The Sun Over Palamos

‘You sure about him Dr. Leroy?’ Professor Julian Salvatore, a young man in his mid twenties, asked the middle aged man standing next to him.

‘He might be mad, but he’s a genius. More so than anyone of us can even imagine’ Dr. Nicholas Leroy replied without turning to Salvatore.

They were both standing in an observation room, looking through a one way glass to a white room which contained a table and a chair of that same stark whiteness. The chair was pulled up to the table and on it sat Henry Backard, the mad genius.

He was looking at the one way glass. He would only have been able to see his reflection but to Professor Salvatore, it felt like he was looking through it to them. It was almost like he could see behind the glass. It was impossible but yet Salvatore felt uneasy.

And rightly so, Henry Backard was a madman who had killed dozens of peoples with his inventions. The last one had been a microwave pulse emitter that killed anyone in a one mile radius by slowly cooking them alive from the inside. After that Backard was locked away in the institute for the criminally insane, in a bare windowless room with a single light. And there he was now sitting in another room, gazing at the one way glass almost as if he could see through it.

Backard was smiling.

                               

Palamos was the only planet in its solar system. It was a fairly large planet with bountiful resources. Therefore the dominant species of the planet never had the need for anything. All that they ever wanted was right underneath their feet. They were advanced in science this species, but they had not yet unraveled the secrets of interstellar travel. But what they lacked there they made up for in other fields. Sickness was almost absent upon the planet. Their problems were few and easily solvable.

But now they faced a problem, a problem of epic proportions that vexed them and even threatened their existence.

Their sun was dying.

The hydrogen that fueled the nuclear fusion within the star was running dry and the stars corona was expanding slowly turning the star into a red giant. With that would come the extinction of everyone and everything on the planet.

Every scientist on the planet came together to find a solution to this massive problem, many ideas were discussed and thrown away. They only needed to find a solution and all the resources to implement it would be laid at their feet. Their leader was unanimously chosen as Dr. Leroy, with Professor Salvatore his right hand man. Both were very brilliant scientists.

After much time without attaining anything feasible, Backard was brought in. He was a man way ahead of his times. His ideas were revolutionary, awe inspiring. If it were not for his psychosis, he would have been a great and famous scientist. Everyone thought that since the fate of the planet was at stake, the madman would help, for if the world ended, he would die as well. Even if propelled by the idea of self preservation he may be able to solve their dilemma.

And solve it he did. Backard proposed that all one needed to make the sun remain in its stable state was to provide it with more hydrogen. He intended to do that by creating a space warp that would connect 2 points in space via another dimension. All the hydrogen one would ever need could be found in nebula clusters throughout the galaxy. If one were to open a space warp to there the gas could easily be collected and supplied to the sun.

The theory and the mathematics involved in this where so complex that none save Backard knew how to do it. He was commissioned to build a prototype and conduct a test on Palamos.

               

Backard stood in front of his machine with a small switch in his hand. All the other scientists were gathered behind him. A small statue had already been placed inside the machine.

Everyone waited expectantly for the experiment to begin. Backard pressed the switch and released it almost immediately. There was no noise, nothing.

‘It is complete’ Backard said.

Everyone turned to look at the big TV placed on one side of the machine. It showed the image of a table that was placed halfway around the globe. It was empty previous to the experiment. But now on top of it stood the small statue they had placed into the space warp machine.

A giant round of applause greeted this. Backard stood there unsmiling, thinking.

Professor Salvatore was the only one in the group that noticed that the statue had appeared on the desk nearly half a second before the switch was pressed.

                               

They encountered another obstacle soon enough. The fuel or hydrogen had to be supplied directly to the inside of the sun. They had no idea how to do it but this time as well Backard came to the rescue.

He developed a stasis field, a kind of force field that allowed his machine to work inside the sun and not get damaged. He even designed the delivery system that would take the hydrogen gas from the warp field and push it out to the interior of the sun.

He provided the blueprints for it all and the other scientists though unable to understand the workings of Backards creation could nevertheless duplicate it from the blueprints. Backard did the whole mathematics that was necessary for the working of the machine and submitted it to Dr. Leroy before the machine finished construction.

                                                               

‘Dr. Leroy, I don’t understand this, there are no spatial co ordinates within the mathematics that is to be programmed into the warp machine. Without the spatial co ordinates how does he intend to open a warp field in a nebula?’ Salvatore asked. In his right hand he held the sheaves of paper that contained the mathematics given by Backard that were to be programmed into the system that runs the warp drive.

“I know, I asked that to him myself. But he intends to use gravity-temporal co ordinates to find it as it would be the most accurate because of the high gravity present inside the sun and in the nebula cloud’ replied Dr. Leroy

‘What are those?’

‘I have no idea; he was not patient enough to explain it to me in a way I would understand. What he has done is way beyond what I understand or hope to understand. I told you he was a genius beyond comparison. But what he said would explain the absence of the spatial co ordinates. ’

‘There was some other co ordinate style equations in it, but most involved time and some did have gravity constants. There are also some variables I don’t understand at all.. Hm..’

‘What is it Salvatore?’

‘Nothing. Nothing.’ Salvatore said as he got up and left the office of Dr. Leroy.

                                                               

The stasis field generator required a lot of energy. It was driven by a small nuclear reactor until the warp field kicked in. Once the warp field was active, energy could be derived out of the hydrogen extracted from the nebulae. So it wasn’t a problem either.

Finally the machine was built and the stasis generator coupled to it.

It was lowered into the sun where it sank beneath their view to the fiery interior of the sun.

Then it was a waiting game. They waited for signs. And in 2 months they got the confirmation of their success when they observed that the suns corona had shrunk in diameter and was shrinking back to its normal size.

The project was a success. And after pumping the necessary amount of hydrogen to the sun, the machine would stop on its own. But that would still take some more time. At least it was working. At least they were saved.

And so they thought until one day, 4 months after the deployment of the machine, Professor Salvatore was asked to join Dr. Leroy in his office.

                                               

Professor Salvatore was sitting in Dr. Leroy’s office. Dr. Leroy was there as well and so was General Portman.

‘Salvatore’ began the general. ‘I called you here because of some latest developments. We have a problem on our hands.’

Salvatore glanced at Dr. Leroy. He looked nervous, even a bit scared.

‘What kind of problem?’ Salvatore asked the General.

‘Certain events have been occurring across the globe, disturbing events. We have managed to keep most of it out of the news so far. But it’s getting out of hand.’

‘What sort of events General?’

This time it was Dr. Leroy who replied.

‘I was informed 2 weeks ago about some unnatural event. The Hiraduk temple has suddenly started to show signs of structural damages and today an entire portion of it collapsed. At Nondan islands 15 species went extinct over night, no cause known. Civilian casualties have been reported, people dropping dead out of the blue with no cause at all. The polar ice caps are melting 10 percent faster and slowly accelerating.’

Salvatore was shocked.’ What? How can this be? I mean how is this happening? Do we have any idea?’

The General spoke. ‘We have an assumption. The events started occurring around the same time we turned the machine on inside the sun. We believe they are linked.’

‘The machine……’ Salvatore feared as much. ‘Have you asked Backard?’

‘No we are going to do that now. We want you to accompany us Salvatore.’ Dr. Leroy said gazing at Salvatore with a calm face. But his eyes betrayed his fear.

                                                               

All three of them were inside Backards room at the institute for the criminally insane. Backard now lived in considerable luxury than before. After his work on the machine, he now had a TV, a soft bed, a window and access to selected books. But there were still bars on his window and the door to the room was locked from the outside with a guard on duty 24*7.

Backard was sitting in a chair looking at them with a faint smile on his lips.

‘Henry.’ the General nodded to Backard. ‘Comfortable?’

‘Very much General’

‘Good. Henry, we came here because certain events have been occurring…’

‘I know’ Backard interrupted with a grin on his face’

The general was taken aback. ‘You know?’

‘Of course, it’s going as expected. I wondered when you idiots would start to notice and show up.’ he gave a small laugh.’ The world is going to burn…’

Suddenly Dr. Leroy was on him raising him up by his shirt collars and shouting into his face. Salvatore had never seen the doctor so mad before.’ I trusted you! What did you do you bastard! What?’

Backard laughed uncontrollably as the General pried him free of Dr. Leroy’s grip.

‘You should see the looks on your faces. Classic! It was so unbelievably easy to do! And you idiots never even suspected. Can’t blame you, your brains are way too prehistoric.’

‘What did you do Backard?’ the General asked his tone icy.

‘You really want to know idiots. You really want to?’ he stopped laughing and stood up straight with his face split by a wide grin. ‘I didn’t create a space warp you idiots, I created a time warp! Yes, a time warp! A time warp to 5000 years ago. You think our sun is going back to normal because of some hydrogen from some distant nebula? No you idiots, the sun is calming down by using hydrogen from itself, itself when it was 5000 yrs younger. It’s like a parasite, feeding on its own youth to keep itself stable and as our sun becomes stable, the sun from 5000 yrs ago will become unstable and destroy the planet. The change will radiate out to here and destroy us as well. It doesn’t matter that the sun is becoming stable, cause we are all gonna die!!’

He started laughing uncontrollably again. Salvatore, Leroy and the General were too shocked by what they had heard to utter a sound. The realization that they were doomed closed in on them. They were dumbstruck and the only voice in the room was that of the mad man laughing.

‘But… but why?’ Salvatore, the first one to recover, asked meekly.

Backard was sitting on the floor now. He stopped laughing just long enough to answer Salvatore.

‘You wanna know why? I’ll tell you why. Because I have thought and thought and thought and I can’t find an explanation for life. It is a useless probability state that came into existence. It has no meaning, it wasn’t supposed to exist. Somehow the die rolled against the house and brought life. And I’m now taking care of it.’

‘Who are you to say that life has no meaning? Maybe it doesn’t have meaning for you, but it does for us.’ It was the General.

‘I am qualified enough to say that. I have already proved that you are idiots. You poor things don’t know what right or what’s wrong. You are so dumb to understand it all. Poor, poor idiots.’ Backard shook his head exasperatedly. ‘I really pity you.’

‘If you intended for the destruction of the planet why the hell did you help us in the first place?’ asked Salvatore.

‘Because this is my magnum opus.’ His eyes were suddenly alight with joy. ‘I knew that I could create a time warp given the resources. The theory was half formed in my head. And you idiots gave me the perfect chance. And I have done it. My magnum opus will bring about the destruction of this world’

‘Wait’ it was Dr. Leroy. He had been silent till now, deep in thought and now he spoke. ‘Time avoids paradoxes. So if the entire race was wiped out 5000 yrs ago, then that would mean that the machine was never built in the first place. So time will set everything right in the end.’

‘Ha! You are idiots! You think I haven’t prepared for such an eventuality. The stasis field not only protects the machine from the environment outside, but also from the change. It is an isolated system and the change will not affect it!’

He started laughing again. Fell down on the floor clutching his stomach and rolling around with his mad cackle echoing through the room.

                                                               

Professor Salvatore, Dr. Leroy and General Portman were all outside with the light of the setting sun shining on their pale scared faces.

‘Is there nothing we can do? Can’t we shut down the machine?’ General Portman asked softly.

‘No’ replied Dr. Leroy. ‘It was entirely automated since no signals would be able to pierce the stasis field. It will only shut down at the very end, after it has completed the whole transfer.’

‘What about the stasis field. He said the change won’t affect anything inside the stasis field. Is there any way to envelope the planet inside a stasis field?’

‘No, the energy required for such a large stasis field would be too much. There are very few natural resources we can utilize to power it and even then we would have to over exploit it and cause its depletion. The depletion of a large source of energy will cause the planet to die’

‘So we are truly doomed then’

They all looked towards the setting sun as it sank further down into the horizon. The one that gave them life was slowly taking it away as well.

                                                                               

‘And that’s when you got the idea?’ the reporter asked to the man sitting opposite to him in the bar.

The man looked haggard. He hadn’t had a bath or a shave in weeks. His hair was all frizzy and his eyes bloodshot. And he stank of the all-pervading smell of depression.

‘Ya, that’s when.’ The man said as he tossed his seventh shot of vodka and motioned to the bartender for another.

‘Then what happened?’ the reporter asked.

‘From then on it was quite simple. I thought about it for some time and then went with it to General Portman and Dr. Leroy. They thought it would work as well. By then we were ready to try anything.’

The next shot arrived and the man took the glass in his hand. He looked at it for some time. The reporter waited patiently.

‘See my idea was simple. We couldn’t use any of the present sources of energy as the energy required to make a stasis field around our planet would deplete the resource and cause the planets death. But what we forgot was that we still had the blueprints for Backards machine. All we needed to do was built it and channel it to take energy from a good energy source from the past and use that energy to set up the stasis field.’

He gulped down the shot and again motioned for another.

‘There were some problems. Even though we knew how to make Backards machine, we never understood any of his theories or mathematics. One thing we did get from doing a small experiment. When we turned on the machine it would create a time warp between our present time and one 5000 yrs ago but with the same spatial coordinates. That means, that if I were to turn on the machine in this bar, it would create a link between this bar and whatever stood here 5000 yrs ago. We had no idea how to introduce spatial co ordinates into Backards equations and we didn’t have time. The planet was deteriorating. You know by the time I quit, we were slowly starting to understand Backards theories and once we figure them out, we will be immune to almost everything the universe can throw at us. But then we didn’t know shit and those were desperate times, we had to do something.’

He tossed the next drink almost as soon as the bartender kept it on the table.

‘You know what we did? We decided to use the geothermal energy of Palamos from 5000 yrs ago. We used it to create the stasis field. They put me in charge of the entire operation then. But it was Dr. Leroy who tabulated that the field need only be active long enough as the machine was active inside the sun, by then he said that the change would have swept over us. The machine still had a year to run. We had the field running in under 2 weeks after I proposed the idea. We kept it running for 2 months after the machine switched off just in case. But we shouldn’t have worried, Dr. Leroy was right. We were safe.’

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The reporter kept quiet. He knew professor Salvatore had something else to say as well. After a while the professor did speak.

‘Do you know what the price for our safety was? We killed our ancestors both from the inside and the outside. Their sun and their planet, we destroyed it both so new could survive. One may argue that they would have died anyway from the sun’s instability, that the killing of the planet was a merciful act by us. And I tell those people to get lost. You know how many people lived in Palamos 5000 yrs ago? I do, I looked it up, 25 million people. We killed them all in one stroke, the greatest genocide in Palamos’s history. The history textbook needs to be rewritten but the government doesn’t want that. They still teach the old history in schools, the things that never happened.’

He opened his eyes and leaned forward

to put his arms back on the table. He looked at his open hands for a little while.

‘You know how hard it is to sleep at night knowing that, to know that your stroke of brilliance killed 20 million people?’

3 months after the interview with the reporter Professor Salvatore committed suicide by hanging himself. He left no note. Any people he would have wanted to say anything to were already dead.

- Rohith

The Lyric of Marcel Pitti

I remember that day clearly for reasons I don’t remember right now. Perhaps it was the day the fever I got from my trekking trip, the one that seemed to crush my bones to a thousand pieces every time I breathed, finally left me. Yes, I remember sitting up in my bed letting the cool sweat of convalescence wash away last of the godforsaken viruses.

Soon I realized that I was thinking, unaware of course, about the class I was scheduled to take the next day. The realization broke my train of thought. But soon I got on with it, imagining in my mind a flow, cutting it into an infinity of small flowing shards, but each still big enough for the forces to act and react on them, to accelerate and decelerate them, just enough for the elegant curves of integration to round them up and join them, bit by bit, like the pieces of a demonic jigsaw, till the equation was formed. A deceptively simple, 3 inch long beauty. In my vanity I thought, I hoped, that someone would ask me what I was thinking. So that I could tell her that it was the Navier-Stokes equation. Her soft hand would then caress by unshaven cheek and I would feel her soft lips on my spine and I would hear a whisper in my ear pleading to tell her, to explain my thoughts. I would tell her that infinities couldn’t be explained, that the dx of calculus is just a poor imitation of the infinitesimal, that the seductive curves of integration were just cadavers of the uncountable. But she would insist and she would say, tell me darling, I don’t mind spending an eternity listening to you.

I looked behind me. The white sheets of my bed, in reality, terminated halfway, there wasn’t even enough space in my bed for me and my infinity girl. I sighed, looking at the colossal hard-on I had contracted, and reproached myself for being a cheesy romantic. We were all existentialists now, lost souls incapable of even conjuring illusions to sate our loneliness. I felt my heart turn, twisting the web of arteries, veins and nerves that held it in place, I wished my fever would come back and crush my bones to powder. The pain of bones is bliss compared to that momentary twist of the heart.

I got up and did what I always did at times like this. I put on a shirt and walked to Gringo’s.

Sometimes I doubt that my head just makes up all this loneliness shit so that I would have an excuse to go to Gringo’s. What a place it was on Sunday nights! Usually it was filled with grizzly construction workers and government officials too afraid to face their wives. But there were times, we called them windows, when the bohemian life of Quetzcal would flow into Gringo’s. It was as if they were there by some secret, unspoken of pact, an agreement that no one signed but every one acknowledged. And by the power of this nebulous pact poets, writers, and beautiful girls, who were neither but  beautiful, would sweep in to Gringo’s , there would be penny-less students arguing about Bolano and university professors trying to recapture and breathe in some of the youth from the air.

 But that Sunday was different. I was there earlier than usual, and Amelie who brought me beer after beer gave me one of those smiles. I sat there waiting for them to march in, with their loud chatter and shabby satchels, but more than anyone I was waiting for Marcel Pitti. Marcel Pitti was the star attraction of Gringo’s, his chest-thumping discourses on everything ranging from poetry to philosophy to the cheap food at Gringo’s were the commandments the gypsies of Gringo’s lived by. I had met him over a year back, drawn by his endless talk, which on that night had caught hold of the controversies of human evolution. Marcel Pitti said that socially desirable traits are not subject to refinement by natural selection, so there was nothing stopping the human race from being a bunch irritating fucktards, not even Darwin. I asked him some days later about what he had said that day, he didn’t remember any of it, the cannabinoids which were a constant presence in his blood stream prevented his brilliant ideas from entering his memory.

But Marcel Pitti didn’t turn up that day, nor did the rest of them. Unaware to me, along the main roads that were the jugulars of Quetzcal and the labyrinthine alleys that form the bronchi of its tremulous respirations, the writers, the poets, the penniless students and foul-mouthed whores, were being hunted, rounded up by a Government whose sole purpose was that. While I was losing myself in beers, outside there were cries, slogans and fizz of tear gas shells spewing thick white smoke. The university was locked down indefinitely for it was harboring criminals. For many weeks its gates were blocked by police barricades. Each of those passing days filled me with despair and loneliness. It seemed that every soul in Quetzcal capable of having an intelligent conversation had been locked up. Bored and lonely I went back to Gringo’s and stated smiling back at Amelie.

I asked about Marcel Pitti after 3 days. She was sitting on my bed a white sheet covering most of her body. I was expecting her to say that Marcel Pitti had been locked up.  He is writing a poem she said. I was going to say that he was always writing poems, but she sensed the obvious nature of her statement before I could say it. He is writing an infinite poem, she added, playing with my hair, I think he was on weed, she said as if talking to the walls. I wanted to kiss her and tell her that he always was on weed.  

I knocked on his door the next day and had to wait an abominable amount of time in his narrow hallway, which smelled like rotten meat, with only a flickering lamp at its other end to keep me company. Marcel Pitti soon emerged from a creak in his door and looked at me as if he knew me but did not recognize me. I understood that I did not exist outside the four walls of Gringo’s as far as he was concerned. After an eternity of staring his face lit up. Come in! Come in! he said. I followed him into his dimly lit room, books and belongings strewn around everywhere, clothes piled on a chair. I settled down on his creaky bed and he made room over his pile of laundry. We talked of course, surprisingly he had no knowledge of what was happening out in the streets. He just listened and nodded while I described the atrocities of the police. Something was amiss, in another place and time Marcel Pitti would have urged me on with profanities directed at their mothers, but now he just nodded. Finally I asked him, I heard you were writing an infinite poem, filling my voice with jest, trying to hide my admiration for his poem writing-dingy room existence. Who told you? He asked. Amelie. Marcel Pitti laughed, the laugh which always hung in the air back at Gringo’s, it seemed out of place in his room, you have been screwing her haven’t you?, he asked. I was surprised, Maybe… once or twice, I replied. He smiled at me again, I told her about it when we were having sex, so I just assumed that she would have told you about it when you were having sex with her, universe likes symmetry you see, Marcel Pitti said, he might as well have addressed me as ‘My dear Watson’.  Then he proceeded to tell me how the brain stores sex data separate from normal data, I nodded as always but in my head I was trying to remember whether I had used condoms with Amelie.

How is it going, the poem? I asked him, cutting him off. It is done, he said. Wouldn’t an infinite poem take an infinite amount of time? I asked him, perplexed, or trying to sound perplexed. Marcel Pitti’s voice rose like a condescending boom, Let me tell you something about infinite poems, I am not the first man to try and write one.

Gabriel Jeremy Munian tried to write one in 1873, said Marcel Pitti. Oh!, the ‘Gabriel Jeremy Munian’?! I asked. Yes, yes, THE Gabriel Jeremy Munian. He took the classical approach, line after line, paper after paper, but soon the poor guy found out that a truly infinite poem should be infinite in all dimensions as well as in time. Yes indeed, in space and time, I said. Marcel Pitti continued, so he started to make small glass cubes with letters engraved on each of their side, and he stacked them, making a poem lattice. A poem in three directions, a ballad from top to bottom, a series of sonnets from right to left, a Greek tragedy from back to front. Marcel Pitti was beaming, as if he was the poet of 3 dimensions and this very room was stacked with those glass cubes of obsession. I couldn’t mask my awe, the admiration a physicist felt for the abstract, things beyond practical. What then? I urged him. Well, there is a limit to the number of glass cubes you can stack one on top of another, they fell on top of him like a castle of cards, he died in that accident I believe, Marcel Pitti said.

Yes, then there was Omar bin Hafiz Sayeed Abullah, Marcel Pitti said with renewed enthusiasm. Let’s just call him Abdu, I quickly intervened, the last thing I wanted was to hear that chimeral name repeated again and again, for these lectures of Marcel Pitti can go on forever. I could see his head nodding in agreement in the dark. Ok so Abdu also thought about writing an infinite poem, hell he even composed one in his head!, said Marcel Pitti. Have you read it? I asked. Nobody has read it, Abdu argued that the finite thickness of the ink strokes and finite distance between letters could never justify his infinite poem, a true infinite poem can exist only in thought, Marcel Pitti replied, I could sense excitement building in his voice, his breaths stronger now, he was ready for his master stroke, to unveil his true infinite poem. Abdu said that an infinite poem could only exist in here, Marcel Pitti said pointing to his cranium.

But then you wrote an infinite poem, didn’t you? I asked him. Yes! Yes!, said Marcel Pitti, I’m surely the first person in history to write one. I don’t believe you! Show it to me, I pleaded.

Very well, came the reply. He reached for the switch and the room was flooded with light, and I saw the walls, the ceiling, and the window panes. Written on them were poems, sonnets, haikus, love songs, laments, in small hand, crawling over the boundaries of the room like a swarm of ants, dripping from the ceiling, going round and round with the fan blades. It’s amazing, I mumbled. Looking around the room in awe

Don’t be ridiculous! said Marcel Pitti. That’s not the infinite poem, those are just times I ran out of paper. Then his hand stretched out into the chaotic mess on top of his table and pulled out two sheets of paper. He held them one in each hand and grinned sheepishly through the vertical slot between them.

I did not understand what was going on, but I didn’t want to disappoint Marcel Pitti with my stupidity or tease his dormant lunacy with it. Fantastic! I must read it, I snatched one from his hands.

To see what you see

To hear what you hear

I yearn nothing more than to differ

To have stars of my own

To have places only I can go

To have a lonely universe

To be mad but at peace

It’s fantastic! I said, contrary to what I thought about the poem. Marcel Pitti clearly thought otherwise, he was already holding the second paper in front of my nose. I read that too

To see what you see

To hear what you hear

I yearn nothing more than to differ

To have stars of my own

To have places only I can go

To have a lonely universe

To be mad but at peace

I tried, but I could no longer hide my confusion, or maybe it was the terror of being with a mad man in a small room in the shittiest part of town. Whatever it was, my face gave it away. You don’t get it do you? Marcel Pitti asked. No, I said, I felt bad for disappointing him. But Marcel Pitti laughed at me, and it dawned on me that Marcel Pitti would love it if I didn’t understand it, for there was nothing he loved more than explaining his madness, and justifying it.

All those idiots!, infinity was so simple, it was right before them, said Marcel Pitti. What happened next was an hour long elucidation of his infinite poem, interspersed with condescending rambles and contemptuous remarks at his peers. Marcel Pitti’s infinite poem was two poems, one and same, a single poem repeated on two sheets in the most perfect way humanly possible. In the process of making an exact copy, Marcel Pitti believed that he not only copied it words, metaphors and mediocre ideas, but also its attribute of being copied. Since the original has a copy, Marcel Pitti argued (quite tediously in one hour) that copy should also have a copy, because well it was the perfect copy. The resulting copy of the copy should also have a copy, so on. So his poem was infinite, repeating, monotonous and its quality not enhanced by infinity, but still infinite.

I cannot say for sure what I felt that day, maybe it was the irritation of sitting in his stinking room listening to his condescending voice. Usually I just nod my head at whatever he says, but that day I felt like arguing, I felt like taking him down from his delusional perch. From this need came the idea and I wasted no time in telling him about it. No, it’s not truly infinite, I said cutting him off. What?  asked Marcel Pitti, he thought I was joking. Your poem is not infinite, because the repetitions are not perfect. However careful you are about it there will always be a first poem, a second poem, a third, a fourth and so on. This distinction will prevent a perfect repetition and stop the attribute of repetition from being copied, I said in one breath, with a clarity like a kill strike of a katana, never even in my countless lectures about concepts that were now second nature to me had I ever said something with such conviction and sharpness.

Marcel Pitti looked at me, his eyes were popping out of their sockets, his face pale, his entire skin shivering like a taught membrane struck by an unexpected blow. So an infinite poem should repeat also in time, if not the sequence of occurrence will betray the infinity, I said, maybe now smiling. Yes, maybe…yes.. ah.. yes.. perhaps, he was already pushing me out of his room. I will find a way to do it, you wait, he said, through the fast diminishing creak of his closing door, like an incantation to the gods of poetry. Once again I was out in his shitty hall way, but I felt good, I felt good for destroying his illusions, his infinity.

The city lulled into a trough of peace in the cycle of revolution that had been going on for much of the last century. But Marcel Pitti never turned up, we all asked each other but nobody knew. Nobody went to his address as far as I know, it is only natural, for at Quetzcal we knew that poems mattered not poets, that literature did not writers, they argued and abused and wrote and made love for only these things mattered, not the people who did them. Before my visit I used to think that Marcel Pitti mattered, now I know he doesn’t.

But deep down a feeling still haunts me, when I close my eyes in moments of tranquility, I see Marcel Pitti. I see Marcel Pitti, in a room with walls, with walls full of poetry. Trying his very best to make today exactly as the day before, to breathe in the same rhythm as he breathed yesterday, to write the same poems he wrote yesterday. Trying not to meet anyone, for it is impossible to meet the same people you met yesterday, or to meet the same people you are going to meet tomorrow. Eating the same food, drinking the same wine, thinking the same things at the same time as he had thought them yesterday. Living today like yesterday and tomorrow, in search of his infinite poem.

But still I feel that belligerence, the need to pat him on his shoulder and tell him that he was doing it wrong. That on dividing time into days he was losing out on the infinite. That he had to become more meticulous, he had to do in every infinitesimal instant of time the exact same thing he was doing the previous instant. To shatter him, to tell him that his poem like the dx of Newton or the ∫ of Leibnitz was just a poor imitation of the infinite.

 AJ

Rendezvous in the Garden of Kublai Khan

Though the meeting between Jorge Louis Borges and Italo Calvino, two of the most celebrated writers of their time, was predestined and even preconceived in their minds and set in the fabric of time that abounds in their reality, the other meeting took place quiet by chance. It was only chance that destined that the character that followed Calvino on that day was Marco Polo and not one of his many wondrous and surrealistic creations like the Reader or Qfwfq.

And it was exactly this ludicrous throw of the die that interests God so much that destined that the one next to Borges not be the Librarian or Ts’ui Pen or even the multitude that together were known as Orbis Tertius, but rather the memorious one Funes.

As Borges and Calvino greeted each other with brotherly hugs in a small lighted room with plush leather chairs and a table that hosted a plant that was more decorative than practical, the characters met as well.

Funes, immobile on his bed, was gazing out the window when Marco Polo in all his adornments entered alongside Calvino. There was no brotherly hug when their eyes met across the firmament of the room, which was in some ways due to the disability of Funes whose head and hands where the only things that he could command for movement.

As their creators talked to each other smiling and laughing serenely over cups of hot tea, the two creations of two individual but spectacular minds gazed at each other. It was Marco Polo who broke the ice.

‘Delighted to make your acquaintance.’ He bowed low in courtesy ‘I am Marco Polo merchant, sea farer, traveller, and confidante of the great Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?’

Funes stared at him for sometime without speaking, then his shrill tone cut the air. ‘I know you, though I must say I imagined you different. I am Ireneo Funes of Frey Bentos, son of Maria Clemintina Funes.’

Funes reached inside his pillow and brought out a packet of cigarettes which he offered to Marco Polo.

‘Thank you but I prefer a hookah. Have you ever had the fortune of using one?’

‘Unfortunately confined to the bed as I am and subject to the fickle nature of fate, I am here very sparingly and at such moments I have not had the opportunity to come into contact with the instrument and so have never used it.’

‘Well’ said Marco polo looking at the two creators absorbed in their diatribe. ‘Seeing as how they are busy and how we have all the time of the world in our hands shall we adjourn to more quieter and serene place which I am sure that you have never visited.’

Funes looked out the window at the sun sailing across the sky on its lightness. ‘I would like a change of scenery. This moment seems to be historic and time has slowed to a crawl. I accept your invitation.’ Funes turned to look at Marco Polo. ‘But I believe even this silent place of yours will soon bore me with its monotonousness. There is only so much that one can imagine.’

‘On the contrary my friend.’ Said Marco polo smiling and sat down on a richly woven carpet of red inlaid with intricate designs. Horses and armies sailed across its vast tapestry, great wars were fought and the blood of the brave seeped into the redness of the fabric. The soft air brushed past them bringing with it the smell of laudanum, roses, lilies, orchids, daffodils, peaches, and a multitude of other unique flowers but all lost in the mix. Grass stretched out beyond the carpet with occasional bushes and trees here and there to all sides. Only one wall was visible from their observation point and it was covered with the tendrils and leaves of a plant with half green and half yellow leaves. The sun was to their right and the shade cast by the poplar beneath which the rug was spread offered them protection from its unflinching glare.

A leaf floated from the poplar on to Funes’s outstretched hand. He held it between his fingers feeling its texture and murmured ‘I imagined it different.’ In a louder voice he spoke to Marco Polo.

‘So this is the famous garden of Kublai Khan’

‘Yes indeed. We spent many a day here, the great Khan and I, talking about my travels and the cities of his great kingdom that I have visited and he, with all is royal duties, could not. Lands far and near. Lands reached by sea, by desserts, by air, beneath the ground. Those times hold an affectionate place in my heart’ as he spoke these Marco Polo’s eyes became alight with fond nostalgia.

‘The Khan is not here is he?’

‘Alas, no. Today it’s just us, but as one of the Khans most trusted and beloved friend I have the freedom of his garden.’

Funes looked around again at the endless plains of grass and shrubs and trees and at the only wall that was visible from their vantage point and the creepers crawling their way up it.

‘The garden is not at all like what Borges imagined. As a part of him I only saw what he saw and I must say the view was totally different. It was more compact for Borges. But it’s not just that,  every aspect of it.’

‘Many versions of the gardens exist.’ replied Marco polo. ‘It exists as part of those that read about it. All are real and all are beautiful. This garden was the one that first came into being and I being the first as well can only visit this garden. The others are homes to other me’s. Same, yet different.’

‘Everything is only ever different and never the same.’ Funes said shifting to a more comfortable position and picking the apple on the set on a high pedestal before him. He scrutinised it a while before setting it aside near him. Marco Polo meanwhile began preparing the hookah. He smoked a bit and handed it over to Funes who looked at it apprehensively before placing it in his mouth and taking some deep breathes. He let the smoke out slowly, obviously pleased with the outcome.

‘But it is the only place I have ever known except for cities of glass, of hidden signs, of bountiful memories, and of unforgettable streets.’ said Marco Polo also taking an apple from the pedestal.

‘Yes, yes. This is the place where your existence and its own existence could be either real or imaginary. Either the garden could exist with you, with the outside world nonexistent or the outside world could exist with the garden and you a figment of someone’s mind.’ Funes took another deep drag on the hookah. ‘The eternal question of the ambiguity of existence or shall I say the existence of existence.’

‘And what is your take on that, if I may ask?’

‘Simple. We exist and that is it. Same as everyone. The need for the question of existence does not arise. It is ridiculous.’

Marco polo bit into his apple relishing the taste and the conversation. ‘How so my friend?’

‘Well people who have existential crisis, have it only because they are able to generalise everything. For me, I have never been able to generalise anything. My eidetic memory does not allow me to. To generalise something you must close your eyes to the uniqueness that permeates everywhere. Nothing is the same. Everything differs. One grain of sand is not the same as the other so even calling it collectively as sand is absurdity in itself. Realisation of uniqueness of each instant of time, each gust of wind, each dot of colour can only lead us to see the world in multitudes. To have existential crises one must believe in the sameness of things. Someone fed up with repetitiveness gets affected with the malady of existential crisis.’

‘So in effect you argue that the world or life in general is not repetitive?’ asked Marco Polo as the juice of the apple dripped down his chin.

‘Indeed. If one were to look closely one would see that everything is different and non repetitive. In a world of many differences, man would be left marvelling at the infinite intricacies. He would, in fact, not have even time to question his existence. He will realise that as everything is different and so is he down to the very last fiber. Bombarded with this multitude of differences he will never be bored and will see existence as such, not as something that is given to everyone, but uniquely intriguing and worth pursuing. Existence, when applied to him is very different from the existence of another. The question of existence en masse is the only thing that troubled humanity. Even referring to everyone under the common name of humanity is a falsehood. For one generalisation is impossible in this abundance of uniqueness.’

‘All right then let me ask you this.’ Marco Polo interrupted. ‘Over there by the wall do you see the creeper? That plant is made of yellow and green leaves, doesn’t this much define the plant in its entirety?’

‘No, not at all. I have memorised each and every aspect of it and I can tell it abounds with differences. One can say that the plant in question is a creeper that is on the whole sporting yellow and green leaves but on closer inspection one will see it not in its generalness but in its differences. From here I see that no two leaves are the same shade of yellow or green; that veins move along it tracing subtle patterns that at a glance seem the same but on closer inspection are like infinite labyrinths. A map of one will not reveal another. The shape of the leaves differ as well and the life that flows within each. There are multiple creepers there and I challenge you to show me one that is identical to another. It is impossible.’

As Funes finished his long diatribe, he dropped the hookah he was holding on to the floor and threw away his uneaten apple. He then turned on his bed and regarded the sky seen between the leaves of the tree.

‘Not even the patch of sky seen between two leaves is same. That is beauty of the world.’

Marco Polo sat there with only the core of the apple remaining in his hands following Funes’s gaze. He spoke after a moment.

‘I understand what you meant when you said that everything is unique. But what I must ask you is this, isn’t individuality or uniqueness also a kind of generalness? By striving to be or by no fault of one’s own being unique, everything in this world is being generalised into the word unique. Even you did it yourself a while ago. So the uniqueness in essence also generated a monotonousness; a monotonousness of uniqueness. Furthermore in all its uniqueness, everything is in a state of relationship with everything else. So one can make a conjecture about something from a visibly different thing.’

‘Elaborate’ said Funes drawing his gaze back to Marco Polo, prone on the rug.

‘Fine. Let me give you an example. Water flows down to the sea. Therefore I must make a conjecture that the water that flows into the sea had its origin in some place that was higher in elevation than the level of the sea, since for flow to be there a difference in height is necessary. So the flow of water refers inadvertently to high places. So the information of these high places is contained within the water of the rivers. And as it flows through all the land, all of lower elevation than its predecessor, it slowly comes down to a lower and lower place and finally to the sea and so I must assume that the seashore is one of the lowest elevations in the land. This also explains why the water of the sea does not flow over the lands. So even in this uniqueness, the water has spoken to me about some other thing. In this case a mountain which must exist and from which water must pour down. So the uniqueness does not mean isolation from everything else and that is where the mass or classification happens. It is enough to know about one to know in many ways about the other.’

‘So this relationship speaks of generalisation? That is what you are saying isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Replied Marco Polo. ‘Even with uniqueness present, one thing can speak to us of a multitude of things so a generalisation can be made even there. Everything contains everything else. The thought of existential crisis arises not only in the cusps of boredom but also in the times of adversity and in deaths claws. For in moments when you are hanging over deaths jaws, individuality no longer is of import. At that time everyone is everyone else. Existential crisis is a kind of bond that connects us and at the same time deprives us of each other. It is the question of all questions.’

Marco Polo stopped for awhile and picked up the hookah that Funes had dropped.

‘Let me tell you that in all my travels I have seen many cities. They are all different but in the end they are all cities and they speak of the one city. The city of our heart and soul.’

Funes smiled across at Marco Polo through the rising fumes of smoke.

‘I disagree my friend. I love your points, but I disagree.’

‘So must I’ replied Marco Polo lowering the hookah.

And they sat there these two characters drinking in words and thoughts of each other that was at the same time the voices of their creators and of themselves.

The uniqueness of this conversation was due to the meeting of those two characters but the existence of the conversation was always there, non unique in the meeting  of any two characters.

When Borges and Calvino went their separate ways after an engaging conversation, so did Marco Polo and Funes. They lived together with their creators, as beings existing on to themselves and not there at the same time. Until one day, they along with their creators existed finally in memories of the mass in unique ways but generalised as recollections.

They still exist, these characters, in a different way as Marco Polo so acutely observed. They exist as parts of us and as parts of their creators. Each of them blended with the uniqueness of the reader and the generalness of the writer who led a single life and can now no longer exist in multiple ways as was possible in the beginning of his days.

-Rohith

The Conspiracy of Moments

The cold air blew on his face as he stood precariously on the railing of the bridge. The air was wet and he was shivering.

He looked down in to the abyss, it was dark and foreboding. He knew the river was somewhere down below yet its palpitations and workings were imperceptible to him who was standing up above it contemplating. The urgency and the finality of the moment welled up inside him. His heart beat fast and adrenaline coursed through his veins. He felt alive. In this juncture between life and death, in this moment of decision of the existence of his future, he felt more alive than ever.

He took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself. He mustn’t let himself be fooled by the fickleness of the moment. He had to carry out what he had come here to do. Time was a deceiver. It conspired with God to keep one alive. The remembrance and forgetfulness of moments was its greatest weapon.

The sudden sound behind him almost decided his path for him. Startled and feeling himself losing balance he crouched down quickly and took hold of the railing. He looked behind him to the source of the sound.

A woman stood there; young, very young, at the very least not above 22. She was dressed in skimpy clothing revealing much and concealing little. A shirt that was much too small and tight stretched over her ample bosom and displayed her navel and cleavage in its stark stunning beauty. Shorts that adhered strictly to their name showed legs that stretched on for ever and ever and drew fantasies in a man’s mind. She was beautiful, naturally so, but yet she wore make up. Rather than wage war with her naturalness, the artificial accentuated her beauty more making her look angelic even.

He stood there crouching on the railing and holding it with one hand looking back at her lost for words. To say that she had knocked his very senses asunder was an understatement.

Her blue eyes were locked on to his and a cigarette smoldered between her full red lips.

‘Watcha doin there? Enjoyin the view?’ she asked taking the cigarette out and letting out a trail of smoke. Her voice was sweet, beautiful.

‘No…. nothing… nothing’ he stammered, still crouched upon the railing like a squatting monkey who had been startled from behind.

‘Didn’t look like nothing. Planning on jumping?’

He looked at her and back down into the void. It wouldn’t do to have her here. He wanted his last moments to be his own. He clambered down from the railing on to bridges pavement murmuring.

‘What? Didn’t catch that..’ she said letting out another puff.

‘Nothin..’ he said louder looking at her.

‘It’s cold. Brr…’ she shivered. ‘Want a drag?’ she asked offering him her cigarette.

He took it from her hands. The end of the cigarette was wet and the redness of her lipstick was imprinted there.  He took it in his mouth, drew deep and coughed.

She smiled at him as she lighted another one and started to smoke on it. He eyed her, the exquisiteness of her form. In the dim lighting of the bridge he could make out the words on her shirt.

WANT A TASTE?

She saw him looking and cocked her eyebrows.

‘Watcha lookin at?’

His face burned red as he quickly averted his eyes and took another drag from the cigarette. Violent coughing ensued.

She started laughing shaking her head, her black hair playing in the wind.

‘Like it?’ she asked doing a twirl. ‘Never met a man who didn’t. Sure fire shot to a few bucks every night.’

He looked back at her. A smile played on her lips.

‘You are a..’

‘A hooker? Yeah.’ She shivered. ’Damn the cold’ she muttered.

Of course she was a hooker, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t figured it out already. It was the dead of the night and here was a girl wearing a skimpy dress.  He nodded to himself and put the cigarette in his mouth, then decided against it and threw it away. He asked her.

 ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Good question’ she said still smoking hers. ‘Deserted place, no one around and what’s a hooker like me doing here when I ply the trade of giving company. A guy picked me up off One End Street. Wanted me to go to his place to hook up. Normally I don’t do it you know; I got this steady room in a hotel and an understanding with the manager. I bring him customers nightly and I get a part of his share’

She paused long enough to take another puff and gazed off into the distance.

‘Anyway the guy I told you about offered me a bit more extra. More than I could have gotten from the hotel and I thought what the heck, it’s for a twirl and his house ain’t that far. So I got into his car and drove off to….’ Here she paused again. ‘What’s the place… Cli… Cli….. some avenue.’

She looked at him her face an effort in concentration.

‘Clifton avenue.’ he sputtered.

‘Mmm..’ she muttered with the cigarette in her lips and her face lit up. ‘That’s right. So I get there and you know do the horizontal bop, this guy’s got a rad place I’ll tell you that. And afterwards he just falls asleep and he’d already payed me so I just crept out of bed, got dressed and got goin. One thing I learned in the business, never wake up a sleeping man. He gets all grumpy and irritating. Bad for business.’

She smiled at him and he couldn’t help but smile back. He liked her.

‘So I get outta his apartment building and I’m standing out there and there is no taxi. So I think, hell I’ll just walk, save me some money. And so I start walking and I am crossing the bridge on the other side and I see you standing on the railing here; according to you doing nothing.’

He blushed and grinned.

She laughed and stood there regarding him for some time. Her gaze made him feel hot under the collar. He fidgeted and looked down at the ground.

She tossed her cigarette on the ground and stamped it out with her heels.

‘Say. You ain’t a virgin are ya?

The question took him by completely surprise. He gazed up at her, his mouth slightly ajar. He quickly closed it brought himself to some sort of control and said.

‘No… no… why would you…?

‘So you’ve been with a women before.’

‘Yes…’

‘Hm… what about I give you a trial run? Right here, right now. If you like it I can make you one of my regulars.’

‘What…?’ he was shocked and bit flabbergasted. His mouth had forgotten how to stay closed again.

She was edging closer.

‘Why not? I don’t see no ring on your finger or do you have girlfriend?’

‘What..? No….’

‘There is no one here but us and I like the view’

‘Wait… what…?’ his back was pressed against the railing. She was close to him now.

‘I promise you I am not like anything you’ve ever had before. One taste and you’ll be hooked.’

Her breath was on his face and she was pressing up against him. He could feel her nipples pressing through his shirt onto his chest. She started to kiss him lightly and he tasted cigarettes and something sweet. And before he knew it he was kissing her as well with a fierceness and urgency that he never felt before. He trailed his arm through her lush black hair and held her head drawing her closer to him….

Together they slid down on to the pavement and in to her blue eyes where time lost all sense and meaning.

He hitched up his pants and buttoned them. He looked over at her. She was straightening her hair with one hand and applying lipstick with other. She rubbed her lips together, smacked and looked at him.

‘So… how was it?’

‘Good…. Great…..’ he smiled serenely. ‘Thank you’ his voice echoed his sincerity.

She dusted of her dress and smiled as she said ‘Told you I was the best you will ever have.’

He gazed at the deserted stretch of the bridge and the road beyond.

‘I’ll walk you’ he said.

She looked up at him.

‘Sure.’

They walked in silence through the streets time once more immaterial in front of them. Moments were born and just as quickly died. They walked and civilization came back to them. Lights grew brighter and people more abundant.

They reached One End Street.

‘I’m here.’ She said turning to him. ‘The night’s still young so…’

Her words trailed off. Everything was serene.

She reached into his pocket and drew out his phone and dialed her number onto it and saved it. Then she slid it back into his pocket.

‘I’ve saved my number. If you ever feel like doing nothing call me. I think I can find you something to do.’

She grinned mischievously. ‘Though next time no freebies’ she winked.

  She started to walk away and he looked at her retreating form smiling whole heartedly.

In this moment everything else did not exist and he was happy. In fact the other moments had disappeared from his memory. He felt the weight of the phone in his pocket and called himself a fool. He walked on, back to his house for a goodnights sleep.

The conspiracy had won again.

-Rohith