Briefing for a Descent Into Hell (17 page)

Merk continued: “When the time comes, it will be our task to wake up those of us who have forgotten what they went for; as well as to recruit suitable inhabitants of Earth—those, that is, who have kept a potential for evolving into rational beings; and to generally strengthen and defend our colonies on Earth for their task. That has always been so, of course. But this time it will be all that and more—it will be an assisting of the Earth’s people through the coming Planetary Emergency in which all life may be lost. But we have already dealt with that earlier in the Conference.

“At the risk of boring you, I must repeat, I am afraid—repeat, reiterate, re-emphasise—it is not at all a question of your arriving on Planet Earth as you leave here. You will lose nearly all memory of your past existence. You will each of you come to yourselves, perhaps alone, perhaps in the company of each other, but with only a vague feeling of recognition, and probably disassociated, disorientated, ill, discouraged, and unable to believe, when you are told what your task really is. You will wake up, as it were, but there will be a period while you are waking which will be like the recovery from an illness, or like the emergence into good air from a poisoned one. Some of you may choose not to wake, for the waking will be so painful, and the knowledge of your condition and Earth’s condition so agonising, you will be like drug addicts: you may prefer to continue to breathe in oblivion. And when you have understood that you are in the process of awakening, that you have something to get done, you will have absorbed enough of the characteristics of Earthmen to be distrustful, surly, grudging, suspicious. You will be like a drowning person who drowns his rescuer, so violently will you struggle in your panic terror.

“And, when you have become aroused to your real condition, and have recovered from the shame or embarrassment of seeing to what depths you have sunk, you will then begin the task of arousing others, and you will find that you are in the position of rescuer of a drowning person, or a doctor in a city that has an epidemic of madness. The drowning person wants to be rescued, but can’t prevent himself
struggling. The mad person has intermittent fits of sanity, but in between behaves as if his doctor were his enemy.

“And so, my friends—that’s it. That’s my message to you. It’s going to be tough. Every bit as tough as you expect.

“Which brings me to the final point. Which is that there is to be no Briefing. How could there be? You’d be bound to forget every word you hear now. No, you will carry Sealed Orders.”

Here, as some of them unconsciously glanced around for evidences of these, Merk joked: “Come, come, what do you expect? A roll of microfilm? Perhaps a manuscript of some kind, that you’d have to chew up and swallow in moments of danger? No, of course not, give me some credit—brainprints, of course.”

At this, they were obviously much relieved and reassured, brain-printing being, after all, as brain-printing does.

“And in fact you have already been printed, thanks to …”

The Light glowed up for a moment—glowed up and held the increase.

“Yes. We have the Absolute assurance that our brain-printing was the best possible quality. You’ll find it is all there, when you need it …” The glow was deepening, and there was a steady vibrating hum, which was having the effect of encouraging and steadying them all—was even, as some of them believed, the final pressure of the Printing. But they all knew now that this was the Time. Minna Erve, her eyes flashing tears, although tempted to remain with them,
slipped away, without formal goodbyes, as Merk Ury stepped down off the platform and sat in the body of the hall with the rest. They all sat quiet, adjusting their breathing apparatus. There was a deep mellow silence, the underside of the powerful humming sound. Each held his or her mind steady in the thought: Don’t forget, keep the memory of this moment, keep it steady … but the golden spin of the moment swept the whole space they occupied into a vortex of ringing Light in which they were spinning atoms. The pressure increased. The Sound became higher. It was like a flute. The Light was now an explosion of orange, which deepened into red. This pulsed and beat. The high dizzy whine of the Sound had become absorbed into the steady pulse of the dark red glow. Each was alone now, all his knowledge of himself, his understanding, absorbed into his ears where beat, steadily on and on and on and on, the dark red pulse.

Sucked into sound, sucked into sea, a swinging sea,
boom
, shhhh,
boooom
, shhhh,
boooom
 … thud thud, thud thud, thud thud, thud thud, thud thud, in and out, in and out, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. Black and white, coming and going, out and in, up and down,
no
, yes,
no
, yes,
no
, yes, one, two, one, two, one two, and the three is me, the three is me,
THE THREE IS ME
. I in dark, I in pulsing dark, crouched, I holding on, clutching tight, boooom, shhh, boooom, shhh, rocked, rocking, somewhere behind the gate, somewhere in front the door, and a dark red clotting light and pressure and pain and then OUT into a flat white light where shapes move and things flash and glitter.

He is a
good
baby, it was a good quiet birth and he went straight off to sleep.

Oh sick and queasy, all mouth and the smell of sick, a stomach rocking as baby rocks, oh so sick, and too full and too empty, and hungry and wet and smells and oh smells and dark and light, dark and light, one and two, the three is
me
. And

He is a
good
baby, he sleeps all the time.

I struggle up clutching and fighting away from the sick rocking stomach, the smell of sick, I fight and clutch and roll and roar immersed in a hell of want, I must have, I must have, I must have, oh rise on your two legs then, I must rise and walk, walk anyhow and any way and any way up and away from this I must, I want, but they rock me, hushhhhh, they croooon me, shush, they knock me over the head with sleepers, soothers, syrups, drugs and medicines.

Be a
good
boy, baby, and go to sleep.

Oh I sleep, down among the dead men, wrapped in cocoons of warmth, all belly and wet stinking bum, I must wake, I must wake, I
know
there is something more awake than this, I
know
I have to be awake and be, but

Be a
good
baby, I’ll rock you to sleep,
He is a
good
baby, he has always slept a lot,
He is a
good
baby, he doesn’t give any trouble,
He is a
good
baby, and he has always slept the night right through.

I run and crawl and all the world’s my oyster, I touch and finger and sniff and taste and a streak of dust on the floor is a wonder, and sunlight on my skin is a continent and light is and dark is, and dark is for remembrance, behind there is a door, I came in at there, pulsing, pulsing, one and two and I makes three, and now is a million-textured light changing as the day changes, light the wonder, light out of dark, and oh let me smell and grow and find and fight but

Be a
good
baby and do keep still
He’s such an energetic baby, he wears me out,
Sleep
, baby, for good Lord’s sake!
Can’t you ever keep still,
You used to be such a
good
baby.

Pushed back into sleep as I fight to emerge, pushed back as they drown a kitten, or a child fighting to wake up, pushed back by voices and lullabies and bribes and bullies, punished by tones of voices and by silences, gripped into sleep by medicines and syrups and dummies and dope.

Nevertheless I fight, desperate, like a kitten trying to climb out of the slippysided zinc pail it has been flung in, an unwanted, unneeded cat to drown, better dead than alive, better asleep than awake, but I fight, up and up into the light, greeting dark now as a different land, a different texture, a different state of the Light, I lie in dark and recognise Night but

Sleep, child, why aren’t you asleep?
He gives me trouble, he never wants to sleep.

But I’m up and on my feet and running and a discovery of the tones and sounds of Light is my day with sleep and bed waiting to catch me by my heel and drag me down down down, and in the day, they say, when I rage peevish and restless, with tiredness the enemy overcoming the discovery, the wonder and the delight

Lie down and
sleep
, lie down and
rest
Be a
good
boy now and
sleep
awhile.

And when night comes and I’m struck with anger again that tiredness undoes me, again and again, or struck with rage because I’m still awake and still got far to go, the gleam of light on a leaf a signal and the drip of rain a most potent drum

Oh do go to
sleep
now baby, it is time for
sleep
,
For God’s sake give me some peace and quiet,
For Christsake
sleep
.

And alone in the dark and out of the way I shout and shake my bars and at last I sleep so that they love me, I sleep, I learn to sleep.

He is such a good boy, he’s sleeping well.
He doesn’t give me nearly so much trouble now, he’s
stopped being so wakeful.
Thank God, he’s asleep.

I’m off to their school now and I’m learning to be good.
I’m a good boy now, I am quiet and good.

One and one are two
And the third is Me.

Me half beaten back into dark, me quietened, regulated, time-tabled, a nuisance tamed, me the obediently sleeping.

But back in the dark in the deep of my mind is where I know quite well the door is, back or forward, up or down, beyond the Boooom, shush, the eternally boooooming, the pulse, the beat, the one and two, the one and two, through there, who knows which or where—I do. I know. I remember. Do I remember? Yes, I remember. I must remember. There. Where?

The little white days flicker faster faster, flick flick flick, on and off, white with the slices of dark between, the days for living, and the nights for

Sleep
.

He doesn’t sleep well doctor, he needs a pill.

The small days flicker and the nights are killed dead with Pills. But he sleeps well, he is healthy and regulated and
good
.

And now the greatest drug of them all, the sweet dream, sweet night dreams and sweeter day dreams, I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair and wide-apart legs like loving arms.

And now I’m grown and gone, and I work and play all regulated ordered and social and correct, and I sleep now less than I ever did in my life for this short brief blissful time, just away from that bed the family, before I become
that feather bed the family, and I’m young and my dreams and living are all one, white arms around my neck and I drown, I drown, she and I, he and I, down among the dead men. Down.

Oh doctor can you give me a pill to make me sleep. Oh, I’m working too hard and Oh, I’m worried about my marriage, and oh I’m worried about my job, and oh I can’t stand what I think. Oh give me a pill and give me a drink and give me a smoke and give me dope, give me enough food to knock me silly, give me now everything I had when I was baby, give me what you trained me to need before I even talked or walked, give me anything you like, but let me
SLEEP
for in the dark where the door once was (but is it still?) is the place I can tolerate being alive at all. I never learned to live awake. I was trained for sleep. Oh let me sleep and sleep my life away. And if the pressure of true memory wakes me before I need, if the urgency of what I should be doing stabs into my sleep, then for God’s sake doctor, for
goodness
sake, give me drugs and put me back to dreaming again.

And now life is wearing thin and as it reaches the end the drugs are wearing thinner, less life for loving, less room for food, less stomach for drink, and sleep is harder to reach and thinner, and sleeping is no longer the Drop into the black pit all oblivion until the alarm clock, no, sleep is thin and fitful and full of memories and reminders and the dark is never dark enough and

Give me pills, give me more pills.
I MUST SLEEP
.

No
, I don’t enjoy my nights reading thinking talking and simply being alive, no, I want to sleep, I have to sleep.

In a long narrow ward where sixty old men in charity pyjamas are put to bed like infants for the night at nine o’clock by institution nurses, the nurse goes around, with sixty doses of
SLEEP
.

SLEEP WELL
.

In the outpatients of a million hospitals, in the consulting rooms of a million million medicoes, a million million million hands are stretched out,

Doctor give me pills to make me sleep.
SLEEP WELL
.

As the earth revolves, one half always in the dark, from the dark half rises up a wail, oh I can’t sleep, I want to sleep, I don’t sleep enough, but give me pills to make me sleep, give me alcohol to make me sleep, give me sex to make me sleep.

SLEEP WELL
.

In mental hospitals where the millions who have cracked, making cracks where the light could shine through at last, the pills are like food pellets dropped into battery chickens’ food hoppers,
SLEEP
, the needles slide into the outstretched arms,
SLEEP
, the rubber tubes strapped to arms drip,
SLEEP
.

SLEEP
, for you are not yet dead.
I must wake up.
I have to wake up.

I can feel myself struggling and fighting as if I were sunk a mile deep in thick dragging water but far above my head in the surface shallows I can see sunlanced waves where the glittering fishes dance and swim, oh let me rise, let me come up to the surface like a cork or a leaping porpoise into the light. Let me fly like a flying fish, a fish of light.