THIS FOOTSTOOL EARTH
A Novel
John Zeugner
this footstool earth
A Novel
Copyright © 2018 John Zeugner. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Resource Publications
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paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-1923-6
hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-4546-3
ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-4545-6
Manufactured in the U.S.A. 08/23/18
Thus says the Lord:
“Heaven is My throne
And earth is My footstool.
Where is the house that you will build Me?
And where is the place of My rest?
For all those things My hand has made
And all those things exist,” says the Lord.
“But on this one will I look
On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit,
And who trembles at My word.
He who kills a bull is as if he slays a man,
He who sacrifices a lamb, as if he breaks a dog’s neck.
He who offers a grain offering, as if he offers swine’s blood:
He who burns incense, as if he blesses an idol.
Just as they have chosen their own ways,
And their soul delights in their abominations.
So I will choose their delusions,
And bring their fears on them;
Because, when I called, no one answered,
When I spoke they did not hear;
But they did evil before My eyes,
And chose that in which I do not delight.”
Isaiah, 66: 1-4.
I: A, B, C, Beginning
1.
A and B and C are gathered now for lunch at Trattoria Serena, a small restaurant about three blocks from the front entrance of Keio University in Tokyo. A is a Brit who teaches International Law at Keio, and pursues, surreptitiously, a second career as a real estate speculator. B heads a Volkswagen dealership in the Roppongi area of Tokyo and energetically carries on with various attractive women who intersect his administrative life. Both A and B have Japanese wives. C is an older resident of what the Japanese call “Silver Housing” in a place he has named The Compound. The three ex-pat men meet regularly (every forty days or so) to talk about death. They never plan to talk about death, but somehow the conversation always ends up there. A and B are in their early sixties; C is seventy-eight. C likes to think of himself as the “rapporteur” of the group and sometimes when back at The Compound he imagines that the discussion had significance and wisdom. For several months C has been sharing with A and B a novel he is writing about death in several, not-quite fictional families. A and B are not encouraging toward C’s writing. They find his texts overlong and lacking narrative tension, his tentative title: “The Riches of This World,” pretentious. As a result, they rely on what he tells them of his writing, not much on the actual prose. Despite their evident reservations, C often still reads his narratives to them. Today C has promised to reveal Lewis’s death.
The food at Trattoria Serena, like the discussion, is pallid, tepid, served in rather small portions, but always nicely presented, arranged carefully on the polished bone-white oval plates. At least twice at these luncheons B gets a phone call that requires him to go outside for privacy. A says to C: “She keeps him on a very short leash.” Both chuckle with envy.
Today C initiates the discussion with an illustration: two vertical lines drawn on his small pocket notebook’s third page. “Between the lines,” C explains, “Woody Allen says resides human consciousness. In front of the first line and after the second line, there is only infinite nothingness. Thus, we are alive between two infinities, empty voids. Now my question is, is that correct and perhaps better, what do you think about that illustration from your vantage point: that of a competent, truly bi-cultural person?”
B says, “I don’t think about it at all. It’s a silly notion. I doubt Woody Allen actually said it or drew it.”
After a while, A says, “I think I see what you’re getting at. Maybe the Japanese concept of Akai Ito, the red thread of fate, extending presumably back into the first void and forward into the second, has some relevance. Is that what you’re thinking?”
B continues, “It’s not worth thinking about. It’s silly.”
A asks of C, “If it’s truly silly why are you asking it?”
“I’m worried that human consciousness might just be an absurd flicker between two endless darknesses. How can we live knowing that, believing that? I mean, how could we? Hi there! I’m just flickering between two endless voids. Great meeting you! And now back to my endless void. I come out of void and after a brief interlude slip back into the pure void of nothingness. But I sure love it now-- lust after it, find in it the true meaning of my somewhat truncated life.”
A says, “Are you complaining about living? I mean about existing.”
“Was I complaining? I never meant to. Only to get at what was really important.”
“You mean the after-life?” B says, “Couldn’t you find solace and message in a dental office somewhere, among the magazines littering the place?”
A says, “I haven’t been able to, but I could tell you about the magazines at my Meguro Cat Clinic. They’re weird—pet magazines with how-to-trim-nails kinds of articles. How to brush kitty’s teeth, etc. How to soften kitty’s stools. Here we are, awaiting our angel hair pasta.” which A pronounces the British way, as ‘paster’. “So perhaps it is not of grave concern, pun intended.”
C continues, “I’m so much closer to the void than you both. That’s why I’m concerned.”
“Take Valium or some other happy pill,” B says. And then after a bit of a pause. “Once during a hockey game, I was knocked unconscious and I had the bizarre feeling that I separated from my body and was looking down, wondering why I couldn’t get up, but not much caring either, and despite the shock feeling pretty good, almost wonderful, actually thinking it’s sad I can’t get up, but it’s a whole lot better feeling good watching and wondering what might come next. Then someone shouted my name and I could get up. Is that what you are talking about? Wondering about?”
A says, “I don’t think that’s what he’s talking about, thinking about. Is it?”
“That could be it, if I knew what it is we’re seeking.” C answers.
A continues, “Let me tell you about my cat Daisy’s last moments. It’s the most vivid experience I’ve had with death.”
“I think I’m allergic to Daisy,” B says. “But I have no objection to hearing about her last moments. In fact, thinking about her passing has already cleared my nasal passages. So, tell us about her last moments.”
“Daisy’s last moments—perhaps too momentous a listing. —” A muses.
“Maybe,