Hermit and Six Toes: Part V

In which Six Toes learns about death and exercise.  Written by Victor Pelevin.  Translated from the Russian by A. Baylin.  (Beginning here.)
  May 14, 2004

Hermit woke up, glanced at Six Toes sobbing in the corner, snorted, and began to rummage through the rags.  Before long he came up with a dozen identical metal objects that looked like the sections of a thick octagonal pipe.

“Check this out,” he said to Six Toes.

“What is it?” asked Six Toes.

“The gods call them 'nuts.'”

Six Toes wanted to ask something else but instead shook his head and once again broke down crying.

“What's the matter with you?” asked Hermit.

“They're all dead,” sobbed Six Toes, “every last one of them.”

“So what?” said Hermit.  “You'll be dead, too, some day.  And I assure you that you won't spend any more time being dead than they will.”

“I still feel sorry for them.”

“For whom exactly do you feel sorry?  Your wailing old mother?  That character from the Twenty Closest Ones?”

“Do you remember when they tossed us over the wall?” said Six Toes.  “Everyone was supposed to close their eyes.  I waved at them, and somebody waved back.  Now when I think that person is dead with the rest—  And that with him died a certain something that made him do what he did—”

“True,” Hermit agreed with a smile.  “That is very sad indeed.”

Then all was quiet again, except for some mechanical sounds from beyond the green gate that had swallowed Six Toes' native world whole.

“Tell me, what happens after death?” Six Toes asked finally, after having had his fill of tears.

“It's hard to say,” said Hermit.  “I have had many visions on this subject but I don't know how much one can trust them.”

“Tell me, please.”

“After death we are usually sent to hell.  I have counted at least fifty different tribulations that happen in hell.  Sometimes the dead are cut up into parts and fried in enormous pans.  Sometimes they are roasted whole in a chamber with a glass door, where blue flames rage or white-hot metal pillars emit intolerable heat.  Sometimes we are boiled in gigantic multicolored pots.  Sometimes we are frozen into ice blocks instead.  Not a pretty picture any way you look at it.”

“Who does this to us?”

“What do you mean, who?  The gods, of course.”

“Why do they do it?”

“You see, we are their food.”

Six Toes shuddered and stared intently at his trembling knees.

“It's the legs they like the best,” remarked Hermit.  “Well, that and the arms.  I wanted to talk to you about the arms.  Raise them for me.”

Six Toes lifted his arms; they were thin and feeble, and looked pitiful.

“We used to use them for flight a long time ago,” said Hermit.  “Things have changed, though.”

“What's 'flight'?”

“No one knows for sure.  All we know is that one needs strong arms for it, much stronger than yours or even mine.  That's why I wanted to show you an exercise.  Pick up two nuts.”

Six Toes dragged the two heavy objects to Hermit's feet, panting.

“Good.  Now insert the tips of your arms into the holes.”

Six Toes complied.

“Now raise them and lower them several times.  Like this.”

After a minute of this exercise Six Toes grew so exhausted that he could not lift his arms one more time, try as he might.

“That's it,” he said and dropped his arms.  The nuts fell to the floor.

“Now watch me,” said Hermit.  He put five nuts on each arm and held them outstretched for several minutes without the slightest trace of fatigue.  “How do you like that?”

“Incredible!” exclaimed Six Toes.  “Why don't you move your arms, though?”

“At some point this exercise runs into a complication,” Hermit replied.  “You'll see what I mean eventually.”

“Are you sure that one can learn how to fly this way?”

“No, I'm not.  In fact, I suspect this exercise is pointless.”

“Then why do it?  I mean, if you know it's pointless.”

“Well…  I know many other things as well and one of them is that if you find yourself in the dark with a ray of light up ahead, you walk towards that light without trying to figure out whether it makes sense to do so.  Perhaps it doesn't.  But neither does sitting in the dark.  You see what I mean?”

Six Toes did not answer.

“We are alive for as long as we have hope,” Hermit told him.  “If you have lost hope, do everything you can to conceal that fact from yourself.  Then perhaps something will change.  You should never get you hopes up about that, though.”

Six Toes felt slightly irritated.

“That's all great,” he said, “but what does it mean in practice?”

“In practice it means that you're going to do exercises with these nuts every day until you can lift them as well as I can.  For me it means looking after your success as if it really mattered.”

“Isn't there anything else we can do?”

“Sure,” said Hermit.  “You can go prepare for the decisive stage.  But then you're on your own.”

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