The Gatekeeper

Kitāb al-insān (Book of Man)

Editor’s Note: The Kitāb al-insān (Book of Man) is a treatise purportedly written by Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni, the great Khwarazmian Iranian polymath (c. 973 – 1050 AD). The work, if genuine, is perhaps one of the earliest works of ethnography in history. The author documents the stories of various individuals, communities, and cultures that reached him in Bukhara, as well as those he visited in person – particularly during his time in India. It is thought the work entered Latin-Christendom via the Jewish translators of Toledo sometime in the 12th century.

In a land far to the southwest, beyond the cataracts of the great river, beyond the great stinking bog they call Toc, beyond even the shifting ridge of basalt rock known in antiquity as Kong, sits a humble village. This dusty huddle of mud-bricked roundhouses, thatched roofs, and stick-figure residents, is but one hamlet among many similar – except, that is, for one important detail. Among its inhabitants is a young lad, not far off manhood, who day after day sits regal yet morose in his duties as the local point of interest. 

Pilgrims flock from far and wide to hear the boy speak – or, I should say, the twin sides of the boy speak. For he is afflicted with the rare and untreatable condition of polycephaly; he has two heads, identical yet twisted contrariwise, like Janus resurrected. 

Quite how this deformity arose is an unsettled question. Some claim the poor boy was in utero just one of a pair of twins, who, when faced with malnourishment, began to eat his brother. Before he could finish his fratricidal snack the birth pangs took hold of the mother, and on exit the cannibal was so compressed upon the severed head of his kin that it simply fused to his own. 

Others, reckoning by similar stories from another age, believe the freak was first born normal, but developed a pathological habit of arguing with himself at an early age – a tendency that became so profuse that there emerged from a mole on his neck a second head with which he could better put voice to his internal dialectic. Whatever the true cause of this curiosity, the result for his community has been a windfall like no other seen in that impoverished part of the world. 

The head that faces to the rear can see only backwards – that is, into the past. Visitors travel through perils great and small for a few words with the backward-looking head about deeds and trespasses long done. But even this remarkable talent is not the reason for the bulk of the crowds the boy-hydra draws. They come for the other: the head that can see the future.

To converse with the seer-head costs ten times as much, but so desperate are the pilgrims to hear muttered prophecies of their bleak tomorrows that the queue is one hundred times as long. To maintain order among the frenzied petitioners the boy is guarded night and day, and each visitor is permitted one question only. 

Taking advantage of the crowds, which grow greater each day, complex cottage industries have sprung up around the prophet, with inns, taverns, brothels, expert question consultancies (for getting one’s one, and only one, question right is a tricky business), circuses, food stalls, and souvenir hawkers. But the best money of all is made by the quack fortune-tellers who find easy profit in those left unsatisfied by the boy’s prophecies. In fact, most leave disappointed – for who can possibly know one fact about their future and be content? Many men are driven to madness, cursing the double-headed Isimud for delivering a fortune they didn’t want to hear. An answer that despite their protestations to the contrary, they know must come to pass, for no prediction yet made by the seer has proved false. 

The boy himself remains an admirable and dutiful servant of his village, knowing full well that playing the role of master guru benefits his kith and kin – this despite all the while wishing things could go back to the way they were before this fanfare began. Of course, he himself would prefer his “blessing” be lifted. For though he can see all behind him, and everything in front, all the poor boy wishes is to be able to rest in the one place he cannot: right here, in the present moment.