Bunnu awoke to the sound of his mother screaming downstairs.
He opened his eyes to find that he was still in the attic. He’d fallen asleep on the floor by the oil stove, the night before, and was now looking at the book in which he’d slept facedown. The page was utterly soaked in drool.
“Finally awake, are we?” a voice said. He turned his head to see Rakesh-7 in his armchair, adjusting his glasses as he looked up from a book that he’d been reading. Bunnu sat up, placing a bookmark back inside his own book.
“How long have they been at it today?”
“I’d say about a good 3 hours. Must be something big. Haven’t heard them go on like that for quite some time.” He sighed as though this sort of thing made him feel nostalgic. “This one’s a bit of a doozy too! If I’m not mistaken, I heard something about a ménage trois with a dwarf?” He laughed hysterically. “And I can’t believe you managed to sleep through it!”
“Mmm,” Bunnu yawned as he stretched, “What about you? Have you been sitting there all this time?”
“Afraid so,” Rakesh-7 said with a giggle.
“Don’t you ever sleep?”
“Oh yeah! Continually. Where I come from, we sleep and wake continually in rapid succession tens of thousands of times a day for intervals lasting up to a quarter-second each. Meaning that every second that passes, on average, one quarter of that second is dedicated to sleep. The other three-quarters of a second, we’re awake, so it never quite seems like we’re dozing off. Why! In the amount of time it took me to tell you this, I slept and woke up and fell asleep again about 30 times.”
“Isn’t that dangerous? Like, what if you doze off while you’re swallowing food? Won’t you start choking?”
“Not if you’re used to it. Most things in life can be done automatically once one’s become accustomed to them.”
“What about dreams?”
“Dreams?”
“Do you dream?” Bunnu asked.
“Well, I guess you could call them dreams. It’s a continuous moment spread out over those quarter-seconds. A moment that exists in another place, perhaps in another time. It could very well be another reality I’m existing in, rather than a dream. Or maybe it is just a dream. Or maybe it’s both!”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I!” Rakesh-7 said with a hysterical laugh, throwing up his hands. He often laughed like this, even when there was nothing funny to laugh at. Bunnu never failed to be surprised by the Outlander’s outrageous behavior and often wondered if these sorts of mannerisms came with old age. After all, it seemed odd to imagine the Outlander as a young man exuding this kind of eccentricity out there as he lived in the world and among other people. It seemed evident that his was the kind of habitual and painstaking peculiarity reserved only for those compulsive and misanthropic enough to slip slowly into reclusion as he had. It had been a gradual change, apparently, as Bunnu’s parents told it. He slowly began to spend more and more time up in the attic for what he referred to as his ‘strategic withdrawal from the outside world.’ It was perhaps the equivalent of renouncing one’s worldly life to seek a kind of greater wisdom or enlightenment, for example, in the mountains. And yet, in place of this life of asceticism, the Outlander had seemingly retreated to the attic of the house and metamorphosed into a kind of household pet—a squirrelly and eccentric old creature who excreted in litter boxes that had to be cleaned out thrice each day and who seemed to possess, besides his warped sense of humor, a staggering repertoire of peculiar, yet compulsive habits that seemed to manifest themselves at inconvenient times (for example, when he happily presented the visiting O-bousan-34 with a scale model of the temple that he had constructed from dead skin residue that he’d painstakingly scraped from the bottom of his feet everyday for the preceding 5 years. “It’s an expression of our interconnectedness!” he had said joyfully. “Can you imagine where in the Universe the particles and atoms that went into the creation of this model have been before? What stories they would have to tell—assuming they could talk, of course? I’ll bet you wonder the same about the particles that comprise the building blocks of your blessed temple! Maybe they came from the same source. Maybe we all did too!” The O-bousan, however, had been less than pleased with these assertions impelling Yuri to invite him back to the house the following evening for a special dinner in apology for her ‘uncle’s rudeness’). And yet at the same time, when it came to the Outlander—and not to say, of course, that it only had to do with the fact that he was a man of the world—it was safe to say that he was in possession of an exceptional spirit that few, if any, could ever begin to properly fathom. He didn’t seem to have the cynicism or despair common among the reclusive, but in fact, a great enthusiasm for Life. It was this fact that Bunnu liked most about the Outlander—something that he greatly admired: the ability to be not only resolute, but content, in one’s inability to be affected by one’s surroundings. Bunnu, on the other hand, secretly despised himself for being so easily affected, so easily swayed by the opinions of others.
The screaming downstairs was starting to subside.
Bunnu turned and looked at O., who was sitting on the cushion next to him, and tried to determine whether he was sleeping or not. “Are you awake, O.?” While saying this, he looked into the reflection given off by O.’s skin, as he opened his mouth—which appeared much larger, due to its convex likeness—and picked at a piece of broccoli that was wedged between two teeth.
“There’s surely no way for us to know whether he is or isn’t,” Rakesh-7 said with a shrug, “The courts surely won’t decide in his favor unless he begins to show some visible signs of recognition. But I don’t even know why we’re bothering with the silly old courts in the first place. Who needs them sticking their noses in to confirm something we already know?” He laughed hysterically again as Bunnu sighed.
The situation to which Rakesh-7 was referring had to do with the problems that the family had been experiencing for the past three and a half years in trying to add O. to their family register. The courts had undertaken an extensive process of examination, which was not limited simply to an investigation into the nature of the adoption itself, but also into the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the ‘lost article’ (the courts were careful to use the word lost in place of abandoned and the word article in place of child), as well as into those who played a part in entrusting said article to its caretakers (which was used in place of the word parents). The courts had sought to probe these elements in an attempt to make a clear determination as to whether O. was, in fact, an adopted human child, and thus, eligible to be granted entry into the family register under the Bunnu-5 administration’s championed Adopted Orphan Act, or if, on the other hand, O. was some kind of object or pet, rendering utterly impossible his chances at—among other things— enrolling in a school, opening a bank account, entering a temple, being admitted into a hospital, working for any company with a valid Tax ID, obtaining insurance, paying taxes, or having a grave in the family plot.
It was O-bousan-34 who appeared before the courts first to recount the day he found O. “Ladies and gentlemen of the court!” he had pleaded, “I stand before you not just as a participant in these matters, but also a witness! A witness to something that reminded me…that could remind us all of the greatness of the human spirit. Sure, us men of faith, we’re all suckers for acts of mercy. The virtue of showing mercy’s been drilled into us since a young age. Mercy this and mercy that! But the fact of the matter is that, even for us, we get a little weak in the knees when it starts to involve personal sacrifice. And I know I’m not just speaking for myself. Oh dear me…no!” He shook his head with a peaceful smile on his face, “We’re all like that. Even those of us who are slightly holier-than-thou. It’s human. We know better, but we think of ourselves first. And yet…sometimes! Sometimes, fate gives us a chance to prove ourselves, and we show the Big Man Upstairs just how much we really are capable of! What I
witnessed that day was just that! It was maybe the most beautiful and inspirational act that, your Honor, any of us, with all our imperfections, greed, or selfishness, could possibly hope to achieve! It was an act of pure selflessness. Of Charity! Mr. Raju and his lovely wife Miss Yuri—nice ring by the way, sweetheart…goes beautifully with the earrings—they opened their hearts to this boy and their lives have never been the same since.
“I, for one, have been well acquainted with this family for some time and have known them through their ups and downs and don’t mind taking the liberty to comment openly—before God and everyone—upon how much trouble their marriage was in before this bundle of joy came along. Yuri was the frustrated wife who wanted to kill her husband and Raju was the hapless fool. It was a formula for disaster! Why there was even a point when Yuri came to me for advice on how to kill her husband. Can you imagine that? I mean, what is one supposed to say in that situation? I mean…really!
“But their marriage was in real trouble! Even their son, Bunnu—that witless little creature—was no consolation for them as he was heavily influenced by Raju’s careless ways and as such, prone to causing them both more worry than anything else. Yes, their marriage was undeniably a sham…and it was no coincidence that Yuri’s eye started to wander a bit. Sometimes I could even see it in the way she was staring at me! She had an appetite for something and she wanted me to give it to her. And give it to her good!” He smiled complacently, “You see, your Honor, I know women! I can almost hear their lustful yearnings calling out to me sometimes. Their pleas for me to hold them and caress their bodies and grant them discrete pleasures with my manhood. It’s uncanny! Like this one time, there was this girl who came to visit me on a daily basis soon after her uncle passed away. Maybe 16 or 17 at the most. You can barely call her a girl, though. I mean…she was a woman! Anyway, I knew from the moment I saw her that she was trouble. She had this hungry look in her eye. And I was right: it wasn’t long before she began to have elaborate fantasies about the two of us wrestling in-“
“What are you talking about?” Yuri cried out from her seat.
“O-bousan-34! Where are you going with this?” the judge demanded.
“Sorry. I was trying to illustrate a point, but I might have gotten carried away. The fact of the matter is that O. has made all the difference in their lives. He’s given them a sense of purpose.” O-bousan-34 paused for a moment, “I guess that’s what I was trying to say. ‘He gave them a sense of purpose.’ It reminds me of something I said the day that they found him. I said, ‘Our salvation often comes from mysterious places. As does our sense of purpose. Sometimes they are two ends of the very same vine—one of those long vines that twist and fold around themselves and other objects until their ends become obscured. And yet, when we find those ends and where they lead, they become the defining roles in all of our most crucial human relationships.’” He smiled happily as though waiting to be praised for his words.
“And what does that mean?” the judge responded.
“Well…I think it rather speaks for itself, doesn’t it?” the O-bousan said proudly.
“O-bousan-34, your testimony, thus far, has proved inconclusive. Emotional attachment doesn’t necessarily occur just between humans.”
“I beg your pardon?” the O-bousan said mystified.
“Well…for example,” the judge said scratching his head, “My little girl has a dog that she loves to death. One could say, just as well, that her life has changed because of the dog. I bought my wife an expensive coat which she adores. We’re talking about a pet and an object here. Same effect. How can you say for certain that you, too, aren’t talking about a pet?”
“Well…I…” the O-bousan said contemplatively, “I…suppose I can’t. Maybe he is a pet. Well, it would certainly make a lot more sense. Wouldn’t it?” The people in the courtroom started muttering uncontrollably.
“Thank you, O-bousan-34.” the judge said.
“Your Honor.” He bowed his head as he stepped down.
The deliberations continued for over a year, but no arguments could be made to the satisfaction of the courts, leading to the ultimate decision that O. was to be designated the status of a ‘Legal Non-Entity,’ thus barring him from entry into the family registry.
And now, amidst the appeals process, the whole family had undertaken a study of Bahlian Registry law using the volumes of law books that Rakesh-7 happened to have amongst his belongings in the attic. They had wanted to obtain a lawyer to help with the petitioning and appeals process, but as there were no lawyers who specialized in Registry Law in Bahlia that they could afford, they decided that, in the meantime, the best they could hope to do was to find the solution themselves. Despite Raju’s misgivings, Yuri remained firm in her resolve that somewhere in those books was the answer that would allow O. to be granted a firm place in the family registry.
So it was that Bunnu began to spend more and more time in the attic, skimming through books he couldn’t understand because of all the big words, for no other reason than to feel like he, too, was lending a hand in the family’s efforts. No headway had been made yet, but that never stopped him from running right up to the attic and lying on the floor to page through the books, while Rakesh-7 sat quietly in his armchair and did the same. Which brings us back to this morning.
Bunnu, having finally removed the piece of broccoli from between his teeth, now looked away from his reflection and back up at Rakesh-7, asking, “Why do you think the situation’s not going to improve?”
“Well, it’s actually something I’m going to need to talk to your father about. I found a clause in one of the newer editions and it doesn’t look promising. This legal battle is going to bankrupt him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, let’s just say that unless your kid brother starts crying, or laughing, or making some kind of human-like noise or movement and soon, your mother’s beloved Charismatic K and his administration have got the upper hand on your father. And they’ll keep pushing him further and further until he’s got nothing left to pay in court fees.”
What Rakesh-7 had, in fact, found had to do with the determinations set out by Charismatic K’s administration as to what could actually be considered human according to Registry Law. The passage that he had found in the book had been riddled with ambiguities and contradictions only reserved for those most valiant in overriding their legalistic forbearance into a necessary frenzy that would allow them to suitably work up a case for one side or the other on how the Law, without the possibility of misinterpretation, states If ABC, then DEF—or for the sake of acknowledging the counterargument first as a courtroom tactic, the case might also be made that the Law states the antithesis of the aforementioned If ABC, then DEF, but gives allowance within reasonable parameters for a provisional XYZ to be granted in exceptional cases. And thus, it was a matter not so much of making one’s case in a clear and logical sense, but one for the lawyers to battle out in the arena of pathos, as it was clearly the emotional pleas that could evoke a sense of sympathy in the courtroom and overturn otherwise painstaking endeavors at using the tools at hand to make pleas based upon incontrovertible facts.
However, it was even these incontrovertible facts that were most puzzling for Rakesh-7, as they were difficult to ascertain, regardless of the court’s repeated attempts to make the process of investigation simpler and less subject to gray areas. For one, the court had enlisted the aid of a team of behavioral scientists in deciding what sorts of traits or behaviors could be deemed unarguably as human. The team of scientists spent months experimenting with humans and other creatures and another few years deliberating over their results to finally work up a list of criteria that the courts, after several rejections, due to requested addendums and omissions, found to their satisfaction. These criteria, however specific, seemed to encompass the ability to express happiness, sadness, love, boredom, guilt, pride, loneliness, fear, as well as a num
ber of other emotions in a decidedly human way. However, as determining one’s capacity to emote humanly in a general sense was rather difficult, a number of situational abilities compiled by the behavioral scientists were utilized in making their determinations. These included (but were not limited to): the ability to cry real tears out of happiness or sadness, to be romantic, to be unwittingly selfless, to seek commitment, to argue for the sake of arguing, to reconcile for the sake of reconciliation, to be too proud to admit one is wrong, to get bored with someone, to be wittingly selfish, to feel shame despite being too proud to admit it, to regret the past, to laugh at one’s own foolishness, to laugh at other’s shortcomings, to laugh at the hopelessness of one’s situation, to laugh in the mirth of new beginnings, to dream of something better for oneself, to have hope that things will get better, to feel satisfied when things do, to get caught up in the moment, to lose perspective, to lose touch with nature, to forget the context of one’s existence, to carry on traditions despite forgetting their importance, to feel disconnected from the rest of one’s kind, to question whether something is wrong with oneself, to have high or low self-esteem, to enjoy the company of others just for the sake of their company, to engage in repartee so as to avoid an uncomfortable situation, to make a joke, to force a laugh at a joke one doesn’t understand or think is funny if only to spare embarrassment for all involved, to want to feel accepted, to harbor a morbid fascination with dramatic situations or gossip, to feel humiliated, to feel out of place, to feel lonely even when in the company of others, to feel either empowered, guilty, or humbled by the very thought of one’s own humanity, to self-analyze, to underestimate one’s own potential, to feel at the mercy of others, to fear that one may suffer due to a misstep taken here or there, to take whatever actions necessary to avoid such suffering, to come to grips with one’s mortality, to crave power over others, to have it all and still want more, to want to feel unique or special, to seek to outdo oneself, to look for meaning in all things big and small, to substitute objects for happiness, to seek answers to one’s existence, to seek an end to one’s pain, to feel empty, to see the error of one’s ways, to wish one were young again …just to name a few.
Rakesh-7, while appreciating the efforts put forth by the experts, found the specificity of their agreed-upon criteria perplexing, for he couldn’t think of a person he knew that could prove in a court of law that, for example, that he were capable of coming to grips with his own mortality. How could one do even that without a mountain of evidence and the testimony of credible witnesses to support one’s case? And that was just one of many criteria that had to be satisfied before the courts in order for one to be declared, by their standards, a ‘legal entity.’ The proceedings were likely to continue for years, maybe well into O.’s adulthood at such a rate, giving way to a very long and expensive legal battle, the success of which could not be guaranteed. After all, it was not the facts that were truly important, so much as how the facts were argued before the courts. And how was one to argue such things without the appropriate legal counsel? Even if one were able to afford it, this wouldn’t include the expense of having tests performed by a real behavioral scientist, recognized by the courts, not to speak of the costs incurred in finding one that would take O. on as a research subject. None of this, of course, took into consideration the time and expense required just for filling out the initial petitions to get the process started, which was, in itself, a rather encumbering task. The system was set up to bankrupt those in appeals, if not ruin their hopes at ever having anything left to pass on as an inheritance to the person they sought to have in their register.
Rakesh-7 had, thus, seen the whole exercise as foolish, at best, and now sought to convince Raju to reconsider, so as to prevent all this from reaching a point in which the proceedings and their repercussions would be beyond their immediate control.
“Can you go get your Papa before they start arguing again? You can leave O. here with me,” Rakesh-7 now said to Bunnu.
There was a knock at the front door downstairs. They could hear Raju’s voice as he greeted someone in a friendly tone of voice.
“OK, but-“ Bunnu started to say. He stopped speaking for a moment as his expression went blank. He was listening to the voices downstairs. His eyes widened with excitement. “I’ll bet that’s Motiwala!” He jumped up.
“Ah…back from his trip, is he?” Rakesh-7 remarked.
“Uh-huh!” Bunnu said excitedly as he ran for the stairs.
“Don’t forget to get your Papa for me!”
His Friend, Motiwala