And the Rat Laughed - By Nava Semel Page 0,44

Rat Church. I’m so close. Come with me, Stash, to the No-Net-Land. My hand digs through the dirt, leafs through a packet of dusty pages, but whenever I try to work out the writing, the pages crumble and the imaging dies out.

The pages are still there. I’m sure of it. I must touch them. I need to read those ancient pages with my very own eyes.

Over the past two days, I’ve crammed into my brain as much as I could from the submemoryfolders in Polish, Latin, Yiddish and Hebrew. They used to write that language from right to left. The implachip lost no time switching the lobes.

This struggle to cope with the overload is tearing my brain apart. Some of all this just has to remain with you.

The pages I’ll have to take in without the help of an implachip.

With my very own eyes I’ll read the ancient writing. Word by word. Slowly, slowly.

Bless me...

For I have sinned...

That little girl must have had something to remember if she was struggling so hard to forget.

And maybe I do too...

And I don’t even know what.

With my very own soul. I will remember.

Stash, I already know that you’re engaged in a top-secret mission at the Institute’s biotechnological lab to create a new body-part.

I had to break into your REMaker in order to get the password.

That is the most significant part of your future program, and you’re already in the process of screening transplant candidates. At the lowest level, in a tightly sealed container, it is ready – the prototype of the soulorgan.

From the deepest folds of the body... Rising...

Outwards...

There in the dark...

Someone is laughing. I can hear it clearly.

And I hope to put down my own discovery in writing too, just as the ancients used to do. My fingers will grasp the ancient writing implement, a pencil or a pen, and my other hand will hold the paper. Slowly, slowly.

Even without the implachip I can picture your lips twitching. Stash is smirking...

Maybe I am–

She

And you are–

Who?

If only I could understand that sense of humor.

Stash, if I write to you in my own handwriting, will you read it?

A page with words on it, stained with the involuntary drippings of the body. Perspiration, saliva, urine, blood, tears...

I’ve never cried. That was the first genetic repair they did on me. It’s imprinted on my card.

I want so much to cry.

***

I’ll sleep under the open skies.

Closeness

A body touching

A hand stroking – a hand hitting

I’m leaving.

Good-bye Stash.

It hurts so much...

My entire being is torn apart.

There will be light there. There will be darkness.

I pray to be able to tell the difference.

Pray?

What is praying?

If the little girl was laughing, then so can I...

Awakening

Part Five

The Diary

15 September 1943

Day of Our Lady of Sorrows

Do not bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Do not absolve me. I have been your faithful servant all my life, but now I am forsaking you and succumbing to the sin of despair. I feel sin welling up in every part of my body, and by sunrise it will permeate every cell. Do not forgive me, Father. I cannot fulfil my duty, and I have no faith. But pardon this little girl, who has no name. Because she is the unwitting source of my despair. Embrace her, and grant her salvation.

She is huddled in the wings of the church, mute as stone, and I pray in vain for slumber to engulf us both. Only the soft hand of sleep will succeed in dusting off tormented memory, suspending for a brief moment all that which had best be forgotten, and prepare the rememberer for a new day.

What new day awaits a little girl who is nothing but night?

I am Your chosen one. You have entrusted this girl-child to me, a little girl who is the source of my despair. When I first saw her, in the confessional, I asked myself whether this creature could be part of what You had wrought. Do not forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I doubted her being human. I stood there paralyzed. The black walls closed in on me, and my foot faltered on the threshold. I wanted to flee from the soundless body, with its stench of excrement, all its limbs dripping. I sought prayer, but found none. All I found was the cry that pierced through me.

My Father, what is this test that you are making me endure? Terrified, I crossed myself again and again. The farmer’s wife was shouting things at me, but I could not make