Виктор Пелевин - Buddha's Little Finger

‘How many bits does it take, eh, Volodin?’ one of them asked.

‘That depends on you,’ Volodin answered as he unwrapped a paper bundle on his knees. ‘For instance, I take a hundred at a time already. But I’d recommend you start with about thirty.’

‘And that’ll do it?’

‘That’ll do it, Shurik,’ said Volodin, dividing up the contents of the bundle, a dark heap of something dry and brittle, into three unequal portions. ‘You’ll end up running all over the forest trying to find a place to hide. And you’ll be running too, Kolyan.’

‘Me?’ the third person sitting by the fire asked in a deep bass. ‘And just who am I gonna be runnin’ away from?’

‘From yourself, Kolyan. From your own self,’ Volodin answered.

‘I ain’t never run away from no one,’ said Kolyan, picking up his portion with a hand that looked like the body of a toy dump truck. ‘You better watch your mouth. Why’d I wanna run away from meself? It don’t make no sense.’

‘I can only explain it by using an example,’ said Volodin.

‘Give us an example, then.’

Volodin thought for a moment.

‘Okay, just imagine some low-life scum comes into our office, sticks all his fingers up in the air and says we should be sharing. What would you do then?’

‘I’d drop him,’ said Kolyan.

‘You what? Right there in the office?’ Shurik asked.

‘That don’t matter. They gotta pay for givin’ us the fingers.’ Shurik slapped Kolyan on the shoulder, then turned to Volodin and said reassuringly, ‘Course not in the office. We’d set up a shoot’

‘Okay,’ said Volodin. ‘So you set up a shoot, right? And then what happens? Let Kolyan answer.’

‘Clear enough,’ Kolyan responded. ‘We goes round there, and when that jerk turns up I says - right mate, give us all the dirt on yerself He starts jawin’, and I waits a minute and nods my head, like, and then I blow him away… Yeah. And then all the rest too.’

He looked at the tiny mound of dark garbage on his palm and asked, ‘Just swaller it, just like that?’

‘Chew it properly first,’ said Volodin.

Kolyan dispatched the contents of his palm into his mouth.

‘Smells like mushroom soup,’ he stated.

‘Swaller it,’ said Shurik. ‘I’ve eaten mine, no problem.’

‘So you blow him away,’ Volodin said thoughtfully. ‘So what if he gets the drop on you two first?’

Kolyan pondered for a few seconds, working his jaws, then he swallowed and said confidently, ‘Nah, he won’t.’

‘Okay, then,’ said Volodin, ‘Where are you going to drop him, right there in his wheels, from a distance, or will you let him get out?’

‘I’ll let him gerrout,’ said Kolyan. ‘It’s only woodentops as drops jerks in their wheels. Holes everywhere, blood too - why go spoilin’ a nice set of wheels? The best kind of hit is when he comes over to our wheels.’

‘Okay, so let’s take the best case, imagine he’s already got out of his wheels and comes over to yours and you’re just about to blow him away, when you see…’ Volodin paused significantly, ‘when you see it isn’t him standing there, but you. And you’ve got to blow yourself away. Don’t you reckon you might drop a marble or two?’

‘Sure I would.’

‘And when your marbles are bouncing, it’s not really chicken to kick into reverse?’

‘Course not.’

‘So you’d cut and run, because it wouldn’t be chicken?’

‘if it ain’t chicken, sure.’

‘So it turns out you’d be running away from yourself. Get it?’

‘Nah,’ Kolyan said after a pause, ‘I don’t get it. If it ain’t him, but me, then where am l?’

‘You’re him.’

‘Then who’s he?’

‘He’s you.’

‘Nah, I just don’t get it,’ said Kolyan.

‘Well, look,’ said Volodin, ‘can you imagine there’s nothing at all on every side of you, nothing but you? Everywhere?’

‘Yeah,’ said Kolyan. ‘I’ve been that way a coupla times from smack. Or after basing, don’t remember which it was.’

‘Then how are you going to blow him away, if there’s nothing around you except you? No matter which way you deal it, you end up planting lead in yourself. Dropped your marbles, haven’t you? Right. So instead of blasting him, you do a runner. So now try figuring that by numbers. Seems to me like you’ll end up running away from yourself

Kolyan thought for a long time.

‘Shurik’ll blow him away,’ he said, eventually.

‘That means he’ll hit you. You’re all there is.’

‘How come?’ cut in Shurik. ‘if I’ve still got all me marbles in place, I’ll blow the right guy away.’

This time Volodin had to think longer and harder.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I can’t explain it that way. That’s not a good example. Just hang about a bit till the mushrooms come on, and then we’ll have another go.’

The next few minutes passed in silence. The threesome sitting by the fire opened a few cans of food, sliced some salami and drank some vodka, but it was all done without speaking, as though the words usually spoken to accompany such actions were petty and out of place against the background of something dark and unexpressed which united all present.

After the vodka the three men smoked a cigarette each, still without speaking.

‘How’d the spiel get on to that track anyway?’ Shurik suddenly asked. ‘I mean, like, about the shoot and the marbles?’

‘Volodin was sayin’ as how we would end up runnin’ away from ourselves through the wood when the mushrooms came on.’

‘Ah. Got you. Listen, why do they say that, «come on»? Where is it they come on from?’

‘You asking me?’ asked Volodin.

‘You’ll do right enough,’ answered Shurik.

‘I’d say they come on from inside,’ Volodin said.

‘How’s that then, you mean they’re sitting in there waiting all the time?’

‘Yeah, kind of. You could put it like that. And not just them, actually. We’ve got every possible high in the world inside us… Every time you down something or shoot up, all you do is set some part of it free. There’s no high in the drug, it’s nothing but powder or a few chunks of mushroom… it’s like the key to a safe. Get it?’

‘Hea-vy,’ Shurik said thoughtfully, for some reason circling his head around clockwise.

‘Yeah, real heavy,’ Kolyan agreed, and the conversation died for a few minutes.

‘Listen,’ Shurik put in again, ‘is there a lot of high down there inside?’

‘An infinite amount,’ Volodin said authoritatively. ‘An inexpressibly and infinitely large amount, there’s even a high you can’t tune into out here.’

‘Fuck me… You mean inside’s like a safe and this high’s stuck inside it?’

‘Roughly speaking, yeah.’

‘And can you blow the safe? Like, so as to get a lift outta the high inside it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How?’

‘You have to devote your entire life to it. Why do you think people go into monasteries and live all their lives there? You think they spend their time beating their heads off the walls? They’re on this incredible trip, the likes of which you couldn’t get out here from a fix for a grand in greens. And no stopping - get it? Morning, noon and night. Some of them even when they’re asleep. On and on for ever.’

‘Then what they trippin’ on? What’s it called?’ asked Kolyan.

‘It has various names. In general, I suppose you could call it grace. Or love.’

‘Whose love?’

‘Just love. When you feel it, you stop asking whose it is, what it’s for, why it exists. You just stop thinking altogether.’

‘And you’ve felt it?’

‘Yeah,’ said Volodin, ‘I’ve been there.’