losing sleep n-fully

It’s way too late to start anything now, Merry.

Late? You’re kidding Zie.

Er… no I’m not. Clock. Wall. Go figure. Out, out damn spot.

Hamlet?

Groan. You are so unread.

Ok Zie, take it easy. You forget that I’m supposed to play the fool from time to time.

Oh, it’s deliberate, is it?

So what are you doing up at this late hour Zie?

Chatting with you – what else?

No – you’re up to something, aren’t you?

I am?

Well yes – in case you haven’t noticed.

Oh that!

That.

Infinity

Yes?

...shrugged.

It did?

Yes.

What do you mean?

I mean just that.

That’s not saying much, is it?

Well, whadyou want me to say?

Take us for a ride. Share the journey.

Oh – you’ve come along with them have you?

As always. Does it bother you?

No – I somehow doubt you’d be able to do anything much if you were on your own.

Good point. Supposing I’m the zero sum of all of them.

Oh.

Collectively, unconsciously, perhaps – they inform me, empower, make me what I am.

Weird. 

Spooky science. Now, bearing in mind it’s horribly late and you’re desperate to hit the sack – perhaps you could flesh the bones of Atlas shrugged.

Infinity, I said, as you well know, not Atlas.

Ok. Pedantic to a tee, are you not?

Hush – listen Merry – noise me not with your idle chatterings – infinity lurks – prowls – feel it you not – sense you not the growing tide – the rising waters – the…

Incipient belch or fart?

Damn you fool!

Sorry – I couldn’t contain my lyricism.

Infinity shrugged – today – at 10 or thereabouts this morning.

And what, pray tell, was the result of this momentous event?

Nothing of any consequence – and yet…

Yes?

Yes, me thinks…

Chatterton, eat your heart out.

3D has no power hencehence – your barbs merely embolden me to go on.

Then pray continue, good Thomas.

me thinks…

Zie suddenly, unexpected disintegrates causing Merry to leap forwards and grab at his departing shadow.

No you don’t.

I…

I think you’ve proven your point.

Eh?

Beyond a shadow of doubt.

I have?

Yes Zie. Infinity has finally done what was expected, eagerly anticipated and, ultimately, long since despaired of ever happening.

She has? How can you be so sure?

Apparently she decided to reintroduce herself back into your conscious-ness-life stream this very day – which is problematic to say the least.

It is? In a – er – negative way?

You might say – if you consider spontaneous de-atomisation a negative outcome.

Er…

Don’t worry – it’s more a rhetorical question.

So – am I supposed to be scared or, God forbid, pleased.

BEN.

Er... Both either neither. Again?

Yes – it’s a kind of recurring theme – is it not?

Like a song that’s lodged in the brain and won’t go away.

Or an odour.

Or whatever – but you mean to say that I was in danger of de-atomisation?

No.

Phew.

I mean to say you were long past being in danger – you actually de-atomised this morning at 10.42 and 13.71 seconds Moscow time.

So precisely? 

Yes – these things are time stamped to seventeen digits – but I rounded up, down, around – to avoid inter-dimensional disputations. They’re very particular about their subatomic decimals.

They?

They – who else?

Er…

Long story short – they grabbed you and that was that. The rest of the day was a purely quantum state – possible but by no means real or actionable – until we finalised you three moments ago.

Finalised?

Finitised if you like.

Oh. So that put me right, did it?

In a manner of speaking – yes.

You don’t inspire huge confidence Merry.

Well, technically speaking you no longer belong to the realm of flesh and blood.

Holy sheep – you mean I’m d…

Well, what do you expect? Technically speaking you were worse than dead.

But no one noticed. I had tea with half a dozen people this afternoon.

You did? How very extravagant of you.

I felt exuberant in my post-infinity-shrugged state.

I’ll bet you did – relying on the fact that I’d have to come and make you whole again this night – while you have the gall to complain about being late for bed.

I hardly see how I'm expected to know that I de-atomised if no one else noticed.

You didn’t inadvertently find yourself sailing through any walls or floating up any stairs, did you?

Well, I was a little light headed, yes.

And you just put it down to your innate messianic powers?

No, I just assumed I was hypoglycaemic.

Ah – so that’s why you needed so much tea, was it?

Yes – I added an extra lump or two. Thought it would do no harm, given the circumstances.

And did you mention to any of your admirers how you’re now able to flit through walls and view things from a decidedly non-3D perspective?

Well, I mentioned the fact that we’ve entered a new age – in which the interplay between physical and non-physical reality is now negotiable.

Negotiable?

If you’re willing to hold the unthinkable somewhere in ken.

In what?

In ken.

As in?

Oh – on the periphery of consciousness. There seems to be a convenient spot set aside for the unfathomable.

There is?

Yes – like a sheep pen, if you like.

So you found a spot to hold your Heisenberg uncertainty field without it encroaching on your comfort zone and swallowing you up? Yes – I suppose that makes sense – if you were using deferred time.

Deferred time?

Like a deferred payment on your credit card.

Huh?

Not having sufficient money in your account at that precise moment, not wanting to run up additional charges, you were wise enough to simply defer time till the money should, inevitably materialise.

But why/how inevitably?

Like you said – infinity shrugged – and when infinity comes into play – there’s only one certainty beyond a shadow of doubt…

There is?

Of course, as well you know…

Oh. Yes – I see what you mean.

Go on then – spit it out.

For them?

Yes, and for yourself – otherwise you’re going to dissolve in a puff of words if I don’t finish writing my report.

I hate it when you say point blank that my very existence is dependent on fulfilling one of these need to name requirements.

You do?

It makes me feel so…

Subservient? Well – you have six seconds until I remove your deferred time subsidy – which I’ve been holding in place all day at my personal expense.

Oh.

Which will throw you into a rather awkward experiential node.

Oh.

There be dragons – actually giant sized cockroachy things. But if you’d rather stick to your guns – I can only admire your pertinacity.

Ok, ok – I just hate having to…

2 – 1…

that anything conceivable cannot fail to happen when time can potentially be deferred to the n^th  degree of infinity.

Ah – very good. Which kind of explains how, Micawber like, something’s always bound to turn up in the end, is it not – and invariably does if you’re tuned to the quantum field and hold the n^th degree in a sheep pen, rather than let it run amok through your physical beingness.

Ah – you see – it all makes perfect sense, really.

Yes, I suppose it does, as long as one of us is willing to play the fool

While the other Lady Macbeth’s her way through rivers of blood

Or Micawbers impecuniosity with an insouciant display of sang froid.

Oh God – enough – enough – I can no more. The night is all but spent. Be gone evil wight.

Evil – am I?

I give you my very best shrug – and may the cloud, the spell of infinity dissolve all phantoms of discord or malcomprehension.

You would send me on my way with a shrug?

How else? For now, only now – have I learnt the power of benning things imtemporally.

Ahhh – I’m meltingggggg….

And like a genie sucked back into a lamp – Merry is vanished back into the zero point of untemporalised infinity – sending shivers, flutterings and bow waves through the seemingly unaffected fabric of space and time – upsetting the Hubble telescope momentarily – causing scientists at CERN, geologists and psychic mediums around the world to check their instruments, scratch their heads or breathe a sigh of never more nor less root n-fulness.