Victor Pelevin - The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

I had approached the truth gradually:

1. as I observed Alexander, I realized that a werewolf directs his hypnotic impulse at his own mind. The werewolf suggests to himself that he is turning into a wolf, and after that he really does turn into one.

2. during the chicken hunt I noticed that my tail was directing its fluence at me. But I did not understand exactly what I was suggesting to myself: I thought it might be some kind of feedback loop that made me into a fox. I was already only two steps away from the truth, but I still couldn’t see it.

3. in the course of my explanations, I told Alexander that he and this world were one and the same thing. I had everything I needed for final enlightenment. But I still needed Alexander to speak out and call things by their real names. It was only then that I attained to the truth.

I and the world are one and the same thing . . . What was it that I was suggesting to myself with my tail? That I was a fox? No, I realized in one blinding second, I was suggesting this entire world!

When I was left alone, I sat in the lotus position and withdrew into a state of profound concentration. I don’t know how much time passed - perhaps several days. In a state like that there is no particular difference between a day and an hour. Now that I had seen the way things were, I understood why I had failed to spot this uroborus before (how apt that I had repeated that word all the time). I had not seen the truth because I was not seeing anything but the truth. The hypnotic impulse that my tail was directing at my mind was the entire world. Or rather, I had taken this impulse for the world.

I had always suspected that Stephen Hawking did not understand the words ‘relict radiation’ that occur on every second page of his books. Relict radiation is not a radio signal that can be captured using complex and expensive equipment. Relict radiation is the whole world that we see around us, no matter who we are, were-creatures or human beings.

Now that I had understood exactly how I was creating the world, I had to learn to control this effect somehow. But no matter how hard I focused my spiritual energy, I got nowhere. I ran through all the techniques that I knew - from the shamanic visualizations that are current among the mountain barbarians of Tibet to the sacred fire of the microcosmic orbit practised by the followers of the Tao. Nothing worked - it was like trying to move a mountain by pushing against it with my shoulder.

And then I remembered about the key. Yes indeed, the Yellow Master had mentioned a key . . . I had always thought that it was simply a metaphor for the correct understanding of the hidden nature of things. But if I’d blundered so terribly concerning the most essential point, I could have been mistaken here as well, couldn’t I? What could it be, this key? I didn’t know. So I still didn’t understand anything, then?

My concentration was disrupted and my thoughts started to wander. I remembered about Alexander, who was waiting patiently in the next room - during my meditation he hadn’t made a single sound, apprehensive of disturbing me. As always, the thought of him provoked a warm wave of love.

And then at last I understood what was absolutely the most vital point:

1. there was nothing in me that was stronger than this love - and since I was creating the world with my tail, there was nothing stronger in the entire world.

2. in the stream of energy that radiated from my tail, and which my mind took for the world, love was totally absent - and that was why the world appeared to me in the way that it was.

3. love was the key that I had been unable to find.

How had I failed to understand that immediately? Love was the only force capable of displacing my tail’s relict radiation from my mind. I concentrated once again, visualized my love in the form of a little red, blazing heart and began slowly lowering it towards my tail. When I had lowered the heart of fire almost as far as its base, suddenly . . .

Suddenly something incredible happened. Inside my head, somewhere between the eyes, a shimmering rainbow of colour appeared. I did not perceive it with my physical vision - it was more like a dream that I had managed to smuggle in to the waking state. The shimmering was like a stream in the sunshine of spring. It sparkled with every possible shade of colour, and I could step into the caress of that kindly light. In order for the shimmering rainbow to engulf everything around me, I had to lower the flaming heart of love further, taking it beyond the point of the Great Limit that is located just three inches from the base of a fox’s tail. I could have done it. But I sensed that afterwards, among those streaming torrents of rainbow light, I would never again be able to find this tiny city and Alexander who had been left behind in it. We had to leave this place together - otherwise what was our love worth? After all, he was the one who had given me the key to a new universe - without even knowing it . . .

I decided to tell him everything immediately. But it wasn’t easy to get up - while I was sitting in the lotus position, my legs had become numb. I waited until the circulation was restored, struggled to my feet and walked towards the other room. It was dark in there.

‘Sashenka,’ I called. ‘Hey! Sasha! Where are you?’

Nobody answered. I walked in and turned on the light. The room was empty. There was a sheet of paper lying on the wooden crate that served us as a table. I picked it up and, screwing up my eyes against the harsh electric light, I read this:

Adele!

I took no notice of the fact that you were concealing your age, although recently I’d begun to suspect you were more than seventeen - you’re far too smart. So what, I thought, maybe you were just well preserved and really you were already twenty-five or even almost thirty, and you had a complex about it, like most girls. I was prepared for you to be a little more than thirty. I could probably even have come to terms with forty. But one thousand two hundred years! It’s best if I just tell you straight out - I can never have sex with you again. Forgive me. And I’ll forgive you for that blind dog thing. Maybe I am blind compared to you. But we can’t help the way we are.

I’m going back to work tomorrow morning. Maybe I’ll regret this decision. Or not even have time to regret it. But if everything goes the way I intend, the first thing I’ll do is clarify a few issues that have come up in our department. And then I’ll start clarifying the issues that have come up in all the other places. I shall devote the glorious power you have inadvertently helped me to obtain to the service of my country. Thank you for that - from me and our entire organization, against which you are so unjustly prejudiced. And thank you for all the amazing things that you have helped me to understand - although probably not completely and not for long. Time will show who the real superwerewolf is. Goodbye for ever. And thank you for calling me Grey One to the very end.

Sasha the Black

I remember that second. There was no confusion. I had always understood I couldn’t keep him near me for ever, that this moment would come. But I hadn’t thought it would be so painful.

My little moonchild . . . Play then, play your games, I thought in tender resignation. Some day you’ll come to your senses all the same. But what a shame you will never learn the most important mystery from me. Although . . . Perhaps I should leave you a note? It will be longer than yours, and when you read it to the end you’ll understand exactly what it was I didn’t get a chance to tell you before you left. How else can I possibly repay you for the freedom that you have unwittingly given me.

Right then, I thought. I’ll write a book, and sooner or later it’s bound to reach you. You’ll learn from it how to liberate yourself from icy gloom in which the oligarchs and the public prosecutors, the liberals and conservatives, the queers and straights, the Internet communists, werewolves in shoulder-straps and portfolio investors wail and gnash their teeth. And perhaps not just you, but other noble beings who have a heart and a tail will be able to learn something useful from this book . . . But in the meantime, thank you for revealing to me what the real score is. Thank you for love . . .