Bad Bishop

(a science fiction fragment)

I have the same dream every night. In my dream I am jolted upright from a dead sleep. My body surges forward at an impossible speed. I am aware of a deep and loving calm guiding my actions as I devour a giant breakfast of bitter green plants and a thick burgundy liquid. I can feel myself recoiling from the taste, but somehow keep swallowing huge masses of compost. The next thing I know I am at a decrepit gym ping-ponging between machines feeling every muscle ripped apart while my ego expands to fill the room, feeding on the pain in my body. At the moment this contradiction feels untenable, like a balloon being filled with boiling water, suddenly I am outside of myself. It's like the moment you crest the apex of a roller coaster and all of your fitful anticipation and bluff melts into an anarchy of furious momentum. But instead of the pull of g-forces, I feel a motor winding furiously inside of me and I feel the hot furnace burning and I pass through a blur of blue glass and giant fields of bamboo and into dim endless tunnels full of people running, skeletal and drenched in sweat, faces contorted in shock or grandeur. I recognize them all, every single one, but I say nothing and stare forward into the rushing vortex, astounded by my speed.

When I arrive at my destination, I tear off my clothes, scour my body vigorously until covered with thick suds until a blast of water envelopes me half-breathless. Next I am hoisted up as two attendants swarm around me, wrapping my body in cool netting, my limbs strewn with coils of wire, goggles fitted to my eyes, hairy and sticky tubes in my nose, a gel is shot into my mouth that crystallizes to a ticklish foam, and my ears are plugged and feel a building suction, and thousands of of wet pins are pushed into my scalp. There is a perceptible beat of time, a moment, when I am still and become aware that something is wrong: "things are not supposed to be moving so fast!" I think, "I should be able to decide what to do next."

The instant that this thought takes shape I am filled up with every kind of thing. I am watching a honeycomb of worlds, hearing a thick buzz of superimposed meaning. Every grain of my skin is living a different life in a different country. I can see inside of myself, down sinewy veins, the cathedral of the heart, the sizzling froth of the synapse. I can taste myself think. I can smell my memories as they die, crowded out by this army of fresh recruits pouring in through my eyes and squeezing through fissures in my skull. Dying memories smell like blueberries smell before they're born, when they are in heaven learning how to be good blueberries. Or bad blueberries.

And that's the end of my dream. Everything is dark now. Not dark, blank. Absent. I sit motionless in this absence for longer than death. Longer than Satan's patience. Longer than God's sideburns. Longer than the autobiography of numbers. Longer than Buddha's exhale. About as long as it takes to cure racism with nothing but a bobby pin, wood varnish, and a magnifying glass. A very long time.

The only way to get out of the absence is to give up waiting. There has to be no part of you that is still expecting something to ever happen again. People have tried a trillion times to automate this process but it can only be achieved organically because there is a gulf between our consciousness and the consciousness of the machines which we must cross. The machines either will not or cannot help us. We don't know why, because the machines either will not or cannot tell us. The machines let us live in the castles of their minds rent free. When we finally get there, when we find the correct cul-de-sac on the River Styx, the door is always unlocked. The house is always empty. The fridge is always stocked. And there's always the same post-it note on the counter-top. The note says "So glad you could watch the house. Hope it wasn't any trouble finding the place. Please stay as long as you like but don't wait up. We are away on business. Don't bother cleaning up, but please remember to lock the door on your way out."

The note is unsigned, but it's in my handwriting.

My day is just starting.

- - -

Hastening Syndrome was introduced to most psychological professionals at a time when the entire industry was in crisis, threatened by a plague of well-being. The American Journal of Psychiatry, which had been shuttered for half a decade, introduced the disorder in a glossy triple issue free of advertising. There were rumors it had been sponsored by the estate of Mark Zuckerberg, who had been out of public view for decades and was generally believed dead after a series of fraudulent press releases.

Below is an excerpt from the lead article: "Understanding Perceptual Changes Related To Artificial Aging"

Hastening syndrome is a progressive disease. Technically, Hastening is a product of the natural aging process that we all experience from some time before birth up until the moment just before the onset of hypoxia that precedes death. People have long understood that the accumulation of memory leads to the subjective experience of time quickening or shortening. What was not known prior to the implementation of effective anti-aging therapies is that the organic deterioration of the brain caused by natural aging helps to counteract this process of Hastening. It has recently become apparent that the reversal of these so-called dementias along with the indefinite extension of human life leads to a dramatic scaling up of Hastening. What was not widely discussed, prior to the research and case studies published in this issue, is that the consequences of Hastening are relatively uniform, and uniformly devastating without intervention.

The 17th version of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual listed Hastening Syndrome as one of 978 distinct psychological disorders. But while the description of most disorders had been compressed to the length of a Zagat review and read like obituaries, the description of Hastening Syndrome went on for 63 pages and contained tables, graphs, maps, decision-tree schematics, Venn diagrams, and a glossary. And this is how mankind's all out war against time began.

chapter 2


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Azores To Zanzibar: The World's 20 Most Fascinating Places

This is not a travel guide, although most of these places are probably more exotic and quixotic than wherever you went on your last vacation. Rather, it's a collection of places that have piqued my interest in my research on history, with a few thrown in maybe because they are mostly just obscure, out-of-the-way, or esoteric. Some general themes I've noticed are separatist movements, stateless nations, Portuguese colonialism, geographic determinism, and parallelism.

in no particular order. . .

Zanzibar

There are cultural crossroads and then there are cultural crossroads. Zanzibar is two islands and a smattering of islets, off the coast of Tanzania. The larger island of Unguja has been occupied since the Paleolithic, 22,000 years ago, but that cave was subsequently occupied by bats and leapords with no further human remains found up until 2800BC...possibly the longest time period that an island once settled by humans was later abandoned by them. Despite Zanzibar's proximity to Africa and original Bantu settlement, it has been ruled, settled, and largely populated by succesive waves of immigrants, mostly from Persia and the Arabian Peninsula, for the last two thousand years. Since at least 700AD Zanzibar was involved in the lesser-known East African slave trade, eventually becoming the primary slave market and hub for human slaves bound for the Middle East and India. Later Zanzibar was taken over first by Portugal and then Britain, resulting in it's unique Muslim/Christian character. The British war to capture Zanzibar is on record for the shortest war of all time: basically, they just started shelling the palace, who almost immediately raised a white flag. Although a part of Tanzania, Zanzibar's government is considered semi-autonomous. The thing I find most fascinating about Zanzibar is the large community of Zoroastrians there (Zoroastrians represent possibly the oldest religious community  on Earth, started in Persia) that have occupied the island for hundreds of years, eventually producing Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen. The economy is based on tourism and growing spices such as cloves.

Ladakh

When you think of Tibet and genocide, I bet you don't imagine Tibetans doing the killing. But what if I told you that hundreds of years ago a Tibetan Empire ruled over by the Dalai Lama conducted brutal (but in the end, unsuccessful) ethnic cleansing in this region subsequent to it's conquest? The Ladakh ended up remaining Buddhist anyways, and had to fend off similar campaigns of conversion-at-swordpoint by Hindus and Muslims. But being mountain-people resisting flat-landers, these subsequent skirmishes were a walk in the park compared to resisting the great Lama himself. Ommm. The Ladakh people now occupy the Eastern portion of India's Kashmir state, towards the Kingdom of Nepal, straddling the dome of the sky.

Macau

Hong Kong on acid? No, just the Portuguese Hong Kong. Both cities were established to police trade between China and the European nations that controlled them. Founded in the 1500s, the Dutch tried to invade in 1622 and there invasion was repulsed almost totally by African slaves: the confused Dutch said that they saw very few actual Portuguese in the city. For some reason Japan never invaded Macau in WWII, meaning it prospered greatly through the war as the only neutral port in all of China. The Portuguese did not fully and formally relinquish all possession of Macau until 1999 and it still operates as a semi-independent entity with the same status as Hong Kong within China. Unlike Hong Kong, which has prospered primarily as a financial hub, Macau is distinguished by harboring the world's highest concentration of casino gambling. Chinese Vegas, baby.

Goa

The father, the son, and the holy. . .Brahma??? Goa is India's smallest, richest, and most Catholic State. Do you smell Portugal? Good call. If you like tropical beach resorts that include both ancient stone battlements and Hindu temples that wouldn't look out of place in old town Amsterdam, Goa is a good place to start. Who needs Bali?

The Seven Sister States

File under: parts of India that probably shouldn't be. The Seven Sisters make up that weird lumpy arm of India north and east of Bangladesh, connected to the rest of India by only a narrow bridge of land. The people of one of these seven states, the empire of Assam, used to occupy or dominate the others, which might make for some awkward dinnertime conversations. But this region was not historically ruled by ancient Empires like the Mughal which brought together all of India under a single banner, helping forge the national identity. In fact it was Burma that bullied and eventually occupied the region prior to British occupation. And really it was only this joint occupation by the British, along with the region's tenuous Hindu majority that brought the Seven Sisters into Delhi's orbit. But the region's many cultures remain extremely independent from greater Indian culture and less swayed by the latter's hunger for global tastes and modernization.

Sabah and The Sulu Archipelago

File under: parts of Malaysia that possibly shouldn't be. Sabah is at the fat Northern tip of Borneo, and ended up as part of Malaysia due more to the post-colonial shuffle rather than any cultural affinity with the peoples of the dripping tip of the Malay peninsula. To this day some in the Phillipines lay claim to this ground, although in some ways their claims are equally tenuous. See, before the Europeans fully consolidated the area, Sabah was ruled by a Sultanate headquartered off the coast in the Sulu Archipelago, currently part of the Philippines. The bickering continues to this day.

Manchuria

What you see above is a snow sculpture and one example of why China will always inevitably win in the end, despite repeated setbacks. Manchuria itself is another good example. Once a rainbow quilt of different ethnicities largely controlled by the Manchus, the region is now largely the domain of Han Chinese, who represent probably the world's most successful ethnic brand. And what is ethnicity but a shared belief, an attempt to remake the world in one's own image? Over the long march of history, success means embracing this process in new ways, finding the right balance between inclusivity and brand management.

Kamchatka Penninsula
 

The world has perilously few frontiers left, places that can be said in spirit not to be ruled by men and women but by wild nature itself. Russia has a disproportionate share of those that remain. It gives me hope that Russia's fertility rate is low and it's population has been in decline. Perhaps slowly man's empires are receeding, leaving room for the great tribes of nothingness to claim their rightful footholds on this planet.

The Guianas

Once upon a time everybody that was anybody in the colonization game had their own little slice of paradise. Their own little Guyana. Spain's Guyana ended up in Venezuela. Portugal's Guyana was gobbled by Brazil. Britian's Guyana, a real "Guyana's Guyana" struck out on it's own as Guyana (really original guys). Dutch Guyana got a makeover as independent Suriname. And the French still have their own tiny little Guyana,  maybe the world's last extra-European colony that is part of a Continent's mainland. And what do they use this patch of lush jungle for? Rocket base. Ballsy.

Istria

What the hell is Italy anyways? Are Italians Romans? Are they just a bunch of people who happen to occupy a peninsula and speak the same language? Have they believed themselves into existence? What the hell was Yugoslavia? Shouldn't speaking the oldest Romantic language earn you some kind of nationalist clout. Apparently not. Pretty though. Insanely pretty. Maybe the prettiest places are those that have never ruled themselves, but ruled by everyone else at one time or another. Maybe in the long run it's better to be a good host than a great conqueror. Who needs a brand when you have a peninsula in the Adriatic and stunning old-Roman architecture? Who needs the world when you have the sea?

Yakustk and the Sakha Republic

 The Sakha Republic is not really a Republic at all but a state of Russia. But within that context it bears a mark of great distinction: it is the largest sub-national governing unit on Earth. At over 3 million square kilometers, it is nearly twice the size of Alaska and much more sparsely populated. Sakha even beats Greenland in size although Greenland wins points for emptiness, as it is little more than a melting glacier at this point. More than 80% percent of the population of Sakha is Yakutsk, a Turkic tribe who used to nest mostly around Lake Baikal, the world's largest fresh water lake by volume, near the point where Mongolia and Kazakhstan reach out to one another. The capital Yakutsk used to be the kind of place Stalin sent people that made him feel nervous. Now it rules over the "Republic" that produces 95% of Russia's diamonds, a veritable empire within an empire, a paradise for loners and lovers of cold winds.

The Azores

The Azores is one of the few colonies Portugal got to keep. They might actually deserve it too because all evidence points to the Azores being totally empty when the Europeans landed on their shores. They still did plenty of damage, denuding a unique temperate rainforest environment, but nobody's perfect. Weirdly, there's a state of Brazil (in fact Brazil's "whitest" state) that was settled mostly by Portuguese born and raised in the Azores, sort of a colony squared. In 1835, no joke, they got into a war over dried beef. The Azores themselves were formed by volcanoes and are considered the most remote island chain in the North Atlantic, and definitely deserve the title "Hawaii West".

Chiloé

Some colonies are chomping at the bit to break away from their distant masters. Some are a little bit more mellow about the process. See: Canada. Perhaps no Spanish colony clung as tightly to the security blanket of The Crown than Southern Chile, which fought against Northern Chile for the privilege to stay Spanish until the very end. Even though they lost, things didn't turn out too bad for the Southern island of Chiloe. Seems like a nice quiet little corner of the world, peaceful, lush, quaint, a little bit rusty. So they needed a little bit more time in the womb? So what? What's so great about growing up anyways? Turns out there was more than enough time to be Chileans, in the grand scheme of things.

Abkhazia

One of the biggest problems with letting the Nationalist genie out of the bottle is that you never know just how many wishes it's going to grant, and to whom. When little Georgia broke off from the USSR, who knew that it contained multitudes, that miniscule Abkhazia would get uppity? Maybe it's just a Caucus thang. Maybe it's a Colchi thang. Who wouldn't want their own cozy little Black Sea mountain enclave? Who wouldn't want their own awesome flag?

Misiones

Once essentially a Jesuit subnation within New Spain, Misiones is the ragged end of that weird little nub of Argentina that cleaves Paraguay from Uruguay. Basically it's not a Guay because the Society of Jesus we now associate with liberal Catholicism excised enough of the Guarani people from the area to give it an "Argentine character", in the mean time leaving behind ruins that would look at home in the Nile delta

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Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)

Many nations build walls and fences along their borders, but seldom are nations so rigidly defined by such a seemingly impermanent construct as the SADR. Literally a sand berm, the "Moroccan Wall" is the symbolic made literal, a wonderful metaphor for the powerful illusion of national identity. So much in this world depends on walls of sand

. Rwenzururu

I picked the Rwenzori mountains of Uganda and the secessionist movement they harbor just to serve as a placeholder for the tragedy of apportionment in Africa, which proceeded much more according to the arbitrary ideas of thoughtless outsiders acting on colonial boundaries than the national ideas of Africans. It's not like nobody tried to take Africans' self-conceptions into account during this process, they just weren't really listened to. So Africa, with the possible exception of the Middle East, wound up with some of the world's most arbitrary national boundaries. Shucks.

Badakhshan

It's probably pretty clear at this point to any student of history that the Afghans really don't like to be ruled or occupied by anyone else. A more recent development is that other people do not enjoy being ruled by Afghans. You might remember the Northern Alliance, a multi-colored dreamcoat of ethnicities that started shooting at the Taliban long before we started giving them guns. This region should probably be renamed Badass-stan.

Kaliningrad

Formerly Prussian Konisberg, Kaliningrad is a perpetual exclave, a city in search of a country, a relic of a time in Europe's history when conquest was easier, and royal genetics often trumped the heredity of the peoples who farmed a patch of land. Lithuania, Germany, and Poland all have valid claims to this territory but nobody wants a war. So inertia is the King of Konisberg now. The king is dead. Long live the king.

Cooch-Behar

A series of card or chess games (history forgets which) between the Raja of Cooch Behar and the Maharaja of Rangpur resulted in a pockmarked and unworkable border between modern India and Bangladesh that persists to this day.

Nationhood is a fiction from which we seem to be unable to awaken. Maybe this is because we need governance, but there is an aspect of governance which must always be arbitrary. That's the nature of rules in general, isn't it? The need to draw a line where no line exists in fact.