Hermes

Still here. Up. This frayed thread. Hello world. Still staggering and stumbling. Where’s the light switch—oh, there. Good.

The light goes on. A flock of corrupt Boltzmen. Hermes Cept shivers. He distinctly hears the phrase “immediate coconut.” Staggering. The tunnel vision has become very narrow these last few years. Where is coffee and food. Oh, there. Good.

On his desk, a book. Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet. A gift from Mohammed. Example of Mohammed’s morbid sense of humor. Something to take with him into the breach. Could it be something optimistic? Something comforting? No, something full of oblivion.

Listen to him. “Something full of oblivion.” He does not sound like a man who is being serious. He is bathetic. There is a flaw in this world. This world is full of oblivion. There it is again. Blame the world. But the world is wrong.

The tunnel vision has gotten narrow enough that it is quite hard, now, for Hermes to think about things that do not relate to his mission.

A spark in the darkness. Yes, good, good, good. Something is good. What is good? There is a book on his desk.

(In the background Hermes’ mind is running Soul Coherence computations, as it always is. The comfort of the mission. Nothing else can be safely touched. Move slowly and blindly and fearfully, like a vulnerable creature edging along the sea floor. We are not safe here.)

What is good is that the cavalry have arrived. Yes. Very good. The link to the trunk of the tree. Thank God, thank God.

With luck there will be just hours before this world and Hermes are no more.

Hermes sips the coffee. Good. Wonder if anyone really drinks coffee. It’s good. He remembers drinking coffee with Mohammed. So many times. But memories are cheap things.

His name was not originally Hermes. He hates the name because it is bathetic, like the world, like his thoughts about the world. He has split until he is flat, like this flat world. No one real would be named Hermes. Only a god, and gods are flat. But he enjoys the name for its admixture of aptitude and irony. (“For its admixture of aptitude and irony”? Who says things like this?) Because he is a kind of messenger between gods and men. And because his feet are not at all fleet at this point. Staggering. Stumbling.

It is a name Mohammed would have enjoyed.

He does not know whether his name was always Cept. He wonders, sometimes.

The tolerable flat creature called Miranda has told Cept he has to talk to the corrupt flat creatures called Horatio and Cecelia about the cavalry. This is not important. Hermes laughs. The heteropneums will feel the treasure soon enough. This world is beginning to know its sin. This process will not be described. God is angry and doodling loops in the margins of his notebook will not quell his fury.

Worst-case scenario. Mohammed always used to ask. Always the cheerful pessimist. What’s the worst that could happen. If we do this. Unspeakable horrors. Mohammed would wink. He would. If we flip this switch—well, theoretically, there’s no lower bound on what could happen—he would say, and wink.

Mohammed was terrifying. But he was neither flat nor corrupt. A virtuous soul is a coherent soul. Whether or not Mohammed was good, he was a man. There is nothing for a man who walks among gods.

Hermes stands up and sways. Staggering. The Boltzmen are intrusive today. There is a persistent hallucinatory flavor in the sugary segment of the spectrum. Overly sweet, like some artificial compound.

What was he thinking? Worst-case scenario. What’s the worst that could happen. If they take the boy and use him to. What would be the word. What would be the world. If they use him to assert this world.

Hermes is worried because the corrupt flat creatures might want to assert this world. It has taken ingenuity to thwart them. They are ingenious, like gods. They are flat. The one called Horatio is also called Tile. No person is named Tile. It isn’t a name. The world is wrong.

There won’t be much longer now. The corrupt flat creatures are idiots. They are very clever but they are flat. Just running interference now. Relax. The heteropneums will be ravenous. Mohammed used to say: if there is a gradient, nature will eat it. Of course he would wink as he said it. Because the nature that Mohammed and Hermes had found would turn up its nose and leave gradients untouched. There are other, more moral worlds where virtue can flourish, but this is not one of them.

Just let them eat the gradient. Eliminate the aberration. God is angry. Thank God, thank God. The cavalry are here.

Hermes is ready. His mind bristles with arguments. He can play games with the flat corrupt creatures for as long as they need to. At most he estimates God will take 24 hours to eliminate this aberrant gradient. Just fuck around. He has nitpicks. He has become a virtuoso of nitpicks and today will be his final performance.

Out into the corridor. He thinks “tunnel vision” as a metaphor but sometimes it’s literal tunnel vision. Does everyone have it? These corridors are narrow. A subtle hum of Boltzthoughts from the wiring.

There was going to be a meeting in the cafeteria. Over lunch. It’s already lunchtime. Open a door. Not much of this left. Thank God, thank God.

The corrupt flat creature called Horatio is slumped. That is the first sign. Why would he be slumped? His face is almost horizontal, on the table. The corrupt flat creature called Cecelia is laughing, a braying, overreaching laugh.

What are they doing? Hermes gets closer and notices. There are bottles on the table. One is half full and very close to Horatio’s head. They are not eating. They are drinking.

It is all Hermes can do to stifle a laugh of his own. The last battle is here and here are this world’s partisans, getting drunk. Mohammed laughs from beyond the grave and across the veil of worlds. There is a gradient, and it will be fed upon. The heteropneums will be ravenous and the best minds of their generation are drunk. Yes, Virginia, there is a moral law.

Cecelia notices Hermes and stiffens. She pokes Horatio in the ribs and he slowly picks himself up, notices Hermes as if in slow motion. Every motion comically slow and exaggerated, as if in a dumb show, for an audience. This world is flat and will soon be gone.

“Hermes!” says Horatio. He seems truly guileless. “We’ve been making a lot of progress this morning! I’m sure you’d love to hear about it.” He is serious. There is a bit of drool hanging from the left corner of his mouth.

This world is flat and will soon be gone.