To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake
WALL
A Tale of Love, Sex, and Immortality
A novel by
Stan I.S. Law
SMASHWORDS EDITION
By INHOUSEPRESS, MONTREAL, CANADA
Copyright © eBook 2011 by Stanislaw Kapuscinski
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, titles, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Other eBooks by Stan I.S. Law:
CONTENTS
PART ONE THE ANKLE
Chapter 1. The Ankle
Chapter 2. The Lecture
Chapter 3. Autohypnosis
Chapter 4. More Lectures
Chapter 5. Ambrosia
Chapter 6. End of a Season
Chapter 7. Tunneling
Chapter 8. Psychokinesis
Chapter 9. Open Forum
Chapter 10. The Micro and the Macro
PART TWO AS GOOD AS IT GETS
Chapter 11. The Nectar
Chapter 12. At Thirty Thousand Feet
Chapter 13. Milos
Chapter 14. The Wedding
Chapter 15. Mitera
Chapter 16. Echoes
Chapter 17. The Lost Secret
Chapter 18. The Wall
Chapter 19. Devolution
Chapter 20. Goodbyes
PART THREE THE ESCAPE
Chapter 21. Little Girl
Chapter 22. Home
Chapter 23. More Walls?
Chapter 24. Prisons
Chapter 25. I Did It My Way
Chapter 26. More on Devolution
Chapter 27. The Carousel
Chapter 28. More about Mama
Chapter 29. More Tunneling
Chapter 30. Lazy
EPILOGUE
PART ONE THE ANKLE
You don’t go to heaven. You grow to heaven.
Edgar Cayce
Chapter 1.
In the Wild, Wild West men were men and women were what men wanted them to be. We all know that. What most of us don’t know is that in English Jesuit Colleges there were no women. Men in order to become men had to fight other men. They did so by playing rugby. Rugby, or rugger, is a game wherein men try to kill each other. The game is not unlike the American or Canadian Professional Football, but it is played without the benefit or protection of pads, helmets, or the game stopping every few seconds to collect the wounded.
In a Jesuit College, everybody was forced to play rugby. There were dozens of teams, but only one team represented the College. That was the First Sixteen. The best. The elite.
I’d managed to get into the First Sixteen. And that is how the story began. Almost. Actually it began a few thousand years ago, but, well, hear me out.
My ankle has been bothering me longer than I can remember. Even at school, Mt. Saint Ignatius College, in the Old Country where, as already mentioned, by sheer accident I’d made it into the First Sixteen Rugby team, my ankle would seize up, on occasion, quite unpredictably, without any apparent reason. Just, now and again, for a few seconds at a time.
Imagine, First Sixteen! That was as good as one could get. Prefects’ table in the Refectory, right-of-way down the long, cold, dank corridors; exemption from AROTC—the boy soldiers organization in the UK…
It made you something special.
Those were the days…
And then, within about three weeks, the stupid ankle went on the blink in earnest. Still only sporadically but, within a few months, the stiffness would last for minutes at a time. By the time it seized up for the third time in the middle of a game—that last time when I was about to score a try—my days of fame and glory were over. The SJs—that’s the Jesuits as in Society of Jesus for the uninitiated—sent me to the hospital in Sheffield. I’ve been examined within an inch of my life. Nothing at all.
NOTHING!? I could scream. I very nearly did.
“It must have been just one of those things,” said a frazzled looking intern. He’d sent for a resident.
“There is nothing wrong with your ankle, Mr. ah, Jones,” repeated the intern’s elder colleague, looking studiously at a series of X-rays. I was six-one, by then, weighing 220 pounds. In Canada, and just about everywhere in the world except for the States, that’s about 185 centimeters, and almost 84 kilos. The attending resident physician called me Mister. Then he glanced at my First Sixteen blazer and called in the Chief of Staff.
We waited a while until the illustrious orthopedic surgeon rolled into the examination room. At least he could have rolled in—he was fat enough. I wished then, as I do now, that physicians would set an example.
Never mind.
The solon confirmed both previous diagnoses. I was, he announced pontifically: “perfectly healthy, with, possibly a mild predisposition towards attacks of hysteria.”
I was big enough to slog the pompous jackass. I didn’t. To this day I wonder why.
Some years later, there have been times, months at a time, when I would walk normally and then, when crossing the street, or raising my foot to the break pedal on my old Chevy, my ankle would seize up. It wouldn’t bend. Solid as a rock. Minute of two later, little cold ants would crawl down from just below my knee… they would descend, lethargically, effortlessly, to restore the flexibility in my lower joint.
I was glad when finally, on arrival in Canada, I could drive an automatic, thus treating my left foot as an appendage dedicated to walking only. Even if, occasionally, with a limp. Sometimes. However, no break pedal (or had it been the clutch, I don’t remember), and certainly, no rugby exacerbated my condition.
Year after year I’d visited orthopedic surgeons, later physiotherapists. They x-rayed my foot more often than any man in the history of the Montreal General Hospital.
“Sorry, Mr. Jones, ah, Professor, but as I told you before, there is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with your foot. Nothing at all, Mr. Jones.”
Yes. Professor. I think that did it—my becoming a professor, I mean. Specifically, professor associated with comparative religion, hence Associate Professor. Just kidding. Since three years ago, I have been appointed Associate Professor at the Department of Religious Studies. The day after my appointment, my ankle seized up for a week. Yes, I had to walk with a cane. There was little pain, but the discomfort made up for it. Try walking without bending your ankle.
I suppose I have the SJs to thank for that. Not for the stiff ankle only for the professorship. I matriculated with distinction in religion. No other distinctions—just religion. The other distinguished marks were mostly passes, some with credits. To this day I have no idea why I found religion so… absorbing?
Actually, I do. It must have been to avoid the strap. In those days, the Jesuits were strong advocates of corporal punishment, a method of persuasion I was never enamoured with. By being a scholar of religious subjects, I must have been assumed to be a practitioner of them. By excelling in religion they, the SJs, practically left me alone.
Actually, I only got down to religion, in earnest, after I got kicked out of the First 16. The ankle, remember? Before then, the ‘colours’, as they were called, gave me sufficient protection.
They must have hammered the history of the Church, Apologetics, and all the peripheral religious subjects, well into my youthful head. Daily Mass—attendance compulsory—with occasional Vespers, Confirmations, a funeral or two, took care of the liturgy. The moment I left college, I checked out other religions to see if any of the stuff I’d learned made any sense to other people. The pagan. The unbelievers. To the sheep from other stables.
Other folds?
After a little while, I found it quite fascinating to learn that people will believe anything if you repeat it to them a sufficient number of times. When civil authorities do so, it’s called brainwashing. Solzhenitsyn explained that. When a Church, any church, does it… well, you know the answer. Obey or you’re on a one-way ticket to hell.
My reasons notwithstanding, I now had a good base for Comparative Religion. After only three years of post-grad, that is Canada already, I became accredited at the McGill University of Montreal.
That only left me with my hysterical ankle. I wondered if I should test myself for excessive female hormones. No offence, but hysteria is supposed to be a woman’s prerogative. Men should have prostraria, or something like that. Really.
Still as a student, I decided to take my ankle into my own hands. No pun intended. I tried massages, salt baths, soaks, compresses, eastern teas, effusions and other concoctions, powdered Chinese extracts, and a dozen of more esoteric cures. I got pretty serious.
They all worked—until the next time. Until the next time I raised my leg to step down from anything and landed flat on my face. And that wasn’t the half of it.
I’ve also lost a lot of weight since my Rugby days. Once a solid 215-220 lbs., now a slim 185—mostly to take the weight off my ankle. It didn’t help. The fair sex must have preferred my previous macho contours, or… it could have been my ankle, but my social life was somewhere between dismal and none. My dating was limited to one dinner per month or two, no dancing, no romantic walks in the park, and a lot of prayer that I might make it to my car without tripping over my own legs. Actually it never happened, yet, but I developed an acute case of cold feet. Ankles. One ankle.
The very thought of what might happen if the stupid joint would seize up was enough to keep me glued to my TV set when others, my colleagues, were scoring with the chicks. I must have been the most frustrated senior student in the history of McGill.
I remember, on one occasion, I got as far as the girl’s bedroom. Actually my bedroom, but with a girl in it. She in her late teens, cute, slim, well equipped, looking experienced (probably was)—I desperately trying to lose my virginity.
It was a case of now or never.
I was doing all right. We finished our drinks, together. I offered another, she declined. I slipped next to her, on the sofa, my hand finding its way along her slim leg, upwards, slowly, very slowly, insinuating itself where it oughtn’t. She responded by leaning back, tilting her head backwards, her lips parted, inviting.
This was in the days when I still lived in a bed-sitter. I still had muscles from my Rugby days. I lifted her in my arms to deposit her on the bed. I didn’t quite make it. At least, my ankle didn’t. We both landed on the sideboard. Don’t laugh. She twisted her… ankle!
A message from the gods?
If there were any justice in the world, she would have twisted something else. On top of it all, by the time I picked her off the floor, my ankle was perfectly all right. My ankle, not hers. That was the last time I’d invited a girl, a woman, to my digs.
For the next three weeks my ankle behaved itself. I almost forgot I had a problem. Then, must have been a month or so later, I repeated my performance in a different girl’s bedroom. Yes, this time I actually got to her digs. It was great fun until I tried my macho lifting trick. At least his time it was her elbow, not her ankle. Things got quiet after that. Quiet for quite a while. In fact, more or less, until I finished my post-grads.
Two years later, after I got, what I’d hoped would have become, my tenure, I met Ambrosia. Yes, I know what it means: nectar of the Gods. I only caught a glimpse of her, but right there and then, I’d be willing to drink anything she’d deign to offer me, a mere mortal. Anything.
Well, all right.
I hadn’t actually met her. I’d fallen down the stairs at her feet. She hadn’t said anything. At least, I don’t think she had. I wasn’t quite myself.
As an associate professor, I now rent a one-bedroom apartment, on the 26th floor, overlooking Mount Royal. A beautiful view. A view specifically designed for seduction. For making love without having to draw curtains.
High up, among the gods…
Only the gods I’ve studied all my life weren’t on my side. Perhaps they didn’t like anyone peeking into their private business. The SJs hadn’t told me that. The apartment is still waiting to lose its virginity.
For weeks after the Ambrosia incident, I’d lie staring at the ceiling, trying to recall the goddess I’d fallen into. Onto? She was tiny, a Dresden Figurine, dark long hair, dark complexion, as though she’d just descended from Olympus where she was basking in close proximity of the sun. Icarus, eat your heart out.
Some months later I ventured into hypnosis. Self-hypnosis was the last hope for my ankle. If that didn’t work, I’d be destined to remain a virgin for life. I’m sure no goddess would tolerate such grievous prostrarical imperfections in mortals. Prostraria, remember? Masculine hysteria.
I bought a book in a second-hand shop on St-Catherine. Judging by its cover, it’s been used by a number of men. People? I suppose women may well have had psychosomatic problems as well as men. Although no physician, other than the rotund surgeon, ever said so, I now firmly believed that my ankle’s misbehaviour had been in some form psychosomatic. I looked it up in the dictionary:
1. of or pertaining to a physical disorder that is caused by, or notably influenced by, emotional factors.
2. pertaining to, or involving, both the mind and the body.
As by now it was obvious, even to me, that my ankle problem did not have physiological origins, I was either mad or there was some kind of psychosomatic base to my problems.
I once read about a case of man who walked with a limp. Like in the case of my ankle, he had been examined a number of times by professionals, and nothing could be uncovered that could in any way cause him to limp.
Finally he went to a hypnotist.
After a few sessions under expert hypnotic regression, the doctor discovered that once, during an operation—while under anesthetic—which his patient had some 12 years ago, one of the residents assisting in the operation mentioned that the patient might have to “learn to live with a limp”. The poor fellow had learned to limp in order to stay alive. He continued limping until a skilled hypnotist cleaned up his memory of the event. After that, he never limped again.
It appeared that while his body, and presumably his conscious mind, were subject of anesthetic, his subconscious remained receptive. Perhaps it never slept. Perhaps at some level we have inner bodies that do not need sleep. I wondered if Dr. Steiger knew about that. He could put the subconscious body on his divan and pretend that it’s asleep.
It seemed that the self-hypnosis I’ve been practicing was intended to teach me how to program my subconscious to act in accordance with its dictates even when fully awake. Like the man with the limp had.
The problem was that I never had an operation on any of my extremities. Yet my ankle liked to act up. On occasion. When I least expected it.
Ah, yes. Dr. Steiger was the resident psychiatrist at the McGill. You haven’t met him yet? Perhaps you’re lucky.
Chapter 2
The amphitheater was filled to the brim. Usually religion was not a subject to fill all the seats, but, for some reason, I appeared to have been recognized as a lecturer of repute, and in the opinion of my colleagues, endowed with a good sense of humour. Others gave me other reasons.
“C’mon, Sy, anyone with your looks could fill anything to the brim. I bet your bed is never empty.”
Little did they know?
Nevertheless, for reasons I couldn’t quite understand, I was referred to as a ‘looker’. Whether it was my six-one, my shoulders, which must have developed during my Rugby days, or generally my sporty appearance, I have no idea. I didn’t dress in any natty clothes, didn’t even attempt to make eye contact with the fair sex, nor did I even remember to comb my hair properly. I was dabbed a ‘looker’, and that was that. Some 80% of the amphitheatre attendees were women. Young, many beautiful, blonds, brunettes, redheads, (is there any other?); fresh looking women. I wondered how many would remain if they knew that I was a, you know… a virgin. Well, they were not about to find out from yours truly. The few men who expressed interest in my lectures have relegated themselves to the back row. They seemed as shy as I was. Or appeared to be.
The subject of today’s lecture was the four-fold nature of man. Man being, of course, a generic term, though in this company it made me vaguely uncomfortable.
Did you ever try to deliver a lecture when some hundred and fifty young, attractive women are staring at you? Once, still at St. Ignatius, when I had to play my violin in front of an audience of parents at the annual concert, my professor told me to imagine the whole public being naked. It was funny, at the time. Now, the idea filled me with panic. One hundred and fifty naked women. In front of me. Staring.
HELP!
I drank three glasses of water before I could utter a word. For the rest of the lecture I desperately tried to keep my bladder under control.
For the umpteenth time, I cleared my throat.
Most of us are aware of the four aspects of the nature of man.
At last I said it, glancing judiciously at the carafe, which my assistant filled with fresh water. He must have thought I was seriously dehydrated. The very sight of more water made me a bit uncomfortable.
The silence stretched.
There are four Kalpas;
Four horses of the apocalypse;
Four man in the fiery pit of Nebuchadnezzar;
There are four aspects of the Egyptian Sphinx;
There are echoes elsewhere in the Old Testament, including the Genesis;
There are others.
This was too much for one lecture. I’ve spent years studying this. I wondered how many of my listeners would notice that two references concern the whole human race, and all others just the individuals. I also wondered if I remembered them all myself.
The Kalpas originate in Esoteric Buddhism. A Kalpa is a day, or a night, of Brahma. It also means an eon, or age. A thousand yuga cycles of 4,320,000 year each is called a Kalpa. Thus a Kalpa is 4,320,000,000 years, which is pretty close to the 4.5 billion years stipulated by our scientists for the age of our planet.
Puranas, however, had been completed between 400 to 1500 CE, ah… Era Vulgaris (I allowed myself a slight smirk, with SJs I had a grounding in Latin), ah… Common Era, some little time before our present day cosmologists came to the same, or at least a very similar, conclusion.
I looked around. I had their attention.
There are minor distinctions between Hindu, Jain and Buddhist cosmology. The Buddhists also divide their existence into four periods of time corresponding to the four stages; into the cycle of formation, continuance, decline, and disintegration.
The Hindus call those periods the golden age, which is followed by the silver, the bronze and the iron. As in the Bible, in the Torah or the Pentateuch, better known as the Old Testament, we start with the spiritual age, in Eden, and then, slowly descend to our present, materialistic level. That’s right. We devolve. The age of Kali, the last and the most materialistic age, is followed by the dissolution of the universe.
Before I realized the dangers inherent in my action, I sipped—no drank—another glass of water. Well, half a glass. For some reason my throat was parched. Can the mere presence of 150 women parch your throat?
It bloody-well can, if you’re a virgin.
This thesis is backed up in Jainism and, of course, the Christian religion accepts the concept of the end of the world. At least in Jainism there is also a concept of renewal, allowing for rotational progression of various stages. So don’t worry. Both the Hindus and the Jains think of the creation and the dissolution of the universe as a cyclic process.
I glanced at my audience. They seemed spellbound. Almost scared. I couldn’t help smiling. I was beginning to gain some confidence. Some. On the other hand, it’s just possible that they haven’t understood a single word. I was well aware that the info I was presenting sounded disjointed. For some reason, I just couldn’t concentrate.
We might be well advised to think of the universe as a state of consciousness. From the material point of view, it is already essentially empty space. It’s not there, really.
Not really.
A hand went up.
“Yes?” I might as well ask what bothered the listener, I mused.
And then I froze. The hand belonged to the young lady who acted as my cushion on my stair-fall. It belonged to Ambrosia. I swallowed hard. I suddenly realized that I didn’t even know her surname. She had been addressed as Ambrosia by the man who’d helped her up. I remembered her name because of the drink. The drink of the Gods on Olympus? At the time, I had been too busy trying to extricate myself from an embarrassing situation and make a quick getaway.
“Yes?” I repeated. I was going to mention her name but thought better of it. The last thing I wanted was to make this personal.
“Professor Jones, Sir, are you referring to interstellar space as being empty?”
“Well, I, ah… why do you ask?” I was going to say innocently “and you are…?” but I didn’t dare. She might have replied with a question “haven’t we already met?”
“Because, Sir, I thought you might be referring to the void at the nuclear level where the atoms themselves are well in excess of 99% empty space.”
“And you are…?” I couldn’t resist it.
“My name is Milos. Ambrosia Milos. I am a post-grad at the physics department. Just visiting…”
Her voice trailed off. Could it be that she didn’t remember me? Not recognize me? Suddenly, solid or void, the universe was more inviting. My mind was working overtime. Ernest Rutherford Physics Building at McGill University on, ah… 3600 rue University… Department of Physics… McGill University... I walked past it every day on my way home.
“Of course, you are. I mean…” My mouth was dry again. “I was really referring to it in, ah, more metaphysical terms.” I raised one eyebrow. I had no idea what I had been referring to.
“Thank you, Professor,” the young lady replied.
“Thank you, Miss Milos,” I offered, accenting the ‘you’.
Actually, questions were always welcome. They made otherwise dry lectures more alive.
Milos. Wasn’t there a Milosz? A Polish Nobel Prize recipient for literature? Or was he Czech? Or Russian? Was she Greek or Slav?
I dabbed my forehead with my handkerchief. People who only use paper tissues had never given a lecture. Not to one hundred and fifty women with a goddess named Ambrosia in the third row. If it hadn’t been for my bladder, I would have downed another glass or two.
Why did I venture into this empty space business? It had nothing to do with the subject matter. Well, not much. I had to extricate myself from the hole I’ve dug for myself.
It is well to remember that most scriptures treat material reality as a temporal manifestation of various states of consciousness. This applies to us, humans, and to the environment in which we have our being. Becoming.
Becoming—I corrected myself. Being will be were we’ll be, hopefully, after the dissolution. We? Some of us. Those of us who make the grade.
What the devil am I thinking about?
Thus, the golden age represents the time when we abide in spiritual consciousness. This is followed by mental, emotional and finally, material or materialistic consciousness, as in the present Kali Yuga.
Was I making sense? The faces were all turned towards me. I didn’t dare to look at the goddess in case our eyes met. The other eyes looked attentive.
The same may be extrapolated from the Old Testament, in the Hebrew Bible. We start at the spiritual level, enjoying the fullness of Eden, in a carefree existence, probably beyond time. Then… Well, the mental and the emotional states seem combined in the process of reaching out for knowledge. The tree of knowledge represents the mental state, the temptation the emotional one.
Somewhere in-between we were given skins. Those probably represent all three: the mental, emotional and the physical bodies. It is interesting to note that the emotional lifespan is represented by a number of ancient men, all exhibiting longevity well beyond that defined by our telomeres, ah, the sequences at the ends of our chromosomes.
My mind was wandering. It was her fault. She needn’t have interrupted. By Jove, she was beautiful! Or should I have said by Zeus?
You’ll find them listed in the Book of Genesis. The ancient sages, not the telomeres.
There was a short intake of air, followed by equally short giggle. I chose to ignore it.
While Abraham, the father of a multitude, had been, ah, rewarded with long life of some 175 years, his longevity pales when compared to biblical accounts of Adam, who is reputed to have lived 930 years, Seth 912 years, Enos 905 years, Cainan 910 years, Mahalaleel 895 years, Jared 962 years; and record is held by Methuselah, who was allotted 969 years.
If we were to take the Bible literally, wouldn’t you say that God shortchanged Abraham rather than reward him?
I was rewarded with blank stares. No comments. Probably not funny. Were those people all ardent believers?
We can reasonably safely assume that the longevity refers to life in bodies very different from those we are blessed with presently. I’d suggest that the Bible is talking about, what we nowadays refer to as astral, or emotional bodies.
The lecture went on for another hour. I mentioned, little more than peripherally, that the four horses of the Apocalypse represent the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical make up of man.
“Woman,” I assured them, “I use the term ‘man’ generically.” Every single one sitting out there, in front of me, I thought.
No, note that they were horses, but that we choose which horse to ride. Should I have told them that?
Then I told them that in the fiery pit of Nebuchadnezzar—the three men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, also represent our emotional, physical and mental nature, which all had been thrown into the fiery pit, and only survived because their spiritual counterpart, the fourth man, appeared.
Although Noah neither burned nor drowned his sons, they, too, stood for the same three components. The Bible tends to repeat itself.
I saw some heads nodding.
“I’ll tell you a story about Edgar Cayce,” I changed tack. “He was known to have read his Bible round and round, never putting it down for long. When asked which was the best version of the Bible to read, he seemed lost. ‘Which version, he asked? There is no version. The whole Bible says only one thing. Love thy God and thy neighbour as thyself. The rest of the Bible just tells us how.’”
For a while there was silence. I wondered how many of my listeners would accept that this was what all the great scriptures taught. Regardless of religions that sprang from them, of organizations that have been built on their misinterpretation, of the murders committed in the name of those very same scriptures.
“It seems to me that most of us only recognize the three aspects of our nature, omitting the white horse all together.”
Did I go too far? Even to me it sounded like preaching.
Finally I told them that although in the Bible Egypt symbolizes limitation, and the Pharaoh our “lower-self”, the Sphinx, nevertheless, indicated that Egyptians were in possession of deeper knowledge. The Sphinx has the body of an animal, the head of a man, with a little serpent on his forehead. While the animal stood for the physical body, the head and face were indicative of the emotional and mental nature, while the little adder represented spiritual power.
I could see by the blank stare of some of my listeners that it was time to call it a day.
“The next lecture in the series will take place next Thursday, same time. You are all welcome,” I said with a forced smile. I wasn’t pleased with myself. My thoughts weren’t organized.
For the first time I dared to glance at Ambrosia. She seemed busy packing her stuff into an enormous bag. She was facing away from me, as though on purpose. Avoiding my eyes? What I saw was the luster of rich, cascading hair, flowing onto her shoulders. I’ve never seen hair that rich in texture. In spite of the raven colour, they also seemed to carry overtones of fresh chestnut, of deep brown, as though flames reflected in them.
I must have been dreaming.
I had little to pick up. I sat down and reached for the glass of water. In that instant I remembered my bladder, which, till this very moment, behaved itself. Now, the very sight of the liquid forced me to run for my life. Well, walk fast, while leaving all my stuff on the lectern. I made it to the men’s room just in time. No one has any idea what pleasure is until they delivered an hourly lecture on three, large, glasses of water. Soon I felt as light as a feather. Almost light-hearted. I felt I could climb Mount Olympus.
I might have to, I realized, the moment I retuned. The theater was almost empty. Ambrosia was still packing her things. I wondered what things she brought to my lecture. No matter, I picked up my stuff, drank one glass just to be on the safe side, and made my way down the three steps. I didn’t fall. My ankle was at its best behaviour. By now she was facing me.
“Ernest Rutherford Physics Building is on my way home,” was my inspired opener.
“Hi,” was her rejoinder. “Nice to see you standing up,” she said without looking up.
So she did recognize me. Damn! I swallowed hard. It was easy after all that water.
“I’m sorry about that.” What else was there to say?
“Are you?”
Only now she looked up. You should have seen those eyes from up close. They drew me in with the power of… I have no idea of what. They were dark, brown, and green, and hazel, hell… they had all the colours bottled up… I wished I had my glass with me. I would have drunk the whole Aegean Sea. Isn’t that where goddesses come from? She must be Greek, I thought. Aren’t all goddesses Greek? Except for the Roman and Scandinavian ones, of course. But not with those eyes.
“Wouldn’t you rather have a spot to eat, Professor? Unless you eat late, I make it almost dinnertime,” she said with those eyes still staring at me.
“Simon,” I said, putting my hand on the edge of the bench for balance. I was playing safe with my ankle.
“Ambrosia,” she said, offering me her hand.
It was small, like the rest of her, with an amazingly strong grip. She saw my surprise.
“Tennis,” she said. “Twice a week.”
I made a mental note to learn to play tennis.
We sat and talked till about eleven. Actually, she talked, I mostly listened. Except to answer her questions. I learned about the Greek Islands, about the way the sea changes colour during the day. I learned a little about the post-grad course she was taking, mostly quantum mechanics, she said.
“Quantum mechanics is more like religion than religion,” she said, smiling. She did that a lot. Smiling. Her teeth were white, all equal, obviously placed in her mouth by an expert divine dentist. Nothing in nature could be that perfect. Except for her lips. And hair. And I told you about her eyes.
“I think we’d better leave the subject for the next time, don’t you?” She glanced at her watch.
“Next time,” I repeated. “Yes. Yes, the next time. Tomorrow?”
She treated me to those perfect teeth again.
“I have lectures till four.”
Everything she said was quite natural. I felt as though we knew each other for years. Years and years.
“I’ll pick you up at the Rutherford Building?”
She nodded.
“Shall I take you home?” I judiciously omitted to define which home. Hers or mine. Don’t I wish!
The eyes said yes, but her mouth denied me. “I must spend about an hour at the lab.” She glanced at her watch. “The results should be in about now. Something I started a week ago.” She head-pointed behind her. “Just across the street.”
I couldn’t sleep that night. I kept tossing and turning, wondering what makes a beautiful woman go out to a dinner, without any apparent reason, furthermore with a man who had already proven himself to be not quite in command of either his senses or his ankle.
There was no doubt that she was beautiful. Although we stayed away from her particular expertise, quantum physics, she’d proven to be a delightful raconteur, a scintillating dinner companion with a well-developed sense of humour. Her stories about Milos, and the attendant multitude of gods kept me glued to her every word for more than two hours.
Her home was a volcanic Greek Island in the Aegean Sea. The island was famous, (alas not to me), for its statue of Aphrodite, known to us as Venus de Milo, now gracing the Louvre (this I knew). What is less known is that the island also famed for the statues of Poseidon, the Greek god Asclepius, now in the British Museum, and the archaic Apollo, presently in Athens.
The small island, of less then 5000 inhabitants, covers little more than 60 square miles of the Aegean Sea, just north of the Sea of Crete.
Until she turned sixteen, she lived exclusively on the island. She never saw any reason to leave it, let alone to live elsewhere.
“When you’re in heaven, you are not inclined to descend to the lands of the mortals,” she mentioned over the Balaklava, which see considered a must for topping off a dinner.
I listened, spellbound, watching the images she painted with well-chosen words. For all I knew, before she had taken up physics, she may have been a poet, or whatever goddesses did in their spare time.
When I finally succumbed to Morpheus, I spent my chimerical hours trying to restore the arms and legs to Venus de Milo. To Venus of Milos, my personal goddess’s home. I was still doing it when I woke up next morning.
Chapter 3.
I started with my right toe. Then moved towards my heel and instep, towards my ankle, simultaneously. Slowly, all the time breathing easily, my mind visualized my calf, my shin, lingered at the knee (twisted it once, badly, playing rugger); then proceeded up along my right thigh towards my right buttock. I repeated the same mental examination of my left leg, this time lingering longer at my left ankle, the motivation and the purpose of my contemplation.
My legs relaxed, my mind swept over my torso, upwards, then draining all imaginary tension down, through my arms, hands and fingertips. By the time I reached up to relax my neck, I felt an overwhelming desire to forget the rest of my anatomy, and just take a nap.
With an effort of will I completed the instructions by relaxing my jaw, cheeks, eyes, and yes, even ears and the top of my head, all the time telling myself that I am slowly descending into a blissful, idyllic, state of hypnosis. Perfect. It really worked. Right?
Wrong.
I fell into deep sleep. The book I got warned me about it. Relaxed but alert, it repeated. Relaxed but alert.
“Easy for you to say, Mr. LeCron.” He wrote the book I read. He was a clinical psychologist. It said so on the cover. The book was called Self Hypnotism. The subtitle said: “The Techniques and Its Use In Daily Living.”
Just what I needed. To be in a hypnotic trance in my daily life. Frankly, that only happened when I looked at Ambrosia. She had that effect on me.
This was my first attempt at relaxation after I read two other books on self-hypnosis that served mostly to confuse me. Finally I found something that seemed to work.
Next time I tried my exercises I managed to maintain a reasonable balance between my body, sending it into a deep state of relaxation, and my mind, which became carefree but aware.
Having reached, what I thought was, a desired state of repose, I used the fingers of my left hand to measure the depth of my ‘trance’.
I posed the questions and expected my fingers to answer them.
“On the scale of three feet, have I reached the first 12 inches?”
If my index finger moved, seemingly of its own accord, the answer was: YES. If the middle finger moved it meant: NO. I would repeat the question, this time examining the 12 to 24 inches range.
I don’t know if I was clear in all this, but I was determined to reach a positive answer somewhere between 24 and 36 inches. 36 inches would indicate a deep, deep, blissful state of hypnosis. Around 30 wouldn’t be bad either. According to the book I could stick needles into my chest and not feel a thing. Providing I told myself not to, of course.
It may sound easy. It wasn’t. All too often neither of the two fingers moved. Instead my pinky would show signs of life. Unfortunately it meant: “DON’T KNOW”. I never realized my body could be that ignorant.
I continued my practice, desperately trying not to fall asleep. As I said, it wasn’t easy.
I don’t know…
My body wasn’t the only part of me that was pretty ignorant.
I began to wonder what to do with the rest of my life. An Associate Professor could spend the rest of his life drawing a half-decent salary, certainly better than my father had done, and keep teaching whatever I’d taught the previous year. The problem with teaching Comparative Religion was the same as with teaching history. You lived in the past. You could not go back in time to change things, so that you could teach something new. I often wondered how the teachers of history managed to stay mentally alert year after year. I’ve only spent three years teaching my stuff, and already I needed to breathe deeper.
It wasn’t that the subject lost its interest for me. I filed it among my favourite items of information as an art collector would his favourite paintings. If only one could discover something new, really new, about the past. I felt sure that what we knew of history was, must have been, at least in places, distorted. The truth often is. When we find it inconvenient, we nudge bits and pieces, to make them fit our idea of what the picture of the past should have been.
“History According to Jones.”
“Life According to Garp,” as in John Irving's novel. In novels you could make up history as you went along. In real life it was harder. People might believe you.
I knew from my study of symbolism that most churches, indeed, it is safe to say all of them, played the nudging game. For obvious reasons, my knowledge of symbolic meaning hidden, or veiled, in the Old and the new Testaments, vastly exceeded that of other religions. But even ignoring the etymological roots of various words derived from some twenty ancient, mostly extinct languages that remained not translated in the Bible for over two thousand years, there was the problem of separating myths from reality. In the English version of the Apostles’ Creed consisting of 108 words, for instance, only 14 words dealt with historical reality, the rest… well, the rest were myth. That didn’t make them untrue, it just makes them well, mythology. As in Greek, and Roman and Hindu and Egyptian mythology.
And I, Associate Professor of Comparative Religion, was destined not only to compare the various historical facts, but the validity and gravitas of various myths.
Shouldn’t myths be questions of faith?
And then I had an idea.
What if our subconscious was a depository of all the facts that touched our lives from the time we emerged from primordial slime? If not, I’d settle for the period beginning when we became humanoids. Upright. Like apes, I mean, like early humans. What if all the knowledge that touched our lives were to have been stored, diligently, indelibly, in our neurons, our cells, our genes? Or whatever is the physical equivalent of our subconscious.
Then, I thought… then the only thing we would have to do is to gain access to our subconscious.
That’s all, folks!
What if I were a genius capable of such a feat?
Hypnosis? Autohypnosis? Deep trance?
A very, very, very deep trance? I’d probably need help.
I leaned back on the pillows and started relaxing. I had a choice to keep my errant ankle as the principle motivation in my self-hypnotic studies, or…
Would it really be possible?
I decided to discuss the issue with Dr. Steiger, MD, Ph.D, FRCP, and God knows what other qualifications. He was the lecturer at the Department of Medicine at McGill, with a reputation of solid professionalism. He was also a psychologist and psychiatrist. That says it all, doesn’t it? I haven’t met him, except in passing, but I felt sure the he, as a certified psychiatrist, must have an opinion on the subject.
I made an appointment to see him the following day, at noon, just after his lecture. I found him in his office, shuffling some papers. Dr. Steiger MD. etc, etc, was a short, slightly plump man, with bald head, which seemed to shine wisdom at all who came into his presence. He held himself very straight, adding himself an extra inch or so to his height. He got up as I came in, and came round his desk to shake hands with me. Nice man, I thought. Polite. I noted that his heels were also of a slightly exaggerated height. Lifts, I think they’re called. Poor guy, I thought.
“And what can I do for you, Dr. Jones?” he asked affably.
“Information, Dr. Steiger. I feel I’m in great need of information, I replied.”
“And how long do you feel that way, Dr. Jones? May I call you Simon?
“Of course. About two days. I felt that you might be able to help me.”
“Well, I don’t usually do consultations in this office, but since you’re a colleague and are already here… Perhaps you would like to make yourself comfortable on the divan?”
“Thank you Dr. Steiger, I’m quite comfortable right here.”
“Of course you are. Nevertheless, I’d prefer you to lie down…”
“Dr. Steiger. I didn’t come to consult you in your professional capacity. I mean not as a psychiatrist.”
“You came to ask me about a problem your friend has, am I right?”
I gave up. The man was either crazy or thought that I was.
“Could you just answer me yes or no? How much of our past is stored in our subconscious? Do we know? Alternatively, is there a way of finding out?”
“And just what is it from your past, ah, Simon, that you wish to find out?”
“I was trying to remember why I bothered to come here,” I replied and got up. “It’s been nice meeting you, Dr. ahhh, Steiger. Very nice indeed. I shall recommend you to anyone wishing to learn something from their past.”
With that I got up, bowed slightly on my way out, and closed the door quietly behind me. Do you blame me?
So much for expert opinions.
My alternative was the Internet. Unfortunately, I read somewhere, probably on the Internet, that there, on the public worldwide computer network system, I could or would only find liars, bad liars and experts. In that diminishing order. I was alone.
I dug deeper into my books. I was fairly sure that my subconscious was the repository of past experiences. Only two questions remained. One, how distant past was recorded, and two, would I be able to recall it without resorting to outside help. The last thing I needed was another session with a doctor Steiger, or some self-styled hypnotist, who was trying to make extra money in addition to his nightclub act.
While as far as my own, very private past was concerned I trusted few people to start with, it was a no-no for anyone who wouldn’t swear on all that they held holy to remain secret. At moments like these, I missed not having my family with me. Dad, or Mom, or even my sister, would help me. They may not have been trained in my self-imposed disciplines, including self-hypnosis, but they were my people. People I could trust. Always. I promised myself to call them more often, perhaps fly over to visit them?
Just for fun. For family’s sake.
There was, of course, Ambrosia. A girl, a woman, I knew virtually nothing about, yet towards whom I felt an affinity as I did to my own mother or sister. Only it felt much, much more personal. Oh, all right—and much more sexually potent.
Could I ask Ambrosia to become the confessor of my past? In the first instant I would have to regress myself sufficiently to find out what the devil made my ankle behave the way it did. If that worked, we would, or could, go on. The very idea that I could separate myths from reality in my own field gave me a thrill I could hardly contain. I needed to share this concept with someone. Anyone.
With Ambrosia?
Only she was busy with her own work, apparently much more busy than I, though she did say she’d see me tomorrow. And then I’d see her at my next lecture. She was bound to come, although I never asked her why she chose to attend my lectures to start with. From what little we talked, to date, she struck me as a free thinker, not tied down to any particular articles of faith. A bit like me.
Suddenly it stuck me that although we already shared a meal, I continued to know virtually nothing about her. I’d learned a little about Greece, about her island, but I knew next to nothing about her interests, nothing about her personal life, little about her likes and dislikes. What if a boyfriend was waiting for her on Milos? A fiancé? What if she was married, mother of five children?
Our first date, if one could call it that, was a whirlwind of first impressions, a galaxy of restrained emotions, which I, at least, had to hold on a tight leash. All I really remembered were her eyes, her lips, her… her presence. The rest was a euphoric blur.
Chapter 4.
The Hindus start, as do the Jains, at the very top, in a glorious Golden Age, Satya Yuga, more accurately—the Age of Truth.
There were as many people as last week, but my goddess, seemingly, disappeared. The day following our dinner we did share a glass of wine, but Ambrosia seemed rushed, unsettled, as though something was praying on her mind. I didn’t feel empowered to ask her directly what was wrong. After all, it was only my feeling that registered her discomfort. For all I knew, she may well have been like that most of the time. For all of the three or four hours that we knew each other, we were still strangers.
Even as I began my lecture my eyes continued to search the amphitheatre. She was nowhere to be seen. I knew that she would be busy with her atoms and quarks for some time, she told me as much, but I never imagined she’d miss my seminar. Obviously, there was a great deal I had to learn about women. Or it could have been just my ego that suffered.
This age of bliss and beauty is by far the longest of the four ages of the Maha Yuga, and lasts 1,728,000 years. I would suggest it is equivalent to the period humanity had spent in Eden. Let us not forget, that Eden means delight or pleasantness. Dr. Carl Jung postulates that the “condition of delight” is a state of consciousness wholly dependent on instinct. One immersed in such a condition cannot “contemplate a desire that is not part of his or her nature, and thus is capable of neither good nor evil. Hence the condition of pleasantness.”
My fingers were busy inscribing inverted comas in the air. A latecomer slipped into a vacant seat at the back of the hall. No, it wasn’t her. Goddesses wouldn’t sit at the back.
The Satya Yuga is followed by Treta Yuga, the Silver Age, during which we are still blessed with considerable virtue and beauty for the next 1,296,000 years. Then things begin to deteriorate more rapidly. We lose a lot of our spiritual values and seem to straddle the ethical fence. This Bronze Age, the Dwapara Yuga, lasts for 864,000 years.
Who cares how long it lasts? I really thought she’d enjoy this lecture. This time I came better prepared. I had a screen and a projector, with nice diagrams and other illustrations.
I was about to give up. I couldn’t, of course. Frankly, a hundred and fifty women should be enough for any man. There must have been that many, although there seemed to be more men this time.
Mercifully, the last age, in which humanity sinks to the lowest level and is steeped in materiality and egotism, is shortened to 432,000 years only. It is appropriately called the Iron Age, the least noble of the four metals. The age is also known as Kali Yuga.
At last women take over…
Kali is a very complex character in Hindu mythology. While recognized as the goddess of eternal energy, and the consort of Shiva, she is also connected with death and destruction. Imagine… in a number of ancient illustrations, Kali straddles, often stands atop the body of Shiva, the major god of Hinduism. Some power…
Of course, Shiva is also known as the destroyer of our ego, and ultimately of our universe.
I wondered if the first female president of the United States of America, Laura Georgina Bush, would also stand on the corpse of Western Civilization. God knows we seemed to have been tottering close to extinction ever since the United Arab Republics, together, became the greatest nuclear power in the world. And, entre nous, they weren’t really that united. It all began with Pakistan, and they never looked back. Now, their combined nuclear arsenal was scattered over such vast areas, that no western power could even estimate its cumulative potential. Although the religious element became much less volatile, its explosive elements were still there. After all, Islam must expand or die. So teaches history.
While, at least until recently, the USA and Russia were busy disarming, the oil money bought nuclear technology in hops and leaps. At least the Chinese maintained a modicum of restraint, maintaining their ability to erase the human equation from the surface of the earth by no more than a factor of three. Some said four, if you don’t count their own race.
At least the Chinese kept men at the top of their heap. They and the Arabs remained as macho as can be. But that still didn’t explain where was Ambrosia.
I gave my audience more info on Hindu Pantheon, but my heart wasn’t in it. There was lots of it. Gods, goddesses, and all sort of ancillary divinities. Then I run through some other religions just to add weight to my thesis of eventual destruction. According to the ancients, we had no need for any weapons of mass destruction, no need for absurd nuclear arsenals. The world would dissolve anyway. On the other hand, since, apparently, we entered the age of Kali in 3103 BC, we still had more than 400,000 years to go. So who cares about their stupid atom bombs?
On the other hand, we all know how time flies when we’re having fun?
As for myself, I was growing peeved.
Even if she were late, she ought to be here by now. Or she could have called. I wasn’t having fun at all.
I wondered why did people, women, really come to my lectures. In the pamphlets scattered in various parts of McGill, announcing the seminars, there were hints of the dissolution of the world, but surely, they didn’t flock to this temple of wisdom out of fear. The paperback market was already flooded with imaginative fables about the forthcoming cosmic destruction. Some unscrupulous pseudo-historians were making piles of money out of their scaremongering.
A hand went up. No, it wasn’t Ambrosia. No such luck.
“Yes?” I was glad someone was not asleep.
“You told us a lot about the Far Eastern Cosmologies, Professor Jones. Isn’t there a Christian equivalent for the forthcoming dissolution?”
“I’m glad you ask, Miss…”
“Dolton. History, second year.”
“Ah, yes, Miss Dolton. History does follow us, wherever we go.”
I moved some papers on my lectern. I brought nothing on the Christian slant on the end of the world. I’d have to rely on my memory. I resumed my diatribe with less vigour.
“Well, the Christian theology is less generous as far as time is concerned. According to some sources, ah, including the New York Times bestsellers, the dissolution will be taken care of by a gentleman called the Antichrist. Unfortunately, this does not concur with the other source we know as the Bible.”
I had their attention. The word Bible had that effect on people.
Both, the Oxford and Webster dictionaries define the Antichrist as a great personal opponent, an antagonist, of Christ, a person who will lead the forces of evil.
There is a veritable avalanche of pseudo-exposés of all kinds, presumably precipitated by the recent millennium fever. Indeed, it is fashionable to talk about prophecy, to expect the worst, to scare people out of their wits. Look at the successes of all the science fiction, horror, and fantasy films, books, and cults. The more the merrier.
But what has any of this to do with the Bible?”
The silence stretched.
Nothing.
I said it hardly above a whisper. I heard the expected intake of air, a sort of protracted gasp; then my audience stirring in their seats. Ah, ignorance of bliss! If it weren’t for ignorance I couldn’t even deliver this lecture.
Nothing.
This time I spoke louder. I had to smile. Nothing at all! It’s all to do with bank accounts of writers and publishers. Pure and simple. That and peoples’ inertia, mental stagnation, inability, or unwillingness to make an effort on their own. They would rather someone did their thinking for them. No matter how badly.
What does the Bible say about the antichrist? The Torah––nothing. The four gospels––nothing. In the 1341 pages of my King James Version, the word antichrist is mentioned four times. John uses it three times in his first epistle and once in the second.
Sorry, b-b-b-but that’s all, folks!
My Porky Pig impression didn’t score any points. I found the whole question of antichrist funny. Funny-pathetic. On the other hand, this time my audience sat up. I heard whispers. It seemed that they’d miss the illusion of being scared with impunity. I decided to become a comedian some other time.
And how does John describe the antichrist? Why, strangely enough, as an opponent of the doctrine of Christ. As one who denies the Father and the Son; The Yahweh and the El. The God without and the God within.
No wonder they crucified him, I mused. Why must people need to live under the Sword of Damocles? A god without?
And by the way, John assures us that the antichrists have been walking the earth in great numbers, already, in his day. Look behind you…
I couldn’t resist that last one. I really couldn’t. At least a third of heads made as though to turn, before their neurons caught up with my words and returned their heads to face forward.
Ah, what would I do if it weren’t for the N.Y. Times bestsellers?
The lecture was over. This time at least a dozen people, women, made for my desk. I hoped this wasn’t a lynching mob. I wondered if the men were too shy, or simply were afraid of making fools of themselves. So much for machos.
“Where can we find what you said, Professor Jones, in the Bible? I meant it’s a really thick book…”
“That would be the New Testament, right?”
“John? John who?
“How many Johns are there?”
“Is it long, I mean, the John story, is it long…?”
“Was he an apostle?”
“Did you read the whole Bible, Professor Jones, I mean back to back?”
“Really?”
“Wow!”
This was our crème de la crème, the pick of our youth, who preferred attending free lectures at McGill than watching Desperate Women, or was it Desperate Men, on TV. Yes, they were the pick of the crops. At least the women were here. The men were probably glued to their TVs in search of a baseball match.
Maybe the New York Times bestsellers were right. Maybe we were approaching the dissolution of our cosmos a lot faster than the Hindus would make us believe. What did the Buddhists know, anyway?
When I got home, way up among the clouds, I couldn’t help wondering what questions, if any, Ambrosia would have asked. There were, there always are, questions that remained unanswered. It would help if I knew how her mind worked. And then I remembered that, after all, she was a physicist. Was there room for scientists in the realm of comparative religion? Could a scientist accept the invisible as real?
Of course, they could. All the subatomic particles were invisible. So where did line of demarcation lie?
There had to be logic present. If a thesis did not contradict man’s god-given ability to think logically, then scientists could accept it. So, if the antichrist were to bring about the dissolution of the universe, what would be a scientist’s definition of the antichrist?
I was getting closer.
Since antichrist was against the father and the son, the Yahweh and the El, then people who rejected the divinity, the creative force residing within us, would bring about the dissolution of the world. Of the reality as we know it. The dissolution of the world would be brought about by people who rejected the reality we live in.