Richard Stein figured that he could find total enlightenment by heading out to sea in a little sailboat. In fact, he said that he would either find enlightenment or die trying. With his spouse gone and without giving the world any children, there was nothing he really had to lose. Except for his life, but by then he was so old-hugging that he would’ve died soon anyway. He was probably going out to sea to kill himself. That’s the way he wanted to die.
On the side of his little boat, he printed the words Ocean Man, which was the title of his ship. He took two months supply of food and three months supply of whiskey and a few books; one was Hemmingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and another was Kafka’s The Castle. Then Ocean Man shoved off from the port in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he lived for two years during adolescence. His girlfriend back then was called Nina, and she was the first woman that he ever loved. The one he never forgot.
Richard Stein said that you’ll always love your firs t love, no matter how many partners you may go through. The first is always special. His second love, which became his first wife, did not compare to the memory of Nina. Neither did his second wife, who was his eighth love, and who died in an institution populated by crazies. Besides Nina, Richard Stein loved his Cool Blue Lady the most; she was the only woman who stood with him throughout his entire life.
The Cool Blue Lady hovered over Richard Stein solemnly as he washed against the sea, kissing him with her breath. Yes, the Night was his love, deeply. He embraced her with passion, allowing Ocean Man to drift him into the betweens of her firm dark legs. Richard Stein called this voyage the supreme ordeal of his life — the climax of fire, his grand finale. It was the first and only time he truly felt alive and he was glad he lived so long to reach it. He was glad he never put the gun to his head as he always figured he would.
Mortician and I find a dry island underneath a tree and set Nan down. On the swap-side of the tree is a miniature city by the ocean that has a port leading out to the sea. Dozens of fishing boats are coming and going. I wonder if this port is similar to the one in Gloucester, where Ocean Man set sail. I wonder if there is a character similar to Richard Stein over there, setting out to find clarity during the twilight of his life, trying to get in his grand finale before he dies.
“What are we going to do?” Mortician asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Wait awhile, for Christian.”
“Do you think he will make it?”
“He better.”
I pressure-thumb Nan’s eye open to see how she’s doing. Still unconscious. Her nipple has been covered over with a coat of mud. I’m guessing that Mortician is responsible for earthing Nan’s breast, because he was probably disgusted by it. Mort finds Nan dyke-hideous because she’s too thin, bald-headed, and without many curves. Skinhead girls are dirty to him.
I hit myself in the skull, thinking about how I almost raped Nan back there. Then I hit myself again.
Some walm people pass by, through the tiny ocean, slug-legged people with no eyes. I often wonder how significant the human race is/was compared to the other peoples of the universe, wondering if we were superior or equal or less. So far, I haven’t seen any race that is technologically more advanced than humans. I have seen some that were emotionally more advanced, or physically more advanced, or own better lives than us, but none are particularly evolved scientifically.
Can it be that humans are ahead of their time? Can everyone else out there be as primitive as the walm races? Are we something special ? Maybe we were put to an end because we evolved past the danger zone — which is the zone where even gods are vulnerable to man’s destructive power. Maybe we invented a device that could blow up the sun, heaven, where Yahweh lives. Maybe He cut us off because He was afraid we would destroy Him.
“I’ve got an idea,” Mortician says.
I glisten to the rolling water and stutter-mumble a word.
Mort asks, “Why do we have to leave?”
“Because of the walm. Forget already?”
“I didn’t forget,” he says. “But what if we get rid of the walm? We wouldn’t have to go anywhere. I think we should just destroy it, just fuck it up with an ax or light it on fire, damage it enough so that it won’t work anymore. If the walm is gone we can stay without losing our souls.”
“You’re forgetting about the Movac,” I tell him. “The walm is guarded by something that knows everything. How are we going to beat something that knows everything? It’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible.”
“The Movac knows everything, understand? It would know exactly how to stop us. Even if we had a gun, it would know where to go to dodge the bullet. Lenny told me to kill the Movac also, but he’s an idiot. It’s impossible.”
“We might as well try,” he says. “What’s the worst that can happen? Get killed? So what, we can’t fully die anymore.”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m not living here as a corpse, waiting for the walm to steal my soul. I wouldn’t want to stay even if we did destroy the walm. There’s no future.”
“But there’s probably hundreds of people around the world that still have some soul left. We’d be saving them.”
“You don’t know that,” I tell him. “We could be the only ones. I’m not going to risk restarting the human race so that we can save a few half-zombie people. Besides, we don’t stand a chance against the Movac.”
Of course, there is one way we can defeat the Movac, although it’s a long shot. The only way you can beat a man who knows everything is if he wants you to beat him. If the Movac knows someone is trying to kill him, he has two options. One, he can take the necessary steps to stop that someone — not to mention the Movac already knows he will succeed, because he knows the future, which can almost be considered cheating. And, two, the Movac can accept death and do nothing — but the Movac would already know this before needing to decide.
By the way, decisions are just as irrelevant to the Movac as memories. You don’t need to make choices when you already know which ones you will choose.
Then again, the Movac may want us to kill him, because the one who knows everything must be waiting for death, out of boredom. Everything must be so boring to him. Then again, the Movac has always lived knowing everything about everything, so he’s probably so accustomed to knowing everything that he wouldn’t have it any other way. Humans may want to better themselves and better themselves and better themselves without being the best — because the best, since they’re the best, can’t better themselves — but the Movac’s point of existing has nothing to do with bettering itself, so these rules don’t apply. The Movac’s point of existence must be something I can’t understand, something beyond my personal knowledge. Something godly…
I’d prefer to leave the walm in soul-sucking order anyway, instead of destroying it. Even if the Movac would allow us to kill it, I wouldn’t hurt the walm. Because I’m hoping that it will go out of control, become unstoppable. And it will suck the souls out of everything nearby. It will finish off the human race, then go to the walm people, then go to the Movac or whatever other super-beings are here, then go to Child Earth and suck the bratty little soul out of it, and then it will start taking the energy out of heaven. It will suck God’s soul away, chopping it up into the walm, into oblivion. And I’ll be laughing safely on the other side of the universe, because that’s what He gets for turning His back on us. A taste of His own medicine, you can say.