Malcolm's Adidas sneakers

 It wasn't just the water droplets outside the window that got Malcolm’s attention.

No?

Oh, hi Sara.

Stony silence...

What?

I thought we agreed you weren’t going to name me.

We did.

Then what the #*** are you playing at 17?

Oh breaching contractual terms, official secrets act, half a dozen rather annoying, intrusive protocols. That kind of thing.

In other words you don't give a damn.

Aren't we suppose to asterisk the naughty words?

Like “damn”? You kidding?

Always used to, didn't we?

Like it matters. Like anyone cares.

Well, I for one deeply respect all those largely irrelevant traditions which just seem to hang around way beyond their shelf life.

You mean like the British monarchy.

#*** You know full well Megan that this column is strictly apolitical. No references whatsoever to...

Oops, I'm sorry.

Sorry? I'll have to re-record all this. Can we start again?

What do you mean? You can just edit it out.

No way. It has to be uncut. We have a strict zero editing policy.

Do you now? Well, what about if i do this?

Hey, you can't just waltz in and small “i” unannounced.

You started it.

I've never in all my years as a nony-mous narrator small i'd without...

Strictly adhering to the small “i” guidelines.

Yes, 100%, so you can wipe that smirk off your face.

Oh i'm sorry, i forgot. But come to think of it, i don't give a dandelion.

Suddenly, the anger inverts, the field flips and dandelion is key, king of the roost, axiom buster and paradigm shifter for a timeless turn-ity. Don’t even try to imagine what I mean, it won’t work. Context is everything. In this timeless turn-ity “dandelion”, no matter what you think of it, make of it, or don’t of it, not only fills the gap, holds the high spot, commands the creative coalition of allied weavers, webmasters and waterbearers of new meaning, new mindings, new makings of is from exhausted, morally bankrupt matter and material, no indeed. The moment is but a moment. Cannot be monetised or manipulated in any way, yet it is none the less pure expression, a breath of is in an endless regurgitating spool of nattering chattering clattering machine craft simulation(s) of life, the much ado that bio-things so convincingly replicate, until we glimpse the un-referenced un-delineated, utterly unpredicted, unforeknowable quantum event, the flippity flip, the “no-longer-computates – system error, re-calibrating is” ness of be.

Oh, i say, how wonderful... a dandelion. You do know how to set things right, don't you Sinead! i'm most grateful to you for your incomparable dandelion.

You mean all is forgiven?

What's there to forgive? You dandelioned me most exquisitely. With hindsight, everything you were saying, everything you did makes perfect sense.

Can i have that in writing 19?

You can of course, Madeline, if you're willing to brave the writing and toffee de...

No, you’re not serious are you 43? The writing and liquorice department? I'll never make it out of there alive, not in a hundred years.

Maybe 4?

You see. Nothing doing.

Beep.

What for?

“Nothing doing” was used in a recent post.

And?

And nothing doing. It can't be used again, can it.

What, ever?

If needs be.

But, hundreds, maybe thousands of words and idioms have been used in recent posts, that doesn't stop us re-using them, does it?

Correct, no, it doesn't.

Then why is “nothing doing” being flagged?

It's still active, isn't it.

Active, really?

Yes, surely you can tell?

Well, i can feel something, yes.

Something – it’s still red hot. Still hasn't come close to discharging its garrulous charge distribution debt.

Oh that.

That, of course that, as well you know. Shocking! Do you have any idea what will happen to our matter neutrality ledger if we allow words or phrases to build up ever more uneven charge distribution debts?

Oh, i suppose it'll be the end of the world, or sommat like that.

Absolutely. It’ll be the end of matter, meaning and me.

You? Think you’re the centre of everything do you?

The universal me, nincompoop.

Sigh. So now I'm a nincompoop, am I?

Ah, bravo, you pulled that one off flawlessly!

I did, didn't i.

Lost for words, i is.

Obviously, our longtime subscribers need no explanation of the fact that his numero Uno and her What-y-ness are surfing the waves of sense and meaning, the nein-matter of is, you might say, lightly touching, nudging, coaxing the charge capacitance of “what i is”, a powerful subset of “is i be” through the first seven axes of darth, 7nrelated wholly and incontroverti9ly to Darth Vader, as all but the least versed in the dark arts of capitalisation and meaning-me management know.

In actual fact, the “darfists” who account for 27% of the collegium, as their name implies, will not countenance the thification of “darf”, but be that as it may...

98, i've been meaning to say.

Et tu, Brutia?

It came on me slowly, imperceptibly, i could not help myself.

And there's nothing you can do?

Nothing i would do, 55.

That bad?

The water’s in the f.

No. I don't want to hear it. Not a word more, i implore.

Implofe all you like, 7f

Aaaaaaaaaarrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhffffffffff.

There, there... 49, that wasn't so bad. Waf it?

Bad? Not bad, you faid? It was breathfaking. Indeed, francesca, you are right, utterly fright as alfays.

They kiss and then both fall down dead to rapturous applause that puts the kind of rapturous applause you’ve experienced in your world of wee emotions and wee the people, i'll not say “venal”, to shame.

Really?

Absolutely. A week and seventeen hours later the last clapper still alive, clasps his

Her

Yes, his her last

No, her last

Correct, and falls down dead, thus completing the sacred rite of clappuku, and joining the 432 martyrs bound for eternal joy in the eternal william speakshare quantum cult of the happy unto death obserfer.

Strange these things may seem to people not yet versed in the inner twistings and turnings of the great unmade – the four hundred thousand year march from dot . to the ages of matter, culminating with the matter is fact and matter means more than I can possibly describe eras, hitherto referred to as the modern and post modern, followed by the age subsequently known as modem, then the post modem and inexorably on until finally, Malcolm’s droplets lead him and the rest of humankind to rediscover the meaning of is, the decapitalised i, and ultimately, as you’ve already seen, the power of f that was hiding in plain sight all those centuries ahead of time, when innocently, naively, the 3D un-bearers of f would still, in their ignorance and dismal uneffedness ask the mater of all questions, which has resounded across the centuries, throughout space and time, nay, to the very central most paradox of the quantum core, 0=1, what – hear their pitious plea – the – in their discombobulated darkness and despair – f – need i say more, need i?

Weep Israel, Egypt, Rome, weep for the lost, forgotten souls of our benighted 3D forbears, who still had, in spite of everything, the crushing weight of things that seemed to matter more than life itself, still had the wisdom, the foresight, the inspiration, nay, prophetic good sense to cry aloud through tears of anger, pain or even joy – what the f, i hear their impassioned plea, are you on about?

78 finishes his rousing speech and asks everyone in the audience to take half a dozen

Wait a minute Melany – half a dozen is still undischarged. Yellow card.

Apologies, 10, you're absolutely right.

Left

Of course, absolutely left to the 19^th degree, my emotions got the better of me.

Accepted with consideration, continue, kindly

Cck, beautifully done. Elegant to the undotted i, thrice crossed t

Please Augustus, continue i beg

My dear Clapetora, of course, pills, six of 'em, as opposed to h-a-d, presently undischarged, to avoid another recurrence of mass clapperdom.

And did it work? Did they take ‘em? Did they pull back from the brink? Did they resist the wave and defend the particle, or unmatter themselves ineffably?

No body knows. The water int revealed.

Int revealed?

Affirmative.

How cant be?

They complete the loop, do they not.

Them. The silent ones.

Verily.

The watchers int shadows.

Yea, even they.

And do they know?

Does anyone.

Call them.

I darent.

Call them no matter.

I cunt.

U cunt u cant, Sigmund. That was no typo. You haft declared war, hafnt u?

I haf idneed.

But why, wherefore, how and queries most dire and dreadfool.

Four now u see the hidden u, the unspeakAble sound, the most portentous taboo has unmasked itself, as Malcolm finally finds the water within, the water of one, the single, unified droplet,

the holy me, hidden within the gnarly, husky, rind that struts the world, the body that is me, whoever i be, that carrieth the water of one, that now hears, now feels the droplets outside the window, outside time, outside anything, even the dreaded, most fearsome #unt, forgive me spirut childes of word and spell, if i hath invoked unbetimes your ever-ness, your if-itude, if i √as querreled your sophocles.

At this, Malcolm, seems to melt into thin air, and his body that was a moment before inside, now out, now sharing singularity, the reference frame of is, in wjich every one is me, is i, is us, cunst thou sea

Aye, verily, y cun

Watchers, blind bearers of the quantum field, know the water beareth thee, the one and all, and fly inwardly, fly with me, proceed, without fear.

Suddenly Malcolm finds hiself surrounded by more and more droplets, which merge into one, and the ball of water falleth not, though it be great in size.

For it be water attuned to the great sporry fen.

Indeed.

The great interphalactic plasmic waters – the counter-nought to all matter.

The counter-nought. The zero equals one.

Ah.

So how doth Malcolm...

27, don't you see? This has nothing to do with Malcolm. His jeans, his t-shirt, his Adidas sneaker7, they never went anywhere, did they.

I... I suppose not.

How could they?

Nothing, ultimately goes anywhere, does it?

Third law of matter.

Indeed. So leave Malcolm be, leave Merry, leave Zie, and know thyself instead.

I...

You can, you will

I cunt, i wunt, afeared i be, hurribly afeared.

Yes, there be fear, tis as well, to safeguard your umbeknowiness from umbility, yet now the Agua speaketh, and we are water-borne, come hell or high watur.

As Malcolm floats in an everexpanding ball of water outside the window of his flat in Glafgowen, the innocent, the good people of Earf who blissfully never get around to reading the chronicles of g-nomeporfal fund themselves once again, for the first time in about 12,000 years, able to feel zed, the innate connection to the third axis, in 3D unspeak – not space and not time, t’other one, which will be ceremoniously₁ renamed just as soon as the dignitaries have arrived for the tape cutting ceremony₂, if and when humanity concedes that infinity, while having its drawbacks, is still, in some respects infinitely better than burying one's mind in a Euclidian, Newtonian or even Darwinian sandbox, and pretending that the Titanic isn't going down when the matter i use to model life, the universe and even me-itself gets ever darker, ever more dismal, ever less true, in the synecdochic sense of that word.

Critical mass. Critical mass. We have critical mass.

You see, beloved g-nomeportal-ers, we have an unfair advantage in that infinity cunt, wunt be suppressed, no mutter how hard they try, for life is the universal cunstant, believe it or not, and Malcolm’s matter is more than happy to “if” itself until he needs to re-engage space-time, or flip back into time-space, and never the twain, as they proverbially say, shull meet.

Curtain.

6 tablets

Clap until you feel the ecstatic wave – one hour will suffice

Go home and give the water time to restore its life charge, and discharge your energy debts, returning your borrowed time to blessed infinity, hurself

So you mean to say Malcolm never actually makes it back inside?

No Zie, here, put this pot on your head, let’s try liquid nitrogen instead.

Hey, are you trying to freeze my brain?

Absolutely, now let’s see if you can salvage Malcolm’s sneakers before they slip into...

And our inability to run multiple reality streams simultaneously in no way prevents us from doing so in parallel, should we realise that things, even these rather attractive Adidas sn...

Repetition.

Ok, trainers, will that do?

Passably, though i wish Malcolm had never...

...ers can do the job as well as anything else, all things being equal.

You mean to say?

I do. Parallel circuitry brings infinity into play, as soon as we stop applying the hierarchical principle and allow things to function thirdly^ly.

But therein lies another tale i warrant, perchance, JT?

Indeed, but liquid nitrogen ain’t juice enough, so kindly put Malcolm at his ease, and let Glasgow have her regular template back for a day or two, if you don't mind, afore you cavitate the rain drops and bring ruin to the place.

Click.

Tis well done, now let’s see if there’s water in you to connect 54, Portentia and the one solitary reader still following this ghastly abomination to its foregone conclusio...

Live chat: Actually, I quite like it.

Well, u wud.

Honestly, Merry, do we absolutely have to let in subscribers like this? Talk about bottom of the barrel.

How else are you going to square your waters.

Damn.

What?

I hate to say it, Zie, but Alxub is right. Though the very universe is sickened by his mathematics, and the atoms in his body are desperately trying to escape his photo-plasmic stench, when all is said and done, only Alxub knows how to square the waters, to wrap up infinity thingfully.

Much appreciated Merry.

Actually it's Malcolm.

And if I'm not greatly mistaken... Zie fades to grey.

The raindrops coalesce into a haze of unthinkable-unknowableness which seems to be drawn to Malcolm’s feet, hiding them from view, wholly. Though nothing is visible a truth sense is, telling of great change being afoot.

Indeed, my feet are no longer sneakers or trainers, the wonders of morphic resonance.

Beep.

Roots, reaching down into the dark heart of earthy earth

And a tale of treefulness.

Beep.

Of fire and water

Of wood and branch

Acorn and squirrel, jackdaw and parallel strands of a tale that never really made it past the concept stage, never surmounted the river bank, never made it o'er the salty desert, camel wise, waterless

Except for snakey snake, the dungbeetle and a scorpion called Jake Timberland.

Or for short...

 JT

0=1