How do you get to the Geo-commune, you ask?
By train?
Or perhaps in the passenger seat of a car driven by Mary?
Neither. Geo-communes are scattered across the continents of the world, and each has its own dedicated airfield. Since those who wish to live in a Geo-commune are almost exclusively the wealthy, they arrive via private jet.
The Mary Foundation naturally owns its own fleet, so Mary and I spent our time touring various Geo-commune airfields in a private plane. Whenever we descended the stairs, a bright red carpet was rolled out. Mary’s treatment was that of a “First Lady,” while I was merely the husband attached to her—like a bit of garnish on a plate of sashimi.
While visitors are relatively free to “enter” and “sightsee” within a Geo-commune, becoming a member of the community requires one to take a series of “classes” and pass an “examination.” Regardless of one’s social standing, the rules are absolute: if you fail, you are barred from entry. Even Mary was subject to this. To live here, knowledge and a specific mental disposition are prioritized above all else.
It is a remarkably rigorous process, akin to a university course. The core curriculum is divided primarily into “Ecology” and “Evolutionary Theory” within the field of biology. It begins with a general introduction to biology and progresses through classical evolutionary theory, eugenics, climatology, and biogeography, followed by a comprehensive set of case studies based on the latest academic papers. Finally, one is required to write a thesis on the theme of “Speciation and
Isolation.” Surprisingly, depending on the quality of this “graduation thesis,” one can be granted a “scholarship” that waives the cost of residency. It is a system designed to welcome “useful” citizens, even if they are poor. Since the administrative body of the Geo-commune is the Mary Foundation, the commune is—at least on paper—operated as a non-profit, and all authority is vested in my wife, Mary. To my internal surprise, Mary is no mere figurehead. Not only does she supervise “this country,” but she is deeply committed to the practical, operational level. According to the articles of incorporation, she is a dictator who can do anything within the legal framework mandated for voluntary organizations. In this land, she is like a founder who owns every single share of stock.
But what exactly is this thesis topic, “Speciation and Isolation”? I wondered if this facility was designed to promote the “speciation” of humanity through “isolation.” In the past, the Nazis implemented “racial segregation policies” based on “eugenics.” I wondered if this was simply a variation of that.
My thesis was reportedly quite good, but I was disqualified from the scholarship because “my wife’s annual income is too high.”
After that, I underwent an inspection at immigration. All “electronic devices,” such as smartphones, are confiscated.
Having gone through this check multiple times while touring different Geo-communes, I didn’t think much of it.
But a scanner designed to detect faint electromagnetic waves picked up Ray.
“That watch has an AI embedded in it, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, you’ve got a sharp eye.”
“Unfortunately, the private ownership of AI is prohibited within the Geo-commune. As for watches, only mechanical ones—those without electronic power or mechanisms—are permitted. I must confiscate that watch.”
“I’m surprised. I assume you’ll return it when I ‘exit’ the country?”
“Of course. We will keep it in our vault with the utmost responsibility until then.”
“Good grief, Ray. Did you hear that? How unimaginative.”
“Goodbye, Hiroshi.”
Strangely, at that moment, it didn’t occur to me that I might never see Ray again. On the contrary, I felt that I wouldn’t be staying here for very long. I felt that I would reclaim Ray and leave this place soon, even if it meant defying Mary’s will.
“Do you have any other electronic devices on you?”
“Let’s see. I wonder if I have anything left.”
I played dumb. I didn’t want to lie.
Charlie remained deathly still. His frames were covered in glossy black solar panels that looked like celluloid. He was doing his absolute best to pretend to be a pair of ordinary celluloid glasses. I knew exactly what he was doing.
“Well then, I’ll be on my way.”
Once I passed through the inspection gate, Mary was waiting for me with a smile. As the sovereign of the facility, she had bypassed the checkpoint entirely.
“They took my watch at the checkpoint, Mary. And I just bought it. I’m not in a position to buy a luxury mechanical watch like you are,” I said, intending it as sarcasm.
“Oh, how prejudiced. Mechanical watches range from the cheap to the extravagant. Mine looks flashy, but it’s actually quite a bargain. I only wear it as a joke because the ticking sound is amusing. It’s essentially a toy. Your watch looked far more expensive to me.”
In that moment, I didn’t feel like I had been countered; I felt as if she had looked straight through into my heart.
My wife and I switched from the airfield to a boat and ventured deep into an inlet carved by glaciers. We traveled to the very end of a series of branching fjords before disembarking.
A group of oddly dressed people came to greet us—or rather, to greet Queen Mary. There were men with wild beards wearing furs or clothes woven from tree bark, and women draped in single pieces of cloth, reminiscent of ancient Greece.
It looked like some kind of cosplay village. The men were like Odin and his servants; the women were Valkyries, goddesses who guide warriors to the afterlife.
As for me, I was blatantly ignored. Here, Mary was their monarch. I was her accessory, a Prince Consort, her legal spouse—or rather, something like an eyesore of a tasteless keychain, bought on a whim at some tourist attraction and left dangling from a bag.
This place is a kind of primitive collective.
At the center stand several temporary housing units—half-cylindrical corrugated iron structures with board walls coated in pitch-black tar, resembling military barracks. Inside, rows of double-decker beds made of iron pipes are lined up, topped with mattresses that cannot be described as clean. There is no fixed assignment of beds. Mattresses not currently in use are usually smelly and stained. You simply wedge yourself into a spot, wash or air out the mattress yourself, and sleep. The baths and toilets are communal. Green verdigris has precipitated onto the plumbing fixtures. The bathtubs are encrusted with brown limescale; it seems no one actually fills them with water. There are no bath detergents or brushes.
Everyone just takes a quick shower and calls it a day. The toilets are far from the word “clean,” filled with the stench of methane and ammonia. It would feel far more pleasant to just go in the woods.
While you can stay in the barracks to keep off the rain, there is no such thing as privacy here. There are no private rooms. Everyone sleeps in a heap. Men and women naturally live in separate barracks. Consequently, there is no privacy for a married couple in the sense understood in a normal civilized society.
Indoor lighting in the barracks consists only of kerosene lamps. Outdoor lighting is minimal, consisting of a few acetylene gas lamps. In short, once the sun sets, you have no choice but to sleep. And the moment the sun rises, activities resume. It’s fine now that it’s early summer, but I cannot imagine how one kills time during the long winter nights of these high latitudes.
If you don’t want to live communally, you are free to build your own house. However, you cannot privately own land. Some pitch tents, some build houses with earthen walls, and some build ovens out of hardened mud.
Mary was the exception. For her, the men had voluntarily become her servants and constructed something akin to a royal palace. I hesitated to enter it, so I always slept in the double-decker beds of the barracks.
I took to calling this place “Viking Village.” While they didn’t wear horned helmets or carry hand-axes while wearing sandals, their aura was exactly that of medieval Vikings or ancient Germans.
Mary was their female chieftain.
When I mentioned this to her, she laughed. “Communists, anarchists, libertarians, naturalists, atheists, pantheists, Neoplatonists, Neopagans, intellectual grifters, and various other suspicious types from all over the world gather in this Geo-commune, worshipping me as their common leader. I have no reason to reject them right now. The Geo-commune is new, small, and fragile. If my being the object of their cult of personality helps this movement progress even slightly, I am happy to become their goddess. But eventually, that is a problem that must be resolved.”
“You’re a naturalist yourself, aren’t you?”
“A naturalist, huh? That’s a word with a vague definition. Since Spinoza said ‘Deus sive Natura’ (God or Nature) within a Christian society, the line of Western philosophical naturalism has flowed through Goethe, Einstein, Carl Sagan, and Arthur C. Clarke. I suppose I’m perceived as one of them. I live as a Christian in a Christian society, but I believe in natural science and affirm the theory of evolution. In doing so, one inevitably settles into a pantheism like Carl Sagan’s, doesn’t one?”
“Is that not the case?”
“No, it isn’t. That’s the pitfall. It’s where Western intellectuals have easily fallen since Spinoza. I don’t want to belong to such a ‘village.'”
“Alfred Russel Wallace, who proposed evolution alongside Darwin, was a materialist but also a spiritualist. He fervently supported Darwin’s ‘natural selection,’ yet he leaned heavily into spiritualism. He believed the human soul was an exception to evolution and is known as the first person to scientifically study spiritual phenomena. While he seemed to completely deny ‘Creationism,’ his views had a strong affinity with the ‘generation’ or ‘creation’ of species by God.”
” ‘Artificial selection,’ ‘natural selection,’ ‘divine selection.’ If we place these three concepts in parallel and claim, as Spinoza did, that ‘God’ is ‘Nature,’ then ‘natural selection’ becomes ‘divine selection.'”
“Natural science originating in the West often falls into pseudoscience. It’s because science and theology share the same root and are naturally compatible. Some say modern science has hit a wall and a ‘post-science’ era is coming, but if left alone, science and theology merge back into one. It is a sickness inherent to Western science.”
“God created the human species from the primate, the most intelligent of animals, and breathed a soul into it. Isn’t that a simple conclusion derived from Wallace’s evolution and spiritualism?”
“Wallace is the progenitor of those who try to bridge Spinoza and Carl Sagan, picking apart the flaws of Neodarwinism or Universal Darwinism to interpret evolution to suit their own needs, hoping to revive ‘Creationism’ in the process.”
“I hate such a repulsive world. I don’t want to be indebted to a God. I am not a Christian, nor am I even ‘human.’ It’s a cliché and a worn-out phrase, but I am closest to an ecologist. Though I despise those who preach Gaia theory or Deep Ecology.”
“So, in other words, you’re a Mama Bear.”
“Exactly. I live like a bear.”
I felt that I was finally beginning to see the outline of her philosophy.
The village had many horses. They weren’t in a pasture but were kept free-range within the village, and every one of them was friendly and docile. However, they all seemed strangely small. Near the house where I grew up, there had been an equestrian park and a pony farm. The horses at the park were massive, while the ponies were barely as tall as a child. I asked Mary.
“Are there only ponies here? You don’t ride Thoroughbreds?”
“Hiroshi, do you know which mammal has the longest cecum? It’s the koala. Do you know why?”
“What?”
I didn’t understand why a conversation about horses had suddenly shifted to the cecums of koalas.
“Uh… I believe the cecum exists so that herbivores can break down cellulose. So, the more an animal eats grass, the longer its cecum should be?”
“Right. That’s basically correct. Ruminants like cows, goats, deer, and camels have long intestines, but they also have four stomachs to ruminate, allowing them to break down cellulose efficiently. But horses and koalas have only one stomach. Instead, their cecums are incredibly developed; they cultivate microorganisms there to ferment and decompose cellulose before sending it to the large intestine.”
Mary went on, “By the way, among primates, the herbivorous gorilla has the longest cecum, followed by the chimpanzee and the orangutan. Humans have much shorter cecums and large intestines. In exchange, our small intestines are longer.”
“The koala’s cecum is two meters long, and the horse is second. However, horses bred as livestock—whether for racing or farming—eat only high-nutrient feed, so their cecums have gradually degenerated; now they are only about one meter. In other words, if they eat only grass and straw, they become malnourished.”
“However, the closer a horse is to a wild species, the longer and thicker its cecum is, allowing it to endure a coarse diet and survive on grass alone. Horses that retain these ancient traits are often shorter in stature and belong to endangered subspecies that must be actively protected. Furthermore, in the Geo-commune, we avoid giving livestock feed as much as possible. Livestock raised only to be fattened for slaughter, or pets kept only for affection, are out of the
question. We let the horses eat as much grass as possible. For that, a wilder species is preferable. There are many docile breeds that have been domesticated for a long time but still possess these traits, so we bring them here to breed them. It serves both conservation and utility.”
I see. In the Geo-commune, a horse with a long cecum is more valued than one with speed or raw power.
“Humans don’t need to be Thoroughbreds either. We should just grow strong, like wild horses.”
“Is that the teaching of the Mama Bear?”
“Yes.”
Occasionally, Mary would mount a horse and set out into the birch forests to hunt, accompanied by a large group of men and dogs. I followed along like one of her attendants. We rarely encountered other groups in the forest. This place was likely larger than two or three small European countries combined.
We would camp in tents, shoot deer for food, and fish. I focused primarily on fishing. No one called me Hiroshi. They simply nicknamed me “The Angler.” They probably all knew I was Mary’s husband, but they chose to ignore it.
“We aren’t killing animals indiscriminately,” Mary would say. “In years when acorns are plentiful, the boar population explodes. In those times, we hunt boar. Deer are naturally highly prolific; if they increase too much, the damage to forestry becomes severe, as they eat everything from the buds to the bark. They can even change the forest’s ecology by leaving only the plants they won’t eat. Therefore, we must hunt them moderately to keep the population in check.”
“A living forest always has surplus production. If we control it—preventing the over-hunting of dwindling species and the overpopulation of others—a significant number of people can live a high-quality life by consuming the wild meat supplied by the mountains. Even Charles Darwin knew this. He noted that even if not a single bird or beast were hunted in England for twenty years, those populations would ironically decrease even more than they do today.”
“If we don’t hunt, the overpopulated herbivores will devastate the forest, and excessive populations often lead to epidemics. But despite knowing this, Darwin stopped his hobby of hunting simply because it was ‘pitiful.’ Strange, isn’t it? The idea that we should just leave the wilderness alone is a mistake. If you fence off a wasteland and plant pines, a surprising number of animals and plants can inhabit it. Humans should transform the wasteland into a rich forest and then harvest the flora and fauna to moderately suppress the ecosystem.”
Indeed, problems like wildlife damage, rural depopulation, urban overcrowding, and pollution could be solved smoothly by utilizing the wilderness effectively.
Recently, following everyone’s lead, I’ve started shooting wood pigeons and rabbits. I prefer birds over four-legged animals; small animals are much easier to prepare. Wood pigeon meat has a very rich flavor. But the most delicious are the grey herons found by the water.
Mary says it’s cruel to shoot birds with birdshot. A single blast of pellets doesn’t always kill. You fire a few times, and if the bird falls, you deliver the coup de grâce as quickly as possible. To leave an animal wounded and let it suffer for days is the greatest cruelty.
When a bird is flying, you aim ahead of its flight path to ensure it dies in one shot. That way, it might hit the head and cause instant death.
Mary uses only a rifle. Rifles are for experts. An amateur like me wouldn’t even be granted a permit.
And she only shoots deer. Moreover, she uses a low-caliber rifle.
“I only shoot deer. Boars and bears are caught in traps.”
“Why?”
“Boars and bears are strong; often, a single shot won’t take them down. So, we trap them first, then kill them with one blow.”
She is a master of rifle marksmanship. Her ability to concentrate on a single shot is extraordinary. She is usually mindful of everything around her, but the moment her finger touches the trigger, she stops breathing, stops moving, and stops blinking. And she almost always hits her mark. Even so, boars and bears are difficult to take down with one shot.
“Their coarse fur is like steel armor. If the angle of incidence is too shallow, the bullet ricochets. And if you miss the vitals by even a fraction, they won’t die easily. They make unpredictable movements, those ones,” Mary would say with a laugh.
“A wounded bear or boar is not just pitiful, but extremely dangerous. Therefore, if you wound one, you must not let it escape. You must corner it and finish it.”
“I’ve decided to kill deer with a low-caliber rifle via headshots. You don’t need a powerful gun to pierce a deer’s skull.”
Hunting with Mary and watching the butchering of birds and deer always left me with an indescribable feeling of ghastliness and cruelty.
As soon as the prey is killed, it is hung from a tree, the carotid artery is severed, and the blood is collected in a bucket. You have to hurry to prevent the meat from smelling. Then, it’s lowered, an incision is made from the throat to the anus, the sternum is peeled back by cutting through the cartilage, the pubic bone is split, and the viscera are pulled out in one piece. Then it’s hung by the neck, the hide is peeled away, the cartilage of the limb joints is cut, and the muscles are stripped.
I have also butchered the fish and birds I caught in this way. For sweetfish or char, or sparrows and quails, you can just roast them whole. But for larger fish like trout, you have to slit the belly, remove the organs, and fillet them into three pieces. For collars doves, I open the chest and disassemble them for a barbecue.
After staying in the village for about a month, Mary disappears somewhere for the following month. I am left in a state of total bachelorhood.
During that time, I don’t wander the forests; I just lounge around the barracks, drink in the evening, and go to bed early.
Everywhere has its alcohol lovers, and such people gather to create a modest bar. It’s a surprisingly stylish bar run by the village women.
You can drink mead—honey and water fermented simply—or fruit wines brewed from wild grapes or lingonberries, as well as an ale-like brew from mixed grains or a whiskey-like spirit distilled from that ale. Since brewing is not forbidden here, the drinkers do as they please. The snacks are trout or salmon marinated in olive oil, herb-roasted duck or pheasant, and salads of mushrooms and young shoots. That is more than enough. With tents stretched over the area, firewood burning in the hearth for warmth, and animal fat used as candles, the bar operates until morning. Consequently, by dawn, my face is often blackened with soot. I don’t mind the atmosphere here. In fact, if it weren’t for this bar, I would have been so bored that I would have fled the commune long ago.
