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A.R.Yngve
PARRY'S PROTOCOL
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Prologue:
WESTMOREHAM INSTITUTE FOR TREATMENT OF THE CRIMINALLY INSANE
WASHINGTON STATE, SOUTHEAST REGION, USA
SEPTEMBER 8
Perkins, the night-watchman, strolled into his narrow booth. He had been walking his first round through the worn, whitewashed corridors of the institution.
"One o'clock and all's well," he mumbled almost inaudibly -- and immediately shook his head, as if reproaching himself for saying so.
The night-watchman eased his fat, uniformed body into a swivel-chair made of pale wood. He switched on a tiny color TV set on the desk before him; one that had earlier been used for the surveillance cameras, before the institution replaced them with infra-red sensors. Perkins's favorite show came on, and the comedian on the screen was going through his end monologue:
"...and my Prozacs wouldn't understand me, and my girlfriend failed to comfort me -- or was it the other way around?"
(Laughter from the audience)
"And it was then, when my lawyer said: 'Eddie, your overdraft facility is sending me telepathic messages', and I asked him 'What's the shit, man?', and he said: 'Eddie, get your life in order; you should seek out some wise man and find the meaning of your life', it was then I flew to see this guru in Nepal, who lived in a little hut by the foot of the Himalayas.
"I entered, said hello, and asked him -- no, begged him: 'Talk to me, Master! My life has lost its meaning. And the world seems to be falling apart around me; why does nothing make sense anymore?!'
"And the guru stroked his long, stripy beard -- he looked like a hundred years, could easily have been that guy in 'The Golden Child' -- and answered: 'At the top of this mountain lies a cave. In that cave lives a holy man, who has beheld the secret of Creation. The last time I heard from him was fifty years ago. If you hurry, you might get to meet him before he leaves this world.'
"So I hired a couple of Sherpas who took me all the way up that high, snowy mountain. The wind blew like hell all the way. But after walking for two days across slippery, icy paths, we reached the holy man's cave. It was all covered with snow; we had to dig out the opening; and I staggered inside, dead beat.
"In there was a tiny little furnished rock shelter, lit by candles, and almost all of them had burned out. Man, it was freezing in there. And at the very end of the shelter there was an extremely old, bald man, lying in a small bed, shivering with cold. I covered the holy man with my jacket, and an interpreter translated my question to him: 'What is the secret of Creation?' The ancient, toothless man whispered something in the ear of the interpreter -- and then he died.
"I shouted: 'What'd he say?! What'd he say?!', shaking the interpreter's shoulders. And the interpreter looked gravely at me for a looong moment... and he said: 'Beats me, I don't understand French at all.'"
The roars of laughter from the TV set mixed with the night-watchman's chuckles. An imaginary listener who wouldn't have known Perkins, might have believed he was sobbing. From the corridors of the institution came no sounds, except the occasional ticking of the strip-lights, and a faint whisper of wind from the old ventilators. The patients in their cells slept: the deep, dreamless sleep brought only by large drug doses.