Dan Simmons - Song of Kali

"I stopped in the center. I did not hesitate for long, because I did not wish to have time to think. I must confess that I composed a short sonnet, a farewell verse you might say. I too was once a sentimental poet.

"I jumped. From the center span. It was well over a hundred feet to the dark water of the Hooghly. The fall seemed to go on forever. If I had known the interminable wait between execution and culmination of such a suicide, I would have planned differently, I assure you.

"Water struck from such a height has precisely the consistency of concrete, Mr. Luczak. When I hit, the impact was like a flower blossoming in my skull. Something in my back and neck snapped. Loudly. Like a thick branch breaking.

"My body sank then. I say 'my body' because I died then, Mr. Luczak. There is no doubt of that. But a strange phenomenon occurred. One's spirit does not depart immediately after death, but, rather, watches the disposition of events much as a disinterested spectator might. How else can I describe the sensation of seeing one's twisted body sink to the mud at the bottom of the Hooghly? Of seeing fish preying on the eyes and soft parts of one's self? Of seeing all this and of feeling no concern, no horror, only the mildest of interest? Such is the experience, Mr. Luczak. Such is the dreaded act of dying . . . as banal as all of the other necessary acts which make up our pitiful existence.

"I do not know how long my body lay there, becoming one with the river mud, before the tides or perhaps the wake of a ship brought my discarded form to shore. Children found me. They poked at me and they laughed when their sticks penetrated my flesh. Then the Kapalikas came. They carried me — tenderly, although such distinctions meant nothing to me then — to one of their many temples.

"I awoke within the embrace of Kali. She is the only deity who defies both death and time. She resurrected me then, Mr. Luczak, but only for her own purposes. Only for her own purposes. As you can see, the Dark Mother did not see fit to remove the scourge of my affliction when she restored the breath to my body."

"What were those purposes, Mr. Das?" I asked.

The poet's lipless grimace was a cruel imitation of a smile. "Why, it must be obvious to what end my poor powers have been spent," said Das. "I am the poet of the goddess Kali. Unworthy as I am, I serve her as poet, priest, and avatar."

During this entire conversation, a portion of me experienced the detached observation that Das had mentioned. It seemed as if a part of my consciousness were hovering near the ceiling, watching the entire exchange with a cool appraisal bordering on indifference. Another part of me wanted to laugh hysterically, to cry out, to turn the table over in raging disbelief and to flee from that vile darkness.

"That is my story," said Das. "What do you say, Mr. Luczak?"

"I say that your disease has driven you insane, Mr. Das."

"Yesss?"

"Or that you are quite sane but must play a role for someone."

Das said nothing, but the baleful eyes glanced quickly to the side.

"Another problem with the story," I said, amazed at the firmness of my own voice.

"What is that?"

"If your . . . if the body was discovered only last year, I doubt if there would be much to find. Not after almost seven years."

Das's head snapped up like a nightmare jack-in-the-box. There was a scraping sound in the curtained darkness.

"Oh? Who said that the discovery occurred last year, Mr. Luczak?"

My throat constricted. Without thinking, I began talking. "According to Mr. Muktanandaji, that was when the mythical resurrection took place."

A hot breeze stirred the flame and shadows danced across Das's ruined face. His terrible grin remained fixed. There was another stirring in the shadows.

"Ahhh," exhaled Das. His wrapped and mangled hand scraped across the table in an absent gesture. "Yesss, yesss. There are . . . from time to time . . . certain reenactments."

I leaned forward and let my hand fall next to the stone. My gaze searched out the human being in the leprous hulk across the table from me. My voice was earnest, urgent. "Why, Das? For Godssake, why? Why the Kapalikas? Why this epic obscenity about Kali returning to rule the world or whatever the shit it's about? You used to be a great poet. You sang songs of truth and innocence." My words sounded insipid to me but I knew no other way to say it.

Das leaned back heavily. His breath rattled through his open mouth and nostrils. How long can someone live in this condition ? Where the flesh was not ravaged by the disease, the skin looked almost transparent, fragile as parchment. How long had it been since this man saw sunlight?

"There is a great beauty in the Goddess," he whispered.

"Beauty in death and corruption? Beauty in violence? Das, since when has a disciple of Tagore sung a hymn to violence?"

"Tagore was blind!" There was a new energy in the sibilant whisper. "Tagore could not see. Perhaps in his dying moments. Perhaps. If he had been able to then, he would have turned to her , Mr. Luczak. We all would turn to her when Death enters our night chamber and takes us by the hand."

"Fleeing to some sort of religion doesn't justify violence," I said. "It wouldn't justify the evil you sang of it —"

" Evil . Pahhh!" Das spat a gob of yellow phlegm on the floor. "You know nothing. Evil. There is no evil. There is no violence. There is only power . Power is the single, great organizing principle of the universe, Mr. Luczak. Power is the only a priori reality. All violence is an attempt to exercise power. Violence is power. Everything we fear, we fear because some force exerts its power over us . All of us seek freedom from such fear. All religions are attempts to achieve power over forces which might control us. But She is our only refuge, Mr. Luczak. Only the Devourer of Souls can grant us the abhaya mudras and remove all fear, for only She holds the ultimate power. She is power incarnate, a force beyond time or comprehension."

"That's obscene," I said. "It's a cheap excuse for cruelty."

"Cruelty?" Das laughed. It was the rattling of stones in an empty urn. "Cruelty? Surely, even a sentimental poet who prattles of eternal verities must know that what you call cruelty is the only reality which the universe recognizes. Life subsists on violence."

"I don't accept that."

"Oh?" Das blinked twice. Slowly. "You have never tasted the wine of power? You have never attempted violence?"

I hesitated. I could not tell him that most of my life had been one long exercise of control over my temper. My God, what were we talking about? What was I doing there?

"No," I said.

"Nonsense."

"It's true, Das. Oh, I've been in a few fights, but I've always tried to avoid violence." I was nine, ten years old. Sarah was seven or eight. In the woods near the edge of the forest preserve. 'Take down your shorts. Now !'

"It is not true. Everyone has tasted the blood wine of Kali."

"No. You're wrong." Slapping her in the face. Once. Twice. The rush of tears and the slow compliance. My fingers leaving red marks on her thin arm . "Only unimportant little incidents. Kid stuff."

"There are no unimportant cruelties," said Das.

"That's absurd." The terrible, total excitement of it. Not just at the sight of her pale nakedness and the strange, sexual intensity of it. No, not just that. It was her total helplessness . Her submission. I could do anything I wanted to .

"We will see."

Anything I wanted to.

Das rose laboriously. I pushed back my own chair.

"You will publish the poem?" His voice rasped and hissed like embers in a cooling fire.