giant meteorite, which killed off the dinos. Why should she mind losing some acres of forest? She’s indomitable! When we are gone, she'll recover in no time."
"I feel we are tied to her with an invisible cord. It is long, I admit; after all, we have landed on the Moon. Perhaps, we will land on Mars as well or even on Jupiter’s moons, but as we’ll be going to the outer planets, the cord will be spent and we will be stopped in mid-space,” he said quite seriously.
“Yeah. And these invisible cords are fastened to the dicks and the clits of us humans, I presume?”
“I’m throwing my pearls for swine!”
He rose, stepped inside and switched on the TV.
The transmission lacked any dramatic merit, as the touchdown was smooth and uncannily true to the timetable. The four craft landed precisely on the spot and began the prescribed procedures without a glitch. It would have been boring if not for the feeling that I was witnessing a momentous event, but Vogel was actually yawning.
Then, the female commander of the mission stepped down the ladder onto Martian soil. She kneeled down and symbolically kissed it through the helmet of her spacesuit. She got up, took a step forward and said: Yet another giant step for Mankind – and she emitted a frightful howl, fell down and rolled on the ground. Simultaneously, the other astronauts emitted a howl and fell – and so did Vogel and I. Writhing on the floor, I almost upset the set. Then the indescribable pain in the gut ceased.
When we crawled back into the easy chairs the screen was all snow. Then, a sorry-looking speaker appeared and explained that the station's technicians have upset, in their paroxysms, some vital gear. The transmission from Mars is postponed owing to equipment having been smashed by the astronauts in their paroxysms. NASA is, however, in radio contact with them. Confronted with the inexplicable phenomenon, occurring both on Mars and Earth, the space agency commanded them to stay inside their craft while Earth was investigating.
Then he began to read the news from all over the world and the nature of the anomaly became clear: it hit all Humankind – that on Earth and that on Mars – at the very same time. Already, one intellectual has managed to formulate a theory and get on the air with it: the Solar system is an organism and the spacecraft must have hit some crucial nerve within it. "NASA's making a big mistake: the astronauts should get out and inspect what their rockets are standing on," he said. There were reports of disasters: fires, botched surgeries, an acrobat killed – the paroxysm having surprised people in precarious situations. Seven airplanes crushed, innumerable traffic accidents, people drowned, many injured in the safety of their homes. A religious pundit proclaimed the phenomenon a warning from God: "We overstepped our authorization and we have been punished by the Lord."
"Well, Mr. Vogel, what is the learned opinion of Philosophy?" I asked.
"You are my assistant, you tell me!"
"You've been right. There is a link between the Earth and us humans. With her giant step, the mission commander must have stretched it too far and it jammed the system."
And a new paroxysm hit us, followed by seven others. There was a pause from sunset to sunrise, when new paroxysms began…
Three weeks were gone. As the paroxysms during this period – up to fifty-one on the third day, thirty-three on average – occurred only within day-hours of our time-zone, people of other longitudes had to adapt to night-time torment and change their life rhythm. And adapt we all did, working and sleeping at odd hours and finding out what functions could be maintained in the periods with paroxysms. After a week, the global system of air transport has been re-established – with long stopovers. Working hours and routines in most work places have been re-devised. Contrary to some fears, suicides decreased, as if the paroxysms actually mustered us into hanging on. The fact that humans were the only species to be affected gave us hope that the answer is in our physiology: curable, when we make it out. And that the length of paroxysm periods was in accord with the shortening of daytime in our geographic latitude suggested that the problem is of earthly rather, not interplanetary nature.
After a month, NASA has at last ordered the astronauts out – for a few hours, well inside the paroxysm-free period. Their movements, some many miles from the base, provoked no paroxysms either here or there. They checked the ground under their craft and found only solid rock, in no way unusual.
"It only proves that stretching of the invisible cord is not guilty of our misery: we have plenty of rope yet," Vogel commented with that peculiar facial expression we all had during the paroxysm-periods: that of bracing oneself for a sudden explosion of pain. And the convulsions were hitting and they often came in pairs.
People were coping somehow: took painkillers, wore amulets, spent the periods in support or prayer groups or drank themselves numb, but all these took only the top off the agony. For myself, I developed a meditation-like attitude, which was taking more than the top. Vogel, on the other hand, was drawing on his hobo experiences: he concocted a herbal pill, which took off much more. He was selling plenty of those (made a wad) and was working on a stronger version during the precious paroxysm-free hours not squandered on sleep.
On the 35th day, we stayed, as usual during the periods of torment (sleep was impossible in spite of pills, booze, anything), in front of the TV set waiting for a news that would give us hope. We had seen journalists stalk men and women of science and demanding explanations – to no avail. We just heard a guy had been acquitted of killing his wife (who was divorcing and suing him for a stash): he was loading his gun when a paroxysm hit – as if Humanity did not know that toting firearms and paroxysm-periods don't mix, but there was no law yet.
Agony (for the 24th time today)… Agony (the 25th time: they do come in pairs)… We were not rolling off the chairs only because of the makeshift safety belts we had installed. After two paroxysms, there was a strong probability of a calm period, so Vogel took The Daily Rag, a paper edited by his old hobo-buddy Feigenblatt, just back in business. He skimmed a few lines, hammered his fist on his forehead and began to read aloud:
Dear Reader, we've been knocked out as much as anybody, but here we are again! In order to disperse the shadow of calamity hanging over the lot of us, a good news: our Mother is still alive! On the now infamous day of the Mars touchdown, a vivacious development has been taking place here on Earth – and within the borders of our own country! A tremor deeply under the seabed, several miles south of our fishing town of T., was registered that morning, but because of the later developments, the authorities were not up to the task of investigating. The first report came when our fishermen went back to fishing two days ago. They discovered a brand-new islet jutting from the sea [here an exact position according to GPS]. As our armed forces are rebuilding their efficacy, we remind the Government of its sacred duty to assure our national sovereignty over this possibly valuable piece of land, positioned so close to the territorial waters of our neighbor…
"Yeah, let's go!" I cried and we ran to the garage. I grabbed the flag in passing (we fly it on Vogel's birthday, National Day and other law-prescribed occasions) and we were off. Twice, we nearly got killed (driving and paroxysms don't mix) even though Vogel had swallowed a handful of his pills, and we survived other five paroxysms before the sun went down.
The roads were crowded during the nights, so we arrived at T. first shortly before sunrise and we couldn't find anyone willing to sail us over or to rent a boat (sailing and paroxysms don't mix). We were resigned to waiting till the evening when a motorboat appeared with a middle-aged guy at the helm, his military camouflage jacket and beret in national colors identifying him as a member of a certain nationalist group. I took the flag from the car and commanded him to take us to the new island. "Just think that some foreign jingoist claims it for his country!" I told him.
Who said that nationalism socks? The patriot took us over in no time, planted the flag, sang the national anthem and proceeded to drink beer and sing chauvinistic songs, leaving us free to roam the rocky island.
The day was breaking when we finally found our prize: a thick reddish rope protruding from the ground and forming a twisted sculpture. It must have issued from a fissure in the ground, much like toothpaste from a tube. As we were looking, a gull landed on one of its numerous folds, looked around, as if thinking what to do next.
"No, you bastard!" we shouted in unison, but it was too late: the bird pecked and as its beak hit the rope, we were hit by a paroxysm. It sent us writhing onto the hard stone.
There was no second one. As we got up, the bird was gone, scared by our contortions and moans. We approached the rope: it was like a thick cable braided of innumerable strands of enormously thin threads. It could have been mistaken for a piece of hi-tech wiring if not for its being alive and pulsating. It exuded a smell of flesh, which must have been prompting seabirds to peck – twice, before finding out it was too hard to penetrate.
It felt very hard when we – cautiously – laid our hands on its surface. We took off our clothes, wrapped it and with utmost care covered it with stones and camouflaged with seaweed.
When we joined the patriot he declared that he had named the island after himself and was going to claim it as his possession and to build a home here. Then he saw we were naked, called us perverts and wouldn't have us in the boat. It took some effort to persuade him that his title to the island depended on signatures of two witnesses, before he agreed do take us and to give us clothes from the boat's cupboard.
When we arrived back in T., the streets were crowded with happy people, united in an impromptu merry-making. Somehow they knew: the ordeal was over! We joined in.
"So there are invisible links binding people to the Earth,” I began, as we were speeding home in the afternoon. “But what was the thing we secured? It must have some connection with the links, obviously.”
“A fragment of the nerves of the Earth containing a part of the cords, which normally is hidden inside the Earth and has invisible extensions connecting us with Her. She’s a living organism and we are parts of Her. Volcanoes and earthquakes are Her diseases. The tremor must have forced the nerve up together with the island. In one of his stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle depicts Earth as a living organism and us humans as its parasites. Personally, I think we are Her organs – eyes, ears, noses and brains – and therefore have to be attached to Her. As no other living organisms were hit by paroxysms, it stands to reason that they don’t have that function. The purpose of the evolution must have been to generate new organs for Her, and when we humans appeared She set the apes free – as She did with other animals while developing improved organs. It seems that we also suffice as Her space-organs, at least for a time being, but who knows how long the link is? She might evolve another race whenever She feels like going into Deep Space. After all, we can only serve Her with our five senses! Imagine that a complete picture of the material world can only be achieved through not five but, say, ten senses, the extra five being unimaginable to us?”
“Master, the inconceivable thing is that our links are so material inside the Earth and totally invisible outside!”
“Must be one of Her early inventions: imagine Her organs: the fish, the dinosaurs, the monkeys, the apes and us pulling long meaty ropes from our asses? She made our part of the link of something so invisible, so pliable, so obvious and so supple as to be detectable only with one of the senses yet unknown. Should She make you grow them, you would be “seeing” the “cords”, don’t you worry!”
“You think She will give us enough “rope” to go for the stars, Master?”
“Let’s hope so! Otherwise, a new breed will appear and take over – if we don’t kill Her before. Just imagine: organs killing the host off!”
The paroxysms never came back, but Vogel’s pills have proven to be effective against migraine.
A month later there was another tremor and the island disappeared into the sea, back whence it came.
Let's hope that now, when the wiring is on the bottom, sharks won't get to it.
Copyright Peter Billig 2007
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