Thursday, September 3, 2026

between a rock and a hard place

 

Pssst!

 

Huh?

 

Pssst! Over here.

 

What the heck? Is that you Merry?

 

Sssh! Keep down or they’ll see you.

 

Er… Ok. Zie crouches low and scurries across the street, ducking behind a beaten up trailer and then squeezing into what looked like a mudwalled cow shed.

 

Oh my God, Merry, it’s you. I can’t believe it.

 

Yeah, yeah – do you think anyone noticed.

 

Noticed me? No, of course not, I was stealthy and…

 

Not you, Zie, my decoys.

 

What decoys?

 

Merry looks momentarily flabbergasted that Zie doesn’t appear to have a clue. The posts.

 

What posts?

 

Yesterday’s posts on g-nomeportal.

 

Er… Did you post something?

 

Something? Rather than getting annoyed Merry takes three short breaths and slips into an altered state of consciousness – er, no – an altered state of reality with a pinging kind of popping noise.

 

Ow! Zie rubs his ears as if he’s just undergone intense decompression. What was that? Oh, the posts… Suddenly Zie is able to see whatever Merry is talking about as if the thought was his own.

 

Well?

 

No, I mean, yes – they noticed, I guess, but they just assumed it was a kind of g-nomeportal thing – the one about time back – just another vague attempt to tinker with linear time and superpositions, the Swan Princess Spring some kind of random poemy thing of no great consequence. No one suspects it was a decoy. But how the heck would they?

 

It depends who you mean by “them” Zie.

 

Oh… so we’re not talking about the usual 24th century time loop readers?

 

No, of course not.

 

Then who?

 

The only ones that really matter.

 

Er… I guess I should know. If you do that reality popping thing again and take me to an even higher level of consciousness I may be able to see what you’re talking about.

 

No time. Merry appears to throw a stone in Zie’s face. Zie ducks wildly and finds himself sitting with his feet dangling from the edge of a ledge high over a desert – somewhere immensely familiar and yet…

 

How on Earth did you get me here, Merry. I thought we were in a cowshed.

 

We are. But don’t just a cowshed by its cover.

 

Doesn’t smell anything like a cowshed. If I just tip forward we’ll see if… Merry grabs Zie before he slips from the ledge down to the rocky desert floor a thousand feet below, or more.

 

I wouldn’t if I were you, Zie. It’s not a good time to explain where we are or how we got here, so just see if you can spot them.

 

Zie’s about to say “who” when suddenly his sense of seeing or knowing directs him to look into the distance, far away and far below. He seems to have some kind of telescopic vision. He seems to be able to zoom in infinitely, like our old favourite, the Mandelbrot set.

 

Ah. I can’t imagine how far I’m now seeing, Merry, but I can certainly understand why you wouldn’t want to meet them, or more specifically, have them meet you. They’re not exactly compatible with friendly discourse or human civilization, are they?

 

Certainly not, Zie. But they happen to be overlords of your 3D reality.

 

Suddenly a crow screeches overhead nearby. Another one answers a little further off. Zie is lost by the enormity of facing for the first time a kind of horror that wells up from deep, deep within.

 

A third crow breaks his spell. Can they sense me watching them?

 

No, not as long as you’re here in my presence.

 

Oh, so that explains the decoys, does it?

 

Yes. There are a bunch of people in what you consider the 24th century who are busily deconstructing the code in what I posted yesterday, which screens us from them.

 

It does?

 

Yes, we’re just like a footnote, or a typo, but if you continue staring like that they will become aware so try to breathe more normally and keep your gaze equally distributed.

 

Equally distributed? What does that mean?

 

It means that – accept it or not – all things are equal.

 

They are?!

 

Merry grows restless and steps onto an air molecule that seems to be strangely willing to defend his theory.

 

All things – including this particular air molecule.

 

Merry – would you kindly step back onto the ledge – you’re giving me vertigo.

 

Actually, you need to accept the axiom if we’re to proceed. Kindly join me for a moment.

 

Me? How?

 

Not blindly, or you will fall. Equal distribution. Instead of focusing on what you think you know, or what you believe to be true, allow your natural curiosity and your roving awareness to sense that there’s more to this air molecule than simply air. In other words, stop blocking the field from revealing other versions of this reality.

 

Er… Here goes. Zie finds himself Mandelbrotting into another deep-dive – and indeed – the further he goes the more he becomes aware that things can and do rearrange themselves. He sees Zie standing on a stepping stone in a stream. There’s another one next to it which he steps onto.

 

So if I looked at it the other way…

 

You’d fall. This takes a little practice. Once you’ve mastered equal distribution you can look at everything more or less simultaneously, and no one version of reality dominates the field unless you choose to experience it that way.

 

So what would someone else see?

 

Someone else?

 

Well yes, if there was someone else watching?

 

They wouldn’t see anything unless they were able to follow me into this particular moment of reality.

 

Moment as in time?

 

As in time, or space, or momentum…

 

And if they were?

 

Then they could see whatever they chose or needed to see. It’s like reading a book. You can read it at different levels – superficially, allegorically, metaphorically, literally to name but a few.

 

From a Marxist, feminist or racist perspective.

 

You’ve figured it out. Ultimately, you’re assuming or asking whether we are actually on the ledge imagining this, on stepping stones, atop a single air molecule called Fred, or hiding in a cowshed back in Svaneti, Georgia?

 

And?

 

And the real issue is not what or where, is it?

 

No?

 

No, the real issue is your sense of continuity – how you can slide or shift from one screen or location to another without breaking the rules of physics.

 

The rules of physics? What has any of this got to do with physics?

 

Quite a lot, actually, Zie.

 

You could have fooled me!

 

Yes, I think I’m going to hop back onto the ledge. Would you join me?

 

Ok, don’t mind if I do. Doing so Zie had a vision of a stork standing on one leg in the water gazing intensely for fish.

 

That too, Zie, but we won’t go there now. So where were we?

 

Laws of physics.

 

Oh yes, conservation of energy, they call it in 3D, don’t they.

 

I guess so.

 

Basically, reality likes to take one position or another – to manifest if you prefer that word.

 

And?

 

And that’s all very well and good. It ensures there’s something to experience, something to see and feel – something tangible, something to write home about…

 

Er… I think I’ve got the message Merry. Something definite.

 

Exactly. But there might just as well have been another some – we could spell it s-u-m and suddenly it starts looking mathematical.

 

So any one version of reality is a summation?

 

Which has to equal and not exceed its precursor.

 

Conservation of energy?

 

Yep.

 

But all this shifting and transformation must require energy of some sort?

 

Yep. Lots of it.

 

And where does it come from?

 

Where does anything come from, Zie. You and I, for that matter.

 

Oh, it’s like that is it?

 

More or less. We could go down that road, but then we’d have to go all the way, and our current discussion would remain incomplete.

 

So, there’s a mechanism. It’s not just hocus pocus. And there seem to be people or beings who are able to shift through different levels or aspects of reality rather than being stuck in a linear progression known as time and space.

 

Correct. Once they’ve mastered equal distribution, rather than constantly taking sides, affirming and accentuating one thing or other, starting with themselves – once they start to feel and sense the interconnectedness – the continuity between modes and valences.

 

Modes and valences?

 

Silly of me. You see, even masters of the quantum field like to show off with technical lingo.

 

So once you’re a master of the quantum field – you can basically go anywhere and do anything.

 

Yes, all things being equal.

 

You’re no longer trapped in time.

 

Or space.

 

It must be…

 

You’re forgetting about them.

 

Oh! How bizarre. Again Zie shudders, remembering their terrible form.

 

You see, all things being equal works both ways.

 

It does?

 

Yes, you realise you’re part of something infinitely vaster, infinitely more connected, and you have to figure out how to bring sense and meaning, or elegance and beauty to your macro.

 

Macro what?

 

Reality. Your universe, if you like.

 

And? How do you…

 

You don’t run before you walk. You become aware of different forces, including them, and this shapes your awareness of the Field, and how to manage it.

 

Manage the Field?

 

It’s like you’ve got a big tent and you’re trying to figure out how to fold it away so it fits into this postage size packet.

 

Oh my God. So your decoys yesterday…

 

Well done, Zie, you didn’t forget…

 

You’re not going to say, are you?

 

Say what?

 

Zie finds himself focusing on his hand.

 

You see?

 

Yes. It has two sides. Both of them me. Both I feel.

 

Like a hockey stick.

 

Or a tennis racket. And I can use both sides…

 

Or both hands.

 

Or both feet. Though usually I don’t. Usually I use the one that is easiest, most convenient.

 

Precisely. You fall into the trap of facility, choosing the path of least resistance until, suddenly, you’re trapped.

 

Unless I start to use the other hand

 

The other foot

 

The other side which seems to offer nothing more, only greater work…

 

Right. But doing so you start to balance, automatically, to redistribute betwixt and between, and the rest, they say

 

is history

 

 

0=1

quack quack

 

 

 

 

 

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