The Mark of Saint James

Demarcus St. James was without a doubt the smartest man in the world. Underneath his impeccably full head of curly silver hair, there was a brain constantly chugging at one-hundred horsepower, stopping only for sleep and the occasional stoner comedy. When walking past a mirror, he would sometimes catch side glimpses of his head in profile, and take a moment to admire. He was not unlike the Persian rug that tied his library together; a foundation for all good things to settle upon.

               It was in this library that he currently found himself in; he loved to relax at his desk after finishing a large, mentally exhausting project. By all means, he should have been feeling phenomenal. Why then, was he feeling less than one-hundred percent? He saw a line of dirt on the rug. He stared at it for a second, then did nothing. He began thinking about the legacy he would leave behind.

               When Demarcus was twenty, he had completely cured baldness. Solving this ancient curse gave him a feeling of superiority. It was this breakthrough that had first catapulted Demarcus into the limelight, and into the hearts of follicle deficient people the world over.

               After the struggle against baldness was won, he shifted the focus of his mighty brain onto the subject of energy. He thought up a solution to the problems caused by fossil fuels. Through a process he dubbed “Solar-Recapitulation”, one was able to capture all of the carbon from a pile of garbage, blast that carbon with electromagnetic radiation, and turn that into electricity.

With several tests behind him, it was discovered that the only emissions his powerplants produced were harmless and gave off a zesty lemon scent. He placed Solar-Recapitulation plants all over the globe. The American oil lobby and the OPEC were castrated, and everyone was better off. Surely this had vouchsafed his legacy, yes? Thinking about this victory made Demarcus feel a little better, but he still wasn’t all the way there. Time, he thought. Time buries even the greatest of us.

 He thought back to the time he had discovered the undiscoverable.

               After Demarcus had grown bored with guiding mankind into the future, he had become very interested in the past. Legends in particular fascinated him, especially that mysterious line between myth and recorded history. The fantastical Xia dynasty, mentioned by the historical Shang that succeeded it, had to exist. Who exactly was Iry-Hor, the pre-dynastic pharaoh of upper Egypt that existed so long ago that only his name and tomb survive?

And what of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold?

               Oh, how the notion of a lost city beguiled him. Armed with little more than a highly advanced radar of his own invention and a can-do attitude, he set off to find El Dorado. He began his wild goose chase in Teotihuacan, Mexico. There was something about the Pyramid of the Feathered Sun that bugged him.

Far beneath the pyramid, he and his team found a perfectly round room with walls that glittered with gold. The ceiling was a representation of the night sky, painted dark blue with different gems representing different celestial bodies. In the center of the room, guarded by four strange looking humanoid statues, was a square pedestal, looking very out of place in this room with soft edges. Upon the pedestal was a map of ancient Mexico City. The humanoid statues looked nothing like Aztec art. In fact, they didn’t match up with any known civilization’s aesthetic. Demarcus was still unsatisfied, and so he continued his journey. 

               He found another, near identical ancient planetarium beneath Mexico City, Except the map was replaced by a pyramid model. Demarcus recognized the style of the pyramids. In less than a day, he made his way to the ancient Mayan city of El Mirador in Guatemala, finding another planetarium underneath it. He continued finding planetariums everywhere. After six years of swashbuckling and excavating, Demarcus had uncovered planetariums in 79 archaeological sites all over north and south America.

               When laid out on a map of the world, the 79 ancient cities formed a round cluster: a cluster that surrounded Lake Guatavita in Colombia. Ironically, this was the lake where the Muisca chiefs bathed in gold dust as part of their coronation ceremony. Demarcus knew chemistry like the pre-Columbians knew city planning. The 79 were protons and electrons, and Lake Guatavita was the nucleus. He knew then what he had to do.

After a week of digging and draining, it was uncovered. The newly found city of El Dorado stood there shimmering in the South American sun. Gazing upon the solid gold pyramids and platinum streets surrounded by freshly moved dirt was like beholding some pristine jewel jutting out from the side of some craggy cave: it was cathartic.

               As Demarcus strolled down the golden plaza encrusted with diamonds, he felt vindicated. At the center of every crossroads were the humanoid statues he had discovered in the planetariums, though these had smiling faces and were hoisting large, jade bowls over their head, filled with priceless treasures. Demarcus knew that this discovery was a big one, and it made him smile.

               Back in the present, Demarcus sat back down at his desk and blew some more tobacco smoke. Thinking about his discovery of El Dorado should have made him happy. There was nothing else like it on earth.

Why then was Demarcus St. John, undoubtedly the smartest man on earth, feeling so blue? He couldn’t really say.

               Maybe it was because as grandiose and awe inspiring as El Dorado is, it still wound up buried under a mountain. Maybe it was that. Maybe.

Demarcus began scribbling on a notepad, his mind shifting to the project he had just finished. It was time for the first test. He ripped out the note, stuck it in his pocket, and started walking toward his lab.

After the tremendous high of discovering El Dorado, Demarcus had been feeling the tremendous low of worrying about how he would someday be remembered. More and more, he had taken refuge in his beloved stoner flicks. After re-watching one of his favorites, the idea of creating an actual time machine had stuck with him. For the past seven months he worked non-stop. In the end, Demarcus St. James was rewarded with his time machine and a red button on a wrist-strap that would always take him back to the present.

He took the paper out of his pocket, and laid it on the ground in front of the time machine. He took one last look out of the window; he wanted to remember the world he was leaving behind. There were flying vehicles zooming all around an enormous skyline. As uneasy as he felt, Demarcus was confident that the world would be even better in half a millennium, all thanks to his genius. He set the dial to 500 years in the future, and let the machine do its thing. It was rough, but he weathered it well.

After what felt like an eternity locked inside of a millisecond, he stepped out, and shielded his eyes from the light of the sun. When they adjusted, he was baffled to see that everything looked as it did when he was a child. He didn’t understand. Had he made a mistake and gone into the past? He was totally underwhelmed with this dull, normal looking city. It looked as if it belonged in 2006, replete with boxy cars and urban blight.

The more Demarcus walked around, the higher the bile rose in his throat: he hadn’t made a mistake at all. Sneaking peeks at discarded newspapers confirmed that this truly was 500 years in the future. How could everything have degenerated this badly? Why were there bald guys walking around? Where were all the statues dedicated to him? And why were newspapers still a thing? In his frustration, Demarcus did what he used to do as a boy whenever he needed answers: he visited his local library.

Seeing an old-style library with books on the walls was both a comforting and sickening sight for him. By the time he had found a librarian, he felt as though he were about to die.

“Excuse me…Miss?”

The librarian had her back to him and seemed not to notice.

“Miss?”

Still no response.

Demarcus tapped his finger on her shoulder. “Miss?”

“Gah! Fuck! Don’t sneak up on me like that, what do you need?”

Demarcus took an immediate dislike to her. He hated how average she looked and sounded. He had not wanted the future to be anything below stupendous. He was done being nice.

“I wanted to see what you had on Demarcus St. James.”

“Who?”

“Demarcus St. James. Famous scientist and explorer from five hundred years ago.”

“Oh, you mean the Mark of Saint James.”

“I most certainly do not, no. I speak of Demarcus St. James, the man who cured baldness, the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, and discovered El Dorado, for heaven’s sake.”

“You’re talking about the Mark of Saint James, and you know darn well we have nothing on him.”

“I beg your pardon?! I know who I’m referring to, and what do you mean you have nothing on him? He was the greatest mind of his day!”

“Is this a prank? Are you…are you serious?”

“As serious as cancer, which I imagine you people haven’t cured yet.”

“Huh. Weird. You look like you’re telling the truth. You must not be from around here.”

Demarcus looked at her with impatient eyes.

“All right, mister. I don’t know what rock you’ve been living under, but here on planet earth, it’s illegal to talk about the Mark of Saint James.”

“Illegal? What nonsense is this? And what is this thrice damned Mark of Saint James you keep bringing up? I want to know about DEMARCUS ST. JAMES!”

“Did I say illegal? More like frowned upon, really. I mean, it is illegal and all, but nobody really enforces that law. People still satirize him on tv and everything. A bit strange now that I think about it, seeing as no images of him exist. Huh. We don’t even know what his real name was, but making fun of him is fair game.”

“…Making fun of him?” With every cutting word out of her horribly normal mouth, Demarcus’ ego shrank.

“Yes! We have to laugh at the bad guys, don’t we? It robs them of their power. That’s why he’s called The Mark of Saint James. Puts him on the level of all those silly religious figures people used to like.”

Demarcus stared at her, mouth agape.

“It’s kind of an ironic name, because Saint James was the saint of pharmacists, apparently.”

“How…was he a bad guy?”

“You mean you don’t know? You’re a strange one. Do I really have to tell you? I feel kind of silly explaining something everyone already knows. Like teaching the ABC’s to an adult…”

“Please, just…tell me.”

“Well, people aren’t too keen on the genetic engineering fad anymore. I guess they figured that it wasn’t fair to rob people of their right to go bald. Solar-Recapitulation was a good idea, but the guys that ran the business became super corrupt, and started two world wars. Eventually you couldn’t tell them apart from those evil guys that sold fossil fuels back in the stupid ages, ha ha.”

“And what of…El Dorado?”

“You’re talking about that theme park in Colombia, yeah? So, apparently narco-states aren’t really in the business of preserving history. The whole place was melted down and turned into golden assault rifles for the drug lords. I guess they were feeling nostalgic after a while, because they made this gaudy amusement park that looks nothing like the real thing. They launder money there. I saw a good documentary on it.”

               Demarcus’ heart sank. Not only had he not ushered in a new era of science and reason, he was a forgotten laughingstock in this world that was neither brave nor new. He wanted to clench his fists and yell at the top of his lungs. Instead, he went white as a sheet and leaned against a bookshelf. The librarian rushed over to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

“Mister, you don’t look so good. Sit down.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Demarcus said through gritted teeth as she nudged him toward her chair behind the desk.

“Tell me something…If I told you that nothing you ever accomplished mattered, what would you say?”

“Well…I’d say of course it doesn’t matter. I mean, I’m only one of ten trillion ants on a little tiny blue ball.”

“And that thought doesn’t scare you?”

“No.”

“That thought doesn’t scare you at all?” Demarcus raised a skeptic eyebrow.

“No. Maybe I’d be a little bummed that none of the things I do will survive, but I’m super relieved that I have no huge responsibility. Like… I can live the way I want to, and it won’t really affect the grand scheme of things. I can do whatever I want, and everything is going to be fine.”

“And you find that sort of…pointless experience appealing to you?”

“Fuck you, it’s not pointless!”

“Please enlighten me, then.” Demarcus chortled.

“It’s not pointless because all of those things matter to me! Of course, the world won’t care about it later, but I care about it now. It’s better to gauge importance using yourself as a metric, rather than something dumb like legacy or whatever.”

Demarcus looked at her blankly. He hadn’t thought of it like that. He didn’t agree with her, but it was definitely something he hadn’t considered, or at the very least hadn’t thought about in a long time.

“I still have a lot of books to shelve…You gonna be okay?”

“I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

“Here if you need me.” She went back to what she was doing earlier.

               Staying here any longer would only crush his ego more. He stood up, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and pushed the button on his wrist-strap.

               Returning to the present was a lot easier than shooting into the future. It was more like sinking into a comfortable chair during the early stages of an acid trip. In no time at all, he was back in his lab. He looked around, and everything was just as he had left it. Besides a dull sadness, he was no worse for wear. He sighed and looked around his lab.

               What was the point of it all? He thought to himself. Why did I waste so much time exerting myself when nothing ever lasts? Nothing lasts in this fucking world. He went over to the table where he had first started cooking his baldness cure.

               It was just as sturdy as it had been when he first chased that dream all those years ago. He ran his fingers over the smooth, blacktop surface. It was almost comforting the way it slipped beneath his fingers. On the table next to some old notes, were the keys to his super-efficient car. Oh, how he was able to ride free of guilt because of the zero carbon emissions. He thought about how intensive the research was for Solar-Recapitulation, and how it tickled him to solve every little equation. The glint of something shiny made him wince. It was the trinket on the end of his keychain: a little cube with the image of a feathered serpent on it. He had snagged this little guy when he had first braved the pyramid at Teotihuacan. What an adventure that was! And what a satisfying end to it, when he became the first man in four thousand years to walk the gold-paved streets of El Dorado. Demarcus couldn’t lie, it was a damn fun life he had lived.

               He looked out the window at the world he had come home to; a far cry from the boring and drab world of the future. He loved seeing the immense skyline, and the big blue sky free of pollution. He loved seeing everyone walk by with a full head of hair. He felt a pang of anguish that none of this was going to last, and that he would have no legacy to speak of. He asked himself again, what was the point?

               And then he caught a glimpse of his DVD shelf. As he walked ever so slowly towards it, he saw the classic stoner comedy that inspired him to construct a working time machine. It was one of his favorites, and Demarcus was more than happy to have let it be part of the process in his greatest work. He suddenly had the itch to watch the film again.

               And maybe that was enough. He didn’t quite agree with that dullard future girl, but just maybe he had forgotten to relish in the joys of problem solving. He was absolutely going to try to leave some kind of legacy. Even an ant needs to be remembered. But all he really wanted to do right now was create, make mistakes, and then fix them, and have little eureka moments. And maybe have the movie on in the background.

What the hell, he thought. I have at least one big breakthrough left in me. Why not get started?

               And then, just as he was about to leave the lab, he saw the folded-up piece of paper he had laid out on the ground before his fantastic voyage. He picked it up with a smile, cringing a little as he remembered how fatalistic he felt as he wrote it. In a big, loopy scrawl, he had written:

I go now to see my legacy.

I leave for a better tomorrow.

He crumbled it up and tossed it in the wastebasket. Today isn’t so bad, he thought to himself.

Demarcus left the lab, whistling a tune as he turned off the lights.