Hermit and Six Toes: Part VII

In which Six Toes is marked and Hermit delivers a sermon.  Written by Victor Pelevin.  Translated from the Russian by A. Baylin.  (Beginning here.)
  May 16, 2004

Ten worlds passed into Section One during Six Toes' training with the nuts.  Behind the green gate, something screeched and thumped; things happened there the mere thought of which made Six Toes tremble and break out in cold sweat.  Yet it was the same fear that gave him strength.  His arms grew noticeably longer and stronger; they could now rival Hermit's.  Not that it proved to be of any use.  Hermit only knew that arms were used for flight, but the nature of flight remained a mystery.  Hermit believed it was a special method of instantaneous travel through space that involved visualizing your destination and giving your arms the mental order to transport the body there.  He spent entire days meditating, trying to move across the distance of at least several paces—to no avail.

“It could be that our arms aren't strong enough yet,” he told Six Toes.  “We must keep trying.”

One time Hermit and Six Toes were sitting on a pile of rags between the crates and contemplating the essence of things, when something very unpleasant happened.  Suddenly it became dark and Six Toes opened his eyes to stare into the enormous unshaven face of a god right in front of him.

“Well, well, what have we here?” uttered the face.  A pair of enormous dirty hands grabbed Hermit and Six Toes, lifted them from the crates, and transported them with dizzying speed across vast space and into a world not too far from Section One.  At first they took this setback calmly and even with a tinge of irony.  They settled near he Wall of the World and started building refuges of the soul for themselves.  But not too long afterwards, the god suddenly returned.  He picked up Six Toes, examined him carefully and uttered a surprised grunt.  He then wrapped a piece of blue sticky tape around Six Toes' leg and put him back down.  Several minutes passed, and a whole gaggle of gods showed up.  They picked up Six Toes once more and passed him around, looking him over and producing happy noises.

“I don't like this,” Hermit told Six Toes when the gods had finally returned him into the world and left.  “This looks bad.”

“I know,” agreed Six Toes.  He was frightened.  “Should I get rid of this damn thing?”

He indicated the blue tape wrapped around his leg.

“No, keep it on for now,” said Hermit.

Several minutes were spent in glum silence.  Finally, Six Toes spoke:

“It's because of my toes.  We can't even escape from here ’cause now they know where to look.  Is there any other place to hide?”

Hermit grew even more glum.  He did not answer; instead, he suggested they put their worries aside and pay a visit to the local socium.

It turned out that a whole delegation was already on its way from the feeder to greet them.  They were being taken seriously, judging by the fact that with about twenty paces left to go, the delegates fell to the ground and advanced the rest of the way towards them crawling.  Hermit instructed Six Toes to wait and went ahead to find out what was going on.

He came back and reported: “I've never seen anything like this before.  It looks like they have created a religious commune.  Or at least they saw you transacting with gods and now hold you to be a prophet.  I'm supposed to be your disciple or something like that.”

“So what happens now?  What do they want?”

“They're asking us to come with them.  The path is straight, they say, and something or other is righteous—I didn't get all of it, but it looks like we should come.”

“All right,” Six Toes said with a resigned shrug.  He was tormented by dark premonitions.

The crowd attempted to carry Hermit several times along the way; their persistence was overcome only with great difficulty.  No one dared come near Six Toes, nor even look at him; he walked at the center of a big empty circle.

Upon arrival, Six Toes was seated atop a tall heap of straw.  Hermit settled in at the foot of the heap and began to converse with the local ecclesiastics.  They numbered about twenty and were easily distinguished by their flabby, fat faces.  Finally Hermit gave them a blessing and climbed to the top of the heap.  Six Toes was feeling so cross that he did not even acknowledge Hermit's ritualistic bow; however, that seemed perfectly natural to the flock.

It turned out that everyone had been waiting for some time for Messiah to come.  The approaching decisive stage, here referred to as the Great Judgment, had long been making the public anxious.  The ecclesiastics grew so fat and lazy that they deflected every question with a curt nod at the sky.  Six Toes and his disciple could not have come at a better time.

“They expect a sermon,” informed Hermit.

“Well, tell them something then,” Six Toes grumbled.  “You know I'm a perfect fool at this.”

His voice broke when he said “fool;” it was clear that he was about to cry.

“The gods will eat me,” he lamented.  “I can feel it.”

“Now, now,” said Hermit.  “Take it easy.”

He turned to face the crowd at the foot of the heap and sank into a prayerful pose: face turned up, hands outstretched to heaven.  “Hear me!” he cried.  “You will all soon end up in hell.  You'll be fried, but the greatest sinners among you will first be marinated in vinegar.”

A gasp of horror rose above the socium.

“But I, by the grace of the gods and my lord, their messenger, want to teach you how to save yourselves.  To do so you must conquer sin.  Do you know what sin is?”

Silence was the answer.

“Sin is your excess weight.  Your flesh is sinful, for it is because of your flesh that the gods punish you.  Consider: what brings on the deci…  the Great Judgment?  It is your growing fat.  Lo, the thin shall be saved but not the fat.  Verily I tell ye, no blue ones, no bony ones shall descend into the flame, but all the pink and plump ones shall perish.  And those who fast from this day even to the day of the Great Judgment shall have a new life.  So sayeth the Lord!  Now get ye up and sin no more.”

Nobody got up; they lay on the ground and stared wordlessly at the wildly gesticulating Hermit, or into the depths of the sky.  Many were crying.  The ecclesiastics seemed the only ones to dislike the speech.

“Don't you think that was a bit harsh?” Six Toes whispered when Hermit dropped to the straw beside him.  “They trust your every word.”

“It's not like I'm lying,” said Hermit.  “If they lose a lot of weight, they'll be saved for a second round of feeding, and maybe even a third.  Anyway, forget about them.  We've got our own problems to think about.”

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