IN THE TIME BEFORE TIME
(The Lion, the Leopard, and the Owl)
It is the time before time. Time, whatever that word means, will not be invented for another ten thousand cycles of the sun, but that means nothing to you, my little friend. You are a person in the time before time. In your world, there is only Now, this timeless present moment. You are a boy moving into manhood, a young man of the First People, the Harmless People, the rock artists, the African bushman hunter-gatherer clan who will later, once time has been invented, call themselves Ju/’hoansi or !Xam. Both of these words, in the ancient click languages, mean simply, “Real People.” There are no other two-legged people. The Tick People are not Real People. Nothing in your world has changed since Mantis created Eland from a discarded scrap of shoe leather. Of course, days have always turned into night and winters into spring. Herds of eland have come and gone. Springbok have flowed from horizon to horizon. It has rained and the sun has shone. The moon has lived and died. Babies have been born, and elders have returned to the spirit world, but otherwise, everything is exactly as it was at the moment of creation. Animals are people, and people are animals. Everything is alive. The Big God lives in his house in the sky, and the Little God walks on the Earth disguised as a praying mantis, making mischief wherever he goes.
Last night, for the first time, you went to the Big God’s house. You climbed up a rope, into the sky. It was terrifying, but also, it was wonderful. You understand, now, so much more the purpose of N!um Tchai, the trance dance. Even the wordless songs now make perfect sense. On your way home to the little camp in the red sand dunes, shaking from exhaustion but elated as never before, you saw in the darkness a small herd of antelope not far way, just over the next gentle rise in the rolling landscape. This morning, before sleeping, you decide to go hunting. You will feed the whole family tonight. Silently, you pick up your grandfather’s little bow and his quiver of poisoned arrows, look down at the naked brown sleepers around the dying fire, smile gently, and walk off into the rising sun. Grandmother and grandfather are getting old, you think to yourself. There is a single spreading acacia tree between you and the golden, glowing sunrise.
The antelope herd is exactly where you saw it in last night’s trance vision. Their horns glisten in the morning sun. The birds in the acacia sing their raucous song. Far away, a lion grunts. The antelope herd is moving slowly off to the south, so you move swiftly in that direction, keeping the morning breeze in your face. Soon, you are in position. You hide in deep shadow in the space between two large overhanging rocks, under an ancient painting depicting a scene much like the one in front of you. You calm your breathing, and wait. Now! Your tiny arrow flies true. It pierces the rump of a fat little buck. His horns are just beginning to sprout. The buck jumps, startled at the sting. The herd moves off, grazing contentedly, the little buck with them, and you follow from a safe distance.
After an hour, the little buck begins to totter a little. He falls behind the herd, and wanders off on his own. You follow, keeping him in your line of view, but taking care not to startle him. He could easily run for an hour before dropping to his knees, and you would never find him, in spite of the tracking skills taught to you by your grandfather. It is getting hot. The herd moves off to the south, and the little buck stops and looks around, a puzzled look on his face. It won’t be long now.
There is a patch of shade next to a tall, weatherworn rock. You lie down for a moment, confident that you will easily find the buck after your nap. You fall asleep and dream a strange dream of pale flying people and giant metal fish. After a timeless time, you are startled awake by the echoing grunt of the lion. It is closer this time. Much closer. You sit up and listen carefully. Is that the cough of a leopard, as well? It is still hot, but the sun is now low in the west. You slept too long. You stand up cautiously and rub your eyes. All right, you tell yourself, it is time to find that tasty little buck and get back to camp. The people are hungry.
Lion grunts again, not fifty meters away. There he is, right there through the tall grass on top of the nearest dune. He has not yet seen you, but he probably smells a hint of something tasty in the air. You look at the tall rock which had shaded your sleep. No. In the distance, the top of the acacia is just visible.
You make up your mind. You break cover and sprint towards the acacia. Lion sees you the moment you move, and lumbers into action. He is old, but he is still swift. He is closing in, fast, but you have no time to look over your shoulder. Will you be able to climb the tree in time? Will your lungs burst before you ever get there? You reach the tree and clamber up like a terrified little monkey. You hear Lion’s breath right behind you. It is loud. You reach the safety of the fork in the tree and look down at last. Lion is huge. He is standing on his hind legs, reaching up as far as he can with a gigantic forepaw. You could reach down and shake hands with him, but that does not seem like a very good idea. Lion watches you for a long time. His huge yellow eyes are chilling. Then he gets down slowly and walks around the tree. He gives a roar of disgust and walks off into the sunset. You are bathed in sweat, but your skin is icy. You gradually stop shaking and settle into the fork to rest a while. You breathe and you watch. Lion is heading directly for the little buck, who has finally died and lies there waiting for you. All of your effort today will be in vain, you think.
Just before disappearing from sight, Lion stops and lets out another roar. He sounds less sure than before. The sun is going down. Half of it is already gone.
Would you kindly go away, Mr. Lion? I have a family to feed.
Lion does not go away. Instead, he hesitates, changes his mind, turns around, trots back over to the acacia and flops down under the tree. No more than ten feet below you. He looks up at you, hungrily, then puts his huge head in his paws. In minutes, the lion is fast asleep. He snores. After a long while a strange jabbering starts up. It is the hyena family, all twenty of them. They materialize out of the gathering dusk and place themselves in a circle, patiently awaiting the inevitable. Oh! What is that new sound? Is that Leopard’s cough you hear, behind all of the hyena chattering? Lions cannot climb trees, but it is a quite different story when it comes to leopards.
There is nothing you can do. The camp is too far away for a shout to be heard. The birds above you in the tree are making a headache-inducing racket as they recount the countless stories of their day, each and every one of them, before settling down for the night. Your mouth feels like the bottom of a dried-out waterhole, full of wildebeest dust and elephant urine and buffalo dung. Your hands refuse to stop shaking. The predators on the ground below have infinite patience. There is no hurry in the timeless time. Once you fall asleep, you will probably tumble from the tree, and dinner will be served. There is nothing you can do, except to relax and recover your energy. Breathe, you tell yourself. It has been a long day. You could almost fall asleep, right here in the fork of this tree, like you did when you were little. When Nana brought you here on her back. The birds are quietening down at last. There is a lingering luminous glow in the western sky, but pretty soon it will be dark. Very dark. You breathe deeply, and your racing heart settles down. You fall asleep, and dream you are a little boy back in camp, at your mother’s breast. It’s peaceful.
Suddenly you wake up. Your eyes are wide in the gloom. It is almost completely dark. What was that? Was that the cough of Leopard, directly below you? You look down. There she is, looking up at you! Oh grandfather! Where are you? Leopard’s eyes glow yellow in the semi-darkness. You make eye contact with her. All it will take is a single bound, and Leopard will be right up there with you, in the fork of the acacia, her powerful jaws crushing the life out of your young body. And yet, Leopard does not move. Not yet. She fixes you with her hypnotic gaze. You stare back, petrified. Even though there is no time, time stops. Nothing moves. The silence is deafening. Even though it is almost dark, it does not get any darker. In fact, it seems to get lighter. Your consciousness expands. You begin to remember.
Leopard appears to nod at you. Her spots blur in the gloom and her eyes seem to move up and down, just a tiny bit. Your memory comes back in a flood. Of course! What were you thinking? Why were you thinking? Why were you so afraid? Had you forgotten? Did you let fear take over completely? Had you stopped breathing? After a while, a little smile illuminates your face. You have remembered. Leopard smiles back, or at least, that’s what it looks like in the dusk. You straighten up, open your beak, blink your huge eyes at Leopard, give out a little hu – hu, spread your owl-wings and glide silently out of the acacia. You land in a small explosion of dust right where the little buck lies, waiting for you. He is your little buck, and he will be coming home with you tonight. You fold your wings, adjust your crooked loincloth, pick up the buck, sling him over your shoulders, and stride swiftly back to camp in the last of the light. You sing a little song that comes to you, a song of the ancestors, a song of thanks to the stars, who are blazing in the sky above you.
Behind you, the solitary acacia tree is now a black silhouette against the last of the deep-red glow in the western sky. The hyenas are still sitting there. They have not yet realized that their dinner has flown away. Leopard is hanging out in the fork of the tree. Lion looks up at her from the ground. Their eyes meet and something like a smile passes between them. Leopard slips sinuously down to the ground, a shadow flowing against shadows. She looks at Lion.
“He is going to be good!” says Lion, in the ancient click language of the First People. The two big cats resume their human forms. Their old, wrinkled faces are barely discernible to one another in the dim light of the Southern Cross, but they do not need to look. They have been together since the beginning. “He’s a good boy.” says the bushman grandmother we know as Leopard, the one you think of as Nana.
“We’d better get home before he wonders where we are. He might think the lions got us!”
The grandfather known as Lion nods his head. They walk off into the west, holding hands. They stop for a moment, change their forms into night-vultures, and flap off noisily. A happy cackle of laughter is the last we hear of them as they disappear into the starry night.
END
Copyright 2012 Andrew Cameron Bailey
LARRY’S CHOICE.
“The Archivist explained it to me. It was a little like this a long, long time ago. Well, not really, but it’s the closest I can get.”
The croupier’s* voice was silky, almost feminine.
“Back then, the people, you included, came here to Las Vegas in the hope of hitting the jackpot. In the hope of becoming fabulously rich. They gathered in huge glittering halls like this one, tens of thousands of them. Each of them intent on the shining machine in front of them.”
Sir Lawrence Olivier stood gazing into the screen. What am I doing here, he wondered. How did I get here? The screen was not really a screen, in the physical sense. It was more of a holographic, floating apparition. The display was divided into seven sections, laid out along the horizontal axis of a twisted Möbius strip, a figure-eight infinity symbol. It was extremely beautiful, an exquisite work of art. To the left of the grouping was a vague blurry circle or sphere that represented the infra-red. So it seemed to the former Shakespearean actor. Next came seven vertical rectangles or bands, which glowed red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. To the right of the violet band was another vague blur, strangely similar to, but somehow completely different from, the one all the way to the left. That, he thought, must be the ultra-violet domain.
Standing on one leg, Sir Lawrence (he thought of himself as “Larry”) tapped the toe of his right shoe on the shiny glass floor beneath him. The scuffed patent leather had seen better days. Larry touched an icon on the screen above the main display. The icon was in the curved shape of a tall slender mushroom. A translucent column rose gently from the floor between Larry’s legs, expanding into a mushroom-like stool perfectly fitted to his lower anatomy. He settled into the seat, and closed his eyes. This place is absolutely silent, he realized. No it’s not. Listening very carefully, beyond the rattle of his busy mind, there was a deep quiet hum, like the sound contented bees make on a summer afternoon. There was a faint smell, as well, a subtle aroma that reminded him of a glade in the forest near his boyhood family home.
“At this stage in the evolutionary spiral it is different,” continued the croupier. “No longer do you come here in search of mere material wealth. Instead, and of course you know this, or you would not be here, you come in search of the greatest treasure in the universe. Remember, do not exceed sixty seconds.”
“One minute. I will not forget.” Larry opened his eyes. The croupier floated off down the aisle. Beyond the slim, formally-dressed figure, an infinite array of identical screens receded off into the distance. To left and right, it was the same. Above and below, the pattern was repeated, visible through the transparent floor and ceiling. Ad infinitum. Before each screen stood, or sat, an individual, most of the figures sharp and well-defined, others a little blurry at the edges. Many wore Western attire, others African, Middle Eastern or Biblical clothing. There were Tibetan monks and Andean alpaca herders. Ah, that feels good, thought Larry. The stool emitted gentle warming vibrations that undulated up his spinal cord in exquisite tremors. His seven chakras lit up one after the other as the tremors ascended.
Nineteen seconds. I have plenty of time, thought Larry. All the time in the world. He looked off in the opposite direction from the one in which the croupier had gone. In that direction, too, the rows of screens went off into infinity, left and right, above and below. The person standing right next to Larry was a brassy woman in a long black evening gown. Platinum blonde. Dark roots. Buxom. He had never met her, but she stirred a recollection from the days of the silent movies. Two screens down from the blonde, Vivienne Leigh was sitting on her translucent stool, holding tight to the two-inch-thick flexiglass counter beneath her screen. The counter had no visible means of support. Tentatively, she touched the screen in front of her. She shimmered. Between the two women, a turbaned Indian swami sat cross-legged on his stool, intent on the information before him. The swami stroked his long grey beard with one hand. The other reached, hesitantly, toward the display in front of him. Up and down. Left and right.
Bringing his eyes back to his own screen, Larry wondered: why does everyone want to be a celebrity? Why, five or six spots down from his station, there was Adolph Hitler! Why would anyone want to come back as Hitler? Who would I choose? Henry the Eighth? Jesus Christ? Francis Bacon? Sri Aurobindo? What if I came back as me? Myself? Larry chuckled. He looked at the screen. He hovered his right forefinger over the glowing emerald rectangle at the mid-point of the display. The tremors from the stool activated his heart chakra. Bright green. Then it faded.
Twenty-two seconds. So, let’s see, how does this work? Larry was getting the hang of it. He hovered his forefinger over the red rectangle all the way to the left. The action triggered a change in the display. The Möbius strip rotated, or more accurately, it mutated. The red rectangle grew and moved to the center of the display. The green band went away. Above the central red rectangle, another series of colored bands appeared, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Above the violet rectangle, a vague circular blur was the ultra-violet. That is what it seemed to Larry. Below the red central band, another set of colored rectangles went down. Larry moved his finger to the violet rectangle near the top. He touched the screen. His finger met no resistance. There was nothing there, or at least, he felt nothing. The display changed. An entirely different reality opened up all around him. Angelic. Heavenly. Wonderful music. The hall of the infinite screens was gone. Larry put his hands behind him. He was back in the hall of the infinite screens. Adolph Hitler was still there, and Napoleon had taken a seat next to him. Bob Dylan looked away from a nearby display for a moment and winked over at Larry before returning his attention to the challenge in front of him. Dylan looked very old, at least ninety. His face was craggy, weathered, like an ancient mountain range, like his voice in the later recordings.
“Thirty seconds,” called the croupier.
“I won’t forget,” replied Larry. “By the way, do you happen to know how many realities there are, in total? How many universes?”
“Do the math,” said the croupier, not unkindly. The croupier turned to the sun-tanned young woman in the miniscule white bikini standing to his left. The girl was away from her screen for some reason. Larry closed his eyes and pondered. He had never been particularly good at mental arithmetic. If there are seven fundamental universes, he thought, and each of those seven universes has seven upper and seven lower harmonics, how many is that? And then each of these fourteen individual harmonics each has its own set of seven upper and seven lower realities. How many is that? Times seven for each of the original basic seven. And what about the vague blurry areas at each end of the spectrum? Do they each have seven upper and seven lower harmonics themselves, or is the physics different in the non-visible realms? Why should it be? Are those dimensions blurry as well? If indeed they do exist. What would it take to experience them? Who would dare?
Larry shook his head, and opened his eyes. He looked at the digital readout at the top of his screen. Forty seconds. He glanced to the left. Adolph Hitler was still there. But wait, wasn’t he off to the right, the last time he looked? He glanced right. Yes. There, too, stood Hitler. The dictator had not thought to activate his pleasure stool. Did he know what he was missing? There can’t be two Adolph Hitlers, thought Larry. Can there?
“Thirty-five seconds,” whispered a voice near Larry’s ear. For the first time, he realized that the croupier was female. The outfit had fooled him. He looked at her face for the first time. Dark, almost black hair. Skin the texture of rich cream. Startling blue eyes. Self-consciously, he turned and looked at his reflection in the glass screen. The display hovered a foot above the flexiglass counter. Behind him, the reflected images of row upon row of identical screens stretched off into infinity, each with its human figure standing or sitting before it. Getting a little grey around the edges, Larry thought. And I’m only forty-five. He shot a smiling glance at the receding croupier.
“Thanks,” he called.
She turned. “Do you have a question?”
“I’d like to speak to the man upstairs, if that’s at all possible.”
“There is no man upstairs. In fact, there is no upstairs.”
“Are you saying that this is all there is?”
“This is it.”
“Well, somebody must be in charge.”
“That would be me.”
“But you are… I mean…”
“You are correct. I am not really in charge. I am more of a guide. Mandelbrot** and Escher put the system in place, and left me to explain matters to curious folks like you.”
“Mandelbrot? Escher? M. C. Escher? Where are they? I would like to meet them.”
“They are long gone.”
“Long gone? Where?”
“I have no idea. They got the job done in something like thirty-nine seconds.”
“You mean they…? All of this?”
“Yes.”
“Did Möbius have anything to do with it? Do you know how I would find Möbius?”
“You would have to ask the Archivist.” The croupier’s voice was kind, but firm.
“The Archivist?”
“Speaking of thirty nine seconds…” The croupier twinkled over her shoulder as she glided three aisles over and six or seven rows to Larry’s right. Was that Steve McQueen? Next to Henry the Eighth? I have to concentrate, or I’ll never catch up with Mandelbrot.
“Don’t you be worrying about Mandelbrot.” The voice had a strong Australian inflection. Larry looked to his left. It was the brown-skinned girl in the white bikini. He had never seen the young woman before. Had he? Her eyes were the kind of eyes that he had never been able to resist. They had violet overtones, like Liz Taylor’s.
“You could come back to Sydney if you like, Ziggy. We miss you. Fair dinkum we do!”
He seemed to remember that voice from a recent life-time. From the shadow of a dream. There was the echo of an echo in his body.
“Thank you,” said Sir Lawrence, sincerity in his voice. “I will think about it.”
Did she call him… Ziggy?
“G’day Zig,” the woman called as she strolled leisurely off down the aisle, back to her station. No, she did not seem to have a station. All the places were occupied. She must have over-stayed her time, and was trapped in this hall forever. The girl was young and tanned and dressed only in a very skimpy bathing suit. Bathing suit? This hall of mirrors is not exactly Bondi Beach, Larry thought. He determinedly put his attention back on the screen before him. Was he hallucinating, or were there now three Adolph Hitlers within a thirty-foot radius of where he sat?
He took a deep breath. If Mandelbrot and Escher designed this system, he reflected, that explains a lot. Every time I touch one of the colored rectangles, another sixteen (or is it eighteen?) of them open up. And any one of those will do the same. It goes on forever, doesn’t it? Forty-five seconds, read the display, which had turned from green to orange and had begun to flash on and off, subtly. Ooh. I have used up three-fourths of my time, and I have not yet begun. Decisions, decisions. The display reverted to its default setting. Larry hovered his forefinger over the central green rectangle, the one corresponding to the anahata*** chakra. The stool quivered deliciously under him. His own heart chakra pulsed in emerald resonance with the simulation. He closed his eyes for a moment and smiled. The pine-forest aroma from his youth grew stronger. As with the other rectangles, sixteen (or was it eighteen?) additional rectangles opened up, both above and below the central green one. Each color was represented, in the correct or spectral order. ROYGBIV. He remembered the acronym from high school back in England. Above and below were the strange blurry spheres, the top one ultra-violet, the bottom one infra-red. Symmetry. Super-symmetry. Going on and on into infinity. “E = M.C. Escher,” he thought with a giggle, recalling something he had once come across in Google Images.
Larry opened his eyes and stared, fascinated. His forefinger moved first up and then down the column. As it moved, each of the rectangles lit up in turn. Tentatively, he tapped the red rectangle at the very bottom. A whole new reality opened up. Tibetan. Demonic. The realm of Kali. Utterly terrifying. He put his hands behind his back, quick as a flash. Instantly, he was back in the mirrored hall, sitting on the pulsating mushroom stool.
“Fifty seconds.” intoned one of the five Hitlers standing in an arc in front of him. Why had they left their stations?
“It’s your choice.” said another of the Hitlers. He could not tell which. None of the stiff little moustaches had so much as quivered.
Larry ignored the Hitlers. I have less than ten seconds, he thought. My tuxedo needs dry-cleaning. I have not shaved in, how long has it been? I need a bath. Where are my good shoes? What am I thinking? Looking up, Larry noticed that Bob Dylan was looking his way again. The musician looked to be about thirty years old. He had a guitar slung over his back. He winked at Larry, turned to his screen, and punched at it decisively. Bob Dylan vanished in a gentle flash of bright blue light. The space before his screen was vacant. The screen went away. Larry realized that he had been seeing similar flashes all along, in each of the colors of the rainbow. He had not noticed them before.
“Fifty five seconds.” The croupier was back, pushing though the encircling crowd of Adolph Hitlers.
“Are you all right?” she asked. She seemed concerned.
“I’m fine,” he replied. “I’ve just never been very good at making decisions.”
“Do you have any questions? Your time is almost up.”
“Yes. Let me think. Why would anyone want to come back as Adolph Hitler?”
“Excellent question. Let me put it this way. If you don’t hit one of those buttons in the next three seconds, you will have plenty of time to find out. All the time in the world.” She turned and glided off, sinuously, as though she was sliding along the polished glass floor on silent, oiled roller skates. Her tuxedo was immaculate. Her dark hair formed itself into a perky little duck’s tail behind her head.
There must have been fifty Adolph Hitlers pressing in on the former actor as his attention returned to the screen in front of him. “Two seconds,” hissed the Hitlers, in unison.
Larry’s right forefinger hovered over the center of the screen. Alternative universes opened up each time he moved his finger. His hand shook. Even the most miniscule movement changed everything.
“Fair dinkum, Ziggy!” The Australian woman’s voice came echoing. “One second,” she called from an infinite distance away. “See you in Sydney. I hope?”
Sir Lawrence Olivier made his decision. He made up his mind. His finger moved. Every one else had gone. Mae West. Clint Eastwood. Winston Churchill. Marilyn Monroe. Isaac Newton. Vivienne Leigh. Mahatma Gandhi. John Lennon. Albert Einstein. William Shakespeare. Madonna. Julius Caesar. Hundreds of others he could not name. Bob Dylan, of course. The hall was full of Hitlers, thousands of them, holding their collective breath.
“You are ours,” the Hitlers whispered, internally. “Ours.”
The unspoken words echoed sibilantly around the vast auditorium.
One half-second. Larry’s finger came down upon the screen, landing decisively on the blurry spherical area directly above the central green rectangle, above the anahata and beyond each of the alternative universes that had emanated, however briefly, from it. As the Hitlers moved in, their triumph premature, Larry dissolved in a crackling fume of ultra-violet. There was a muted bang, a brief aroma of honeyed ozone, just the merest of hints, and then nothing. His station was empty. The station blinked into non-being.
“One minute,” said the Australian. “Down to the wire. Whew!”
“One minute,” agreed the croupier. “Exactly sixty seconds.”
“Perfect!” breathed a million Adolph Hitlers. They snapped to attention, formed themselves into disciplined fractal ranks, and goose-stepped off into the curving infinity. They disappeared in the misty echoing distance. The staccato sound of their marching jack-boots faded and died.
Silence, except for the quiet humming of summer bees. For a long moment, the infinite hall was empty. Only the Australian and the croupier were there. They smiled at one another. And then the crystal palace was full again.
“I’d better get going. Can’t have him getting home before his Mum.” The Australian kissed the croupier on each androgynous cheek. She was already on her way.
“Next time, Archivist!” called the croupier, laughing, and the brown-skinned girl was gone.
END
Copyright 2012 Andrew Cameron Bailey
* croupier: the person in charge of a gaming table, gathering in and paying out money or tokens.
**The Mandelbrot set: a mathematical set of points whose boundary is a distinctive and easily recognizable two-dimensional fractal shape. The set is named after the mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot, who studied and popularized it.
***anahata: (Sanskrit.) The undefeated heart. The heart chakra. The fourth primary chakra according to the Hindu Yogic and Buddhist Tantric traditions.
Andrew Cameron Bailey 