The End Has Come

Two years ago the I-Ching machine had predicted that the Vile Star would cleanse the Heavens, that the great comet would bring death to all but the very rich and the very poor. That the sky wanderer would poison those above, drain the Pacific, and would cause drops of iron to rain on Britannia for a full day. Upon hearing the news, some of Phineas’ followers had given him everything to build this shelter — their homes, their possessions, (even their daughters), making them destitute and Phineas wealthy beyond measure, a faithful gesture to ensure everyone’s survival, a win-win in his mind.

Phineas held the machine and asked, “Are my beloved followers alive?” As he waited and then turned the handle he desperately wanted to ask when will they rescue me, but he knew that asking about himself was folly. He’d tried once, out of curiosity, and the machine returned an error message: Cuowu. Now as he listened to the whir of the gears and tumblers, he thought about his followers until the machine settled on the Chinese words for Healthy and Strong.

Phineas breathed a sigh of relief. He’d rarely, if ever, doubted the machine, but then the device had never predicted something as imperious as the end of the world. He asked again, “Are my followers, especially my lieutenants, the ones I hand-picked to lead in my absence, are they guiding my people? What are they doing?” He knew his question was somewhat muddled, but as Professor Ling had once said, “Diction is less important than intent. The machine interprets the beating of your heart, the quaking of your thoughts.”

This time the machine said: Gathering.

Phineas smiled. Sensing an imminent rescue, he looked around the room. There was still a certain morbid decorum to be had. With that in mind, Phineas dragged the bodies of the twins to the vault and sealed them inside. Then in a magnanimous gesture, one foretelling his release, he opened the copper cages of his collection of mockingbirds, whippoorwills, and nightingales. Their even songs had comforted him. Their singing reminded him that the world had kept on spinning, that despite the comet which shook and poisoned the world, the sun was still rising and falling, days and nights were passing unmolested. But while the birds sung, chortled, whispered and flit about — none left their cages. Their wings had been clipped long ago. That’s how Phineas felt as he sat in his chair and waited, wondering how long his oil lamps would last.

* * *

After ten days, Phineas decided it prudent to only eat one meal a day. Though a grumbling stomach only stoked his fears as he would occasionally bang a golden spittoon on the walls, hoping to be heard, screaming at the ceiling until he was exhausted.

Now in the awful silence, he huddled in his blankets and furs of Russian sable as he watched a trickle of fetid water seep down the wall.

It’s . . . raining. I have water. I have air.

He hadn’t predicted that, though he hadn’t asked. He also hadn’t asked about the loyalty of his followers, because he couldn’t ask something that benefited him directly, but moreover, why would he need to? The machine had never been wrong — or so he’d thought. In the early years, Phineas was unsure of how to use the device, for what purpose and to what end, so he’d found work as a village matchmaker — the most legitimate scam he knew. Most intermediaries were numerologists, superstitious old crones who used birthdates and astrology to assuage conflicts of interest between families. When Phineas showed up with his machine, marriage became a science (though an imperfect field of knowledge if ever there was one).

In the beginning, Phineas’ predictions connected peasant families, but eventually he was being paid handsomely to bind sons and daughters of the rich and powerful merchant class. He delighted in his calling, because if people married and were happy, his wisdom seemed infallible. But if wives failed to produce a son, or accept a husband’s concubine, if there was discord, that contention was usually seen as a sign of the couple’s hidden weaknesses, their vices, not his. His fame spread from Guangzhou to Nanchang, until a young girl rebuffed the cousin whom she’d been betrothed to and ran away. Her absence drew the ire of the British Territorial Minister who had her arrested along with the entire village, which had been declared unruly, given English courtesy names and sold to the West — Phineas included. But to his surprise (and sincere delight) his reputation had preceded him. He arrived in the West, not as a village scryer as the British described him, but as a prophet like Lao Tzu, one of the great masters reborn. And the girl’s disobedience became a parable of what would happen to those who disregarded his predictions.