Rudy Rucker - The Secret of Life

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The Secret of Life

By Rudy Rucker

ElectricStory.com, Inc.

THES ECRET OFL IFE

ISBN: 1-930815-60-3

Published by ElectricStory.com, Inc.

ElectricStory.com and the ES design are trademarks of ElectricStory.com, Inc.

This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations, and locales are either the product of

the author’s imagination or used fictitiously to convey a sense of realism.

The quotations at the head of each part are taken fromNausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, New Directions

Books, Norfolk, Connecticut, 1959.La Nausée was first published in 1938 byLibrairie Gallimard .

eBook conversion by Karen Kruger and Lara Ballinger.

For our full catalog, visit www.electricstory.com.

For Niles Schoening

Part I

“I was just thinking,” I tell him, laughing, “that here we sit, all of us, eating and drinking to preserve our

precious existence and really there is nothing, nothing, absolutely no reason for existing.”

—Jean-Paul Sartre,Nausea

Chapter 1:

Monday, December 31, 1962

Conrad Bunger was sixteen when it first hit him:Someday you’ll be dead.

He was at a New Year’s Eve dance at the River Valley Country Club in Louisville. It was a much

classier scene than Conrad was accustomed to, though he did know many of the other boys and girls, the

rich boys in brand-new tuxedos, the girls in pale dresses with thin straps. Conrad had his father’s old tux

and horrible lumpy dress shoes; he was smaller than the others, abrain , but blending in well enough. His

date Linda was dancing with a boy she’d had a crush on since fifth grade, and Conrad was hoping to get

drunk.

The coat racks were at the foot of the stairs leading down to the bathrooms. Conrad made his way there

and patted down the overcoats, feeling for the happy tumor of a hidden pint. It was easy; the bottles

grew as thick as autumn fruit. Conrad drew out a pint of Old Crow and gulped at the strange liquid, vile

and volatile stuff that evaporated almost before he could swallow.

With flushed skin, buzzing ears, and the sudden conviction thathe was cool , Conrad fumbled the bottle

back into its velvet-collared overcoat. A brief wave of sickness. He made for the men’s room, eyes and

mouth streaming, and drank some water from the sink.

The bathroom was empty, all light and white tile. Mirrors, a stack of clean-smelling linen towels by the

sinks, and the urinals across the room. “I’m here by the sinks,” thought Conrad, “and it seems impossible

that I will ever be over there by the urinals.” He began to walk. “Now I am moving through space, and

time is going on, and now . . .” He unzipped and began to piss. “Now, although it seemed inconceivable

before, I am on the other side of the room.” His mind felt unbelievably clear. “Last year I never thought

I’d be drunk at a dance, yet here I am, just as surely as I’ve crossed this tile floor.”

As he started back toward the dance floor, the wider implications hit him. “I can’t conceive of being in

college, but that will come, too, and when it comes it will feel likenow . I will go to college, and marry,

and have children, and all the time it will be me doing it, me doing it in some mysteriously movingnow .

And then I’ll die. It seems impossible, but someday I will really die.”

Linda wasn’t interested in all this; Linda was a tennis player. She and Conrad had gone steady for almost

a year, and now all of a sudden at the New Year’s Eve dance he was interested in the problem of death.

Babbling about it on the dance floor, Conrad wore a heavy, glazed expression that made Linda

suspicious.

“Are you drunk? You’re acting funny.”

“What difference does it make? What difference does anything make? Oh, beautiful Linda, why don’t

you sleep with me before we die.”

“That is just alittle out-of-the-question, Conrad. Maybe you should sit down.”

Instead he dug back into the coat racks. There were some older boys down there now, but, hell,

everyone was drinking, why should they care if he took a little?

“Get out of here, Bunger. What are you, a pickpocket or something?” It was Preston, a party-boy with

cratered skin and a black burr-haircut. He was sipping from the very same pint that Conrad had sampled

earlier.

Conrad attempted a smile. Suddenly he wasn’t cool anymore. “Happy New Year, Preston. Can I have a

slug?”

“Christ, and give me syphilis? Get your own!”

It was still only 10:30, and those few gulps of whiskey were wearing off fast. The boys in the cloakroom

glared at Conrad. He found his way back upstairs.

Linda was still dancing, laughing and light on her feet. Her partner was Billy Ballhouse, a real snowman.

Ballhouse was talking about love, no doubt, love and kissing, dance steps and new clothes. Watching

Linda dance, Conrad felt very old. Who was he to badger this gay young thing for sex? With death so

near, and the night so young, how could he find a bottle?

The answer came to him as the song ended.Steal some wine from the St. John’s sacristy! He told

Linda he’d be back in a few minutes and hurried out into the hall.

There were some younger boys without dates out there, smoking and horsing around. Right now they

were having a belching contest, bouncing the gurpy sounds off the oaken walls. One of them, Jim

Ardmore, was a pretty good friend of Conrad’s. They belonged to the same high-school fraternity, a club

called the Chevalier Literary Society. Some of the Chevalier members were fairly cool—though Conrad

himself had been initiated primarily because his big brother Caldwell had been a member before going off

to college and the army.

“Hey, Jim,” cried Conrad. “You want to help me steal some wine?”

“How decadent,” said young Ardmore, his mouth twisting. He was skinny, with a heavy shock of dry

black hair hanging into his sallow face. “Decadent” was his favorite word, though right now he was using

it with a certain irony. “Are we going to rob a liquor store?”

“No, no. Just come with me. We’ll gettwo bottles.”

The other boys cheered, and Ardmore went on outside with Conrad. Conrad’s mother had lent him her

new blue Volkswagen. It shook a lot in first gear. They drove along River Road for a while, then up a

long hill to St. John’s. It wasn’t far.

Just two years earlier, Conrad’s father had suddenly taken it into his head to be ordained as a deacon in

the Episcopal Church. He worked as an assistant at St. John’s, and Conrad was a regular acolyte.

Sometimes Conrad would light and extinguish the candles, and sometimes he would be in charge of

getting out the bread and wine. As a result, he knew (1) where the locked closet with the communion

wine was and (2) where to find the key. The church itself was always unlocked. Conrad’s father felt very

strongly about leaving churches unlocked—he made a point of leaving a note saying,“A locked door, an

unfaithful act,” on any locked church door he encountered.

Conrad and Ardmore hurried in, got the liquor closet unlocked, and gazed down at a full case of cheap

California port. High high-school laughs. They each took a bottle and tumbled back into the VW.

Conrad was a little leery of bringing stolen church wine into the party, so he and Ardmore drove around

for an hour, chugging at the stuff. Lights swept past, stores and cars, and the evening began to break into

patches. Conrad could hear himself talking, louder and more eloquently than ever before.

“We’re going todie , Jim, can you believe that? It’s really going to stop some day, all of it, and you’re

dead then, you know? It’s going to happen to you personally just like when I was at the dance and

walking across the bathroom, how at the sink I thought I’d never be at the urinals, and then I was there

anyway. I can’t stand it, I don’t want to die, time keeps passing.”

Ardmore laughed and laughed, never having seen Conrad so animated. They realized they weren’t going

to be able to finish even the first bottle and headed back to the dance. Linda met Conrad in the hall.

“Wherehave you been? You stood me up!” It was past midnight, and people were slow-dancing inside.

Conrad was eager to share his new wisdom.

“Linda, oh, tennis Linda, with your pretty new dress. Only the present matters, did you ever think of

that?” Conrad fumbled out a cigarette and lit it. An ashtray caught his attention. “Look at that ashtray,

Linda. It exists. It doesn’t need us to exist. It resists our will and insists on disk-hood!” Conrad picked

up the flat glass ashtray and emptied the butts onto the floor. “Holiday snow! Cuban missile crisis!”

“Conrad, if you ever want to go out with me again . . .”

“But I don’t!” brayed Conrad, realizing somewhere inside himself that this was true. “I don’t want to go

out with you anymore, Linda, because you don’t understand death.”

A few onlookers had gathered. For the first time in Conrad’s life, people were looking at him with

interest. He’d been a weenie long enough. Get drunk and talk about philosophy! That was the ticket! He

groped for a concept.

“God is dead!” he shouted, suddenly understanding the dry phrase. “All is permitted!” With a whoop of

laughter, Conrad threw the ashtray into the air and watched it shatter on the marble floor.

Next came a darkness, voices, and rough motion.

“Take it easy, Bunger, you’ve got puke all over yourself. Is this your house?”

“Uh, uuuuuh.”

“Yeah, that’s his house. Park his car, ring the doorbell, and let’s get out of here. Be sure to get that other

bottle of wine.”

“Right.”

The dark forms disappeared, the house door opened, and there was Conrad’s father in his bathrobe.

“Shouldn’t wait up for me,” muttered Conrad. “Lea’ me alone, you old bastard.”

There was yelling. His parents put him to bed, he threw up again, lights and more yelling, his mother

screaming,“Pig! Pig!”

Finally he was alone. The bed and room began to spin. Conrad fumbled for a way to stop it. There had

to be some head-trick, some change of perspective to make the torture stop . . . there. He felt himself

grow lighter and less real. Dropping off to sleep, he had the feeling he was floating one inch above his

bed. And then . . . he was in the throes of an old, recurrent dream.

The structure is circular, high in the middle. It could be a circus big top. Conrad is off to one side,

watching the thin, bright shapes that move above the center. They are flames, these beings; they

are rods of light. The whole enclosed space is filled with moving lights, and they have reached

some wonderful, awful conclusion about Conrad’s future. . . .

Chapter 2:

Tuesday, January 1, 1963

C onrad’s best friend, Hank Larsen, had gone to a different New Year’s Eve dance. New Year’s Day,

Conrad walked over to Hank’s house to compare notes.

“No driving,” warned Conrad’s mother. “After last night, you can just stay in the neighborhood.”

“OK, Mom.” Conrad’s dog Nina followed him over to Hank’s house. Hank was in his room, reading a

science-fiction book and listening to one of his radios. Hank’s big hobby was electronics—over the years

he’d assembled four or five different types of radio transmitters and receivers. He even had a ham license

from the FCC.

“The Magnificent Paunch,” intoned Hank by way of greeting. Friends for years now, the two had a large

number of code phrases, many of uncertain meaning.

“High guineaus, Si,” responded Conrad. “I don’t feel too peak.”

“Got y’self all drunked up, did you, Zeke? Got a touch of that riiind fever?”

“It was great,” said Conrad, breaking into normal speech. “Ardmore and I stole wine from the church

and got really plastered. I was talking about time and death and some guys drove me home.”

“I bet you got caught bigger’n shit.”

“Yeah. They were both waiting up. I don’t remember too clearly. I think maybe my old man slugged me.

I was cursing and everything.”

“What’d they say today?”

“Well, nothing, really. But what about you? What happened on your big date with Lehman? Did you

finger her again?”

Hank closed his book and stood up. He was tall and blond, and his girlfriend Laura Lehman was crazy

about him. Instead of answering Conrad’s question directly, Hank nodded his head warningly toward the

hall. “Let’s roll out.”

“OK. Let’s walk over to Skelton’s pasture. Nina’s here too.”

“Bo-way.”

It was a cool, gray day. The frozen grass crunched underfoot. Hank’s family lived in a subdivision which

petered out in a series of large cow pastures. The land all belonged to an old Kentucky gentleman named

Cornelius Skelton. In the mid-fifties, Skelton had gotten into the papers for claiming he’d seen a UFO

land in his fields. Skelton said it had butchered one of his hogs, and he had a mineral crystal that the

saucer was supposed to have left. He wasn’t fanatical about it, or anything—he just insisted that he’d

seen a UFO. He was a pleasant, courtly man, and most people ascribed this one eccentricity to his grief

over the premature death of his wife.

Conrad had been wandering the pastures ever since the Bungers moved to Louisville in 1956. It was his

favorite place. Today, Hank and Conrad were walking along a small stream that ran through the pasture

bottoms. You could see bubbles moving beneath the clear patches in the ice.

“Did youfuck her?” Conrad asked finally.

Hank seemed reluctant to discuss it—like a rich man embarrassed to describe his treasures to a hungry

beggar.

“Did you do it in your car?” demanded Conrad.

“No, uh, her mother was out. We used Laura’s room.”

“Jesus. Did she take off all her clothes?”

“You planning to beat off on this, Paunch?”

“Come on, Hank, I have to know. What does it feel like? Do they like it, too?”

“I felt tingly all over,” said Hank slowly. “It was like pins and needles in all of my skin, and I was dizzy.

The first time was real fast, but the next one took longer. She was crying some of the time, but squeezing

me real tight. I would have done it a third time, but I only had two rubbers. Just when I was leaving, her

old lady came home. ‘Was it nice at the dance, children?’ ”

“God.”

They walked on in silence for a while, following the stream. Nina ran ahead, sniffing for rabbits. At the

crests of the hills on either side you could see houses, new split-levels like the one Hank lived in. A crow

flapped slowly to the top of a leafless black locust tree and perched there, cawing. Conrad couldn’t get

over the fact that his best friend Hank had actually managed to get laid.

“You really did it, Hank! That’s wonderful. Congratulations.” They paused to shake hands solemnly.

“You know what I was thinking last month—” Conrad continued, “about the only wayI’m likely to ever

get any pussy? I was thinking that when we have World War Three, there’ll be a whole lot of dead

women around, you know, good-looking dead women with their clothes all ripped, and . . .”

“Oh, come on, Conrad. You won’t be a dry stick forever.” Hank poked Conrad and sang an altered bar

fromMy Fair Lady : “With a little bit of luck, we’ll all fu-huh-uck!”

“Yeah, I guess so, sooner or later. Today’s the first day of 1963. I can remember when I was about ten,

reading an article inPopular Science about all the neat inventions we were supposed to have in 1963.

Personal helicopters, self-driving cars. Time keeps passing, Hank, and before we know it, we’ll be dead.

That’s what I was telling everyone last night. We’re all really going to die.”

“So what, as long as you have some fun first.”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re just worried you’ll die avirrgin .” Hank had a special, nasal voice he used for unkind cuts like

this. “The SacredVirrrgin Mary.”

“Sure, religion’s bullshit,” said Conrad, steering back to his chosen topic. “Heaven and hell are just

science fiction. But can there really benothing after death? I mean a corpse is the same matter as the

living person was. Where does the life go to? Where did it come from?”

“Ghosts,” said Hank. “The soul.” In the distance, Nina was barking.

“That’s right,” said Conrad, “Iknow I have a soul. I’m alive, I can feel it. But where does itgo ?”

They were near the end of the pastures now, and Nina was running back toward them. The two boys

squatted to wait for her, squatted and watched the bubbles beneath the ice, ice patterned in ridges and

blobs, clear here and frosty there. Toward one bank, the ice domed up. A lone, large bubble wobbled

there, braced against the flow. Smaller bubbles kept arriving to merge into that big bubble, and it, in turn,

kept growing and sending out tendrils, silver pseudopods that pinched off into new bubbles that were

swept further downstream.

Nina came panting up, pink tongue exposed. Her breath steamed in the cold air. “Good dog,” said Hank,

patting her. “Hey, Conrad, let’s go back. Lehman’s mother’s giving an open house today. Maybe your

parents will let you come.”

“Wait,” said Conrad, struck by a sudden inspiration. “Thelife-force . Each of us has a tiny piece of the

life-force, and when we die it goes away.”

“Hubba-hubba, Zeke, I done lost my life-force up Laura’s crack.”

“No, listen, I know where the life-force goes, Hank. I’ve got it figured out. There’s a big pool of

life-force . . . out there.” Conrad gestured vaguely. “It’s like that big bubble under the ice, you see. And

each of us is a little bubble that can merge back in.”

“Like a soul going to heaven.” They were walking now, headed back toward the houses.

“And the big thing is that once a little bubble joins the big one, the little bubble isgone . The soul goes to

heaven,and then it’s absorbed into God . The drop of life-force slides into the big pool. Isn’t that neat,

Hank? Your life-force is preserved, but your personality disappears! I’ve invented a new philosophy!”

Still riding high from his big first fuck, Hank felt no need to burst his friend’s bubble. “It’d be cool to

major in philosophy next year. Find out all the answers and then become a Bowery bum.”

“God, yeah.” Conrad felt elated. “Do you think we’ll be able to get beer over at Lehman’s?”

“Sure. Her old lady don’t give a shit. She’ll be plowed anyway.”

On the way back, Conrad began jumping back and forth over the frozen stream. With his big new idea in

mind, he felt light as a feather. The floating feeling from bed last night came back . . . he’d never jumped

so far so easily before.

“Look, Hank, I can fly!” As Conrad said it, the feeling disappeared. He landed heavily on the stream

bank, and one foot crashed through the ice.

“You’ll fly better once we get into Lehman’s brew.”

But Hank’s mother waylaid them before they could make off with the Larsen family car. She was a

pleasantly plump redhead with a gentle voice. Conrad had an unsettling feeling that she knew exactly

what both he and Hank had done last night.

“Conrad, your mother called. Your father would like for you to come home right away. And, Hank, why

don’t you leave the poor Lehmans alone for one day? Weren’t you supposed to rotate the Valiant’s tires

this afternoon?”

“Oh, Ma.”

“Goodbye, Conrad. And Happy New Year!”

Hank and Conrad exchanged shrugs. Hank was led into his house, and Conrad started back home. His

father was waiting in their gravel driveway.

Mr. Caldwell Bunger, Sr., had moved his family to Louisville when Conrad turned ten. He’d gotten two

acres of land cheap from Cornelius Skelton, and he’d built a white split-level, a comfortable house set

well back from the road. He’d never gotten around to putting blacktop on the long driveway.

Approaching his father, Conrad’s mind wandered.Gravel driveway . When Hank and Conrad were

twelve, they’d had a special game with the gravel. They’d get a shovelful of it, douse it with gasoline, light

it, and then throw the burning sand and rocks up into the air. It looked like people made of fire, sort of,

and . . .

“Feel pretty silly?” Conrad’s father was a solid-looking man with bifocals, and with gold in his teeth. He

was wearing his clerical collar.

“I’m sorry about last night,” mumbled Conrad. He’d managed to avoid his father so far today.

“You’re making a name for yourself, boy. People remember these things. What am I going to tell Holman

Barkley when I see him downtown?I’m sorry my son threw up on your daughter? ”

“I didn’t . . .” Conrad broke off in horror as the memory swept back. Hehad thrown up on Linda. On

her legs. She’d phoned up her father for help. Ardmore and two other guys had driven Conrad home

and . . .

“Have you apologized to your mother?”

“Uh, sure, yeah.”

“Conrad, what’s the matter with you? Up until just a few months ago we were so proud of you. And

now your grades are slipping; every time you get a chance you go out and get your snoot full; you say

you’re sick of church . . . what’s the problem, Conrad? What is it?” His father seemed genuinely baffled.

“Well, Pop, I’m worried about death. If humans have to die anyway, then everything’s meaningless, isn’t

it?”

“So that’s it now,” sighed Mr. Bunger. “I’ll tell you one thing, boy, if you’re worried about death, you

shouldn’t be drinking and driving. Otherwise your life will be over before you know what hit you.”

“Some other guys drove me back last night. And it doesn’t really matter how long I live anyway. Sooner

or later it comes to the same thing: nothing.”

“What if I’d felt that way?” said Mr. Bunger, his voice rising. “Look at this house, look at you and your

brother. If I’d chickened out young, you wouldn’t be here!”

“So I’m supposed to get a job and buy a house and have kids and be just like you? I don’t see the point

of it, Pop. What’s the difference, really, if there’s one more or one less nice middle-class family?”

Conrad meant all this, though at the same time he was conscious of adopting a pose. The main thing was

to get the better of his father—his father who was always so right and so patient. “I hope the Russians

bomb us tomorrow and blow all this bullshit away.”

That did it. “I ought to paste you one!” shouted Mr. Bunger. “Go inside and do that homework you’ve

been putting off all vacation.Take , that’s all you know,take, take, take , and if it’s not enough, tear

everything down. I’ll give you the meaning of life—you’re not using Mom’s car again till you pull your

grades back up. School starts again tomorrow, thank God.”

“You’re just scared to face death,” sneered Conrad. “That’s the only reason you can believe all that

religion crap.”

He took off running before his father could react. He made it to his room and slammed the door.The old

people are scared , thought Conrad fiercely,but I’m not. I’m not scared to look for the real answers.

That’s what I’m here for—to figure out the secret of life.

Chapter 3:

Monday, January 7, 1963

Although the Bungers were Episcopalian, Conrad attended a big Roman Catholic boys high school

called St. X. The idea was that St. X had the best science program in Louisville; and Conrad was

supposed to become a scientist. He was one of three non-Catholics among the two thousand students at

St. X. During Conrad’s four years there, the other boys often tried to “baptize” him. This involved

dragging him into a bathroom and slugging him and throwing water or piss on him. By the time Conrad

was a senior, he’d formed a real dislike for the Roman Catholic religion. It was even stupider than

Protestantism. Purgatory? Limbo? Papal Infallibility? The Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Conception and

Bodily Assumption? These were all bad enough, but for some reason, the doctrine that bothered Conrad

the most was Transubstantiation.

According to the hearty priest who taught the religion class, when the bread and wine are blessed at

Mass, they turn into literal, actual flesh and blood. Some of the other boys told Conrad it had to be true,

since they’d heard of a kid who’d stolen a consecrated Communion wafer and stuck pins in it . . . and

the wafer hadbled .

“Can you taste the blood when you chew it?” Conrad demanded.

“You’re not allowed to chew.”

Even more bizarre than the religion classes were the monthly sex lectures that the seniors got. Normally

the boys were split into ten different tracks, but for the sex lectures, all four hundred seniors would be

herded into the gym together. They’d sit up in the bleachers, and a priest named Father Stook would

hold forth like some crazed dictator. Father Stook’s chief interests were rubbers and jacking off.

“I’ve had mothers come to me, boys, come to me in tears because they found one of those things in their

son’s wallet. Don’t break your mother’s heart! The use of contraceptives is but one step better than the

mortal sin of self-abuse.Self-abuse destroys the mind! I knew one poor man, boys, a deranged

syphilitic. I was at his bedside when he passed away. And do you know what that pitiful wretch was

doing as he died? Do youknow ?He was reaching down to abuse himself! What a way to meet your

Maker, boys.In the very act of committing the vilest perversion! Now, I know that some of you may

have heard that certain acts between men and women are perversions. Not so. As long asthe penis

ejaculates inside the vagina , no sin against God has been committed. What you and your wife do

before ejaculation is strictly your own affair, as long asthe seed is planted in the womb . Oh, I’ve heard

it’s a marvelous thing. I’ve read that when the woman reaches a certain state of arousal, there are

contractions within the walls of her vagina . A kind of suction is created. One member of my parish

told me, ‘Father Stook, if the good Lord made anything better, He kept it for Himself.’ There is no

inherent evil in sex, boys; sex is God’s gift to man.Perversion arises only when the seed isturned aside .

Now, I tell my mothers to be on the lookout for contraceptives in their sons’ rooms. And I’ve heard that

some of you fellows are too smart for that. Oh, I know all the tricks. Yes, there was one boy who kept

his prophylacticstaped to the inside of his car’s rear hubcap . I said Mass at his funeral last February.

For one snowy night, he was out there in the street, with a tire iron in his hand, and his pants around his

ankles, and . . .”

On the first Monday after Christmas vacation, Conrad had to hand in a theme for English class. The

assignment had been to write a fantastic story of some type. Conrad had chosen to write a science-fiction

story satirizing the Roman Catholic Church.

The idea in the story was that an alien energy-creature comes to Earth and takes on human form, so as

better to understand mankind’s peculiar ways of thought. He has superpowers, of course, and starts out

by practicing his power of flight in a deserted pasture. As chance would have it, a group of nuns shows

up for a cookout, just as the alien is hovering ten feet above the ground. Most of the nuns think the alien

must be a new Messiah, the Second Coming of Christ. But one of the nuns claims the alien is the

Antichrist, and before anyone can stop her, she chokes him to death with her rosary. The other nuns

decide to cover up their sister’s crime by barbecuing the body. It tastes wonderful! “Truly,” says one

chomping nun, “this is the flesh of God.”

The English teacher was a spiritual, literary man named Brother Marion. He glanced up from Conrad’s

story with such a look of sorrow that all Conrad could think to do was to kick the boy sitting next to him,

an effeminate school friend named Pete Jeans. Jeans howled, and Brother Marion reached into the

pocket of his black robe.

“Yes, Conrad, I will write you a Jug ticket.” A Jug ticket was a small yellow square of paper. It meant

that you had to stay after school for an hour.

After class Brother Marion drew Conrad aside. “I’m disappointed by your story, Conrad. Surely you

can find more deserving targets than the Church.”

“But . . . how can you believe all those crazy things? How can you believe in Transubstantiation? A wafer

is a wafer, not the flesh of Christ!”

“God became flesh, why should flesh not become bread? Although theaccidental properties of the

consecrated wafer are as bread, itsessence is Christ’s flesh. Theaccidental properties of Christ’s body

were human, yet His body’sessence was divine.” Brother Marion’s hollow eyes glinted briefly. “You

should read Aquinas, not blaspheme like a fool.”

The brother in charge of Jug was a lean zealot with angry red acne scars on his face. Brother

Saint-John-of-the-Cross. Nobody messed with Saint-John-of-the-Cross. You sat there and wrote for an

hour, and then Brother Saint-John-of-the-Cross threw your essay away and you could go home. The

topic of the essay was always the same:Why I Am in Jug.

Taking his pen in hand, Conrad felt a strange surge of power.Nobody would read this. He could write

whatever he wanted to. It was something Conrad had never thought of doing before—sit at a desk and

write whatever you’re thinking.

“Stop grinning, Bunger, and get to work. Two sides.Why I Am in Jug .”

Conrad began with the stupid way that Jeans always stuck his lower jaw out to look like he was thinking,

and then moved right into some confused vaporing about how misunderstood he, Conrad Bunger, really

was.Half a page. Conrad recounted one of Father Stook’s recent tales, the one about the man who’d

injured the side of his penis with his electric drill, and who’d then come to Father Stook for permission to

wear a condom during intercourse so that the raw spot wouldn’t chafe. “All right,” Father Stook had

said, “but you have to puncture the tip.”A page and a quarter. Conrad explained about death, and how

the secret of life is that we each possess a fragment of the universal life-force.A page and two-thirds. He

ended by making fun of a St. X administrator called Deforio. Deforio was in charge of issuing late-slips.

“Sports fan Deforio’s moronic robot scrawl.” Here and there a few gaps remained. Conrad filled them in

with random curse words. He felt like if he willed it, he could float right up to the ceiling.

“I’m all done, Brother Saint-John-of-the-Cross. Can I go home now?”

The next morning, as he was walking down the hall to his third period mathematics class, Conrad was

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TheSecretofLifeByRudyRuckerElectricStory.com,Inc.THESECRETOFLIFECopyright©1985byRudyRucker.Allrightsreserved.ISBN:1-930815-60-3PublishedbyElectricStory.com,Inc.ElectricStory.comandtheESdesignaretrademarksofElectricStory.com,Inc.Thisnovelisaworkoffiction.Allcharacters,events,organizations,andlocalesa...

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Rudy Rucker - The Secret of Life

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