THEY RECALL or foretell the God of the Place as the
God of Knowledge. In one of Its myths, It sold an eye for the purpose
of knowing. In another, It hung dead on wood for three days for that
very same acquisition. In yet another, It just knows; It has known
and will eternally know everything. In one dusty corner of this infinite
apprehension, It created the Hall.
At life's end, the scholar enters this Hall. The scholar is spirited
away from his cessation by a cold Muse with too many names, each
name conveyed or hidden in too many languages (for example, this
entity is called the Chooser of the Slain). The Chooser installs
the scholar in a grand amphitheater with manifold books and scrolls
comprising its walls. The day breaks; the scholar infers that every
permutation of every knowledge and language can be found in the
great wall. This can be heaven; only, the scholar also marks the
presence of numerous other academics.
Thus, the scholar engages in debates to establish solid claims
upon the volumes and whatever truth these would yield. The academics
grasp the brazen shafts of their respective axioms. Tongues are
bows and words are arrows. Maps and models are mystic combinations
of sword thrusts and shield parries. Footnotes are borrowed daggers.
Even the slightest silence is a spear. Open fora are organized by
desperate allies to defeat a number of opponents by uniting behind
a single cleverly contrived formula. A clangor of lashing tongues,
questioning stares, and gesticulating bodies issues forth and echoes
back across battered, printed walls.
At the setting of the sun, the Chooser tallies the disputes and
rebuttals and judges accuracy, soundness, and depth. The lesser
intellectuals are left with books but also night. Some try to feel
the characters or derive some knowledge by counting pages and measuring
the scrolls with thumbs.
It is true that sometimes almost a twelfth of the scolastic horde
overcomes as a mass by using interdisciplinary unifying systems.
As one, they posit the singular verity of, eg, endlessly exploding
lysosome sacs, subparticle 'particles', false imaginary numbers,
the volume of spectral prophets, laughter, dinosaur dreams, parliament
of weeds, stones, the true name of 'rainbow', termite galaxies,
the shape of a crystal's womb, and the dread of colons in a psalm
that is a limerick.
Just as true, sometimes there remains a sole champion. Sometimes,
the winning word is 'No', denying the existence of the great hall
and its books, the God and Its Chooser, the academics and their
wounds, the self and its denial. In all cases, the Chooser delivers
the triumphant to another room. In this room, there is nothing but
light. There are no words, not even a memory of an idea.
The champion becomes blank in a banquet of blankness.
Sometimes, the scholar feels or creates a word. Many times, this
word is akin to 'paradise'. Often, it is synonymous with 'self'.
Whatever the feeling or idea, at the instant of its conception,
the Chooser swoops and delivers the scholar back to another sunrise
at the ampitheater; the scholar is left to marvel at infinite books
and -somewhat later - other academics.
