Canon V. Si quis dicit aut sentit, in resurrectione corpora hominum orbiculata suscitari, nec confitetur nos suscitari rectos, anathema sit.An avalanche of moonlit books, pouring down the slope of a demolished house — that was what met his eyes when he opened them, lying supine, head ringing with a bell-note that didn’t cease, that seemed to flicker and roar like fire. But the books didn’t move, the avalanche was frozen, though some of the books opened hungry white maws at him, caried with script, as though they wanted to slide down to him, to bite his face off, as though the smell of plaster and sewage in the air was their feral breath. He struggled to sit up, books and rubble sliding off his body as he slowly realized what had happened and that he had survived it. He was bruised, bleeding, and something had struck his head hard, very hard, but he was still alive. He looked around the wreck, the houses that had vomited themselves at the street, fearful that the roar in his ears was real fire. No, there was no fire, but he had to get out, get away, it wasn’t safe. Not safe, not safe, not safe. He struggled to his feet, hearing the note in his ears swing and deepen, registering his exertions, and looked for a way out. His sense of direction had gone and he had to hold his arms out to keep his balance. When he started walking, he stumbled and nearly went to his knees. A book lay slanted in front of his eyes, as though the world had pushed him down to present it to him. Tantalizingly. Its cover coated with white dust so that its title was grey and almost illegible. He could pick out an F, a C or O, a D.Canon VI. Si quis dicit aut sentit, cælum, et solem, et lunam, et stellas et aquas, quæ super cælos sunt, animatas et ratione præditas esse quasdam virtutes, anathema sit.
Canones contra Origenem, ex Iustiniani Imperatoris Libro adversus Origenem (543).
He blew and was blinded by the dust, but he knew where the book was and groped for it, picking it up as he stood again and began to stumble out over the rubble. The feeling of something solid in his hand, the knowledge that the book was intact, unharmed, the desire to know its title and contents, were a kind of talisman, helping him to get out. Tears were washing the dust out of his eyes and he was starting to see again. He would soon know what the book was. He would sit in Çarmenx Park and look at it, open it, read the marks on its teeth. He stumbled again and deliberately came down on his knees and free hand, hurting them, while he held the book high, so that it wouldn’t be damaged. Bodies can heal, books are dead. Like bombs. The ringing in his ears was fading and he could hear the bombers overhead, rumbling like trains. He paused a moment and looked up. How clear the sky was, how bright and huge above the darkened city! Stars lay scattered across it like gems, like the crushed ice of strangely colored blood, and the moon was a tarnished silver lamp, a corroded silver mask, corroded with the breath of the creature behind it, peering down on him. He looked away, concentrating on the terrestrial, dismissing the celestial for now. The rubble was thinning and ahead of him he could see mostly bare pavement, scattered with fragments and two or three books, flung there by the explosion. He looked back for the avalanche, but mounds of rubble had hidden it from sight. Whose books were they? His own? A friend’s, a colleague’s? He couldn’t remember. Çarmenx Park. When he got there he would look at the book, open it, see if there was a name-plate.
Ah, now he was on level pavement, he could walk properly, he could get away, get to final safety. In the distance he could hear bombs whistling down, explosions. Another part of the city was being attacked, but they might return. Çarmenx Park, that was the place. The trees would protect him, the grass-covered earth absorb any bombs that fell. His eyes were almost clear again, but he resisted the temptation to look at the book before he got to the park. The title was dustless now, speaking itself to the moonlight, but he wouldn’t lift the book and turn it to read the letters. Not till he got to the park. It would be easy to get over the wall now the railings were gone, easy to find a tree and sit underneath it, holding the book open in a patch of moonlight that fell through its leaves, and read. His ears too, they were nearly clear, the ringing almost gone. He was walking faster, almost running in his eagerness to make it to the park, but the street seemed longer in the moonlight. Had he come the right way? Yes, yes, he had, he knew he had. He couldn’t remember whose the books were, he couldn’t remember his own name, but he could remember the way to Çarmenx Park. He could remember the trees and grass and flowers. They would be grey in moonlight, but he could remember them. Then he fell over, as though struck from behind, measuring his length on hard pavement.
The book had flown from his hand and slid away from him, solid and rectangular in the moonlight. He reached for it as he lay there, but he was tired, very tired and he couldn’t touch it, couldn’t crawl forward to touch it, take hold of it again. He would have to rest a few moments before he tried again. He closed his eyes, thinking about the book. It was a comfort to have it, or have it near him, no-one would steal it while he wasn’t watching, not at this time of night, not during an air-raid, but what was the book? Had he been meant to see it, to pick it up, to carry it off with him to Çarmenx Park? He opened his eyes and looked at it again, able to see the foreshortened strokes of the title on its cover, but making no effort to decipher them. Çarmenx Park, not till Çarmenx Park. He closed his eyes again. The ringing in his ears was coming back, but not like one bell-note, like a hundred, like a thousand, swinging and ringing, like ten thousand, a myriad, like voices swinging and ringing and singing from the sky as the earth rolled beneath him and he clung to her skin like a parasite, a flea, a louse, a mite that would itself soon begin to roll, spherical as the singing stars in the ringing heavens.