TWO DREAMS A Saul Vogel Mystery

Peter Billig
TWO DREAMS
A Saul Vogel Mystery

Dream nr. 1
I was spending most of my free time with my friend, Albert Zweistein. The designation ‘friend’ is an exaggeration: Albert did not actually befriend me, he just accepted my company for walks and tolerated my presence in his study: I wasn’t disturbing him and sometimes I even paid my way as a live object on whose non-geometrical shape he could rest his sight and with whom he could share his thoughts – not that I understood anything of his infernally complex theories.
It does not mean, however, that I am particularly slow-witted: I do not believe that anybody comprehended them – except Albert himself, that is. Already his first book, written when he was seventeen, has been grasped only by a slim handful of initiated specialists, and the next one he was trying to bring out a year later has been turned down by the publisher: none of the reviewers were able to understand it.

It is characteristic, however, that they blamed this state of affairs not on the author, but on themselves: ‘Mr. Zweistein achieved heights none of the signatories can fly up to. Therefore, we are in agreement that publishing Mr. Zweistein’s opus at the present time would be a waste of paper and printing-ink; instead, we recommend that the manuscript be secured until the time when humanity attains a level of development, which would enable us to profit from it,’ was their joint opinion.
Albert accepted the negative-positive verdict of the experts with utter equanimity: for him, the book was past tense: already, he was working on something which would have been even less comprehensible or more incomprehensible. Therefore, he desisted from publicizing anything in print and restricted himself to sitting in his study and unraveling his theses.
It was purely intellectual work: he would make himself comfortable in his armchair, close the eyes and ruminate; once in a while he would dot something on a piece of paper. Before going to dinner, he would write down the date and put the paper on the heap of others. At 8:30 a.m. he would have his breakfast, and on the strike of nine he would begin his work, consulting first the sheet from the day before. Thus he could easily return to the interrupted train of thoughts: his ponderings formed an unbelievably long chain of ensuing conclusions; they were a logical expansion of an idea, which – as he once mentioned – he had had when fourteen.
He would work until five fifteen: that was the hour to sit down to his dinner. At eighteen hours I would appear and we would go together for a stroll of precisely one hour’s lenght. During the promenade I would keep him up to date as to the latest news, domestic and from abroad: he considered reading papers a waste of time. I would also entertain him telling jokes and anecdotes, spinning yarns or re-narrating films. Rarely, should he just happen to surmount a particularly crucial point in his inquiry, he would inform me briefly thereof. I would pretend that I understood – out of politeness.
Exactly at nine p.m. he was back at his desk, picking up his work. I would immerse myself in one of the books from his extensive library – he stopped using it a long time ago, since in his cogitations he had ventured into regions so lofty that knowledge gathered by others could be of no assistance – he was himself sailor, helm and ship for himself.
He thought with his eyes closed, though he opened them frequently in order to scribble hastily on the day’s leaf or to stare at one of the three objects facilitating his concentration: a crystal ball, an ugly figurine of Copenhagen mermaid or on my face. There would be absolute silence. Only exceptionally, if his deductions became unexpectedly intricate, he would read aloud from his slip. In my ears, it sounded like Chinese: he was operating on a level of abstraction so high that he was forced to forge terminology, vocabulary and nomenclature for himself.
At ten in the evening we would sup together, topping it off with a cigar. At eleven I would say my goodbyes and leave, and he would step over to the bathroom where he would first take a warm then a cold shower. He would have a glass of cognac on top of it and go to sleep.
Thus he did every single day – weekdays or Sundays, rain or shine – of all the twelve years of our acquaintance. He has filled exactly 3.183 sheets of paper, which were laying arranged in chronological order, and he emptied as many glasses of cognac. A substantial heritage from his parents assured his wealth and leisure; I have been taking care of his social life and entertainment; his other needs were taken care of by a serving girl.
Should I be asked what discipline of science Albert was engaged in, I would be in trouble. Just in case, I would say philosophy, but equally well it could have been mathematics, physics, theology or even, say, conchology. Matter of fact, the answer to the problem troubling him could be found in any of the mentioned or unmentioned domains; also in all of them or several together – or in one which has not yet been created by us humans. The only thing I can vouch for that I have understood from his rambling digressions is the subject of his research: the quest for the sense of the existence of the world; the very fact of the existence – both of the world and the sense – Albert has assumed a priori.

Exactly on the twelfth anniversary of our acquaintance, I came, as usual, at six p.m. and found him in a state of feverish excitement. I have never seen him like that and I was greatly worried. In spite of his young age (a few months ago he turned thirty) I could not exclude a serious illness, but he categorically refused to go to bed and let me fetch a doctor.
“I’m fine,” he said, but then quickly added in a despondent voice: “You know, today at noon I’ve arrived at my goal.”
I congratulated him, but he shrugged me off:
“It’s all very nice, but what am I to do with myself hence?”
I gave him a thousand and one advice how a well-off bachelor could boost his life, but none of the suggestions met with his approval. I left him in a state of sadness and disconsolation, I consoled myself, though, that he would be quick to make the best of the changed situation. I also promised myself solemnly to help him the best I could.

The day after I found him drunk: he was gazing with dull eyes at a half-emptied bottle of cognac and was shivering feverishly.
“I had a nightmare,” he explained seeing my worried expression.
I asked him to recount: there is no better medicine for that kind of affliction than to share it with another and see it once more – in daylight.
“I dreamt,” he began reluctantly, “that I was here in my study, having finished my labors of many years. Everything was exactly as yesterday at noon: the sun was shining, and through the open window and the chirping of birds was heard. Even the very same fly was buzzing, as it was circling the chandelier.
I was sitting and looking at the ultimate result on the last piece of paper when a white dove flew into the room: she flapped her wings and landed… here,” he pointed at the anglepoise lamp on the desk.
“I was looking at her and she was looking at me. She was not afraid at all, she even cooed a few times.
As I bent over her and stretched out my hand to stroke her, she pecked me – with unbelievable force – in the very middle of my forehead.
For a moment, there was utter darkness: I felt I was falling into a bottomless pit. Suddenly, it downed on me that I was flying up with uncanny speed. The white dove was flying before me, as if showing the way.
We stopped in front of a golden throne. A stern old man clad in majestic robes was sitting thereupon. The dove perched on his shoulder.
‘Ha!’ boomed the old-timer, stretching himself and clasping his hands on his neck. ‘Mr. Albert Zweistein in his own person! We are informed that you have found the meaning of the world’s existence, ehem?’
‘It’s true,” I replied. ‘I have.’
“Well?…’
‘How can it be!?’ I exploded not believing my own ears. ‘You – YOU – don’t know?!’
He spread his arms in a gesture of helplessness:
‘Shit happens.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I replied coldly, ‘but it’s my secret.’
I was hardly finished, as total darkness encompassed me again and I began to fall into the bottomless pit, and from somewhere above, from very, very far away, I heard the rumbling voice of the old man:
‘You shall regret this!’
And I woke up bathed in cold sweat – Albert finished his story and shuddered. – What a ghastly dream!

“It’s only a dream,” I said with a smile.
Albert looked at me and smiled too – at first somewhat grudgingly, then more frankly.
“Perhaps, you would like to share your secret with me?” I suggested giving him a skittish wink. “Please, look at me: I’m sitting on a chair, not a throne!”
He chuckled.
“Glad to oblige!” he replied, now positively cheerful, reached for his piece of paper and cleared his throat: “The meaning of the existence of the world is…”
There was flapping of wings and through the open window a white dove flew inside. She perched on the lamp.
Albert was petrified with the sheet in his hand; his eyes were becoming bigger and wider, and the smile was gradually disappearing from his lips.
The dove cooed and then, with an unimaginable force, she pecked him in the very middle of his forehead. For a while he was sitting stiffly in the armchair, then he leaned forward and fell noisily on the floor.
I took his wrist, but felt no pulse: he was dead.

To this day nobody has understood anything from his hapless papers.

Dream nr. 2

Vogel made Zweistein’s acquaintance (or rather that of his legacy) through me: it happened due to the good offices of an acquaintance of mine: Leonard, the orphaned “apprentice” of Zweistein’s.
I do not grace him with this title without the inverted commas mostly because he has learnt nothing: his “Master” stood – intellectually – two or three heads taller, so much that the “apprentice” has not been able to comprehend even the simplest of the sentences voiced by him. Besides, the bulk of his interaction with the “Master” looked pitiful: he dedicated all his leisure to him, he turned himself into his servant – and what has he got in return? The “privilege” to sup with his gruff idol and to look – with a dog’s devotion – into his eyes, while the other had the goodness to be thinking; anyway, this prize served Leonard right: they say that the worse you treat your dog, the more faithful it becomes.
He must lie on the bed he has made for himself! – I thought at first, but my heart does not consist of stone alone: the sight of the miserable Leonard, who after Zweistein’s demise went, if possible, even more to the dogs and hit the bottle, has woken my pity and compassion. I took care of him, I consoled him, but above all I provided a kind listener on whose shoulder he could weep out his grief.
At last, having poured the sack of all his sorrow and despondency on my poor head, he gave me a token of great trust by showing me – that’s how he titled this trash! – In Remembrance Of My Lamented Master: i.e. twenty-four full typed pages, covered with the most revolting literary puke I ever have encountered.
Everything there was muddled up and mixed together without any law or order: the serving girl’s assiduity was being lauded in the same breath as the Genius’ penetrating brainpower; the size of His shoes adjoined the deep mourning of his Bard, and the only teeny mention of the particular achievement of the Thinker – the discovery of the meaning to the World, no less – has been squeezed in, like a too large foot into a too tight shoe, between the description of the intensity of the greenness of his eyes and his praiseworthy custom of downing a sizable glass of cognac before hitting the hay.
Since I have some familiarity with biographical annotations about Great People (I have, concisely and, methinks, accurately, depicted my Master’s philosophical experiences), I recommended amendments and corrections, both factual, stylistic and orthographic. Those were so much to Leonard’s liking that he asked me to revise the whole thing. That, in turn, resulted in a piece – a mediocre one and much beneath my usual touchstone (all the more so as I strove to keep some of Leonard’s linguistic mannerisms), but having the advantage of filling only almost four typed pages.
Leonard was so pleased that he read it several times in a row and then gave me the token of his utmost trust: took me to a gloomy cubicle in a garret, which he proudly called his apartment, where an old-fashioned wrought-iron chest stood and, in its spacious innards, secreted the three thousand one hundred and eighty three slips of paper, covered with the priceless notes of Albert Zweistein: from the ones yet written in somewhat childish characters to the latest ones, mottled with glyphs so awful that my Master’s squiggles paled in comparison into a first prize in a calligraphy contest: the revered Mr. Albert Zweistein bequeathed all this waste paper to Leonard in his will, but the rest of his substantial estate he left to a distant and many times removed relative: a “lady” in dubious repute.

I mentioned Zweistein, Leonard and his precious chest to my Master exclusively as an oddity: he collects oddballs and eccentrics like others stamps or butterflies – and has amassed quite an assemblage. Unfortunately, he misunderstood: as if I were piquing him to decipher the secret of Zweistein’s papers, but perhaps I am exaggerating my influence: he could have been tempted simply by the perspective of a posthumous duel with another genius or by a chance of learning about the meaning to the world, which of course would be a treat for a philosopher.
Whatever his motives, he expressed a wish to pit himself against the contents of the chest. However, his wasn’t the first attempt: already a handful of scientists had not let the slips be covered with mildew: two gave up after a few days, one turned gray after three months, and the fourth, after half a year, has been secluded in an asylum: he was biting bystanders and wetting his pants.
Thus, besides the eventuality that Master would spend the rest of his days in a loony bin I was worried by the possibility that he would surrender halfway through the quest – which would make a dent in his self-esteem and, in turn, have adverse consequences for me, as I work for him and we live in the same house. The chance for this to happen was looming given that Zweistein presupposed the existence of the world and a meaning to it a priori, while Vogel’s system – gnoscoagnosticism (gnoskoagnosko among friends) – expresses a readiness to accept the existence of both exclusively a posteriori, in principle hoping genuinely that there is no meaning or world.

Beginning his campaign, he prevailed upon me to prompt Leonard into lending him the chest. After my diplomatic exertions, it landed finally in his study, but the lawful owner came every day to check.
Master began his work with a plan and a purpose. In order to approximate the conditions of the deciphering to those of the nascence, he changed his style of life to that preferred by Zweistein; I was cast in the role of Leonard. He worked from nine a.m. to five-fifteen p.m., at which time he dined: he went so far as to insist on Zweistein’s menu and I was obliged to play the servant girl as well. At six p.m. he would imitate Zweistein’s daily stroll and I would trot along. He made me relate him the news – domestic and from abroad – and he shamelessly insisted on my telling him jokes and anecdotes. Abusing his employer-status, he also bullied me into re-narrating films!
From seven to ten p.m. I would be sitting with him in the study and I was forbidden to breathe as much as a squeak. He was minding details to such a degree that he procured a crystal ball and a little mermaid of Copenhagen – these were to facilitate his concentration – but he did not focus on my face, as demanded by the scenario, since – quote – “your mug gets on my nerves” – unquote. Instead, he fixed a facsimile of Gorgon’s head on the wall over mine and lavished all his attention upon her.
He would sup with me and insist, when finished, that also I smoke a reeking cigar. As I was coughing, he would send me, with a malicious smile, to bed, while he would take first a hot then a cold shower – and I would listen with pleasure. When he was finished with his shouting and profanities, he would, covered with goose-flesh, run for his bedroom and down, instead of cognac, a glass of scotch – and go to bed.

Day was following day and week following week, until I began to fear that I was to suffer, like Leonard did, for a full twelve years (especially as my Master wasn’t showing any signs of becoming gray or even peeing himself) when exactly twelve weeks from the beginning of the experiment Vogel stood up from his armchair, impetuously threw the ball and the mermaid into the wastebasket and shouted:
“I’m finished!”
“Bravo!” I shouted. “What is the meaning to the world, then?”
“If you think that the sense or nonsense to the existence of the world is of any concern to me, then you are feebleminded!” he brushed me off.
“So why have you been poring over the dusty scraps?!”
“To join that old man sitting on the throne.”
"You think…?”
“I certainly do! I go to sleep at once and we shall see what the night brings. A white dove, I hope.”

Early the next morning, as I was snoring peacefully, I was awaken by tickling in the left ear:
“Rise and shine, you lazybones! I had a dream, a dream, a dream!”
I sat up in the bed, and he began:
“I dreamt that I am sleeping in my bed. Suddenly, a white dove appeared at my bedside and cooed. I woke up, i.e. I dreamt that I woke up, looked at her and felt that she was too much interested in my forehead for my liking.
‘There is no need,” I said.” I’ll go willingly.’
She nodded her little head and at once I flew up with extreme speed. The dove flew before me, as if showing the way. We stopped in front of a golden throne. A stern old man clad in majestic robes was sitting thereupon. The dove perched on his shoulder.
‘Ha!’ boomed the old-timer, stretching himself and clasping his hands on his neck. ‘Mr. Saul Vogel in his own person! So we meet again! You are so persistent as this Boušek from Libnia, portrayed so verily by Jaroslav Hašek: every time they would chuck him out of the pub, he would come back claiming that he had forgotten his pipe. But let it pass! We received intelligence that you have discovered the meaning to the world, yes?’
‘Yes, I have,’ I replied.
‘So…?’ he asked and added warningly. ‘You are cognizant of what happened to Mr. Zweistein when he refused to answer this very question?”
‘Yes, I am.’

Here Master stopped and complained about the cold in the room. I nodded consentingly and he went to the window and closed it. Then he sat back on the bed and began to beat his arms for warmth.
“For God’s sake, Master!” I protested. “What have you told him?”
“The truth: that Mr. Albert Zweistein made a mistake only once in his tireless reasoning, but as it happened already on the third they, all the rest of his work is totally worthless: because of Zweistein’s unswerving logic the one faulty link has caused the entire chain of thought, together with the final result, to be false.”
“Shit!” I exploded disenchanted. “So the meaning to the world has not been found!”
“You don’t say!” Master was genuinely hurt. “The fact that Albert Zweistein screwed up does not imply that Saul Vogel did the same!”
“So you did it!” I was enthusiastic. “And what? Have you told him?”
“Sure I did. It was the only way to make him steer us prudently and not, as hitherto, by trial and error. He promised to adapt himself, too.”

“I see,” I said after a while, nodding my head philosophically. “C. G. Jung was right, then: the Old Man gains consciousness of Himself through us, humans! But what about sharing also with the unassuming me? I’m your apprentice, after all.”
Master looked around and made a sign to lower my ear to his lips – and I obliged.
“Knock-knock” was heard from the window and we recoiled hastily, like conspirators taken red-handed. A white dove was outside the window and she was pecking the pane vigorously. Her eyes met Vogel’s – and she shook her little head reprovingly.
Master jumped to his feet, his ears blushing crimson, and he bowed – low and submissive. The dove gave him another look – an unmistakable “remember!”, beat her wings and was gone.
“Sorry, old chap,” said the Philosopher, “but you see for yourself: orders directly from the Boss!”

He has not breathed a word to this day.

Copyright © Peter Billig 2007

Zoosequence, the Tree of Life A Saul Vogel Mystery

Picture by Alicja Fenigsen, see my links

Peter Billig
MR. VOGEL & HIS ANIMALS
A Saul Vogel mystery

Vogel was reading his paper in the sitting- room. Suddenly, he emitted an exclamation of surprise:
"How can it be!? Or am I nuts?…” He turned to me: “I need to talk about animals."
I put whatever I was holding back on the table and took the armchair opposite his.
"Tell me whether my reasoning is correct," he continued. "If all the herbivores of the savannas – the antelopes, zebras, giraffes and so on – died out, the carnivores out there – the lions, hyenas, cheetahs and so on – would follow?"
"Inexorably. There is a nutritional connection between these groups."
“But would it affect the carnivores of North America – wolves, coyotes and pumas?”
“No way! There is no dietary or even physical connection between those groups.”
"A hypothetical demise of all tapirs would have no impact on the well-being of echidnas?"
"Correct again. No connection at all, they live on separate continents."
"Then how do you explain this?"
He showed me two articles:
DEMISE OF A SPECIES was about a genus of rodents to be found only on one tiny island off California shore. The animals perished because the owner developed it. The last pair has been moved to a zoo, but both died there without offspring on 15 August 2006, killed by a stray cat.
DEMISE OF YET ANOTHER SPECIES was about a genus of bats found only in a few caves in South Africa. They have been under scientific supervision and their numbers were mounting. Last seen alive on 15 August 2006, they were seemingly doing well. Next day the researchers found them dead: not a single specimen survived. A very scrupulous postmortem unearthed no cause of death. It was as if all the bats simultaneously got fed up with life and died.
"How did the demise of the herbivorous rodents in California influence the dire fate of the insectivorous bats down in South Africa?" Vogel asked.
"It didn't. It was a coincidence in time. Each day a species or two of animals die out in our modern world! Every child knows that. We are vandals."
"It wasn't us who did these bats in, though. There is more to it than meets the eye."
"A natural cause the scientists didn’t think of and, consequently, didn’t test for, perhaps?"
"Not all natural laws are known," he replied thoughtfully, "and I propose to discover this one."
"Good luck!" but I did not expect him to succeed. How does one go about finding a new law of Nature?

Vogel seemed to know how. He asked Voss to drive over for a consultation. Voss is a bright engineer specializing in electronics. They met during Voss's hobo period and stayed friends since. Voss loves Vogel's ideas and is eager to give him the technical assistance to make them work.
He arrived at Domicile, our house in a big forest owned by Vogel. It was spring and they went for a walk into the green freshness of the new leaves and the sweet chirpings of multifarious birds.
When they came back, Vogel's Porsche got evicted from the garage and Voss's van, full of parts and tools, moved in, a workshop on wheels. As the workaholic was toiling there, I brought him lunch daily, but "bio-recorder/ player" was all he would say about the contraption he was making. Portable, it looked like a cross between a laptop and a tape-recorder, with a smart dish-shaped foldable antenna.

Then it was ready, Vogel told me to hold the fort, put the machine in his car and was gone.

During his absence, Vogel kept sending me two postcards apiece from zoos the world over. The first would say: Greetings from [so and so zoo], making progress. The second: Ditto. Each was a photo of an animal, bought in the "zoovenir" shop, but the animals were oddly paired. From the Beijing Zoo he sent a panda on the first card and some kind of pig on the other, from the Nairobi Zoo – an aardvark and a penguin.
I received over a hundred of such pairs. Obviously, they were meant as clues to Vogel’s work. I could see no logic in the choice of the species, though, and did not care much, having sufficiently to do with my own projects. I contented myself with tracking his chaotic movements on a globe.

Finally, eight months after he left, he phoned from Brazil about workers to arrive at my end the next day. They did, built a hothouse and instructed me how to operate the heating system: it was winter outside and the temperature inside was to be kept at 30°C (100°F). Florists' vans brought tropical plants. They were put inside the glasshouse and I was instructed how to care for them. A landscaper arrived with rocks and soil and used the plants to create a mini-jungle. Vogel arrived and a cage was brought in the greenhouse and he took me inside: hummingbirds were hovering and sucking nourishment at feeding stations. They were beautiful: green bodies with red wings and yellow heads, all with metallic-like shine.
"It's a shame to jail them,” I said enchanted with their humming and breathtaking beauty.
"I don't want to jail them, I have to."
He instructed me how to prepare their liquid food and went to sleep off his jetlag.

Next morning I awoke with a shout, sprang out of bed and felt so much energy, so much life in me that I had to do something extreme – or I would burst! In my pajamas, I jumped through the window shattering the pane and landing in a snow-drive outside. I got up and, howling like a wolf, I ran into the woods. I ran and ran in deep snow – there was no limit to my energy; I felt I could accomplish any physical feat. I scared some deer, caught up with them, overtook them and turning my head back I stuck my tongue out to them! Flabbergasted, the kindly animals stopped in their tracks and so did I – because I collided with a tree.
Concussed and laying in the snow I saw before me a mini player: open, the cassette beside. There was adhesive tape with strands of my hair glued to the contrivance. Clearly, the tape had been used to fasten it to my head while I was asleep. The player must have caused my hyperactive behavior. Now the device was torn off by the impact and nonfunctional. I felt boundlessly nonfunctional, too – and went out.















Picture by Alicja Fenigsen, see my links

As I regained consciousness, I was lying on our toboggan, wrapped in blankets and tugged by our snowmobile. Vogel must have tracked me. I was aching all over but not enough to keep me awake.
When I awoke I was in my own bed and it was noon of the next day. There was plastic sheeting on the damaged window: it had happened, then. In my head, I reviewed the “reel” of the events of the day before and I understood: it was Vogel who had affixed the player in order to make me an unwitting part – a guinea pig, a lab-rat – to a dangerous experiment. I could have been killed! Damn him!
I felt an urge to punch him, but I only stood up with effort, every fiber in my body aching as after an enormous physical exertion. No punching was possible. Slowly, I put on my dressing gown and wobbled to the sitting-room; I could hear him there busying himself with crockery and cutlery.
Words like "two-faced bastard" were on my lips, as I hobbled in, but seeing guilt on his face and my favorite foods on the table I ended up calling him a "serious asshole".
"That I am," he said, "but you are in need of serious nourishment."
That I was. The gourmet food Vogel is so good at was delicious. When we finished I was sufficiently restored to content myself with a demand for an explanation.
“Recall the dead rodents and bats?” he obliged. “My first thought was that the rodents kept the bats alive by their sheer existence: when they died, the bats died. But how exactly do they do that?"
"Sending postcards, one species to another?"
"Bio-waves," he smiled, "capable of reaching far-off continents and non-disturbing for transmissions like radio, TV and radar; otherwise they would have been discovered long ago. I discussed the matter with Voss and, being a genius, he constructed a device capable of recording and playing back such hypothetical waves. I visited zoos innumerable to record waves emitted by one species and playing them while I walked about looking for a change of behavior in other species. Animals on my postcards are the emitters and the receivers, the former enabling the latter to live. I discovered such pairs in every zoo and was soon running out of rare species. Zoos repeat themselves: there is always a complete set of PR-beasts like the elephant, the hippo, the bear or the chimp. I was forced to do much of my research in Nature, bitten and sucked by mosquitoes, freezing, thirsting, drenched to the skin or hanging off a mountain!” He looked me in the eyes.

I’ve been living a quiet life while he’s been taking mortal risks – and he exposed me to only a minor one.
“You are pardoned,” I said and he poured me a large malt from his very private and expensive hoard.
I drank up with gusto. He poured another for us both and went on:
“There is a difference between the waves emitted by animals and those played by the machine. The first are long-range and sustain normal level of activity in the receiver-species, the second are short-range and cause hyperactivity, easy to detect. In this simple manner I was able to discern what species guarantees life to which, this in turn assuring life to yet another. It must have been like that all through the Evolution: some species simply couldn't pop up until an entirely different species evolved into a new species and produced a new pattern of waves enabling it to appear, perhaps on another continent."

He raised his glass: "I drink to the Zoosequence, my newly discovered Law of Nature!"
I drank up but stayed skeptical: "A sequence of millions of species: one at the bottom, guaranteeing life to the next and so on, all the way to the top: one long chain. If you destroy the species at the root, you’ve killed them all. If you exterminate a species in the upper parts of the chain, you take life of all those above. And were it a ring, animal life would be dead long ago, with dinosaurs, mammoths, dodos gone and now a species or two exterminated each and every day..."
"Not a ring – a tree, observably! The Tree of Life! There is the Trunk, a short affair consisting of some 10 000 species and having the qualities you mentioned, and there are Branches, as most of those in the Trunk assure existence of more than one species. These secure life for short side sequences of species, as was the case with the rodents guaranteeing the bats guaranteeing, say, a species of beetles in French Guyana, which nobody is missing, as it has not been discovered yet? And this Branch ends there. So far, we have been lucky that all of the lost species were in the Branches, not in the Trunk. Thanks to your participation, my guess has been validated: it is the hummingbirds who are our emitters. Sorry I used you, but I was afraid to awake the Hulk in some strangers.”

He poured another for us and suddenly I understood:
"More afraid of what kind of a Hulk would be aroused in yourself – as you would have to be close at hand. This is why you used me!" I said accusingly.
"Guilty as charged but, as I was the one with the knowledge, I had to remain outside. The attachable very short-range player was made by Voss on my request. I phoned him from Brazil."

Suddenly, I am aware that my employer is looking at me in a queer way, so I asked for a mirror. As I was viewing the maltreated face of but a casual resemblance to me, Vogel sighed and gave me a sizable raise.
“Now that we have their emissions recorded,” I said feeling elated by this token of appreciation, “we don’t need the birds. It’s only a technical problem to get the right quality of the waves and then we could use the satellite net to beam them to all over the world and even take them on Mars…”
“I like your modern global approach but I still prefer the genuine article.”
“You had the recording, so you didn’t need to bring the hummingbirds to have your experiment. Why all these costs to make an artificial jungle? Weren’t they happy in their natural environment?”
"Brazilians are about to make timber out of their habitat in the Amazonas," he replied. “And what if the technicians can’t get the waves right? Can mankind survive if we all become Tarzans, like you had?”

I pondered these – and other – questions for some time.
"And what’s the species at the root of the Trunk, ensuring all animal and human life?" I asked finally.
"I haven't found out yet."
"But, at any rate, we are at the top of the Trunk, aren't we?"
"Human vanity! We are high up the Trunk, I’ll give you that. We occupy the level just before the very top, and the top is split into two Branches. Thus, we have the honor and the privilege of guaranteeing the existence of the two topmost species in Nature."
"Which are …?" I held my breath.
"The house-fly (Musca domestica) and the skunk (Mephitis mephitis)." Vogel raised his glass: "To Mankind: let’s keep on accomplishing that historic mission of ours!"

Copyright Peter Billig 2007
















Picture by Alicja Fenigsen, see my links

THE SIDE EFFECT

Peter Billig

THE SIDE EFFECT

Unlike other creeds, we Plaudists have not been persecuted: people never took us seriously and we, for our part, have not been making a nuisance of ourselves: our only public appearances – the attempts of setting off and protracting applause whenever and wherever the opportunity offers – are – anyone would concede – of an innocuous character; they even earn us some goodwill, mainly in Thespian circles.

As the public know only that our entire rite consists of clapping hands, and we, for our part, pursue no information or missionary activities (new coreligionists are enrolled only if vouched for by three sponsoring members), there is a proliferation of contrary opinions: that it is applause for the perfection of the Creator and His Creation; that we do it in order to attract His attention; that the cadenced salvos of handclapping imbue us with a feeling of safety and power.
The truth is, however, that belief or unbelief in God is a private matter of each of us.
By what right, then, do we profess ourselves as a faith?
Because in the period when Plaudism was established it was safer to be deemed a heretic than an atheist.
Who do we clap for, then?
For nobody. We clap in order to achieve the Side Effect.
What Side Effect?
To explain, we must go back to the very genesis of the movement.

Count Wolfgang von Bodenheim, a welcome guest at Maria Theresia’s court, as he was promenading, on August the 12^th 1770, in a Viennese park, picked up and returned a batiste handkerchief to a pretty young lady who had dropped it. She thanked him, but the accompanying cavalier slapped his face.
The gallant Count went home ruminating upon the unpredictability of human reactions. Having eaten a meal and spoken to a friend, whom he burdened with a matter of greatest urgency, he returned to his meditations, supporting his thoughts with laconic notes.
The fruit of these musings was the unexpected conclusion – the cornerstone of Plaudism to this day – that to every action, resulting every time in the same proven and evident outcome, corresponds, at some umpteenth, albeit unforeseeable, repetition, a specific side effect. Thus, handing over lost handkerchiefs to ladies invariably causes their gratitude; only at some instance, which is fixed in advance, though unknown to us, it causes a slap on the face from an escorting cavalier.
Against all appearances, this theory contains nothing mystical: if because of God’s will or, say, the laws of Nature a splash is heard whenever a stone is thrown into water, why should it be strange if, on the strength of some divine or natural law, an umpteenth splash be linked with, say, development of spots on the Sun?

But why did the prosaic and unadventurously thinking Count thrust himself upon this highly speculative theory, savoring of a bad joke, without any comparative material except the episode of the handkerchief?
Because it dawned on him that although shortly before he had celebrated his 31^st birthday, he achieved nothing worthy of remembrance by the future generations and that he had only a fifty-fifty chance – considering the gravity of his present situation – of achieving anything like that in the future. And that is why, ignoring the scarcity of material, he went on with his undertaking, now and then getting (as his chaotic notes testify) off the road, chasing his tail or falling asleep.

Illumination reached him in the early hours; the manuscript does not state whether he was asleep or alert at that time. It states, however, in a categorical form – as if it were a fact unconditionally true and proven – that there are merely three things one can do to bring about side effects salutary for Mankind: clapping hands, smacking lips and snapping fingers: clapping – the greatest, smacking – a lesser one, snapping – the least.
What effects exactly? There is no doubt that he knew, but he’s never written it down, as he was interrupted by the arrival of his second with a box of pistols. An hour later he fell with a bullet in his heart.

Count Hubert von Bodenheim, while sorting out the papers of his deceased brother, had the spiritual upheaval of his life. Having recognized the notes as the late brother’s last will and testament, he presented them for the company of mutual friends and acquaintances where they were received as a revelation.
And that’s how Plaudism came into being: initially, it bore the hallmark of an elite aristocratic club; later, its roster and numbers were decided by the resultant of the spirit of the following epochs. At present, there are 537 of us from every nation and walk of life.

As years passed, divergences within our community became visible: some members would maintain that the illumination of Count Wolfgang had been the result of divine intervention; others – that it had been a tangle of natural causes; some – that we owe it to the Count alone. These we call “humanists”, those we call “naturalists”, and the first – “theists”, but it is a delimitation purely formal, of no practical value.
A more important issue is that we differ as to what exactly would be most salutary for Mankind. Here the views span, to cite the most uncompromising, from “immediate and painless extinction of our species” through “unbridled sexual license” to “immortality”.
The most important issue is that – because of one of the Count’s blurred turns of phrase – some of us tend to avow that the most salutary side effect can be attained only after achieving the two smaller ones; and since others (the so-called “medialists” or, in common parlance: “smackers”) persist that the least salutary has already been achieved as the illumination of the Count (tradition confirms that he was habitually snapping his fingers whenever upset), and yet others (the so-called “minimalists”, conversationally: “snappers”) uphold that even the least salutary has not been achieved, the first concentrate on smacking their lips, the latter – on snapping their fingers – and both groups clap only in congregation – with no conviction or enthusiasm – only to maintain esprit de corps, while the overwhelming majority (the so-called “maximalists”, colloquially “claquers”) profess the healthy tenet that there is no point in pursuing petty aims – and they go directly for the ultimate prize. However, duly appreciating the minimalists’ and the medialists’ good will, we maximalists have introduced the custom of devoting a substantial portion of our general assemblies to joint snapping and smacking: we do not lack tolerance!

Some outsiders with an above average insight into our affairs spurn us that we profess such an unstable doctrine: without any assurance the it all is not a hoax by Count Wolfgang.
Well, we have testimony of reliable witnesses to the effect that the Count has been utterly devoid of any sense of humor, but we got to hand it to the critics that in order to become a Plaudist you really have to possess a great dose of optimism. Moreover, we are people so highly cultured, educated and open-minded that wobbly articulations of a pesky count have no credence among us.

Why then do we fritter away our precious years and energy?
Well… in case he was right. For how many millennia have you been offering up prayers, exploring Nature, building industries, changing political systems – and to what avail?
And we?
Well, we might insinuate ourselves into something by snapping, smacking or clapping.
And if not – who’s worse off?

Vos plaudite![1]

Copyright © Peter Billig 2007

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[1] You applaud! That’s how the Roman playwright, Plautus, speaks from the scene to his audience at the end of every of his comedies.

THE HUB OF THE UNIVERSE A Saul Vogel Mystery

Peter Billig

THE HUB OF THE UNIVERSE

A Saul Vogel Mystery

“Should I give you this red herring not even knowing whether you really exist?” Master protested.

It was late evening. We had had supper, but we stayed at the table in order to gratify his gastronomic endeavors. His refusal to share was dictated by the sad reality that out of a dozen of the tasty fish only one was left. Moreover, today of all days, he had taken stock of all his philosophical achievements and was therefore in indecently high spirits – which always makes him poke fun at me.
“You don’t know if I exist? I’ve been your assistant from time immemorial!”
“It’s not so obvious,” he replied. “The only unquestionable thing is that it is I, Saul Vogel, who exist. How can I know whether you and everybody and everything else are not figments of my own imagination? That you are not phantoms, delusions, allurements – entities fictitious, abstract, false and mendacious? How can I be sure that while talking to you I am not addressing my own specters – hallucinations and phantasms dwelling not outside but solely and exclusively within myself? Can you prove your existence?”
“Cogito ergo sum!” I said proudly.
“Yes, yes,” Master was positively mirthful. “The old mantra by Helvetius, which does not prove anything but the existence of thought – my thought, that is. Helvetius himself is also a fabrication of my own mind.”
“It was not Helvetius, but Cartesius, a.k.a. Descartes.” It was my turn to be mirthful. “And why should I be an invention of your imagination and not the other way round? What, pray, makes you more significant than me? Don’t we both urinate, defecate, ruminate and copulate?”
“You?” he giggled contemptuously. “There is no such thing as a ‘thou’, a ‘he’, a ‘she’, an ‘it’, a ‘we’, a ‘ye’ or a ‘they’! There is only an ‘I’: there exists just ME, Saul Vogel, ME/I, the first and only person singular!”
“In that case,” I chuckled contemptuously, “the only option left is to punch your smug face: you will acknowledge that also EYE do exist!”
“Not in the least!” he retorted. “I shall only acknowledge the existence of my own pain. What are your feelings, your thoughts, your sufferings, moans and perplexities as you yourselves are but empty deceptions and mirages inside my brain, products of my uncontrolled and involuntary fantasy: phantasmagorias! Fata Morganas! I don’t sense with your skins when you burn yourselves nor with your stomachs when you starve nor with your heads when you think. And that’s why you’ll never be able to prove that you are a being material and independent, as whatever you do, whatever you say, in whatever manner you behave, I would still have to put you down as yet another intellectual manifestation of myself.”
“No way!” I retorted. “That’s exactly why you should recognize us as materially in existence: since one cannot feel with the matter of a stranger, you would have – should you be the only one in existence – the closest of contacts with your own illusions: they would be an integral part of you!”
“On the contrary,” he was adamant. “Do I feel the pain of the personages appearing and disappearing in one’s dreams? Never, unless I have a stomachache!”
“Not so long ago you took a tumble down the stairs and broke your leg,” I was adamant. “You could at least concede that the stairs were real.”
“No way!” he was being stubborn. “That is also a fruit of my fruitful brains. The only thing I know about the leg and the stairs has reached me through the so-called ‘senses’, which is exactly the same way as you and other fictions of your brand show themselves. But it has been stated: you are ghosts, ergo neither my leg nor those stairs exist!”
“You are not trying to tell me,” I was being stubborn, “that neither you exist? You are not going to be so brazen as to assert that also your bodily encasement is a creation of your intellect?! That you are an intellect alone: a mind liberated from the shackles of the body!”
“I am!” Master bellowed. “I’m the Hub of the Universe: the Omphalos! the Logos! the Universal Being! the Ouroboros! the Mother and the Father of Totality! I’m the Absolute! I’m the Pure Self! I’m Demiurges and Gaia! I’m the Mind Liberated! I’m the Place To Stand On! I’m Alpha and Omega!”
“Liar!” I bellowed in turn. “I am Noûs, the Axis of Everything, the Center of the World and the Mother of All! I am the Deity and the Cosmos! I am the Essence and the Quintessence! I am the Beginning, the Middle and the End! I am the Ball and the Goal and the Game! I am Uranus, Cronos and Zeus! I am Aleph and Beit! Gimel and Dalet! And you, Master, are Zayin!”

“Shut up your face!” Master thundered[1]. “How dare you?!”
“How come?” I laughed into his face. “Have you descended from your pedestal to talk to me – your own delirium tremens? You – the Apeiron? You – the Arche? You – the Spiritus Movens?!
There was a moment of silence while Vogel’s face became purple and from purple – dark blue. I must have overdone it, so I hurried to smooth it out and said amicably:
“Why don’t you exert your will and try whether you can, by its power, destroy the phantasms and the banshees of your mind, such as me? This way you could stake your claim empirically!”
He nodded, closed his eyes, and his face began slowly to display the signs of utmost concentration.
The clock on the mantelpiece began to chime midnight.

When I regained consciousness, my head was resting upon Master’s knees who was trying to pour some whisky between my clenched jaws. As the Scottish ambrosia was exactly what I needed at the moment, I made it easy for him – and bliss began to spread all over my Being.
“Get up, you cheat!” Master roared discovering the fraud.
I got up and looked at the clock: ten minutes past midnight.
“Whassa matta, Bwana?” I asked seeing his sorry face. “Why are you so sullen? Haven’t you nearly taken my measly life? Haven’t you established that you are what you claimed to be?”
“Yes, I have,” he replied dismally, “only that when my will was cutting your illusory body and fictitious soul like a hot knife cuts through cold butter, suddenly, it began to cut in vacuum.”
“I don’t get it, Master.”
“Is it so hard to figure out? I was the Mind Liberated only for one day – steering the world at will and whim – and exactly at twelve o’clock the honor was transferred – by some mysterious design – to someone else! I had some very deep and disturbing – ominous! – dreams last night, but as soon as I woke up it was to pee, to shit, to have breakfast and so on – the daily treadmill! First in the evening, after I had made the list of my accomplishments, the realization of my power got through – in a childish manner: playing games with you! Just imagine, what I could have brought about if I were fully cognizant of the situation from the moment I woke up. In these eighteen hours I could have changed the course of the world, repaired the hothouse effect, replenished the jungles and the seas, removed wrongdoers, redressed conflicts, stopped misuse of children, women, men…”

“No use crying over spilt milk, Master!” I cut him short. “Judging by results, the only really terrific Mind Liberated was the one of January 17, 1966, when the woman of my dreams allowed me to make love…”
“Don’t you understand?!” he cut me short. “The transfer of the Power means that from midnight also I – ME, SAUL VOGEL! – became – again! – a manifestation of some stranger’s – an asshole’s! – mind!”
“Well, Master, judging by you, me and the state of the world the Minds Liberated chosen nowadays are not that bad.” Actually, I was grateful to the new Mind for upholding me. “During the World Wars: these were really assholes! And perhaps the power will return to you one day and you will recognize it at once, wake up, perform – and planet Earth will become Paradise! No more Ahmadinejads, Mugabes or Bashirs!” I tried to comfort him, but he shook his head, got up and shuffled dejectedly upstairs to his bedroom.

Copyright © Peter Billig 2007.

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[1] Zayin, the name of a Hebrew letter, is also the Hebrew name for “dick”, “prick”, “cock”, “pecker” or whatever you prefer calling the useful organ.

THE EXCURSION A Saul Vogel Mystery

Peter Billig
THE EXCURSION
A Saul Vogel Mystery

The day after he had patented his super-accumulator, Vogel was radiant with joy: he sold the rights thus securing his finances. I was radiant, too: no Plato in a foreseeable future. Vogel had made me deliver, in order to invent his accumulator, two detailed lectures about the great thinker. I was enjoying my meal and feeling secure when Vogel said in a conversational tone:
“You were saying that Plato considered the body a grave: soma sema, right?”
I snarled at him, and he snapped:
“When I say Plato I mean Plato! You work here!”
“At breakfast? I also live here!” but something in his stare made me add: “Then Plato it is. The body is the grave for the soul. So what?”
“So life is a sojourn in a coffin, right?”
“Life is death for the soul, and death is a new life for the soul – a resurrection.”
“And is it known whatever happens to the soul when it is thus resurrected?”
“As I told you, it stays in the World of Ideas before being reborn into our World of Phenomena. Want another lecture? Personally I deem Plato overrated: he was a Pythagorean and divulged only what the Order deemed useful for public consumption. His initiate’s oath did not allow him to reveal the Pythagoreans’ true inner philosophy. It must have been pretty advanced!”
“The great Plato – a propagandist and not an original thinker?” Vogel sounded shocked.
“That is my conviction.”
“Do you know what happens to the soul after what we call death?” he asked.
“Would I be working here for peanuts instead of running a cult and getting rich?”
“Let’s find out empirically, then!” My employer stood up, ready for action.
“About Plato’s Pythagoreanism?” I asked hopefully.
“About what really happens after death.”
“But how, pray?”
“Are you forgetting the Cosmoscope?” and he rushed out to the UFO-shaped outhouse where the Cosmoscope is installed. As narrated in The Cosmoscope, this contraption is a philosopher’s dream come true: it enables transcendental soul-voyage.

I followed dutifully but I was dragging my feet. Whatever religions may say about the magnificence of the afterlife (I never hurt a fly, so I did not expect the unpleasant options) I would rather not jest with Death like Vogel was about to do.
“Wherever Employer goes…” he quoted from my contract and took the "driver's" seat.
“…there Employee shall follow within reason,” I quoted back, yet took the other seat, muttering a prayer for a good reincarnation.
Vogel programmed the machine and hit “enter”. The lights went out, there was the characteristic humming sound and I felt that I no more had to exert myself in order to pilot the vehicle of my life. The Cosmoscope made me accept anything that would come. I dropped thinking, feeling, even the woman of my heart and let myself be carried by this energy, leaving everything behind. The relief was indescribable.
Then suddenly I panic: all energy is leaving my body, I’m dying! I want to get off my seat but there is no reaction from the body. With my soul’s eyes, I can see it stripped to the seat, inert like a dummy. Then I see a tornado coming down on me, the “me” without the body, and it sucks me up into a tunnel. I am flying at an enormous speed and a review of my whole life begins: my friendships, love-affairs, parents and collaboration with Vogel. How I have been acquiring knowledge: what I accepted, what I rejected and the consequences thereof. The shaping of my thoughts, feelings, creed and system of values. My “deeds” in the world (not impressive) and my influence on History (extremely exiguous)… This, however, is a chronicle of Saul Vogel’s adventures, and suffice that these eye-openers were of great service to me later.

I reached the end of the tunnel, was thrown into a brightness and then I stopped. Vogel stopped by my side a moment later.
“Let’s see what we’ve got here,” he “said”. I could “hear” him mentally.
“Looking” around we saw ourselves hovering in space. Before us were thousands of space-holes, some shaped like wide gates, others like doors. From the “mouth” of the tornado, many radiant ameba-like beings were issuing; they floated in unending lines up to the gate-shaped holes in space and disappeared inside.
“The souls of fellow Earthlings recently deceased,” I “heard” Vogel “say” (from now on I drop the quotation marks). He focused on one of the gates, I followed and saw a stupa by the gate and prayer-mills, which the amoebae turned, as they were passing in.
“This is the door to the Buddhist afterlife, Master!” it dawned on me.
“I take the Buddhists, you take those,” he pointed out a much frequented gate and moved over to the Buddhists. I saw him barge into the line, turn the prayer-mills and vanish inside.

Something happened in my mind and I saw myself stopping before Lord Buddha.
“Welcome, Mr. Vogel, we don’t discourage tourism. Take any door you please,” Lord Buddha spoke and I realized that I was seeing through Vogel’s eyes.
Vogel thanked the Lord and moved on into a space with six doors, where he stopped, while the Buddhist souls, instructed by the Lord, were entering appropriate doors without hesitation.
“You still there?” Vogel nudged me into action, suddenly aware of my witnessing his embarras de richesse. I moved over to the indicated gate, adorned with the symbol of the Cross, and slipped into the line.

“Welcome, young man, we don’t discourage tourism. Take any door you please,“ Lord Jesus greeted me. I thanked Him and proceeded into a space with three doors. I hesitated a moment while the Christian souls, informed by the Lord, unhesitatingly choose appropriate doors.
I checked with Vogel: he was in the World of Hungry Ghosts, one of the six Karmic Worlds, and I stepped inside a door. It was Hell: screaming amoebae being boiled in bobbling cauldrons or tortured on racks, the devils filling up tar or poking the tormented with pitchforks. One saw me and approached, and I remembered what Lord Jesus told me.
“Just a tourist, sir.”
“Dante, Bosch, now him! Tourists be damned!”
He went away, pitchfork, hooves and all. I retreated to the doors, opened another one and found myself in Purgatory. The devils seemed nicer, the tar less hot and the racks less excruciating. Now and then an angel would appear, free a suffering ameba and take it… where indeed? I went out and took the last door.

What a bliss! I saw God Almighty on His throne surrounded by the Holy Family, the Holy Ghost and the nine Cherubic Choirs. I was so entranced that I would have stayed there for ever in contemplation of this vision were it not for an angel who came to fetch me to Paradise: a magnificent park where the amoebae were in a permanent state of ecstasy. They praised God, discussed the holy scene they had beheld at the entrance and waited for the Last Judgment.
I joined a group, which was exalting and glorifying the Lord, and was enjoying myself tremendously when Vogel switched on from the World of Gods, yet another of the Buddhist Karmic Worlds:
“Get your butt out of there!”
I forced myself to obey, returned to the gate, moved over to our point in space and met Vogel.

“I skipped Hell and the World of Animals,” he was referring to yet other Karmic Worlds. “Entry to the World of Man was denied, even though amoebae were getting in. Of this I conclude that we are still alive: obviously, you can’t be twofold in one and the same World. But look, there are the gates of Islam and Judaism,” he exclaimed with philosophical zeal. “I visit them both, you take these,” he indicated less frequented gates where the amoebae were trickling in only now and then.
The first gate led to the Inuit afterlife, the second to the hereafter of a group of South American rain-forest tribes, the third to the aftertime of the Dogons, in whose religion there is a link between the Earth and the star Sirius. Some Papuan, Siberian, Aborigine and Pacific eschatologies. This is not a treatise on religions, however, this is a report of one of Saul Vogel’s philosophical explorations.

I tried some gates, which were receiving no amoebae, and I found them closed. Symbols revealed them as belonging to forsaken religions: Inca, Aztec, Maya or that of Zeus, Mithras, Svantevit, Ammon, Odin, Marduk or Baal. Some bore nameplates of individuals who conformed to no mass faith and contrived personal creeds instead. Some belonged to philosophers. I tried Nietzsche, Aristotle and Spinoza but the doors were closed. I did look for a door with ΠΛΑΤΩΝ on the nameplate, but found only the gate of the Pythagorean Order. It did not budge, either.

I was getting mentally tired, so I moved back to our point in space. Vogel appeared soon and began to dole out new tasks. He wanted Anthroposophy for himself, and for me he chose two New Age cults. Having read about them, I knew what was in store. In one case, I would have to travel to the constellations of Pleiades and Orion and there to incarnate into some strange creatures. The second was an astrological sect, whose amoebae would take lessons on all the planets of our Solar System before reincarnating on Earth. I did not feel up to it, so I made a jocular counterproposition:
“What about yours and mine? Shall we find our little gates?”
“Right! Let’s see what afterlives we are preparing for ourselves and improve on them!”
He actually liked my suggestion, so I reminded him of our accord on overtime.
“This excursion qualifies as a unique event and not as the routine work described in the contract!” he protested, and a sound of a gong was heard.
“Saved by the bell, you lazy dog! The Cosmoscope is about to reverse the process.”

A moment later I was speeding back through the tornado. The wonderful feeling of being back in the body, as we stretch ourselves in the seats.
We eat supper and take a scotch on the porch, sipping and watching the sun go down.
“People think that the afterworld is given. Now a reasonable assumption can be made that we create it ourselves,” Vogel says, as the last rays disappear behind the trees.
“Only according to your machine, Master!”
“Machine or not, I advise against making this excursion public. Many people feel and believe that solely their particular religion is the true one. The author of Satanic Verses got on the black list of the Muslims. You might get on those of all creeds.”
“As the chronicler of your exploits I can’t keep a philosophical feat of that magnitude confidential.”
So here you are.

© Copyright by Peter Billig 2007.

THE VISIT

Peter Billig
THE VISIT

Summer afternoon, the sky is blue and without a cloud. The sprinkler is spattering in the garden; bees are humming and bumblebees buzzing, as they land on the hollyhocks by the window of my study. I am sitting at my desk with a drink close at hand, the fragrance of the freshly mown grass pleasantly mixing with the scent of rum. The computer is on but I have only contrived to write a few sentences, preferring to enjoy my satisfaction with a job at home, a little house of my own and no humans within miles and miles. I feel like writing an ode to the beauty of life.
Suddenly there is a noisy droning sound from above. I stick my head out of the window: a vehicle is hovering over my property! It is saucer-shaped and has four spidery legs. Now it is going down vertically and I see that it will be landing in the garden. And it does, one leg squashing the apple tree, another the arbor. On the fuselage, there is an inscription: DELTA ALPHA CENTAURI. “Planet Delta of the star Alpha in the constellation of Centaur,” I translate to myself.
A hatch is opened, a ladder lowered and two individuals step down – humanoid, four feet high. One is carrying an attaché-case; the other has a chocolate box size box on the chest. They are walking on the lawn towards the door!
I have an urge to jump out of the window and run as far as my legs would take me but I feel ashamed of myself and as I hear a knock I go to the door and open: two smiling countenances, red teeth in the dark blue mouths. Facial complexion: willow green.
They rock from side to side as a greeting. I bow and bid them in with my arm. They cross the threshold and wait for the second invitation. I usher them into the living room. They stop in the middle and the one with the box generates a series of squeaks:
“Hello, sir,” the box translates. “We’re from Delta with a request to you. My name’s Zyg and my colleague’s Xyg.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” I say and the box translates into squeaks. “Make yourselves comfortable. Coffee? Brandy?”
They take the armchairs and both squeak simultaneously:
Zyg said: Ask the ill,” the box translates and adds “From me: “It is a jocular Deltan saying, sir, a healthy Deltan takes drinks for granted. Coffee’s no good, but do you have Coca-Cola? Xyg said: Don’t call us gentlemen, call us gentlethirds. We belong to the third gender, unknown to you, Earthling. From me: Gentlethirds are fiercely proud of being gentlethirds, sir.”
There are colas in the fridge and Xyg would rather have whisky while Zyg is for vodka. “It’s a great day for Zyg and Xyg,” the box explains. “Finally, they’ve tasted cola and stuff they know only from your TV.”
“You receive our TV on your planet?”
“We’ve had relay stations on your Moon and on Pluto for some millennia, and now we are working on accessing your Internet. But I’m getting garrulous. Back to the purpose of our visit,” and the box utters a purposeful cough.
Zyg and Xyg, engrossed in depleting my bottles, channel their attention towards me:
“As we said,” Xyg says through the box, “we have a request. Our lately extra active sun Alpha has been blurring all transmissions from the relays for some months now. Can you tell us the results of the Bundesliga in week 18?” – the date is three months ago.
“Are we talking soccer?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry, gentlethirds, but I’m no sucker for soccer.”
A squeaking discussion – Zyg, Xyg and the box – ensues.
“Can you access this info on the Internet?” the box asks.
“I guess I could but, frankly, I wouldn’t know where to start.”
More squeaks ensue
“Zyg and Xyg say: This is highly unfortunate!”
“But what’s so significant about the Bundesliga? And for you Deltians, three light-years away?”
The guests look at each other in willow-green disbelief. Then more squeaks. Then the box:
“Xyg and Zyg say: you crazy? The bets are on and we have no results! From me: Delta is 4.3 light-years away from here.”
“You bet on our soccer?”
“Of course, sir, it’s the only way to ensure fairness. No Deltan can fix a sporting event on your planet, sir.” And the Deltans looked beseechingly at me.
“I’ve got it!” I explode tapping my forehead with my fist. “How could I forget? The paper!” and I go to the cellar where I retire my daily rag.
“Here it is,” I pass it to the box, having found the right paper and section. It scans it and says well for it.
“You mind we keep it as souvenir?”
I do not. The two Deltans get up, a bit shaky, and rock from side to side. I bow back and escort them to the entry where they stop and turn again to me.
“Gentlethirds,” I say, “how come you come three months after the games?”
“No use waiting longer: your sports event is an event of the moment. After a week or two nobody mentions it on TV. We understand it’s only accessible on the Web or on newspapers – a nostalgic way of accessing info, sir, for the Deltans.”
“No: how come you come in three months if your planet is 4.3 light-years away?”
“Oh, we use warp speed, of course. The TV signal from here is wrapped and warped over to Delta. Takes less time, sir.” And seeing my long face the box adds: “You know Star Trek, sir? It’s a source of many inventions on Delta. But now we are concerned with getting away before your armed forces descend on this place. We’ve alerted the radar, sir, I’m afraid.”
“Perhaps you stay and make your visit official?” I suggest.
Zyg and Xyg exchange squeaks.
“Zyg says: Not until you Earthlings stop killing each other. Xyg says: But keep on making entertaining TV shows for us!”
“I see.” I extend both arms to Xyg. The gentlethird extends his and I squeeze his eight-fingered hands. This I repeat with Zyg and I pat the box goodbye.
I open the door for them and Zyg remembers:
“Here is compensation for the damages in the garden.”
He dives in his attaché case and hands me a fistful of money. The notes are purple.
“It’s paper, sir, but it’s valid and it’s plenty,” the box explains and they leave.
I go to the study window to witness their departure. They climb the ladder and wave to me before disappearing inside the hatch. I wave back.
There is a loud droning noise, the vehicle takes off vertically and disappears in the blue sky.
Three minutes later the first Army helicopters arrive.
Only after midnight, when I finally am alone again, I have the leisure to examine the money.
There are ten notes. On one side, there are symbols and marks unknown to me, on the other there is an inscription in English: “The Deltan Central Credit Register certifies hereby that the bearer of this note owns 277 mental credits to be effectuated on Delta.”

Copyright © Peter Billig 2007