"Thank you," Fat said, accepting the bottle. He could see that Dr. Stone was totally crazy, but in a good way. Dr. Stone was the first person at the North Ward, outside the patients, who had talked to him as if he were human.
"You have much anger in you," Dr. Stone said. "I am lending you a copy of the Tao Te Ching. Have you ever read Lao Tzu?"
"No," Fat admitted.
"Let me read you this part here," Dr. Stone said. He read aloud.
"Its upper part is not dazzling;
Its lower part is not obscure.
Dimly visible, it cannot be named
And returns to that which is without substance.
This is called the shape that has no shape,
The image that is without substance.
This is called indistinct and shadowy.
Go up to it and you will not see its head;
Follow behind it and you will not see its rear."
Hearing this, Fat remembered entries #1 and #2 from his Journal. He quoted them, from memory, to Dr. Stone.
#1. One Mind there is; but under it two principles contend.
#2. The Mind lets in the light, then the dark; in interaction; so time is generated. At the end Mind awards victory to the light; time ceases and the Mind is complete.
"But," Dr. Stone said, "if Mind awards victory to the light, and the dark disappears, then reality will disappear, since reality is a compound of Yang and Yin equally."
"Yang is Form I of Paramenides [sic] ," Fat said. "Yin is Form II. Parmenides argued that Form II does not in fact exist. Only Form I exists. Parmenides believed in a monistic world. People imagine that both forms exist, but they are wrong. Aristotle relates that Parmenides equates Form I with 'that which is' and Form II with 'that which is not.' Thus people are deluded."
Eying him, Dr. Stone said, "What's your source?"
"Edward Hussey," Fat said.
"He's at Oxford," Dr. Stone said. "I attended Oxford. In my opinion Hussey has no peer."
"You're right," Fat said.
"What else can you tell me?" Dr. Stone said.
Fat said, "Time does not exist. This is the great secret known to Apollonius of Tyana, Paul of Tarsus, Simon Magus, Paracelsus, Boehme and Bruno. The universe is contracting into a unitary entity which is completing itself. Decay and disorder are seen by us in reverse, as increasing. Entry #18 of my exegesis reads: "Real time ceased in 70 c.e. with the fall of the Temple at Jerusalem. It began again in 1974. The intervening period was a perfect spurious interpolation aping the creation of the Mind.'"
"Interpolated by whom?" Dr. Stone asked.
"The Black Iron Prison, which is an expression of the Empire. What has been -- " Fat had started to say, "What has been revealed to me." He rechose his words. "What has been most important in my discoveries is this: 'The Empire never ended.'"
Leaning against his desk, Dr. Stone folded his arms, rocked forward and back and studied Fat, waiting to hear more.
"That's all I know," Fat said, becoming belatedly cautious.
"I'm very interested in what you're saying," Dr. Stone said.
Fat realized that one of two possibilities existed and only two; either Dr. Stone was totally insane -- not just insane but totally so -- or else in an artful, professional fashion he had gotten Fat to talk; he had drawn Fat out, and now knew that Fat was totally insane. Which meant that Fat could look forward to a court appearance and ninety days.
This is a mournful discovery.
1) Those who agree with you are insane.
2) Those who do not agree with you are in power.
These were the twin realizations which now percolated through Fat's head. He decided to go for broke, to tell Dr. Stone the most fantastic entry in his exegesis.
"Entry number twenty-four," Fat said. "In dormant seed form, as living information, the plasmate slumbered in the buried library of codices at Chenoboskion until -- "
"What is 'Chenoboskion'?" Dr. Stone interrupted.
"Nag Hammadi."
"Oh, the Gnostic library." Dr. Stone nodded. "Found and read in 1945 but never published. 'Living information'?" His eyes fixed themselves in intent scrutiny of Fat. "'Living information,'" he echoed. And then he said, "The Logos."
Fat trembled.
"Yes," Dr. Stone said. "The Logos would be living information, capable of replicating."
"Replicating not through information," Fat said, "in information, but as information. This is what Jesus meant when he spoke elliptically of the 'mustard seed' which, he said, 'would grow into a tree large enough for birds to roost in.'"
"There is no mustard tree," Dr. Stone agreed. "So Jesus could not have meant that literally. That fits with the so-called 'secrecy' theme of Mark; that he didn't want outsiders to know the truth. And you know?"
"Jesus foresaw not only his own death but that of all -- " Fat hesitated. "Homoplasmates. That's a human being to which the plasmate has crossbonded. Interspecies symbiosis. As living information the plasmate travels up the optic nerve of a human to the pineal body. It uses the human brain as a female host -- "
Dr. Stone grunted and squeezed himself violently.
" -- in which to replicate itself into its active form," Fat said. "The Hermetic alchemists knew of it in theory from ancient texts but could not duplicate it, since they could not locate the dormant buried plasmate."
"But you're saying the plasmate -- the Logos -- was dug up at Nag Hammadi!"
"Yes, when the codices were read."
"You're sure it wasn't in dormant seed form at Qumran? In Cave Five?"
"Well," Fat said, uncertainly.
"Where did the plasmate originally come from?"
After a pause Fat said, "From another star system."
"You wish to identify that star system?"
"Sirius," Fat said.
"Then you believe that the Dogon People of the western Sudan are the source of Christianity."
"They use the fish sign," Fat said. "For Nommo, the benign twin."
"Who would be Form I or Yang."
"Right," Fat said.
"And Yuragu is Form II. But you believe that Form II doesn't exist."
"Nommo had to slay her," Fat said.
"That's what the Japanese myth stipulates, in a sense," Dr. Stone said. "Their cosmogonical myth. The female twin dies giving birth to fire; then she descends under the ground. The male twin goes after her to restore her but finds her decomposing and giving birth to monsters. She pursues him and he seals her up under the ground."
Amazed, Fat said, "She's decomposing and yet she's still giving birth?"
"Only to monsters," Dr. Stone said.
About this time two new propositions entered Fat's mind, due to this particular conversation.
1) Some of those in power are insane.
2) And they are right
By "right" read "in touch with reality." Fat had reverted back to his most dismal insight, that the universe and the Mind behind it which governed it are both totally irrational. He wondered if he should mention this to Dr. Stone, who seemed to understand Fat better than anyone else during all Fat's life.