BEFORE AND AFTER SCIENCE
1. BEFORE (Backwater)
Before science we spoke the strong names into ragged deep holes in the ground which no man had ever dug, and our ancestors answered us in the language of the dead. Their voices lived in our heads for weeks after each distant conversation, and we tasted mold in our fresh bread and felt as if roots had knotted our eyeballs and threaded their fibers through our nostrils. But it was important to speak to those who had left us, and the ones among the living who could unriddle the harsh and cryptic syllables of the dead became respected shamans. We listened with silent attentiveness to these interpreters and followed their sage advice until we saw that night sky look in their eyes, heard the sepulchral undertone in their voices, all of which betokened their desire to join their interlocutors. Whereupon, with delight, we killed them.
Before science our houses were made of thick air and frozen moonlight. Our world’s constant wind, impacting the walls which were fashioned from a different phase of itself, adhered. Thus our houses steadily accreted new material to themselves, growing and thickening like pearls. (Every morning we had to break a thin seal over our doors and windows.) Each year a woman’s house was visibly larger. The oldest among us lived behind walls so massive that they had to walk for half a day down a long tunnel to reach their front door, whereupon they would break the seal, poke out their heads for a breath of the air that was immuring them, catch a glimpse of sunlight, snatch up the food their neighbors had left for them, and begin the trek back into their homes so as to arrive once more at their living moss beds in time for sleep.
Congealed moonlight formed the roofs of our homes, casting a pleasant glow inside all day and all night. (These lenses condensed in certain nearby hollows on a single night each month.) Depending on what kind of rain fell, the compacted moonlight shone a roseate pink, a glaucous green, or the yellow of old bone. We had different ceremonies for each shade of light. Some were sad, others were not.
Once an oldster, despairing of the daily shuffle to front entrance and back, resolved to exit through the roof. None of us had ever thought to try this before. It was just as well. The old one thrust head and shoulders through the roof of moonstuff and promptly went mad. Moonlight leaked continually from his eyes and ears. He tried to kill himself by swallowing needlefish, but this we could not permit, as once deceased his mad voice would have disrupted all our conversations with the dead. We were forced to remove his soul and lock it into a stone. The stone we tossed into the sea. His body was used to flavor a batch of beer, so that we might remember his folly and not duplicate it.
Before science we mated with anything that pleased us. Our tastes were catholic, our energies fervid. Spiders, mud, books, sea-apes, flames, the lemon wind, ghost-trees, all these and many other objects knew our passionate embraces. These matings occupied many hours of our days and nights. Some were communal, some private. Occasionally one among us became obsessed, fixated on some singular individual or species. It was thus with He Who Loved Rukhs.
The Rukhs were avians as big as ourselves. They lived high in the mountains surrounding our village, in nests of spun glass. Often one would see them gliding soundlessly on thermals far above our homes. Their plumage was of various colors, thick and bright, save over their mammalian breasts which stood out bare.
He Who Loved Rukhs would climb laboriously to their perches, clasp a bird and lock organs with it. The Rukh, startled, would launch itself into the air. The matings were consummated in the depths of the sky, where blue gave way to indigo. If all went well, the Rukh would alight and He Who Loved Rukhs would dismount and walk away. Sometimes, though, for no apparent reason, the Rukh would stiffen all its muscles at the climax and plummet towards the ground. The first time this happened, the Rukh-lover saved himself only by catching onto some thick air during his fall, and sinking slowly to the earth, where the Rukh lay broken and dying. He laid his head on the breasts of his avian lover and wept. The Rukh made grievous reply. We who had witnessed this counselled him against further such intercourse. He ignored us, as was his right and, perhaps, his geas.
The second time this happened, He Who Loved Rukhs broke both legs and several ribs. We healed him with salves made from river-coral and cave-fungi. He returned to the Rukhs shortly thereafter. The last time a Rukh behaved in this manner, we found He Who Loved Rukhs in a crumpled heap, broken beyond repair, and we could do naught but ease him on his journey. For many years thereafter, Rukhs at sunset circled the spot where he died, uttering mournful cries.
Naturally there were many others whose loves had also left them scarred in one way or another. Missing limbs, claw-etched faces, lacerated organs, muscles spasming from exotic poisonous secretions ingested unthinkingly in the heat of lust—all these evidences of savage and unlikely couplings could be seen among our people.
The offspring of such matings were everywhere. The more tractable we adopted as our own, rearing them to civilized behavior. Others, less human, wandered the fields and forests, the air and sea, sometimes further interbreeding and creating offspring even more bizarre than their parents. Eventually the world became more interestingly populated than it had been when the first of us walked forth from the Omphalos, and we congratulated ourselves on our fecundity.
Before science we ate mostly whatever came to hand. Only bread and beer did we bother to prepare, and this only because the dead had revealed the secret of their manufacture to us. Otherwise we foraged for edibles in the woods and along the riverbank, in tidal pools or under rocks. Occasionally we ate the rocks themselves, if the fancy took us, and they had been sufficiently softened by the hot rains that made our moonlight roofs glow the color of slate.
Once, a glutton among us ate another member of the village before we could stop him. Thereafter he could not control his left side, and fought a constant war against his possessor. At night we would gather in a circle, seated, with the unfortunate one at the center and watch his struggles, which we found instructive. He died attempting to swim the river during floodtime, when his uncooperative half failed to paddle. His voice and that of his unwilling companion were linked in death as one forever after.
Whenever any of us found something particularly good to eat, such as an enormous sponge tree, she would summon everyone within hearing, and we would devour it down to the ground.
Sometimes the food fought back, and then we were eaten ourselves.
Before science there was nothing in the sky that we did not understand. Everything was comprehended instinctively, and spoke volumes to us.
Before science war was a game. We met with those from other villages and exchanged poems. Those poets who were accorded the cicatrice of victory went to live in the rival village as honored guests, relieved from all necessities, even that of walking. (They were carried about on the backs of volunteers.) Those contestants who lost were buried headfirst in the earth until they sprouted leaves from the soles of their feet, whereupon they were pruned and mulched and watered. They served better in this capacity than in their former unsuitable role.
Before science the elimination of bodily wastes took place only while we squatted together in the ocean, during a full moon. This latter condition obtained more frequently then.
Before science our dreams sometimes manifested themselves tangibly, without our intervention. We tried always to think harmoniously prior to falling asleep, just in case such a thing should occur. We were not always successful. Once we awoke and there were footprints a mile long and half as wide outside our doors. Twelve houses had been crushed with their occupants. We determined who the dreamer was and excised his organ of dreaming with flint knives. Afterwards he dug a trench for himself, lay in it, heaped the earth back over himself, and changed into a worm.
Before science, we were happy. Except when we weren’t. And even then everything was as it was.
2. AFTER (King’s Lead Hat)
After science I lived all alone in a fragile, white tower, six miles high with no floors. All my possessions and devices of power hung suspended at various levels. I myself would float from one stratum to another all day long, inspecting and handling those objects which intrigued me according to my mood. The walls of my tower were translucent, and I could see vague shapes constantly flittering outside, like shadows projected on a warped screen. I knew some were my fellows, but most times they did not interest me at all, and I seldom responded to their nebulous gestures. (They were unable to enter, of course, without my permission.) Other shapes represented artificial creations fashioned by those who were so inclined. These living and mechanical beings alternated between postures of menace and allure.
After science, whenever I was aroused by the suggestive motions of these constructs, I would venture out onto the flat roof of my tower and expose myself to their sexual depredations.
The sky at this height shaded from blue to indigo, but was empty of Rukhs, who had all died when science came.
After I had submitted to the mixed hot and moist or cold and oily embraces of the quasi-organic and inorganic mechanisms I would rise to my feet and gaze about, rather bewildered. The view was one of endless towers spiked into a greensward like a flock of javelins hurled from space. Many floating figures speckled the sky, moving here and there, all rather aimlessly.
After science I dressed entirely in fine copper wire. Wrapping it around my torso occupied much of my day. After I had achieved the precise look I desired, I would immerse myself in a vat of liquid plastic which dried to a certain pliancy, allowing me freedom of motion but preserving my laborious wrappings in their pristine state.
After science I routinely dried up portions of the sea (by means of focused energies and forces), in order to study the writhings of the creatures thus exposed. If their efforts were not interesting enough, I stimulated them by means of applied probes.
Once, standing on the sea floor, walls of water rising around me, I picked up a stone that seemed to speak madly to me, but I ignored it.
After science I ate shards of glass, bricks of rubber and wafers of silicon, washed down with raw protein mix. Each meal required extensive reconstructive surgery of my intestinal tract, which my machines dutifully carried out. Although I did not precisely enjoy such meals, it was both the custom, and all that was available. Or at least, so I was told and believed.
After science I never had to fear the vagaries of fate. I was master of all I surveyed. No longer could death come unexpectedly in the night from someone’s dream (for no one dreamed) or from the struggles of one’s reluctant food. I had absolute power over the natural world, except where my desires conflicted with those of my peers. Such conflicts provided the main source of excitement in my life. After exerting my destructive talents, I would stand in the middle of burnt and steaming acres as the victor or the vanquished and feel, whether elated or humbled, that I was truly alive.
After science I reproduced by growing homunculi in kettles. I would decant these wet little duplicates when they were ready and release them into the world by the hundreds. Most perished due to environmental causes, or in the jaws of predators, but one or two survived and grew to self-sufficiency. I never had any contact with these mirror-image adults afterwards, although occasionally I saw them from a distance.
After science there was no moon. I had used it up during certain experiments and had not thought it worthwhile to create a replacement.
After science the wind disintegrated whatever manmade object it touched. Only a coating of special molecules kept our towers intact.
After science all books were written on human skin with ink made of blood. They were stored in a central repository located deep underground. Entrance to the library was guarded by a senile old man who demanded a token donation of either blood or epidermis. It was impossible to refuse him. After paying, I would hastily bandage my wounds and ride the slow elevator down, down, down. The dim and cavernous repository, aisled with shelf after tall shelf, smelled disturbingly of mortality, but I was forced to visit to obtain certain knowledge. I never stayed long.
After science I was often unsure of who I was. I would wake up from a sleep devoid of dreams convinced that my name was different, that my past consisted of incidents completely alien to my inner self. This feeling usually persisted for several days, my old self gradually returning in bits and pieces, never as strong as I was convinced it had once been, during some past golden era.
After science all poems were cast in the form of featureless concrete blocks. I frequently attempted to understand them, but succeeded only in abrading the tips of my fingers.
After science the animals began to war against humanity. In addition to eating my homunculi and those of my competitors, the animals, having gained in cunning thanks to chemical and radioactive mutations, became imbued with malice and possessed of manipulative organs. They fashioned primitive deadfalls and snares. They lurked outside the door of my tower or dived from the skies. They succeeded in killing some people, despite all precautions.
After science women were indistinguishable from men. Except when they were utterly different.
After science the more I learned, the less understandable everything was.
After science the most famous figure in mankind’s history was The Man Who Levelled Mountains. He stood to me and to all my peers as the epitomal archetype of the age, the pinnacle of mankind’s accomplishments.
The Man Who Levelled Mountains represented all those who were transfigured by some pivotal experience and who in turn left the world remolded in their image.
One day The Man Who Levelled Mountains—who was not yet called by that honorable title, and was but a humble artificer—was out walking when he stubbed his toe on a pebble. Instantly he stopped in his tracks. Overwhelming rage swept his senses, that he should be made to feel pain by this insignificant bit of rubble. On the spot, he vowed that he would never be humiliated again, by small obstacle or large.
Retiring to his tower, he embarked on his plan to render the world utterly flat. Although it took him the rest of his life, he succeeded, thanks to his skillful employment of science. To this day, the surface of every continent is completely level and covered with a tough, ubiquitous grass of his devising. Whenever vulcanism or plate tectonics threatens to disturb the work of The Man Who Levelled Mountains, volunteers gather in his name (one of our last vestiges of cooperative effort) and stifle the helpless planet, thereby preserving our equanimity and asserting our supremacy.
After science there was nothing else.