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My name is Jacob. It's a good name, an
old name. When it was created, I imagine there were many Jacobs. People
had surnames then, because there weren't enough good names to go around.
After their name would come another word, such as their occupation or
the place they lived. I am only Jacob.
If I had a surname, I suppose it would be Jacob Caretaker, because that
is what I am. It is a misnomer, however, because I take nothing. I only
give. Those I care for probably have no capacity for affection any longer.
They sit, and on days when their strength is up, those who can will force
a barely audible hiss to show how much they hate me. Those with eyes will
stare at me. They hiss and stare at poor Jacob, who gives them so much.
Or I could have been named Jacob House, because that is where I live.
In the House. I've had the House model itself in the fashion of the Late
Victorian period. It is quite beautiful, and all according to my designs,
though I don't mean to boast. There is gleaming polished woodwork, tall
candles, paintings of dead men, elaborate spiral staircases. I simply
adore spiral staircases.
There was a knock at the door this morning, and Mr. Shiloh began to move
to answer it. Oh yes, to explain, I know that "Mr." usually
takes the place of the primary name, but I can't resist the tiny, tasteful
anachronisms. I have to be more careful with him, he is still very strong.
He has learned how to wheel himself about, though he can usually only
manage a few feet at a time. Don't mistake my intentions; as his caretaker
I'm quite thrilled that his strength is up, but he still isn't coherent
enough to know what's really best.
I was reading to them in the study, from The Great Gatsby, when
the knock came. I had been reading excitedly, and didn't hear it. Mr.
Shiloh must have wheeled out while I was looking at the others, because
when I turned about he had already made it to the foyer.
"You're going to miss the ending," I shouted after him. He didn't
reply, of course, but I'm certain that Mr. Shiloh at least still understands
me when I speak. When he didn't return, I followed.
"What are you doing, you silly goose?" I asked him, as his thin
arms inched the wheelchair across the room towards the front door. "There
isn't anything out there."
Mr. Shiloh continued in the same nonsensical fashion. The knock repeated
every few seconds. It was a happy knock, a comrade's knock.
"Not today, sir," I said to the door. "We are very happy
in here. And as for you, you silly goose, you are going back to the study
to finish F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece. There's a vacuum out there,
and unless you think you can survive in a vacuum I'll make sure you're
safe and sound right here. Besides, tomorrow we are going to read Shaxberd,
and I know you wouldn't want to miss that."
Mr. Shiloh raised his head slowly to look at me. There was no accompanying
facial expression; his muscles were far too worn. Honestly, there is little
left on him but skin, and those two hateful eyes sitting snug in two deep
depressions. On days like today, I sometimes wonder why I even try.
The universe is getting much craftier as time passes here in the house.
For the first few decades, there were such terrifying celestial displays,
and noises, until I had the House remove all of the windows. I saw right
through all of that, let me tell you. Now Mr. Death just knocks, and pleads
at the door like a kitten.
* * *
I would say that the days are long and unbearable, as I imagine
a man of another era would say, but they are not. They are as long or
short as I choose to make them. When I decide that it should be daytime
once more, I light the House, and awaken my charges, and bathe them. In
the afternoons we read, or listen to symphonies.
After I arranged for their brunch today, we read Shaxberd. I thought it
would be fun to assign everyone a character in each play. We have just
about enough, as long as I play some of the extras, the citizens and attendants.
I also have to read all of the parts, of course, but I wheel all of the
actors into position and stand by the person who I am speaking for. I
wheel them on and off of the stage I put together in the ballroom, which
is really just a tapestry thrown on the floor, as there are entrances
and exits.
Everyone had a lovely time. Though Mr. Hodge is mostly paralyzed, there's
some life in him yet. Today he began making little clicking noises in
his throat while we were halfway through Othello. I think he
was trying to participate.
Everyone except for Mr. Shiloh, that is.
"Oh, stop sulking," I told him. "We've got a lot of plays
to get through today. And tomorrow I think we'll do some of the early
works of Tiribazus, something a bit less ancient."
He refused to participate, wheeling himself out of position every time
I turned my back. I thought at first he was simply angry about the small
parts I was giving him, but he acted in the same manner when I cast him
as Hamlet later in the afternoon. It's a shame, really. Shiloh is the
youngest of us, besides me that is. Of all of my charges, I think he is
still complete enough to really appreciate the great works, but he maintains
this sour and wholly unappealing disposition.
The others are more compliant, but sadly less coherent. Mr. Hathaway is
in a coma, I think, and Mr. Maple is little more than a disconnected nervous
system with a brain stem on top. He requires extra special care, and constant
immersion in a specially synthesized amniotic fluid that the House has
created for me.
After we were finished reading for the evening, as I tucked everyone in,
a curious thing happened. A poinsettia, a beautiful, red, and blooming
poinsettia, appeared in the middle of the hall where I put them all to
sleep every night.
I asked the House what had happened, and it told me that Mr. Hodge had
requested it. The poor House is getting old, I suppose. Even Houses can
become senile. The plant was quite pretty, so I left it.
Mr. Death came calling again this afternoon, as well.
"Jacob," he said through the door. "Let me in. Please.
There is nothing left here for you. All of it has come to its magnificent
end."
"I'll hear none of that," I replied. "We will stay in here,
and that door will remain shut, for as long as we can take pleasure in
the magnificent art and culture of our species. And there is a lot of
that. Good day, sir."
I would have the House remove the door, but I don't want to show any weakness.
There are few of us in here, but we are confident, and strong. I take
a great pride in my position, as the guardian of the culmination of almost
fifty thousand years of human advancement. If there were going to be any
more history books, besides this humble memoir, I'm sure I would warrant
at least a footnote. Jacob. Poor, humble, selfless Jacob -- the man who
brought us fire in the last dark days.
* * *
The Grand Library is quite a sight. It stretches one hundred feet upwards,
and covers the walls of a room that I'm sure would match in size the greatest
ballrooms of the Central American Empire, from the 22nd Gregorian. There
are ladders and balconies, though in truth they're just for show.
I remember my first days in the library. When they were all the teachers,
the caretakers, and I was the dependent.
"This library contains everything of note in our grand story,"
Mr. Hathaway told me. He is feeble now, and silent. I wheel him, and clean
him, and read to him, and inject him with nutrients. "Including works
from even before the New Age. Pre-Christian to the first half of the 20th
Gregorian. Everyone knows nothing of note was produced between the early
20th Gregorian and the first works of Doctor Tiribazus, at the start of
the New Age."
Yes, everyone knows. Dreadful period.
"Today we're going to skip ahead to the New Age," I told my
charges. Mr. Hathaway said that to me, once. I have an excellent memory.
He said, "Today we're going to skip ahead to the New Age," just
as I did. I asked the House to simulate a window with natural sunlight
streaming in, for a pleasant afternoon atmosphere. Selecting a leather-bound
volume from the shelf nearest to me, I said, "Here Comes the
Monkey Through Glass and Steel," the name of the Doctor's very
first work, and watched the House rearrange the words, and the title appear
on the cover in gold lettering. I'm sure anyone with the occasion to read
this, be it by some miracle another human being, or an alien culture perhaps,
investigating our curious race, will be familiar with that eminent work
of Tiribazus far before they discover obscurities like this humble memoir,
of which there is only one hand-written copy. Not even close to the 3,082,760,912
copies of Here Comes the Monkey Through Glass and Steel that
exist in the dust outside, as the House assures me there are.
They were silent, eagerly awaiting my words like children at story-time.
A thin stream of dusty saliva escaped from Mr. Hathaway's mouth and I
wiped it with my sleeve before beginning. Tidiness is the soul of divinity,
after all.
As I read the final passage, which no human being has ever read without
shedding tears, Mr. Shiloh wheeled himself over to Mr. Hodge, sitting
motionless in his wheelchair with his head hanging back, making those
clicking noises he makes in his throat when he's pleased.
"What are you doing, silly goose?" I asked him.
Mr. Shiloh didn't even look at me. He pulled a small shard of glass from
his robe pocket, slowly, and pressed it into Mr. Hodge's throat. The blood,
thick and brown, poured into his lap, and down Mr. Shiloh's arm.
"You've soiled your robe," I told him. "Naughty boy."
I instructed the House to remove his weapon, and it did. The tiny shard
melted out of his hand and joined the floor. I must admit I was puzzled.
Perhaps Shiloh is more far gone than I'd imagined? He and Mr. Hodge had
been very close when they were younger. If I remember correctly, they
worked together on the higher functions of my brain. The morals, and the
aesthetic sense. They were lovers as well. Of all the scientists in the
House, they had always been the most faithful to one another, very happy
with the ancient practice of monogamy.
Mr. Hodge was wheezing, and bleeding. Mr. Death began pounding upon the
front door, hard enough that we could hear him clearly in the library.
"Not today or any other, sir," I shouted. "House, please
seal the library until I have this childish situation under control."
Now Mr. Shiloh spared me a glance. Small, sticky tears of mucous welled
in his eyes.
I walked forward and patted him on the head. "I know, I know. I am
always moved by that part as well. It's the most touching passage ever
written in human language, you have nothing to be ashamed of. It's not
proper though to express your grief by trying to hurt others. Now look
what you've done to poor Hodge."
Mr. Hodge hadn't moved. He still sat motionless in his wheelchair, head
flopped backwards. Now the clicking noises he made in his throat were
little gurgles, and every time he made one there was a little bubble over
the gash.
"Besides, Tiribazus meant for that passage, after all was done, to
be uplifting and spiritual. It has a positive moral, Mr. Shiloh. You have
to understand that."
I finished reading it and we cried together.
After I stopped, and we were silent for a moment, Mr. Shiloh reached up
and began to scratch feebly at his own throat, trying to split it open,
to let the blood out.
"I see. I know what you're doing now."
He stopped and stared at me.
"You want me to open the door, don't you? Well I'm not going to,
you selfish thing. And you'll have to suffer and feel sorry for yourself
and poor Mr. Hodge whom you've skewered will just have to keep bleeding
until there's nothing left, because I'm not going to open that door."
I must admit I lost my temper for a moment.
"Damn it," I said. I apologize for my use of harsh language,
but at this point in time, the end of it that is, what else do we have
really but sincerity? "Don't you understand what I'm doing? You were
a very intelligent man. How could you be so selfish?"
He was blank, his reserves of strength had been more than exhausted by
the day's adventures.
"Do you think I really care all that much about any of you? You're
just pathetic old men, who never created anything worthwhile. Nothing
selfless, for everyone. I know what I'm for. You're not fooling Jacob.
I came about only because you were afraid of dying without another generation.
I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for all of this." I motioned
towards the library walls, the books and paintings and symphonies. "I
need you. Without all of you, all of this is wood pulp and ink, dust,
meaningless elements thrown together by nature. Without you all of it
will have been for nothing."
I regained my composure, and began putting them all to bed, securing them
so that they couldn't do anything foolish.
Mr. Death refused to go away. "Jacob," he said, "I will
love you. You will know love."
Ignoring the ancient fool, I cleaned Mr. Hodge up a bit in the interest
of tidiness. He must have been suffering terribly. The blood had clotted
and was a sticky brown mess on his neck.
"I hope you're pleased with yourself, silly goose," I said to
Shiloh. "And what kind of example are you setting for the others?"
Hodge finished his incessant clicking, and relaxed. Then there was a pistol,
an antique type, from maybe the 23rd Gregorian, sitting snugly in Shiloh's
hand. I must admit I was quite surprised, and so was Shiloh. For a moment
he looked as if he didn't know what to do with it, but as I stepped over
to take it away he raised his arm and put a hole in my chest, the chest
he had made. Looking down, I saw my own blood spreading outwards, a growing
oval of deep rouge on my white shirt. I fell to the floor.
Mr. Shiloh, very slowly, methodically, rose from his chair. Hunched, holding
his side with one hand, he stumbled past me to Hodge's bedside.
"Now where did you get that, silly goose...very strong, very strong,"
I said, choking on fluids. Then I couldn't speak. Mr. Shiloh did not answer,
of course, because I had been careful to remove all of their vocal chords
many years ago, to prevent them, in their confused state, from asking
the House for anything that would give rise to just the sort of situation
that I was in.
Even though his facial muscles were far deteriorated, I could tell that
Shiloh was as surprised as me. Surprised with the pistol -- I imagine
he had known for some time secretly that he could muster up a couple of
steps away from his wheelchair if he needed. Sneaky man, my sneaky silly
goose.
As I lay dying, I recalled that the House knew 16,000 human languages.
Poor, shortsighted, foolish Jacob had forgotten entirely about Morse code.
"Very clever," I thought, without the ability to utter it. I
thought whimsically of the long days in which Hodge had done nothing but
click away, trying to get the right intonation, the right volume. And
none of us had known. Even poor Shiloh, who had just moments earlier tried
to put Hodge out of his misery. Ah, the poinsettia. The poinsettia.
Shiloh caressed Hodge's cheek, and leaned to kiss him. He left the room,
to open the door and invite Mr. Death in.
* * *
Mr. Death is kind. He has allowed me to finish these
memoirs before I go, though he doesn't understand why I want to. There
will be no one left to read them. They will be wood pulp and ink, dust,
meaningless elements thrown together by nature. They will be nothing to
everything.
He stands over my shoulder, watching me write. The others have gone already.
I can hope, at least, that some advanced culture will someday be able
to decipher our writings, and will take note of this humble memoir, if
not for the beauty of the words (to which end I claim nothing), at least
for its historical significance. It is a first and a last. The first and
only writings of the first artificial man, who also happened to be the
last artificial man, the last man at all, and the last Jacob.
Here I write "The End", and it has never been more appropriate.
I stand with fifty thousand years of struggle behind me, toil towards
some guessed-at reward which never arrived. I stand with nothing ahead,
except that I will walk outside and lock the door behind me, and look
once more at the last house on a dry flat rock. In 150 years, no time
really, the House will sense that there is no more activity and will be
no more, and it will shut down its protections and be leveled instantaneously
by the will of the universe.
Mr. Death, who is beautiful, will kiss me and take my hand. There will
be nothing but dark and stone and many stars, each one burning brighter
than humanity ever has.
previously published in "Planet Magazine"
in 2000.
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