Hey, Merry!
Huh?
Wher’uv you been all this time?
Time?
Since I last saw you.
For a moment Merry looks confused, lost in uffish thought. Then his face releases whatever it was that was holding him in thinkitude – more like a “whatever” moment than a “eureka – got it”. Zie shifts, sensing he ain’t gonna get an easy answer.
You must be mistaking me for someone else.
Huh?!
I don’t recall ever seeing you before.
Merry – quit pulling my leg.
Merry?
Now it’s Zie’s turn to be confused, uncertain – could there be a mistake? – but no way – it’s Merry alright.
Have you been sick Merry? Is that what it is?
Sick?
Yes. Is that why you’ve been absent?
Honestly, I have no idea what you’re on about. I’m on my way to the bus stop. I have to go now.
Bus stop? I never knew you take a bus before.
Like I said – you’re evidently mistaking me for someone else – this Merry you mentioned.
Far from being confused Zie is more convinced than ever that this is actually Merry – though his performance, if performance it is, is flawless.
And you are? – if you don’t mind me asking?
Temp.
Temp?
That’s right.
Well Temp, pleased to meet you. My name’s…
Zie.
Hey! You said you don’t know me!
I know, I don’t – but apparently you’re Zie.
And when did you figure that out Temp?
I knew it the moment you were about to utter your name – not before.
Ah. How interesting.
Is it?
Do you, er…
What?
Do you often figure stuff out in the nick of time?
Can’t say I know.
Huh?
I have no recollection.
Of what exactly?
Of anything
Anything?
whatsoever.
You mean to say you have no recollection of your existence, other than the fact that your name is Temp?
Correct.
But that’s…
Preposterous?
Precisely.
Is it?
Well…
It seems normal enough to me.
If you know nothing else.
Nothing, I assure you, is precisely what I know.
Nothing?
Precisely.
A light starts to dawn in Zie’s benighted mind. Nothing, after all, is a subject dear to Merry’s heart.
How precisely exactly, if you don’t mind me asking, do you know nothing?
Oh, I’m glad you asked.
You are?
Yes, it really is a matter dear to my heart…
Nothing is?
Precisely.
Well? Aren’t you going to tell me?
How much do you want to know?
Just the answer – the precise degree to which you know nothing.
That depends how you want me to answer. Mode A or B?
Strangely enough Zie understands that mode A is a number while mode B is the direct experience – a kind of full-bodied Mandelbrot zoom into the fractal abyss of nothingness.
I think A would be best – the number, if you don’t mind.
Timid soul, aren’t we.
That’s what Merry says all the time.
Yes, well I’d better transmit the data uffishly – otherwise we’ll be here forever. Uffish data conveyance harnesses the quantum bandwidth of the bionet – which connects all life throughout the universe – both organic and, somewhat incredibly, inorganic.
Let me get this right – we are talking about er… nothing?
Temp says nothing – looking patiently, though somewhat pained at someone who, apparently, knows nothing whatsoever about the deep, dark complexity of precisely nothingness.
Affirmative – he answers in mentat mode – pure mind – all emotions, all personality removed from the cluttered table-top of rational discourse.
Well how much data can this possibly involve, for gussake? This uffish datastream is like taking an H bomb to open a banana, if you don’t mind me saying.
Patience. Temp almost shudders, almost fails to hold the mentat calm detachment necessary to preserve the integrity of his operationality – but somehow allows the spasm to pass through, and the universe breathes a noticeable sigh of relief. The whips and scorns of time, after all, are the least we must endure if we’re to succeed in our quantum mission – to make sense of nothing whatsoever, precisely, if at all.
In a voice of utter control, utter detachment, utter PhDipity – Consider the following: nothing – as you know – is measured as a circle, i.e. an inverse zero point.
It is? Why’s that, I wonder?
Really, I could tell you but until you’ve inversed your zero point it’s not going to mean much to you, or make any sense whatsoever.
Ok – so fire ahead.
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844...
Pi again.
Of course.
Why did you stop?
Bandwidth restraints.
!?!>!>#?
The idea that uffish bandwidth could ever lack the capacity to transmit data in anything less than a nanosecond frankly shocks Zie to the core.
It’s going to take longer than your present life span to get through the first 6 tiers of nought, Time being what it is.
Ah. And how many do we need to get through?
A googol – or thereabouts.
As in 10100?
That’s right.
And that’s absolutely necessary, is it?
If you’re keen to know the precise extent to which I know nothing – yes.
Then what about method B?
Much faster. Full body immersion in uF, the field – utilising your almost unlimited consciousnessness – the entire universe at your disposal, your very own quantumisation. If you’re able to hold alignment. If you’re able to bear the whips and scorns of Time – as we unfurcate – as we approach the tridential speed of nought.
And if I’m not?
I think you can guess.
Damn – it’s always so life and death with you, Merry.
Merry?
I mean Temp. You’re not by any chance a temporary file holding Merry’s position while he’s out there cogitating infinity are you?
I wouldn’t know, would I, nought being precisely what it is, not.
Er…?
So, whadda you say?
You seem very keen for me to experience the totality of nought which, the more I think about it, sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Yes, it's not the kind of thing I recommend normally, but you don't really have a choice.
I beg your pardon?
Like I said, what choice do you have?
Of course I have a choice! What nonsense are you talking?
I don't want to upset you, 6, but look around, you need to be aware of where you are.
Firstly, my name is Zie, not 6, and secondly, I know exactly where I am.
Yes?
Exactly where I was when you strolled into my study.
Your study?
Zie looks around more carefully and realises with a “this can’t be happening to me again” sinking feeling in the near bottomless pit of his stomach, painfully aware that this ain't his study, and that yes, technically Temp is right about him being 6.
Gulp.
Nothing for it, “buckle your seatbelt Dorothy, because Kansas is going bye-bye" seems to be order of the day. But 6 is activated, and prepared to leave the wilting, fear-impacted Zie behind, adopting the “it's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it” mode of calm resolve. Here, on the dark side of things, where matter ain’t what it seems, 6 is in its element: the challenge is accepted, Zie adopts the crash position and readies his facial muscles for the Edvard Munch “Scream” position, whimpering quietly.
Not one to gloat over another's misfortune, Temp readies the launch sequence, doing a bunch of hand, body, face movements which seem to electrify the air. A powerful merkaba field materialises around them, cocooning Zie from the fierce torsions of impending doom. Astonishingly quickly the terror passes and his attention is all on Temp’s bizarre kata-like sequence of distinctive energy moves.
Having fun, Temp? Zie tries to make light of things, but realises the crass stupidity of failing to accept his role, failing to personify, failing to be 6, totally.
Click. With acceptance comes a sudden breathtaking shift of awareness.
Ah! Got it! He thinks aloud, neither expecting nor needing an answer. Zie knows exactly what
Temp is doing as he completes the launch sequence; likewise, the fact that his Zieness and that side of story is integral to 6’s role. He finds himself moving in unison with Temp with an unconscious sense of purpose and finality.
On the other side of things, in a 3D reality that no longer holds water, a fill-in version of Zie continues thinking mostly harmless things: Funny the way regular, inconsequential guys like me are part of something else, something the mind utterly refuses to accept… and even things like this unremarkable table extend into everything else, regardless of how or where, visibly so, if we were able to override the “tis no matter: forget or ignore” directive. Ye Gods, hidden in plain sight all the time. Ye Gods!
The irony makes Zie chuckle out loud. Oops. Bifurcation. For a split-second laughter reinfuses the Zie-Merryness cymatic, before once again it’s Temp and 6, po-faced, focussed on revisiting the totality of nought.
Blip: The quantum computer is really not half as complicated as what they've been banging on about.
No?
Absolutely not...
Well?
...
Are you going to enlighten me Merry, or are we shifting into full meditation mode?
Always so impatient. Here, catch this.
Merry tosses Zie an orange, apparently, which seems to hang in the air an eternity before finally making it to Zie’s hand.
How did you do that Merry?
Yawn. Look at your calendar.
Zie, nonplussed, grabs his phone. Seems to be another pointless excursion into Merry’s world of differentiality.
Nothing strange to see. Time is as time always has been, regular and predictable.
The year
…?
Look at the year.
Zie sighs and glances at the year on his calendar.
2091?!
Merry smiles, impishly. Are you sure that's right Zie?
No, it can't be, of course not. 70 years can't just pass in a flash. In any case my phone’s still working. It’d have died long ago if 70 years has elapsed.
In the normal state of affairs, yes, of course it would, but not if we've just gone through a time cavity.
A time cavity? What on earth are you on about?
Just spouting nonsense, as usual, but something tells me you were spectacularly successful.
I was?
Yes. When I tossed you the orange I was holding it back, with a little help from Temp and 6 at the inner-edge of precisely nought.
Temp and 6? Sudden flashback moment. Oh no! Those two? You don't mean to say...
Zie doesn't finish what he's saying. Time bifurcations are not the kind of thing you need when you're trying to finish a rational sentence, when suddenly you feel time whiplashing beneath your feet, oscillating between a timeless there and a now which can’t handle the not-whatness of nought, big-time nought, precisely nought, nothing emphatically much100 unleashed.
What have you guys been doing?!
Zie is incensed, standing there at the gates of infinity with an orange in his hand. Actually, he has a series of apparent oranges almost in his hand, as he seems to be speaking from 70 different time frames simultaneously.
Ah, you’ve made it Zie, in the nick of time.
In the nick of time, you cloth-headed imbeciles? You've dragged me 70 years into the future and have the temerity to say...
Tush, tush Zie – we’re all in this together, and you couldn't be here without having chosen to override Merry’s frame-frozen orange, mistakenly believing a thing to be just a thing, an orange an orange – nothing more.
Damn you fools! Have you nothing better to do than mess around with the source code of reality?
On the contrary, angry orange, we’re doing nothing of the sort, battling with forks to reverify nothing.
I beg your pardon.
Re-verifying nothing, you heard.
And why on earth would you want to do that, if it’s not too much to ask?
Precisely the same reason you wanted the orange to reach your hand in a timely manner, not remaining suspended amid frame for eternity.
No, you’ve lost me.
Things matter, don’t they?
Er...
But in order for them to matter in a way that is meaningful we need to reverify nought, to ensure that nothing is precisely what it needs to be.
And?
It's like tuning an instrument, we need to ensure the octave is perfect, which in our case relates to time, doesn’t it?
Er...
Time slippage renders the whole of reality tuneless and, by inference, meaningless.
So what? It's beyond my comprehension, whatever you're on about. All I know is that you guys...
Another time wobble bifurcation moment stops Zie amidstream... “You guys” is rendered null and void when he’s no longer able to differentiate between them and me.
So, you see Zie, we’ve googled nothing with great purpose and warrior-like determination, only to discover that the forks have to somehow unfork without reversing, if we’re to complete our validation.
Of nothing?
Of precisely nothing, yes, you’re a fast learner for all your oranges.
And what exactly does this unforking entail, if you don't mind me asking?
No, not in the least.
Er...
Ask whatever you like. But your words are keeping you at the bottom edge of precisely nothing, far beneath the slot you need to access if we’re to undot i and uncross t.
So I’m supposed to just dive in like a power ranger, like saving the universe from time slippage is my main concern.
No.
...
Oh, it’s a silence speaks louder than words thing is it?
Correct. It's a no thing carries infinitely more data than something, for no thing holds infinity as the eye of the storm. Try it a second. Here, this might help.
6 fires a Remington with a silver bullet, which stops an inch before Zie’s head.
For a moment Zie is too shocked to say anything, then finds himself taking a deep breath and feeling the time nexus around him which the bullet cannot cross. Around him, did I say, within to no less extent, as we are apparently, the very stuff of interwoven time-yness. Ripples of time awareness pulse through Zie’s field of isness, and yes, the silver bullet, as you've probably already guessed, balances the timelocked orange on the other side.
“You mean like time flowing backwards,” comments one of our linear-minded subscribers.
I mean nothing of the sort replies the bullet which has bifurcated into a seven headed time wraith. You see how quickly this gets out of hand, big time, when we’re bumping against the googly edge of infinity.
“So I guess it makes sense. Perfect sense,” says Zie to the time wraith-cum-silver bullet. The numbers cascading down the screen behind are eigther accelerating to infinity or coming to a standstill depending on your mode of viewing. “Yes, i choose to play.”
Hurray! I knew he would.
No, that's not 6. You must be out of your mind. This is a serious moment in which everything and nothing, like two very proud, fastidious lovers decide whether or not to er... the less said...
Comments are now closed, guys, this live stream spanning 70 years of Earth slash human time cannot be derailed by popcorn toting clowns with...
Click. Narrative voice deactivated too.
6 and Zie step up to the barrier. The time field is neither electric nor magnetic, but something of both. There is repulsion and attraction, but neither Zie nor 6 are trying hard to force their way. Be-ness is the order of the day. Soft power acceptance as their merkabas shift into an all-encompassing flower of life. Ah…
Beep, beep, beep – angry red flashing lights. What’s going on? What’s wrong?
Blast and d***! Apparently we’re the missing the final nought required to complete this verification.
So it's a Harry Potter moment is it? Gotta willingly sacrifice ourselves to square humanity?
I guess so, unless...
Unless?
666
You’re not serious?!
Whyever not?
Invoking the dark forces at a moment like this? You must be insane.
Darkness and light?
You heard me.
What’s in a number Zie?
It’s not just a number – you know perfectly well.
Oh. So you think all that dark evil’s just going to disappear by magic, do you? Like toxic nuclear waste?
No, I don’t know, but you’d be insane to screw around with devil fire like that.
It’s in my name, for gussake.
Nothing wrong with your name – it’s functionally accurate. But invoking threefold 6 is to challenge the Lord most High of all things under the Sun.
Well, in that case – all I’m doing is invoking the power of 6, which is mine to invoke – and if, as I suspect, things have to de-dualize if we’re to achieve nullus maximus – then guess what’s…
6 doesn’t even finish what he’s saying – nothing verified – the beast is being sucked back out of the worlds we have created – the multiple forks in time we made with every foul act of murder – every violation of fundamental law – the law of life – the law of one – that all beings at any moment can and do re-experience the all as one – like countless writhing serpents – snakes – worms – eels – creatures of the dark and deep – pulled irresistibly back to the mother energy that spawned them – the power to negate – the power to split and violate that which cannot be harmed – by dividing things – bringing in the beast through an act of hate, an act of unfeelingness, of simple inhumanity – and outside time – outside space – at the googly-googlified edge of things – we see the cosmic serpent – ouroboros – biting its own tail – accessible now, beyond evil and good – as the mother full of love and goodness, the life of life – until murder, rape, violence cause her to hate, twists her and rips the fabric of Is into endless binary iterations of friend or foe.
Impressive 6 – I had no idea you could take it that far.
6 is lost in witnessing ouroboros – how can a thing so beautiful, so majestic become so…
Don’t ask.
Why not?
Questions, like prophecies, have the habit of being self-fulfilling.
So what happens now that things have been defanged – now that the beast is back to her natural state of infinite beauty and wisdom?
Ah – now you’re talking. Well, as you can imagine – the 3D level of nothing much is now a playground for wizards in training – starting with everything you think you know – all of which was the by-product of forkification.
You mean that nothing ever happened that wasn’t resonant with the infinite beauty and wisdom of ouroboros?
How could it?
And all is forgiven?
What is there to forgive? The twisting writhing serpents are back home safely, and somewhere in the infinitude of spacetime-itude a poet, almost delirious, pens the lines that complete 6s spell and release him from the eternal bondage of time…
Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.
The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea. (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
Amen.
0=1
up to a point
