HOME | DD
maximum-construct — Rapture - 3
Published: 2025-12-01 20:53:13 +0000 UTC; Views: 207; Favourites: 0; Downloads: 0
Redirect to original
Description
Pataphysics?" Arsenio asked. Damnations, but that was the weirdest of words – even coming from Carmen!
Pataphysics," Carmen intoned, echoing him, "is difficult to define because we must use non-pataphysical terms to define it."
"Well, duh," Arsenio heard himself say, then felt his cheeks going instantly garnet, as soon as he realized that he was sounding like a fourteen year old.
Carmen, in turn, went on to use Verotinian words interspersed with Kishwa, because pataphysics itself as well as many other terms were not in the Alitman language. So she bewildered her audience even more. Arsenio decided that Carmen didn't care deeply whether or not these listeners comprehended her. She was talking to herself, with the aim to convince herself.
Arsenio wanted to tell what Ezee had been up to way above while Carmen had been down here drivelling, but he knew that Carmen would not listen, not care. She was totally uninterested in other's sexual escapades, Arsenio somehow wondered if she cared about her own. So he kept silent, listening instead.
"Pataphysics is the science of the area beyond metaphysics," Carmen continued relentlessly, as she lifted an apple from one of the many pockets in her thready anorak. "It's the science of imaginary solutions, of the particular, the seeming exception. Pataphysics considers that all things are equal. All things are pataphysical. But few people practice pataphysics consciously." She looked at the apple unsure is if to bite into it or not. "Pataphysics is not a joke or a hoax. We are serious, unlaughing, as sincere as a hurricane. Pataphysics is synaptic, not synoptic."
She realized then, that while eating the apple, she couldn't talk, and she let the fruit disappear down into the pocket again.
"In conclusion, though nothing is ever concluded in the full sense of ‘conclusion,’ we know nothing of pataphysics yet we know everything. We are born knowing it at the same time as we're born ignorant of it. Our purpose is to go forth and instruct the ignorant; that is, us. Until we all are illuminated. Then, mankind as we unfortunately know it, now will be transformed. We will become as God is supposed to be, in many respects, anyway. Even though God does not exist, not as we know it, its backside is chaos, and, knowing the Truth, we in our fleshly forms will pupate ourselves into a semblance of the Truth. Which will be close enough."
Now here, Arsenio thought, we have one who truly fulfils Ezee’s definition of a 'fleak'. And yet, the more he listened, the more he came to think that Carmen made some kind of sense. Remove all the folderol and what she was saying was that people should look at things from a different angle.
"Turn a thing over, look at its bottom side," Carmen went on. "A watch is said to be circular. But if its face is turned at right angles to you, the watch is an ellipse. If everybody were to think in other categories, especially in emotional, familial, social, economic, and political areas, human beings would eliminate most of the problems which make their lives so miserable."
"Carmen!" Arsenio interjected then. "I must talk to you!"
She turned around with a lifted brow, her lower lip forming a U. "Commence!" she said and reached for the apple again.
So Arsenio told him about Ezee and the King. Carmen changed expression, now she was frowning, and she reached down for the apple again, biting into it this time and chewing as she was listening. "Half an apple is still an apple, wouldn't you say so, my dear Arsenio?" she asked.
"Do you care at all what our travel companions are doing?"
"You may inform the Fragmented about this delightful situation if you care to," she said and took another chew. The fruit was crunching between her white teeth. "We do not wish to be in his neighbourhood when he hears of it."
"Oh, he’ll hear of it, though not from me," Arsenio said. "This area is a lava flow of rumour and gossip. Are you still willing to escape from this place tonight, as agreed?"
"With or without Jamal or Ezee. Or you, Arsenio the Brighteyed." She pointed past Arsenio. "Someone has already told him."
Arsenio turned around. The city proper, the towering skeleton city, began a half-mile from the path bank. The Arab was striding on the ground toward an entrance to a staircase. In one hand, did he grip the shaft of a big stone axe. He was also carrying a very large backpack. Arsenio supposed that Jamal’s grail was in it. It bulged so much however, that it had to contain something else too. Even from this distance, Arsenio could see that Jamal’s face and body were bright red.
"He’s going to kill the King!" Arsenio said.
"Or Ezee, or both," Carmen said and threw the apple snufkin in the water as a smirk was forming on her lips. Did she think that this was all some kind of entertainment? A theatre to her own amusement?
And Jamal the Fragmented? It was too late to catch up with him. Even it they did, they couldn't stop him. Several times before, they had seen him in his insane rages. He would smash their skulls with the axe. And Arsenio was kind of found of his.
"He’ll not get through the King’s bodyguards," Carmen went on. "I believe the only thing we can do is follow our plan and leave tonight. Ezee and Jamal won’t be there. You and I should go without them." Arsenio knew that Carmen was deeply upset as she'd had said I instead of we. "Perhaps that's better after all," she added after a pause, watching the people who'd been listening to her earlier. They were now, turning around, strolling off, realizing that this brief spree of entertainment was over.
By then, the Arab had reached the third level and crossed over on it. For a moment, he disappeared behind a translucent wall formed by a lightweight sheet of greenish soft plastic that had been strung between two bamboo poles. Floating pictures were displayed on that plastic, adds, were Arsenio's guess, even though he was too far away to see it. These intelligo plastics were far and few between down here, more common upriver.
"I feel as if I’m deserting him," Arsenio said, nodding his head at the disappearing Jamal. "But what can we do?"
"We have changed our mind, which is the prerogative, indeed - the duty, of a philosopher," Carmen said. "The least we can do is to follow him and determine what happens to him. We might even be able to aid him in some way."
Arsenio didn't think so. But he wouldn't allow this cuckoo to show more courage than he. "Very well. Let’s go," he said.
They gathered their things, well mostly Carmen did, and started off for the city. After climbing up staircases and ladders, they reached the level where the King’s quarters were located. As they closed in, they saw many people running around and being very noisy about it. From a distance came a hullabaloo that only a large crowd could raise. At the same time they smelled smoke. It had a different odour than from the many cooking fares in the dwellings. Following the direction of the noise and sidestepping people running toward the staircases and ladders, they came out onto a small plaza.
The buildings around this square - mostly two-story wooden structures with half-walls - were government offices. The King’s 'palace' was the largest building, three stories high but narrow. Though it had a roof, its exterior had a few walls. Its far side was attached to the main scaffolding of the city.
The odour of smoke had become stronger, and there were people running around. Arsenio and Carmen could make no sense out of the shouts and cries, until Arsenio caught the Kishwa word for 'fire'. It was then, they realized the commotion was not caused by Jamal. Or perhaps it was. Arsenio thought of the huge bulging bag on the Arab's back. Had that contained materials to lit a fire with? Matches? Kerosene?
The strong wind was carrying the clouds to the south, which explained why the smoke stink had not been so detectable in the lower levels. Getting to the palace would be dangerous. By now, the floor of the plaza was burning swiftly and they'd have to go around the plaza. For all they knew, the floor on its other side was also ablaze. Near them a crew was working frantically, hauling up big buckets of water from the ground. Through the many open spaces among the rooms and the levels, Arsenio saw lines of people passing buckets of water from the river.
It all had happened very swiftly. And now Arsenio smelled the distinctive odour of burning flesh. He could see several bodies lying in the flames. Just seconds later, a corpse fell through the weakened floor to the one below it. It didn't seem possible that one single man could wreak all this. Even if that man was Jamal the Fragmented.
"Will you go now, Carmen?" Arsenio asked. "Jamal is doomed, if he’s not already dead. And Ezee is probably dead too. We’d better get down to the ground before we’re too caught in the fire."
"Reason does not always prevail," Carmen replied. "But fire does."
They retreated, coughing, until the smoke thinned out enough for them to see. The exterior of the building was a few yards from them. Nearby were a staircase and several openings in the floor for descent by ladder. But they couldn't get to them because of the crowd surrounding them. The staircase and the ladders were jammed with a snarling, screaming, and struggling mob. Several fell off onto the heads of the refugees on the floor below.
"It's possible to climb down on the beams of the outer structure!" Carmen yelled. "Let us essay to escape via those!"
By then, others had the same thought but there was enough space for all. When Arsenio and Carmen reached the ground, they were shaking with the effort and their hands, bellies, and the inner parts of their legs were rubbed raw. They worked through the crowds until they were close to the Path. Yet Carmen looked oddly relived by the effort, as if endorphins had worked themselves into her blood stream and kickstarted her spirits.
"Now is the time to appropriate a small sailing vessel and move on," she said. "No one is here to object."
Arsenio looked at the skeletal structure and the people swarming around it and still coming out of it. By then, the bucket brigades seemed to have done their work, though just few minutes ago, Arsenio would've bet a that the entire city was doomed. And now, the smoke was gone except for some wisps.
He and Carmen kept moving, kept descending until they reached the bottom level, and from there they hasted over to a yonder part of the harbour section. A fishing vessel anchored a few yards out contained poles and nets and spears. That would have to be enough.
When they waded out to the boat, they saw a man, dark-skinned, black-haired and with eyes closed lying face up on the floor. His jaw moved slowly.
"Dreamgum," Carmen said. "He is now somewhere in dreamland, his mind blazing with visions of the land he once knew but that never really existed. Or perhaps he's flying faster than light among the stars toward the limits of the limitless."
"No such splendid things," Arsenio said disgustedly. He pointed at the man’s erect penis. "He dreams that he is lying with the most beautiful woman in the world. If he has the imagination to do so, which I doubt. These people are crude and brutal peasants. The apex of their dreams is a life of ease and no obligations, no masters to obey, plenty of food and beer, and every woman their love slave."
Carmen hauled herself aboard. "Have you just described your heaven, my friend? Except for the masters to obey and every woman being a love slave, as you so quaintly describe us. Get rid of the masters and accept that many women will scorn you, but that there are many others who won't, and you have the unimaginative man’s ideal of the afterworld. Not so bad though. Certainly, a step up from this hellhole."
"I was just being sarcastic," Arsenio said, looking at her from the corner of his eye.
"As for this fellow, he was born among the poor, and he stayed among the poor. But the poor are the salt of the earth. By salt, we do not mean that excretion made by certain geological phenomena. We mean the salt left on the skin after much labour and heavy sweating, the salt accumulating from lack of bathing. That stinking mineral and the strata of rotting flaked-off skin cells is the salt of the earth."
"Fine," Arsenio said. "Very fine, Carmen!" By that, he climbed onto the boat, stood up, and pointed at the man’s jetting penis. "Ugh! Lower than the beasts! Let’s throw the ape overboard and get going."
Carmen laughed. "Doubtless he dreams of Ezee, our local beauty queen. I bet you too have done so and are not ashamed of it. However, how do you know that he is not dreaming of a man? Or of his beloved llama?"
"You’re disgusting, too," Arsenio said. He bent over and clutched the man’s ankles. "Help me."
She put her hands under the man’s arms and hoisted him. "Very well! Why does gravity increase its strength when we lift a corpse or a drunk or a drug-sodden? Answer us that, brighteyed friend. No, we will answer it for you. It is because gravity is not an unvarying force, always obeying what we call the laws of physics. Gravity does vary, depending upon the circumstances. Thus, what goes up does not always come down."
"You chatter on like a monkey, lass," Arsenio said. "Here we go! One, two, three, heave!"
The man splashed into the water on his side, sank under the surface, then came up sputtering. Waist-high in the Path, he raised his fist at the two of them, and spewed forward an incomprehensible tirade of words. Probably bad things about their genitals and ancestors, Arsenio guessed. Then he promptly turned and started walking to the bank. So it hadn't been his boat after all. That made it all so much easier.
"Thank us for your much-needed bath!" Carmen called after him and laughed. Then she was hauling up the anchor. But Arsenio pointed inshore.
"Here they some!" Ten soldiers, wooden-helmeted and carrying spears, were running toward them. "Someone’s reported us!" he said and groaned. "Run!" he added.