Fantastic Metropolis

Stunned, I dropped the pathetic figure onto the bare floorboards. A hollow space had opened in my stomach, just above the hollow space where my guts had once squirmed. I stood over the Archangel and drew my sword. He whimpered and shut his eyes. Vermin, for whom my blade was a bailiff, were already abandoning their host, scuttling from his matted locks into the shadows. I would not let them use me as a new abode; I stamped those few who approached into elegant streaks, a calligraphy of crushed chitin and borrowed blood. Perhaps in this language I read a word of restraint. At any rate, I did not sunder the fool; my sword descended and his faded halo clattered in two pieces under the bed.

I left him sobbing and writhing in his own filth. There is no pride to be earned in destroying large insects. Departing Meredith’s ranch and beckoning to Genji, I threw a leg over his crossbar and we trundled into destiny. There was only one way for God to salvage some honour. Kneeling at his feet, I would present my sword to him. I would ask him to do the decent thing: if he refused, I would assist.

When I reached the Hotel Descartes, I was alarmed to find it fallen almost entirely into ruins. Rubbish, old clothes and charred mattresses lay heaped against the walls. The roof had collapsed; the iron balconies sagged like intestines strung between poles. The entrance was locked. So I rang the bell until the mechanism broke; I pounded on the rotten door. As I turned to go, I noticed that one of the piles of linen was actually a hunched figure. A thrust with my blade soon had it moving–it was the receptionist, covered in bruises and blisters.

“I demand to know God’s whereabouts,” I cried.

She drooled and wheezed. I leaned forward to listen to her words. A little shaking made her mumblings more comprehensible. It seemed God had been evicted for non-payment of bills.

“He had a case of dynamite under his bed,” she croaked, tapping her nose. “Left a burning cigarette on the pillow before stomping out. Don’t know where he went. Good riddance, I say!”

Before I could pull away, she flung her arms around my neck and let loose a horrible shriek: “Took the towels before he left! Always said he was a thief. Strange stains in the bathroom!”

A useless gesture: I removed her outraged head.

 

A journey of a thousand miles does not always begin with a single step. Ask Genji for details. His wheels are warped, his frame is twisted, but he is still faithful. On the hills I dismount and carry him on my back. I will never abandon him, though he pleads to be thrown into a roadside ditch. When he falls apart I will build a shrine from his pieces. After that I will walk all the way. I shall plant a tree for him in Eden. One of my few inspired ideas was to present my visa to D.H. Lawrence. I told him that Earth needed his talents. In fact, I simply want the Garden to reclaim some of its original beauty.

I travel Heaven, looking for God, looking for Meredith. Because she never deceived me, I search for him in the basement flats of the largely empty cities I encounter. Paradise is not overcrowded after all–it was a deception. The few people I meet also believed they were privileged. A new mood has gripped Heaven: with God’s disappearance, people are forced to be free, to shoulder responsibility, to make choices. I am unprepared for such changes. My mentality is too rigid, I belong in a starched past which never really existed. I lust for death more than ever. My quest is the same as always: blood and blossoms.

In a dingy cellar in the last town I passed through, I chanced upon a group of my fellow countrymen. They were mostly ancestors, with a few later emperors and businessmen. After I forced an entry, they invited me to sit with them over a pot of green tea. Even here I was unconsoled: it took a great deal of restraint not to turn on Hirohito and blame all my troubles on him. By renouncing his divinity he subjected our culture to a fatal paradox. It set a precedent. A perfect being cannot claim mortal flaws. Once a god always a god. Aware of my hate, he said: “Students and deities always end up in basement flats.”

There is still hope in my aching brain. I like to imagine there are creatures able to grant me my wish. In courtyards of deserted tenements, dying angels are pegged out on washing-lines; beyond the cities they are worked mercilessly in the fields. The revolution is spreading. If angels are stronger than God, and we are mightier than angels, who can we look up to? There must be something. When I find God I shall ask him a single question. From Mishima, the very lips. Down there, in his foul basement, before I cut him into three pieces, a trinity of holes, I will demand to know the address of his landlord.

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“God in a Basement Flat” was first published in The 3^rd Alternative #15.