The Gliding Spirits of the Coil Galaxy

By Buch-Lay Alt

In the Coil Galaxy, sphinx ancestors from different planets in the galaxy send their children to the three new planets: Fiesta, Libre, and Futura, to learn different trades. Terra is their tenth planet for different species incarnating there to learn co-existence, enduring character tests. The children’s true identities are hidden from them and their parents so the sphinxes cannot play favoritism to their cherubim. Consequently, children can’t return to their parental planets if acting against their conscience while the responsible cherubim may be eagerly adopted by other planets or invited for a visit. This science fiction, a faraway galaxy struggling with challenges to separate truth from fantasy, creates a new future for each individual with changes like the four seasons to bring forth life and activities without turning ancestral tree into a petrified tree or oneself into a mummy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: May 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483429762

Buch-Lay Alt

Buch Lay Alt was born in China, experiencing all the tragedies of the Second World War and civil revolutions on earth. In her childhood, she loved to read fairy tales and the stories of great men. After getting married, she often accompanied her husband to foreign countries where he was sent to work In her spare time, she enjoyed writing picture books for children. Adventures in The Coil Galaxy is the only novel she wrote for years to combine the western and eastern ancient myths and fairy tales, the present society and family problems into one book to entertain children, making students discussing principles and adults thinking of solving personal problems in family and society, acting as a bystander to have different perspective viewpoints instead of simply the personal one.

Book preview

Author

PART I

Strategy 3300

1

The Coil Galaxy

Time may not mean anything to some people, but for a student, when the bell rings at the end of a period, he will not be allowed to hand in his examination paper late. Wouldn’t it be better for him to hand in an incomplete paper than nothing at all? In consideration of a master’s message on Terra misinterpreted by disciples, the master may correct the misinterpretation only through his incarnation as disciple to judge the papers whether it is him or the disciple being wrong. The disciple may be a new master.

Thus, time dominates the life of sphinxes on Terra, the tenth planet of the Coil Galaxy. It also dominates the characters of actors and actresses on Terra who have to play different roles in different incarnations as in different movies.

The calendar on Terra is composed of seven rings around its central axle of God bless the Good Samaritans.

The Seventh Ring, the gates of virtues numbered from one through twelve, moves at a speed of one grand cycle per ten thousand years.

The Sixth Ring, the houses of duties, moves at one thousand years per cycle.

The Fifth Ring, the forty-eight professions, moves at seven years per cycle.

The Fourth Ring doesn’t move. A new master is expected to move around it, possessing the twelve virtues of the stars within forty-eight years on Terra. He is judged by the appointed princes and princesses of peace from the nine planets to see which new master has scored the best in each one thousand years. He is nominated as a candidate of the lord of lords at the beginning of the year 9001.

The Third Ring, the ring of twelve cultures, moves at twelve years per cycle.

The Second Ring, the ring of books, stays eternally.

The First Ring, the propeller shaft of all rings, the central pillar, will be carved with principles of all the branches for guidance on Terra.

The nine ambassadors supervising the reincarnations of sphinxes on Terra reside on the Neutral Ring, the wait station. They are equally well educated and qualified for all kinds of top positions. Therefore dice are cast in deciding their seats at the houses of Terra. Then slowly, they shift their duties from one house to the other in a clockwise direction. At the end of a thousand years, they cast their dice once more for a major shift of position and duty. The last thousand years of the grand cycle are turned over to the new lord of lords, who will reign with the chosen princess blessed by Papa Omnipotent.

Planet Olympus, the source of life, has got Gate 2, the House of Aquarius. It has sent sportsmen and businessmen to Terra to teach physical education and have fun in competitions of all kinds of enterprises. Their rule is to be humble winners and gracious losers, shaking hands with opponents at the end. Any sphinx breaking this law of universal peace is not allowed to return to Olympus.

Planet Atomus, the source of energy, has got Gate 3, the House of Fish. It sends physicists and chemists to Terra to be inventors.

Planet Cinemus, the planet of arts, has got Gate 4, the House of Ram, sending funny clowns to express the feelings of citizens to authorities.

Planet Futura, the planet of statistics, has got Gate 6, the House of Twins, sending creative writers to bring insights and dreams to Terrians.

Planet Amorus, the planet of love, has got Gate 7, the House of Crab, sending vegetarians to Terra to learn whatever they can. They aren’t judged for making mistakes but for ignoring any improvement.

Planet Libre, the masculine planet, has got Gate 8, the House of Lion, sending brave policemen and spies to maintain law and order.

Planet Fiesta, the feminine planet, has got Gate 9, the House of Virgo, sending fashion designers to provide work for leisure hours.

Planet Platus, the paradise of philosophers, has got Gate 11, the House of Scorpion, sending philosophical students there to study management through observation. Their rule is to be contented to be small and neutral, working with hands to earn a living. Gifts given to them, no matter how small and trivial, must be accepted graciously and donated to the poor in order to keep the blessing flowing.

Planet Ciencius, the planet of individuality, has got Gate 12, the House of Archer, sending physicians and dietitians to Terra to teach hygiene.

Thus each sphinx on Terra has his or her duty to perform, the rule of his or her own planet in his or her heart to observe. This invisible guidance is conscience, which acts like a bird’s built-in magnet to guide a species to its individual direction and its duty on Terra, assigned by their parental planets to serve and cooperate harmoniously with other beings in universe.

After the nine ambassadors moved into their new houses in the year 8000, a Futurian drew up a chart of the next one thousand years in a code to denote the houses, their occupants, and their future moves. The Futurian predicted that if a dynamic prince of Atomus marrying a skillful princess of Olympus, they might give birth to a child elected to be the lord of princes.

2

Symbols and Numbers

In listening to the myth of the children of God who had loved the daughters of men and had children with them, Gilgamesh, the newly crowned king of the Gulfcoast, desired an eternal life. He sent forth knowledgeable messengers everywhere to look for the secret of eternal life. Finally, he heard about Noah on Mount Ararat being 950 years old, so he went north to visit the old man and vanished from Terra. Yet his messengers continued on their journey. Some of them went west into Desertland, others went northwest into Huntersland, and finally some more followed the Nomads east over many snowy mountains and green pasture into Midland.

Midland girls and women in those days stayed on tribal land while their young men wandered to distant villages to look for works as migrants, having sex affairs with women of other tribes since incest was forbidden in their own tribes. So in those days, Midland children knew only their mothers, maternal grannies, and uncles, but not their fathers.

At the end of matriarchal reign, there was a tribal woman living in Ancestral Plain. Her son was Having-Bear, who as a child was often called Great-Strength for his look or ability. His father was from the western desert. Having-Bear invented a wheel shaft for making carts, and his people called him Wheel-Shaft in his adulthood. Being interested in astronomy and astrology, this wise man also invented a compass. He was elected leader of his maternal tribe, good at using the abilities of people to do specific kinds of work. Because of the prosperity of his tribe, a poor neighboring farming tribe submitted willingly to his guidance and reign.

Before Wheel-Shaft’s days, a turtle was said to have longevity of one thousand years. Midland characters were first written in pictures carved on rocks, animal bones, or shells to record messages. Later on, when making decisions or choosing a direction, people placed symbols around a turtle and spun its shell around upside down. When the spinning stopped, the symbol the turtle head faced became the chosen decision. This superstitious method revealed that people were looking for guidance.

So Wheel-Shaft decided to offer his people the knowledge of life. He made statistical observations of human abilities related to age, weather patterns that influenced farming, and professions related to characters and birth signs, keeping all these as records. In his sixty-first year of his reign, he finished designing a scientific lunar calendar to indicate the weather patterns, including the best days to sow and the best days to harvest.

Furthermore, the calendar showed that every twelve years were dominated by one of the five basic elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and soil. A full cycle of changes was completed in sixty years. The cycle informed people of their characters and professional abilities according to their birth signs.

A time cycle of five periods predicted the strength of a person from growth to fading, from day to night, and from year to year, composed of both positive and negative signs under constant chemical and physical changes. Nothing could stay and repeat itself exactly due to the process of time.

Consequently, once a person missed his chance of one hour or one phase, that chance wouldn’t repeat itself. The time clock changed in a cycle from high to low tide and then going up again daily, with the lost chance moving on to favor another person rather than the same person, disregarding one’s birthright and intelligence. A fool might have the chance of good luck and good health in winning a lotto. Therefore, ancient chieftains were elected by their people due to the leadership ability needed during certain critical moment, and might be sorrowfully replaced afterward by a child in peacetime.

From a daughter, Wheel-Shaft had a brilliant grandson who left home at the age of ten, going east to work for a living. He reached the ocean front where the Golden Pheasant tribe lived. The tribal chieftain loved him so much that he married his two daughters to him, besides naming him a tribal chieftain after himself. But some of the tribal members disapproved of being ruled by a foreigner. So the young man took his wives and many tribal members with him to return to his homeland, where he was elected tribal chief.

On his coronation day, people presented him with gifts of songbirds of all kinds from different regions, symbolizing his prosperity in uniting the tribes from the western desert and mountains to the eastern ocean front. He had a pair of pheasants facing one another carved on a yellow jade pendant as his family symbol and seal.

Due to Wheel-Shaft’s many services to his people and his inventions of compass and writing, he was honored as emperor of the Yellow River District after his death. Thus a person could have three names: the one he was called by his parents, the one he was called by clients, and the one he was called by his descendants afterward. In myth, Wheel-Shaft was called the Great Jade Emperor by worshippers.

The surname of Prince came from a prince called Offer. He was addressed by his people as Prinz because they didn’t know his name; they only knew that he came out of the palace to help the poor with his water work to ease the floods. His father’s title was Tranquil Prince from the lineage of Gai that started the Period Dynasty.

Offer Prinz’s descendants later migrated south from the Ancestral Plain to build their new homeland in the province of Blessing-Built by a river called Offering River in honor of their ancestor.

Gradually, professional names or titles in ancient days were adopted by descendants as their surnames. Numbers such as first brother and second sister were used as names at home by siblings. The character of the oldest son was presumed to be exciting and shaking, caused by the new parents’ attitude; the second or middle son was adventurous; and the third or youngest son, born as his parents attained the peak of success, was believed to be much influenced by his parents’ relaxed attitude.

Likewise, people said that the character of the first daughter would be nourishing; the second daughter, bright in learning from her elder sibling; and the third one would have a variety of mentors’ insight to make her creative.

However, these numbers changed in time of manhood as a son became a father, to be strong with determination, and in time of womanhood as a daughter became a mother, to be subtle and fruitful. These changes were called Tao, the natural way of changes. Having eight numbers in a family, influencing one another, meant there would be many changes in life. People learned when to bow and yield, to be humble when reaching the top so that one would not have a fall. Sometimes, even just a number had individual meaning according to homonyms and the dialect spoken, stimulating intuition.

Wheel-Shaft had many children in different tribes, living separately from him, as marriages had not yet started. Children had no surnames but maternal tribal names. About two thousand years later, when some seventy tribes in Midland turned into seven warring states that were conquered by an emperor, some princes and generals were given surnames and seals to govern remote districts in collecting taxes and giving commands and judgment. Anyone who lost such seal was executed. Having a surname became prestigious. For commerce, some people started using surnames to make seals for billing and notes to replace heavy coins. A personal seal became a person’s power, rank, and trust. Then even common people started taking tribal or parental names as surnames, keeping track of patriarchal lineage from that date on.

3

Myths of Immortality

Heaven was considered to be up in the cloudy mountains above the lowlands, but with different time zones. For example, a day in heaven was a thousand years on Terra. Fairies had eternal youth. In heaven, people floated like spacemen due to low gravity.

The queen of heaven was called Lady Prinz. Once upon a time, the seven princesses of Lady Prinz came down from heaven to take a bath, leaving their clothing ashore by a lake.

A young farmer happened to see them and hid their clothing, demanding one of the girls marry him or he wouldn’t return their clothes. So the youngest princess sacrificed herself, marrying him so her sisters would be able to return to heaven.

The Seventh Princess taught the farmer to collect peacock feathers in a forest so she could make a robe to be presented to the king, who rewarded the poor man richly. After that, the Seventh Princess didn’t bother to weave for a living. When the Great Jade Emperor heard about that, he was very angry that the princess had ignored her duty as a weaver. He took her back to heaven to work. The farmer was allowed to see her just once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month. That date became the annual Seventh Princess Festival, when girls were granted a glimpse of their future husbands in dreams.

A person had a duty to work for independence, disregarding whether he or she was rich or poor, a child or a master, a man or a fairy. Even a master would have incarnations in a second coming. Immortality could be lost once one had sinned in heaven, and could only be regained through reincarnation and doing true penitence.

Righteousness reigned in the universe, from heaven to Terra. The heavenly beasts who served the saints or Buddha and the fairies as apostles had immortality as well. Through learning manners from their masters, they could change forms into human shapes or anything they liked.

Another Midland myth is about a little girl, Sound-Vision, who died jumping into the sea to save her father. She became the South Sea Buddha, who wielded her energy into an adjustable crown. Once put onto a devil’s head, he wouldn’t be able to take it off, but would suffer a severe headache if someone recited a penitence prayer nearby.

There was also a story about a stone egg with positive ions that were energized by the sun’s rays. Its negative ions were energized by the moon’s rays. This went on for thousands of years; then it came alive as a monkey. The monkey worked as the apprentice of the most powerful Taoist master, learning to recite words and turning himself into any of the seventy-two kinds of figures as he wished. He could turn into a flea or a needle, a house or a pretty girl. He could also pluck a hair from his body and turn it into an army of images, all acting exactly like himself, and each of them using a baton as weapon exactly like his. Thus his enemies couldn’t find his real body.

With a somersault, the monkey could reach a palace in heaven to make trouble with the generals of the heavenly king, or with the four sea dragon kings, who dominated the afterlife in their sea palaces. He became the powerful Monkey King who wandered uninvited into the garden of Lady Prinz during a leisure trip to heaven. The queen’s maids were preparing the annual garden party because the fruit of the queen’s peach tree was ready to be harvested. A guest could gain eternal life by eating one of the queen’s peaches. The drunken Monkey-King robbed the maid and ate a basketful of the fruit, gaining eternal life. His master caught him and put him under a bell inside a mountain under a seal, from which it was impossible for him to get out. The South Sea Buddha also put the crown of penitence on his head to punish him for any misbehavior.

To redeem his sin of stealing the fruit of eternal life from Lady Prinz, the South Sea Buddha told Monkey King that in some five hundred years, a Tong monk would pass by the mountain, going westward to get the Holy Scripture. He must call that monk his master and escort him safely to Nepal to see Gautama, the Buddha, and bring back the Holy Scripture to the king of Midland. Five hundred years on Terra seemed quite a long time to human beings, but that was just a half day in heaven.

The Tong monk named the monkey king Meditate-Emptiness, which meant to think of nothing physical, only spiritual. In clearing the mind, one might gain insight into life, loving the whole universe without possessing any land or offending anyone. Instead, one could enjoy the spiritual fruit of dancing with butterflies, running wild with horses, and turning personal energy into delicious fruits to feed hungry souls, without the desire for wealth or sex or power that would cause personal suffering, sickness, and death.

Believing in the hearsay that eating the flesh of a holy man and drinking his blood could bring people eternal life, many devils tried to trick Tong-Monk into their houses to cook him as food.

Tong-Monk fell into devils’ tricks at least seventy times, and the Monkey King rescued him before tragedies could happen. Instead of being grateful, the holy monk blamed Monkey King for fighting with others in ruining his reputation, so he sent Monkey King away. Finally Monkey King learned to let Tong-Monk suffer in the hands of devils, so Tong-Monk would see their doings before being rescued.

There were two other celestial apostles, with little ability against devils, who escorted the Tong-Monk. One was a heaven general, born with a hog-like face on Terra for raping a lady in heaven. Another one was a lesser marine general who got drunk on duty.

In fact, even Tong-Monk was said to be the first apostle of Gautama. Due to his falling asleep during Buddha’s preaching, he had to reincarnate as man, to get the Holy Scripture in a hard way: passing through eighty-one calamities during more than three years of climbing from mountains to dangerous mountains occupied by devils. He suffered since the free lecture had not been appreciated, just as God’s free advice in conscience was ignored.

4

Character Chart

According to the lunar calendar, men are not born simply with genes of parents but certain types of characters from previous lives. Men and women also have different characters and abilities in growth, flexibility, temper, and fertility. These differences are due to different ages and different animal birth signs (Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar) creating new characters, with experience and events influenced by the constellation Zodiac signs of the months (Aries, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, Sagittarius, Scorpios, Libra, Virgo, Leo, Cancer, Gemini, and Taurus). There yields thousands of reactions from different positions or viewpoints in the same situations, being further influenced by society, education, profession, and virtues accrued, springing forth over five thousand kinds of characters and viewpoints rotating from 360 degrees.

A Spiceland saint once prophesied that she would be born as rat in her next reincarnation; people thought that she would return as a mouse; thus, they fed mice in her temple. But she was giving the hint of becoming a counselor in her next incarnation because in Purposelandish, Rat means Advice. To reveal the purpose of reincarnation on Terra, the spelling of one language must be decoded by another language. Furthermore, Rat also represented the sign of the year of her incarnation. Without shifting her words between languages, people simply fed mice to do charity in her name.

Once an eighty-year-old man, Over-Mountain Huang, sent away his twenty-one sons with families of 113 grandchildren to twenty-one cities to adopt native dialects, saying,

Every son of mine rides toward different direction to set up a home with foreign name.

After living there for years, the foreign country will become your homeland.

Don’t forget parental teaching in bringing up the next generations.

With ancestral blessings, may the twenty-one sons from my three wives be prosperous.

His eldest son, leading the three mothers, also composed a poem, saying:

Over-Mountain, the tenth son of his father, has three wives.

Each wife has seven sons leaving homeland.

Don’t forget to report home the news of established businesses and families.

As we may hardly meet again, let’s remind our branches in encountering,

Consider simply our roots, disregarding poverty and wealth.

Henceforth whoever could recite the above poem would be regarded as a family member of Huang, to be treated well in the family despite having foreign surnames.

Huang means either emperor or yellow and can be written at least six other ways: as King, Kaiser, Koenig, Roi, Gelb, and Jaune. Why did the old man make his twenty-one sons settle down in different places, adopting names in local dialects so as to be indistinguishable from local residents?

Well, in the old days, if a high government official had displeased his emperor or his prime minister or any person in power, his whole family to nine generations might be executed. It was never easy for righteous people to stay long in high-ranking government positions without drawing evil enemies. Huang’s children changed their surnames to hide themselves for safety’s sake.

Furthermore, when a province exploded with population, emperors might enforce migration. For a family with six sons, the father could keep only two. The rest had to migrate elsewhere, as dictated by the government. So in White Deer Village, a big family avoiding to draw attention, the surname of the descendants of the eldest son were called White, and the surname of the descendants of the second son were called Deer.

Ink-River’s ancestor was given the surname Huang when appointed governor of the Yellow River district in ancient days. From then on, the descendants moved south and lived in various parts of Midland. Ancestor Live-Righteously of some nine hundred years ago had had four sons called Source-Deep, Source-Big, Source-Field, and Source-Praise.

The first character of the names for all the sons was often the same. Then the first character of the descendants might be prearranged, with special assignment for each generation. The first generation’s first name was Live; the second generation’s, Source; the third Country; the fourth Well; the fifth Preserved; the sixth Kindness; the seventh Achieved; the eighth Literacy; the ninth Wisdom; and the tenth Blessed. When all the generations’ first names were chained together, it would become a sentence desired by the ancestor: Living in the resource of a country well preserved with kindness, achieved in literacy, with wisdom blessed.

The wish of an ancestor could only be achieved with a family tree branching out into eternity, enacted by everybody and not by any one person alone. With a goal in mind for each generation to work for, a dream might be built up successfully, step by step, as the creator of the Coil Galaxy would like to see a new paradise of kindness on Terra.

After a thousand years, Live-Righteously had over a million male descendants who celebrated his birthday in his hometown shrine. However, the goal of the ancestor and his generation name arrangement were soon forgotten by descendants who immigrated to foreign countries.

One of Live-Righteously’s descendants was Scholar-Home, a poor Midland villager who had gone to Port Francis in Wingsland to earn a living. His boss in retirement left him the business of importing Midland wine to Wingsland, selling it on to Ravenland. When Ravenland forbade any further import of Midland wine, Scholar-Home sold his last stock at a high price. He became a rich man and moved to Perfume Island, a Thinland colony, as a businessman.

Good times could not last forever. Soon the Solarland emperor’s army conquered Perfume Island. One day, a spy came with Solarland soldiers, demanding Scholar-Home give up the key of his safety deposit box and taking away all his property deeds, jewelry, and money. Scholar-Home simply died of a heart attack that evening.

His sons became so poor that they could hardly feed their families. Although his second son still held the property in Midland, he would not share it with his brothers. Besides, that son’s gambling habit made him lose almost everything within a few years. After the Eight Year War of driving the Solarland emperor’s armies out of Midland, Ink-River’s father worked as an accountant, earning just five hundred dollars a month in Perfume Island. His wife spent sixty dollars a month to send Ink-River alone to a private TerraLink high school to learn the international language. He got just a bun for lunch and walked to school daily. His siblings could only go to Midland schools. The mother hoped that once the eldest son became successful, he could help and support his four siblings.

Offer-Grain Prinz, a classmate of Ink-River, was named in part after the county Offering River, where her father, Literacy-Reign Prinz, came from. Offer-Grain, or OG, was the third child of Literacy-Reign’s wife, Eastern-News, who had passed away. OG’s father might visit her once a week, as he had three mistresses and ten children from them. The youngest mistress of her father, Literary-Manner, controlled most of his finance.

Ink-River studied very hard to be the first in his class to graduate from a technical college, and one of the two honored students sent to study in a technical college in Thinland, where he worked as an assistant instructor as well. His goal was to get rich enough to match OG’s family status and marry her.

OG’s father sent her to study in a state college of photography in Purposeland. He felt that a girl didn’t need to earn a living; art was the best education for a daughter.

Foreign students were exempted from studying local business law in the photography college. So one day, OG took that chance to go into a small darkroom and develop her film. Then a senior student came in, wanting to use that particular darkroom even though two other darkrooms equipped exactly the same way were available. OG told that girl she could be out in ten minutes. The girl kicked the door and yelled outside. Afterward, the senior girl went to an instructor to demand that OG get out of that darkroom immediately. Despite the fact that her film had not yet been fixed in the hypo, OG got out of the darkroom and quit school that very same day.

Corinna, a foreign classmate representing the principal, came to ask OG why she hadn’t returned to school. After learning about the unpleasant event, the principal invited OG to his house for tea with his wife. He persuaded her to forget the incident and continue her studies. Upon returning to school, OG discovered that her classmates had all learned about the incident. They called that senior girl a pig for causing the ruin of OG’s film.

OG began to wonder about righteousness. Perhaps there was no right or wrong as to who had the priority to use the darkroom. But who had no compassion for her fellowmen, with the evil intention of ruining others’ work by demanding priority, disregarding the principle of first come, first served?

Photography had more theories than practice, including chemistry, optics, physics, electricity, documentary film, accounting, history of arts, history of cameras, and microphotography. OG had no difficulty in passing the examinations.

Yet the custom of the country wasn’t easy for her to adopt. A classmate tried to kiss her after going out with her one evening. She didn’t dare go out with him again. It drove her mad when an old landlord showed her his three late wives’ diamond rings. She was afraid of his intention and rushed to move out of his attic. However, landladies there preferred to rent out their rooms to gentlemen. One landlady rented her a room for which OG paid three months in advance. After a few days, OG went home and discovered her room had been given to a gentleman, and her belonging had been moved to a smaller room.

Her landladies had a thousand complaints. One of them was a friend’s mother who insisted that OG have supper with the family, yet OG was criticized for eating like a mouse. She used up too much hot water bathing on Friday and washing her clothing. The landlady was also mad at OG because the landlord put coal in OG’s fireplace in winter. The landlady was scornful when her daughter accepted a dress as a gift from OG; she told her daughter that it was not a new dress!

When OG returned to Perfume Island after her graduation, she wanted to be a nun.

5

To Be Independent

OG’s family was terrified by her wish to be a nun. The first mistress of her father, Mrs. Spread, a widow, suggested putting OG into hospital to have her memory removed with electrical shock treatments so that she would forget all about such nonsense and it was done as said. OG got out of the hospital without any memory. She had no idea what to do with herself.

Several months later, Mrs. Spread got angry about keeping a useless person home and scolded OG with unpleasant words, making her leave the house immediately. OG pawned her watch and looked for a room to rent and consulted a friend about applying for a job.

An old classmate soon introduced OG to work as a bookkeeper in a small company where there was not much bookkeeping to do. OG didn’t want to accept a salary for doing almost nothing and resigned. Then another friend recommended her to teach Primary V geography, and she earned $300 a month. That job seemed interesting and challenging, and it brought back all her memory at once. When she wrote jungle on blackboard, the pupils told her that in the book, the word was spelt Jungel! She told them that the book had it printed incorrectly, but the students insisted that their former teacher had written it Jungel likewise.

So OG went to tell the principal about the wrong spelling in the book. That made her the needle in the eyes of the former geography teachers, who were still teaching other classes. OG couldn’t handle her colleagues’ hostility; she resigned again to become a babysitter earning $180 a month.

Was there such thing as a peaceful living in any kind of work? It happened that where OG worked, the two small children had driven many nannies away, one after another. They wanted their own mother to stay with them. But their mother was afraid to serve them, in case the neighbors gossiped about the family being unable to afford a nanny, though she already had a cook and a maid.

The poor mistress of the house lay on the sofa all day, feeling sick. Despite having a car in the garage, she didn’t know how to drive. She called a taxi to take her sick children to see a doctor. She was surprised to see OG driving her father’s big car to move her luggage in.

OG decorated her room with shelves of Terralink and Purposeland books for children, showing herself to be an unexpectedly well-educated person who knew at least three languages.

When OG discovered that the children wanted nobody but their mother to serve them, she told the mistress so and resigned. The mistress assured OG that she would never employ a nanny again. She could not feel ashamed of serving her children when OG would take such a job out of personal interest.

Soon OG got a job as a typist in an import and export firm, although she could only type with two fingers. Her inefficiency in typing just eight letters a day didn’t bother her Purposeland boss, since no one else could type in his language. Yet it bothered OG’s conscience. She felt like it was living on charity. She got another job as a darkroom technician in a newly set up magazine company, hoping that she could be more useful there. She earned $550 a month.

Her department head was Mr. Brown, a Wingsland photographer. He had a style that shocked her. He took thirty-six shots, an entire roll of film, for just one object. She wondered whether he used his head to think of the composition and lighting, or of using overexposure and underexposure to control contrast. Her school had demanded both high key and low key photographs with full details. Why didn’t he use 120 roll films or sheet films that could take much better photos? His black-and-white photos of white buildings under strong sunlight and dark shadows had no details at all. Well, Mr. Brown knew microfiche photography at least, which she knew nothing about. He made her assemble the first machine known in Perfume Island. He also taught her how to use color filters to control contrast on neutral photographic papers that she had never heard of before. Yes, Mr. Brown knew the new technology that the magazine required.

Rose was a layout artist from Prince Island. She was interested in photography and came into the darkroom to befriend OG. She asked OG to teach her photography, microfiche, and darkroom techniques.

The day OG returned to work, a week after her wedding with Ink-River, she was fired! Rose had taken over the job of photographer and department head for a thousand dollars a month, doubling the salary of her previous position. She used OG’s knowledge of photography against Mr. Brown’s incompetence. His purchase of out-of-date sample photographic paper was used as an excuse to have him fired for cheating the company.

It became a libel case against a well-known Wingsland supplier who happened to have no other stock of that kind of neutral photographic paper available, due to the fact that the islanders had never known or ordered this new product. The magazine company shouldn’t have fired a photographer who was paid three thousand dollars a month, with a contract of three years, for just two packages of out-of-date sample paper. Thus the case went to court.

OG, without any contract, was simply fired because Rose didn’t want her around any longer.

OG didn’t worry about the loss of her job, but the insult she got from Ink-River made her very angry. He charged her with resigning from work to marry him for his wealth! What was his wealth? He had a salary of eight hundred dollars a month, of which he had to give half to his parents. He was a poor man with only four hundred a month for himself—hardly enough to pay the rent of a suite!

In OG’s rage, she wanted to jump into the ocean and swim till death. She hated Ink-River and despised him from that day on. She had never wanted to marry him at all. It was he who begged for the marriage.

Before the marriage, OG said, If you want to have sex with me, I will let you, because I would like to have babies. But I don’t love you and I don’t want to marry you at all.

It was Ink-River who insisted that a baby should have a father. He didn’t ask for OG’s love but for the privilege of serving her, to be her chaperon since she didn’t want to have men bothering her.

Anyway, after being fired, OG got a job in a studio within a week, earning six hundred dollars a month. She didn’t want to have anything to do with Ink-River, yet she could not kick him out of the house. It was her father’s house that she shared with five of her half-siblings. She was their tutor and guardian, as their mother—her father’s second mistress, Purple—had left their father. How funny: a man living in his father-in-law’s house had scolded his wife for marrying him for his money.

6

Student Life

With no respect for privacy, the widow, Mrs. Spread, took away OG’s Terralink diary and gave it to Ink-River without the girl knowing it. He learned about men driving OG mad while she was in Purposeland. For instance, a Midland college student, with a scholarship to study there, came knocking at her door daily. She pretended that she was not in. Then he slipped a note under her door saying that he would come again and again even if she used a whip to whip him. He would not give up calling on her.

She complained to the pastor who had arranged for her to live in that hospital basement room. The pastor didn’t believe that a student on scholarship could be a threat to OG. Hopelessly, she put a former classmate’s picture in her room and wore a gold ring, pretending that she was engaged in order to stop men from bothering her. In fact, that student finally stopped coming. However, OG’s problem with landladies seemed to last forever, even in that Christian hospital with basement rooms for rent.

OG lived opposite the hospital kitchen. The kitchen sister, Bernadette, felt that OG was too skinny. So every morning, the sister put two hard-boiled eggs outside the girl’s door and knocked before going away quickly. It was impossible for OG to return the eggs. Well, the problem was soon solved by the mother superior, who sent Sister Bernadette away to another place as punishment for stealing eggs. She fined OG thirty marks and evicted her.

Sister Bernadette came crying to say goodbye to OG and apologized for causing the girl problems and a fine. OG consoled the sister. They kept in touch by mail for decades, till a last letter sent by the sister’s relative informed OG of the passing of the sister. OG would never forget someone’s kindness, even if it had given her misfortune.

After moving out of the hospital basement room, OG lived in a rented attic room by herself with neither a bathroom nor any cooking facilities. One day, Sister Rolanda came over. She worked as a social worker, sent by the former hospital director to see about OG’s twisted ankle. OG didn’t know the director at all. It was truly a surprise that he would know her new address and care about her health after the mother superior had evicted her.

Seeing that the girl’s room was without cooking facilities, Sister Rolanda came the following evening to bring OG a warm meal. OG thanked her but said that the meal was absolutely unnecessary. She was fine warming up canned food in a mug with an electric water heater. Besides, she had a good lunch every day in the university canteen.

Yet Sister Rolanda still came every evening with supper. How could the sister waste so much time on her? Didn’t the sister have any other things to do? Sister Rolanda made a bargain with OG: If you come down every evening to my office for supper, it may save my time. But if you don’t come, I will keep on bringing you supper.

Why did people make such firm decisions to run OG’s life, whether men or sisters? In order to stop the sister’s daily visit, OG had to go to Sister Rolanda’s office three blocks away. The sister cooked for the girl before having supper with the other sisters in the convent.

After OG’s graduation from the college of photography, Sister Rolanda made the girl promise to write her as soon as she settled down in any place. OG had decided to learn Clocklandish in Clockland. She found a darkroom job in a studio and a person to give her free Clocklandish lessons. She in turn would teach him Terralink. It sounded like a fair exchange.

However, OG soon felt something was not quite right. Pierre was not truly interested in learning Terralink. Rather, he was interested in her. He came to her every evening, and she couldn’t get rid of him, although he had not done anything improper. Her body alarm clock was ringing, warning her to run away once more, to forsake even her job. No doubt OG was extremely sensitive, avoiding conflicts of any kind by running away.

At that time, introduced by a letter from Sister Rolanda, two mothers superior, one from an orphanage and one from a boarding school, came to invite OG to study Clocklandish with them in Tavel. OG knew that no matter where she went, Pierre would follow her—except into a convent. So, reluctantly, OG agreed to go to the convent boarding school in Tavel.

The Clockland teaching certificate course was a two-year course. After a month, the teacher found the first-year language course was too simple for OG and put her into the second year. All tuition, room, and board were free. The girl was also put to dine with the teachers in the staff room, and lived alone in the attic of the orphanage next door.

When Pierre came to visit OG, the sisters gave him a hard time. After her graduation, they wouldn’t tell him where she had gone. OG had told him that she would work in a mission school in South-East Island. So he went there for a year to work and look for her, without success. Finally, he asked his sister in Frankland to write the Clockland sisters and ask for OG’s address. When Pierre reached Perfume Island, he found OG had just gotten married.

How had OG changed her goal of working for a mission school into a loveless marriage? The main cause was that the director refused to take her in as a mission sister. He told her that such a mission was a vocation from God. Girls should become mothers like the Jungfrau Maria, bringing up children for God.

When OG could not escape association with men and couldn’t be a Christian nun, she decided to go to a Buddhist temple to try her luck. After all, a year in the boarding school had made her learn to fast on every Friday. She had become a vegetarian afterward. Refusing to eat meat with other sisters wouldn’t make her a good, obedient Christian nun. But it might make her a better Buddhist nun.

Well, the minute OG walked near a Buddhist temple, the smoke of the incense made her unable to breathe. Therefore, becoming a Buddhist nun was also out of question.

Her birth sign made OG a cow. A blind fortune-teller had singled her out of all her siblings in her childhood, telling her that she would have three children for sure, but she could have as many as five. She would be prosperous in a foreign country.

Of course that didn’t make OG change her mind to accept Ink-River’s proposal either. She was planning to run away to Koalaland. Yet she couldn’t let any man’s blood be on her hands, and Ink-River had threatened to commit suicide if she rejected his marriage proposal. That was the first reason why she had tried to be a nun and avoid men. Earning $550 a month as a darkroom technician, OG paid $180 a month for a room in her friend’s house with supper included. Why should she marry Ink-River, a man she didn’t love?

One day, her permanently lit candle to the Jungfrau Maria made her bedroom curtain catch fire in her absence. While the landlady was putting out the fire, her baby boy fell from his crib and wounded his forehead. When OG came home and learned about this, she was furious with the saint for not only ignoring her love as a devoted daughter but also hurting an infant’s head. How could OG face her friend without guilt?

Strangely, OG felt then that the saint charged her for false devotion. OG ignored the saint’s examples of bowing to God and giving birth to children for God. OG had simply decorated statues with candles and worshipped images made by artists everywhere. Thus, OG finally realized that she should be a mother like Jungfrau Maria, her patron saint, instead of lighting candles to statues.

Furthermore, OG’s father liked Ink-River. His name matched well with Literary-Reign, who couldn’t reign without a supply of ink. OG imagined Ink-River would soon get tired of her after marriage. He had promised to give her a divorce if the marriage didn’t work out.

Four months after her marriage, her father came to inspect her, demanding to know about her sex life. He warned her that if she didn’t help Ink-River penetrate her, her bottom would be cut open! Having descendants was a serious business to her father.

7

Financial Stress

Ink-River had many choices in marriage. His mother had arranged for him to marry a Midland girl who had immigrated to Wingsland. A marriage would be the family’s entry to that country. But Ink-River refused stubbornly because he had fallen in love with OG at first sight. He studied and worked hard in Thinland just to win her love one day. It was his younger sister who had to marry a Wingslander to enable his parents and family to immigrate there, the richest democratic country on Terra.

Ink-River prayed to God to give OG to him as wife, as he needed her more than God needed another nun. Then Ink-River received a letter from Brilliance, OG’s sister, asking him to come home from Thinland to marry OG, who had had her memory removed in hospital. He trusted that his prayer had been answered and OG belonged to him. He didn’t mind marrying a cold statue, just as people don’t mind praying to statues of saints. A statue is a comfort to her worshipper and a decoration for her owner.

Ink-River felt that women should be seen but not heard. He told his mother that whoever flirted with him would also do so with other men while he was not around. He wouldn’t have such a woman as wife. What did Ink-River expect a woman without memory would be—a tame little sheep without pride or the power of independence?

By the time he could return to Perfume Island a year later, OG’s memory had returned and she was already earning well as a darkroom technician. He earned $800 a month, but with half being paid to his parents, he was poorer than OG. He was frustrated about repaying his parents for bringing him up. This was the starting point of his transformation from a generous son and brother to an evil, miserable husband and father. Yes, his goodness fell into evilness. He had certainly married OG for her father’s wealth and rank in society, but his pride wouldn’t let him admit so to himself.

His parents immigrated with his youngest sister to Wingsland, sponsored by his married sister there. Ink-River moved with OG into his parents’ suite in his grandfather’s house, to live with his other two siblings. His sister, who worked as a teacher, paid their servant, Aunt Iris, a salary of $100 a month. Ink-River paid Iris another $160, and $100 toward his younger brother’s Terralink high school education. He also paid all the household expenses for five adults. So Ink-River didn’t want OG to have babies that would add to his responsibility. She earned $600 a month as a studio photographer and should keep her job.

After their first son, Wisdom, was born, Ink-River forced OG to take a contraceptive pill daily. He watched her swallow it down with water. Yet she was not a tame little lamb: she held the pill sideways in her mouth while drinking the water. After he left her, she spat out the pill because she found those pills made her sick. Thus she became pregnant soon again.

Aunt Iris told Ink-River that he must employ a cook so she could look after the two children. However, OG resigned from her studio work and stayed home to look after her own children, disregarding others’ opinion. Aunt Iris still demanded Ink-River pay an extra $200 a month to employ a cook. Ink-River simply couldn’t cover all the salaries and household expenses of six adults and two children without a second job as a night-school instructor in a technical college.

Three years of financial pressure at home, supporting eight persons’ living plus two servants’ salaries, made Ink-River an irritated man. Perhaps a sensible person might have asked why Ink-River let Aunt Iris pressure him to employ a cook, although his wife was looking after her own babies.

In fact, who was Aunt Iris? She was a widow, the niece of Ink-River’s grandmother, who had been serving