Chapter 27: Nothing Happens
The narrative begins with “Chapter 27. Nothing Happens,” establishing a deliberately paradoxical tone that will characterize the entire work. This chapter serves as an entry point into a world where conventional storytelling logic is deliberately subverted.
Chapter 28: Israel in Manchuria - The Lost Tribes
Chapter 28 introduces us to “Israel in Manchuria,” described as the “lost, lost, lost, lost, lost land of the True or True True Bible recently reprinted in three volumes, one of which was accidentally printed upside down and in reverse.” This fantastical location is known only to the locally resident Jews of China who had been there “for a while” before being discovered by visiting unhappy Jesuits in the 16th century.
The Jesuits, upon encountering this empty country that was “in fact really just an idea and also a series of chapters in the middle book,” took it upon themselves to imagine a vast influx of millions of new people arriving through “various correctly synchronized time traveling technologies.” These technologies included mysterious devices such as “the upside down soybean plastic carved Detroit.” All these future visitors would be classified by the methodical Jesuits under the general category of “the lost tribes of Israel.”
Associated with this land was an important book: “the recently incorrectly reprinted Lost Crew and Crew Rest Lost Bible,” but it was perpetually out on loan from the local library. The patient Jesuits waited for its return, hoping to find practical information that would help them accomplish their planned migration of millions of future people, all of whom were classified as lost tribes. The full title of this elusive book is given as “The True Bible The True True Tourist Bible of the Century and Jews of the Lost Tribe.”
While waiting for the book that never returned, the Jesuits wrote their own books on the subject “based on best available evidence” and “also based on best available lack of evidence.”
The German Romantic Grotesque Ballet and Train Station Theater
A significant portion of the narrative is devoted to the surreal theatrical performances that take place in train stations. These performances are part of “the German romantic grotesque ballet,” described as a “step-step sort of thing” that appeared often on stages in the middle of train station ceilings.
Passengers arriving by train encounter what initially appear to be explosions but are actually “briefly illuminated short subject movies of explosions projected on snow in the air” and broken steam. These projections come from “multiple engine and axle mounted projectors by true, true engineers who grin behind the steam and shout expletives made of consonants that don't seem to be parts of speech” - sounds learned at “Bible Actors College.”
The entire spectacle seems organized with a written script, but no one reveals what happens next. Eventually, recruiters in police uniforms arrive to clear passengers and their families from the platform, pushing them to rooms where “mysterious training is about to begin.” This is simply “how we treat train passengers here,” according to helpful brains mounted on the walls.
The backstage area, called “the coulisse,” features disjunctive moving sets that transit in rotating panoramas, causing “itches and blurs and strange noises that we can never explain.” Performers are stuck by Velcro to the back of the screen and can only move their legs, reaching for “the coffee of truth” to maintain their knowledge and continue their “step step dance.”
Chapter 30: The Worlds of Water and Celestial Navigation
Chapter 30 places us “among the worlds of water that spits from the eyes of time, which thinks nothing about whatever it has to say and does no more than it needs to.” The narrative includes detailed geographical orientation, mentioning locations between Manchuria and Birobidzhan, above the Eymur River, with references to Sagittarius constellations A through G marked on “the tablet of truth in map form.”
The narrator speaks of people on boats who “all had their teeth and they all had their hands and they all had happiness.” These boat people were very kind, so the narrator didn't tell them about “all of the missing people” to avoid bothering them.
The Railroad Postmasters and Time Tunnels
One of the most developed story threads involves the semi-transparent, internally gleaming railroad postmasters who “know nothing of darkness and glow in the light and sing the sounds of the songs of the railroad schedules day in and day out.” These mysterious figures have “faces never hidden, their thoughts never given,” and they tell stories of time while anchored to the ground with little anchors.
They had been glued down, which was dangerous because “the stars and the meteorites, the meteorongs were flying by with their bird friends.” Being stuck to the ground made them bait, but they also served as traps used to attract stars from the sky so they could be put in bottles and fed to fish, causing the fish to “glow internally until they burned up.”
These postmasters were originally railway architects who claimed to have come from “Earthquake Ruins built up around the Glass Telescope of Samarkand, now broken in glass shards usually invisible on dark nights.” After the earthquakes ruined their homes, windows, and telescopes, they came to live in Manchuria in their “new and debased situation.”
In their former lives in Samarkand, there was little difference between architects and local postmasters, who were often the same people participating in the “Annual Postage Stamp Parade.” Citizens would wave stamp flags attached to colorfully painted poles, creating a festive atmosphere around buildings with “astonished arches decorated with colored glowing glass that gave off a mighty shine all night, due to their radioactive interiors.”
The Log Train Journey and Recursive Storytelling
A particularly notable segment describes a journey on a log-carrying train where each car was labeled with letters spelling “L-O-G.” The narrator boards this train after jumping from thistles covered with “oddly fragmented pieces of clothing” and millions of shoes left behind by previous travelers.
On the train, the narrator sits on “a very thick heavily accented ancient complete oak log” next to an older woman who might have been “carved from one of the branches.” During this journey, the narrator engages in an increasingly complex recursive storytelling exercise, telling the woman about his life multiple times, each retelling becoming longer and including the previous tellings.
This creates a mathematical paradox similar to Zeno's paradox, with the narrator imagining “the pizza guy who's got a little shed on the side of the river, big big neon signs that says Zeno's Pizza Paradox” who is “stuck cutting pizzas in half and half and half.” The storytelling becomes self-referential and theoretically infinite, with each fourth telling promising to be longer than the narrator's actual life span.
The oak log, later revealed to be made of “compressed oatmeal,” develops ears and begins listening to these recursive stories. The narrator eventually asks the listener not to repeat the story to anyone else, especially not back to him, as he wishes to repeat it again later without being surprised by listeners who claim it as their own life story.
Chapter 56: The Cars of Manchuria
This chapter briefly describes steam cars running the “Shinkyo Marathon” while “motors whirled as engines exploded on the other side of town” as “spherical spaceships prepared for mental launch, controlled by Shinkyo priests stationed on government buses.”
The Underground Time Tunnels and Missing People
Throughout the narrative, there are references to underground time tunnels that run for hundreds of miles “below the earth and above the underworld somewhere in between, which is improperly lit by caustic lamps.” These tunnels connect various locations and serve as transportation routes for the mysterious inhabitants of this world.
The theme of missing people recurs throughout, with references to those who have vanished and the careful tracking of their absence. The railroad postmasters and architects are particularly concerned with “soon to be missing people,” an activity “heartily approved by the railroad officials and also the mysterious railroad architects, who certainly remembered what it was like to be missing, and would again.”
Betty Boop and Cosmic Elements
The narrative includes surreal interactions with Betty Boop, who appears “somewhere up there in Cassiopeia A singing her galaxy song.” The narrator expresses care for Betty Boop and attempts to communicate with her across cosmic distances, incorporating astronomical references with cartoon characters in typical fashion for this work.
Conclusion: Emperor Ordinary Taisha
Many segments end with the signature “Sincerely Yours, Emperor, Ordinary Taisha,” suggesting that much of the narrative represents communications or reports from this mysterious figure. The title suggests both imperial authority and deliberate ordinariness, embodying the work's consistent theme of elevated language applied to mundane or absurd situations.
The overall structure of ScriptO presents a series of interconnected vignettes that blend science fiction, historical reference, theatrical performance, mathematical paradox, and surreal humor into a cohesive if deliberately confusing narrative universe. The stories consistently feature themes of displacement, missing persons, recursive storytelling, theatrical performance, and the intersection of the mundane with the cosmic, all delivered in a voice that maintains scholarly seriousness while describing completely impossible situations.