The Raft: A Novel (2 page)

The skin beneath the plugs attached to the sides of my head was beginning to itch. A myriad of white wires extended outwards from each plug. Each wire ran into the port of box-shaped machines tucked away in the shadows; each machine did its part to facilitate my examination. An enormous grey box to my left generated printed reports based on my physiological responses to their questions.

“Could you repeat the question?” I asked, my voice flat.

The questions were always strange and elusive—difficult to answer directly. The most recent one had come from a man with an old, croaky voice. Six others, faceless, indistinguishable, sat behind their table, taking notes in small dockets. The faint glow of the moonlight through the window outlined the silhouettes of their heads and the curves of their shoulders. One of them was wearing baffling headgear, a rigid, geometric, cage-like device.

“God,” he said again. “What fraction of God’s powers would satisfy you?”

“No fraction,” I replied automatically. I’d studied
The Age of Self Primary
so thoroughly I could extract the correct answer with little conscious effort. “None of it. That, and the power of God, cannot be measured in acts.”

I watched as the grey box spat reams of paper into a tray.

“Explain,” said a woman sitting at the opposite end of the table.

“The concept of a theistic God is based on omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. God is infinite. Infinity cannot be portioned. There is no percentage that can be subtracted from infinity and redistributed.”

“What about numbers?” another woman asked. “Numbers are infinite and yet they can be … portioned, as you put it.”

“Yes. The permutations of numbers are infinite but the numbers
themselves
are finite. There are only nine of them, excluding, of course, the representation of zero. Asking me what I could do with a fraction of God’s power would be like asking what I could do with the numbers one, two and three—without having access to the other six. Such thinking is paradoxical. Nihilistic. It would lead to chaos. And historically, it has.”

A few heads nodded and a figure in the middle of the row jotted something down.

“And what is your understanding of the power paradox?” one of them asked.

Words left my mouth although I could barely remember what they meant. Those lines from the scripts flew out like a language merely recited phonetically—shards of jagged and transparent glass. Philosophies memorised, dead on arrival. I paused, my tongue swollen, my mouth dry. I longed for a glass of water, but there wouldn’t be a drop until I was done. They knew all too well: it was more difficult to deceive them under physical strain. Eventually I managed to speak again:

“Man has always been unable to differentiate between true power and the trivial struggle to reposition himself within a predetermined framework. We have never known true power. We have never come close. True power cannot be based on hierarchy because the simple act of positioning oneself above another will always rely on the positioning of those below. True power doesn’t rely on such a symbiosis. It doesn’t need it. True power is absolute.”

I paused and licked my lips. “But Man was obsessed with finding the answers to his questions without considering the possibility that it was the questions he posed, in fact, that were incorrect. This presented a problem.”

“How?”

“Plotinus was correct when he stated God could not be reached intellectually.”

“And in that regard, what is it we’re attempting to accomplish today, with The Renascence?” the old man asked.

“To deconstruct the questions, find the flaws in them and then disown them—to exist within the answer itself, free from the inanity of our primitive curiosities and hierarchies.”

A third woman: “And what of natural selection? Isn’t life itself based on the survival of the fittest? On hierarchy?”

“Yes, but natural selection is only the first stage. Evolution demands more. In the end, we will not need to be the fittest, for competition itself will cease to exist for us. Subsequently, we will neither disown nor denounce the remaining organisms with which we share the planet. We will simply exist in a state of being of which they will have no concept and to which they will have no access, on an alternate stream of time, within the one true reality.”

There was a moment’s silence before they all nodded in agreement.

“Straight out of the scripts. Almost word for word. You’re very impressive,” the man with the headgear said. He scrawled on his paper. “You are academically gifted but you are still … questioning. That is your weakness. Added to which, we’re not entirely convinced that you have surrendered yourself to the truth. We’re not sure you believe in it.” A pause. “Even if you can recite it.”

The machine whirred again and printed out the latest results on me.

“Tell us something.” Another man spoke for the first time. His voice was the most calculating of them all, and the driest, as if he’d never once in his life expressed any sentiment of joy. “Have you been dreaming?”

“Yes.”

“Of what?”

I paused to consider my response, even though the machine was already churning out my true response in numbers and graphs.

“My son,” I replied. “Andy …”

“Tell us about your dream.”

This was always the most difficult part of the test. No scripts to call upon. No quick answers. My dreams were all I had, all that was left of me, and soon they’d be handed over to The Body, just like everything else.

One of them tapped a pen on the table, impatient for my response.

“I’m walking in a beautiful forest,” I said, squinting from one shadowy face to the next, doing my best to sound neutral. “That’s how it starts. How it always starts. There are many tall trees, but I see one in particular in the centre of the forest, enormous in width and height. It’s taller than the rest. This tree extends far beyond the canopy of the forest. Its trunk disappears into the thick white clouds above. At my feet, a red shoe is lying in the dirt. It’s a child’s shoe. I recognise it as my son’s, then look up and realise he may have dropped it while climbing that tree.”

“How do you feel at this point in your dream?”

“My emotions?”

“Yes.”

“Excited. Hopeful.”

“Go on.”

The grey box rumbled and spat. The moon had moved beyond the glass doors behind the seated examiners, leaving the room in a disquieting dimness.

“I decide to climb the tree, thinking he is at the very top of it, perhaps sitting on a branch up in the clouds. To my surprise the tree is easy to climb even though there are no branches at the base of it and the trunk is perfectly cylindrical, too wide for me to wrap my arms around. My hands and feet clasp firmly on to the bark as I ascend. I continue climbing. As I enter the foliage of the surrounding trees, I notice children sitting in the higher branches—children of differing ages. I do not recognise any of them. They ask me if I am their father and I tell them I’m sorry, no, I’m not. And then I continue. Eventually, I exit through the top of the trees and am able to see the landscape in all directions. The trees go on forever, a boundless plateau. There is no curve on the horizon. It is flat and it is infinite, and I continue climbing.”

“How do you feel at this point?”

“Nervous. The height begins to worry me. My hands and feet aren’t gripping as firmly as they once did. My confidence begins to … lessen.”

“Do you give up?”

“No, I continue.”

“Go on.”

“I look down. I feel dizzy. I tilt my head and can see I’m about to enter the clouds. The branches and foliage above me are barely visible now, but at least I know how far I have to go. I press on. Soon, I’m in it, surrounded by cloud. I call my son’s name but there’s no response. I climb some more. Call some more. Nothing.”

“How do you feel at this point?” a voice shot out.

“Disappointed. Desperate.”

“Go on.”

“For a while I sit on a branch. I sit there … by myself, at the highest point of the world. Above, the sun is beaming through the clouds, but as time passes, whatever it is that beams through feels less like the beam of a sun and more like the glare of a giant eye. The shape of it becomes clearer. It’s an orb. A planetary orb hanging in the sky. It speaks to me. It has a voice, and the voice it uses is my own and at the same time not my own. The voice is calming. It tells me I will not find my son there. And then it mentions a name.”

“Whose name?”

“Jack Turning. The voice repeats the name over and over again. It tells me to remember Jack Turning, but I don’t. I can’t.”

“Do you know this name?”

“No. I don’t. At least, I don’t
think
I do. The orb continues to tell me things. A feeling of hopelessness comes over me. I’ll never see my son again, I think. Perhaps it wasn’t his red shoe. I’m spent. I have nothing left. I give up. I lean backwards and fall through the clouds.”

“Your feelings?”

“I have no fear. I know it will all be over soon. I’ll hit the ground and it’ll be over. But then, suddenly, I see him. Andy. He’s there. He was on the tree trunk the entire time, climbing up after me. I’m slowing as I fall. I have time to turn to him and call his name … and he turns … and he looks me in the eye. But it’s too late. I pass him and my speed builds … the ground rushes towards me before … I wake up.”

For a moment, I was no longer in the room. I could hear the voice of the orb. I could feel the fall and hear the wind. I could see Andy’s face, his bright green eyes in his young, unblemished face. I was filled with guilt and the anguish of falling from him as my hands clawed madly at rushing air, watching the distance grow as the tree shot up into the sky above.

“And what do you feel when you wake up?”

“Guilt,” I replied in my forced monotone, aware of how I’d failed to seem impartial. “Despair.”

“Well,” the woman said. “For the moment, do not concern yourself. We’ll give you something to help you.”

The man with the metal contraption rose from his seat and walked to me. He held out his hand and it fell into the single beam of yellow light. He was holding a small plastic bag filled with dark, dried and crushed red leaves.

“It’s a temporary solution, until you’ve adjusted to your new state. Have a few leaves before bed. Wash it all down with water,” he said.

I reached up slowly and took the bag from him.

“They’ll prevent you having dreams.”

I stared at the bag of leaves I’d been told would wipe away the orb, Jack Turning, the clouds, and my son’s face in a few daily gulps. Then I nodded up at him.

I had to remind myself, The Renascence would see the transcendence of Man. The age of truth after the age of lies, and we’d been assured we’d never go back. Not to the way things were. Not to the way we had been for all those years, roaming like stray animals on some long dark night of fear and avarice. No, The Renascence would inaugurate the future of our existence, and the future was glowing bright.

“Thank you,” I said, and wrapped the bag in my fist.

Walking back from the white house, I felt the biting cold that signified the final few minutes before sunrise. I hurried down the path towards my tent. The large blue moon rippled on the surface of the flat ocean. The stars peered down from their posts, waiting to see what I’d do next.

I grabbed the bag of red leaves from my pocket and looked at it. Then I opened the bag and tipped them all out. Each leaf was whisked upwards and carried away by a breeze, flecks in the blue light of the moon, like the ashes of all the dreams they had been prepared to extinguish. I watched until every ort disappeared into the night. Then I unzipped my tent and went inside to sleep.

Moneta asks two favours

T
he heat of the day had already begun to fill the tent. I sat on the edge of my bed, curling my feet and cracking my toes. My body felt tighter and heavier than it had the night before, probably from the lack of sleep.

I finally forced myself to stand and the bed creaked, the mattress popping back into shape. I looked around my confined space. Each small object and ornament sat in its rightful place: a shelf of tattered books and a stack of unfinished drawings beside a broken mug of pencils. There was a small chest of drawers containing a few items of clothing. A red umbrella with missing spokes leaned like an ageing charmer. Beside it, a shoebox of clippings from
National Geographic
magazines recovered from the cabin of a boat wreck. There was also a glass jar filled with coins, a set of broken headphones, and a rusty old army knife that wouldn’t close anymore …

(
The Renascence is not a law, Kayle. It’s a choice. A collective choice, isn’t it? A choice we make together. Material hoarding was resigned to the Age of Self, whether or not the people of different periods were able to see it for themselves. The secular people of the technological period prided themselves in having little in common with the henotheistic people of Ancient Egypt—with their ideas of an afterlife and their pantheon of gods—and yet both seemed intent to die in mounds of their possessions. Don’t you see the hypocrisy in that kind of behaviour? Rest assured though, Kayle: in The Renascence, when we die, we’ll leave nothing behind
)

I ducked my head and stepped outside. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the bright light as I sauntered through the narrow spaces between the tents, passing familiar faces as they went about their morning chores. A large woman dunked her clothing in an old bucket. She churned the dirt out of a soapy shirt, her bronze arms pumping like the rhythmic shafts of an engine. There was the smell of jasmine, sawdust and spices in the air, and steam rose from tinny pots warbling over gas burners.

As I left the commune of tents and stepped out onto the beach, the sea breeze nibbled at my legs and arms like inquisitive, invisible creatures. I shaded my eyes with my hand; the sun was high enough for it to be midday. The sand beneath me was already hot between my toes and, at the far end, the faint shimmer of a heat mirage weaved like a chorus of ghosts.

I walked along the water’s edge with my pants rolled to my knees. I crouched and cupped the water in my hands to dab the back of my neck. Seagulls hovered and cried above me, chasing each other between the rays of the sun. At the end of the beach a group of people stood huddled like the Moai statues left by the inhabitants of an expired empire, gazing forever out over the ocean. It would have been an odd sight had I not already known the object of their fascination: they were watching the rafts.