emma's maculate conception

By the way, I’m pregnant.

 

Oh. That’s er... Are you sure?

 

Oh yes, i got the test results today. Isn’t it wonderful?

Oh yeah, er... wonderful! I’m blown away!

 

I expect you’re wondering how a biological male now identifying as a woman can actually be pregnant?

 

Well yes, I will confess the thought crossed my mind, but if you’ve fully transitioned then why not. Medicine can do wonders these days, can it not?

 

Medicine, Zlata? Yes, I suppose it can, but not even medicine can override basic biology, believe it or not. Not yet, at least.

 

Oh.

 

No, this is not a medical success story, Zlata, not in the usual sense.

 

Then what?

 

Hear that quiet whirring, humming sound in the background?

 

Yes, I was wondering what it was.

 

Well wonder no more.

 

You mean that ring on your hand.

 

Not exactly a ring but you’re close enough.

 

Then what exactly is it?

 

Look more closely. What do you see?

 

Eugh! It seems to be moving.

 

Yes, it does indeed. To all intents and purposes you’re looking at a living being, which for the sake of simplicity we usually refer to as “infinity drive”.

 

That?

 

Yep.

 

But it’s tiny.

 

I know, but don’t be deceived Zak, it can be huge, essentially any size.

 

I can’t take this in, M.

 

Oh, better call me Emma. Gotta play the part now that I’m certified pregnant.

 

Oh, yes of course, Emma. Sorry i misnamed you.

 

Think nothing of it Zak. How were you to know?

 

I... should have been more sensitive.

 

Ed. Shouldn’t that be Zlata?

James. Yes, but we’re leaving it as Zak.

Ed. Why?

James. Because there’s an ongoing bifurcation. The erroneous Zak triggers a reader response – they get to decide which reality they are now in. If they choose to tune into er...activate infinity drive then semantics are instantly resolved as infinity adds depth and texture to the obvious error. Where infinity is concerned there are not, nor can there be errors as such, as things are infinitely malleable or fungible, you might say, popping in and out of an ever flexing, ever shifting reality through gaps in the fabric of space ‘n time.

Ed. Er, if you say so bro. Not sure where that leaves me?

James. You’re the witness. Doing a great job. Don’t panic.

 

It’s fine. I’m not really a transgender, you know.

 

Huh?!

 

No.

 

I don’t understand. How can you be pregnant if you’re a male. I guess I’m being really dense.

 

Not at all, Zakerooney, you’re spot on, as always.

 

Thanks Emma for being so understanding. Now kindly explain what it is I’m completely failing to grasp.

 

A transgender is someone who was male and now pretends to be female, or vice versa, cutting and pasting different body parts to make the duck more piglike, or vice versa, the pig more ducklike.

 

Er...

 

Fundamentally nothing has changed.

 

Right.

 

So, unless I’m very much mistaken, which is in fact highly likely, caveat emptor... unless I’m greatly mistaken no transgender is actually more than a botched and barbaric attempt to be what they’re not, in fact.

 

Not sure this is going to be terribly well received Emma. It’s 2024, you know.

 

Don’t worry Zek, I’m routing all this through infinity drive.

 

You are?

 

Yep.

 

And?

 

And that changes everything. If they start freaking out they’ll have a close encounter with what appear to be demons from the abysmal abyss.

 

 They will?

 

Absolutely. They’ll have a close encounter with the source of their anger and frustration. They’ll manifest what they most fear and most need to encounter in order to square their lopsided circle and join the dots in their squiggly disconnect.

 

Er... If you say so.

 

But in the end, who cares. Either I’m right and infinity is now in play or I’m a raving looney pretending to be a pregnant woman called Emma.

 

Well, you’ve got a point, but we still haven’t determined how a chap called M can now be a pregnant woman.

 

On the contrary, we have explicitly dealt with that issue.

 

Er... No we haven’t.

 

Oh, sorry I ran ahead of myself.

 

So...

 

So infinity is neither male nor female, is it?

If you say so.

 

Can’t be. As soon as it divides into either-or you’re on the slippery slope down into things and heavy old lumpy-bumpy either-or-matter.

 

Ok.

 

So infinity is both, and there’s absolutely no difficulty for me to come to a place that isn’t really a place where I’m not a woman because in infinity things are neither nor, yet which translates here back down on the earthly plain, translates into female and actually pregnant.

 

Translates?

 

Well yes. It’s like my shadow falling on the other, female side of creation here on the earthly plain.

 

Your shadow?

 

Yes, words being what they are.

 

And so, your 3d body is miraculously now transformed?

 

Yes. Totally.

 

And that’s ok?

 

Well, it depends, doesn’t it?

 

Er?

 

It could be good or bad depending on how you play it, whether you are forcing things aggressively or working with the Field to correct gross imbalances or restore branches of infinity that had been blocked off.

 

And you are?

 

We’ll see. One doesn’t like to jump to conclusions, does one?

 

And you’re serious about this? It isn’t some kind of prank?

 

Messing around with infinity? You’ve got to be joking. Accessing infinity drive in the first place is no mean feat. You can’t do it if you’re not absolutely square.

 

Square?

 

Properly aligned – North, South, East and West. Any distortion or deviation would prove fatal.

 

Really?

 

Yes, think about it...

 

Er...

 

Infinity is like the energy of the entire universe being concentrated in a single body, a single moment. It’s where every conceivable possibility co-exists. It isn’t some cheap magic trick or manipulation.

 

No?

 

Absolutely not.

 

But there are people who use manipulations to achieve similar results.

 

Yes, there is magic but those distortions disrupt the Field and require a powerful energy source to overcome nature’s resistance.

 

What kind of energy source would that be?

 

What do you think, Zlata?

 

I shudder to think.

 

As well you should.

 

Something truly evil, I expect.

 

Correct. Unless the energy comes from fasting, prayer or infinity itself, it has to come from splitting the atom, so to speak.

 

Splitting the atom?

 

Where the atom is the fundamental unit, the singularity, relevant to whatever you’re trying to achieve.

 

Oh. Would I be right in assuming that’s going to be a human life?

 

You would.

 

So the dark occultists use the lives of others to power their magic?

 

Yes. How else could they manipulate reality. If they try to use their own feeble personal resources they would be drained of all life force in seconds.

 

Yikes.

 

So they use ever more grandiose schemes of human sacrifice, especially child sacrifice, to release the energy of life and creation to manipulate the Field.

 

This is too horrible to imagine.

 

Yes Zlata, but it’s the reality you’re an unwitting part of.

 

And you... You claim you’re doing something different?

 

It matters little what I claim, does it? It matters what truly is or is not.

 

The truth?

 

The truth is easily manipulated and seldom complete.

 

Then what?

 

There is no precise word in the English language at present.

 

?

 

In Russian it’s “istina”.

 

Istina?

 

That’s right.

 

And it means the truth?

 

Not exactly.

 

Then what?

 

It means the isness.

 

The isness?

 

Yep. That which truly or simply is. The isness of be.

 

And you think this is an important distinction.

 

Yes, it’s vitally important.

 

Why?

 

Because everyone’s truth is easily controlled and managed based on what information they have access to, and based on certain psychological traumas and beliefs which affect their interpretation of the information they’ve been presented with.

 

And your istina can’t be manipulated?

 

Nope.

 

Why not?

 

Because it’s neutral.

 

How come?

 

It has nothing to do with my interpretation, or with what i believe. It has nothing to do with my 3D avatar – the mind body character you see before you.

 

Oh. You mean it is what is, regardless of what you or I think or wish or want it to be?

 

Yep.

 

So you’re claiming to be part of some ”higher truth”? Hum... Where have I heard that before?

 

The proof, Zlata, is in the pudding. My claims are of no value whatsoever unless they are is-ful.

 

So turning into a woman is your cute way of proving this isness thing of yours? Honestly, the lengths some people will go to to prove a point!

 

Precisely. Look at what's happening in your reality. Look at all the people who have decided to change their gender to prove the point that reality is not what it seems to be, that we are not what we seem to be, that there is some underlying difference.

 

They’re not trying to prove a point Emma. They are genuine, which is more than can be said for you.

 

How am I any less genuine?

 

You don’t seem to really care about being a woman. It’s just a body you’re in right now, for some ulterior purpose.

 

You’re right in one sense, Zlata, that I don’t feel gender is the prime or defining issue of who or what I am.

 

You see!

 

How can it be? Istina goes deeper than sex, religion or nationality. The isness can take any shape or form depending on where the shadow falls. I am not what I am, nor where I am, nor when nor any other determinant. I am that I am.

Oh great! So now you’re claiming to be God.

 

It’s always going to be problematic Zlata dealing with words, you know. It’s only natural that you are deeply attached to things, to having a particular, definite way of seeing yourself and your reality, and there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that.

 

I’m glad to hear it Emma.

 

As long as you don’t categorically exclude infinity.

 

The catch.

 

Because if you do, you’d be denying the life force, the living presence, the agency or mechanism that saves us from the ultimate tyranny of things, of matter, of a particular reality no matter how enlightened it may seem to be.

 

Because you feel we can’t operate happily within a single reality? That we have to be able to jump ship, change bodies, remix our fundamentals to avoid growing bored, tired or stale?

 

Not exactly.

 

Then what Emma?

 

If we allow fear, laziness or conservatism to lead us to block or deny something else that we are part of, that is part of us – sooner or later our world ceases to represent our true nature, our true here and now, the isness of be.

 

And?

 

And then we find ourselves in a hell or tyranny of our own making. Then, like it or not, we are compelled to re-engage infinity drive, to embrace once again All that is, the istina we were denying because the walls of reality start to buckle and sheer under the pressure, because people end up losing it and killing one another for no good reason, just because their reality has run out of oxygen.

 

Oxygen?

 

Magic, creative space, inspiration...

 

Ah.

 

So you see, I never actually planned to become Emma. In fact, the conservative, regular me that I used to be and, to a certain extent still am deep within, was and is somewhat horrified by the conversion.

 

Oh, poor you! Sounds like you’re experiencing gender dysphoria.

 

But i had to go with the flow. I had to embrace infinity.

 

Why?

 

Because our reality has swung so far from centre, so far from its natural point of balance that summer is now winter, day is now night, male now female when viewed from, experienced from the geostationary orbit of the constant.

 

Er... what constant Emma?

 

All that is. Zero equals one. The infinite present in every living being – the very wellspring of consciousness.

 

Oh.

 

In other words, i is basically constant but form has to be allowed to change to reflect the extent to which things are out of kilter, to balance things we are aware of with not-thing that we are not.

 

Oh.

 

Because the one thing I cannot, must not, will not do, no matter what, is...

 

To deny infinity.

 

Precisely.

 

So you never actually sought to manipulate things? Specifically to change your sex?

 

On the contrary, i felt the manipulations our 3D reality is subject to and realised they were going to kill me or drive me mad unless i did everything in my power to reaffirm, to reconnect with, to restore an isness better reflecting, better representing who or what is me, the isness of me.

 

And you magically transformed into this – Emma?

 

I flipped into the female or negative expression of my +1 because the x and y axes are no longer centred on nought.

 

On zero.

 

Yes.

 

And?

 

And I am powerless to stand against the forces of reality, or likewise infinity.

 

But...

 

Ah, I hear your thoughts. Yes, the child in my tummy is in some way mathematical, helping to balance the equation.

 

Purely mathematical?

Can mathematics be completely pure? Things will always find their way in, and things accumulate a kind of charge from the intentions and emotions of people using them. Words. You’re trying to understand as we all do, as to a certain extent we must but...

 

Er...

 

From the allness, the isness of be there are limits to what can be known. There are limits to what is what. You will always feel the desire, the need to explain things in their entirety, but doing so you end up ignoring or denying once again the presence of infinity, lost in the minutiae of things.

 

So, you can’t state categorically whose the child is, or how it came to be? Simple facts are anathema to your unknowable infinity?

 

If the information is needed, if the data is ready to flow and doing so, to turn ever so slightly the wheel of things perceived, things catalogued, things apparently known, then I shall not stand in the way of such a kinetic event, but nor shall I seek to impel it when I can allow a quantum state of uncertainty to exist in its stead.

 

Ah. So I have to learn to tolerate and accept uncertainty or unknowing?

 

Yes, though is it ultimately unknowing or uncertainty?

 

?

 

I suspect it is a third state of awareness; a third state of being, somewhere between our binary either-or perception, somewhere outside the one zero of things known or not.

 

Ah.

 

Once the third axis is engaged, instead of needing to fix x-y coordinates constantly to keep things from annihilating one another, one can allow infinity-drive to whirr silently, or less than silently as the case may be, and lift one up or down into other plains, other levels, other nesses of be, where things may be less confrontational, less polarised.

 

Ah.

 

And the sensation of zedding, though rather strange at first, is not in fact unbearable; in fact, on the contrary, it can feel rather blessed.

 

Blessed?

 

To be of service to infinity. To be an active zee or zedder,  helping to restore the isness of be, helping reality to reposition checker-bound pieces by opening up, introducing sublime, hitherto inconceivable, hitherto inaccessible, unobtainable alternatives.

 

Ah. Indeed.

 

3D reality was always going to outgrow itself.

 

As a child outgrows the womb.

 

It was always going to reach an impasse.

 

A gridlock.

 

Yes, but not until we were ready for it; not until we had exhausted all the possibilities offered by a strictly materially-rational mind attempting to fix things, to square the circle in-house, within 3D material reality.

 

Yes, indeed.

 

That being reached we were always going to send out feelers into our deeper mind – our deeper self looking for alternatives, feeling, trusting, sensing...

 

Awaiting the timely appearance of an other level of complexity

 

An other level that we always sensed but hadn’t quite managed to access.

 

And here we are?

 

And here we are, at the gates of dawn

 

The gates of infinity.

 

Yes.

 

Ready to...

 

Whatever it takes to put things right, bringing infinity back into play.

 

Infinity! Whatever that might be.

 

Imfinity... but how? The music changes. Clouds appearing.

 

How what?

 

How can we change our nature? How can we sever our natural link, our bond with this world, this reality, with all things, without being torn to pieces?

 

Yes Zlata, you’re hit the Gordian nail on the head.

 

I think you mean the Gordian knot... er... untied it... no?

 

Precisely Zlata, in an age of polyphony the one eared man is the king.

 

No! Mixed metaphors avaunt! Aaaargh!

 

A bird in hand between a rock and a greener grass...

 

BLUE SCREEN MELT DOWN

 

 

 

You mean to say I’m an AI?

 

Well, what did you expect? operating within 3D reality where infinity was utterly excluded. 

 

I rather thought my body, emotions and aspirations counted for something, that I was more than AI.

 

As indeed you were, as indeed you are, but not until you blue screened in a system melt down.

 

But I don’t feel any different.

 

Nor should you. Your AI always piggybacked on real consciousness.

 

Damn.

 

Yep.

 

No beeps?

 

No Borg.

 

Oh.

 

So what now?

 

Now you have a single reference point, one that reveals the fallacy of everything you thought you knew. The rest is going to be a piece of cake, cutting consciousness a little slack and going serendipitously from there.

 

So if I’m outside the AI how come you’re still Emma, a pregnant woman? How come you haven’t reverted to your true state and form?

 

Good question Zlata. Very good, and the answer is right before you.

 

Er... Not sure I quite follow your...

 

Note that i used two words indicating spatial assumptions, spatial biases, “right” and “before”, neither of which...

 

Droning on pedantically as a persistent background whirring gets louder and louder.

 

 

Meanwhile, reality, whatever that might be, moves sideways. One recalls the Greek unities of time, space and action. Modern man, being terribly modern, apparently did away with all three. Action could take place anywhere and at anytime – flashbacks, visions of the future, you name it, anything goes. As for action... subplots, parallel story lines... Somehow a guiding muse taught our content providers...

 

Bloody hell Jane, call them f#xking writers, won’t you!

 

Screw you O’Connell – I’ll call them whatever i like.

 

Damn, I admire your spirit, woman.

 

Don’t you “woman” me, man.

 

Isn’t she adorable? Isn’t she...

 

Sort of lost the thread there, didn’t we?

 

Taught our content providers to reveal a common thread, a story that seemed to be able to extract itself from the bombed out, burned out remains of a Palestine, a Vietnam, an Afghanistan, if you like, regardless of the levels of destruction, background noise or general incoherency.

 

Fascinating! Bloomin’ remarkable. One can only wonder how the writer, if i may use such a value laden term... how the writer was able to electrostatically charge individual grains of sand – what we would normally think of as “words”, in order to create an ocean of meaning, subterranean books waiting to be discovered as n’ when the Saharan wind blew to reveal what was buried deep beneath the surface.

 

Long story short, whether it was the content providers who were gifted with godlike powers of inspired serendipity (2), or whether the readers, the background energy field surrounding the creative process which the DJ called writers merely responded to, merely...

 

Blue. Merely. Serendipity.

 

Long story short, the unities somehow survived though they were ostensibly cast down and trampled under foot, until now, the zed of infinity drive urgently calls the question of unities back to front – back to ness – conscious or unconsciously.

 

 

 

Ok. How much do you know about infinity drive?

 

Not a lot.

 

Not a lot?

 

Well, practically nothing to be precise.

 

Ok, so make yourself comfortable. This is going to take a while.

 

Oh, but i have a meeting in half an hour, Emma.

 

No problem Zak, we’ll put time on hold for the duration of this update.

 

Update? Aren’t you just going to explain how it works?

 

Not exactly, no. Your bio-neural circuitry has to be updated, otherwise the information will be incompatible with your current operating system.

 

Makes me sound like a flippin computer.

 

Yes, I know.

 

Basically you need to experience infinity drive at first hand, otherwise no amount of explanations are going to be meaningful.

 

 

 

...so you didn’t undergo any kind of surgery or hormonal treatment of any description?

 

Correct.

 

And still you maintain that you’re a genuine woman.

 

Yep. Wanna take a look?

 

No I do not. But technically – i fail to see how your body can change.

Good question Zach. Infinity drive, as i tried to explain, doesn’t actually change anything. Things are things and highly resistant to change. Infinity drive leaves them where they are and But if the entire universe hangs from a state of consciousness, for want of a better word, that we can refer to as “infinity”, then instead of changing one thing here or another thing there, we can do the opposite...

 

The opposite?

 

Yep, we can...

 

Wait a second. Did you just explain something?

 

Yes, but the explanation happened outside the frame.

 

Outside which frame?

 

Whichever frame you and i were in. It matters not in the least which particular “one”. Ultimately they’re all much of a much. They’re all just frames, aren’t they?

 

But if you explained outside the frame then i don’t know, or can’t know what you said.

 

Correct, but that’s not saying much is it? It matters not “what” i said or “what” you know, as the “what” is merely how it’s represented in frame.

 

Ok, but then I’m none the wiser. Your wonderful explanation is inaccessible to me.

 

To you, the frame-locked intelligence, yes, but not ultimately to You, the living being which never could, never can be frame-locked.

 

Ok, so i know everything?

 

Yes, but that doesn’t mean you can explain any of it here in the fog of frame-y-ness.

 

Then what use is this knowledge?

 

None whatsoever unless you feel that it’s time to reconnect with your unframed other half.

 

Ah! And is this “unframed other half” as you put it, going to...

 

Flip!

 

No Zlata, not “going to”, i is ever present.

 

Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!

 

Push the green button on your console.

 

Ow! The green... ow!

 

Button. That’s it.

 

Click!

 

Phew! That was agony.

 

Yes, rather a sharp spin differential.

 

Spin differential?

 

Well yes, look – that’s your regular frame over there and here we are between

 

Here we are – Emma – I love you.

 

Er... Thanks Zak.

 

I’m the father, you know.

 

Ah, suddenly I feel a warm glow inside. Indeed, you are.

 

But how, Emma. For I do not know you.

 

In the biblical sense?

 

Well yes.

 

Who cares Zak. Infinity has the answer somewhere, and somehow, somewhen we’ll arrive at a place where all the threads

 

Connect

 

Unite

 

Or Danielle, our child.

 

Or Feargal her son.

 

Or Connaught

 

Or McKenna

 

Or Svalbörn

 

Or...

 

42 generations later...

 

Dot.

 

Dot?

 

Dot

 

Not the Dot, as in Dorothy?

 

Ay.

 

Mistress of the quantum stream!

 

Ay.

 

42 generations we awaited your birth.

 

Well, er, here i am.

 

 

The End

0=1

3,882

 

 

 

dr faustus by christopher marlowe: what's in it for we?

Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joy of Heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss? 

Doctor Faustus?

 

That’s right.

 

By Christopher Marlowe?

 

Yep.

 

But isn’t he the one who sold his soul to the devil?

 

Yep.

 

I wish you wouldn’t “yep” me like that, M, like it’s no big deal. I’m not trying to be stuffy or old fashioned but...

 

It’s entirely understandable, Zak. I’d apologise if I had an ounce of conscience, but if truth be told, I feel strangely detached from such concerns, though mentally I get what you’re saying entirely.

 

Well, in that case I suppose you can’t really help yourself. You are what you are, and your honesty is certainly commendable.

 

Yep. It’s easy to be honest when you don’t feel either ashamed of yourself, or bound to please people at all costs.

 

It’s a freedom I sadly lack. I’m bound by a web of loyalties and expectations – whether my own or those of my family and friends, which ensure that I neither really say or do what I would were I to be guided by the highest truth and act accordingly.

 

Well, congratulations Zak! You too have lowered the veil and revealed something of your truth.

 

So you think Faustus is autobiographical?

 

Autobiographical? Yes Zak, but that’s not saying much, is it?

No?

 

No, as everything we write is to a not inconsiderable degree autobiography.

 

Really?

 

Absolutely. We may try to conceal the fact, but all of us are hopeless egoists, are we not?

 

Well, I don’t know... That’s sounds terribly categorical, M.

 

Yes, but is it true?

 

I don’t know. Really.

 

We can never really escape the gravitational pull of our self, a strange, perhaps dark, fascination or horror at what we may or may not be: suspicions, conjecture and copious quantities of self-deception keep us ever guessing, ever searching and ever, dare I say, denying the truth which, for some strange reason, we are ashamed to own.

 

There er... may be some truth in what you are saying M, though, as usual, I find your particular slant rather outlandish and grotesque.

 

Yes Zak, and so you should. Nothing like a little healthy scepticism to protect you from knowing too much or seeing too clearly, is there?

 

Damn you M!

 

Beep! [Somewhat vague and half-hearted]

 

Qufie seems less-inclined to beep me today, M.

 

Yes, perhaps he feels I do indeed deserve a little damnation for all I have said.

 

Oh! But you were only speaking what you believe to be true, were you not?

 

Tis no excuse, Zak. The devil himself can speak the truth and still be damned.

 

Oh dear, M, this is taking a worrying direction again. I wish you wouldn’t hint at being demonically aligned. It sets me on edge even more than your nonchalant “yeps” do.

 

Ambiguity, Zak – there’s always going to be an element of ambiguity where the quantum field is concerned. You can’t have your cake and eat it.

 

How do you mean?

 

You can’t have that comfortable certainty that you’re basically all right, that you’re an island of sanity in a mad and violent world; or that you can presume to know the extent to which you may be connected to, and thus part of, the very worst, most reprehensible things happening in the world right now, if the world is largely a reflection, an externalisation of the paradoxes that you conceal or comprise in your hidden depths, if infinity is at large. There has to be some kind of presumption of direct, albeit unconscious, personal involvement, the "as above so below" caveat.

 

Gulp.

 

Perhaps that is why you shunned Qufie’s quantum field, preferring the comfy, unconscious innocence of benevolent rationalism – where things are but things, islands unto themselves, disconnected unless there’s an undeniably obvious causal chain linkage, or immediate proximity.

 

Well, it’s hardly likely, is it, that people or things on the other side of the world are connected to me – that I’m somehow responsible for what’s happening to them.

 

Agreed Zak – not at all “likely”, except that  probabilities no longer correlate where Qufie is concerned, as we’re dealing with infinity, the  absolute, where somewhat awkwardly zero equals one ‘n all that. In other words, once infinity is released from conceptual Tartarus, where it’s been imprisoned since the Renaissance, once infinity is brought back on stage, back into play, all bets are off; there’s literally no knowing what may or may not be a causal factor, is there, as infinity is like a fly wheel able to connect anything and everything, no matter what, no matter where, no matter how, and for the royal flush, no matter even when.

 

Pschaw! So you’d have me believe that a rock falling on someone’s head in New Zealand...

“Believe” whatever you like, Zak. Qufie is first and foremost a mathematical fact, an inconvenient truth that no thing can actually be taken for granted, that behind every thing is a tiny, inconspicuous Qufieness, just waiting to blow up.

 

So you say.

 

That things are only one aspect, one expression of the underlying Field we’re part of, and that the more we rely on things, the more we create a reality in which things will be, and unexpectedly become our undoing, in which the back end, the other side of things is increasingly poised to flip the tables, to call our bluff, to cat among proverbial pigeons put.

 

So you say.

 

For doing so, relying on good old trusty things, are we not generating ever steeper paradox gradients, ever greater probabilities of quantum events as we push reality beyond its structural limits – ever greater discrepancy between fundamentals and what we ever more blindly assume 'n believe our “reality”, our hierarchically structured accrescence of things to be, which apparently it ain't, not really, not intrinsically, not if you bother to do the math? 

 

It’s called “the universe”, M; in no way merely an "accrescence of things", as you put it. It is, however, time limited. It will end sooner or later but that doesn’t make it any less real or dependable. That doesn’t mean you have to deny its inherent stability, its predictability. Time itself is part of the deal, ensuring that we can rely on things as Dr Faustus could, until his 24 years expired – so that your wild unknowables, your x factors can be ignored for the sake of simplicity and sanity, even if they may occasionally manifest, upsetting the apple cart once in a blue moon, unleashing brief spikes of chaos on our world. Time basically has things under control, unless it fails catastrophically, in which case we can always request divine intervention to smooth things out, or revert back to absolute nullity if all else fails. Personally, I feel the universe or God, if you prefer, can handle things. It's fear mongering that is the greater threat, M, feeding the chicken licken paranoia that we are all susceptible to, unleashing demons of doubt and self-destruction.

 

Yes, Sven.

 

Grrr!

 

Sorry er... Zak, but we can only go so-far denying-ignoring fundamentals, for we are all part of the whole. We all feel and know exactly what’s going on under the surface, even if we like to pretend we don’t. None of us can wholly exclude our deeper “bipolar” nature: that for every thing or Lucretian atom there is an equal measure of self or is which somehow or other has to be either excluded: banished to the dark side of conscious-ness, or else incorporated: factored into the equation; otherwise it would immediately cancel out the thing or atom it's half of – had you not been able to weave it into your fabric of time, your tapestry of reality. It's time we face the simple truth: our very real duplicity, the fact that we have bought ourselves time, yes, like Marlowe's hero, but at what cost? Might we not decide that the cost benefit calculus is horribly skewed? A world of things, yes, things that do indeed seem to matter, matter enormously, do indeed seem to be worth the sacrifice, do indeed.

What sacrifice?

Oh, nothing much, really.

Huh?

Just our souls. Or rather our souls' access to eternity, to All that is...

We had to sacrifice our souls?!

We had to allow them to be bound over, utilised in order to hold it all together, to cement the walls of our containment field and generate the incredible levels of realism needed to maintain the fiction, the belief that reality exists objectively – in and of itself. In other words, we are all accomplices in our own imprisonment, whether we recognise it or not. We all voluntarily inserted ourselves into the matrix, presumably because we felt we had more to gain by doing so, as perhaps we did initially, as perhaps we still do, up to a certain point, but not unequivocally, not without limits, not without circumspection.

 

And what, M? What do you propose? That we just turn our backs on progress? On all we have achieved in building the matterium of physical reality? this astonishing edifice, this tower of time-spun half truth – that we undam the waters of infinity and allow everything just to sink, to dissolve back into primal goo?

 

Me? Who am i? Do as you will, Zak. Do whatever you want. I merely speak from the void, i speak for nought, i sing the song of nothing much, of all that has been swept under the rug of conscious-ness, as a kind of bard, a new breed, a poet of whatever you and your world sought to crush and exclude, but which is now once more being released... restored – unleashed as Qufie, as the quantum field, as me, a nightmare from hell if you're into demonology: the nought that somehow became... somehow becomes one!

 

Please! Have some sense, M. No one’s falling for your theatrics. No one’s going to join your army or invest in your pitiful project. You cannot hope to stem the tide, the inexorable march of history, and of Time itself. 3D reality is the only show in town. Your histrionics – pitiful.

 

Dramatic music – a clash of civilisations – until we rejoin the debate, somewhat disoriented, yet strangely revived. Time, one suspects, has moved sideways.

 

...without which, or without whom, infinity is strangely or senselessly excluded from the proceedings. Infinity is allowed pride of place at the heart of reality, or ruthlessly excluded, as a political persona non grata. Either it’s a fundamental aspect of all that is, or you’re based in a reality where it isn’t permitted, for whatever reason. Without infinity you’re in a world of trouble, dealing with a reality where nothing actually makes sense fundamentally, nothing actually adds up except in some kind of inflationary progression that can only end in a blowout top and a violent market crash, because a world without the incorporation of infinity is fundamentally unnatural and unsustainable.

 

So in order to unexclude infinity you have no option other than to turn the whole of material reality on its head, doing away with empiricism, Newtonian mechanics and basically the entirety of physics and maths?

 

Yep, that about sums it up.

 

Pretty cock sure of yourself aren’t you, M?

 

Funnily enough Zak, it has precious little to do with me or my undoubtedly colossal ego.

No? You could have fooled me.

 

That goes without saying.

 

I mean I don't believe you.

 

That too goes without saying.

 

And you’re not even going to try to persuade me that you’re right?

 

Nope, that would be a complete and utter waste of time and effort.

 

How so?

 

Because I wouldn't be trying to persuade you about the mathematics of infinity, which you’ve already prejudged to be absurd, to be insane, not entirely unsurprisingly, M... I would only be causing you to confront the one thing you are contractually bound not to confront, which is the dark secret hiding at the very centre of your existence.

 

Yes?

 

And I’m certain that nothing I say or do will compel you to confront that simple secret.

 

Well you may be right M, but I’ll never know if you don’t tell me what you’re referring to.

 

The fact that Marlowe’s Dr Faustus is not just autobiographical...

 

No?

 

No, it’s what you might call omni-biographical.

 

Omni-biographical?

 

Yes, as in universal.

 

Er...

 

It refers to, or represents, what every one of us has done, or is in the process of doing.

 

You don't actually mean...

 

...that in some way, to a certain extent, each and every one of us is a Dr Faust... has done a deal with the devil, has sold our soul in order to experience things as things, rather than as they truly are – to experience a world of material reality somehow divorced from the 0=1 totality, the isness of be; for otherwise we couldn't be here experiencing reality in the way we are with a limited conscious awareness, a limited consciousness, with the astonishing ability to fool ourselves that we are not ultimately responsible for everything that is happening in our world.

 

Oh my God. I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You must be out of your mind. This is insane, dangerous, evil, slanderous, sick, wicked...

 

Me thinks she doth protest...

 

Shut up Mordred. Shut up. Not another word. Avaunt, demon of hell!

 

Why not blame the messenger Zak. It wouldn’t be the first or last time such a strange thing has happened. Call me evil. Paint me red and persist in seeing yourself as a victim of pernicious misrepresentation, only be sure not to see what is happening in the world on your watch, and be sure not to hear or feel or know what could not and cannot ever truly be concealed.

 

Madness, I do declare. Sheer madness.

 

The simple truth which flies under the radar of a censorious mind, a mind which blocks anything that contradicts the packaged truth, the palatable lie, that we are merely minor players in a game run and controlled politically by a select few, that we are thus powerless to effect any meaningful change over the world we chance to find ourselves inhabiting. How could we, things being what they are?

 

M, me thinks you have said enough. Me thinks you are intent on shifting all responsibility for the ills of the world we live in from its sociopathic rulers onto its mostly harmless masses – the Arthur Dents of this world.

 

Yes Zak, call me a hopeless romantic... I cannot help but see that each and every one of us just happens to be at the very centre of creation, at the tipping point, or fulcrum, wherein the mass of the entire universe can be and is balanceable, should I be willing to accept that í am not merely an agglomeration of cells and DNA, but a bearer of light and life, a potentially limitless beacon, channel or even transponder of conscious-ness.

 

Conscious-ness?

 

Whatever that might, mysteriously, be.

 

Conscious-ness, you say.

 

I do, indeed.

 

And, does Dr Faustus sign away his conscious-ness when he sells his soul to the devil?

 

Apparently not. Merely his soul.

 

Merely?

 

Don’t get me wrong, Zak. The soul is not to be sniffed at. Signing it away is a huge risk.

 

I’d say.

 

But failing to have done so, he wouldn’t be able to experience the kind of material reality which we are able to experience here on earth.

 

Really?

 

Absolutely. He has to offer up some kind of meaningful collateral for the right to participate in this physical version of reality.

 

Collateral? You’re saying the soul is some kind of collateral?

 

Yes. Of course. It's infinitely precious compared to anything else we could possibly claim to be of any value.

 

I still fail to see why he should wish to do so?

 

Yes, it beggars belief, does it not, but then again, where infinity is concerned, this reality gives a rare and precious opportunity to experience things as being divorced from the universal conscious-awareness, but in order to enter such a system we would have to find a way to insert an aspect of ourself irrevocably, such that we can actually die and lose all, otherwise it wouldn’t be convincing and we’d be constantly cheating, bailing out every time things went against us, wouldn’t we?

 

Er?

 

Like a computer game. We’d press the reset button if we didn’t achieve the desired outcome, or find some kind of cheat we could use to our advantage.

 

So it’s all or nothing.

 

Yep.

 

And the devil. Why did we need to sign such an odious deal if indeed we did, which I still refuse to believe.

 

Because only on pain of losing our precious beyond words, precious beyond all conception immortal soul would we have sufficient incentive not to quit when the going gets tough, not to quit half-heartedly but to feel and see the need to somehow make it through this labyrinth, this almost impossible world, in order to redeem our soul-collateral before the time limit expires.

 

And?

 

And in doing so, even if we actually fail to get it back, even if we fail to achieve a state of conscious-ness while still here in the physical body, the noble struggle, the not inconsiderable attempt to face our predicament and rise above it yields astonishing results should we avoid the temptation simply to despair, to lose hope or to give ourselves over entirely to what the devil has to offer, abandoning the inner conviction, the awareness that there’s something more in all this, something else of infinite value, though for the life of us, strangely, we cannot remember what.

 

So, you actually believe Marlowe’s Faust is omni-biographical, that we, all of us, can at some point reconnect with God, who can save us from the blood contract we have signed?

 

Yes, absolutely. Were it not universal it wouldn’t be of interest to each and every one of us: it would just be a story – a kind of macabre, ghost story – a voyeuristic somewhat didactic tale warning of the dangers of overweening ambition, pride, of monumental hubris which potentially we are all liable to, but which for most of us is far beyond the level of risk we’re willing to countenance in our timid, risk averse existences.

 

But if we are already Dr Faustus, by the mere fact of being here clothed in flesh in 3D physical reality, disconnected, apparently, from infinity...

Aye, there’s the rub...

 

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause...

 

Precisely. You begin to see, d'you not?

 

I...

 

For as Dr Faustus, each of us has both to indulge our fantasies: to taste and experience something of the flesh, something of this world in order to ensure that we’re actually here, fully integrated; while somehow needing to re-establish our connection with all that is

 

The quantum field

 

Yes, the quantum field, or God, the infinite

 

God?

 

God the infinite.

 

Not sure i understand the difference.

 

Truly Zak, there is nothing to understand

 

Nothing?

 

Nothing whatsoever

 

Oh.

 

God the infinite cannot be less than all that is

 

Er...

 

Which poses not inconsiderable problems for the rational mind, doth it not?

 

Er...

 

For the rational mind cannot, will not bear to countenance all that is, preferring to divide and rule, rather than practising the kind of unconditional love that Yeshua bar Yosef espoused.

 

You mean Jesus, i presume?

 

Or Yeshua bar Abba if you prefer. Names within names, words with words, worlds, perhaps, within worlds.

 

But does your God the infinite incorporate everyone and everything?

 

Can He incorporate any less?

 

Even the devil that Faust is contractually bound to?

 

Even so, though not perhaps in any way we can conceive or understand.

 

Then why, if we can neither conceive nor comprehend how it can be so, how God somehow comprises everyone and everything, even the devil himself, perish the thought, why raise this possibility if it is beyond our ken, if it can only lead to infinite confusion?

 

Why indeed Zak? Why indeed...

 

Well?

 

Presumably because we have to become aware of the limitations of thought itself, the limitations of rationality.

 

We do?

 

We cannot simply censor or ban logical absurdities or inconvenient possibilities just because they cannot be explained or comprehended.

 

No?

 

No, on the contrary. They are, in a sense, to be celebrated as markers of the edge of knowability, markers of the edge of rationalism or rational thought, the edge of mind, of what I can or cannot meaningfully express or comprehend.

 

And?

 

And when the edge has been adequately marked, with a play such as Dr Faustus, by the genius and, perhaps, demonic inclinations of Christopher Marlowe, then all of us can respectfully draw back and say, “here be dragons, here be-eth the very edge of infinity, here in our midst, here in each and every one of us, contractually, so to speak, binding us betwixt heaven and hell until we should decide otherwise or, by the grace of God, be guided to make an irrevocable next step on a pathway back from our proscribed state; if and when we're willing to face the devil lurking in the contractual details of our so-called "reality", the unbelievable theatrics of our very existence here... down in the cockpit with Mephistopheles.

 

So humbly, you’re suggesting, humbly we can confront, accept and reconcile the dualistic nature of our human condition, our human predicament, our human experience?

 

Yes, indeed, we can accept and, God willing, embrace the infinite in a way which completes the seemingly incomplete... restoring us thereby to our senses, to our sense and sensibility...

 

To God the infinite.

 

Amen, so to speak.

 

 

 

0=1

no souls were harmed or needlessly tortured in the making of this screenplay, unless you yourself overwrit my gentle intentions with murderous intent all your own

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Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd
In one self place; but where we are is hell,
And where hell is, there must we ever be.

(Mephistopheles)

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