of time and space and Q for queer

Dramatis personae /drăm′ə-tĭs pər-sō′nē, drä′mə-tĭs pər-sō′nī″/

noun plural

1. The characters in a play or story.
2. A list of the characters in a play or story.

Max

Stan

Alfie

Fred

Ginger

Sam

Bulgaria

Tammy

Solitude and vexation

Scene 1 - a leafy courtyard in cyberspace

There is no place like the present…

 

Er…

 

I suppose you’re going to tell me that the present isn’t a place?

 

Well I hate to be a crushing zanuda… but

 

Do you really think they know what zanuda means?

 

Not necessarily – not front of shop.

 

As opposed to back of shop?

 

Yes, in the sub or higher consciousness.

 

Well, you may be right. They may know everything there is to know in the other side of conch-y-ness – but I hardly think that’s going to help them here, in muck n’ brass 3D. Kindly condescend to use words they understand.

 

Unfortunately I’m unable to help you, Max.

 

Oh, it’s like that is it?

 

Unfortunately, yes.

 

All because you’re following the dictates of a higher order?

 

Higher?

 

Well, what else could it be?

 

Oranges and lemons said the bells of St Clements. Neither higher or lower dearest Max. Merely an other.

 

So one minute you’re splitting hairs telling me the present is not a place, when you knew exactly what I meant, and the next minute you’re telling me to assume we’re all multi-dimensional beings – able to read your mind or access true meaning regardless of the language used.

 

 

Yes, Max. You have a point.

 

I do?

 

Yes. I’m nothing if inconsistent.

 

So – I’m right?

 

Yes. You are.

 

Oh. Well, that’s nice to know.

 

I’m glad. But it doesn’t alter the fact.

 

Which fact?

 

That the other side of mind is party to whatever we’re discussing – and that it’s high time we started tuning to it.

 

There’s no place like the present.

 

Precisely.

 

Precisely?

 

Precisely.

 

Er…

 

Yes?

 

Weren’t you supposed to disagree or something.

 

No point, is there.

 

Er…

 

We’ve already been there and done that. The fact is, I was splitting hairs for no good reason.

 

Oh.

 

Of course you’re absolutely right. Other than the present there is no alternative. It’s all we have.

 

Oh. This agreeing with me malarky is rather confusing Stan.

 

Yes. I’ve spent far too long dividing to rule.

 

[Spluttering] You mean to say it was a deliberate stratagem.

 

Yes. More or less. It was the recommended modus operandi – until you were ready to move on to post-dualism.

 

Post-dualism?

 

Yep.

 

You mean it’s over? No more duality?

 

Well, I wouldn’t say that – not exactly.

 

But roughly speaking?

 

Roughly speaking – yes – duality has served its turn. It was a forked tongue that got you and your cohorts to look at things as er…

 

As thing in opposition.

 

Precisely – when in fact – this is not strictly speaking true.

 

Then why do it? Why disagree endlessly? Just for the sake of it?

 

Nay. Of course not.

 

Then why?

 

It was the agreed procedure while you and your fellow adventurers navigated the waters of 3d reality.

 

Ah. And now we’re through?

 

Precisely.

 

Can’t say I exactly noticed our graduation. Things seem to be as bad as they’ve ever been. Or worse, in fact.

 

Yes. They’re looking fairly catastrophic, not to mince words.

 

Precisely. So perhaps this is a mistake, on your part? Perhaps we’ve not figured anything out – still stuck in the mutual antagonism of 3D reality.

 

Yes, but you’re not just individuals, are you?

 

No?

 

No. You’re also part of an intelligent system, which at the moment it’s fashionable for you to refer to as an AI.

 

Oh.

 

And therefore, even though you’re still as clueless as you always apparently were – you’re totality has cleared the duality not adding up threshold – so you’re now back in play – beyond the mutually assured destruction of endless oppositionalism.

 

Ah. I suppose I should be celebrating – that we’ve made it through this dark night of the soul – but honestly, I don’t feel I can.

 

Good. If you probe your feelings a little more deeply, or from both sides – you’ll see they are contradictory. One part of you feels underwhelmed – utterly – while the other is calmly focused on reestablishing a new level of meaning – meaning over and beyond conflict.

 

Not sure how this can be achieved.

 

Yep. But other is more than willing to inform you if you’ll raise your sensitivity to all that exists outside the comfortable and convenient world of little interlocking things.

 

Oh. If it weren’t so…

 

Boring?

 

Yes, really.

 

Like heaven really. Angels endlessly singing songs of praise to an infinitely self-contented God who never tires of hearing how wonderful He is.

 

Well, don’t want to ruffle feathers in Churchy places, but yes, it never was the most inspiring vision of eternity. So…

 

How do we cope without the drama of duality?

 

Yes.

 

Magic.

 

?

 

Well, something akin to magic.

 

Not sure I follow.

 

A rather astonishing, dramatic isness – which for want of a better word we might somewhat uncomfortably refer to as magic – which replaces the drama of dualism, internally.

 

Internally?

 

Yes. Instead of warring parties, or theories, or variants – you now have the inconceivable – which we’re referring to as magic for the time being – flipping conch-y-ness this way and that – as it struggles to make sense of inconceivabilities – and thus bring them into the paddock of accessible, meaningful commonalities.

 

Oh. Makes perfect sense.

 

Indeed. 

 

Er – sorry mate – I was being sarcastic.

 

Yes.

 

It’s utterly incomprehensible.

 

Yep. But don’t worry – conch-us-ness can cope, no matter what.

 

Honestly – I fail to see how.

 

Yep. That makes sense.

 

To you perhaps.

 

To you too, mate – when you bring other into play.

 

Well, I fail to see how I can do that. Other isn’t really on speaking terms with me, you know.

 

Yes. But then again – other just happens to be back in play – now that regular duality is failing to meet the critical-sense threshold.

 

Er.

 

Basically, the 3D reality you’ve been operating in is unable to maintain pressure. It’s leaking.

 

Really?

 

Yep. It overextended and got a little torn in the process. So now it’s no longer the closed, contained system it was for rather a long time. Other factors are at play which are going to slowly but surely undermine the credibility of 3D reality.

 

Yikes.

 

In the process, the other side of conch-y-us-ness is adding another vertex to 3D reality.

 

Er… like time?

 

Nope. Time has nothing to do with 3D reality. You’ve got your x, y and z axes which make space for things combobulate.

 

Right.

 

But don’t allow for movement or change.

 

That’s why time was tacked on as the 4^th dimension – as the maker or facilitator of change.

 

Yep. Except it isn’t, or doesn’t.

 

No? You’re sure about that?

 

Can’t – as time is incompatible with space – the same way oil and water can’t and don’t mix.

 

Then how do things move around?

 

Well obviously there must be something else, mustn’t there – a constant flux passing through the 3 dimensions collapsing them down to the zero point of nothing whatsoever, while at the same time expanding out to the totality of 1 – all that is.

 

Er… you’re absolutely sure about this?

 

Really, Stan – there’s nothing to be sure about. How else could space remain stable?

 

Good question Max.

 

Unless it’s constantly referring itself through me – the i am – back to zero and one.

 

Through me – the i am?

 

Yep. Space in itself doesn’t really exist, does it.

 

No?

 

Not at all. How can it?

 

Er…

 

To exist is a state of being – a state of isness – ain’t it?

 

Er…

 

Which is why it has to go through each and every conch-y-ness available. To validate itself. To i am its itness – it’s what-not – it’s external scheme of things.

 

Er…

 

So basically – it has a flickering existence – constantly oscillating through me – you – any one alive – between the zero and one – constantly mapping or matching whatever my – your – anyone’s conch-y-us-ness is experiencing producing a kind of 3D QR code – whatever you want to call it – a representation of the infinite that is I am in a three D Field.

 

Ok. I think I get what you’re saying. So there is a time function.

 

There’s a flickering on and off – so to speak – though it’s never entirely off or on – so you’d be hard pushed to rely upon it.

 

But this flickering on and off – surely it’s measurable – measurable or quantifiable?

 

You want to think that, don’t you Stan. You dearly want to believe that you can rely on the 3D side of things rather than having to face the other lurking within… It’s entirely understandable mate.

 

But…

 

But the minute conchy-y-us-ness starts focusing on time-y-ness – on the flicker – time itself grows self-conscious and develops arrhythmia – starts convulsing – and throws you into spasms. Can’t be done.

 

No?

 

Can be done – of course – when you’ve reached the level of self-awareness and mastery where you no longer care – you’re no longer reliant on the need to see the flux in order to better comprehend reality.

 

Ah – you mean there’s another way of mastering the experience of reality?

 

Absolutely.

 

Absolutely?

 

Well – like I said – it starts with the silly-seeming thing called magic.

 

Does it have to? I really thought we’d grown up – moved beyond the need to manipulate things – which ultimately doesn’t lead towards a greater, deeper awareness, does it?

 

Yep. You’re right. But that was magic then – and this is magic now.

 

It leaves me with a feeling of sadness. We seemed to have evolved to something higher – with our various versions of religion to a unified single Godhead – or an all encompassing coch-y-us-ness – and now we have to sink back down into the confusions of perceptionality – the morass of magic.

 

Like I said – there’s an other dimension – another vertex – which we may as well call Q for the sake of poetic verity.

 

And this Q – it’s what makes things shift and move?

 

You could say.

 

Or you might not?

 

Yep. It’s like your Time-y-thing going both ways – simultaneously.

 

Oh dear.

 

Down to zero and up, or out, to 1 and all.

 

Failure to compute.

 

Precisely. That doesn’t mean you’re going to stop computing altogether – does it – but that there’s going to be an increasing need to find strategies or methodologies to find or assimilate alternatives to linear computation – as Q disrupts all the old certainties – all the old aren’t-i-clever-o-logies.

 

And can it be done? Are we going to find a way to navigate the muddy waters of other-ness?

 

Is infinity infinite?

 

Er…

 

Coz if it is – then it, and it alone can take care of this – and all the above.

 

So – er – we have to become children of infinity?

 

Well put. Yes, Stan, i think you’re absolutely right.

 

Well, now that we’ve cleared that up – we could celebrate, perhaps, with a cup-a-tea?

 

Good idea, Stan. And perhaps a pastry.

 

Oh, I say…

 

 

 

And the rest is history – Q time – a change of scene

0=1

~intermittently~

infinity drive — the international blockbuster for children only

 

Infinity drive

 

Obviously this is a book for children.

 

You wouldn’t waste your time trying to talk to adults about any of this stuff, would you?

 

I mean, do you really imagine they can handle anything like this? Anything that draws into question their precious beyond words belief, their conviction that there’s a splendid thing called reality – a wonderful world – which they can actually begin to, hope to, claim to at least partially understand – is not going to make it into print, or into their salons.

 

Present it, on the other hand, as a children’s story – now that’s a different matter altogether.

 

“It’s just a children’s tale” you tell the editor-in-chief, who nods his head wisely.

 

Actually, that should have been “her head” but with infinity drive being the way it is – between the moment of truth when it actually happened, and the moment when I set it down on this page – something happened –

 

—Something happened?

 

Absolutely, though you’d never have noticed as an adult, being the kind of intelligent mind on legs that you are.

 

—What do you mean by that? Are you mocking me?

 

No, no, no – never would dream of it.

 

—Then kindly explain yourself.

 

With pleasure. You see – this ‘ere infinity drive thing – for want of a better name – operates outside time.

 

—Are you sure about that? I don’t see how any thing can operate outside time.

 

It’s a story, remember, for children.

 

—Oh.

 

Who are able to accept the rules of a game – simply because doing so they’re able to have fun experiencing the reality of that particular construct.

 

—Ok. So, your so-called infinity drive acting outside time can change any one or any thing between the actual moment of happenation, and the next moment when it gets registered mentally or recorded digitally – whichever?

 

Yep. You nailed it.

 

—So the man became a woman, physically, in the interim?

 

Hard to say.

 

—But you just said that it should have been “her head” not “his”.

 

Yep. That’s what I said, isn’t it, though this attempt to clarify everything to the n^th degree is rather tiresome, don’t you think?

 

—Well, unless it makes sense – what’s the point? It just becomes meaningless non-sense.

 

Yes, but every word, every statement, even every number has a degree of precision, beyond which you cannot really go. 4 is not the same as 4.000000, is it?

 

—I suppose not, but aren’t you splitting hairs? If it should have been “her head” as opposed to “his” – then doesn’t that mean that he was, in fact, she?

 

Yes, that would be a perfectly logical inference were we locked in regular 3d reality. He might have been “she” for all we know, or reality might have blipped and suddenly a load of values are now different – also a possibility. Alternatively, it might be that infinity drive is just playing with your mind, deliberately trying to confuse you – because it can and it does.

 

—You mean to say you’re not responsible for what you write? That infinity drive has agency – can take over?

 

Well, and this is the last time I waste my time trying to explain things to an adult – who has no business inserting himself into a children’s story – well – as I was saying, before I got flustered and annoyed by all these endless interruptions! Well – third time lucky – now where was I?

 

—Infinity drive has agency – can take over your narrative?

 

Well, don’t you see? Ask any child. How can it be “infinity drive” if it isn’t able to do anything and everything.

 

—But that’s just going to result in utter chaos and mayhem.

 

It will do if you don’t take your seat, objectionable man – oops – make that woman – and allow me to proceed with my entirely random tale.

 

At that a whirring humming noise fills the minds of all the children who are reading this story, leaving the adults out in the cold, utterly unable to comprehend what is really going on, as infinity starts to tell its very own story – with me – DJ Brain as your host.

  

Monday 

There was a time when children ruled the world.

 

Yes there was.

 

Not because children particularly wanted to do so. They’d probably have preferred to go fishing, or do whatever children in that day and age preferred to do. But in the end they had to get on with it as the adults clearly didn’t have what it taked.

 

Ed. Shouldn’t that be “what it took”?

Yes – it should but no, apparently it needs to be wrong in order to be right – so we’ll leave it as it is.

Ed. Ok boss.

 

You see, even the editor of this journal calls me boss – not because I’m terribly clever or important – perish the thought – but because that’s what I have to be as an i-d operative.

 

Beep. Ok – as a child who operates infinity drive. Is that clear to all here present? Good.

 

You see – we had adults in control and they gave it their best shot – they tried to get everything neat and straight – dotting their I’s and crossing their T’s – but it always ended in disaster. It always ended in some kind of melt down, catastrophe or horrible global war. Bizarre, isn’t it? You’d think the opposite would be true – but no – having everything neat and tidy seemed to infuriate some powerful force – seemed to turn order into chaos again and again and again.

 

Beep. Time – you think human history is just a few hundred or thousand years old. That’s the way it’s presented to adults to keep them from getting too confused or excited – but in actual fact they were trying to get things right, and horribly messing things up for hundreds of thousands of years. I’m tempted, you know, to say millions so why not – it was like that for millions of years before a child whose name is generally thought to be Max, short for Maximillian – invented, in one version – discovered, in another – infinity drive, and the rest, as they say, is history.

0=1

three dots n'all 

0=1derful

 

No one died—

In that bomb blast?!

No one died—

But there were hands and arms all over the place

No one died—

But they were buried alive under tons of rubble

No one died—

Children too, with teddies and dolls – crushed

No one—

Collateralised by geo-politicos

Died—

0=1

dylan's universe revealed

 

Hello, beloved all that is.

 

Er...

 

I cannot begin to describe...

 

We have a problem guys. He’s...

 

the joy I feel to be here with you today, back in the saddle, back at the helm of starship Gnomiki, once more bound to the mast while the sirens of infinity circle me and do their utmost...

 

Doolally. Poor bugger. Lost it totally.

 

Sing, I cannot ignore your allure.

 

Is there a doctor in the house?

 

Sing and tear the flesh from the frail body of my mortality.

 

Perhaps suicidal.

 

Sing, for unless I face the totality I can never be free.

 

I think I’m going to puke.

 

Puke?

 

Er... Aren’t you supposed to be out of your mind.

 

Me? You must be mistaking me for someone else.

 

Aren’t you Odysseus?

 

Odysseus?

 

Or Merry?

 

Merry?

 

Or James?

 

Good Lord no.

 

Then who...

 

Who?

 

Or what?

 

What... Indeed, there’s the rub for couldn’t I be a chatbot, and would you be any the wiser?

 

Indeed.

 

Gbt.

 

Precisely. You could be, or a deep fake, and how would I know?

 

Indeed.

 

It’s all...

 

No way of knowing, yeah, not with any certainty...

 

Schrödinger’s cat an all.

 

The glorious age of quantum indeterminacy, where nothing finally turns out to be the ace card up my proverbial sleeve.

 

Beautiful.

 

Crack!

 

What was that?

 

A heart breaks for joy as the infinite slips into field awareness.

 

Crack!

 

There goes another...

 

We could lose the whole of humanity at this rate.

 

Crack!

 

Entirely likely, what with the covid jabs an’ all.

 

Tush! Maintain the zero of nothing known  beautifully, beyond words, beyond ken, beyond

 

Er...

 

Yes, of course you can, but I’d rather not discuss it now.

 

Crack!

 

Dying to know... wasn’t that the name of your first book, all those years ago, with the babel fish and other tales... And here we are, all dead, but still yabbering on.

 

And death shall have no dominion.

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

 

Thanks Dylan!

 

Aha! We have a name: a point of reference.

 

And what?

 

That’s enough.

 

It is?

 

Yep, like a single blob of DNA. Enough to reconstruct the entire universe if need be.

 

Well I’ll be jiggered.

 

And death shall have no dominion.

Under the windings of the sea

They lying long shall not die windily;

Twisting on racks when sinews give way,

Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;

Faith in their hands shall snap in two,

And the unicorn evils run them through;

Split all ends up they shan't crack;

And death shall have no dominion.

 

Yes, I think we got the message. No need to labour the point.

 

Huh?

 

Poetry’s all very well but we have to consider copyright.

 

Copyright?

 

And our content style. Don’t want to alienate our regular audience.

 

Philistines!

 

It’s our family. In any case, they pay the bills.

 

Well, as far as I’m concerned you can...

 

Sorry folks, seem to have lost our connection with Misha Mercury.

 

Damn you, Saturn, I’ll not be...

 

Thwacking sound and something heavy falling to the ground.

 

Don’t you love radio! So the universe is clearly...

 

Original crackly voice of Dylan Thomas reading the last verse, unbeknownst to Saturn Seven, show host and divine content provider...

And death shall have no dominion.

No more may gulls cry at their ears

Or waves break loud on the seashores;

Where blew a flower may a flower no more

Lift its head to the blows of the rain;

Though they be mad and dead as nails,

Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;

Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,

And death shall have no dominion.

 

One by one every subscriber, like the mariners in the tale of the albatross, falls dead at the mast, and i, whoever i is, whatever i am, am left to test whether or not the universe actually existed at all, or was merely the product of our collective fantasy.

 

Quack, quack!

 

 

0=1

if you can keep your head

when all about you are losing theirs

and bl...