Henning Koch - The Maggot People

“That’s because you’re never been reincarnated.”

“And you have?”

“Many, many times, young fellow. Ah, where to begin? I’ve passed through the ages like a stick in a river.”

Michael sighed despondently. “I’m tired. I wish I could just go home.”

“And where would that be? Whether you like it or not, Michael, we are your home now. I am your home.”

“The fact remains that I don’t have a clue what this place is.”

“When the top brass decided to commercialize public religion, they thought it would be smart to abolish reincarnation. That was at the Whitby Synod about twelve hundred years ago. We argued all night but there was no stopping them.”

“You sound as if you were there.”

“In fact I was there, Michael.”

“Twelve hundred years ago?”

“Indeed.”

“You must have tough maggots to hang around that long. I suppose you have them changed once a month?”

“Oh, certainly. But the human mind gets tired of life; it needs rest. And for this reason we put ourselves into storage from time to time.”

He showed an identity card to some guards, who scanned it in an electronic card reader then nodded them through. Heavy steel doors rolled open on thick wheels set into runners in the stone floor. Inside, the air was cool and they seemed to be in a warehouse of sorts. A couple of forklift trucks stood neatly parked along a wall. Shelving units loaded with coffins rose ten meters into the air. At the base of each stack was a list of occupants. “So,” said Giacomo, checking a clipboard hanging by a string from a metal strut, “here we have the remains of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, a sweet soul filled with pity for the unfortunates of this world. And here lies St. Benedict, one of our Great Ones. Really he should not be here; he belongs further down.”

“Further down?”

“Yes. These depositories go very deep. Even I don’t know how many levels there are. You, of course, do not understand why all these dead people are here. You don’t comprehend that they’re actually alive. Right now they are nothing but shriveled heads with their empty bodies rolled up beneath them and a small film of regularly replenished maggots supplying them with just enough oxygen and nurture to keep the brain alive. Dormant but alive, ready to be brought back at a moment’s notice.”

He looked at Michael and let this sink in. “Historically speaking, maggothood was conferred on holy people as a reward. Reincarnation was no myth; it was a reality. But somehow the Holy Grail slipped out of our hands. The maggot found a way of escaping the clutches of the Vatican. Slowly, maggot people started popping up all over the place. In 1917, at a closed session of the Vatican Council, they set up an extermination unit. But even today after it’s been beefed up a good deal, it rarely manages more than three thousand kills per year. The maggot was our holiest device, our timekeeper and guardian. Even Jesus lies below, in a sacred vault, with His Apostles all round him. But He sleeps very deeply. At various times there have been attempts to resuscitate Him, all unsuccessful.” He frowned, peering at Michael as if unsure whether to go on. “There’s a war up here between us, Michael, as you have seen. The Pope will not risk a Second Coming of Jesus; he fears it would fail. And the women who enter His chamber to anoint Our Lord and sing for Him inform us that He is far, far away. They say He wouldn’t wake even if we found a way of refilling Him. O’Hara, as you have guessed, is a hardliner. He claims that we disrupt spiritual reality. Many times he has refused to take the maggot and join us. He insists he’ll meet his Maker in the Kingdom to come. He insists on a real death; he’s set on Styx, the fool. Even worse, he’s put together a powerful group with some influence in Vatican circles. In my humble opinion, heaven as a concept is a risky strategy. I am not the first to make this assertion, of course; I have been in this flawed world of ours for a long, long time. I am not about to leave it permanently for the sake of a misguided whim.”

For the first time Michael realized that there had always been something melancholic about Giacomo’s forced hilarity. He patted the older man on the shoulder.

“Maybe there’s also something good about the human race? Some tiny aspect?”

Giacomo peered at him with a dubious, pouting mouth. He leaned forward, his face furrowing with intensity. “Dream on, little brother, but do listen to me; I have more experience than you will ever have. Love is a temporary action, and you will learn this if you endure over time as I have. The emotion, however, lasts forever.”

“So what this means is that Ariel is still alive? Lying in a box somewhere, because you decided it had to be that way?”

“All things that have been alive are still alive and will always be alive,” Giacomo muttered, failing to hide his irritation. “Must you always speak of this wearisome little woman who would have plotted a false trail for you? I on the other hand have mapped out a spiritual path for you. Bear that in mind.” His black eyes grew resentful. “Or perhaps my interest in your well-being means little to you?”

Michael staunchly kept to his course. “But when is she coming back?”

“I couldn’t possibly answer, my dear fellow. Not without speaking to one of the clerks, and they’re not obliged to answer personal enquiries of that kind. She’ll be due for reactivation, but not for another couple of hundred years. What difference does it make, anyway? You’ll run into her sooner or later. And by the time you do, you won’t be the same as you are today.”

“I’d rather not wait.”

“Who cares what you want?” cried Giacomo. “Who are you? Do you understand how privileged you are to be with me at all?”

“You’re only keeping me here to taunt O’Hara and show him you outsmarted him,” said Michael, stubborn as ever.

“In fact that is not quite right. I would actually like you to…” He stopped. “I think you know what I’d like you to do.”

“Shoot him?”

“Return the favor, let’s say.”

“I didn’t want to be O’Hara’s instrument and not yours, either. I want to be my own person.”

Giacomo chuckled. “Goodness me, you’ve been saturated in twenty-first century Western political mythology. You are a pile of organic tissue animated by a life force that comes from God. Humans will always be parasitic on God, Michael, and they will tell you an awful lot of lies as they set about demolishing this planet of ours, for the sake of their mimetic creation of filth.”

“Wow,” said Michael. “You don’t think much of us, do you?”

Giacomo took a deep breath, trying to cool himself; then changed the subject. “I am entrusted with all this, everything you see here. But even I can’t just throw sleepers into the tank at the drop of a hat. Everything has to be done with proper regard for ceremony and the blessing of the Council.” Then his voice dropped, and with a gentle movement he gripped Michael’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, my son. Time slips by very quickly once you’re oblivious.”

Michael closed his eyes. Patience, he told himself. Patience is the only way here. Slowly I will burrow my way into them and begin to understand them. In the mean time I will appeal to them, I will reflect their desires and motivations.

“Let’s eat, Giacomo.”

The abbot brightened. “That’s better, young Michael. Your cleverness is most appealing; your reflective, adaptive personality. You don’t fool me for a moment, but ambition has always struck me as a good thing, as long as it does not only tend towards self-importance. I have no self-importance, you see. If I could choose freely, I should like to be alone, far away, in some small, inconsequential town where I had no friends and no duties, and I’d sit on the balcony in the mornings, reading books and minding my own business and never going to church.” He smiled fondly. “Although obviously I’d bring Paolo to cook my breakfast and provide a convenient target for irritability. Really, I think that man has been a better companion than any wife could ever have managed; pity he’s so inordinately fat or I might have married him.”