Ground Floor Of Heaven

GROUND FLOOR OF HEAVEN

by BUI

HOANG VI (http://archive.damau.org/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=797&Itemid=1) Translated 2002 by Bùi Hoằng Vị , edited by Tôn Thất Huy & Đinh Từ Bích Thúy

Groundfloor. Indoors. There is no furniture other than a bookcase against the wall, a desk next to the bookcase, and two chairs at the desk. There are only two beings, whose soiled and fallen wings look as if they have never once taken flight. One of them, with large and sagging buttocks, is standing on tiptoes on one end of the desk, her ear glued to the transistor radio made in Hell half hidden on the bookcase top, seeming to listen attentively. From time to time, she would turn around, sighing. She has a pale face with two puffy, weary eyes. The other – sitting at his desk, with head bent, writes continuously. The lines of his words flow all over the floor, flooding it four inches deep and spreading swiftly to the drains leading outside. The air feels sultry, reeking of rats, cockroaches, and garbage .... I beg you. The standing being repeats, her voice desolate. What are you writing there? The other, quite absorbed, gives no reply. Oh no ! Her voice sounds even sadder. It can’t be so. I can’t believe it. Pardon? The other replied, absent-mindedly. I can’t believe it! But believe what?

They can’t be that happy. It’s been assumed to be very depressing down there! At last, the writing being raises his head while still looking quite absent-minded. The transistor radio emits sounds from nine channels of VOH, the Voice of Hell, one by one. * At last, he raises his head, when she reaches to turn the radio button, searching for Channel One, VOHell. A symphony is being played by anuses. He stops writing, but with no intention to listen, just gazing inattentively to the right; there, another piece of gray lime has just dropped off the dirty wall, on which words such as Dieu, Love, Rai are scribbled clumsily in chalk and charcoal, around a sketch, even more clumsily made, of God, whose expression is at once venerable and untrustworthy, donning a halo of some murky brownish color. Of course, He has to have a halo. The symphony stops. The program continues with a professional voice, announcing: … Following is the latest news. Just recently we have received twelve more beings with wings. One of them reported that they had fled the darkness of some medieval Heaven, from some incomparably depressing nation. They are all exhausted. Some of them are dead on arrival. At present, no measure has been found to effectively cheer up the survivors, not even just one bit. We respectfully bow before them all.... We respect every single sorrow of Heaven …. He yawns. The scratching sound resonates from the radio button. She tunes in to Channel Two. An essay is read half way: … Ultimately, it is very obvious

that

the

most

callous

yet

most

faithful

objective

of

consciousness is betrayal, but unfortunately, it’s the only means of preserving Truth … He still doesn’t feel like listening at all. His ears are paying attention to the sounds echoing from some floor above, in the same building – some quarreling, harshly nagging voices, some

shouting, and then some hollow, desiccated sobs .... His eyes look out the window. Out there, a gust of wind picks up some dirt, spinning it into a whirlpool. The sky is sombre. There is a gray tornado hovering somewhere, he knows. Channel Three. Some news about the latest scientific discoveries .… An experiment has just been successfully performed on .... His staring eyes are fixed at the window while he is trying to imagine something serious – a laboratory, for example, with test tubes and white coats .... He tries to visualize until his head aches. At last, he shakes his head. Ah, at once he realizes that no serious image can ever reside in his consciousness. That’s all right, ultimately. Those things, no matter how serious they may be, have nothing to do with him, sitting here, in a suffocating chaos reeking of rats, cockroaches, and garbage! The radio tuner continues its scratching sound. It is being turned enthusiastically, again. Channel Four. The Scream that Trancends Time. He lays his pen down. That’s the word he really doesn’t want to hear. Time! Channel Five. The zero o’clock news. It’s time again! What is time? Isn’t it the concept attached to each geographical zone that a herd of tailed beings has submitted to and taken turns gnawing at? If so, he can’t share it with them. Here, where he resides, morning or night, on sunny or on rainy days, in the slightly hot or in the very hot season, the only lamp on that ceiling is always on, just like a sickly yellow eye, vertically hung and never shut, and, in its chronically sickly yellow, haunting light, he can’t tell what time it is. His time here is immeasurable, limitless, or twisted and condensed in some way, which he can’t describe with a worldly and imperfect language; it should be experienced by some absolutely transcendental means, which are quite beyond the reach of both his consciousness and his imagination. Ah, time! Since long ago, he has stopped being aware of it.

The news bulletin suddenly pulls him back to the radio: … It is rumored that, on the ground floor of Heaven, from his false sorrow, a wingedbeing has let his poetry overflow, thus flooding all the drains and gutters .... She turns around, her voice full of reproach. They are talking about you. Her eyes look more weary. He listens, quite sad. No. They’re mistaken. My sorrow is real. He hangs his head, looking at the lines of words ceaselessly shed. How can they understand what he's doing here? Oh well, forget it; he shouldn’t care. When he is writing, he alone is the counterpoint of the world, he himself becomes a world unto itself… Channel Six. The creaking noise of a bed. Panting noises are mingled with soft, encouraging hisses …. I heard that the she-devils down there are very beautiful, is that right? Her voice whimpers, full of reproach. Not at all. He mumbles, his head still hanging. It’s been proven that the female beings with tails down there have to sit for hours in front of the mirror, endlessly outlining the holes on their faces with cosmetics of extra fine quality. They must be ugly. But she still doesn’t seem to be appeased. Her trembling fingers go on torturing the radio tuner. Channel

Seven.

The

sounds

of

clinking

glasses.

Laughter.

Compliments. A raucous party. Well! Come on! Cheers! On the 1991st death anniversary of …. Once more he can’t help looking out the window. In the distance, at the end of his line of vision, across a

treeless, deserted field, there is a big mound called The Tomb of God. As for him, he has never called it such. Today, it offends his heart to see His final resting place looking so exposed and forlorn, with nothing but patches of dirty yellow weeds. He wishes that it could have been constructed with cool marble slabs, shadowed by peace and quiet, under the dense shade of the evergreens.... Channel Eight. Choking laughter. * She keeps on turning again and again the radio button, desperately. At last, she bursts into tears. Oh no! She leans her head against the bookcase, her shoulders trembling. I can’t believe it! Come on. Patiently he responds, involuntarily groping for his pen. Again, he bends his head, writing at full stretch. And his words, again, flow all over the floor, flooding it, reaching every nooks and crannies, running down into the drains reeking of rats, cockroaches, and … Just a little rises up and spins with the wind, glittering in the cloud of dust. There is still a gray tornado hovering somewhere outside.… The air suffocates. He wishes that she would tune in to Channel Nine. But without much hope. She will never choose to listen to Channel Nine, nor will she ever turn them all off. She would rather keep on tuning in, enthusiastically, eternally prolonging the scratching sounds. Better than nothing. She says. I hate Channel Nine. Yes, he knows, only the Eternal Silence is emitted from there. For his part, how he craves such silence! From some floor inside the building can be heard a loud, brassy voice that blots out the persistent scratchy sound of the tuner. You are choking again! What misery! Other people manage to swallow blocks of hell so nicely, and you - you always choke, even on a single grain of rice. Honestly, if only I could vanish underground for shame.

He doesn’t want to listen at all. He just wants to keep on writing, silently and purposedly. But, sadly, how can he shut his ears! There, and he also hears her tuning in to Channel Seven again …. Somebody’s snores sound like thunder. Has the raucous party ended? He mumbles .... Abruptly, he heard part of the Adagio of No 14 in C sharp minor, by … Channel Six, isn’t it? He is about to ask, but the tuner has been turned. Yes, it must have been Channel Six. They have stopped; there remains merely the bleeding sound of music, the bleeding moonlight. Again, he looks involuntarily out the window, at the clouds over the field of eternity; it’s not spring, summer, autumn, or .... Yes, the clouds. What immortal dreams are they harboring? Where do they come from? He suddenly feels like a stranger. So much a stranger to himself. Channel Five seizes his mind with its constant voice, once again: … Never has there been and never will there be anyone who hears of such a suicide – suicide by poetry. The flow of verse is rising high, millimeter by millimeter, and will certainly be over his chin, his mouth, his nose, and soon it will be an end to all that: there will remain only the eyes, wide open, slowly becoming motionless, and, finally, empty. Meanwhile, the flow of verses will stop rising. It should take a very long time to recede completely down the drains, and what will be left in the end is the poet himself, limp, flat on the ground, his pair of wings all crushed ... They are talking about you again. Her voice sounds dry. No. He looks blankly down the desk, merely making sounds on paper with his pen. He has stopped writing. They understand nothing. Here we don’t know what death is. Such concept has been defined as meaningless in Heaven. He is still scribbling with his pen. Why are they telling such lie? Nobody has ever known anything about this place of his. Suicide by poetry? What a ridiculous idea! For him to compose poems! Actually, he’s only

letting the words spurt forth like this, flooding the floor four inches deep, and that is all, nothing more. And, as for him, his existence has been decreed as without end. But, I beg you. What do you keep writing like that for? I beg you. His voice sounds dry, too. I don’t know. Ah, is there possibly a more truthful answer? Likewise, is there possibly anything other than this ugly pen for him to experience all these formidable dimensions of Eternity? Truly, he doesn’t know. He catches a glimpse of her tightening lips. Naturally, that’s not the first time he has been asked such a question. Oh well, let’s forget such trifles once he, alone, is capable of being the counterpoint of the world and, also alone, is capable of becoming .... It seems that she, herself, too, is able to forget. In a flash, she has already

been

found

listening

to

another

channel,

seemingly

nonchalant. Channel Four. A program of poetry. Gone where is The Scream that Transcends Time? It is now poetry. A reciting voice, with an urgency that forces him to tune in. … You go out to the street, sit down on a boulder and begin to cry your heart out. You cry at first for yourself and then for everything, yes, everything in the world : for the sky and earth being too vast, for the clouds being too blue, for the sun - too bright , for the rice field - too yellow, for the river - too full of water, for the people passing by: for that woman with shoulders too frail, yet with breasts too big, for that man with a weary, miserable gait, burdened even more with his oversized penis .… Ah, all things existing are too beautiful and too pitiful for you to bear. However, the very thing that is becoming more and more terrible is that you still aren’t able to understand the reason

for their existence. Thus, you go on crying and, finally, find out that your eyes are an overflowing spring. Oh poor thing! What nameless tailed creature is able to bear such anguish, an anguish so much like that of his own ? The poetry makes him envious despite its brevity. Well, unlike many other masterpieces he has known, which are senselessly long and perfect, senselessly intelligent

and lofty

but are not worth his recalling at all....

Anyway, regretfully, poetry is still not something she is interested in. The scratching sound of the radio’s tuner once again reflects her indifference, articulating it. The radio is being tuned back to Channel Three .... There is still some brief news about the latest scientific discoveries : .... have confirmed the existence of black holes .... The question on the nature of black holes, an absurd mystery of physical reality … Again, all the things that are at once serious and having nothing to do with him, sitting here, in a suffocating chaos, reeking of rats, cockroaches, garbage, under a two-fold oppression: as grayish as the tornado hovering somewhere out there, at the same time as sickly yellowish as the only lamp in the room, which is not much different from a chronically haunting eye vertically hung and never shut .... … Recent studies have shown that, under the conditions of Heaven, fluid from the eyes will not run down the cheeks, but will … The words reverberate in an extraordinarily serious manner, yet he doesn't know what else to do but yawn, silently realizing that he never once remembers to cover his mouth in time. His yawn lasts as long as the scratching sound of the radio button and cannot stop even when, on Channel Two, the familiar, peculiar essay is heard: … Although energy is to be consumed in all forms, in one way or another, it is still a tragedy to expend one’s energy for the memorization of things that are untrue, or for the bargaining of belief

in things that are unreal … His yawn cannot stop even when he, as if by some natural reflex, turns his eyes away, in a flash, sadly, out the window, towards the Tomb of God. At the moment, how he longs to have the radio tuned to Channel Nine, to immerse himself totally in it – the Eternal Silence, which has not been heard, even once. Oh, how wondrous it would be! However, he continues to sit still, twiddling with his pen, quietly yawning. Bending his head at last, he writes on and on, letting his words overflow, gushing everywhere .... Oh well, let him consider this action as his only solution, and he will forever adhere to it, despite everything, despite the radio itself, which has been tuned by her hurriedly and noisily back to Channel One, where some news report, or some essay, or some poem has just been concluded, he is not quite sure: .... There will be just you, alone, yet that fact will be enough to fulfill your mission as witness of the mysterious

and

eternal

meaninglessness

of

the

existence

of

Heaven ....And, of course, even this conclusion, he says to himself, should be ignored as well. Saigon, February 1991