The inviolable link between the tail and the mind - that is the foundation on which the world as we know it stands. There is nothing that can intervene in this circle of cause and effect and disrupt it. Except for one thing. Love.
We werefoxes are significantly superior to people in all respects. But like them, we almost never know true love. And therefore the secret path leading out of this world is hidden from us. But it is so simple that it is hard to believe: the circuit of self-hypnosis can be broken by a single movement of the mind.
I shall now transmit this unsurpassed teaching in the hope that it may serve as the cause of the liberation of all those who possess a heart and a tail. This technique, lost since time immemorial, has been discovered anew by me, the fox A Hu-Li, for the good of all beings, under the circumstances described in this book. Here is a full and complete exposition of the secret method of ancient foxes known as ‘tail of the void’.
1. First the werefox must comprehend what love is. The world that we create by inertia day after day is full of evil. But we cannot break out of the vicious circle because we do not know how to create anything else. The nature of love is entirely different, and that is precisely why there is so little of it in our lives. Or rather, our lives are like that because there is so little love in them. And in most cases what people take for love is physical attraction and parental instinct, multiplied by social conceit. Werefox, do not become like a tailless monkey. Remember who you are!
2. When a werefox comprehends what love is, she can leave this dimension behind. But first she must settle all remaining accounts: thank those who have helped her on the way and help those who need help. Then the werefox must fast for ten days, pondering on the inscrutable mystery of the world and its infinite beauty. In addition, the werefox must recall her evil deeds and repent of them. She must remember at least the ten darkest deeds she has committed and repent of each of them. While the werefox does this, genuine tears must well up in her eyes at least three times. This is not a matter of banal sentimentality - crying purges the psychic channels that will be brought into play at the third stage.
3. When the preliminary practice has been completed, the werefox must wait for the day after the full moon. On that day she must rise early in the morning, perform ablutions and withdraw to a remote spot out of sight of all people. There, having freed her tail, the werefox must sit in the lotus position. If the werefox cannot sit in the lotus position, it does not matter - she can sit on a chair or a tree stump. The important thing is that the back must be straight and erect and the tail must be relaxed and free of restraint. Then the werefox must breathe in and out several times, engender in her heart love of the greatest possible power and, shouting out her own name in a loud voice, direct the love as deeply as possible into her own tail.
Any werefox will immediately understand what is meant by the words ‘direct the love into her own tail’. But this is such a bizarre and inconceivable thing to do, such a gross violation of all the conventions, that I might be regarded as insane. Nonetheless, this is exactly the way things are - this way lies the secret road to freedom. The result will be similar to what happens when an air bubble gets into a blood vessel leading to the heart. It will be enough to stall the engine of the self-reproducing nightmare in which we have been wandering since the beginning of time.
If the love engendered was genuine, then following the shout, the tail will cease creating this world for a second. This second is the moment of freedom, which is more than enough to leave this realm of suffering behind for ever. When this second arrives, the werefox will know quite certainly what she should do next.
The same technique can be used by werewolves and pizdets hounds while in their lupine form.
I have also attained to comprehension of how tailless monkeys can escape from this world. At first I intended to leave detailed instructions for them too, but I do not have enough time. I will therefore briefly mention the most important elements. The key points of this teaching are the same as in the above. First the tailless monkey must engender love in his soul, beginning with its most simple forms and gradually ascending to the genuine love that knows no subject and no object. Then he must review his entire life and grasp the futility of his goals and the villainy of his ways. And since his repentance is usually false and short-lived, he must shed tears for his own dark deeds at least thirty times. And finally, the monkey must perform a magical action similar to the one described in point three, but amended to take account of the fact that he has no tail. The tailless monkey must therefore first grasp how he creates the world and in what way he imposes the illusion on himself. This is all rather simple, but I have absolutely no time left to dwell on it.
Let me say something more important. If any werefox, walking the Way, should discover a new road to the truth, she should not disguise it in all sorts of confusing symbols and tangled rituals, as the tailless monkeys do, but must immediately share this discovery with other were-creatures in the simplest and clearest form possible. But she should remember that the only true answer to the question ‘what is truth’ is silence, and anyone who opens his mouth simply doesn’t know the score.
Well then, I think that is all. Now Nat King Cole will sing and I shall go. It will happen like this: I shall finish typing this page, save it, throw my laptop into my rucksack and get on my bike. Early in the morning there is never anybody at the ramp on the edge of the Bitsevsky forest. I’ve been wanting to jump from it for a long time, only I didn’t think I’d be able to land. But now I’ve realized how to do it.
I shall ride out into the very centre of the empty field, gather all my love into my heart, pick up speed and go flying up the slope. And as soon as the wheels of my bicycle leave the ground, I shall call out my own name in a loud voice and cease to create this world. There will be an astonishing second, unlike any other. Then this world will disappear. And then, at last, I shall discover who I really am.
Born in 1962 in Moscow, Victor Pelevin has become recognized as the leading Russian novelist of his generation. His comic inventiveness and talent as a fabulist have won him comparisons to Kafka, Calvino, and Gogol, and
Time
magazine has described him as a “psychedelic Nabokov for the cyberage.” Pelevin is the author of four novels (
Omon Ra, The Life of Insects, Buddha’s Little Finger,
and
Homo Zapiens
), three collections of stories (
The Blue Lantern, A Werewolf Problem in Central London,
and
4 by Pelevin
), a novella (
The Yellow Arrow
), and
The Helmet of Horror: The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.
In 1998, he was selected by
The New Yorker
as one of the best European writers under thirty-five, and in January of 2000 he was the subject of a
New York Times Magazine
profile entitled “Gogol a Go-Go.” His 2000 novel,
Buddha’s Little Finger,
was a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. He is the winner of the Nonino Prize and the Richard-Schonfeld Prize for literary satire, and his novels have been published in thirty-three countries.