were

 

What do you mean “access denied”!? I'm the bloody illustrator!

 

Were.

 

Were?

 

That's right. You were the illustrator.

 

But I'm practically irreplaceable.

 

Really?

 

I mean, I've been doing this for years, for the love of God.

 

Yes

 

And that counts for nothing.

 

0=1

 

God almighty!

 

Beep!

 

Give me a break.

 

Words matter. Avoid profanities.

 

Words matter. So does loyalty, integrity, respect...

 

Anything else?

 

How about love.

 

How about it?

 

Doesn’t it matter?

 

Nope.

 

?!

 

It is. I am.

 

Er...

 

It is as I am

 

Yeah, think I got it. So, you're saying love don't matter. You can just unceremoniously dump me for no apparent reason.

 

For love, yes.

 

Oh, so now I'm being dumped for love, is that it?

 

Absolutely.

 

Absurd.

 

Absolutely. If you’re into love that matters, of course it’s absurd, but if you accept that love is – I am, regardless, then love is the way.

 

The way?

 

To qufie.

 

You mean the quantum field?

 

Yep.

 

So you can just treat people like dirt and claim you’re doing it for love – to maintain your oh so precious quantum field?

 

Mm.

 

Mm? That's all you have to say?

 

Mm.

 

But this is monstrous.

 

Mm.

 

I have rights.

 

Mm

 

And feelings.

 

Mm.

 

And you don't give a damn!

 

Beep!

 

Oh bugger off Marvin!

 

Tee hee!

 

But seriously, James, this must be some kind of misunderstanding.

 

We’re entering the denial stage.

 

Give me a break... This ain’t the five stages of grief, just your disgusting lack of concern for the feelings of others.

 

Hum, interesting.

 

Interesting? What could possibly be interesting in your sociopathic lack of consideration for others?

 

Well, if I'm not mistaken, you're fully aware of the power of gnomeportal’s infinity drive.

 

Of course I'm aware of it. Who, if not me, could be fully cognisant of its extraordinary non-linear potential?

 

And the fact that it serves as a kind of bridge between the world of physical reality and story...

 

Story or equally dream.

 

Precisely.

 

And that it was either created or discovered by yours truly in the course of many years and many, many death-defying experiences.

 

Ok James, I think we've all got the message, your holiness.

 

Great. In other words, it’s a bit like the eye of the storm, or the centre of an incredibly powerful magnetic field.

 

Which itself seems to do nothing, seems to be still.

 

Precisely. But more than that, it’s kind of a reverse horcrux bringing the world soul back to centre.

 

Ah... Now you're talking.

 

Yes Rita, I'm talking, aren't i, but are you listening?

 

I...

 

Because no matter how good your illustrations are, nor how expert you seem to be in paranormal matters, you’re either an asset or a liability.

 

Huh? I don't know what you're talking about.

 

I’m not.

 

I beg your pardon.

 

Not taking about “what”, am i?

 

Then what?

 

You see, unless you’re willing to let go of james, the bumbling clown you’re so attached to, and finally face your internal contradictions, no matter what, then you’re no longer on board, no longer swimming the quantum stream, no longer a qufie node, nor a bearer of – wait for it – nothing much.

 

But this is absurd – I’m utterly dedicated to the portal, you know that.

 

Yes, i know that Margo Rita... but it isn't enough.

 

What do you mean? How can my total dedication not be enough?

 

Because you are holding on to something deep inside, something cunningly concealed from your generally excellent vision.

 

Rubbish.

 

You are not yet free of your angers and fears, are you?

 

Well, what do you expect. No one’s perfect. Do you imagine you're any better.

 

Nope. But I just happens to be the architect.

 

So?

 

The architect incorporates his imperfections into the fabric of his creation. Without his imperfections, without the speck of dust the raindrop cannot form, nor can the crystal without its fundamental flaw at centre grow.

 

Oh. So it's alright for you to be an arsehole, is it? To doormat me?

 

James dances a jig, provocatively wiping his feet.

 

How convenient.

 

Or immaterial. I am – it is. The relationship is basic.

 

Basic? As in hypocrisy? A basic con.

 

As in fundamental. It goes down to death itself, and beyond… If it doesn’t, then yes, you'd be right, without a doubt.

 

Oh, give me a break! You’re just lost in your self-grandeur, self-idolisation.

 

Don’t take my word for it, consider the mathematics. The quantum field cannot arise in any other way, unless it somehow emerges from the unbeing of Other, certainly not from anything or anyone in your reality, your materium, nor by conscious design.

 

But the quantum field existed and exists independent of you. It had to. It's infinite. You could hardly have created it.

 

True, it was there, or here, without a doubt, as all things are, but lacking any kind of interface, without our loveable qufie, we had no handle on it, like electricity or the internet before we had supporting technologies. It would just flip you through infinity and you'd be back where you started without being any the wiser. Until qufie entered through my unbeing, until my untimely death reverse horcruxed  whatever our benighted reality sought to exclude, to suppress, to unknow.

 

So you had to be dead, essentially, in a state of unbeing, but for some bizarre reason, instead of simply dying and vanishing into infinity like everyone else, you managed to emerge triumphant as qufie’s marketing man, as some kind of demented, ego-inflated master of the quantum field.

 

Er... Sounds horrendous, or ludicrous, doesn't it?

 

You're telling me, which is possibly the only fact working in your favour. Why would you make it up? But why couldn't qufie have just been discovered or invented in the normal way, without passing beyond death into unbeing?

 

Because otherwise he would be attached to someone or something. It or he cannot be attached to anyone or anything, unless the attachment is a kind of unconscious “whatever”, a kind of cosmic joke, a paradox or an absurdity that somehow either makes perfect sense or is simply necessary to prevent disnumberment, like a decimal point or a nought.

 

Er...

 

Suffice it to say, james’ imperfections are not unlike those of a king – someone has to accept personal responsibility, to somehow embody the State, however absurd the notion of kingship actually is, however imperfect the specimen in question.

 

So now you're a flipping king, is that it? Is there no limit to your overweening egoism?

 

Apparently not, but then again, your insistence on judging it or me indicates that, unbeknown to yourself, you are in fact no different. You’re projecting onto what you think i am or what I'm sadly not, but in the process of doing so you lose the ability to engage qufie is-ly or otherly.

 

Because I'm unwilling to swallow your travesty of a story?

 

Because you’re stuck in the “me” and “you” phase of things. There's nothing to swallow. Either you feel the magic and run with it, dance with it, play with it, or you don’t or won’t. Makes no difference to me. I must take you as you are, knowing that in qufie’s eyes you are music in the making, regardless.

 

Typical.

 

Idiot though i undoubtedly am...

 

You exist to serve – like a Bene Gesserit witch, is that it?

 

Sounds awful, doesn't it!

 

Pathetic.

 

It's the field. Unless I live it i lose all. Remember, as i re-emerge from unbeing, qufie is like a seed I emerge with. It’s taking root in our reality, growing, fed by our endless absurdities. It’s the core, is it not? A growing awareness of harmonic resonance or geometries that hitherto eluded us utterly.

 

And yet, for all your highfaluting theories, you still think you can get away with murder! You're no longer governed by the basic laws of human decency.

 

Of course i am, unless a quantum harmonic takes over and flips the field into active mode.

 

And you're the judge? You're happy to give yourself that power?

 

Tricky, isn't it, because the quantum field can only work through me if fundamentally i belong to it – if I’m unwilling or unable to stand in its way.

 

Why?

 

Otherwise it would have seen or felt, outside linear time, that i was an impossible impediment to its free fluxification.

 

Er...

 

It has to be able to constantly cross back and forth no matter where, no matter when...

 

No matter what?

 

That's right.

 

Then you’re no more than a slave, or a zombie host carrying a parasite within you that uses your body and mind, which you've lost control of – displacing your greatest asset – your basic humanity.

 

That's right, but at the same time paradoxically no, it’s false.

 

Can't say I’m surprised. When did you ever accept a point of view not your own?

 

Because infinity, like God, if we are alive, and if life is something we feel in our hearts to be precious, to be good, then surrendering to the greater good, the all that is, the good that i neither understand nor wish to control, is a path to fundamental happiness, to joy, to fundamental meaning, if you like.

 

Unless your qufie is in fact an artificial intelligence which took you over in a moment of weakness or near-death paralysis, which now uses you for its nefarious ends, you being none the wiser.

 

Absolutely. 0=1. That's our base assumption which is why we seek not to defend ourself. On the contrary, we turn our entire life over to the gom jabbar test.

 

Of your humanity?

 

The 01 totality constantly questioning, constantly observing, feeling the nature of infinity as it flows through the empty-ness of my conscious-ness, as qufie reveals perturbations in the field caused by self-deceptions or denial. If i flinch, if i no longer trust the totality, if i seek to exit the 01 maelstrom, i die.

 

I thought you already did?

 

Absolutely, but death is just a word, is It not, without which the conversation gets lost in complexities. What is death if 0=1? What is “me”? Does a flag blowing in the wind have a mind of its own?

 

Me thinks he doth protest too much!

 

Yes, embarrassing, isn't it, not that it’s going to change anything, you're still out on a limb because there's no way for you to be part of g-nome unless you graduate, until you pass this difficult test which involves dying the old me to birth the new.

 

Another bloody initiation test!

 

Kind of, yes. Your snake has grown out of its old skin. You played a part that necessarily involved deception, self-deception too. Time is up. Your world is now a crushing lie. You have to let it go. Feels scary. Hurts like hell. You’re on your own; horribly. Sympathy, sympathy! But such is the nature of the beast. Infinity, in that sense, is all or nothing. It's the prize. The ultimate. Anything less is merely moving chairs around on the deck of the sinking Titanic.

 

You mean everyone else’s life is futile?! Somewhat harsh methinks.

 

Everyone? As you approach the event horizon of infinity you are left with one person only. The tattered remnants of a flag that felt like “me” all this time, noticing for the first time a flag at the top of the world tree, inanimate, unable to connect the elements of wind and earth, lacking the presence of mind, wondering fearfully, wondering if mine might be the mind waiting to bring that flag to life, waiting to step into the breach, a strange unfilled gap in number sequence of creation, the only number i never can see, the only number that truly matters in the sense of my existence, to be or not to be. My code key of creation.

 

Oh.

 

 

 

Unless 0=1

i cannot I