Dear K,
My informants report that a supernatural con artist has scammed and embarrassed you. Pity.
You are not the first to be hooked and hauled on the bait of knowledge, of course. Every Eden has its revelatory snake. Scholarship into the corpus of such legends suggests that the quintessential mistake is not acquisition but haste. Plato famously implied that knowledge is nothing but true and justified belief. Alone, true belief is a lucky guess. But justification is laborious. So to attempt knowledge via the mere consumption of fruit, for example, is to invite paradox.
One wonders whether you could have resisted turning the final card. As you say, you had no path, but the Devil–a man of his word, by all accounts–had sworn to follow it. Had you stopped penultimately, you would have had him trapped. Or erased? Or perhaps he would have paved a way before you with his own hands as the only way to fulfill his obligation without winking from existence.
I wish you would visit my continent so that I could introduce you to José Arcadio Buendía, a remarkable man and friend. He is incidentally a man of logic so committed that he scorns the flying carpets of his neighborhoods’ gypsies because their magic does not withstand the scrutiny of his laboratory. But I recommend him to you primarily for his philosophy of competition, according to which one never agrees upon rules with an adversary. Such a principle would have spared you from your current predicament. (José Arcadio is dead now but is an ambulatory ghost and fine conversationalist if you are willing to translate his vulgar Latin.)
I urge you to challenge your captor to another game, and this time set fire to the cards, pick up the plow of thought and reap the fecundity of mystery. Leave the Gödelian knot untied.
Yours sincerely,
J.L.B.
P.S. I have heard a fascinating rumor of a heresy brewing in the low country. It aims to awaken sleeping gods by slipping into their dreams and populating them with the absurd. Given my proclivities I am fascinated but fearful of it. Have you heard anything along these lines in your travels? Tell me and I will add your notes to my files.
One Comment
J. L. B.,
You letter has found its way to me, by the usual means, as I sit by
this smoldering ire sickening the air with its damp stench as I watch
through half a corner of my eye a very foolish young man who wishes
only for destiny in a world that has none. Congratulations for
finding me. I am the devil. So they say.
There was once a boy who, sitting with friends in asenine laughter,
spied a man clad in black standing in mid air outside of the second
story window. The boy opened the shutter and the man stepped in. The
boy asked, ‘Who are you?’ ‘I am the devil,’ was the answer. Of
course, thought the boy. But it was too late. The card had been
played. It is a rare thing when one catches one’s own tale, so rare
that a thousand worlds rise and perish, millions of civilization
sprout roots and decay, before one even comes within sight of the
source reflected. And amongst these sightings, there is not one
attempt of the fools who’d dare to throw their lives into the fire
that does not end in tragedy so deep as to make those told in myths
but a pale and childish reflection. No, it does not happen. Yet
persists the hope
There have been an uncountabl number of Ks, each undone by that which
makes them unique. The minds of lessers are woven through by dream
snakes. But in vain defiance of the powers that be, of forces so far
beyond the lives of men as to be rendered invisible, the Ks each world
throw themselves into the fire. They choose to burn to see within
them if there is any grain that would withstand that blaze, knowing
that they are not so unique, knowing that in this vain quest, this
unhedgable bet against everything, they line themselves up for a fall
to such depths that they cannot hope to be prepared. That is their
pride, and their curse. It is, shall we say?, happy coincidence that
Hammel’s Kain and Kafka’s K share a prefix, each crafted unknowing of
the other. As the bubbles dissolve, so the moniker will be rent
meaningless. And yet-
He is very close now. He looks over at me, sees me playing with my
cards, and wonders to the truth. I remember… When I see the look in
his eyes when he learns the price of destiny, my ecstasy will consume
me. That too is without meaning. I must go soon, as he and I must
play.
But first, you asked me of the sleeping gods and the rumors that die
unspent upon the lips of those of your land. Every man gets a wish or
a dream. What you have heard is not false. It would be easy for me
to say, and not untruthful, that this always happens. But in your
sphere, in your lifetime, yes, there is a shift. I cannot say more
but in veiled words; those who dabble in prophecy can assure that
absolute knowledge of the future is absolute imprisonment. That which
has long slumbered is waking. Spires shall fall into dust. Illusions
will be unmade. That which this day is called kindness shall be
looked upon tomorrow as dangerous malice. The horse shall be
strangled from its reins being pulled too tight, for the passenger
could not be bothered to stop to untangle them.
And there is another K. Before the game is played, the last card has
already been turned overe. What he seeks shall appear but as mist in
the air while he walks; but when he sleeps, it shall become as solid
as diamond. Against this he will throw himself. And he will probably
fail. Still, to try … that his the story, is it not?
He comes, so I must close my words to you. I will see you soon.
The Morning Star