The Light Switch

Orange, blue, yellow, and green lights flickered in the second story window. They would be followed by other flashes in lavender, pink, periwinkle, and apricot. Sometimes the rhythms resembled code; at other times they flickered fast enough to invite photoepilesy. The gendarmes arrived one night, and let themselves in with a skeleton key borrowed from a belligerent, heavy-set building manager spewing nonsense. The apartment was cleany; the hardwood floors sparkled with fresh wax; there were almost no furnishings. In an old, upholstered black chair by the window, a gaunt inhabitant sat, drinking cider and playing with a little box of switches connected by cord to strings of light bulbs in various colors, shapes and sizes adorning a book shelf and wire and metal sculpture of a potted larch in the corner. A fire hazard, said one gendarme. It is not, said the inhabitant. The larch is a sculpture made of non-flammable materials. Why are you wasting electricity every night in this manner? Stop playing with the switch for one blasted moment! The room suddenly fell into deep darkness. Only a dim glow from the street lamps outside shone from the window. What madness to repeat the same thing over and over! the gendarme continued. Switching lights on and off! Are you mad? Night after night, playing with a light switch! It was silent for a long time. The inhabitant in the corner said, I do not think it is anymore repetitive that sleeping with the same tart every night, getting drunk and vomitting in the same gutter on the way home, losing at the same game of cards, telling the same lie to your boss to leave work early, refusing to fix a leaking faucet or burnt out bulb for the same imaginary reasons. It is not more repetitive than rereading old newspapers, washing the same clothes, arresting the same thugs, eating, drinking or breathing. It’s probably less repetitive, statistically even less frequent, quotidian, or ubiquitous. Why do you play this way? another gendarme asked. I watch the lights and think or daydream. Sometimes I remember things; sometimes I write in my notebook. Sometimes I pray the rosary. Sometimes I just have another sip of cider and enjoy the warm colors. There was another long silence. A philosopher and poet, muttered the first gendarme, and he placed the inhabitant under arrest.

The Secret Number of Trees

A traveler came to a city by the desert. Outside the city gate he found a man lost in thought. “What are you thinking about?” the traveler asked. “I have questions about heaven and god. I wonder what it is.” The traveler shook his head and muttered: “What a foolish waste of time! Instead you should ask how many trees there are, how many leaves they have, what the tavernas are like, and follow your questions to the end!” The traveler walked off and entered the city. Some years passed and a great earthquake struck, cracking the streets and crumbling the towers. The traveler lay in a heap of stones, bleeding from his wounds. He tried to count his wounds. He wondered how many stones he lay upon. A thoughtful man was going from one injured person to another, bandaging wounds and giving them water to drink from a kettle he had found. It was the idiot from the city gate–the first person the traveler had met when arriving. “Are there many dead?” he asked, after drinking a cool stream of water from the kettle. “It would seem so,” said the man, who still seemed youthful despite his crow’s feet and scattered strands of gray hair. “How many are injured? What kinds of doctors and engineers live here? Am I going to die? Did you ever find an answer to your useless questions?” The thoughtful man sighed, smiled, and started to bandage the old traveller’s wounds.

The Numbers

For every number, there is but one element or artifact. There were three golden pears on one tree. Seven black birds passed by. It is not dark, but neither the moon nor the sun can shine. Myriads of stars still burn, but the constellations keep shape-shifting. Earlier, in the distance, five roman arches appeared. I stretched out my hand for a pear, and behold! My fingers had vanished! The moon rose as the tree disappeared, causing the golden pears to fall to the earth. I will not eat them, for they are invisible, and I have no mouth. I pray that the twin stars will not rise into the elliptic because I do not want to go blind. And yet I suspect I am already headless, for I have but one skull and the one moon is full and bright. My thoughts and impressions shape-shift like a jigsaw puzzle ever forming, deforming and reforming. I would like to travel, but that will depend on the numbers. It is hard to exist here.

The Corpse

Only the skeletal remains of buildings languished in the mist and ash. Scattered fires burned on the street of corpses as the medics walked slowly with a stretcher, searching for survivors. In front of a burned-out tram stop, a corpse sat on the ground with his back to the pole of a streetlamp. Most of his chest had been blown open and charred. As they approached, a sound like phonograph static emerged from the corpse. Its jaws began to move, and it spoke in a voice reminiscent of a recording: “The first conclusion of the argument is that a grapefruit tree is indeed a cinchona tree. The second is that fire is only fire if the conditions are correct. In fact, there is only one main condition–the quality of the person who started the fire. Should this condition not be met, then one cannot conclude that it is fire which one sees burning. The third conclusion, as certain as the first and second, is that…” The sound suddenly stopped as one of the medics checked the wrist of the victim. There was none. “Dead,” said the firstmedic. “Dead for a long time. And not an automaton.” “What is this?” asked the other medic. “Dark magic,” said the other, straightening up. “The worst possible or imaginable kind.” They continued forward, following the railway. A body lying facedown on the rails twitched. They rushed over, lay the stretcher down, and examined the victim. Other than some scratches, the body seemed unharmed. Again, the first medic crouched down to feel the wrist. “Alive!” he shouted, gently turning the body over. The body began to talk in the same phonographic voice: “The first conclusion of the argument is that a grapefruit tree is indeed a cinchona tree. The second is that fire is only fire if the conditions are correct. In fact, there is only one main condition–the quality of the person who started the fire. Should this condition not be met, then one cannot conclude that it is fire which one sees burning…” The body jumped up with great agility and ran off. The medics picked up the stretcher and were about to continue when they heard the voice from the corpse cry out: “Would you like to continue the discussion? Would you like to hear the third conclusion?” The medics ran along the rails away from the tram stop behind them. Several blocks away, they stopped to catch their breath next to a bonfire of broken furniture. “And what is that?” asked the first medic. “Not fire,” said the second, “or fire. Horror.”

The Lost Tale, or The Rusted Knight

What a strange tale, said the monk, and with a knife he excised the pages from a codex. A fire broke out in the aedificium, and he had to abandon the scriptorium to help draw water. The abbey burned. The copyist and most of the other monks perished when the tower fell, and only the detached scriptorium remained among the smoking ashes. One winter a knight rode into the ruins and sought shelter in the scriptorium. While searching for supplies, he found the excised pages on the floor, and sat down by the hearth to read them as he drank from a wineskin. It was the tale of a knight, who went riding out one fall in search of adventure. Not far down the road in a golden forest, he found a damsel stranded. The axel of her cart had snapped and the horse had run off. The knight made a temporary fix for the axel and attached his own horse to the cart and drove her to the town she had named, but she abused him the whole way in the vilest of language. At the town, he detached his horse and offered money to properly repair the cart, but she threw the coins in his face. What madness, both knights exclaimed simultaneously, and the knight in the tale sadly rode on toward the northern coasts. Near the cliffs, he saw an ocean dragon threatening a young noble man. Shielding himself from the hissing spray of flames and smoke, the knight set to work hewing off tail, limbs and wings until the dragon fell to the beach below and immolated itself. When the knight approached the youth to check for wounds and offer bandages, the youth began to weep and to scream, and hurled himself into the pyre where the dragon burned below. The knight sat down on the cliff to watch the calamity until the tide rose and a rainstorm blew in, the ocean waves washing away the charred remains of the victims. The knight prayed, rose, and mounted his horse. Word of his deeds spread, and he could not enter a town for the high king of the south had outlawed him, placed a bounty on him, and had sent out packs of knights like hungry wolves after him. The knight wandered northward, crossing the ancient wall, the old rivers, and the desolate moors. Archers in lone towers refused him hospitality and rained arrows upon him. When he drove wild boars away to save the peasants’ fields of oats and rye, they burned their own fields in horror. What madness, both knights sighed, as the lost knight of the tale stared at the smoking fields and prayed. That it was some curse he was well aware, but he did not know where to turn for succour. The heavens seemed as hard and silent as the stones of the heath. One evening, as the knight rode by a lake, he saw strange blue flames rise from the water. Dismounting, he ventured down to the pebbled shore, wading into the loud lapping of the waves. In the midst of the blue fire, he beheld the pale arm of a woman, partly clothed in a sleeve of samite, holding up an elegant gleaming sword. A gentle, sweet song seemed to emanate from her hidden form. Without undressing, the knight plunged in and swam toward the bright sword, when suddenly it disappeared and the arms of the woman in the lake snaked around him, crushing him with prodigious strength and dragging him down into the depths. For how long he wrestled in the deep, he knew not, until something like a rainfall of molten silver lit up the deep. The knight saw the liquescent form of an angel plunging a blade into the water sprite. Seconds later the angel lifted the knight with one arm, drawing him out of the deep and into the clear starry sky. They could have flown for an eternity. Below, the knight saw a great battle unfolding between knights like white specters and knights like ghostly shadows, hewing at each other above the passing clouds and drifting stars. They flew higher still until he could see the rings of planets and the tails of fiery comets. They flew towards a whirlpool of stars that circled furiously until suddenly there was a great explosion of stardust and he blacked out. It was early morning when he awoke beside an empty stone tower near the peak of a snowy mountain. All of his armour, his shield and his sword had rusted. Inside the tower were many books. What madness, said both knights, although the knight in the scriptorium lay down the page and took a drink. Most stories are utter lies, he sighed. What does one call a true history? For this is nothing less than the tale of my life! Once again, he took up the page and read. The rusted knight made a fire in the hearth of the tower and began to eat a book, reading a page, tearing it out, and chewing it in his mouth as the flames shimmered on his ferrous mail. What madness, said both knights in between mouthfuls, but it was midnight now and they were too tired to come to the next page.

The Mobiles

Driving into the lake town, one noticed the beautiful way the magical lights danced on rain-polished streets. At every intersection, a different triad of traffic lights hung from above. At the first, the lights were chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, but things quickly got complicated. The next intersection had cotton candy, tiger tail and cake icing. Down a side street, one could glimpse other triads–rum, spumone, neapolitan; raspberry, peach, caramel; matcha, sesame and kinako. It was hard to make out the architecture; one caught glimpses of old houses with pointed roofs and stainless steel siding, gray brick warehouses and old shops with clean glass windows full of colorful round paper lanterns. Most of the stores were shuttered, but outside one of them on a three-way crossroads stood a glowing, human-sized vanilla ice-cream perfectly reflected in the puddle lapping against the curb. It was impossible to tell what the colors of the traffic lights meant; one had to guess whether the order from top to bottom was the same as everywhere else. One drove slowly. One saw crosses, stray wheels and shredded metal under the pine trees. Gardens were lined with rubber tires or cinder blocks. The broken glass on every lane sparkled with the glimmer of a fair ground. Mobiles of spark plugs, zinc fender washers, wing nuts, rod bolts, and other automotive innards hung from cottonwoods. Had it not been for the lack of other motor vehicles on the road, it would have been impossible to get around the maze of streets meandering along the hills overlooking the deep indigo waters and gray shores lined with overturned, beached boats. One would like to stop somewhere and have a pint of amber ale amongst friendly faces under strings of naked light bulbs with outdated songs playing from a jukebox. One felt the bitter pang of nostalgia, regret or relief as one drove through the last intersection of town, lit by the last triad of signals glowing in rose, butterscotch and mint.

The Corner Store

It was a poorly lit shop, but immaculately clean. The windows had been polished to pure transparence, the gray wooden floors mopped, the shelves stocked with bottles of spring water, wine, wheat grains, ash, salt, and light. Behind the counter, a man in black sat, glancing at a large leather-bound ledger and scribbling numbers on a chalkboard laying flat next to the cash register, all the while clicking an abacus. A man in a striped suit entered and placed several tin cans on the counter. I want your shop to start carrying these items. This is not a canned goods store, said the owner. I only deal in bottled goods—mostly water, wine, salt, ash and light. Sometimes oil, sometimes honey. Sometimes balm. Nobody wants balm, said the other man. Nobody wants breakable bottles. Your merchandise is irrelevant—sales are slow. I don’t want to be involved in the can trade, the owner responded. Everyone is involved in the can trade, the intruder laughed darkly. Every other corner store in this district is stocking canned goods. What’s the matter with you? My faithful customers want bottled items, they pay for them, they return again and again for them, and thus far, I have made a good living and nobody has been harmed. I want to run a bottle shop, said the owner. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t want to live in a world without glass bottles, just as I don’t want to live in a world without candles, cloth bags or wooden boxes. Interesting, the intruder sighed. I hear the wooden box shop was closed by the health authorities. And the cloth bag store went up in flames. Most unfortunate and most absurd. And without another word, he left, leaving the tin cans and a calling card on the counter.  

The Murder Trials

Though not a renowned or even respected detective, he had closed more cases than most. In the end, the political intrigues of a supreme court justice and some academics banished him to the archives, where younger detectives and lawyers avidly sought his counsel in secret. Middle aged and broke, he lived in a crumbling apartnent of cracked walls, molded window sills, and rotting furniture, where he studied law on his spare time and visited his neighbours, many of them criminals or low-lifes whose files had crossed his desk before. Despite deploring their lifestyle, he was struck by their honesty and even hospitality. Thus he brought them groceries, cigarettes, sometimes even cash. He sat with them and listened to old tales of narrow escapes, regrets and confessions. One evening in the winter, before the new year, he was invited to a party on an upper floor. To get there seemed equivalent to climbing a mountain or navigating the tunnels and galleries of a mine. At last, he reached the apartment and entered a magical world of obsolete jazz, laughter, fragrant bodies slow dancing, and strong drink. Midnight struck, and in the middle of a lengthy and enjoyable discussion of ancient martyrologies with a young woman with dark eyes, he looked around at the shadows, blue paper lanterns, and sparkling champagne glasses and felt a premonition of sadness—the end had come. Though he was not sure what was ending, it seemed clear it was ending, if it had not already ended. In the early hours of the morning, he went home, went to sleep, and forgot about martyrs and young women with dark eyes. Within a few months, the world descended into plague and revolution. Running into neighbours was infrequent, and discussing anything of substance even rarer. One evening, some acquaintances arrived with a bottle of sambucca and some files. They sat down at his table without invitation and poured the liquor into his glasses, beckoning to him to come sit and have a drink. Horrible serial murders had broken out, and they could not seem to solve two different cases. The first murderer always struck with a noose. The second always shot his victims. All of the bodies were staged with dramatic artistry. The archivist and former investigator opened the files and looked through photographs, testimonies, reports, and maps. Slowly, he sipped the sambucca and thought. Not a word passed from his lips as he examined the evidence. When his glass was empty, he looked at his colleagues and said that the investigation would have to wait. There was only one killer. Both cases were one case. The perpetrator was likely a magistrate or high-ranking official. It would be impossible to arrest him–or her–and bring the matter to trial. It would even be dangerous to continue investigating. Though the weaponry and geography differed, the elaborate staging of the bodies in both cases showed remarkable similarities as well as almost identical sources of historical and cultural allusions, albeit interpreted differently according to they type of victim. The head or upper neck would always have a bullet hole or noose attached—the rest of the body would be neatly dismembered and arranged with spaces between the parts—arms, legs, torso, hands and feet. The victims of both cases, while always female, included almost every other demographic. At first glance, this could be confusing, but in reality it was consistent with the statement the suspect was attempting to make about all of the citizenry. What is the statement? the others asked. The magistrate or official had a fractured or bifurcated soul—politically, religiously, philosophically, but he or she is not necessarily a centrist or anything like that. Rather, the suspect is possibly one who has shifted between opposing parties to the surprise of loyalists, antagonists, and even traitors, but somehow without facing any consequences. This should not come as too much of a surprise—renowned mathematicians and artists throughout history did the same through numerous regimes in the blood-stained revolutions centuries ago—each of their enduring books or works of art bear dedications to successive rulers who extirpated their predeccesors. The visitors scratched their faces and sipped from their glasses. What is he or she confessing? That the revolution, new as it is, has already failed, as the world before it failed, the investigator explained. That he or she has failed. Those victims that were shot were often staged with religious relics or props—bread, wine, candles, icons. They represent the good of the old republic that is lost, goodness that at some level even irritated or nauseated the suspect because of its goodness. The available biographical information of these victims suggests they mostly lived up to these old standards of ethics or goodness. And yet, more than the goodness, it is lostness that matters here. That is what is enshrined. The victims that were staged with pagan or secular symbols—empty libation cups, earth soaked in blood or wine, weighing scales, books of law, sheaves of wheat, swords, tools, serpents—they represent what could not, what will not be realized. These victims failed to revolutionize, to fully become what they had set out to become, or they retained the vices of the old republic in some way. Why only women? one of the detectives asked. I am not sure, said the investigator. At the risk of sounding—problematic?—women have been employed in both progressive and regressive symbolism. Virgin mothers, good mothers, chaste saints, redeemed prostitutes, working women of the factories, female soldiers, nurses, famous women scientists, for example. Many virtues have feminine personifications or allegorical figures or even feminine nouns: justice, prudence, charity, and wisdom. Or it may just be the sexual preference and pathological character of the murderer. And what is the real motive, then? What is the real confession? Why confess? the other detectives asked in woeful chorus. The investigator refilled his glass and placed several photographs on the table. They could have been stills from a motion picture. Nostalgia and regret, he said. There is nothing more painful, nothing more humiliating, nothing more damning. It may be the case that all of the victims are avatars of two allegorical figures, twin personifications of lostness. That is what dismembers history. That is what dismembers the revolution and the world. That is what dismembers the magistrate. That is what has dismembered these poor victims.

The Railway

The carriages would travel quickly thanks to the steam engines, but the railway was long, stretching indefinitely through forest and steppe. Dining and kitchen carriages provided banquets at all hours of the day. Cafe carriages and lounge carriages provided quiet jazz from phonographs, carafes of dark coffee, smoked vanilla ice cream, rum and vodka and the printed weather reports to read. The sleepers were elegant, the linen immaculate; the showers offered fresh bars of lavander soap and boiling hot water. In the cinema carriages, one could watch black and white films wherein rifle-bearing villains hiding in the shadows of cypresses and colonnades gasped as pale beauties disarmed them. One could not complain. Many could remember the old days of train travel–of lining up to get tickets, of arguing with conductors and other passengers, of huddling around the only cast-iron stove per three carriages, of rusted hinges and tools, of gazing through cracked and frosted glass windows at landscapes of snow and cold stars, of reading bone-white pages of crime novels, history monographs and slender volumes of poetry by flickering kerosene lamps, of sneaking into the dining cars after hours to kiss or forage for matchbooks and cigarettes. Now, the fragrance of cigars, expensive soaps, good upholstery, alcohol, perfume, and ironed clothes followed one from car to car. It was the fragrance of cleanliness, progress and good times. The only curious rule of the new train was that only one side of every carriage had windows. The other side, the same side in every carriage, had been soldered shut with iron sheets–for the safety and comfort of the passengers. The connectors between the carriages had no windows at all. Conductors thankfully never appeared and one could just sink into the luxurious softness of the chairs in deep comfort, enjoying the quiet of the engines, the smoothness of the rails, even the soporific tone of the meteorologists in the railway newspapers. One evening, a magenta and crimson glow filled the twilight of the carriages as signal lamps glowed beyond the open windows. The train slowed to a halt. There was no station in sight–just some leafless trees and the snowbound earth. Disembarking, the passengers were surprised by the sight of hundreds of soldiers in gray coats directing them toward a barbed wire barricade with a checkpoint lit up by intermittent, meteor-red flares and the dull iodine glow of a signal light pointed at those waiting to pass through. Fireworks exploded overhead in celebration of the finished journey. An old margrave asked what lay beyond the gate. The firing squad, a soldier laughed. Through a sudden break in the crowd, the margrave saw a line of passengers fall as blood speckled the snow. Then, turning to a fellow passenger who was a thief, the old margrave asked why some of their traveling companions were not in the line. The other shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. The only thing the thief could remember was that he had seen some of the missing passengers tampering with the blocked up windows one night, when he had stolen into an almost empty dining carriage to search for matchbooks and cigarettes.

The Four Riders

One of the four horsemen had been seen on distant highways. An astronomer ascertained with his spyglass that it was pest this time. The king summoned a priest and a natural philosopher to his court to hear their counsel. The natural philosopher recommended that the barons retreat to their castles where they had granaries, medicine cabinets, wells, walled game parks, and knights who could be sent out to forage. The peasants should burn and salt their fields and retreat to their cellars. The king ordered that these recommendations be implemented at once. When his heralds had departed, he turned to the priest and asked his opinion of the matter. It is a royal decree, said the priest, a very noble one. The king, furious, demanded to know what he meant. The priest looked him in the eyes and coldly replied, The king is very generous and has not deterred one rider but invited all four!