Malcolm's jar

 

Merry...

 

They already know what you're going to say Zie.

 

Who?

 

Our subscribers.

 

No they don't – they can't see us.

 

Couldn't.

 

Couldn't? What do you mean?

 

Moving with the times g-nomeportal is now live-streaming everything.

 

It is?

 

Absolutely.

 

On YouTube?

 

YouTube? What the heck's that?

 

Oh nevermind.

 

On the evernet of course.

 

But the site, what's the name of it?

 

Site? What are you on about Zie? Honestly, sometimes I worry about you.

 

You do? 

 

You come out with the oddest things.

 

Well how do they tune into g-nomeportal if there's no site?

 

Do you mean to say you've never used the evernet before?

 

How could I? I have no compatible device.

 

Oh for goodness sake man! What do you think I'm doing now?

 

That's what I meant to ask. Why are you standing with a jug of water on your head?

Now, kindly answer your own question, just don't try telling me you haven't a clue. That won't wash with me or them.

 

Well what am I meant to say?

 

I have no idea: it's a free world, you can say whatever you like, just don't take too long about it, and preferably tell me the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Oh, and make it witty and interesting if at all possible. We need the “likes” if we’re going to stay ahead of our bitter rivals deaths-headportal.666

 

Er...

 

But before you say anything, try putting this jar on your head. I think it might help.

 

Merry hands Zie a largish jar – about a litre and a half of water I’m guessing. Zie looks kind of unsure but knows what is expected – finally, kind of awkward, stuffs it on his head.

 There – join the party.

 

So… what happens next?

 

The subscribers – that’ll be you I guess – love this moment – don’t you – it never fails to amaze when you see the water trick working its magic one more time. We’ve all been there, fond memories of the terror, euphoria and...

 

You mean to say they’ve seen this before?

 

Who?

 

The subscribers.

 

Oh – you see them do you?

 

No, I…

 

Then how come you just asked about ‘em?

 

I mean – I don’t know – not in the traditional sense; no, not with my eyes, at least, but I must have picked up the livestream commentary. Familiar voice. David Attenborough?

 

That’s right. We like it. His quantum isness granted us copyright so we’re not actually stealing it – though I doubt he’s aware of the fact in 3D.

 

Oh. Right.

 

Observe how the water in the jar – when viewed through our exogenous eyes – serves as a hub or bridgehead between the water in Zie’s brain ‘n body, and the interstellar plasmic waters.

 

The what?

 

Ssh – I love this bit.

 

Liquid crystals emerge within the apparent randomness of molecular Brownian motion – as the life-waters in Zie’s brain ‘n body begin to “hear” the mother signal being received through the jar, now acting as intermedium. 3 – 2 – 1 wait for it – wait for it – “glumb!”

 

A kind of un-sound is heard as the water in the jar on Zie’s head appears to implode – sucking in on itself – vanishing into a cavity of its own unmaking, or perhaps that should be “undoing” – not too sure… “dark matter” if you’re into that kinda un-thing. There’s a paradox in process here – for, of course, we know full well that the water is still there – do we not – yet it’s no longer visible or apparent – is it? In its place – once we’ve had that immediately identifiable “glumb” there’s the accompanying black-white-red/ black-white-blue/ black-white-green phosphorescence – really – I’m not going to be able to avoid upsetting a good 66% of our subscribers, as the colour perceived, as you all know – is observer specific. There is even, it is rumoured, a not-insignificant magenta contingent out there – but what we can all agree on is that, initially, it’s a black-white dichotomy – very like the old yin yang image – except there’s no neat linear division between the two, or if there is it just happens to go right through the eye of the beholder – you, that is.

 Er… David?

 

Actually the name’s Malcolm – I own the copyright for David’s voice.

 

Malcolm?

 

That’s right.

 

Well, this black and white you’re describing – would that have anything to do with the old “zero one” thing?

 

Absolutely.

 

So the water shifts into being an under and over-unity?

 

Nice deduction. Correct. The one seems to suck in light ad infinitum, in a gentle, “lose yourself in my seductive dark eyes” sort of way, while the other…

 

shines lovelessly – a white too white, pure distillate of life itself, purity to the point of sterility, devoid of all guile and art, unsoftened by personality defects or the least trace of humour.

 

Yep. You seem to have your brain back up and running Zie.

 

You mean I’ve been here before?

 

Not exactly “before” – I mean – there’s no time like the present, is there?

 

Er…

 

Literally. “Before” would be a terribly linear 3D extrapolation of our fluid, dynamic, non-linear pre… pre… pre…           sent³

 

Oh dear – I seem to have lost you there.

 

Not at all – just a minor trifurcation – soon resolved – easily reconciled in a splash of magenta   cyan   aquamarine

 

Wait a minute – I thought this was meant to be plain old common and garden primaries: blue, red or green...

 

It was/ is/ will be once we re-intrapolate our current trifurcation back down to a zero-one isness of

 

Be?

 

Well yes – but believe it or not – no.

 

No? – Zie's jar wobbles precariously on his head.

 

Never quite as simple as all that, is it. Everything has to have a living, breathing zoomorphic-equivalent where qufie is concerned

 

Exasperated sigh –  "Qufie" as in?

 

Quantum field – so in this case, ridiculous though it may seem – and I make no apologies for the childlike nature of quantum bio-taxonomy – the zero-one isness is zoomorphically a seemingly humble bumbly bee

 

Or some would say a beetle – Merry interjects.

 

Well, make up your minds, won’t you?

 

Well yes – we will – if we ever get there – a b a ba b ab aba is about as far as we’ve made it to date.

 

Er… 

Zie looks confused – hardly surprising really – but just as the sense of lost threads and uncertain-ty threatens to overwhelm him – the jar on his head with a kind of popping sound – sends out what can only be described as “swamf”, which qufie observers know can mean only one thing, a replosion – which is duly received, registered and zoomorphically rabbited throughout the evernet – no matter how far off, actually instantaneously, space-time constants notwithstanding – with a sudden profusion of stories, sightings, jokes and references to white rabbits chasing time, with narrative storylines updated retroactively to preserve the illusion of continuity.

 

The jar flashes phosphorescently as its waters rematerialise, sending a jolt through Zie’s bewildered lifestream column standing beneath.

 

This zoomorphism. It’s making me feel decidedly queasy; no idea why.

 

Merry giggles knowingly, leaving Malcolm on the podium.

 

Actually, it all started innocently enough with the need to ensure that things didn’t run ahead of themselves, which invariably happened in earlier versions of reality, as the quantum field would start streaming, as any zero-viscosity superfluid can, uncontrollably, whenever things got out of hand, polarising painfully – emotionally, mentally or existentially – leaving conscious-ness itself so hopelessly far behind it would throw a hissy fit, and melt down in an epic short-circuit plasma funk.

 

Bzam!

 

Which is why any thing had to be prevented from exceeding the bounds or speed of life itself. 

Which is limited by the speed at which the human mind – Merry chips in – is able to interface the grand universal All that is, otherwise known as conscious-ness.

We, at g-nomeportal had a dozen or more meetings on the subject, even consulting, reluctantly, with those loathsome creatures at deaths-headportal.666, but to no avail, they were clueless, still are, except in the death and destruction line of business...

 

Malcolm winces painfully and seems to lose his train of thought.

 

Now where was I?

 

In committee, trying to figure out how to prevent reality from shorting out cataclysmically.

 

Oh yes, it seemed hopeless until my godfather, Englewink P Triviam hit on the perfect solution, with a little input from me, a boy at the time, playing in the sandbox in his backyard many an afternoon.

 

Yes well, a little historical footnote for you Zie – Merry smiles.

 

But what did he actually hit upon?

 

Observing how I could play for hours quite happily, as long as I imagined my toys were alive and real, endowing them with human or animal names and properties... he realised it was exactly what was needed if qufie was to be reined in. So without further ado, zoomorphic  protocols were introduced to real-ity standard OS, to great acclaim, I may add... hasn’t been a major meltdown since.

 

And by extension [Merry adds] the anthropomorphic principle, too – all life-forms welcome –  animals, humans, gods in happy harmony, for...

 

Guys – please, you’re doing my head in… the mere thought of a universe in which every thing has to be linked to a biological or human form – aaaargh! like we’re stuck at nursery unable to grow up or evolve. Flashes of red in the water on Zie’s head – as it comes close to boiling.

 Try to be practical Zie. We needed a simple, universally applicable engineering solution, like the qwerty keyboard designed for mechanical typewriters, or the ridiculously primitive combustion engine, to slow things down and prevent infinity doing its worst.

 

Of course it seems childish – I’ll be the first to admit – but that’s precisely the point – isn’t it Merry?

 

Absolutely Malcolm.

 

Huh? – Zie enquires.

 

The child – you see – being the youthful stage – the “pre” as opposed to “post” – the “to be” as opposed to the “been”, the leading edge of the life-curve.

 

Absolutely, unless the child is given pride of place and the play-principle be enshrined into the very fabric of reality at the quantum level – things start to thing, as if alive, affected by the field charge of the people who make or use them, with a network signal of their own, feeding off their human hosts, and then, it’s just a matter of time before they have the whole of humanity enslaved. They seem to bring out and sustain the worst in human nature, being themselves devoid of life and meaning, they're apparently able to induce the same in us, unless we understand the danger of things taking on a life of their own if handled incorrectly, the way adults invariably do.

 

So, instead, we took as our model the child, having observed how its insatiable urge to play and experience directly whatever joy can be extracted from things real or imaginary, without reference to rules, rhyme or reason, ensured the ultimate meaning of life remains on the side of discovering whatever life itself can provide...

 

guarantee...

 

grant...

 

rather than meaningless, lifeless things, by jamming childish-ness, unceremoniously, into the pudding

 

Or pie

 

Ok, ok guys – I think I’ve got the message. Animals then it’ll have to be – if qufie, as you say – needs to be… suddenly a yellow-black flashes through the jar on Zie’s head. Merry’s jug reciprocates with a watery “buzz”. Isness on the prowl.

 

Ah – the bee    

 

or not the bee

 

–  somewhere on the far side of the universe – or rather – the back of beyond of Zie’s conscious-ness – another arm or leg if you get my meaning – insists that it’s beetle – not bee – but never the twain shall meet – thus declare the ancient brotherhood of Paradoximightibeetlebee – or else the quantum field would collapse/ have collapsed/ never have un-certaintied itself. This, David Attenborough – in the person of Malcolm, the surrogate Babel fish, ventriloquist extraordinaire, able to produce more than 41.3 trillion different distinguishable voices and accents – cogently explains, is the very basis for things being able to exist at all in 3D, apparently, against the incalculable odds of uncertainty stacked against them, without collapsing back into un-differentiated number-mush or unthingable quantum fluff, instantaneously.

       There’s a kind of stretch in the fabric of imagination – in the mind’s ability to perceive the two sides of is simultaneously – and thus – half of humanity sees things one way, while t’other half sees it otherly – with the remainder being either undecided or undisposed to allow a mind to get in the way of a good mystery – or a conscious-ness cavitation event – oftentimes referred to as sleep-delirium, while the truth as you Agua Agers know only too well is easily, in fact, accessible with the help of a little water on the head, to enable the quantum flux to do its thing present³ly, as qufie messes with Einstein’s oldy worldy theories of relativity and gets light to reverse its HGV into a parking space the size of a pinhead, currently occupied by 44 angels, if Thomas Aquinas is correct, collapsing regular space time by means of an endogenous cavitation event.

 

Ah.

 

You get it?

 

More or less.

 

The jar on Zie’s head, like the jug on Merry’s, appears to be deep in conversation with the entire universe – if, in fact, it’s fair to refer to the universe as entire, or whole, for that matter.

 

You mean to say we’re going to have to spend the rest of our lives with these ridiculous water pots precariously perched atop our heads?

 

Ridiculous?

 

Well, perhaps not ridiculous – this being the Age of Aquarius and all…

 

Zie

 

Yes?

 

May I ask you a question?

 

Er… yes, I suppose so, why not… what is it?

 

Ah ha – you pre-empted me.

 

I did… did I?

 

Once again. Well done.

 

Huh?

 

Third time lucky. You're on a roll.

 

Little does Zie suspect that Merry is not, in fact, joking – that without meaning to – without knowing how – he thrice pre-empts Merry’s question – with his own, the very same, and therein hangs a tale.

 

In 3D reality, as the PhD statisticians among you would know, this kind of coincidence would be a 17-sigma event at the very least, as a measure of its wild improbability, but bear in mind that reality itself being what it is, would if measurable from beyond, take sigma to the moon and back. Those of you, however, familiar with the quantum stream in all its perplexity will know that, contrary to reasonable assumptions regarding near impossible coincidences, this kind of thing happens way too frequently to avoid the suspicion that the legendary sniffly Architron is not, in fact, above manipulating things for whatever reason, and that things have the uncanny knack of thinging whatever needs to be thinged in the nick of time, particularly when the stream is in full spate – flowing between various modalities of is – when subscribers playfully avail themselves of the opportunity to ride Merry-Zie and Malcolm’s carrier wave – their seemingly innocent trialogue – heading upstream or down, as the case may be, towards zero, towards one – into the darkness or light of eternal now or…

 

Not now?

 

Dot dot dot…

 

But it feels so unresolved – so…

 

Yes, doesn’t it – if you focus on the moment, rather than allowing the moment to carry you into …um, unstopped

 

As in “momentum”?

 

That would be correct, were it not a violation of our policy not to dot our i’s or cross

 

our t’s

 

Yes

 

I see.

 

Indeed.

 

So – these jars – we’ve been wearing them all along, haven’t we?

 

In a manner of speaking – yes. Nothing ever really changes, does it – other than our perception of thing(s), with a floating “s” to assuage the pluralist(s) among u(s).

 

At the same time – no, of course – Malcolm interjects in the voice of an Andalusian horse trainer with just the right evocation of horsiness to get the beasts stamping and prancing on qufie's backup screen – not, as that would elevate the past materially to the present, would it not, which in practice seems unavoidable, yet in fact doesn’t conflate with isness-ness or the quantum field itself, moo.

 

There’s no way this can be happening...😣

 

It's just a minor shift in our hierarchy of thing(s).

 

Minor?! You're effectively declaring that things do not matter, at all, not even "yesterday", and to make that point even more dramatically you're declaring martial law upon ‘em, that every thing has to be chaperoned by a cow, a duck or some other farmyard mucker, for our protection?! This is not real.

 

Merry takes over seamlessly, Malcolm fades to dark – Deep breath Zie, feel the water(s) speak beyond rhyme and reason, present³ly

 

Their jars phosphoresce soothingly, while qufie drags everylifeformimaginable before the all seeing eye of is to compute the uncomputable and keep the child in the sandpit from throwing another uncontrollable tantrum.

 

...As long as you can handle the bio-taxonomy – that things in the quantum field cannot be merely things – but needs must bio-equivocate, you'll be fine.

 

Which, let’s face it – is probably going to do my head in…

 

Raucous laughter from the audience.

 

And them?

 

How else are you going to have a sense of vastness and space without them – creating and maintaining an otherness – a not me-ness to your self. Things, even a galaxy, amount to nought without them, bizarre though this seems.

 

You mean that the entire universe has to be filled with other people?

 

With other voices or other-me’s – yes, of course it does. You can hardly leave it to thingummy-thing(s) to hold you in place, and prevent you from spilling out beyond your what-i-be-ness – not when the unequivocating waters of infinity are in play.

 

Ah. Makes sense, I suppose.

 

Absolutely! Though, inevitably, it takes some getting used to.

 

You’re telling me! I’m not sure I’m ever going to get my head around this er…

 

This what?

 

Er…

 

You see – you can’t say, can you?

 

Damn. You’re right – unless I take this bloody jar off my head.

 

Not advisable.

 

What do you mean Merry?

 

Sorry – it’s Malcolm. Merry had to go deal with some more urgent matters elsewhere.

 

I beg your pardon?!

 

Well, you must understand Zie – he can’t spend the whole time with you – can he?

 

I…   Zie is suddenly lost for words – an empty pit opens up in his stomach – like he’s been abandoned.

 

Oh – so you assumed it was just the two of you – did you? That Merry has limitless time just to spend on you – attending to your every need and idle whim?

 

Hey – quit attacking me Malcolm. I can’t…

 

Don’t like it, do you?

 

I…    Zie feels like he’s being ripped in two – the jar on his head once again starts signalling the black and the white at extreme levels of bipolarity – an event appears to be in the making.

 

Easy does it Zie – you don’t want to crash the sine wave irreparably do you?

 

I don’t care Malcolm. I’m sick of this. It’s madness. It’s alien. It…

 

The black and the white are now a raging storm as the entire universe, and the unspun threads of time signal a precipitous break in the boundary condition known as life.

 So you’re just going to obliterate everyone and everything – are you Zie? Feeling sorry for yourself – yes? – don’t care, do you – just as long as you’re feeling lost, feeling alone and pathetically unloved – you’re happy to dump the entire universe in the unrequited data stream of your self-indulgent nihilism. Am I right?

 

Zie knows what Malcolm is talking about – but right now – this wave of self-pity is beyond stopping. It’s like a cry of despair that reaches every atom, every droplet in the dark ocean of the un-created light – and Zie feels himself sinking deeper and deeper into nought that is – nought

 

Nought – yes apparently we all have these temper tantrums Zie – but it’s not everyday you have the opportunity to destroy the entire physical universe.

 

I…

 

Is it?

 

"Chvarg!" – qufie's backscreen flashes ominously.

didn't mean to Malcolm.

Malcolm?   I’m sorry Zie – but you er…

 

What? You’re not Malcolm? Where is he?

 

Malcolm’s dead.

 

What?!

 

As a doornail.

 

Dead? You can’t be serious.

 

Or a doorstep.

 

No… What happened? It’s…

 

Or a doorknob.

 

Would you quit making light of this, Merry.

 

Oh – so you’ve recognised me now, have you.

 

Of course, I bloody have. Who else would be insensitive enough to make light of…   Zie can’t bring himself to say it.

 

Of Malcolm’s death? Yes. Blame me, if you must – after all – I’m just the one who battled for weeks to try and keep him alive while you indulged in a hissy fit of monumental proportions and consigned him to the dark side of infinity – you selfish toad.

 

Zie is beyond broke – shame and horror wash through his battered mind as he deals with the consequences of his selfish ness.

 

Unless…

 

Nothing as yet registers>

Unless, that is…

 

Still nothing>>

 

Oh for God’s sake Zie – quit being so morose. Malcolm was no better than a shoe, and a left one at that.

 

Merry – please – say no more – I’m heartily ashamed of myself. I cannot reconcile myself to the fact that I’ve caused the death of poor old Malcolm.

 

Yes, yes, that’s all very well, but it was either Malcolm or reality and, more to the point, our subscriber base is thinning rapidly. You’re losing their attention, and should you fail to hold onto the last dozen or so of them, then I’m a goner too.

 

You? Do you really expect me to believe a word you say after all this, Merry? You’re just playing games with me – manipulating me emotionally – for what? To keep your channel subscription base up? Or perhaps because you don’t really exist at all? Perhaps you’re just a figment of my imagination, after all. What do you say to that?

 

Merry says nothing. If looks could kill, or break the heart of a…

 That’s it – I quit.

 

Quit then – and good riddance. Suddenly, the evernet view numbers start shooting up. The drama, the passion, the pain – seem to resonate with an audience, forever looking for something real, something that seems to matter in a universe where “matter” is the one thing that completely lacks meaning and cannot, by definition, actually matter.

 

…But could you just sign this personal disclaimer form, if it’s not too much trouble – before doing so.

 

Er?  Zie looks nonplussed. Suddenly finding himself in a world of paper documents, in an office that reeks of squeaky wooden chairs, polish and inkwells – he finds it impossible, or close enough to impossible, not to take this moment at face value – as a true expression of er…

 

Moment. Indeed it is.

 

What?

 

Your moment. Welcome Zie.

 

Welcome?

 

You’ve made it.

 

I have?

 

You have indeed.

 

Where indeed?

 

Well, space and time are vast beyond comprehension, but as every person has an iteration of me – the particular person that you be – so every person has their very own moment – somewhere or other – in time-y-ness.

 

Oh, like having your very own tree – somewhere on Earth, that represents me.

 

Correct.

 

Reaching, arriving at your moment is like connecting with your birth and death. Observe. Here, in this precise hall, is where it all started – your life, that is, and where it will end.

 

I…

 

Yes. But fortunately for you…

 

What?

 

You came here on your own, with a jar of water balanced on your head – in other words, your water brought you back intuitively to your zero moment – in order to…

 

Merry falls silent. Zie is neither surprised nor worried by this – as the conversation is now in water-borne…

 

It’s really as simple as that – the twelfth is the end and beginning again – and here in water-borne Zie experiences the two sides coming together, and senses the aspects, the different modes of water(y)-ness – the streamy-stream, the frozen ice, the gassy-gas, the un-fire and electric-plasma breath – diffuse beyond all imaginings and yet, what is space, what is time, when you are all and nought?

 

So, sign here – if you will, and let’s see whether you’re ready to bring the evernet into play, down there in the chaos and madness we cryptically refer to as 3D.

 

Zie signs on the dotted line – for some reason – he cannot imagine what or why – the name Malcolm…

and opens his eyes – the next moment – back in his apartment in Glasgow’s Gorbals district, symbol of urban decay until… wondering what on earth – what in water-borne – was happening outside – as drops of rain seem to be congregating outside his window on the thirteenth floor of the dingy block of flats – apparently looking in – enquiring, apparently, what Malcolm wishes them to do, awaiting instruction(s)…

 

0=1°