Exorcising Maxwell’s Demon with the Peri and the Platypus
By Nathan Turowsky
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
The Peri, a good and beautiful fairy from Persian mythology
The Platypus, an immortal platypus
The Player, a narrator/bridge device of sorts
The Scene: Sparse, with a gate-type thing on one side of the stage. This gate is meant to represent that of Heaven.
The characters pace a bit when speaking, and occasionally talk with their hands, but rarely make defined, purposive movements. There is relatively little intonation; delivery is by and large monotone for all three characters. These are not human beings.
THE PLAYER: So, guys. Heeeyyy. Can I get your opinion on…humans?
THE PLATYPUS: They always come up with these things when the alternative is to despair of the world in which they have been floating. For so long they moved there, moved in a transparent world, reached out and touched the eternal ephemerality of beauty. They grasped out at it after it ended, without looking for something else, without making something else. They only tread a circle, entering the whirlpool.
The problem with depicting the true nature of history is only that a map is not a timeline and a timeline is not a map. A four-dimensional object, both map and timeline, can be seen from here, our eyrie, this perch before the Gateless Gate; but they know it not. Seeing history laid out before them in its true relation to nations and tribes is not a luxury that mortals have.
THE PERI: A luxury? Why a luxury? I find the path of their lives hateful.
THE PLATYPUS: You find it hateful, my dear peri, because it is an agglutination of two separate paths. See down there?
She pointed to a spot where two walls came together at an acute angle.
That is some point in the 1920s. Somebody’s dying dream gummed up the works at that point. Salvation from outside history will be needed to clean up this mess, I’m afraid.
Oy vey, it never ends.
THE PERI: I might point out, dear platypus, that the present state there is in some ways worse than before, but in some ways not really better or worse.
Let us contemplate such things as the sinking of the Titanic, what it was like to live in Germany during the Black Death, Shoah, the Middle Passage, being a member of the Donner Party, the Great Depression, the 1970s, Witchfinders-General, Spanish flu, the eras depicted in Mel Gibson films, West Virginia coal miners, ‘Okies’, and/or the people of Lesser Armenia.
I am aware that a lot of these things happened after that confluence and thus would not under ideal circumstances contribute to the overall hideousness.
Let us pray.
Save us. Save us now. And save them as you promised them in the elder days.
Hail, hail, mercy’s fountain, saviour from out of time.
By the mystery of your shining cloak, place the moon at your feet and wear a starry crown. By the mystery of the light at decadence’s end, come and see and protect. And do not through your own power force the good and holy, but let it come from within them themselves. They do not, to our minds, seem to be capable of properly appreciating ‘free gifts’, as they are wont to call such things.
O! –Holy, holy, in image and in dream, in noontide and solstice, in moonrise and equinox, O! –Let them come, suffer them to save their people.
THE PLATYPUS: The question of ‘what is to happen?’ is an important one.
THE PERI: Doubtless, my dear platypus. I say!
THE PLATYPUS: What is it, peri?
THE PERI: Do you think that there’s a moral duty that people have to be happy?
I mean, not to say that people have a moral duty to grin and bear it no matter what happens. You don’t do that. I don’t do that. What I mean is…
THE PLATYPUS: Do you mean that people should try to find things that make them happy in life and keep to those things even when it’s hard rather than just slipping back into old habits and old unpleasantness? So, for instance, if I wanted a husband and children, which I don’t, that I should go out and find a nice male platypus and lay eggs and keep to that as my centre in life because of how happy it would, purely hypothetically, make me?
—Yes? Well, then, there’s still the problem of many people being made ‘happy’ (that was in massive ‘sarcasm quotes’) by things that shouldn’t make anybody happy. Like massacres or rape or Milan Kundera or theft or fraud or excessive fucking cursing or the history of imperialism or casual sex or drugs or treason or radical atheism or Fox News or…you get the idea. But with due diligence, to find the things that make you truly, purely happy…
Then yes. Yes, I would say that that is a moral duty.
THE PERI: You have a broad definition of ‘things that shouldn’t make anybody happy’. Has anybody ever told you that?
THE PLATYPUS: Yes, many people. To which I say, this is happiness:
HAIL, HOLY QUEEN, Mother of mercy; hail, our life, our sweetness, and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears. Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us; and, after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, o sweet Virgin Mary!
V./ Pray for us O holy Mother of God,
R./ that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray. Almighty, everlasting God, who by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost didst prepare the body and soul of the glorious Virgin-Mother Mary to become a dwelling-place meet for thy Son: grant that as we rejoice in her commemoration; so by her fervent intercession we may be delivered from present evils and from everlasting death. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
THE PERI: (after a long pause) That is your true happiness?
THE PLATYPUS: Well, what’s yours?
THE PERI: Something different. Something that He responds to about as well, though.
I SAY, PLATYPUS! When we say that people should find what makes them happy and never leave it…how ought humans to strive against the sins of their world? Should they all just live on mountaintops with close friends and family and only venture out to go to market and find spouses?
Or do you mean something more like the sort of world Chesterton would right about? Or perhaps even in a purely mental sense, like transcendent Zen or Shingon meditations, mudras, mantras, and mandalas?
I guess what I mean to say is, if everybody could live in their own small communities with people whom they liked and could treat well, there would be no more things to avoid…but if only some people did, they’d be victimised double-quick. Moral superiority means nothing if you’re dead.
THE PLATYPUS: Now, peri, you know and I know that that last simply is not true! Moral superiority is important especially after one is dead! But, no, I get what you’re trying to say.
I suppose I mean a mental sense, mostly, in that mortals shouldn’t let their guards down or flee from the world entirely. You’re familiar with the concept ‘in the world, not of it’? –Good. You should be. It’s one of His most important concepts in His dealing with creatures. That’s what I meant. Just not to let these things wash over them, to be able to come home into happiness after a day of beating up punk-ass gangsters, helping little old ladies cross the street, writing newspaper columns denouncing social decay, striving for the rights of the homeless and the gay, or what-have-you.
To avoid things that you don’t like, all you have to do is close your eyes and stop up your ears. If everybody did that all manner of sin would be gone and all evil would simply wither away. But if only some people did that…no, I’m afraid that wouldn’t do.
In a world with both romantics and cynics, the romantics keep getting hurt. In a world with only cynics, the cynics would suffer forever. In a world with only romantics, happiness might be able to blossom.
Now, we’re getting off what we were discussing! What’s your pure happiness?
THE PERI: O platypus! –dearest platypus! It is this:
Listen to the practice of Guanyin,
Who skilfully responds in all places.
With vast vows, as deep as the sea,
Throughout inconceivable eons,
He has served many thousands of kotis of Buddhas,
And has made great, pure vows.
I shall now tell you in brief,
That for those who hear his name or see him,
And who are mindful of his name unceasingly,
He can extinguish the suffering of all realms of existence.
If someone is the victim of another’s harmful intent,
And is pushed into a pit of fire,
If he evokes the strength of Guanyin,
The pit of fire will turn into a pool.
If someone is being tossed about in the great sea,
And is surrounded by the dangers of dragons, fish, and ghosts,
If he evokes the strength of Guanyin,
The waves…
THE PLATYPUS: Enough!!
THE PERI: …what is it?
THE PLATYPUS: For one thing, you’re using a version of that sutra where Kannon-sama is a guy, but you’re calling her Guanyin, which is a form of the name used in China, where, just as she is in Japan and here in the heavenly realms, she’s a girl. You should have either used the name Avalokiteśvara or spoken of her as the sexy lady that she in fact is.
THE PERI: Sexy? Are you sure we’re thinking of the same Kannon-sama? I seem to remember Kannon-sama being a plump grandmotherly type.
Well, I shrug. I defer. Maybe she looks different to you. Or maybe…yeah, you just have weird taste.
Namo amitofo namo amitofo namo amitofo namo amitofo namo amitofo namo amitofo namo amitofo namo amitofo namo amitofo namo amitofo namo amitofo namo amitofo
THE PLATYPUS: You know what? Stop it. Just stop. You aren’t one of Kannon-sama’s friends and you have possibly the worst grasp of East Asian thought of anybody I know. That mantra isn’t even from the sect of Buddhism that we were just talking about.
THE PERI: The Lotus Sutra is used in many sects.
THE PLATYPUS: Not the ones that use the namo amitofo mantra.
THE PERI: Really? Huh. I could have sworn there was some overlap.
THE PLATYPUS: Eh, whatever.
THE PLAYER: See it now: the Curlew River, a play, an operatic thing. World War, World War. They were afraid, fought not to win.
As a women, we see, we say: there are new mountains where we stand and speak.
THE PLATYPUS: And yet this is a completely different story!
THE PERI: Pardon?
THE PLATYPUS: It bears scarcely any relevance to ours! The only similarity is that Sawasaki is in it!
THE PERI: I think it’s relevant in that the little bits of the documents quoted herein describe the Japanese psyche, the World Wars, a little of the alienation that people, especially women, especially smart people, especially smart women, so often feel, and, uh…other things of that kind.
I hear the ISA’s getting involved.
THE PLATYPUS: Ptuh. Don’t talk to me about the ISA. Peace of God is crazy.
THE PERI: Hey, watch it! We work with Peace of God!
THE PLATYPUS: I don’t know what He sees in her, really…perhaps she was more stable, more communicative two thousand years ago?
THE PERI: You are an incredibly judgmental person, you know that?
Let us perform a little dance.
Do you remember, O my dear platypus, when we met Kaori? What her problem was? How people were so cruel to her?
THE PLATYPUS: Kaori was a slut.
THE PERI: She wasn’t a ‘slut’—a word which, incidentally, I try to avoid using when describing people because it just sounds rather ugly. She was just too emotionally available for her own good. People took advantage of that.
THE PLATYPUS: Slut.
THE PERI: That bitch cousin of hers should have been put in the dock and sent up the river for rape. She felt shame and fear with Nagisa. With a good woman it will be safety and love.
THE PLATYPUS: They had too much sex for that. It’s far from clear when it started and when they stopped. It had to have been before Kaori was in high school. Probably she was twelve or thirteen. It could have gone on for several years. They probably had sex many times. That is what Kaori’s talk implies.
THE PERI: She shouldn’t just be fucking…that isn’t good for Kaori. She should be making love.
THE PLATYPUS: You have to make it? Because it isn’t there already?
THE PERI: No, you’re making more of it. ‘Make’ indicates action. I think it’s a Germanic thing. I seem to remember something that Albert Speer used to say about ‘making sport’. Love can be expressed through sex—which is the whole point of sex—so ‘make love’ here is ‘do sex’. I prefer ‘lovemaking’ to ‘making love’, actually, just as an English phrase.
THE PLATYPUS: It’s a good thing she goes to an all-girls school. If it was co-ed I can see it like ‘Um, I’m a lesbian, but since you’re pretending to like me I’m going to let you have sex with me’.
THE PERI: Platypus, it was RAPE.
THE PLATYPUS: So what, you can't rape a slut? Sluts get raped all the time. It was only rape because she was too young. If Nagisa had waited until she was sixteen, Kaori still would have had sex with her.
THE PERI: We can’t know that!
THE PLATYPUS: Sixteen is the age of consent in Fukuoka Prefecture, right?
THE PERI: I’m honestly not sure. It goes from thirteen up to eighteen across the country.
THE PLATYPUS: When discussing rape and consent let’s make sure to indicate when we’re discussing the legal definition, which is based on a fantasy world where things are black and white, and when we’re discussing the actual real-world concept of rape, and in particular, consent, which comes in all shades of grey.
THE PERI: It wasn’t a shade of grey. She was too young to give consent.
And besides, poor Kaori is easily taken advantage of, I fear.
THE PLATYPUS: I’m pretty sure Nagisa was gentle enough to keep Kaori from being too traumatised, although that pie was a majorly dickish thing to do. Fuck that shit.
THE PERI: It was more like a giant bun really…
And she still took advantage of Kaori. Somebody who is the age that Kaori was at that point, in regards to somebody who is the age that Nagisa was at that point, cannot be held to blame for such things by any reasonably charitable person.
THE PLATYPUS: Blame? For what? The sexual aspect of their relationship didn’t necessarily have any ill effects on Kaori.
THE PERI: What?? Are we even talking about the same Kaori here?! And I was addressing your calling Kaori a slut. Even if that’s a valid way to criticise a person, it still isn’t correct.
THE PLATYPUS: Regardless, Kaori didn’t seem to mind the sex, didn't she?
And I don’t know what you are talking about with the rape. Don’t you remember being thirteen? I do, and everyone was losing their fucking virginities left, right and centre. Usually with older people too.
And please, try to remember when you were that age. You were aching to fool around. It’s only because we’re older now that we see these younger people as children, which they are, but to themselves, they aren’t kids. So if they want to fool around with other teenagers, that’s their right.
THE PERI: Wow, you just entirely changed your tune. And it’s just as much bullshit as when you were saying the exact opposite. Only the most easily-abused people I know, or those most given to harlotry, had sex before they were eighteen or nineteen. Much less thirteen. My word, that’s so young…
When I was thirteen, I think I was into embroidery and other things of such kind. Keep in mind that this was in the time of the Parthian Empire.
Again. Again. The reality of the situation makes it I think quite explicit that Kaori was not in full control of her mental and emotional faculties. Kaori is still not in full control of her mental and emotional faculties. For her having sex with Nagisa was a thing of shame and confusion.
Kaori isn’t a slut. Nagisa is a bitch.
THE PLATYPUS: You’re just bitter that Nagisa left her.
THE PERI: Damn right I’m bitter that Nagisa left her. Nobody deserves to be fucked and left, Kaori or otherwise.
THE PLATYPUS: Was Kaori going to impregnate Nagisa? No. Nagisa had to do what was right by Nagisa, and that involved a penis.
Bunch of bitter virgins would probably agree with you, though…
THE PERI: Implying the only ‘right’ thing is making more little people? Implying that in vitro doesn’t exist in Japan? Implying that Nagisa’s dishonesty was in any way acceptable?
And don’t make conjectures about the virginity of people you’ve never met. If these hypothetical people who agree with me are bitter virgins that’s their right just as much as it would be if they were the kind of harlots that you unjustly think that Kaori is.
THE PLATYPUS: Nagisa wanted babies. That was her decision and everyone including Kaori should respect that.
THE PERI: If Nagisa was a remotely honest or non-manipulative person, probably you would be right. But if she was honest and non-manipulative the situation would not have happened in the first place.
And she didn't break up with Kaori and then start going out with a guy. She emotionally manipulated her and kept having sex with her on the side, and then boom, giant bun of betrayal. Fuck, she’s probably cheating on her husband already.
THE PLATYPUS: They weren’t really dating anyway. And at least Kaori got sex from Nagisa, unlike with Makino. Better to have sex with your lying manipulative cousin than to not get any sex from a lying manipulative straight girl.
THE PERI: …You are absurd.
‘Not getting any’ makes it perhaps less damaging when the lying and manipulation come to light.
Fuck Nagisa.
THE PLATYPUS: When you think about it, Kaori’s mum was an accomplice to Nagisa’s alleged bitchiness. She was the one who baked that stupid pie in the first place.
THE PERI: Yeah, because Mrs Kaori’s Mum knew that her twenty-something niece was fucking her underage daughter. I doubt she’d mind much since she has a second family and her son there is a convicted felon. Can we discuss something else now?
THE PLATYPUS: Please, thank you.
How about astronomy?
THE PERI: That’s great.
By the way, you were right about moral superiority mattering especially after death, I’ve decided.
THE PLATYPUS: Smashing.
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